CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Judy Greer
Dull Soap Opera in ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on July 10, 2014 - 11:50pm Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes” just goes to show that you can have the most expensive and best looking visual effects money can buy, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing if you haven’t got a good tale to tell.
Performances Carry Update of Horror Classic ‘Carrie’
Submitted by BrianTT on October 17, 2013 - 12:52pm Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Director Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) doesn’t convey the dread or atmosphere of Stephen King’s “Carrie” to a degree that elevates it to the source material’s true potential but she does handle performance in a way that’s rare in the genre, making this remake one of the best horror films of the season.
Awful ‘Playing for Keeps’ Wastes Talent of Notable Cast
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 7, 2012 - 5:41pm Rating: 1.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – When will the movie universe stop lionizing the upper middle class and their “problems” as a standard for storytelling? The idiotic crawl of “Playing for Keeps” is a prime example of that style, a sad exercise in contradictions that pass for narrative. Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones get punked by the script.
Jason Segel, Ed Helms in Inconsistent ‘Jeff, Who Lives at Home’
Submitted by BrianTT on March 16, 2012 - 1:29pm Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Writer/directors Jay and Mark Duplass clearly love their characters. Whether it’s the awkward man-child at the center of “Cyrus” or the title character in their new dramedy “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” there’s a charming affection for these people. I really enjoyed spending time with the quartet of well-drawn, well-acted people in “Jeff,” which makes the fact that their story is less-structured and sloppier than it should be to be effective all the more frustrating. I SO want to love “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” but this dude is too often stuck in the creative basement.
George Clooney Stars in Stunning ‘The Descendants’
Submitted by BrianTT on November 17, 2011 - 10:21am Rating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – If one looks solely at the central male characters, it can seem remarkably easy to classify Alexander Payne’s movies under the subgenre heading of “mid-life crisis comedies”: Jim McAllister (“Election”), Warren Schmidt (“About Schmidt”), Miles (“Sideways”), and now the memorable protagonist of his stellar new dramedy “The Descendants,” Matt King.
Keanu Reeves Sleepwalks Through ‘Henry’s Crime’
Submitted by mattmovieman on April 29, 2011 - 12:23pm Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Keanu Reeves is the sort of actor who succeeds in spite of himself. His best work remains in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when he specialized in playing hazy-brained man-children, the best of which may have been Tod Higgins, the goofy race car driver in Ron Howard’s timeless 1989 comedy, “Parenthood.” Reeves transcended the silliness of his character with a performance of disarming warmth.
Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal in Unbearable ‘Love and Other Drugs’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 24, 2010 - 1:36pm Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Love and Other Drugs” celebrates everything that is wrong with America, wrapped in a package with two “it” stars doing a disservice to their emerging careers. The love depicted is random and somewhat damaged. The drugs are simply a cynical proclamation on how great Big Pharma is.
