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.
Oliver Platt
Doula Doula Do! On-Air Film Review of Pamela Adlon’s ‘Babes’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on May 17, 2024 - 3:31pm 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 May 16th, reviewing “Babes,” the director debut of Pamela Adlon (FX’s “Better Things). In select theaters on May 17th. See local listings.
Dull Origins in ‘Professor Marston & the Wonder Women’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 17, 2017 - 7:01pm Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – For a film that has free love, lie detection, bondage, the origin of a great comic superhero and 3-way carnality, “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women” still comes out rather flat… quite a achievement. Wonder Woman is the comic hero, and this is the rest of her story.
Two Stories Clash in Uneven ‘Rules Don’t Apply’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 24, 2016 - 8:41amRating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Movie icon Warren Beatty had wanted to make a film about 20th Century billionaire Howard Hughes for close to 40 years. On the heels of Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” Beatty has written, directed and portrays Hughes in “Rules Don’t Apply,” and has created a strange farce about the mogul and a romance tale around him.
Meet the Press in Illuminating ‘Kill the Messenger’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 14, 2014 - 11:19amRating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – When journalists were heroes and exposed those in power for their sins, movies were made like “All the President’s Men.” Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News was one of those journalist heroes during the 1990s, but he wasn’t celebrated in his time. The indictments, induced paranoia and outright lies against him are distinctly chronicled in the luminary “Kill the Messenger.”
Jon Favreau’s Anti-Popcorn Project ‘Chef’ Still Mild
Submitted by NickHC on May 16, 2014 - 5:06pm Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – By the time of his 2011 box office blitzkrieg otherwise known as “Cowboys & Aliens,” the product that indie director-turned-Hollywood habitue Jon Favreau had been hocking as a “popcorn salesman” had gone stale – to use a showbiz term from Nicholas Ray’s” In A Lonely Place.”
‘Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return’ is For Kids Only
Submitted by PatrickMcD on May 10, 2014 - 7:17amRating: 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.”
Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal in Unbearable ‘Love and Other Drugs’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 24, 2010 - 12:36pm Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Love and Other Drugs” celebrates everything that is wrong with America, wrapped in a package with two “it” stars doing a disservice to their emerging careers. The love depicted is random and somewhat damaged. The drugs are simply a cynical proclamation on how great Big Pharma is.
Catherine Keener Shines in Nicole Holofcener’s Rewarding ‘Please Give’
Submitted by BrianTT on May 7, 2010 - 11:37am Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Writer/director Nicole Holofcener (“Lovely and Amazing,” “Friends With Money”) has an amazing ability to write characters that immediately feel genuine. It helps to have an actress as free of artifice as Catherine Keener as your regular lead but we shouldn’t diminish Holofcener’s rare ear for dialogue that actually sounds like it wasn’t created by a screenwriting machine.
Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Ensemble Save ‘Frost/Nixon’ From Soulless Direction
Submitted by BrianTT on December 12, 2008 - 9:23am Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Peter Morgan’s play “Frost/Nixon” was a searing portrait of two men trying their best to change their image and their future. It was a head-to-head battle between a celebrity interviewer whose reputation was on a steady decline and the man credited with bringing shame to the White House.
