CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
HollywoodChicago.com Arts & Entertainment News
Film Review: Low Grade on Report Card For ‘Easy A’ With Emma Stone
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 18, 2010 - 7:44amCHICAGO - “Easy A” is simply a hard film to swallow. Set in a high school on another planet, it wants everything and ends up giving very little. The cast is game - Emma Stone, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow - but with few exceptions the players cannot handle the lead balloon banter that passes for jokey dialogue. It wants also to be a grand statement on gossip and those who get hurt by it, but perky Stone doesn’t seem that affected.
HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: 25 Chicago Passes to ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ With Michael Douglas
Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on September 18, 2010 - 3:25amCHICAGO – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of the new Oliver Stone film “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” with Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf!
Film Review: ‘Heartbreaker’ Makes Romantic Comedy Look Effortless
Submitted by mattmovieman on September 17, 2010 - 7:38amCHICAGO – If there’s one genre Hollywood has managed to screw up beyond all recognition, it’s the romantic comedy. Many of the worst films in recent years have brought the genre to an all-time low, such as “Leap Year,” “Love Happens,” and anything starring Gerard Butler. These dumbed-down products use stereotypes in place of characters, incessant sparring in place of chemistry and gooey sentiment in place of a tangible heart.
Film Review: Cyber Society is Basis For Losing it in Funny ‘The Virginity Hit’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 17, 2010 - 7:31amCHICAGO – A great percentage of the population inevitably gets to the moment in their life when co-mingling becomes the next phase of interaction – the loss of virginity. Despite braggadocio to the contrary, for most people it is fraught with a bit of the undiscovered country. “The Virginity Hit” mines that territory with some cyber-age big brotherism thrown in.
Film Review: Awful Execution Fails Clever Concept of ‘Devil’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 17, 2010 - 2:54amCHICAGO – Being a hardcore fan of anthology series like “The Twilight Zone” and “Tales From the Crypt,” the simple set-up of “Devil,” the new horror film based on a story by and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, intrigued me — five people are stuck in an elevator and one turns out to be the devil. Sadly, the concept is the only interesting thing about this horribly-executed tale from the dull side of the genre.
Blu-Ray Review: StudioCanal Editions of ‘Delicatessen,’ ‘The Third Man’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 1:55pmCHICAGO – What do Carol Reed’s beloved “The Third Man” and Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro’s “Delicatessen” have in common? Almost nothing and yet I kind of love that they’re now linked in Lionsgate’s StudioCanal Collection because it illustrates the diversity of this increasingly-interesting wave of releases. They’ll never top The Criterion Collection, but it’s nice to have another series of timeless and modern classics making the Blu-ray market that much richer.
TV Review: Stellar Start to Sixth Season of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 1:01pmCHICAGO – How funny are the first four episodes of the new season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” starting tonight on FX? Even though I’m knee-deep in screeners for new and returning shows, I watched all four episodes twice.
DVD Review: ‘The Black Cauldron: 25th Anniversary Edition’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 12:18pmCHICAGO – Disney has been such a leader in the transition from standard DVD to High Definition Blu-ray that it almost makes their DVD-only releases even more lackluster than they might otherwise be. Take for example the 25th Anniversary Edition of “The Black Cauldron,” one of the least-successful films in the Mouse House canon given a truly disappointing home release.
Blu-Ray Review: Emmy-Winning Third Season of ‘The Big Bang Theory’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 11:40amCHICAGO – Now that CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory” has broken through as one of the most popular shows currently on the air and has won its star Jim Parsons an Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series could Warner Brothers begin producing more-enhanced Blu-ray releases for the fans? The third season of this excellent comedy features less than thirty minutes of special features.
Blu-Ray Review: Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher in Narcoleptic ‘Killers’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 10:28amCHICAGO – When “Killers” didn’t screen for critics, we assumed that it was because it was an insipid, horrid mess and that Lionsgate didn’t want to let audiences in on that fact before stealing their hard-earned cash. Watching it on Blu-ray, I was surprised that it didn’t screen because it’s not “Marmaduke”- or “Macgruber”-bad. It’s just shockingly boring.
TV Review: Football, Relationships Drive Consistently Clever ‘The League’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 16, 2010 - 9:50amCHICAGO – The second-season premiere of FX’s comedy hit “The League” features a bunch of pumped-up guys going to Las Vegas but this is not your typical “Hangover”-esque tale of debauchery.
Interview: Neil Marshall, Axelle Carolyn Battle the Elements in ‘Centurion’
Submitted by BrianTT on September 15, 2010 - 6:58pmCHICAGO – Some movies were clearly a lot of “fun” for the cast and crew. A different f-word may come to mind when the cast of the period action/adventure “Centurion” thinks back on the film’s brutal production.
Video Game Review: ‘The Bachelor: The Videogame’ Makes For an Awkward Date
Submitted by BrianTT on September 15, 2010 - 4:04pm Video Game Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – When we first heard about a Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video game tie-in to the mega-franchise of ABC reality shows known as “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” the mind reeled at the possibilities. Would the game be merely a series of conversation choices like some of the cheesy dating video games of the ’90s? How would the Wii-mote get involved?
