Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Hedwig And The Angry Inch Is A One-of-a-Kind Musical Treat

The early years of the 2000's saw the musical, a genre that had long been seen as over-the-hill, make a big mainstream comeback in American cinema thanks to Moulin Rouge! and especially Chicago, but woe to those who forget to also credit John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch for helping the musical get revived as a high-profile subgenre for the 21st century. Sure, Hedwig and the Angry Inch was a box office non-starter compared to the likes of Chicago, but the movie was awesome and it managed to garner the loyal following it deserved in the years after its initial theatrical release.


Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Death Wish Is An Ineptly Made As It's Lead Performance Is Dreadful

I can think of numerous ways you could remake Death Wish as an entertaining movie in 2018, but the actual Death Wish remake we got from director Eli Roth earlier this month is the complete opposite of the best way to approach remaking this 1974 action film. The premise for this new take on Death Wish is set in modern-day Chicago with Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) as a doctor who lives a happy life with his family consisting of wife Lucy (Elisabeth Shue) and a daughter, Jordan (Camila Morrone), who is about to head off to college. Paul's chef character flaw in the eyes of the movie is him being a sissy, as demonstrated by him not only refusing to beat up a foul-mouthed attendant at his daughter's soccer game but also letting his wife stand up for him in this argument. What a loser! 

Monday, May 22, 2017

Plenty Of Well-Done Musical Numbers Pop Up In Chicago, Though, Sadly, There's No Pizza

We've had plenty of "ladies-in-prison" movies in the history of cinema, to the point that it's become its own subgenre so ubiquitous it inspired a fake trailer on Grindhouse. Such a concept has endured so much that it's even eeked over into television with Orange Is The New Black being a hugely popular show for four years now. Despite the huge amount of content fixated on the idea of women getting into shenanigans in prison, I doubt any other piece of "ladies-in-prison" pop culture is quite like the 2002 Rob Marshall movie Chicago, which is based on a hugely popular and long-running Broadway musical of the same name.