Cathy Moriarty

CHICAGO – How does a filmmaker create a movie about a white girl in New Jersey dreaming of being a hip-hop star? He takes the beats from his own life admiration of the music genre and fleshes out a working class story about pushing back against the odds. Geremy Jasper wrote and directed the electrically poignant “Patti Cake$.”

CHICAGO – How does a native Australian actress become a New Jersey hip hop artist? Practice, practice, practice… in formulating the character of “Patti Cake$.” Danielle Macdonald, who had never rapped before in her life, portrayed the title Jersey Girl with a stellar determination, poignancy and heart.

CHICAGO – Bridget Everett is a New York City entertainment maven, as a singer and “cabaret provocateur.” She is breaking out recently as a movie actor, with the just-released comedy “Fun Mom Dinner” and her latest role, as a mother to “Patti Cake$,” a white girl hip-hop artist from New Jersey with a determination of gold.

CHICAGO – After Robert De Niro’s “Pupkin”-esque acceptance speech on Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, some of our younger readers may be curious about some of the films that got him to that awkward moment. His second Oscar came for what is undeniably one of the best performances of all time. De Niro would give at least a dozen great performances, some before and some after, but “Raging Bull,” recently released in a beautiful 30th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, is the peak of one of the most notable acting careers in film history.

CHICAGO – The beauty of watching creative character actors like Kevin Kline and John C. Reilly is that they seem to revel in the craft of embodying their roles. In “The Extra Man,” they both take a trippy and literate script and apply some additional magic that helps to flesh out a young man’s journey into the heart of Manhattan.