Jason Bateman

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – There’s a theory that a film that should be judged based on how well it succeeds at what it attempts to do. If it’s a comedy, does it make you laugh? “Horrible Bosses” has some issues but it is an undeniably funny movie. With stellar comic timing from the entire ensemble and a dark streak of edgy humor with just enough wit to make it not seem cruel, this is one of the straight-up funniest movies of the year.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – When having fun at the movies seems in short supply, the British film duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost come along with one of their goofy, comic tributes to our cinematic heritage. After zombies in “Shaun of the Dead” and action heroes in “Hot Fuzz.” Pegg and Frost take on the extra terrestrials in “Paul.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Director Jason Reitman is becoming like a fine wine. He’s maturing with age, tasting newer with each sip and leaving an aftertaste that makes you think you’ll savor what’s next.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – I’ll be the first critic to tell you that they don’t make adult thrillers often enough. I was very disappointed by the lackluster box office take of Tony Gilroy’s ” Duplicity”. But does that mean that we should give all intellectual mysteries a pass? Of course not. And while I want to love Kevin Macdonald’s “State of Play,” a few poor decisions during production keep it back from being the excellent film it could have been.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – With superhero films as hot in 2008 as psychedelics were in the 1960s, the new blockbuster superhero film “Hancock” fits in with the label but without any of the ancestry.

AUSTIN, Texas – No one says anything plainly in “Juno”. Hyper clever, hyper literate and hyper pop savvy, it tells a light story of teenage pregnancy in a package of verbose middle classiness.

CHICAGO – In 1967, author Arthur Koestler wrote the non-fiction book “The Ghost in the Machine”.