Director Ben Affleck received Michael Jordan’s blessing and allowed Air to be a whiff at breathing in that legend again, a draw that cannot be discounted. Likewise, folks are coming to see familiar and reliable movie stars like Affleck, Damon, Davis, and Bateman spar. Those curious and poised to watch composures rattled, zingers exchanged, balls busted, and dreams fulfilled get all that and then some in Air.
Read MoreSay hello to Mr. and Mrs. Jake and Kimberly Narens! Kim is a former co-worker of mine from back in the day. She was the art teacher and I was a fourth grade teacher at the Lloyd Bond campus of Chicago International Charter Schools during its inaugural school year in 2009-2010. We have both moved on to other jobs since then and also become first-time parents. While I am still in Chicago, she and her husband now call the sultry heat of Chandler, Arizona home. I'm guessing they don't miss shoveling snow.
Read MoreThe core of the dysfunctional family at the center of Jason Bateman's "The Family Fang" invokes a particular curiosity. Do weird parents raise and make weird children? Name your odd occupation and examine that question yourself. For example, what are the kids of two circus clown parents like? Do they grow up with the same sense of humor or performance? Do they relish that irregular environment because that was their preeminent example or do they rebel and long for something more typically normal?
Read MoreMovies are the place of fantasy where the realities of normal domestic life can be bent and distorted. In the genre of thrillers, that quality can swing from peaks like "Rosemary's Baby" and "Fatal Attraction" to the gutter of cheesy TV films on the Lifetime Channel. Independent of their quality is their suspension of disbelief towards the fictional elements of each film. Some movies do too much and descend towards ridiculousness from a sharp premise that is supposed to hook us in. Every now and then, a mystery/thriller hits the right chords to haunt you just enough to both harrowing and still tangible.
Read More
