Dann Gire
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Movie review: 'Dog's Way Home' a heartwarming tale for kids and animal loversJan 10, 2019 10:00 am - “A Dog's Way Home” - ★ ★ ½ “A Dog's Way Home” possesses all the funny, cute and heartwarming moments you'd expect in a conventional canine movie. It's a gratifying adve...
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Evanston native advises TV show 'Project Blue Book' on his UFO expert dadJan 07, 2019 12:00 am - You can believe Paul Hynek when he says his bedroom in Evanston used to be the world's largest UFO library. His father, the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, became Earth's most ...
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Fact-based 'Vice,' 'BlacKkKlansman,' 'First Man' land spots on top 10 movies of 2018Dec 27, 2018 5:00 am - Fact-based movies dominate my annual list of top 10 English-language, narrative films of the year. We begin with a movie that Monty Python might describe as “something c...
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Movie review: 'Vice' a bold, bonkers portrait of Dick Cheney as master manipulatorDec 23, 2018 12:00 am - "Vice" -- ★ ★ ★ ★ Every scene in Adam McKay's bold and bonkers biopic "Vice" radiates with the unbridled energy of an exuberant, experimental work-in-progress. After bri...
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Flying nanny returns in spirited sequel to 'Mary Poppins'Dec 18, 2018 2:30 pm - “Mary Poppins Returns” - ★ ★ ★ It may not be super, but it still qualifies as a califragilisticexpialidocious sequel to Walt Disney's 1964 live-action/animated mashup m...
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Gire on Penny Marshall: Hollywood's most unassuming, barrier-bashing directorDec 18, 2018 12:00 am - I asked budding filmmaker Penny Marshall back in the 1980s what she liked best about directing a movie. "Ooooohh, I'm trying to figure out what I like about it," she rep...
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Teen battles angst - and zombies! - in horror musical 'Anna and the Apocalypse'Dec 05, 2018 10:15 am - “Anna and the Apocalypse” - ★ ★ ★ If Chicago's cinematic poet of teenager angst, John Hughes, had created a melodious mash-up of “High School Musical” and “Shaun of the ...
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Cinematic gifts: 7 new movies to put the HO HO HO in your holidaysNov 25, 2018 6:00 am - Every Christmas, Santa stuffs our movie theaters with an abundance of cinematic gifts, hoping to offer something for everyone's taste and interests. Here come seven of m...
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Movie review: Boxing sequel fails to live up to its 'Creed'Nov 20, 2018 11:00 am - “Creed II” - ★ ★ ½ Ryan Coogler's 2015 “Creed” rebooted the “Rocky” franchise with a fresh and metaphorically punchy twist that recast Philly boxer Rocky Balboa as a su...
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Illinois 200: Illinois provides the setting for cinema favoritesNov 18, 2018 6:00 am - Maybe Illinois has produced so many cool movies because it offers such a vastly diverse spectrum of locations to tell highly visual stories. Or maybe our state has pumpe...