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.
HollywoodChicago.com Movie Reviews
Family Dynamics Provide Unusual Journey Down ‘Gun Hill Road’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 16, 2011 - 1:04pm Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Who you are at birth eventually becomes entangled in where and how you are nurtured throughout your life. Given who you are, did you get the proper care, encouragement and love? Did you get to blossom into the best part of your nature? The new film “Gun Hill Road” explores these questions, filtered through the family, in an odd and poignant way.
Anarchy, Chaos Suffocate the Dream in ‘Bellflower’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 16, 2011 - 7:05am Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – A film about the American Dream returned to the sender is released, in its own way and time, through the youth of every generation. “Bellflower” feels like the anarchist statement of the current post college dreamers, stuck in a detached atmosphere with electronic time wasters, material glut and little income opportunity to pay for it all.
Ryan Gosling Stars in Instant Classic ‘Drive’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 15, 2011 - 7:49pm Rating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Nicholas Winding Refn’s “Drive” is an amazing thriller, a modern examination of heroism filtered through the fairy tale culture of the underbelly of the movie machine that is easily one of the most memorable and effective films of not just this year but the last several.
Torturous, Awful ‘Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 9, 2011 - 1:17pm Rating: 0.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Adam Sandler lost a bet. How else to explain the existence of “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star,” a movie that no one but the man behind Happy Madison would possibly finance? If you took this script (co-written by Little Nicky himself) to any sane film producer, they would assume you were pulling a prank.
Life in Iran For Women Produces ‘Circumstance’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 9, 2011 - 8:09amRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Power is a strange, corrupting force. Human beings manufacture power based on governments, money and religion. Oftentimes an element of humanity must be sacrificed to obtain power. In Iran, that element is women, as religious and governmental oppression conspire to create “Circumstance.”
Unfunny ‘Burke and Hare’ Wastes Top-Notch Cast
Submitted by mattmovieman on September 9, 2011 - 7:22am Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – There are few sights more depressing than a game cast all dressed up with nowhere to go and no good jokes to share. “Burke and Hare” is the sort of comedy Mel Brooks was making in the ’90s. All the ingredients are on hand for a promising comedy, and yet something’s missing—namely, laughter. The timing is off, the punch-lines are obvious and the actors are bored beyond belief.
Steven Soderbergh’s Riveting ‘Contagion’ With Matt Damon
Submitted by BrianTT on September 8, 2011 - 10:01am Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – A few weeks ago saw the release of the R-rated “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” a gore-free creature feature that was given the MPAA stamp of 17-plus due to “pervasive scariness.” This week sees the PG-13-rated “Contagion,” a film SO much more pervasively scary than the movie about goblins in a distant mansion because, well, it’s about the fact that the world is pervasively scary.
Preachy, Absurd ‘Seven Days in Utopia’ Weakens Own Message
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 4, 2011 - 7:40am Rating: 1.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – What do Robert Duvall and Melissa Leo have in common? They both have won an Oscar and they both cashed a paycheck for the fake virtuous hack job called “Seven Days in Utopia.” For Duvall especially, maybe the mortgage payment is due on the vacation home.
‘Shark Night 3D’ is Stupid Enough to Be a Cult Film
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 3, 2011 - 5:44pmRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Shark Night 3D” is at the top of the food chain when it comes to the people-so-stupid-they-lack-basic-survival-skills category of horror thrillers, and has so many wrong elements it nearly swings back to be right.
Over-Produced, Misguided ‘Chasing Madoff’ Buries the Lead
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 2, 2011 - 6:48pmRating: 1.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – What Errol Morris does so well is very, very difficult. He takes unusual interview subjects (“Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control,” “Mr. Death), sometimes even with a political background (“The Fog of War,” “Standard Operating Procedure”) and makes them completely riveting. Clearly inspired by the Morris filmography, Jeff Prosserman’s “Chasing Madoff” attempts that blend of personality and history but falls flat on its face.
Chilling, Creepy ‘Apollo 18’ Makes Us Wonder What If
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 2, 2011 - 6:11pmRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Space, the final frontier. The USA made one giant leap for mankind during the Apollo moon landing program forty years ago. Why were the missions abruptly terminated? Why haven’t they gone back? “Apollo 18” theorizes on the answers.
‘A Good Old Fashioned Orgy’ Can’t Get it Up
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 2, 2011 - 8:45am Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Rarely have so many talented comedians been sucked into a more depressing morass of bad comic timing and worse writing than in the dreadful “A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy,” a movie with a bunch of people I like making a comedy I really, really hate. This movie knows nothing about friendship, sex, or, most importantly, comedy.
Strength of ‘Life, Above All’ Found in Khomotso Manyaka
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 2, 2011 - 8:07amRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – As long as one person is inflicted with HIV, or full-blown AIDS, the crisis will never be averted, despite less of a profile in America and Europe. Africa is still in the midst of dealing with the epidemic, and Khomotso Manyaka portrays a symbol of that struggle in the enlightening “Life, Above All.”
