Dan Aykroyd

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Kinetic. Frenetic. Chaotic. Live! Those are just some words to describe the Saturday Night Live origin story “Saturday Night.” Director Jason Reitman has infused this nearly real time tale of the struggle to get the first episode of SNL with an energy that grabs your attention and never lets go. That takes some doing when we all know the ending. SNL would not only make it onto American airwaves, but it would become an improbable television institution and comedy touchstone, now celebrating its 50th season.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” a sequel to the reboot of 2021, which was adapted from the 1984 classic and featuring OGs Bill Murray, Dan Akyroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson. In theaters since March 22nd.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – This latest attempt to revive the beloved 1980’s franchise is a curious rumination on nostalgia. It’s so heavily indebted to the original, references are treated as holy relics to be revered and worshiped. But it also makes the compelling case – to begin with – for the futility of trying to turn the film into a franchise.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – It’s always something, as the great Gilda Radner often said (through her character Roseanne Roseannadanna), and the documentary “Love, Gilda” is about all her somethings… her childhood, the early comedy days, the rise through “Saturday Night Live” and her succumbing to the dread disease of cancer. She had it all, did it all, but as always “it” could not save her, and eventually us.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The epitome of an idea that far outweighs its execution, “Pixels” is a bittersweet blunder that had all of the elements to be geeky great but ends up being cheesy mediocre. I could literally feel its potential for 105 minutes, but the $88 million film ultimately fails to realize it.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Get On Up” contains one dynamite performance trapped in a frustratingly mediocre movie. James Brown’s life and music offer a wealth of material to work with, but that doesn’t necessarily adhere to the conventions of a formulaic musical biopic.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Melissa McCarthy has jumped the shark. Or if she hasn’t, she’s strapped on the skis and is contemplating the ramp. Going once more to the same character well – this time with a script co-written with her husband Ben Falcone and directed by him – McCarthy shows little originality or gumption as the title character in “Tammy..”

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The so-called “Legend of Oz” will cease to be legendary if they keep producing lame re-engineerings of the 1939 classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Close on the heels of last year’s dud, “Oz the Great and Powerful,” comes the dully-rendered “Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Will Ferrell makes five new proclamations loud and clear: he’s a comic dream-team duo with Zach Galifianakis in “The Campaign,” punching a baby and then a dog are seriously funny, real-life politics should take a lesson from this over-the-top smear campaign, you need one supporting Korean weapon and there’s nearly no such thing as a 100% comedy that delivers on 100% of its comedy.

Rating: 0.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Yogi Bear,” the latest degradation in the cynical family film 3D marketing universe, has done the improbable. It has taken notable and nostalgic cartoon characters (Yogi and Boo Boo) and turned them into animatronic shills for a post modern bore of a story that wouldn’t work if Fellini were directing it. Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake sell out (I mean lend) their voice talents.