CHICAGO – There is no better time to take in a stage play that is based in U.S. history, depicting the battle between fact and religion. The old theater chestnut – first mounted in 1955 – is “Inherit the Wind,” now at the Goodman Theatre, completing it’s short run through October 20th. For tickets and more information, click INHERIT.
Uma Thurman
Senior Moment! On-Air Review of ‘The War with Grandpa’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 11, 2020 - 7:34pmRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on October 8th, 2020, reviewing the new live action film “The War with Grandpa,” featuring Robert De Niro.
Unsettling View of Evil in Lars von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 14, 2019 - 5:04pmRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – With director Lars von Trier, who is a mad f**king genius of a filmmaker, it’s always make or break (or both). He breaks in his latest, “The House That Jack Built” which is all too much of evil everything, until it morphs into a last act that has an intriguing and unsettling sense of weird purpose. The story of a serial killer and the meticulous realizations of his killings is like a sound meter that is constantly going into the red zone, until the damn thing shatters.
Nature, Morality Collide in ‘Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on March 22, 2014 - 10:57amRating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Writer/director Lars von Trier creates exposure through his film art. He is unafraid to explore the very nature of being human, while at the same time revealing the very foibles of barriers to our nature – social structures, economies, religion and our own conceits in life. Lars von Trier’s latest barrier breaker is “Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1.”
Awful ‘Playing for Keeps’ Wastes Talent of Notable Cast
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 7, 2012 - 5:41pmRating: 1.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – When will the movie universe stop lionizing the upper middle class and their “problems” as a standard for storytelling? The idiotic crawl of “Playing for Keeps” is a prime example of that style, a sad exercise in contradictions that pass for narrative. Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones get punked by the script.
Robert Pattinson Drains Life From Misguided ‘Bel Ami’
Submitted by BrianTT on June 22, 2012 - 11:07amRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Robert Pattinson is such a divisive actor. While he’s clearly one of the most popular young stars in the world thanks to his work in the “Twilight” films, he has yet to prove to most people that he can really act. While some who have seen David Cronenberg’s upcoming “Cosmopolis” claim that this will be the film that finally allows Pattinson to break out of the franchise that has defined him, we’re stuck with something far lesser for now.
‘Percy Jackson & the Olympians:The Lightning Thief’ Conjures Up a Big Bolt of Bland
Submitted by PatrickMcD on February 12, 2010 - 10:00amRating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Oh, those nutty kids today. At one moment they’re regular high schoolers, doing all those post millennium teen rituals, then suddenly they’re demigods in “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”