CHICAGO – Theatrical satires of the Star Wars Universe are like the number of TV series the universe has wrought … too many to figure out if anything is worthwhile. But “Trade Federation” (subtitled “Or Let’s Explore Globalization Through the Star Wars Prequels”), presented by Otherworld Theatre in Wrigleyville Chicago, gets it right on.
Sam Riley
'Free Fire' Knows That Happiness is a Warm Gun
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 26, 2017 - 2:21pm Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – In a film that had a sassy, arbitrary perspective on its own flipped-out story, “Free Fire” sought to out-Quentin Tarantino in freaky funny characters and ammo-splurging gun battles. Director Ben Wheatley (“High-Rise”) took an ensemble cast to rarified heights of insult comedy, revenge dynamics and bullets that hit the bone.
Hard to Find a Point to ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 5, 2016 - 11:33pm Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Having not read this best-selling source novel, I had a hard time understanding the point of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’ Amazingly, it falls short as both a zombie movie and a satire of the original Jane Austin “Pride and Prejudice” story, which was its only achievement as a final result.
Neil Jordan’s ‘Byzantium’ Feels Drained of Passion
Submitted by BrianTT on June 27, 2013 - 5:21pm Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – I’ve rarely said this about Neil Jordan movie – in fact, maybe never – but I was bored during his latest, the vampire drama “Byzantium,” a movie with an intriguing cast and interesting story but little in the way of passion, emotion, dread, or the other intangibles needed to make a horror film like this effective.
Visceral ‘On the Road’ Honors a Great American Novel
Submitted by PatrickMcD on March 23, 2013 - 7:01am Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The 1957 novel “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, was a missile across the bow of American social conventions, and a precursor to the radical 1960s. For over fifty years, it has eluded a film adaptation, until director Walter Salles (“The Motorcycle Diaries”) found the way to capture it.
‘Brighton Rock’ Remake Fails to Justify its Existence
Submitted by BrianTT on August 26, 2011 - 3:56pmRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Rowan Joffe’s long-gestating remake of “Brighton Rock” (the 1947 noir classic was based on the beloved book by Graham Greene) raises the question least-desired in one of these situations – why bother? Sure, the story is a nifty little tale of a rising criminal undone by his own avarice and the love of a girl and the cast assembled for the remake is an undeniably talented ensemble.
