CHICAGO – YIPPIE! It’s back, in the neighborhood of its roots. YippieFest 2023 will be August 4th-6th in the Lakeview/Buena Park venue of PRIDE ARTS, 4139 North Broadway in Chicago. The space is less than a half mile from the former Mary-Arrchie Theatre, whose “Abbie Hoffman Festival” was the template for the three-day performance celebration. YippieFest currently has slots for theater acts, including one-act plays, monologue, sketch, improv, vaudeville and other stage performance arts. Artists get free admission to the rest of the festival, so click YiPPIE FEST 2023 to sign up.
Christian Bale
Go Dutch! On-Air Film Review of David O. Russell's ‘Amsterdam’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 10, 2022 - 1:01pm- 20th Century Studios
- Amsterdam
- Anya Taylor-Joy
- Chris Rock
- Christian Bale
- David O. Russell
- Eddie Volkman
- Hannah Brummer
- HollywoodChicago.com Content
- John David Washington
- Margot Robbie
- Michael Shannon
- Mike Myers
- Pat Über TV
- Patrick McDonald
- Rami Malek
- Robert De Niro
- Star 96.7
- Taylor Swift
- TV Review
- Walt Disney Studios
- WSSR-FM
 Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on The Eddie Volkman Show with Hannah B on WSSR-FM (Star 96.7 Joliet, Illinois) on October 7th, reviewing the new all-star cast David O. Russell mystery comedy “Amsterdam,” Currently in theaters.
Thunder Struck! On-Air Film Review of ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on July 8, 2022 - 10:43am Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on July 7th, reviewing “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the continuing Marvel Universe adventures of the God of Thunder, opening everywhere on July 8th.
‘Vice’ Proves It’s Okay to Laugh at Dick Cheney
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 27, 2018 - 6:46pm Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Vice” is an occasionally very funny attempt to demystify the life and legacy of former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney. Using some of the same gimmicks and narrative trickery he employed to great effect in “The Big Short,” writer/director Adam McKay goes deep into the weeds to try to explain how Cheney made it to the second highest office in the land.
‘Hostiles’ with Christian Bale is a Big Bad Bore
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 5, 2018 - 9:49amRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Hostiles” is an exercise in prestige western boredom. It’s competently made, but its as lifeless as a scalped corpse on the prairie. It’s long on pretty western locales and impressive facial hair, but short on story, characters, or much of anything else to help keep your eyelids from closing.
Love Attempts to Infiltrate Horror in 'The Promise'
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 24, 2017 - 8:20amRating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – So much of civilization’s story is lost in the mist of “winners write the history,” and even as recently as 100 years ago there are instances of world history that is not generally taught. “The Promise” is set during the World War I period, and has a love triangle in the midst of a little known genocide.
Terence Malick’s Feverish Dream in ‘Knight of Cups’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on March 11, 2016 - 10:46amRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – I’ve been quoting Martin Scorsese over the years, that he said “movies are a psychotic’s feverish dream on display.” In searching for those words, I found he never said it. He did say they are “dreams with eyes open.” So let us combine the two quotes in analyzing Terence Malick’s “Knight of Cups.”
Exposé of ‘The Big Short’ is an American Masterwork
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 11, 2015 - 10:30am Rating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – This is a rare film that will fill you with anger, while making you laugh at the absurdity of 21st Century life. “The Big Short” is an inside look at the mortgage meltdown that began in 2007, that cost eight million jobs and an untold amount of foreclosures, and the men who knew it was coming.
No Faith in the Spectacle of ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 12, 2014 - 9:54pmRating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The world certainly didn’t need another “Ten Commandments,” but director Ridley Scott tries to remake the 50’s Biblical epic anyway – led by Christian Bale as a scowling and shouting Moses. Yet Bale can’t hold a staff to Charlton Heston and Scott is no Cecil B. DeMille. Ostensibly this is a movie about the power of faith, but Scott’s film has no soul within.
Great Performances Drive Entertaining ‘American Hustle’
Submitted by BrianTT on December 11, 2013 - 10:43am Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
As career con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) introduces newly-undercover FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) to his world of criminal enterprise, he shows him a Rembrandt painting in a museum, revealing that it’s a fake. Millions of people have seen and admired it, not realizing that it’s not the original. Does it matter if they get the same artistic enjoyment out of it?
Great Cast Can’t Find Truth in False Plotting of ‘Out of the Furnace’
Submitted by BrianTT on December 6, 2013 - 11:18am Rating: 1.5/5.0 |
One overriding thought dominated my time with Scott Cooper’s stunningly disappointing “Out of the Furnace” – I just don’t care. When I wasn’t picking apart the gigantic plot holes in the narrative, I was marveling at the overheated characters who have been crafted from cliché instead of the real world.
