Road Trip

CHICAGO – The Midwest Film Festival of Chicago is on the road this weekend and heading north to Milwaukee to screen writer/director Brittani Ward’s award-winning “Single Car Crashes” at the historic Oriental Theatre on May 11, 2024 (11am). For details and tickets for this road show event, click MFF ROAD TRIP.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the new “hard-R-rated” comedy “Joy Ride,” featuring Stephanie Park (“Emily in Paris”) and the recently Oscar nominated Stephanie Hsu of Best Picture “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” In theaters on Friday July 7th.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on July 14th, reviewing “Don’t Make Me Go,” a road trip picture shared by a father and daughter, streaming on Prime Video beginning July 15th.

CHICAGO – Exceptional films that reflect honest relationships are rare, but the latest film “Don’t Make Me Go” – streaming on Prime Video on July 15th – accomplishes the father/daughter dynamic with authentic situations and emotions. John Cho and Mia Isaac portray that relationship, in a film directed by Hannah Marks.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review on “C’mon C’mon,” a departure for intense actor Joaquin Phoenix as a befuddled Uncle, directed by Mike Mills of the Oscar-winning “Beginners,” and in theaters beginning November 19th, 2021.

CHICAGO – Combining an intimate, personal story with a superstar cast, writer/director Shana Feste realized a semi-autobiographical journey in her new film “Boundaries.” The cast includes Oscar winners Christopher Plummer and Vera Farmiga, as well as Lewis MacDougall (“A Monster Calls”), Kristen Schaal, Bobby Cannavale, Christopher Lloyd AND Peter Fonda in a road trip picture that reunites ne’er do well Dad Jack (Plummer) with his desperate-to-connect-with-him daughter Laura (Farmiga).

CHICAGO – The cache of “Paris Can Wait” is what immediately makes it attractive. It’s Diane Lane road tripping through France on the way to Paris, guided by the script and direction of Eleanor Coppola, in her narrative film debut (at age 80!). Along the way there is food, seduction, incredible sights and Alec Baldwin. That formula was destined to work.

CHICAGO – In what could be subtitled, “The Challenge of American Accents,” the new release “Arthur Newman” has a laugh-inducing U.S. inflection face-off between Brits Colin Firth and Emily Blunt. Amid that obstacle, there is a lame road picture that emotionally is false, and makes no sense.

CHICAGO – There has to be something wrong with a movie that by the end, the thought is ‘how did they get a parking spot in San Francisco?’ and ‘how much does that house cost?’ “The Guilt Trip,” with Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, is a dispirited exercise in wasted potential.

CHICAGO – The stars of the new TNT legal comedy “Franklin and Bash,” Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer, have been playing the PR game long enough that they’re completely comfortable sitting in front of a reporter and just being themselves. When I walked in on them at the Four Seasons in Chicago, they were both on their smart phones laughing and tweeting. It seemed a natural place to start.