Viola Davis

CHICAGO – The young adult horror/romance genre is running out of themes, could somebody please come up with a hunky Frankenstein monster? “Beautiful Creatures” uses witches as it’s premise, and features newcomers Alice Englert and Aiden Ehrenreich as the spell-crossed lovers.

CHICAGO – The peculiar genre of young adult supernatural fiction has produced collections that define popularity. The new film “Beautiful Creatures” is the latest adaptation that feature young lovers among the mystic spells. Newcomers Alice Englert and Aiden Ehrenreich portray that couple.

CHICAGO – If a film were meant to be judged purely on the basis of its final shot, then Daniel Barnz’s “Won’t Back Down” would be an unqualified success. The image of a little girl finally learning to pronounce the word “hope” could’ve easily been a cheesy contrivance straight out of a Feldco commercial. Even on paper, the shot sounds downright silly.

CHICAGO – Consummate – in both performance style and manner – is a perfect descriptive for actor Viola Davis. The Oscar nominee for “Doubt” and “The Help” is in the hottest period of her career right now, and the Chicago International Film Festival honored her on October 22nd with their Career Achievement Award at the Black Perspectives Tribute.

CHICAGO – There is an interesting trend in the financing of films, actual partisan organizations are fostering their points-of-view through the movies. This is nothing new in documentaries, but now it appears in a fictional film called “Won’t Back Down,” featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 50 pairs of movie passes up for grabs to the advance screening of the new drama “Won’t Back Down” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis!

CHICAGO – The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards premiered tonight, celebrating the best acting performances of the year. The awards are voted on by the members of the Screen Actors Guild, (apparently) making the awards more meaningful to the winners as they were chosen by their peers.

CHICAGO – The September 11th tragedy is still percolating through the cinematic filter, and there is a well intentioned thread throughout the various interpretations.

CHICAGO – The 17th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards played out last night, and the big winning films of the night were “The Artist” and “The Help.” Winning Best Picture and Best Director, “The Artist” placed itself into the category of serious contender for this year’s Academy Awards, while “The Help” won Best Actress (Viola Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), and Best Ensemble Cast.

CHICAGO – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated new film “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” starring Tom Hanks!