Movie Roundup

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 8, 2011 8:40PM

• Last outdoor films of summer: with only a few movies left on the schedule, you can say goodbye to the Chicago Park District's season of outdoor movies with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Grant Park. After all, what says "autumn" more than Richard Burton in a cardigan?
• How did Gene and Roger do it?: We've been enjoying the dives into the vault during recent episodes of Ebert Presents At The Movies, and none moreso than this goofy behind-the-scenes look at how Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert supposedly went about reviewing movies. Besides the highlighting differences between the two (Gene takes notes while Roger doesn't, Roger sits in the front when Gene's in the back, etc.), it's an enjoyable look at the Chicago of 1980 and the way the movie marketing business has and hasn't changed.
• Remember to set your clocks back, forever. If recent trips down amnesia lane such as the widely-panned Conan the Barbarian and the more successfully re-envisioned Fright Night remake are any indication, Hollywood still has its time machine set on "era when we were profitable." This weekend's reheating of earlier triumphs will be a remake of Straw Dogs, and if the mini-furor kicked up by Bret Easton Ellis' trolling, troglodytic tweet sets the stage appropriately, we're staying as far away as possible. Come October there will be a remake of Footloose to mock and a "prequel" to John Carpenter's The Thing to argue about.
• Twilight Convention Scheduled. Twi-Hards waiting for the latest installment of the vampire teen romance empire to hit theaters in November will have to wait even longer for the Chicago area Twilight Convention, which descends on the Westin O'Hare March 24 and 25, 2012. Say what you want, those photo ops look like winners.
• Projecting the future: The emerging 4K standard for digital film makes your 1080p look like that video screen in the back seat of taxis. So what does it take to have a proper home theater set-up with a 4K projector? Sony's new flagship VPL-VW1000ES will arrive in time for the holidays. We were kind of excited until we read the phrase "under $25,000."