HollywoodChicago.com Content

CHICAGO – “Wonka” is a sweet, perhaps too sweet, musical origin story of the world famous cantankerous candy man. Timothée Chalomet has got a song in his heart and sweets up his sleeve in a movie that threatens to give old fashioned “family films” a good name once again.

CHICAGO – There is a thoughtfulness in the top South Korean films that cannot be duplicated in any other cinema culture. Along with now classics like “Oldboy” and “Parasite,” another Korean visionary emerges with a story about humanity … co-writer and director Um Tae-hwa has created a “Concrete Utopia.” The film is in U.S. theaters on December 15th.

CHICAGO – Denny Laine is a historic force in both the British Invasion of the 1960s with the Moody Blues, and as a member of “Wings” the band formed by him plus Paul and Linda McCartney in the 1970s. Laine died on December 5th, 2023, in Naples, Florida. He was 79.

CHICAGO – In 1963, Judy Garland had a CBS-TV variety series, and in December there was a Christmas episode featuring her kids … including Liza Minnelli. Playwright Desiree Burcum and the comedy troupe FAMOUS IN THE FUTURE have created (click link) ”A Judy Christmas” as a stage play.

CHICAGO – One of the great “characters” in Yorgos Lanthinmos excellent new film “Poor Things” is undoubtably the costumes that Bella (Emma Stone) wears. The costume designer behind those works of art is Holly Waddington, and HollywoodChicago.com talked to her at the Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF) in October.

CHICAGO – In his humility, Norman Lear liked to express that he was “just another version of you.” In our humanity, we are different renderings, but all related, as the titan of TV philosophically said. Norman Lear died at his home in Los Angeles on December 5th, 2023. He was 101 years old.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on December 7th, 2023, reviewing “The Boy and the Heron,” the latest animated film from Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki. In theaters on December 8th, 2023.

CHICAGO – The scapegoating of LGBTQIA+ folks as a backlash to the community progress in the last decade has been swift, fear-based and uniquely unAmerican. In response, producer David Clayton Miller and director Melinda Maerker have created a new doc entitled “We Live Here: The Midwest,” streaming on HULU beginning December 6th, 2023.

CHICAGO – A long time ago (1978) in an America far far away, the one and only showing of the “Star Wars Holiday Special” took place on CBS-TV. Infamously miscast and difficult to watch, the history of the show is chronicled in a new doc “A Disturbance in the Force,” co-directed by Jeremy Coon and Steven Kozak.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on The Eddie Volkman Show with Hannah B on a 3-Station Broadcast … Star 96.7 Joliet (IL), Star 102.3 Waukegan and Star 105.5 McHenry on September 1st, reviewing the Christmas movie “Candy Cane Lane,” streaming on Prime Video beginning December 1st, 2023.