HollywoodChicago.com Arts & Entertainment News

CHICAGO – Film elites are a particularly hard category of movie buffs to satisfy come gift giving time. When they drop terms like auteur and film movements and directors you’ve never heard of, what’s the best DVDs to give them? Here are three notables that have been released in the last couple of years.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Ben Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on December 14th, 2023, reviewing “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” the animated sequel to 2000’s “Chicken Run.” Steaming on Netflix beginning December 15th, 2023.

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 – 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 – 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 – 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.