HollywoodChicago.com Content

CHICAGO – In our latest action/comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 35 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance screening of the new film “Red” with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker!

CHICAGO – After realizing that “Human Target” was not going to be their next “24,” FOX has moved the program to Friday nights, starting November 17th, where it could easily reside as a guilty pleasure for years to come. The program is a throwback to the action series escapism of the 1980s but with modern production values that make it a very-enjoyable thrill ride in HD. It’s not going to win awards or change the TV landscape, but it works on its own terms.

CHICAGO – Judging purely the film itself, “Iron Man 2” is a disappointment, a reasonably-entertaining slice of superhero escapism that still falls a bit short of its predecessor and fails to capitalize on what worked about that film. But this is not solely a film review and the Blu-ray is a stunner; a perfectly-transferred film with excellent special features. It’s a complete package even if the film may not be.

CHICAGO – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…” So began the reading of Allen Ginsberg’s poem that rattled society, the very title of which is the inspiration for the new film, “Howl,” featuring James Franco, Jon Hamm and Mary Louise-Parker.

CHICAGO – “Every Child Left Behind” could be the subtitle of this stunning new documentary, “Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim, the helmsman of another major doc, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The other truth in this new film is that the American system of public schooling is bent and broken in many places, risking our very future.

Video Game Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Krome Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment knew that a video game tie-in for “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” was required and could have done the bare minimum, as so many releases for kid’s movies do.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – A film where a little girl screams as her foster parents attempt to brutally murder her can be a tough sell to theater owners. Perhaps that’s why Paramount’s “Case 39” with Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper has been sitting on studio shelves for years since it closed production in 2006. How do you market a film that chooses to turn the world of foster parenting into a horror thriller?

CHICAGO – Believing all remakes are pointless is as narrow-minded as suggesting that they’re all worthwhile. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Like a fantastic cover version of an amazing song, there can be room for more than one cinematic interpretation of the same story.

CHICAGO – The power of a single image is often far greater than any amount of written words. In a culture as visually over-saturated as our own, it’s so easy to take images for granted. Our days are too hectic, and our minds are too cluttered to view every piece of footage filtered down to us from the mainstream media with the same critical eye and healthy dose of skepticism.

CHICAGO – So many recent films have been called “masterpieces” by critics that the word doesn’t have the power that it once did. And yet there’s sometimes no better way to describe a film. David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake is a masterpiece.