CHICAGO – In anticipation of the scariest week of the year, HollywoodChicago.com launches its 2024 Movie Gifts series, which will suggest DVDs and collections for holiday giving.
Haley Bennett
Peter Dinklage Leads Perfectly Serviceable ‘Cyrano’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 25, 2022 - 9:28am Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – This is no small feat, but “Cyrano” works as well as it does because it puts a couple of new spins on the material while keeping the essence of this tale … which is seemingly as old as time. For those not paying attention during high school literature classes, Cyrano De Bergerac is a gallant hearted hero and actor who is in love with the maiden Roxanne, who happens to be his best friend.
‘The Girl on the Train’ is a Book Club ‘B’ Movie
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 6, 2016 - 6:28pm Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “The Girl On The Train” is a decent enough “Book Club” movie potboiler – it passes the time away, but never quite rises above the pulpiness of its source material. It desperately wants to recreate the suburban upper-class ennui and tone from last year’s “Gone Girl.” But while that film had David Fincher behind the camera, this one has Tate Taylor, the director of “The Help.”
‘The Magnificent Seven’ is How the Western Was Lost
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 23, 2016 - 5:16pm Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The appeal of Westerns was mostly lost on me when I was younger. The tales of these hypermasculine wanderers, answering every problem with a gun, never appealed to me. When I got older, I discovered their messages of honor and self-defense against corruption. The genre proved it could be more than one-liners and shootouts, but “The Magnificent Seven” set out to be only that.
Overall Story of ‘The Equalizer’ Doesn’t Add Up
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 26, 2014 - 11:25amRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – You could call “The Equalizer” a bit of an underachiever. It re-teams Oscar winner Denzel Washington with his “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua for a movie remake of a 1980’s TV show with a cult following, but the film as a whole adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
Gregg Araki's ‘Kaboom’ Merrily Enters the Ontological Void
Submitted by mattmovieman on February 18, 2011 - 7:39amRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Rarely has the apocalypse appeared as trivial as it does in “Kaboom,” a disarmingly lovable mess of a picture that manages to work in spite of itself. It’s the tenth feature film directed by Queer New Wave icon Gregg Araki, who seems to be in an infinitely better mood than he was fifteen years ago, back when the Reagan era’s ignorance of the AIDS crisis was still festering like an open wound.
