Jessica Alba

CHICAGO – If this fourth “Spy Kids” installment proves anything at all, it’s that time has clearly run out on the franchise. While the original film was playfully inventive and preached resonant messages about family unity and the importance of teamwork, the series has followed the usual pattern of diminishing returns. After an eight-year hiatus, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez tried and failed to reboot the franchise with this soulless retread.

CHICAGO – It’s fun espionage time at the movies this week, as “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D” introduces some new young adventurers to the popular series, Mason Cook and Rowan Blanchard. Former kid Alexa Vega also appears in the film.

CHICAGO – “Little Fockers” would have been high on my “Worst of 2010” list if I had written one or suffered through it in theaters. It’s an awful disaster of a movie, completely devoid of laughs and downright embarrassing for everyone involved, including some incredibly talented actors. There should be some sort of atonement or movie prison for forcing this junk on families at the holiday season. It’s like getting coal for Christmas. Actually, it’s worse than coal.

CHICAGO – In our latest comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: DVD, we have 10 DVDs up for grabs in advance of the home entertainment release of the highly anticipated new DVD “Little Fockers” with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro!

CHICAGO – “Machete” may be one of the most wonderfully-conceived films of 2010. The idea that one of the fake trailers from “Grindhouse” could ever become a full-length film is a movie lover’s dream come true (and it’s so ironic that “Machete” grossed more domestically than the movie that spawned it). While I love the very existence of “Machete,” the movie itself is something of a disappointment, and it’s not helped by a mediocre Blu-ray that barely has any special features.

CHICAGO – The Law of Diminishing Returns is alive and well in the “Meet the Parents” Franchise, as the third film in the series, “Little Fockers,” has a lazy, we-did-it-for-the-money veneer. They got the gang back together, Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Barbra Streisand and the rest, but with few exceptions they all seem bored with it all.

CHICAGO – In our latest comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of the new film “Little Fockers” with Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Jessica Alba, Dustin Hoffman and Owen Wilson!

CHICAGO – Michael Winterbottom’s “The Killer Inside Me” provoked such a strong response after its Sundance Film Festival premiere that the auteur behind “A Mighty Heart,” “9 Songs,” and “24 Hour Party People” was shunned by a crowd that typically embraces challenging films. What turned them? Check out Winterbottom’s daring film with Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, and Simon Baker, now on Blu-ray and DVD.

CHICAGO – Not everything should be filet mignon. Sometimes you just want a greasy, delicious cheeseburger. Now imagine eating ten of those cheeseburgers in a row.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Michael Winterbottom’s ’50s-era neo-noir “The Killer Inside Me” creeps up on you in the creepiest possible way. Just as I was ready to write it off, I ended up caving in to its charms, or lack thereof. This film often seems as utterly cuckoo as its central antihero, and that’s what makes it so darn mesmerizing. Sure, it’s sort of a mess, but boy is it engrossing, with a strong emphasis on the gross.