Are you a doer or a watcher? Movie makes us wonder

Did you hear about the homeless man in Queens this week who stopped a mugging, but was stabbed and left to die on the street while more than 20 New Yorkers walked by without offering help? One man even shot a photo of the bleeding body with a cell phone.

Where have we seen this before? In the movie "Kick-Ass," that's where.

In a freakishly prescient scene, the film's teen superhero intervenes in a group assault on a fleeing man. What do bystanders do? Watch and snap photos with their cell phones.

Matthew Vaughn's movie is a scathing indictment of our don't-get-me-involved society. As Neil Simon observed in "Barefoot in the Park," there are watchers and there are doers. The doers do while the watchers watch the doers do.

Which are you?

Student fest winners

Congrats to winners of the 4th annual Student Test Film Fest at the Schaumburg Prairie Center last weekend.

Among them was Palatine High School senior A.J. Garcia, who won Achievement in Production for his experimental short "Suicide Season."

Also, Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson presented the Mayor's Award for Excellence in Humanitarian Efforts to Chicago student Brittany Douglas for her doc "Dear Mom Dear Dad."

For a list of festival entries, go to ci.schaumburg.il.us/PCA.

Hollywood and (sex)!

Join me and film historian Raymond Benson as Dann & Raymond's Movie Club explores how Hollywood handled the touchy issue of sex up to the creation of the Ratings Administration. Included are clips from such films as "The Kiss," "It Happened One Night," "Tarzan and His Mate," "The Outlaw" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Join us at 7:30 p.m. at the Schaumburg Library, 130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg, for "Sex in Hollywood: A Love/Hate Relationship." Free admission!

Reel Life review: 'Who Do You Love?'

Despite its unappetizing, generic title, Jerry Zak's fact-based drama "Who Do You Love?" is a pleasant surprise, a modest and winning account of two Chicago brothers who turned local blues musicians into stars for the legendary Chess Records during the 1940s and 1950s.

Leonard (Alessandro Nivola) and Phil Chess (Jon Abrahams) run a scrap yard until Leonard's ambitions put them into the nightclub business, then into the music world, where they record such luminaries as Muddy Waters (a charismatic David Oyelowo) and Bo Diddley (Robert Randolph).

The smart, lean script by Peter Martin Wortmann and Robert Conte is as much about the strained relationship between the siblings as the stars they manage. Plus, it's a window into Leonard's fearless drive for success. "My special gift," he says to songwriter and musician Willie Dixon (Chi McBride), "is I know what I don't know."

Zak, primarily a TV and Broadway director, takes pains to make his movie feel cinematic. He doesn't always succeed, but his superb actors (including Megalyn Echikunwoke as a fictional torch singer) and period cars and props take up the slack.

"Who Do You Love?" opens today at the Century Centre in Chicago. Not rated, but for mature audiences. 92 minutes.

Geneva fest winners

Congrats to winners at the third annual Geneva Film Festival, announced last Saturday.

Winner of the Best Narrative Feature was "Seducing Charlie Barker," directed by Amy Glazer. Her movie will be shown at a future date at the Randall 15 theaters in Batavia.

Thirteen other winning titles and their directors can be accessed at genevafilmfestival.org.

Reel Life review: 'The Square'

Former Australian stuntman Nash Edgerton's "The Square" has everything a juicy, tempting neo-noir needs to work: infidelity, betrayal, sex, bad timing, accidental murder, arson and blackmail.

A married construction manager (David Roberts) falls for a younger woman (Claire van der Boom) who convinces him to steal her controlling husband's stash of cash, then burn down his house to cover it up.

Edgerton handles this thriller with "Fargo"-like precision, drawing solid performances from his cast (even his brother Joel as the controlling husband) and earning gasps as a simple rainstorm threatens the best-laid plans of micey men.

"The Square" opens today at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and the Evanston CineArts 6. Rated R for language, sexual situations and violence. 101 minutes.

'Let's Dance' premiere

A locally produced 25-minute film short titled "Let's Dance" will be shown at 8 p.m. Thursday at Friendship Village's Assembly Theater, 350 W. Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg. Directed by Rebecca Tulloch, "Let's Dance" stars real retirement residents in a comic tale about a wannabe dance instructor who teaches at the "Friendly Village." Go to friendshipvillage.com for details.

Reel Life review: 'Harry Brown'

In Daniel Barber's vigilante drama "Harry Brown," mild-mannered Michael Caine gets mad as you-know-what and decides not to take it any more. The former soldier starts to clear out the gangs that have turned his London neighborhood into a cesspool of drugs, murders and assaults.

Charles Bronson would be proud.

"Harry Brown" begins with a wonderfully sympathetic portrait of Caine's Brown, a widower who lost his daughter earlier in life. When his last best friend (David Bradley) is stabbed to death and urinated on by thugs, the aging Brown becomes an official AARPinger of death.

The well-wrought, understated story suddenly becomes a screaming, exploding, hissy fit of an action film with spurting blood, riots, torture and apocalyptical mayhem.

Caine's sad, quietly driven performance anchors it all. But Emily Mortimer's emo cop is way too gooey to be credible.

"Harry Brown" opens today at the Century Centre in Chicago, the Evanston CineArts 6 and the Renaissance Place in Highland Park. Rated R for drug use, language, sexual situations, violence. 102 minutes.

Reel Life review: 'Cartel'

New York TV reporter Bob Bowden's scary, crusading doc "Cartel" charges that America is under attack by insidious, out-of-control, tax-guzzling monsters: public school teachers and their unions!

Bowden's doc, sort of like a flip side Michael Moore screed, counts Mercedes in school parking lots as proof teachers are just greedy parasites gathered at the public trough.

It clicks its tongue at the un-American practice of rewarding failing institutions by shoveling money at them. (Apparently, Bowden made his doc before taxpayers bailed out AIG and few banks.)

"Cartel" practically demonizes the powerful education unions while tiptoeing around the shortcomings of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Meanwhile, many of Bowden's most pointed questions are framed in accusatory voice-overs, not addressed to education officials who might actually have an answer for them.

At least Bowden's doc spurs more thought than it actually contains.

"Cartel" opens today at the Century Centre in Chicago. Not rated. Suitable for general audiences. 90 minutes.