Leslie Mann

CHICAGO – Cooper Raiff was ready for his close-up. His improbable journey to filmmaker, aided in part by a random tweet to Jay Duplass, came to fruition with the success at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival with “Cha Cha Real Smooth.” The film streams on Apple TV+ beginning June 17th, 2022.

CHICAGO – The lines were out the door, the buzz was in the air and the Opening Night film of the 9th Chicago Critics Film Festival (CCFF) was “Cha Cha Real Smooth.” The Fest continues through May 19th, click CCFF for schedule and ticket info.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on November 26th, 2020, reviewing the new animated sequel “The Croods: A New Age,” featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Peter Dinklage.

CHICAGO – Another member of the notable Pritzker family has been making a name, in this instance the film business. Gigi Pritzker is a veteran producer who has guided films like “Drive,” “The Way Way Back” and “Hell or High Water.” She walked the Red Carpet on Opening Night (October 16th, 2019) of the 55th Chicago International Film Festival for her new film as producer, “Motherless Brooklyn.”

CHICAGO – The 55th Chicago International Film Festival Opening Night presents one of the most anticipated films of the Fall awards season. “Motherless Brooklyn” is adapted for the screen (from a novel), directed by and features actor Edward Norton. The rest of the powerhouse cast includes Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale and Leslie Mann.

CHICAGO – Comedy is purely subjective, and the new film ‘Blockers’ sets out to prove it, by expectorating joke after joke in all categories of sophistication. Physical pratfalls, witty asides, gross-out, sex, nudity, drugs, surrealism and more are all on the humor buffet, so pick, choose and laugh, as they pile it on.

CHICAGO – Mention this possibility…Robert De Niro portrays an aging stand-up comic who once had a popular sitcom in the 1980s…and 99% of filmgoers are in. Add that he beds a woman 25 years his junior, does community service, roasts Cloris Leachman and becomes a reality show host, and suddenly 80% of that 99 are out. That’s just part of the over-extension and dread in “The Comedian.”

CHICAGO – Rebel Wilson’s raunchy and vulgar schtick is now way past its freshness date, but she’s the only one able to elicit any chuckles in this otherwise woebegone women-behaving-badly, anti-romantic comedy, “How to Be Single.”

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 20 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the new romantic comedy “How to Be Single”!

CHICAGO – Retreads from classics are often as weary as having to write that they are almost never as good as the original. And here we go again with the Ed Helms-led “Vacation,” which fails to capitalize on the beloved Chevy Chase film “National Lampoon’s Vacation” from 1983.