Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

CHICAGO – In our latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 60 pairs of movie passes plus 10 grand-prize DVDs up for grabs for the advance screening of the new film “October Baby” starring Rachel Hendrix, Jason Burkey and John Schneider!

CHICAGO – “Act of Valor” is a woeful miscalculation on every conceivable level. To call it a movie would be inaccurate. You know those slickly photographed, stupendously smug army recruitment videos that often appear in pre-show movie theater ads? Imagine one of those videos stretched to two hours and passed off as entertainment. It’s like a Michael Bay knockoff without the aliens.

CHICAGO – McG’s “This Means War” could’ve been an interesting comedy if it had actually been about the undeniable love between its two male leads. Not since Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday” has a film so blatantly portrayed the homoerotic tendencies within close male friendships. Yet by denying its own subtext, the film is ultimately as clueless and insufferable as its one-note characters.

CHICAGO – Franchise-churning Hollywood has become so desperate to launch a bankable series every month that it’s now resigned to scouring the past for material, from oft-told faerie tales and outdated fantasy novels to familiar mythological figures. The premise of “Immortals” sounds like the spawn of an especially cynical business deal (“It’s Greek myths meets ‘300!’”), and results in a picture as dull and forgettable as the “Clash of the Titans” remake.

CHICAGO – During last year’s groundswell of Occupy protests, several films and television shows attempted to exploit the class divide for the purposes of entertainment. Only ABC’s irresistible soaper, “Revenge,” fared equally well with critics and audiences, who embraced it as a guiltily pleasurable fantasy in which the rich are brought to justice. Too bad that premise is so rarely a reality.

CHICAGO – I have a sneaking suspicion that if The Weinstein Company had acquired this film and released it during the 2011 awards season, Rachel Weisz would currently be an Oscar nominee. After playing an assortment of vulnerable, photogenic damsels throughout her career, Weisz delivers her most potent and compelling work to date in Larysa Kondracki’s fact-based thriller.

CHICAGO – Poor George Zinavoy. He’s been cursed with striking good looks, remarkable artistic talent, a dedicated mentor and a gorgeous woman who clearly desires to have sex with him. Thankfully, nothing appears to have gotten in the way of his stubborn pessimism, comfortable apathy and belief in the meaningless of existence. How can George be expected to care about his homework when he’s too busy contemplating his mortality?

CHICAGO – Norman Jewison’s 1971 adaptation of the Broadway smash “Fiddler on the Roof” offers a textbook example of the best possible way to make a musical for the big screen. It came out at a time when movie musicals were quickly becoming a dying art form, and yet Jewison somehow managed to avoid all the mistakes that marred so many other filmmakers.

CHICAGO – While Alex Gibney’s enraging 2010 documentary “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” brought cinematic immortality to the life of recently imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, George Hickenlooper’s narrative re-telling transforms the cinema-obsessed criminal into the larger-than-life movie hero of his dreams. I have a sneaking suspicion that Abramoff may love this picture.

CHICAGO – There’s no good way to discuss “Wild Target,” except in hushed tones and somber expulsions of regret. It’s a crime comedy that steals ninety-eight minutes of your life without delivering a single decent laugh. How could Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint, Martin Freeman and Eileen Atkins possibly have been attracted to this material, other than by force?