Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers. It was a dark night for Dark Knight fans when storms moved through Evanston last night, knocking out power to the Century 12 Evanston Theater. Twenty minutes were left in the show when the power loss cut the flick short. Movie goers were issued rain checks, and those waiting to see later screenings waited for the power to be restored, an hour and 15 minutes later. ComEd said there were......

Christopher Nolan's second episode in the relaunch of the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight, takes a daring turn towards embracing a darker, bleaker vision of the masked vigilante and his increasingly odd rogues gallery of adversaries. Batman Begins did a good job of saving the Bruce Wayne/Batman character from the travesties that Joel Schumacher rained down upon our hero, excised the remaining camp from previous cinematic versions, and rebuilt Batman to more accurately reflect......

Frankly we don't know anyone who saw Speed Racer, the Wachowski Brothers' computer candy summer flick. Did anyone? The would-be Tron for a new generation has been a big hurt for the filmmakers behind The Matrix: according to boxofficemojo the movie has grossed only $43 million to date despite a production budget of $120 million. But the brothers haven't let it slow them down. REEL Chicago reports that their new project Ninja Assassin, which was......

Call us contrarians. One of summer's most delicious pleasures is to be esconced in a cool, darkened theater as we lose ourselves in a movie for a few hours. Or for more than a few hours. The Leopard, screening twice as part of the Siskel's Visconti retrospective, is 185 minutes long, and it's worth every single minute. The experience is especially overwhelming when seen on a big screen. This Italian film from 1963 adapts......

Alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd) really is the bad boy of City Council: Not only does he flout Mayor Daley's wishes, but ">he also smokes! He even believes the smoking ban was never "intended to limit artistic expression. It would be wise for us to ... allow theater productions to obtain a special waiver when smoking is a critical component of their performance." While Reilly wants the cast of Jersey Boys to be able to light......

Will Smith has already said he'd play him onscreen, but first we have to get through the convention in August, an event that has its own series of rituals and traditions. One of the most high-profile of these is the biographical promo, a short film designed to introduce the nominee. Past efforts have invloved the likes of Harry Thomason (for Bill Clinton) and James Moll and Steven Spielberg (for John Kerry). Al Gore's 2000......

It's sad moment for fans of Twin Peaks and Stargate SG-1. We've just learned that character actor Don Davis passed away on June 29. The cause of death was a massive heart attack. Davis appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows over years (including The X-Files), but we'll remember him best as buttoned-down, extraterrestrial-hunting Major Briggs on Twin Peaks. He had one of the best lines of dialog in the whole series, delivered......

The Movie Queens (AKA Windy City Times film critic Richard Knight Jr. and local theater genius David Kodeski) delighted us when we interviewed them late last year, with Richard slamming the Robin Williams stinker License to Wed as the worst film of the year and David going ga-ga over such disparate movies as Coffin Joe and The Driver's Seat. So we're extra delighted that they've just launched a new podcast. It's available for download......

There are some movies so bad, they're good. You know the ones we're talking about. Showgirls immediately comes to mind; and among recent releases The Happening probably qualifies too. For seven years now, every summer the Neo-Futurists (and their imvited guests) have staged screenplay readings of some of the tackiest, cheesiest, most outdated and just plain terrible movies ever made. It's a brilliant concept that turns subtext into text, and dry line readings into......

Movies in Grant Park start July 15, but if you like watching movies outside, there are other options. Tonight, for example, you can see.... El Sueño del Paraíso in Mozart Park (2036 N. Avers St.) Part of the International Latino Cultural Center's Cine en el Parque series. Sueño is about Japanese immigrants to Colombia in the 1920s. Hairspray in Lincoln Park ( 2045 Lincoln Park West) Hairspray is fucking adorable if you can tune......

We've made no secret of the fact that we love watching MeTV. You can keep your crappy network reality TV, thank you very much. When it's time to wind down the evening we'll stick with Twilight Zone at 10pm, followed by The Dick Van Dyke Show (which apparently Michelle Obama loves). Especially now that there are two MeTV channels, there's rarely a moment when there isn't a vintage goodie airing that isn't worth watching.......

Josh Peck, aka Josh of Drake and Josh, is all growed up and selling the ganj in The Wackness, a Sundance not-quite-darling set in the summer of 1994. He'll be at the Apple Store on Michigan Ave on Thursday with Jonathan Levine, the film's writer and director, to show clips and answer questions. The movie's a coming-of-age story about a pot dealer (Peck), his crush (Olivia Thirlby), her step-dad and his shrink (Ben Kingsley),......

The Illinois Department of Agriculture's comprehensive site about the emerald ash borer isn't as boring as you'd think. Ho, ho. Remember, EABs can be found in firewood, so "buy locally and burn locally." The more you know. Speaking of emerald ash borers, the Chicago Furniture Designers Association is putting together a touring show of pieces made with the salvaged wood from infested trees. "Rising from the Ashes: Furniture from Lost Trees" has some very attractive......

The red carpet is being rolled out tonight at the Loews on Michigan for the Chicago premiere of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the first film based on an American Girl doll to be released in theaters. Cutie-pie Abigail Breslin stars as Kit, an American Girl living in 1934 during the Great Depression. Chicago natives Chris O’Donnell and Joan Cusak are also expected to be at the premiere of the film, in which O’Donnell plays......

There is arguably no genre of music littered with more forgotten figures than jazz. When it comes to pop and rock, every neglected album is just a Pitchfork blurb away from reappraisal and appreciation. But in the world of jazz, for every undervalued legend like Jimmy Scott whose work is rediscovered, there are dozens still consigned to near invisibility. Such a singer is Jackie Paris. He toured with Charlie Parker, performed with Lionel Hampton......

For the past several years, the bulk of screenings for the Chicago International Film Festival have been divided up between the AMC River East and the Landmark Century. No more. This autumn's festival will use screens at the AMC River East and 600 N. Michigan for the majority of the program. “We’re not going to be working with Landmark this year,” says Ryan Jewell, the festival’s managing director. “We liked the idea of everything......

Joe Swanberg isn't a typical filmmaker. His work is just as likely to capture characters discussing some quirky intricacy of life as it is graphic sex, and his on-going Chicago-set web series Young American Bodies is no exception. Audiences and critics are taking notice of Swanberg's style as he gains underground fame in the “mumblecore” genre, which is characterized by improvised, low-budget films that document the lives of introspective twentysomethings. His work portrays a......

Indiana native Sydney Pollack died of cancer this afternoon at his home in Los Angeles. He was 73. Pollack, an actor, director and producer, won two Oscars for 1985's Out Of Africa; his films have been nominated for a collective 48 Academy Awards. [NYT, Variety, AP photo]......

Rumor has it that Hugh Hefner has signed off on Robert Downey Jr. to portray him in Playboy, the Hef biopic that may begin shooting as early as next summer. Downey is said to be interested but won't commit until a script is set and a director is announced. (Brett Ratner was initially signed on to direct but apparently, that's not happening anymore. [Ed note: Thank God.]) What does that mean for us Chicagoans? Potential......

Spike Lee announced yesterday at Cannes that he's making a feature documentary about Michael Jordan, financed by the NBA, and tentatively scheduled for release this time next year. [Variety]......

In the first three movies, the university where Dr. Jones teaches is scrupulously unmentioned. In fact, the university scenes in Raiders were shot in California and England. However the movie does tell us that Jones attended University of Chicago as a student. There were even a few episodes of the TV series that took place in Chicago (with cameos by historical figures like Elliot Ness and Ernest Hemingway). Might the new installment make the......

The 44th annual Chicago International Film Festival, Cinema/Chicago, and Warner Brothers have teamed up to treat Chicagoans to an advance screening of the newest Batman installment, The Dark Knight. Well, more specifically, you will have to treat yourself, since tickets to the gala event are $150 apiece. The Dark Knight Gala will feature a tribute to director Christopher Nolan, and dinner following the IMAX screening, shown two days before the movie’s official release on July......

We weren’t aware that there were plans to make a fourth Terminator movie, but this is what we learned today: Terminator Salvation: the Future Begins is set to hit theaters in May 2009, and Chicago hip-hopper Common is set to play a character named Barnes, a freedom fighter for the human race. Currently, Common is preoccupied with his eighth album “Invincible Summer,” slated for release in mid-July. [S-T] Meanwhile, enjoy Common’s visual dialog with the......

-- The DVD release of local indie short film You Can't Outrun Bullets is being celebrated tonight at 7:30 with a party at Strawdog Theater, 3829 N. Broadway. Stalker paranoia, fate and chance collide on a dark night when Alan bumps into a stranger at a bar, a stranger he's convinced has been following him. It's director Tim Bruns' fifth short film. It'll be shown every 30 minutes until 10:30, with snacks and a......

"No wire hangers! Ever!" If you know what movie that line's from then you need to cruise over to TicketWeb and make your reservations for the Music Box's special Mother's Day screening of Mommie Dearest. Since the movie's original release in 1981, Faye Dunaway's performance as Joan Crawford has blown minds and transformed many a mild-mannered lad into a drag queen. One thing we love about the movie is the way that director Frank......

Roger Ebert, still recovering from complications from surgery associated with salivary cancer, recently broke his hip and won't be hosting the 10th Ebertfest, his annual movie festival in Urbana. From his column in today's S-T: Illness has been playing an unwelcome role in my life these days. After unsuccessful surgery in January, I ended up back in the friendly confines of the Chicago Rehabilitation Institute. Graduating from there in good shape to attend Ebertfest, I......

If you were in the greater Lakeview area yesterday you may have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Johnny Depp or Christian Bale on the set of Public Enemies. Or, almost as exciting, the actual set of Public Enemies. A stretch of Newport Avenue near Clark Street was made into a 1930s-esque set complete with cobblestone streets, antique cars and street lamps, and an old school el train along the Red Line tracks.......

We'd all like a little sunshine right about now. On Sunday the Chicago Cinema Forum will be splashing buckets of it all over the screen, thanks to the glistening cinematography of lenser Gabriel Figueroa. He photographed the little-seen María Candelaria, a Mexican film that won "Best Cinematography" and tied for "Grand Prize" at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. Screen siren Dolores del Río plays a savvy flower girl whose attempts to succeed in the......

If you haven't yet seen a performance at Millennium Park's Harris Theater, you're missing out. It's a sleek space that has outstanding acoustics, and not only are the seats comfy but there's pretty much not a bad seat in the house. An upcoming concert of recent film music makes a great reason to give the Harris a try. On Monday, April 7 the CSO presents a special program consisting of music from Francis Ford......

Bob Hercules' documentary Senator Obama Goes to Africa screened in Chicago back in February at the Music Box and, of course, sold out. But if you can get to Skokie the weekend after next you'll have another chance to see what the fuss is about (as if you don't already know). The Skokie Theatre will run the film on Saturday, April 5, at 8 p.m. and again on Sunday at 2 p.m. So why......