Nick Offerman

CHICAGO – Family 4-packs! In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 20 family 4-packs (80 seats in total) up for grabs to the highly anticipated animated comedy “The LEGO Movie” starring Chris Pratt!

CHICAGO – On Tuesday, December 3rd, the Midwest Independent Film Festival will award their “Best of the Midwest” honors with a ceremony at The Underground Nightclub in Chicago. The evening will be hosted by Festival Director Mike McNamara, and nominees include “The Kings of Summer,” directed by Justin Vogt-Roberts, “Sole Survivor,” directed by Ky Dickens and “Be Good,” directed by Todd Looby.

CHICAGO – Diablo Cody’s directorial debut, “Paradise,” now available everywhere On Demand and released this Friday in some markets theatrically, is an unmitigated disaster. It’s the most tonally inconsistent film of 2013, a flick that fluctuates wildly from broad satire to manipulative drama to something altogether indescribably bad.

CHICAGO – One the most familiar movie clichés is the sonorous voice that intones “In a world…” to begin a movie trailer, and then extols the virtues of that upcoming feature. Lake Bell, who wrote, directed and stars in the new movie, “In a World…,’ creates a delightful and gentle satire of voiceover artists and their journeys.

CHICAGO – Lake Bell is a recognizable and successful character actress, having prominence in television (“Boston Legal”) and films (“It’s Complicated”). For her latest film, she wrote, directed and starred in a gentle parody of the voiceover profession, especially the intoned voices that narrate movie trailers, “In a World…”

CHICAGO – There was a point in “We’re the Millers” when the story fell off the table like a Slinky from a mountaintop. It’s as if other writers took over from a far superior dark comedy, and injected “heart” and middle age “stripping.” This all adds up to a difficult 110 minutes of lost life time.

CHICAGO – The 2013 Emmy nominations were announced this morning, leading to the natural hand-wringing and chest-beating over who missed the cut. Before we get to the most egregious snubs of the year, a few places where the Academy unexpectedly, happily got it right:

CHICAGO – Real summer movies shouldn’t be about superheroes or overwrought science fiction, it should be about long days working that trigger in the animal soul that awakens a sun-warmed spirit. Writer Chris Galletta and Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts crown “The Kings of Summer.”

CHICAGO – With Memorial Day behind us, thoughts return to the beginning of summer. Writer Chris Galletta and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts have created a coming-of-age film about that particular seasonal ritual, featuring young actors Moises Arias, Nick Robinson and Gabriel Basso as “The Kings of Summer.”

CHICAGO – Sundance hit! In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 40 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the Sundance hit “The Kings of Summer,” which was handpicked for 2013’s first-annual Chicago Critics Film Festival!