Emile Hirsch

CHICAGO – “The Darkest Hour,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, may seem like a fun sci-fi action option for movie night. It is not. There’s nothing fun about this horrifically made film, easily one of the worst of 2011. It’s stunningly bad, almost as if it was made by college students. Otherwise talented actors get sucked into awful performances (both male leads have never given less genuine performances), the special effects are horrible, and there’s never even the slightest flicker of anything worth giving a damn about.

CHICAGO – Ang Lee’s take on the landmark music festival isn’t a film so much as a filmed idea. It aims to capture the atmosphere of the concert without ever showing the actual music. Of course, the real show was the crowd itself.

CHICAGO – More about the vibe surrounding the three days of peace and love that would become the most influential festival in history than the actual music itself, Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” is a frustrating drama with individual elements that work but a cinematic set list that is ultimately disjointed and unsatisfying.

CHICAGO – In our latest trippy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated Chicago screening of “Taking Woodstock” from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain” and “Sense and Sensibility”).

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – With the help of Dustin Lance Black’s Oscar-winning screenplay, Sean Penn’s Oscar-winning performance, Josh Brolin’s Oscar-nominated performance, James Franco’s Spirit Award-winning performance and Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-nominated direction, Harvey Milk has been brought back from the dead.

CHICAGO – Just as Tom Hanks put a face to AIDS in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” Sean Penn has now put a face to gay rights as Harvey Milk in the new Gus Van Sant true-story film “Milk”.

CHICAGO – While Hollywood slapped “PG” on the hotly anticipated “Speed Racer” to line its pocketbooks with the widest hodgepodge of people (ahem: kids) everywhere, those same kids will leave the theater with that lollipop nearly sucked to the stick but then yanked away with confusion.

On Dec. 14, we posted the new lenticular “Speed Racer” poster as captured by a camera phone.

Following our Dec. 11 post, which featured a slew of new production stills from 2008 Warner Bros. films, even more have just been released by the studio.

Warner Bros. on Monday released the mother lode of new production stills for films slated for release between Jan. 2008 and Dec. 2008. These are our top selections from the batch.