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.
Lena Dunham
Dad & Remembrance! Audio Film Review of ‘Treasure’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 16, 2024 - 8:07pmRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “Treasure,” a feature film pairing the odd couple acting of Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, as a daughter and father trying to bond in the backdrop of his memories of Auschwitz. Currently in theaters since June 14th.
Blissful Anarchy in ‘My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on May 5, 2017 - 10:33amRating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – In animation, the real innovators who evolve the artform are the risk takers who stamp their own inspiration on those cartoon images. Director Dash Shaw is one of those breakthroughs, who creates a work of anarchistic art in “My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea.”
‘Happy Christmas’ is Au Naturale for Good or for Bland
Submitted by NickHC on July 28, 2014 - 5:38pmRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – One thing that struck me about writer/director Joe Swanberg’s previous “Drinking Buddies,” and made it one of my more celebrated from 2013 despite not really loving it as a film, was its importance to those good ol’ independent movies. Here were big flashy stars like Olivia Wilde and Anna Kendrick, not just acting in a movie of a lower budget, but creating a wider appeal out of a previously very niche aspect, without the film form itself changing much.
Judd Apatow’s ‘This is 40’ Clutters Truth with Cliché
Submitted by BrianTT on December 20, 2012 - 2:01pmRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Judd Apatow’s “This is 40” is a true disappointment, a comedy that purports to say something honest and insightful about approaching middle age in the ‘10s but blurs truth by smothering it in contrivance and cliché. Strong work from Leslie Mann and Albert Brooks rescue the project from complete disaster but the largely-unfunny and almost entirely disingenuous script mark this as the talented Apatow’s most notable misfire.
Beguiling Ensemble Nearly Salvages Frustrating ‘Nobody Walks’
Submitted by mattmovieman on November 9, 2012 - 10:37amRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – From the very beginning of her screen career, Olivia Thirlby has specialized in playing youthful seductresses intent on jump-starting their male partners’ sexual coming-of-age. She exuded megawatt allure in everything from David Gordon Green’s “George Washington” to Brett Ratner’s memorable segment in “New York, I Love You.”
Nothing Plastic About Lena Dunham’s Post-Graduate ‘Tiny Furniture’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 10, 2010 - 8:12pmRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The 24 year-old Lena Dunham is a new and notable voice for her generation of filmmakers, breaking in with her first feature, the memorable “Tiny Furniture.” Dunham wrote, directed and portrays the main character Aura, a newly minted film theory graduate who is going through the time honored process of what to do with her post collegiate life.