Super-Sized Action
This week's new action movies leave reality in the rear view and charge ahead towards larger than life characters, an insane amount of bullets, and explosions, explosions, explosions.
Featuring the trademark excess of directors Neveldine & Taylor, the futuristic Gamer pits as convicts against one another in a Death Race-style contest to win their freedom... but in this world, an eccentric businessman (Michael C. Hall) has developed a way for people to go online and control the game's players in a real-life first person shooter. Made famous by his success in the game Gerard Butler is about to win his freedom, and the kid at the controls (Logan Lerman) has become an internet star, but the people in control are willing to do anything to make sure the game can't be beaten. Now the players have to step outside the game, take the stylized ultra-violence beyond the rules, and smash the system that wants to make playthings of the human race. On DVD and Blu Ray.
A prequel to the madness of Smokin Aces, Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin's Ball sets up another contract-for-hire free for all, where an FBI agent (Clayne Crawford) is charged with protecting Tom Berenger, a mid level office worker at the Bureau who has an inexplicable open-ended contract out on his life. The contract brings out every assassin and psycho in the world, and the FBI has to play defense against a master of disguise (Tommy Flanagan), a femme fatale poison master (Martha Higareda), a surgeon with a fetish for power tools (Vinnie Jones), and many others. All hired by a mysterious mastermind with shadowy motives, the assassins are sent into a chaotic battle royale to claim their bounty.
Life and Laughs
Writer/actor Ricky Gervais lives in a world where everyone tells the absolute truth in The Invention of Lying, which means Jennifer Garner tells him directly that he's too fat, and not the kind of guy she'd want to be with. Then he does something no one's ever done before: he tells a lie. Since no one has ever heard a lie before, everyone accepts whatever he says as absolute truth, and suddenly he's successful, famous, and more influential than his chief rival (Rob Lowe)... but the power of making anything he says true becomes a mixed blessing, as he accidentally becomes a prophet, and making the film a mix of romantic comedy, social satire, and religious farce.
"Exiled" by her mother (Melissa Leo), Hilary Duff is a troubled 17-year-old in According to Greta. Sent to live with her grandparents, she's working on a list of suicide methods and plans to kill herself before she turns 18. Over the summer, as she becomes closer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) and meets her first summer romance (Evan Ross), she slowly starts to rethink her future, and focus more on life than death.
A Palestinian mother and son move into the Chicago suburbs but have trouble reaching the American dream in Amreeka. Though she used to be a banker, the only job the mother can find is at White Castle, and her son has to deal with anti-Arab sentiments at school, but with a little help from friends and family, they might find happiness in their new home.
Suspense
Emerging from suspended animation, Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster wake up to a mostly empty ship in the sci-fi Pandorum. Remembering they're on a 60,000 passenger ship headed to a new Earth-type planet, they slowly get their senses back, but they can't find any other crew, there's no communication throughout the ship, and the bridge is locked. 
When one of them stays to get to the ship's controls and the other adventures into the ship to keep the life support online, they both discover what's been happening during their hibernation, and that they are not alone. On DVD and Blu-Ray.
When one of them stays to get to the ship's controls and the other adventures into the ship to keep the life support online, they both discover what's been happening during their hibernation, and that they are not alone. On DVD and Blu-Ray. Set in the isolation of a research station in Antarctica, Kate Beckinsale is a federal marshal with little to do but wait out the last two days left in her two year assignment in Whiteout. The first murder in the station's history changes everything: without knowing who to trust, and with the sudden arrival of a UN investigator (Gabriel Macht), she has to solve a murder where the motive is obscured, the stakes are unknown, and the murderer must be one of her crew.
A brother and sister reunite to visit their dying father in the Argentinean The Appeared, but when they discover a diary, they face a shocking family truth. When they witness a family murdered before them in the exact manned described in the diary, the vision could be from the past, current reality, or fallout from the grisly reign of the country's military dictatorship
The two non-fiction movies this week include Kirby Dick's documentary Outrage, which focuses on the anti-gay politicians and crusaders that secretly live the same lifestyle they campaign against, and the investigators and protestors that seek to expose their hypocrisy. Also new is No Impact Man, which follows a family as they attempt to live for a full year in a way that makes no impact on the environment.
New this week to Reckless Video's TV New Releases are the 5th season of the popular Showtime suburban comedy Weeds, and the 2nd season of FX's lawyer drama Damages.
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