Reckless Video: Maple Leaf's DVD and Blu Ray Video Rentals: Week of February 21

Website is best viewed at RecklessVideo.com. Pop-up credits links are inactive on Blogger.

Steal Big

The solo adventure of Shrek's co-star, Puss in Boots paints Puss (Antonio Banderas) as an outlaw, falsely accused, crusading to clear his name. When his childhood friend Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) recruits him for an outlandish heist, Dumpty's plans, Puss' sword, and Kitty Softpaws' (Salma Hayek) cat-burglar skills band together as the only team that could climb a beanstalk and steal the golden eggs that can make them all rich. First they have to steal the magic beans from Jack and Jill (Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris), and Puss and Dumpty have a history of betrayal and mistrust that makes the job even more dangerous... but if they win the day, Puss could regain his honor and be seen as a hero again. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Josh (Ben Stiller), the building manager of a high rise luxury apartment, had wealthy, successful Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) invest all the building employees' pensions in Tower Heist. He is shocked to find Mr. Shaw, his wealthiest tenant, accused of fraud and sentenced to house arrest, but Josh, his concierge (Casey Affleck), and elevator operator (Michael Pena) are going to get their money back. They know their building better than anyone, but they'll need the help of a street-level thief (Eddie Murphy), a bankrupt former Wall Street investor (Matthew Broderick) who understands Shaw's crimes, and the building's Jamaican maid (Gabourey Sidibe) who can crack any safe in the world. Together, they plan to steal back the money they know Shaw is hiding in his penthouse... but the odds are against them, they're inexperienced, and the apartment is being watched by the FBI (Tea Leoni). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Legacy

Clint Eastwood's dramatization of a controversial figure in American history, J. Edgar stars Leonardo DiCaprio as FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover. From his time at the justice department to his appointment to an "anti-radical division," his story involves the beginning of applying science to crime scene investigations and the collecting of fingerprints to investigating citizens and wire tapping without evidence or proof... but it also explores the emotional world of a man who strove to be the man his stern mother (Judi Dench) demanded he be, living for his work, and his inability to acknowledge his life partner (Armie Hammer) and second in command. With Naomi Watts. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Smaller

The Cannes Film Festival award winning Octubre is the story of Clemente, a Peruvian money lender who discovers that someone has left a baby basket in his living room. The deadpan comedy sees Clemente, more interested in prostitutes and sulking than cultivating a family, looking for the abandoned baby's mother... meanwhile, Sofia, one of his borrowers, takes over his apartment and starts caring for the baby while Clemente's on his search. Though he'd be the last person to admit it, Sofia and the baby have had a massive effect on Clemente's home.

Martha calls her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) for the first time in years in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Lucy drives out to pick up her sister, but Martha doesn't say where she's been; intercutting between her time at Lucy's house and her past, Martha's experiences

with a cult in the Catskill mountains have affected her so deeply that she cannot separate the present day from what the cult impressed upon her. While Lucy and her husband (Hugh Dancy) are concerned by Martha's sometimes strange, sometimes dangerous behaviors, Martha hasn't told them about the cult, its leader (John Hawkes), the life she was living, or the reasons she ran away. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

When his adult son dies walking the Camino de Santiago, a traditional Catholic pilgrimage route, Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen) takes his son's ashes and walks the route himself in Emilio Estevez' The Way. Thomas begins walking, trying to connect with his son and cope with the tragedy of his loss, and he's initially cold to the travelers he meets on the path-- he can't escape the people on the road with him, and he's forced into the company of a Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) walking to lose weight, a Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) escaping an abusive marriage, and an Irishman (James Nesbitt) trying to overcome his writer's block... but they're all on the same road, walking The Way together. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Director Tom Tykwer's 3 is and adult, love triangle comedy where married couple Hanna and Simon (Sophie Rios and Sebastian Schipper), though still very much in love, begin having an affair with the same man. Neither Simon nor Hanna know each other is seeing Adam (Devid Streisow), and Adam doesn't know the people he's seeing know one another, but the odd complications between the trio keep them from becoming characters in a traditional screwball comedy.

Dangerous

Just released from prison, Mitchell (Colin Farrell) wants to leave the life of crime that sent him away in writer William Monahan's directorial debut London Boulevard. He gets a job as a bodyguard and driver for a reclusive actress and model (Keira Knightley) and her drunken, shut-in manager (David Thewlis), but Mitchell can't escape his past--

his sister (Anna Friel) is consistently trouble-bound, and a childhood friend (Ben Chaplin) keeps trying to drag him into criminal activity. Though a new, honest life seems within his reach, Mitchell is propositioned by a dangerous mob boss (Ray Winstone) who won't take "no" for an answer, and he must stand and face the criminals in his life if he ever wants to escape them. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Officer Jonathan White (Channing Tatum) is assigned to Queens, the neighborhood where he grew up, in The Son of No One, but returning home unearths dangerous memories and secrets. When an independent reporter (Juliette Binoche) starts receiving anonymous tips about White's childhood, the story finds its way to the cop (Al Pacino) who knew White as a child, his childhood friend (Tracy Morgan), and his father's former partner (Ray Liotta). The secrets from his past could destroy not just his own life, but people who would do anything to keep the past buried, including threatening White's wife (Katie Holmes) daughter.

Married couple Martin and Kate (Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton) return to their remote island holiday cabin in Retreat. Alone on the island off the coast of Scotland, they hope the vacation will help their strained marriage when a man (Jamie Bell) washes up on the beach, barely conscious. With their generator broken and the radio malfunctioning, they have no contact with the outside world, and the man, in army fatigues and a gun tucked in his belt, tells them there's an airborne virus demolishing the world. The three of them have a perfect quarantine on the remote island, but Martin and Kate start to suspect that their new guest might not be telling them the truth, and could be dangerous.

Sport

Based on a true story, The Mighty Macs stars Carla Gugino as Cathy Rush, a woman who took a job coaching a Catholic women's university basketball team in 1971. The team has never been competitive, the school's Mother Superior (Ellen Burstyn) isn't supportive, and the girls don't have uniforms or even a gym to practice in. Along with a young nun (Marley Shelton) eager to help, Cathy's indomitable spirit pushes the underdog team to win against bigger, richer, higher rated schools. With David Boreanaz.

Maria (Kat Graham) leaves her upscale life and ends up back in the Bronx after a brush with the law in Honey 2, but she still has a passion for Step Up-style street dancing. When a rec center volunteer (Randy Wayne) sees her talent, he recruits her to lead his group of talented but undisciplined kids into a national competition. Maria's up to the challenge under one condition: she'll only do it if her scrappy band of underdogs promise to beat the dance crew that abandoned Maria... a crew led by her ex-boyfriend. With Lonette McKee.

Documentaries

Though not related, Columbian soccer player Andres Escobar and drug lord Pablo Escobar led intersecting lives as seen in The Two Escobars. When the Columbian national soccer team rose to prominence in the 1990s, the team's financial backing came from the Columbian underworld. While Andres, captain of the team Pele picked to go to the 1994 World Cup, disliked the corruption in soccer and treated the field as a place of honor, Pablo's rise as a drug lord earned him the love of the lower classes, using his money to improve buildings, build soccer fields, and fund Colombian soccer. Their lives, and eventual, famous deaths, marked the rise and fall of Colombia as a worldwide soccer contender.

The Nova documentary Finding Life Beyond Earth details the newest and most advanced data coming from modern space exploration. Looking within our own solar system, new unmanned probes and telescopes are exploring ice fields, microorganisms, and the possibility of life on planets other than Earth and their moons.

Tracking the history of gay civil rights movement through the lens of Mardi Gras, The Sons of Tennessee Williams follows "krewes," social clubs of gay men who used the freedom of Festival to satirize aristocratic culture, as far back as 1959. Framed against current preparations for an upcoming Mardi Gras, the film looks at the history of the pageantry and expression that was specific to New Orleans, but emblemic of a national struggle.