Cannes Film Festival

Superheroing! Audio Film Review of ‘Smoking Causes Coughing’

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.0/5.0
Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the newly released “Smoking Causes Coughing,” an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, and a ripe, necessary superhero genre parody. Currently in theaters, since March 31st.

Unsettling View of Evil in Lars von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built’

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – With director Lars von Trier, who is a mad f**king genius of a filmmaker, it’s always make or break (or both). He breaks in his latest, “The House That Jack Built” which is all too much of evil everything, until it morphs into a last act that has an intriguing and unsettling sense of weird purpose. The story of a serial killer and the meticulous realizations of his killings is like a sound meter that is constantly going into the red zone, until the damn thing shatters.

Benicio Del Toro is Never Better in Standout 2015 Thriller ‘Sicario’

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.0/5.0
Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Seeing the man behind the curtains in “The Wizard of Oz” really was when so many of us truly understood what “behind the scenes” means. Today, we’re fascinated by FBI and CIA stories because they grant us top-secret security clearance we’ll otherwise never have.

Cannes Winner ‘Reality’ From ‘Gomorrah’ Director Matteo Garrone

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.0/5.0
Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Matteo Garrone is a notable talent. His highly acclaimed 2008 film “Gomorrah” earned praise around the world and the follow-up, “Reality,” won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It’s a step down from his previous work as it’s less ambitious and doesn’t quite come together but it features enough interesting ideas about our fame-obsessed culture to see why it connected with the French fest jury.

‘Beyond the Hills’ Entraps Audience in Claustrophobic Nightmare

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – There is an excellent 90-minute film hidden somewhere within the two-and-a-half-hour ordeal that is Cristian Mungiu’s “Beyond the Hills.” It’s far from a bad film, and offers many sequences of entrancing power, but simply doesn’t have enough material to justify its sprawling running time. Instead of probing deeper, the picture merely becomes repetitive.

Meditative ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” opens with one of its most striking, memorable, and essential images. A buffalo stands in a forest at what appears to be dusk, as we can see him only in shadow. He moves slowly around a tree, almost ghostly, before escaping and running through a field and into a forest.

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  • YippieFest 2023

    CHICAGOYIPPIE! 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.

  • Trade Federation, Otherworld Theatre

    CHICAGO – Theatrical satires of the Star Wars Universe are like the number of TV series the universe has wrought … too many to figure out if anything is worthwhile. But “Trade Federation” (subtitled “Or Let’s Explore Globalization Through the Star Wars Prequels”), presented by Otherworld Theatre in Wrigleyville Chicago, gets it right on.

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