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CHICAGO – It’s been awhile since the ultra-useful DVD Round-Up brought you a wave of recently released DVDs that slipped below the mainstream radar but we’re back with a very star-powered installment of your favorite column and you can now expect us to return with monthly editions.

CHICAGO – “The Lovely Bones,” which is directed by “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson with a relatively unknown executive producer credit from Steven Spielberg, has gone down in history as a poorly reviewed film that was based on a much better novel of the same name by Alice Sebold.

CHICAGO – Here’s a film that pulls off the tricky feat of moving quickly while taking its time. Like its rollerblading protagonist, “The Girl on the Train” is constantly on the move, hurtling headfirst into a series of interlocking relationships. Yet the director, André Téchiné, is less interested in his story’s destination than he is with the journey his characters take, and the various circumstances that lead them to make life-altering, often inexplicable choices.

CHICAGO – Just two weeks after the European Union Film Festival concluded at the Gene Siskel Film Center, another excellent international showcase of world cinema began in the Windy City. The 26th Chicago Latino Film Festival screens over 120 films during its two-week run, highlighting Latino filmmakers and cultures from Latin America, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

CHICAGO – “The Back-up Plan,” starring Jennifer Lopez, is spectacularly bad. Filled with leaden, supposedly comedic lines, stupid generalities and no basis in reality, this film ranks first in class for worst of 2010 so far.

CHICAGO – In our latest action/comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 15 admit-two run-of-engagement movie passes up for grabs to the new film “Kick-Ass”!

CHICAGO – HollywoodChicago.com is everywhere. Our accredited critics now comprehensively serve up to you daily film reviews, film interviews, TV reviews, DVD reviews, Blu-ray reviews, video game reviews, theater reviews, slideshows, top 10 lists and much more. Watch our new Google search story video below!

CHICAGO – And the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film goes to…”The Secret in Their Eyes,” Argentinian director Juan José Campanella’s complex, compelling and political treatise on facing the demons and ghosts of the past.

CHICAGO – The relationship between American families and their foreign maids is a subject that has been tackled in a variety of previous indie pictures, from Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel” to Todd Solondz’s “Storytelling.” Yet in “Mammoth,” the English-language debut from Swedish-born filmmaker Lukas Moodysson, the material is dealt with in a refreshingly humanistic way, devoid of sensationalism (the story concludes with neither deportation nor asphyxiation).

CHICAGO – In our latest documentary edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 admit-two run-of-engagement movie passes up for grabs to the new film “The Cartel” from filmmaker Bob Bowdon!