Scott Z. Burns

CHICAGO – January 2012 is Steven Soderbergh month. The man’s newest film, “Haywire,” opens in theaters on January 20th (and we’ll have a review up shortly before it opens) while Criterion is upgrading his Oscar-winning “Traffic” to Blu-ray and re-releasing their DVD edition on the 17th of the month (you can, of course, also expect a review of that to run soon). The first wave of the Soderbergh trifecta is the Blu-ray and DVD release of “Contagion,” another expertly-made piece of filmmaking from a man who seems to know how to do nothing less.

CHICAGO – A few weeks ago saw the release of the R-rated “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” a gore-free creature feature that was given the MPAA stamp of 17-plus due to “pervasive scariness.” This week sees the PG-13-rated “Contagion,” a film SO much more pervasively scary than the movie about goblins in a distant mansion because, well, it’s about the fact that the world is pervasively scary.

CHICAGO – In our latest special edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two advance-screening movie passes plus three grand prize packs up for grabs to the highly anticipated new film “Contagion” with Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Jude Law!

CHICAGO – Chicago is keeping Hollywood busy. Along with recent filming in the Windy City for Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma,” “Transformers 3” and FOX’s “Ride-Along” from the creator of “The Shield,” HollywoodChicago.com has just learned that Steven Soderbergh’s new film “Contagion” will be filming in Chicago and holding a local casting call here later this month.