Stephen Rea

CHICAGO – Admittedly, horror films are not my thing. I find them redundant, pandering and more reliant on gore rather than story. “Greta” is somewhat of a thriller horror film, about an older lady stalker preying on a younger New York City woman, but it had both a seen-it-before and unreliable plot.

CHICAGO – In our latest action/fantasy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 10 admit-two run-of-engagement anytime movie passes up for grabs to the new Kate Beckinsale vampire film “Underworld: Awakening”!

CHICAGO – There is a near-great movie opening this weekend that features a bad-ass, gun-toting chick who defeats any obstacle placed in her way. Despite what the advertising may have you believe, that movie is not “Underworld: Awakening”.

CHICAGO – I frankly can’t imagine how any moviegoer could favor Mateo Gil’s somber, low-key genre exercise, “Blackthorn,” over George Roy Hill’s marvelously entertaining 1969 classic, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Sure, Western buffs have often criticized Hill’s film for romanticizing its subject matter, yet there was a dark edge and tragic poignance in William Goldman’s script that earned the film its shattering ending.

CHICAGO – In our latest western edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “Blackthorn” starring Sam Shepard as the legendary Butch Cassidy!

CHICAGO – One of the defining thematic elements in a Neil Jordan picture is a central relationships built upon a giant question mark, whether it be between a call girl and her chauffeur (“Mona Lisa”), an IRA volunteer and a seductive hairdresser (“The Crying Game”), or in this case, a fisherman and the woman he catches in his net.