Category: entertainment

What's wrong with Netflix's The Crown

I have a love-hate relationship with The Crown, the smash Netflix original drama that chronicles the life of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her family. One of the things that made the series such a sensation when it first aired was the concept of dramatizing the lives of very famous people who are still very... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
January 1, 2021 at 1:58 pm • 

My lifelong infatuation with "Hollywood" Harry is over

Prince Harry, my 35-year honeymoon with you is over. Next to the queen, you were this Anglophile’s favorite royal. I supported you when you went public with your private grief. I cheered you when you married for love. I even tentatively supported you when you and Meghan announced you were “stepping back” as senior British... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
October 2, 2020 at 3:20 pm • 

Olivia de Havilland, last Old Hollywood star, was much more than Melanie Wilkes

Olivia de Havilland, the last surviving star of Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1930s and ‘40s, passed away over the weekend at the age of 104. Most of the headlines went something like this one in the New York Times: “Olivia de Havilland, a Star of Gone With the Wind, Dies at 104” If your knowledge... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
July 28, 2020 at 12:54 pm • 
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Was pulling Woody Allen's memoir the right thing to do?

As a lawyer and journalist, I was troubled and disturbed when I read about the Hachette book publisher cancelling the publication of Woody Allen’s memoir. Hachette had been on the receiving end of a hailstorm of criticism from Mia Farrow’s son, reporter Ronan Farrow, and some of its own staff, who reportedly staged a walkout... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
March 8, 2020 at 2:25 pm • 

Loss of Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth leaves big literary shoes to fill

In the space of less than two weeks, we lost two giants in modern American literature. Both of the same generation, each groundbreaking and provocative in his own way, but at the same time very different in style and substance. Tom Wolfe, of course, was the dapper, eccentric Southern-gentleman author of such classics as The... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
May 23, 2018 at 10:23 pm • 

Tarantino's Manson movie invites more apprehension than anticipation

When I first read that director Quentin Tarantino was shooting a film centered around the 1969 Charles Manson murder rampage, I rolled my eyes. Why, Quentin, why? Tarantino, the former video store clerk turned directing genius, is one of my favorite filmmakers. But not only has this particular story been done to death (no pun... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
March 5, 2018 at 9:00 am • 
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Oscar of Yesteryear: Who Won and Who Should Have Won

<b>1998 Best Picture Winner: SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein (enough said about him) basically bought the Oscar for this Miramax production. Does anybody even remember this mediocre comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes? If they do it’s most likely for Judi Dench’s Oscar-winning but too-brief appearance as Queen Elizabeth I. Or for Paltrow in drag as a boy. </b>
Every time the Academy Awards roll around, I can’t help thinking about all the films, actors, and actresses who were more deserving of taking home the Oscar–in my humble opinion–than the ones who actually did. It seems the winners are often not chosen on merit, but on popularity and trendiness. A lot like the cool... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
February 26, 2018 at 8:00 am • 

This time, an American divorcee gets her prince and her royal title too

Monday’s announcement that Britain’s Prince Harry is engaged to American actress Meghan Markle was remarkable for a reason that seemed to receive relatively little attention. It’s not because the 36-year-old future Duchess of Sussex is American, three years older than Harry, or even because she’s biracial. (The reaction on the British tabloid comment boards Monday... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
November 29, 2017 at 4:17 pm • 

Freaks, Aliens & Things: Ten Must-See Classic Horror Films

“One of us, one of us…” This 1932 film about traveling circus “freaks” is just a little over 60 minutes long, but it’s one of the most profoundly disturbing films ever made. The ending alone makes the movie. The revenge exacted on the cruel and scheming female trapeze artist by the freaks will have you going, “But that can’t be right.”
It’s almost Halloween, my favorite holiday, which means horror movies, my favorite film genre. For years I’ve been reading other people’s top-horror-films-of-all-time lists, and been like, “How could they leave that movie out???” and “Poltergeist, really?” So back by popular demand (well not really, but it’s fun to say that), here are my Top Ten scarefests,... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
October 22, 2017 at 6:45 pm • 
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What new Fox Sports analyst Michael Vick really did

Fox Sports announced August 27 that it has hired former NFL quarterback Michael Vick as a studio analyst for its NFL Kickoff program that immediately precedes NFL Sunday on the Fox network. The news release announcing the hire was hilarious in the way it avoided the elephant in the room; namely, Vick’s 2007 felony conviction... Read more »
By Windy City Legal Geek,
September 5, 2017 at 12:43 pm •