CHICAGO FILM FEST ROUNDUP PART I (A) - I've spent more time over the past month writing about why I haven't been able to get back to my normal daily blogging schedule than I have writing about movies...so I'm officially putting an end to all such discussions and just getting back to film. Punch-Drunk Love, Bowling for Columbine and a whole host of other promising movies are playing in Chicago and I will get to them all -- OK, most of them -- this week. But first, I need to finish up my take on the various movies I saw at the 38th Annual Chicago International Film Festival, which just wrapped up Friday. (Click here to see all of the winners. Alas, I didn't see any of them.) First, I wanted to finish up some thoughts on the opening night film 'Evelyn', starring Pierce Brosnan, which will play in New York and L.A. on December 13 and probably not make it to too many other cities after that. 1) Aidan Quinn, a usually strong actor, is so stiff and seemingly uncomfortable in this movie he literally ruins every scene he's in. Playing an Irish-born lawyer who moves to America, then returns to Ireland and ends up representing Brosnan's Desmond Doyle, I can entertain the argument that he's supposed to seem a bit out of place. But if that was director Bruce Beresford's intention, well, as with everything else in the movie, he overdid it. 2) I mentioned previously that Brosnan is somewhat hindered as an actor by his good looks. In 'Evelyn', we're supposed to believe that Brosnan is just your average, everyday, broke Irishman who drinks too much but loves his kids...which is fine, except that a perpetual five o'clock shadow and an old suit doesn't exactly make James Bond look "average" -- especially when you consider that his wife runs out on him for another man. Granted, wives/women cheat on good-looking men all the time. However, in the movie world there is only so much suspension of belief an audience can take. (A theory William Goldman convincingly espouses in his Adventures In The Screen Trade. I'd site the page number if I had the book in front of me.) Don't get me wrong, Brosnan delivers a capable performance. But would a less glamorous-looking actor have been better suited to play Desmond Doyle? Probably.

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