CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
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Growing Up Fast in the Skateboard Life of ‘Mid90s’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 29, 2018 - 10:33am Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Character actor Jonah Hill has just scored behind the camera. As writer/director of a authentic look back at the “Mid90s” he went back to his inner source of growing up in that 1990s time, skateboarding with his buds and experiencing the teenage life. The story never blinks, as the teens are authentic and the situations they get in even more so.
Awkward & Difficult is Played Out in ‘Eighth Grade’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on July 22, 2018 - 3:22pm Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – We’ve all been there. Depending on what school structure you lived through, everyone had issues in “Eighth Grade.” Writer/director Bo Burnham puts those universal issues in a modern context (social media, online video), and portrays them through a girl struggling to belong while navigating the choppy waters of adolescence. It’s difficult, awkward and representative.
Toni Collette Discovers that Horror is ‘Hereditary’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 8, 2018 - 6:20pmRating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The classic horror/psychological films continue to chill our souls long after the experience of them. “Hereditary” uses a masterful performance by Toni Collette, and layers it with symbolic commentary and freaky scares to accomplish that lingering discomfort. After viewing it, the cluck of the tongue will never be the same.
Funny ‘The Disaster Artist’ Takes Us Back to ‘The Room’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 1, 2017 - 11:44am Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “The Room” is a post-millennial cult movie that plays the midnight and college movie circuit, entertaining audiences with its sheer badness. Its story is told in the “The Disaster Artist,” featuring James Franco as the director of “The Room,” and he also directed the film. Very meta.
Authentic Coming-of-Age in Expressive ‘Lady Bird’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 13, 2017 - 1:30pm Rating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – In one of the best American films of 2017, Greta Gerwig went behind the camera to write and direct an autobiographical overview of her Senior Year in high school, within a directionless town and family. The result is enlightening truth, told with laugh-out-loud directness and connective empathy. The film is a total winner.
Individualism in ‘Menashe’ Challenges the Tribe
Submitted by PatrickMcD on August 15, 2017 - 11:05amRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – We all belong to something, be it a family, workplace, congregation or (expansively) a tribe. But within all that belonging is a sometimes nagging feeling of being an outsider. There is not a human being in existence that hasn’t felt that way, and a new film expresses that feeling in “Menashe.”
‘It Comes at Night’ is a Terror-Filled, Nightmarish Delight
Submitted by JonHC on June 10, 2017 - 11:38pmRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Good horror films are difficult to find. Last year, we got the extremely satisfying horror film, “The Witch,” with breakout star Charlie the goat, AKA Black Phillip. Horror films that aren’t franchised cliches are hard to come by, but “It Comes at Night” delivers. The entire atmosphere is mysterious and foreboding. We go into this film blind as if we were stumbling through a forest at night. That is where we find the terrors, and ourselves.
'Free Fire' Knows That Happiness is a Warm Gun
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 26, 2017 - 2:21pmRating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – In a film that had a sassy, arbitrary perspective on its own flipped-out story, “Free Fire” sought to out-Quentin Tarantino in freaky funny characters and ammo-splurging gun battles. Director Ben Wheatley (“High-Rise”) took an ensemble cast to rarified heights of insult comedy, revenge dynamics and bullets that hit the bone.
Redemptive & Emotional Journey Dances in ‘Moonlight’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 29, 2016 - 1:10pmRating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – We are all victims of our own circumstances. How we interact with this circumstance, given our DNA, social nurturing, family and relationship ties are thrown in the air like organic confetti, landing here and there, and often in smaller and smaller pieces. “Moonlight” is a film full of this absolution.
‘American Honey’ is a New National Anthem for All of Us
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 15, 2016 - 7:58amRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The America we find ourselves in today would never have been imagined by our ancestors. Sure, we don’t have flying cars or robotic house servants but we do have different ways of life. “American Honey” shows the sweet and sour side of my generation’s new American Dream while keeping it infinitely relatable to everyone.
