CHICAGO – Like many of you, I have been perusing the digital platforms, looking for the appropriate binge shows that will provide a temporary bit of sanity. Amazon Prime, for example, offers the entire series of “30 Rock” (2006-13), the seminal NBC-TV series created by and featuring Tina Fey.
Alison Brie
‘The Post’ Illuminates the Skills of Meryl Streep
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 4, 2018 - 11:45am Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – For all the films Meryl Streep is privileged to make – which is remarkable considering the industry’s attitude toward older actresses – she has even admitted that the audience may be tired of seeing her. But as publisher Katherine Graham in ‘The Post’, she nails yet another great performance.
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.
Despite One Premise, Laughs Are Plenty in ‘The Little Hours’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on July 14, 2017 - 11:01amRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – It occurred to me in assessing “The Little Hours” that the basic premise is somewhat like “The Beguiled” – a man is taken in, rooster-like, into a henhouse where there are women with “needs.” Except this time, instead of a girl’s boarding school, it is a 14th Century nunnery. Get thee to it, if thou wants to laugheth.
Shapeless ‘How to Be Single’ is Dreadfully Unfunny
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 13, 2016 - 3:04pm Rating: 1.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Rebel Wilson’s raunchy and vulgar schtick is now way past its freshness date, but she’s the only one able to elicit any chuckles in this otherwise woebegone women-behaving-badly, anti-romantic comedy, “How to Be Single.”
‘Get Hard’ is Less Than the Sum of Its Parts
Submitted by PatrickMcD on March 27, 2015 - 7:07pm Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Will Ferrell is a funny guy. Kevin Hart can be a funny guy. But the prison buddy comedy “Get Hard” is woefully less than the sum of its comedic parts. It fires buckshot of lame jokes at its audience, but precious few come anywhere near their targets as it squanders nearly every comic opportunity that comes its way.
Big Laughs Await in Sly, Fun ‘The LEGO Movie’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 7, 2014 - 10:31am Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The funniest movie in a long while features no human beings, just animated bland faces among interlocking plastic bricks, the toys which inspired the film. “The LEGO Movie” never takes itself seriously, which means huge laughs for the audience.
In Youth, It’s Good to Be ‘The Kings of Summer’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 7, 2013 - 3:57pmRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Real summer movies shouldn’t be about superheroes or overwrought science fiction, it should be about long days working that trigger in the animal soul that awakens a sun-warmed spirit. Writer Chris Galletta and Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts crown “The Kings of Summer.”
Darkly Comic Jason Segel in ‘The Five-Year Engagement’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 27, 2012 - 7:29amRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – There are some major laughs in “The Five-Year Engagement,” good old fashion you-can’t-breathe laughs. But it is also dark and serious at times, and makes some surprising contemporary statements regarding coupling. Jason Segel and Emily Blunt portray the engaged couple.
