Betty White

CHICAGO – In a Covid-free world no doubt this list would be a TOP 20 or 25 … in non-pandemic times, I photographed approximately 150 celebrities per year. In 2020, there were only two, before the global pandemic basically put my career – like that of so many others – into a medically induced coma.

CHICAGO – Meeting Ed Asner is like meeting the grumpy uncle that you still love, because you know despite his curmudgeon nature, his has passion, spunk and delivers all of it in many ways. He was Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show most famously in the 1970s, but his other acting pursuits were just as significant.

CHICAGO – When Mary Tyler Moore passed away in January, it was another reminder of her groundbreaking 1970s TV series “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” One of her co-stars – who portrayed bossman Lou Grant, and made his own mark in TV and movies thereafter – was Ed Asner. The actor appeared at “The Hollywood Show.”

CHICAGO – Say or sing “I’m so glad we had this time together…” and persons of a certain generation will immediately respond, “…just to have a laugh or sing a song.” The theme to the “The Carol Burnett Show” is indelibly etched in show business memory, and Time Life Video is taking advantage of those days with the DVD release of “The Carol Burnett Show: Carol’s Favorites.”

CHICAGO – After it made a relative fortune at the box office (its number six on the year in terms of domestic gross and has made more than $300 million worldwide), I was eager to revisit “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” on Blu-ray to se if I missed anything in my initial 2.5-star review. Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day. Nope. The movie just doesn’t hold up on a storytelling level and it’s even more deeply flawed on repeat viewing. It’s only entertaining to littlest ones in your family and even they would be better served by a reading of the great source material. A trio of mini-movies on the Blu-ray help make the package more enticing but can’t dismiss the film’s flaws.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” certainly isn’t an awful film by any stretch of the imagination. It features some solid voice work, a few lessons worth learning by the iGeneration, and some nifty visuals. It’s also pretty damn boring. Even the little ones at the family screening I attended seemed to lose interest in how this timeless story has been stretched to the demands of a modern family film. It just never quite connects in the way fans of this legendary character hope it would.

CHICAGO – The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards premiered tonight, celebrating the best acting performances of the year. The awards are voted on by the members of the Screen Actors Guild, (apparently) making the awards more meaningful to the winners as they were chosen by their peers.

CHICAGO – It stands to reason that Betty White’s latest sitcom is called “Hot in Cleveland.” The veteran “Golden Girl” has had a hot and unprecedented late career surge, augmented by the Facebook campaign that resulted in her hosting Saturday Night Live in 2010. She was in Chicago recently to promote her new book, “If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t).”

CHICAGO – It may be a sign of my age, but I get more joy out of seeing Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis acting again in the mediocre “You Again” than anything to do with the generation below them in the film (Kristin Bell, Odette Yustman), recently released on Blu-ray and DVD. The sitcomish movie in which they’re featured is well below their talents but just seeing Curtis and Weaver back in the spotlight provides enough joy to keep the proceedings from sliding too far down the scale.

CHICAGO – In our latest Blu-ray and DVD combo pack edition of the HollywoodChicago.com Hookup, we have 5 Blu-ray and DVD combo packs up for grabs to “You Again” with Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver and Betty White!