Open Road Films

CHICAGO – Seeing so many films on a daily basis, you would think that I would grow tired of them. I don’t. Instead, I begin to notice the same formulas in films, like the one in “Home Again”. Unfortunately for “Home Again” you’ll spend most of the film wondering just how much longer before you can be the same.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the Sundance Film Festival hit “Dope” from producer Forest Whitaker and executive producer Pharrell Williams!

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 40 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the new war dramedy “Little Boy” starring Kevin James, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson and introducing Jakob Salvati as the little boy!

CHICAGO – If you’re going to see a Sean Penn action movie, I guess “The Gunman” would be appropriate. As he and the filmmakers inject some reality in the usual motivations, the puzzle pieces don’t connect well and in the end are not that interesting. That is not to say that the film is bad.

CHICAGO – There were basically two careers for Pierre Morel, before he directed the mega-hit “Taken,” starring Liam Neeson, and afterward. The French-born cinematographer, camera operator and now director is releasing “The Gunman,” an action film that stars Sean Penn. Like “Taken,” the motivations for the action are based in the real world, and “The Gunman” travels to Africa, London and Barcelona on his way to redeeming his soul.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 35 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the new drama “Rosewater” from writer and director Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show”!

CHICAGO – “No one talks like that,” I kept thinking to myself about this noir thriller. But that said, “Nightcrawler” is driven by just about the most entertaining dialogue from one person I’ve seen all year.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 35 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated thriller “Nightcrawler” starring Jake Gyllenhaal!

CHICAGO – By the time of his 2011 box office blitzkrieg otherwise known as “Cowboys & Aliens,” the product that indie director-turned-Hollywood habitue Jon Favreau had been hocking as a “popcorn salesman” had gone stale – to use a showbiz term from Nicholas Ray’s” In A Lonely Place”.

CHICAGO – It feels like when any studio besides Walt Disney or Pixar does an animated film with celebrity voices, there is a little less lacquer on it. What the other two remember, and others forget, is that it starts with a script. All the toon landscapes in the world can’t fix a dull story.