Jon Bernthal

CHICAGO – “Fury” just might be Brad Pitt’s “Saving Private Ryan.” At its heart it’s a crowd pleaser, but it never shies away from the sheer brutality of war. While it doesn’t have anything quite so devastating as “Saving Private Ryan’s” D-day sequence, it depicts the everyday horrors of killing the enemy and the men who must force themselves to make their peace with the casualties that pile up in the muck. “Fury” is equally successful in its battle sequences and in its smaller moments among its crew inside the tank. Most surprisingly of all it coaxes a decent, dare I say good, performance out of none other than Shia LaBeouf – wonders never cease.

CHICAGO – No matter how painfully bad it may be, I never walk out of a screening. It’s a professional rule I’ve set and keep it at all costs. But with Martin Scorsese’s latest stroke of genius, I experienced a kind of pain I don’t usually wrangle with: the survival of my bladder.

CHICAGO – Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro – between them they have over 150 film credits in careers stretching back to the 1960s. Two of their most famous roles, boxers Rocky and the Raging Bull, get the full make-fun-of treatment in the Christmas Day Film “Grudge Match.”

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives completely, entirely in the moment. It’s not that there’s no tomorrow, there’s not even “later that same day” in his world.

CHICAGO – Highly anticipated! In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 50 pairs of advance-screening passes plus 3 soundtracks up for grabs for the highly anticipated new Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street” starring Leonardo DiCaprio!

CHICAGO – “Snitch” is so close to being a movie that works. Dwayne Johnson shows more dramatic range than he ever has before, Jon Bernthal proves he can be a strong supporting actor, and the film’s true story sheds interesting light on the stupidity of mandatory drug sentencing. Why then is “Snitch” so flat? It’s a film with good ideas and performances but none of the grit, dread, or danger needed for its crime saga to be effective.

CHICAGO – Dwayne Johnson doesn’t just want to be The Rock. And perhaps he is more after all. Despite his professional wrestling fame, “Snitch” is Johnson’s plea to be respected as a true, dramatic actor.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 40 pairs of movie passes up for grabs to the advance screening of “Snitch,” which is inspired by true events and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson!

CHICAGO – The second season of “The Walking Dead” displayed a few of the growing pains of a smash hit series both coming to terms with its own voice after a mini-first season and losing its high-profile showrunner in Frank Darabont. There were some tonal inconsistencies and some repetitive dialogue writing in the first half of the 13-episode season.

CHICAGO – The differences between the series premiere and the second-season premiere of AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” airing tonight on what has become the most critically-acclaimed network on basic cable, are striking. Frank Darabont brought an old-fashioned horror showman’s sensibility to the first episode, but that season had a different purpose.