Movie Reviews By Diana

Review: Don't Lay 'The Guilt Trip' On Someone Else

Despite having a phenomenal cast with Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen, "The Guilt Trip" lacks the depth, vigor, and witticism needed to make it a memorable ride.

Inventor and organic chemist Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) embarks on an eight-day journey that could change his life.  Traveling cross country, he hopes to sell his eco-friendly cleaning product to various vendors.  Before taking his trek, however, he visits his widowed mother, Joyce (Barbra Streisand), and invites her to come along.  The question left unanswered in the previews is, why? Prior to leaving for his trip, Joyce shares with Andy that she once loved a man named Andrew Margolis.  When she realized he would not commit, she married Andy’s father.  However, to keep her fond memories of him close by, she named her son after him.  Instead of being appalled by the matter, which I think I may have been, Andy is intrigued and finds him on …

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Two Downtown Skokie Restaurants Receive Bib Gourmand Award

Out of 64 Chicago-area restaurants, two downtown Skokie eateries made the cut and received Bib Gourmand designation. See which two made the list here.

Crain's Business Chicago is reporting that 64 Chicagoland restaurants received a Bib Gourmand designation from Michelin on Wednesday. The Bib Gourmand award targets restaurants that you can get dinner for two and wine or dessert for $40 or less, minus tax and tip. Of the 64 Chicago-area restaurants included two downtown Skokie businesses made the cut - and one of them isn't Libertad (which was recently rated by Chicago Magazine as one of the top 20 new restaurants.) In fact, it was Yolo, located at 5111 Brown St., and Kabul House, also in downtown Skokie, and located at 4949 Oakton St. While Kabul House is easy to spot, Yolo is hidden off downtown Skokie's busiest business anchor on Lincoln Avenue and Oakton Street, or just around the …

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And a Movie

New ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is Elementary

Robert Downey Jr. returns for his diverting yet stale second outing as the iconic detective.

If it works the first time around, why not repeat it again and again until it doesn’t work anymore? That is the singular philosophy driving modern Hollywood, and it has been all-too-apparent during this past year of sequels, many of which failed to deliver at the box office. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.  People love movies that take gambles and explore fresh terrain. Iron Man was a standard superhero vehicle, but it became grand entertainment under the direction of Jon Favreau, who elicited a career-rejuvenating turn out of his leading man, Robert Downey Jr. The actor’s dry wit and motor mouth delivery made him utterly impossible to resist, yet it was the character’s poignant ties to Downey Jr.’s own troubled past …

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Middle Class Clooney in ‘The Descendants’

Filmmaker Alexander Payne delivers another bittersweet crowd pleaser brimming with life.

With the awards season officially underway, suburban cinephiles are advised to keep a lookout for high-class Oscar bait trickling into their local theaters. Though The Descendants opened in Chicago back in November, it finally expanded to Skokie this past weekend, and was the only new mainstream release worth seeing (my apologies to New Year’s Eve and The Sitter).  It’s the latest film from director Alexander Payne, who has routinely elicited career-best work from his leading men, such as Paul Giamatti (Sideways), Matthew Broderick (Election) and Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt). With The Descendants, Payne has created the ideal vehicle for George Clooney, whose suave characterizations have often drawn comparisons to Cary Grant. Yet as in …

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‘Paranormal Activity 3’ is Abnormally Scary

Third installment in this low-budget horror franchise is another technical marvel.

One of the greatest triumphs of independent filmmaking over mainstream franchises took place in Fall 2009, when micro-budget indie Paranormal Activity stole the box office crown away from Saw VI. Instead of relying on gore effects to produce easy shocks, first-time feature director Oren Peli found ingenious, deceptively simple ways to generate a sense of nightmare-inducing unease. The straightforward premise about a young couple terrorized by an unseen demons could’ve easily fallen victim to clichés, but Peli allowed the horrors to unfold in front of a stationary mounted camera. This minimalist technique proved to be enormously effective, playing on the audience’s paranoia of every odd noise, subtle movement and inexplicable shadow.  It …

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Dinner

New Restaurant Goes 'Beyond Thai' Cuisine

The Pan-Asian spot offers customers friendly, quick service and fresh, flavorful food.

Beyond Thai took over Thai Pavilion II’s digs in August, and is a huge improvement over its predecessor. The restaurant features a menu of Thai, Chinese, Korean and Japanese food that can be made to satisfy any tastes. The restaurant at 4654 Church St. has kept the same décor as Thai Pavilion II, but has new owners and a new chef. Tables are topped with white tablecloths, fish swim in a tank near the kitchen and a flat-screen TV was tuned to the Travel Channel that was airing shows devoted to food. Read more: Check out previous restaurant reviews  My companion and I visited Saturday night and were greeted by a woman who we later learned was one of the two owners. The place was quiet, occupied by just one other pair, though we saw a steady …

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And a Movie

‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ Triumphs

Andy Serkis and Weta Digital work their magic on ‘Apes’ remake.

Everyone loves a good underdog story. It’s impossible to resist rooting for a protagonist who triumphs over adversity by standing up to a system that intends to crush him. In terms of summer blockbusters, this formula often pits humans against an endless assortment of foes, many of whom are decidedly alien.   But like James Cameron’s Avatar, Rupert Wyatt’s ungainly titled franchise reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes requires audiences to root for the downfall of mankind. Both pictures are cautionary works of science fiction featuring motion capture heroes created by Weta Digital, the New Zealand-based effects company responsible for the marvelous creatures in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Without the lifelike animation of …

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Dinner

Chill Out and Get Baked: Dessert, Skokie Style

Sweet spots add flavor for those new dating relationships to share.

Everyone loves a new romantic relationship. That period of discovery at the beginning ("You like movies and music! Wow, I like movies and music too!") gives way to great joy, where a single text message can make or break a day ("that thing u did last nite? <3 <3 <3!"), and everything - everything - is an odd, grand adventure before it's something that will one day be brought up in therapy and logged into a police report. And so, in the beginning, we go to restaurants and sit across from one another to find out who we are, and watch carefully to see who picks up which check, and we stow that information away as fodder for arguments that may long outlive the relationship itself. The lucky among us, however, find a friend who, while they …

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