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Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ With Brad Pitt Lives Up to...
Rating: 4.5/5.0CHICAGO– What truly distinguishes Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” from the cookie-cutter marketplace also makes its impact incredibly difficult to put into words. It’s a film...
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‘Megamind’ With Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt Barely Wins Animated Fight
Rating: 3.0/5.0CHICAGO– Being a super-villain is apparently going out of style as “Megamind” follows relatively quickly on the heels of “Despicable Me” and both tell the story of a bad guy realizing...
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Terrence Malick’s Captivating Meditation on ‘The Tree of Life’
Rating: 5.0/5.0CHICAGO– I’ve seen Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” twice now and I still struggle with how to put my reaction to it into words. The film almost defies typical critical discussion with...
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‘The Big Uneasy’ Unleashes Maddening Flood of Vital Information
Rating: 3.0/5.0CHICAGO– Some of the best documentaries are spawned directly from the raw outage of a filmmaker intent on sharing vital truths with the unenlightened public. Every frame is fraught with...
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Brad Pitt, Baseball Evolve in Magnificent ‘Moneyball’
Rating: 5.0/5.0CHICAGO– Using sports, especially baseball, as a metaphor for life can get dicey – sometimes the symbolic pieces don’t fit universally for everything. But “Moneyball, ” starring Brad...
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Fate Doesn’t Fail Them Now in ‘Happy Feet Two’
Rating: 3.5/5.0CHICAGO– Dancing animated penguins, a tradition dating back to Disney’s “Mary Poppins” and brought to further life in the first “Happy Feet” movie, finds more stepping pep in “Happy Feet...
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Metaphor is Message in Violent ‘Killing Them Softly’
Rating: 4.0/5.0CHICAGO– If there ever was an industry that deserved a good metaphor bashing, it would be the financial sector. “Killing Them Softly” does a hit-over-the-head with the symbolism, but at...
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‘World War Z’ Reminder of 1950s Apocalyptic Films
Rating: 3.5/5.0CHICAGO– Earnest family man, check. Somber, ineffective bureaucrats, check. Monsters in nature created through mankind’s hubris, check. Unintentional laughs, check and checkmate. That...
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Relentless Artistry of ‘12 Years a Slave’
Rating: 4.0/5.0CHICAGO– A man is chained to the floor in a dark, barren room. He has been ripped from his family and his freedom, and we watch as he’s whipped with amazing brutality. It goes on well...
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‘The Counselor’ Disguises Lackluster Storytelling in Philosophy
Rating: 2.0/5.0CHICAGO– “That’s not what greed does; that’s what greed is.” Cormac McCarthy’s script for “The Counselor” is so weighed down with allegedly insightful philosophy like this that it...
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World War II Drama ‘Fury’ Fires on All Cylinders
Rating: 4.5/5.0CHICAGO– “Fury” just might be Brad Pitt’s “Saving Private Ryan.” At its heart it’s a crowd pleaser, but it never shies away from the sheer brutality of war. While it doesn’t have...
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Exposé of ‘The Big Short’ is an American Masterwork
Rating: 5.0/5.0CHICAGO– 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...
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‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is a Cinematic Poem
Rating: 4.0/5.0CHICAGO– What does Quentin Tarantino think about? That question immediately comes to mind when experiencing his latest film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” QT meditates on TV westerns,...
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Shirts Off for Tatum! On-Air Film Review of ‘The Lost City’
Rating: 2.0/5.0CHICAGO– Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 24th, reviewing “The Lost City,” featuring...
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Need for Speed on Track! On-Air Film Review of ‘Bullet Train’
Rating: 3.5/5.0CHICAGO– Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on August 4th, reviewing “Bullet Train,” featuring Brad...
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Living La Vida Hollywood! On-Air Film Review of ‘Babylon’
Rating: 4.0/5.0CHICAGO– Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on December 22nd, 2022, reviewing “Babylon” a new film...
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