CHICAGO – It’s time again for live theater in Chicago, and The Factory Theater – in anticipation of their 2021-22 Season – is launching “Quiet Please! It’s A Silent Auction,” an online silent auction through the month of August (the 1st-31st). An amazing array of goods and services are available for bidding, and can be accessed by clicking here.
Maya Rudolph
‘Luca’ Uses Queer-Bait Hoping to Reel in a Hit, Ends Up Snagged
Submitted by JonHC on June 20, 2021 - 11:47pm Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Even as an adult, I am still in awe of how effective animated features are as narrative vehicles. As a kid, it was the thing I would consume the most, gorging myself into a stupor. The cartoons didn’t even have to follow any set story structure, especially when some of my favorites included a cowardly dog, a cow and chicken as siblings, and even an underwater sponge that is friends with an aquatic squirrel.
Fam Bam! On-Air Review of ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 29, 2021 - 7:11pm Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on April 29th, 2021, reviewing the new film “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” streaming on Netflix beginning April 30th.
‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’ is Flat Out Funny
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 8, 2019 - 4:48pm Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – There are two things I love as a film observer. The pretty colors of modern animation … and to laugh. I got both in the appropriately titled “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” Picking up where the first first left off, the gang of Lego brick figures, including Emmet, Wyldstyle and Batman, have a new adventure.
‘The Happytime Murders’ Shoots Its Wad Too Early
Submitted by PatrickMcD on August 24, 2018 - 3:46pmRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The most noteworthy feature of the puppet-noir comedy “The Happytime Murders” is its use of felt and fluff for nefarious ends, and while that’s not exactly new, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work. But the movie shoots its wad early, and doesn’t have much imagination after that beyond turning silly string into a bodily fluid.
Melissa McCarthy is the Charming ‘Life of the Party’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on May 11, 2018 - 2:06pmRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Melissa McCarthy is a comedic force to be reckoned with, able to wring laughs improbably out of the stingiest of material. She always manages to find the funny, which helps elevate everyone around her, and so she slips easily in the durable friendly constructs of the campus comedy in “Life Of The Party.”
‘The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature’ is in the No-Fun Zone
Submitted by PatrickMcD on August 10, 2017 - 10:30pmRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Anyone showing up to the “The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature” will know exactly what they’re going to get… it’s a late summer sequel to an animated movie you may be surprised was successful enough to warrant a sequel at all, much less a theatrically released one.
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.”
Beyond Being Trippy, ‘Inherent Vice’ is a Difficult Trip
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 9, 2015 - 10:18am Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Interpreting the ambling and sonic prose of author Thomas Pynchon has eluded filmmakers until now. Director Paul Thomas Anderson takes a whack at “Inherent Vice,” and although much of the film has his usual eminent vision, as a whole it makes for difficult sledding.
‘Big Hero 6’ is Sorely Lacking the Charm Component
Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 8, 2014 - 10:38am Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Big Hero 6” is a dark revenge thriller masquerading as a kids movie. Walt Disney Studios takes a few pages from its corporate cousin Marvel, while creating this new animated adventure. It has its moments, but not quite enough of them to make this anything more than a minor entry in the Disney legacy.
B-Level Story Sinks Finely Animated ‘The Nut Job’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 17, 2014 - 5:58pmRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – It feels like when any studio besides Disney or Pixar does an animated film with celebrity voices, there is a little less lacquer on it. What the other two remember, and others forget, is that it starts with a script. All the toon landscapes in the world can’t fix a dull story.
