Week of August 23

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Taking Control of Your Life

Mike (Paul Giamatti) is barely getting by in Thomas McCarthy's Win Win-- his law business is struggling, he's suffering panic related attacks, and the wrestling team he coaches with Jeffrey Tambor has never won a match. When one of his clients (Burt Young) is about to become a ward of the state due to failing mental health, Mike becomes his guardian... which brings in some extra money, but also delivers a teenager to his door. The boy is Kyle, Young's grandson, and with his mother (Melanie Lynskey) unavailable, Mike and his wife (Amy Ryan) adopt him into their family, but Kyle's new place in school and on the wrestling team give Mike something he never expected... a win. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Depressed and unable to do anything other than sleep, Walter (Mel Gibson) finds a strange new way to deal with the world in The Beaver: he begins speaking through a beaver hand puppet he finds in the garbage. His ability to relate to the world improves as the people in his life learn to speak to the beaver (instead of to Walter): he reconnects to the wife (Jodie Foster), turns around the fortunes of his failing company, and embracing the beaver's voice even gives him insight into his son (Anton Yelchin) who makes his money adopting other students' voices to write their term papers... but Walter's new puppet alter ego is still a part of himself, and a beaver puppet and an Australian accent can't mask the fact that he still has problems that need fixing. With Jennifer Lawrence. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Though he wasn't involved in the heist, Henry (Keanu Reeves) ends up in jail for a bank robbery in Henry's Crime. His cellmate Max (James Caan) helps him make parole by telling him not to claim innocence, but the parole board mantra "If you're gonna do the time, you may as well do the crime" to the outside-- as a free man, Henry decides to actually rob the bank he went to jail for. The actress (Vera Farmiga) Henry meets gives him the perfect opportunity: there's a tunnel that leads from her playhouse to the bank, a tunnel that begins in the dressing room. In order to get to the tunnel and rob the bank, Henry finds himself on stage in a Chekhov play. With Danny Hoch and Peter Stormare. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

DJ Delicious D (Christopher Thornton), recently paralyzed, is living in his car on skid row in Sympathy for Delicious when he discovers he can heal anyone by laying hands on them. The priest (Mark Ruffalo) that tends to the homeless community where D lives sees him as vessel for God's power, but The Stain (Orlando Bloom) and his rock band (with Juliette Lewis) sees D's turntables and public, on-stage healing as a fast track to stardom. Put into spotlight by their manager (Laura Linney), D's on the way to reclaiming his life, but misapplying the gift he never asked for could lead to a price he never anticipated. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Advertising

Morgan Spurlock's newest documentary is Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, which is a movie about making the movie itself-- Spurlock sets out to make his movie with nothing but advertising and endorsement money. Beginning with the search for an above-the-credits, he looks into the effect of partnering with large companies, and what advertising money brings to movies and television, by involving himself in it firsthand.

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Action

Detective Brandt (Jason Statham) is a Dirty Harry-style cop in Blitz, the kind whose arrests show up at the station bloodied and bruised. When his rough neighborhood, Southeast London police station imports a new inspector, Nash (Paddy Considine), from a more uptown district, Brandt doesn't expect much... but the two form an unlikely team when a cop killer calling himself Blitz (Aidan Gillen) starts executing police officers and publicizing his rampage in the press. On DVD and Blu-Ray. 

Jackie Chan is a low ranking soldier who survives a massive battle in Little Big Soldier by playing dead-- when he stands up, he finds there's one other survivor: a young enemy general (Wang Lee Hom). Chan captures the wounded general, and making it home with his high profile prisoner will ensure his fortune for life... but the remnants of the general's armies, bands of roving bandits, and the general himself aren't going to make his journey easy. With Yu Rongguang. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Trolls

A group of college students are making a documentary about a bear poacher in the Norwegian Troll Hunter, but when they find Hans, their would-be poacher, he turns out to be a hunter of bigger game: trolls. Claiming at the outset to be found footage from the students and shot in Blair Witch-documentary style, the film unfolds from the students point of view as they follow Hans in his duties as a kind of game warden, tracking trolls that escape their reservation and taking samples... but the documentary crew is a breach of one of his strictest duties: making sure the public doesn't find out about the giants that roam the countryside. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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New this week to Reckless Video's TV New Releases are the 8th season of NCIS, as Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and agent Agent DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) deal with continued interference from the CIA, and season 4 of Gossip Girl, where the secretive Juliet (Katie Cassidy) works against Serena (Blake Lively) in light of their shared, mysterious past.

Also new is Disney's animated Phineas & Ferb: The Movie, adapted from their television show, and a new disc of Diego adventures, Go Diego Go: Fiercest Animal Rescues.