Whiny blogger movies hopefully won't become a trend

Reel Life review: 'Motherhood'

Already this year, I've seen two movies about whiny, inferiority-complexed women who seek personal validation by writing blogs about their put-upon lives.

First came "Julie & Julia" featuring Amy Adams as a blogger out to cook up all of Julia Child's French recipes. She was cute, despite being shallow and irritating.

Now comes Katherine Dieckmann's "Motherhood" starring Uma Thurman as an unemployed Manhattanite mommy who struggles to get by on a limited budget, struggles to deal with her eccentric hubby (Anthony Edwards) who won't answer his cell phone, struggles to walk up the steps of her elevatorless high-rise, struggles to raise two cute kids and struggles to keep viewers awake.

"Motherhood" is such a drab, self-indulgent domestic drama, I can't imagine how it wound up as the opening night entry at the Chicago International Film Festival.

This movie could easily have been a funny, honest, human comedy about the trials of modern Manhattan motherhood, but Dieckmann seems clueless about the story's comic potential and lets every humorous opportunity die on the dramatic vine.

Does Thurman's mommy really think she's got it so tough without an elevator and a snooty French neighbor looking down on her? A generation ago, mothers dealt with the same problems - without a cell phone and a Wi-Fi network laptop.

"Motherhood," like many formula Hollywood movies, equates personal success with money, and so its characters wind up with an obligatory happy (read: financially rewarding) ending that rings forced and hollow.

One more whiny blogger movie like this and we can declare it a trend. Not a good one, either.

"Motherhood" opens Friday at local theaters. Rated PG-13 for sexual and drug references, plus language. 90 minutes.

Israeli cinema fest!

The Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema cranks up the projectors for a week and a half of international moviegoing running Oct. 29 through Nov. 8.

"Shiva - The Seven Days" opens the fest at 600 N. Michigan Avenue Theaters in Chicago. The fest jumps over to the Wilmette Theatre at 1122 Central Ave. from Nov. 2 through Nov. 8. General admission costs $10 at all regular screenings; opening night tickets cost $35. For schedules and tickets, call (847) 675-3378 or go to chicagofestivalofisraelicinema.org/tickets.html.

After Hours 'The Cove'

The After Hours Film Society presents "The Cove," a muckraking documentary directed by National Geographic magazine photographer Louie Psihoyos, who chronicles the brutal, unrestrained and very legal slaughter of dolphins off the coastal town of Taiji, Japan. Rated PG-13 for obvious reasons. 90 minutes. It starts at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Tivoli Theater, 5021 Highland Ave., Downers Grove. General admission costs $9. Call (630) 534-4528 or go to afterhoursfilmsociety.com.

Karloff vs. Chaney?

Boris Karloff's daughter Sara, 70, will join Lon Chaney Jr.'s grandson Ron, 54, for screenings of the seminal Universal Studio monster movies "Frankenstein" (1931) and "The Wolfman" (1941).

"Frankenstein" screens at 7 p.m. and "The Wolfman" at 8 p.m. Friday at Hollywood Palms theaters, 352 N. Rte. 59 in Naperville, then again respectively at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday.

"Frankenstein" screens at 7 p.m. and "The Wolfman" at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Hollywood Boulevard theaters, 1001 W. 75th St., Woodridge.

All screenings cost $12. Call (630) 427-1880.

Reel Life review: 'Antichrist'

It would be easy, and a cop-out, to simply dismiss Lars von Trier's eyeball-blanching, conscience-searing psychosexual horror experience "Antichrist" as obscene, evil or just bad movie-making.

I prefer to think of "Antichrist" as a metaphor-choked adult Grimms fairly tale gone horribly awry.

Like Peter Greenaway's movies - especially his "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" - von Trier's films flirt with taboo and confrontational imagery.

"Antichrist" (no, it is not a sequel to "The Omen") opens with a lyrically photographed, black and white sequence in which a toddler falls to his snowy death through a window while his father and mother enjoy an intimate act in the shower.

The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) becomes so distraught that her husband (Willem Dafoe), a professional therapist, whisks her off to a cabin in the woods (called "Eden") where the two face off in a domestic conflict best described as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" meets "Evil Dead."

Although von Trier employs hard-core sex shots in "Antichrist," its gut-wrenching sexual violence can hardly be called pornographic. Many freaked-out viewers booed von Trier after the screening at this year's Cannes Film Fest.

After all, the movie includes hideous imagery of a dead deer fetus, a talking, eviscerated fox, and a cruel act with a hand drill that raises the bar for torture-porn films.

Von Trier says he created "Antichrist" during a black period of deep depression. That bleeds through every frame of this bleak and unrelentingly challenging film.

Dafoe has always been a risk taker (catch his Jesus in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ"), and his anchored performance complements von Trier's demanding script, as opposed to Gainsbourg, whose fidgety unraveling seems just short of needing an exorcist.

"Antichrist" opens Friday at the Music Box in Chicago. For adults only. 109 minutes.

Kids! Films! Kids!

The 26th annual Chicago International Children's Film Festival continues through Nov. 1 at Facets Multimedia, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave., Chicago. Call (773) 281-9075 or go to cicff.org for schedule and tickets.

Illinois film fest opens

The Illinois International Film Festival runs Friday through Sunday at the Arcada Theater, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles. One Friday night film, "Michael Morlock's Supernatural World," was directed by Elgin filmmaker John W. Norton . (His "Not Another B Movie" played at last month's Elgin Film Festival.) Fest passes cost $10. Go to illinoisinternationalfilmfestival.com for schedules. Tickets can be purchased only at the theater.