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Blu-Ray Review: ‘Piranha’ Gives Viewers Skin, Gore They Should Expect

Piranha 3D

CHICAGO – “Piranha” is ludicrous, offensive, disgusting, gratuitous, and stupid — just the way that it should be. Can you imagine the complete failure it would have been to try and take the concept of killer fish seriously? Director Alexandre Aja (“High Tension”) wisely went the other way and made a movie that falls completely flat in terms of character, dialogue, and logic but works where it needs to: T, A, and gore.

Film Review: Ridiculous ‘Piranha 3D’ Attempts Record For 3D Gore

CHICAGO – With a record-setting approach to bare breasts and bloodied bodies, Alexandre Aja’s “Piranha 3D” is a ridiculous gore-fest that falls completely flat in terms of character, dialogue, and logic but pops off the screen in the areas in which it really counts for a movie about prehistoric man-eating fish.

DVD Review: Fascinating Cast Can’t Save ‘Operation: Endgame’

Operation: Endgame

CHICAGO – As someone who has often gone home with a straight-to-DVD action movie that I hadn’t heard of before entering the video store, I know how easy it is to get drawn into something that looks a little bit left-of-center. “Operation: Endgame” is undeniably unusual but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

Blu-Ray Review: Forgotten ‘Surrogates’ Worth Another Look

Surrogates Blu-Ray

CHICAGO – We have grown accustomed to experiencing the world through technology. One of the great gifts cinema grants us is the ability to experience the world vicariously through the lives of others. The reason why mainstream movie stars are unnaturally beautiful and glamorous is because they represent how we’d like to envision ourselves.

DVD Round Up, Oct. 30, 2009: ‘Sauna,’ ‘The Tournament,’ ‘The Butcher’

The Tournament

CHICAGO – Many editions of the DVD Round-Up have featured a different genre and focus for each title within it. This week seems a little more thematically linked as we have a trio of foreign horror films and a few more independent films than usual. Of course, there has to a holiday comedy to spice things up.

DVD Review: Criterion Edition of David Mamet’s Great ‘Homicide’

Homicide

CHICAGO – I am an unabashed defender of nearly everything that David Mamet has ever made and the arrival of another one of his films under the Criterion banner makes for a special occasion in this critic’s household. The new release of Mamet’s “Homicide” (1991) is a must-own for fans of one of the most important playwrights of the last fifty years and an underrated filmmaker as well.

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  • Manhunt

    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+.

  • Topdog/Underdog, Invictus Theatre

    CHICAGO – When two brothers confront the sins of each other and it expands into a psychology of an entire race, it’s at a stage play found in Chicago’s Invictus Theatre Company production of “Topdog/Underdog,” now at their new home at the Windy City Playhouse through March 31st, 2024. Click TD/UD for tickets/info.

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