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+.
Sam Waterston
Film Review: A Heroic Ruth Bader Ginsburg in ‘On the Basis of Sex’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 26, 2018 - 11:52amCHICAGO – Many heroes of America toiled long behind the scenes to break the chains of oppression. For every Susan Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr. there were the activists, legal experts and volunteers who sought the justice denied to them by the archaic patriarchal society. One such hero is Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the film “On the Basis of Sex.”
Film Review: ‘Miss Sloane’ Thrills Politically, But Drags Narratively
Submitted by JonHC on December 9, 2016 - 7:37pmCHICAGO – Nothing says the holiday season like a film about lobbying and politics. If you read that sarcastically, you’d be wrong. “Miss Sloane” offers a female spin for an otherwise male-dominated political landscape. Most of you are trying to tune out politics after the elections, but this film builds off of that momentum by reminding us how we arrived to that point.
TV Review: HBO’s ‘The Newsroom’ Adjusts Its Broadcast Style
Submitted by BrianTT on July 14, 2013 - 10:47amCHICAGO – There’s no television program that can be more simultaneously brilliant and frustrating as Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” returning tonight, July 14, 2013, to start an already-tumultuous second season.
Blu-ray Review: HBO’s ‘The Newsroom’ Rivets, Frustrates at Same Time
Submitted by BrianTT on June 20, 2013 - 3:04pmCHICAGO – Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, drives me crazy. The HBO drama can be so thematically dense and brings up subjects too often missing from the national conversation but it can also be so frustratingly self-important and deluded in its vision of the way real people operate. Do you give it credit for the topics it raises or smash it for the heavy hand with which they’re delivered? I have high hopes that season two will iron out some of the problems (stories of reshot episodes indicate that Sorkin heard his critics) but I’m still torn on how to feel about season one.
DVD Review: Audacious ‘Swimming to Cambodia’ Gets Long-Awaited Release
Submitted by mattmovieman on May 28, 2013 - 9:07amCHICAGO – Moviegoers allergic to copious amounts of talk will be hacking and wheezing minutes into “Swimming to Cambodia.” It’s a cinematically lensed 1987 recording of a show that consists entirely of actor/writer Spalding Gray sitting in a chair telling stories. He’s a vibrant presence and a brilliant wordsmith, but his mouth could literally talk one’s ear into a coma.
Interview: Executive Producer Rene Balcer on if ‘Law & Order’ Will Save the Day
Submitted by BrianTT on March 1, 2010 - 12:09pmCHICAGO – As the late, great Sophia Petrillo of “The Golden Girls” might have philosophized, “Picture it: September 13, 1990.” When “Law & Order” premiere, “The Internet” and “Email” were barely words, “mobile phones” looked like portable hair dryers, and Google, Yahoo, and AOL weren’t even gleams in Bill Gates’ eyeglasses — let alone Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. HBO and Showtime had yet to produce A-list hour dramas, and F/X, TNT, AMC, and USA had yet to produce anything more than the occasional TV-movie at all.