Film Review

Film Review: Entertaining, Complex ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’

CHICAGO – Second acts to incredibly popular and entertaining mainstream fare can be a tough prospect. For every “The Dark Knight,” there are too many films like “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” – works that essentially just repeat what audiences fell in love with instead of trying to expand on the world of their predecessors.

Film Review: Annoying, Inconsistent ‘Charlie Countryman’ with Shia LaBeouf

Charlie Countryman
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 1.5/5.0
Rating: 1.5/5.0

CHICAGO – What happens when you give people two months in Romania to make a movie about a lost soul dealing with grief, love, drug use, and general excess? You get a spoiled, bizarre, annoying piece of work like “Charlie Countryman,” starring talented people given absolutely nothing to do that proves that talent. It’s a film more in love with slow-motion shots of its abrasive lead running to electronic dance music than anything approaching character or plot. It’s like watching the travel video of the most annoying guy you know.

Film Review: ‘The Book Thief’ Fails to Find Tone of Familiar Story

CHICAGO – Brian Percival’s “The Book Thief,” from the hit book by Markus Zusak, is a well-intentioned piece of work that nonetheless fails, sometimes spectacularly, to connect in the ways that its creators intend.

Film Review: Gentle Meditation on Life in ‘Museum Hours’

CHICAGO – Jem Cohen’s “Museum Hours” is a lovely, almost calming meditation on life centered around an art museum with someone who spends a large portion of his life there and a traveler new to the building. Great art has the power to comment on life’s issues – sex, death, parenthood, religion, etc. – and Cohen uses the power of the still image to construct a film of moving ones with power of its own.

Film Review: ‘Thor: The Dark World’ is Little More Than Marketing For ‘The Avengers 2’

CHICAGO – Few major films have felt less creatively inspired and more commercially conceived than Alan Taylor’s dull “Thor: The Dark World,” a wannabe blockbuster with all the personality and ingenuity of a straight-to-DVD sequel.

Film Review: ‘The Trials of Muhammad Ali’ Captures Fascinating Man

The Trials of Muhammad Ali
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.0/5.0
Rating: 4.0/5.0

No matter what you think of Muhammad Ali’s religion, you certainly have to admire his courage.” – Martin Luther King

CHICAGO – We’ve come to expect so little of our athletes. When stories like the nonsense going down in the Miami Dolphins locker room or the drug scandals with A-Rod break, they’re starting to be greeted with a shrug.

Film Review: ‘The Counselor’ Disguises Lackluster Storytelling in Philosophy

CHICAGO – “That’s not what greed does; that’s what greed is.” Cormac McCarthy’s script for “The Counselor” is so weighed down with allegedly insightful philosophy like this that it collapses into a heap of laughable, unbelievable exchanges between characters who simply don’t exist in the real world.

Film Review: Robert Redford Battles the Elements in ‘All is Lost’

CHICAGO – Few films have captured the intensity of fighting against the inevitable pull of Mother Nature as J.C. Chandor’s gut-wrenching “All is Lost,” a showcase for Robert Redford like he hasn’t had in years and further proof that the writer/director of “Margin Call” is one to watch.

Film Review: Diablo Cody Loses Tone in Awful ‘Paradise’

CHICAGO – Diablo Cody’s directorial debut, “Paradise,” now available everywhere On Demand and released this Friday in some markets theatrically, is an unmitigated disaster. It’s the most tonally inconsistent film of 2013, a flick that fluctuates wildly from broad satire to manipulative drama to something altogether indescribably bad.

Film Review: Performances Carry Update of Horror Classic ‘Carrie’

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.

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TV, DVD, BLU-RAY & THEATER REVIEWS

  • Manhunt

    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+.

  • Topdog/Underdog, Invictus Theatre

    CHICAGO – When two brothers confront the sins of each other and it expands into a psychology of an entire race, it’s at a stage play found in Chicago’s Invictus Theatre Company production of “Topdog/Underdog,” now at their new home at the Windy City Playhouse through March 31st, 2024. Click TD/UD for tickets/info.

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