Film fans pick best movies, really?
Best films, really?
ABC News and People magazine have teamed up to allow movie fans to vote for their “favorite” films, and the tallies will be revealed during “The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time” at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ABC-TV Channel 7.
Whoa. Hold your horses.
Film fans picking their “favorite” movies isn't the same as naming the “best” motion pictures ever made.
The former requires only that a fan really, really, really, really like a movie, such as “Twilight” or “Transformers” or “Just Go With It.”
The latter requires a little work, some developed criteria on just what qualifies a movie to be judged the “best.” It's the difference between an educated assessment and an uneducated opinion.
So, when hosts Tom Bergeron and Cynthia McFadden present “The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time,” I'll be curious to see if the patrons of ABC News and People magazine truly know and love films so much that their favorite movies also happen to be the best ones.
‘10 Mountains, 10 Years'
Naperville resident Ken Glowienke and the rest of the cast and crew of the movie “10 Mountains, 10 Years” will be present at the Illinois premiere of Jennifer Yee's documentary scheduled to be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles.
Her film chronicles the journey of an international team of mountain climbers conquering 10 mountains on six continents throughout a decade to raise awareness for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
“10 Mountains” is narrated by Oscar hostess Anne Hathaway with music contributions from Bruce Springsteen. It was filmed in part at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center and features Glowienke.
Go to focusonacure.org or call (630) 962-7000 for ticket information. All proceeds go to charity.
Renovating Ogden
Classic Cinemas Ogden 6 Theatre, 1227 E. Ogden Ave., Naperville, is getting a facelift with a new three-color scheme (blue, red and plum), new curtains and extra sound insulation installed in all six auditoriums. Renovations will be completed in late April or early May. In the meantime, the theater will remain open to show movies. Go to classiccinemas.com.
First all-Indian kids' film fest
America's first all-Indian children's film festival will run March 26 and 27 at the Visual & Performing Arts Center at Elgin Community College, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin.
The SILPIX Children's Film Festival plans to show at least 26 children's movies in several Indian languages, all with English subtitles, using five participating theaters. Film-related workshops are planned, too.
The festival is sponsored by Children's India and SILPIX Entertainment, a Bolingbrook-based company created in 2010 to “promote harmony, friendship and tolerance in the world through kids.” Its Website says SILPIX is “committed to promote art and culture” and “believes films are the ideal medium to educate and nurture young minds about various cultures.”
Family tickets cost $40 (maximum of four admissions); individual tickets cost $10. Go to silpix.com or call (847) 877-1036. Tickets can also be purchased at Bollywood Rhythms in Naperville and Dakshin restaurants in Schaumburg and Naperville.
Reel Life review: ‘Vidal Sassoon: The Movie'
Vidal Sassoon never wanted to be a master, trendsetting hairstylist. Not even the founder of a multimillion-dollar global hair product empire.
He wanted to be an architect.
Which might explain how the self-made British snipster inspired a generation of women with his sharp, angled haircuts and became the Frank Lloyd Wright of stylists.
Craig Teper's documentary “Vidal Sassoon the Movie” alludes to the geometry of Sassoon's style, but never pursues the obvious connection between his dream job and the hair career his mother dreamed up for him. This is like a doc failing to examine the correlation between Stanley Kubrick's obsession for chess and how he directs a movie.
“Vidal Sassoon” overdoses both on black-and-white imagery and on virtual hero worship as it traces Sassoon's life from humble beginnings (born to a poor, soon-to-be single Jewish mother in Britain) to his unlikely rise to become a generational icon of the 1960s.
Teper tends to deify his subject instead of exploring him. Still, “Vidal Sassoon” packs enough personal information about the man, his marriages, kids, spinoff careers and accomplishments that we are impressed by his multifaceted success story and come to know the extraordinary fellow who famously reminded us, “If you don't look good, we don't look good!”
“Vidal Sassoon the Movie” opens at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. (PG) 90 minutes. ★ ★ ★
‘Wind' not gone long
The 1939 classic “Gone With the Wind” returns to the silver screen at 1:30 and 7 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at the York Theatre, 150 N. York St., Elmhurst. It's to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War start and is part of the Elmhurst Reads 2011 program to inspire students to read history.
Go to elmhurstpubliclibrary.org.
• Daily Herald Film Critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!