HollywoodChicago.com Content

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “They’re all around us. Ghosts. They’re everywhere.” People don’t talk like that. Especially kids. Especially not after a major revelation about their dad. It just doesn’t feel real. And that’s the problem with “Night Catches Us,” a well-intentioned drama with strong performances that somehow can’t find the realism at the heart of its story. Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington nearly rescue the piece but it just doesn’t come together into anything memorable enough to recommend.

CHICAGO – Magical nannies, dancing animals, great gusts of wind, lyrical life lessons and cute kids in need of a father. You don’t need to be practically perfect in every way in order to find these ingredients a trifle familiar. Robert Stevenson’s 1964 masterpiece “Mary Poppins” used these elements better than anyone has before or since, resulting in what is unquestionably the best live-action Disney film ever made.

CHICAGO – The children’s fantasy drama is a hot commodity in the current age of computer generated images.

CHICAGO – The coming-of-age film has evolved over the years, from Andy Hardy to “Splendor in the Grass” to “The Graduate,” up through “American Pie.” Filmmaker Lena Dunham offers her own post-collegiate transition narrative, in the archly realistic and perversely funny “Tiny Furniture.”

CHICAGO – As more and more homes become HD-enabled, the Blu-ray market has finally started to expand to the point that it’s getting difficult to narrow a list of the best releases down to only ten. But that’s what we’re here for — to do the difficult jobs. These are the ten best Blu-rays of 2010.

CHICAGO – With “Shrek Forever After” also being billed as “Shrek: The Final Chapter” and being pitched as the final film in the “Shrek” franchise, it only makes sense that DreamWorks has put together a lavish box set of this billion-dollar franchise that captures the entire saga of Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, and the rest of the lovable creatures of arguably the most influential series of films of the last decade.

CHICAGO – They just don’t make movies like “Videodrome” all that often. Well, there just aren’t that many filmmakers like David Cronenberg out there, especially not those working in the psycho-sexual milieu that typified the work from the first half of his career. Arguably the best film from the early period of one of our best filmmakers, “Videodrome” has been granted the Blu-ray treatment from The Criterion Collection.

CHICAGO – The duality of “Playboy” reflects the duality of the man who created it. On one hand, the magazine notoriously fetishizes female sexuality with all the airbrushed idealism of a horny adolescent. On the other hand, it’s a reputable publication of great sociopolitical depth, with a history of voicing unpopular views at the times they were most needed.

CHICAGO – NBC’s “Community” continues to climb the charts of what must be considered the most creative programs on television with a brilliant Christmas episode tonight inspired by the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated classics like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman.”

CHICAGO – In our latest boxing edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 30 admit-two advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to “The Fighter” with Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg!