HollywoodChicago.com Content

CHICAGO – The legendary Martin Landau was recently in Chicago with two films in special presentation at The 45th Annual Chicago International Film Festival - the classic “North by Northwest,” also releasing on Blu-Ray tomorrow, November 3rd, 2009, and the new drama “Lovely, Still,” co-starring Ellen Burstyn.

CHICAGO – Though graphic novels may read like great movie storyboards, they often fail to translate into compelling cinema. From “Sin City” to “Watchmen,” filmmakers have tried replicating graphic art with a reverence more suffocating than exhilarating. Images that reverberated with power on the page become coldly calculated on the big screen. No matter how tightly structured a film may be, it must give viewers the illusion of spontaneity. And there’s nothing more tiresome than a horror film in which all the scares feel telegraphed.

CHICAGO – Have you ever liked a movie so much that you’re willing to play through a sub-par video game tie-in just to spend more time in its universe? As I played through the adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are” in only two marathon sittings, I realized that the reason I couldn’t turn it off had a lot more to do with Spike Jonze’s incredible film and really nothing to do with this inferior game.

CHICAGO – Halloween is the perfect time to revisit those horror films of youth, lost in the mall theaters or crackling through the VCR in a multiply rented copy. “The House of the Devil” reveres those roots and brings them back to light.

CHICAGO – Many editions of the DVD Round-Up have featured a different genre and focus for each title within it. This week seems a little more thematically linked as we have a trio of foreign horror films and a few more independent films than usual. Of course, there has to a holiday comedy to spice things up.

CHICAGO – In our latest horror edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “The House of the Devil”!

CHICAGO – FX may have finally found a partner for the great “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” in the just-as-raunchy “The League,” a show that’s basically about how guys like to give each other sh*t.

CHICAGO – “Left Bank” centers on` a woman whose apartment appears to be above a black hole, or a pit or something dark and deep like that. The Belgian horror outing (which has gone straight to DVD in the United States after playing in Chicago at the EU Film Fest) isn’t nearly as dumb as that synopsis makes it out to be, but in the end, that’s actually more of criticism than a compliment.

CHICAGO – “Twilight” fans will get the chance to meet the cast when they go on a 15-city tour this November. The tour kicks off in Los Angeles, CA at the Hollywood & Highland Center on November 6, where fans will be treated to a performance by several bands featured on the “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” soundtrack.

CHICAGO – Timed to coincide with the 70th Anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz” and its accompanying Blu-Ray collector’s set, the world created by Frank L. Baum is getting its own Nintendo DS role-playing game. Sort of. “Beyond the Yellow Brick Road” uses elements of both what we know and love about Oz and what gamers enjoy about RPGs to make an odd hybrid that could appeal to both genre newcomers and diehard fans.