Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Week of May 29

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Finding Your Way

Doug (Seann William Scott) is a small town bouncer who catches a break when his best friend (Jay Baruchel, who also co-wrote) takes him to a hockey game... and Doug knocks out a belligerent player in the hockey comedy Goon. He's a sweet natured guy who's not too bright and can't ice skate, but his talent for fighting lands Doug a job on his local hockey team. Soon, he's a member of a losing team with an angry coach (Kim Coates), a drunken captain, a constantly complaining goalie, and Xavier Laflamme, a talented player who needs guarding. Doug doesn't want to hurt anyone, but his fighting skills make him valuable-- he'll do anything to protect his teammates, especially against brutes like Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber), the enforcer who gave Laflamme a concussion and ruined his career. With Alison Pill. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Thom (Sam Jaeger), who makes what little money he can by illegally picking up fares in the ex-taxi cab he bought at an auction, just got evicted and piled all of his possessions in his trunk. When Claire catches her husband (Brennan Elliott) with another woman, she flags Thom's cab and tells him "just drive" in Take Me Home, and they're off-- she needs to get to California, he needs money, and, though they snipe at one another, Claire and Thom are stuck together until they get where they're going... for better or worse.

Warlike

Caius Martius (Ralph Fiennes, who also directs) is a war hero in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, fighting in a modern, Eastern European version of Rome. Returning home a hero, his family and government (Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Cox) push him toward public office, but Caius is just a soldier-- he doesn't like the public and he won't use his war record for self-promotion. He's vulnerable off the battlefield, away from the tanks, guns, and bombs, and the Romans he fought for banish him: separated from his wife (Jessica Chastain), abandoned by his country, Caius joins his former enemy (Gerard Butler) and wages war against Rome and the people who betrayed him. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Bad Kids

Eva (Tilda Swinton) wakes up to find her house and car doused with red paint in Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk about Kevin, and as she passionlessly cleans up the mess, she flashes back to the events that ruined her life. Her teenage son Kevin (Ezra Miller) is in prison for horrible acts, but she remembers him as defiant and menacing as kids from The Bad Seed or The Good Son even as a young child. Moving between what Eva's life has become and Kevin's childhood, coolly threatening his mother while charming his unsuspecting father (John C. Reilly), the film tells the story of massacre and torture without showing violence on screen-- instead, it uses directorial flourish and an abundance of the color red to imply unseen horrors while focusing the story on Eva's guilt and regret. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Maggie and her teenaged daughter Lauren move in with successful Bill (Boyd Kestner) and his silent, troubled young son Owen in The Aggression Scale, but their new house is the next target of vengeful mob boss Bellavance (Ray Wise). Fresh out of jail, Bellavance has been killing his way down a list of people who might have stolen from him, and he sends Dana Ashbrook and a team of heavies (Derek Mears, Jacob Reynolds, and Joseph McKelheer) to Maggie and Bill's home. Before the thugs know what's happening to them, they're navigating an R-rated Home Alone house laden with razor blade and roofing nail traps... because pre-adolescent Owen, freshly released from an institution, is better at violence than they are.

A last gambit

Nick (Sam Worthington), an escaped convict, checks into a hotel room and steps out the window like a suicide jumper in Man on a Ledge. Police negotiator Lydia (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk him down, but strange circumstances that surround Nick (and his hidden identity) make her suspect that he's not a normal jumper. Nick begins to pull the strings on his mysterious plan, working through a hidden earpiece-- his brother (Jamie Bell) is infiltrating a building on his behalf. As the details of Nick's situation are slowly revealed, Lydia tries to make sense of it all: Nick's an ex-cop, locked up as a thief, who claims he's innocent... but how will stepping out onto the ledge help Nick clear his name? On DVD and Blu Ray.

Jill (Amanda Seyfried) claims to have escaped a serial killer in Gone, but when no one could find her captor, where she was held, or other victims, she was declared delusional. A year later, when Jill's sister goes missing, she knows the killer is back, but the police (Daniel Sunjata and Wes Bentley) don't believe her. Jill knows her sister didn't go out, her boyfriend (Sebastian Stan) hadn't heard from her, she wasn't dressed... with no one to help her, Jill takes matters into her own hands. Armed with a .38 and tracking a killer, she has to rescue her sister and avoid the police, who see her as an insane girl with a gun, hunting an imaginary man. With Jennifer Carpenter. On DVD and Blu Ray.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
True Blood
Season 4
Sookie returns to Bon Temps to find Bill as the new King of Louisiana, her friends and family have moved on, and ancient witches declaring war on all vampires. Royal Pains
Season 3.5


Hank Lawson provides medical care for the wealthy and secluded Hampton elite, with the help of his brother and a physician's assistant

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Week of May 22nd

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Studio Ghibli

Shawn (David Henrie) is sent to stay with his great aunt for a little peace and quiet in Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty. At his great aunt's cabin, he spots Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler), a "borrower:" a tiny person who builds her life out of pieces from the normal-sized world. Though Shawn and Arrietty form a tenuous friendship, Arrietty's parents (Amy Poehler and Will Arnett) discover their daughter's been seen by someone in the regular-sized world and must relocate to keep their existence a secret. Shawn tries to stay in touch with Arrietty, showing the borrowers he isn't a threat, but the secrecy Arrietty's family my not be the only thing threatening their friendship. With Carol Burnett. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Competition

Based on the true story of Manchester United's first football team in the 1950s, United stars David Tennant as coach Jimmy Murphy and Dougray Scott as manager Matt Busby as the men who put together the youngest team ever to win the Football League. The drama focuses on the young players (including Jack O'Connell) and their talented team until the 1958 Munich Air Crash killed all but four of the team. With the nation in mourning, the men must regroup and claim a championship in impossible circumstances to honor the men they've lost. With Neil Dudgeon.

Best friends and CIA operatives FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) discover they're both dating the same woman in McG's romantic comedy This Means War. Though they didn't know they were both seeing Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) at first, they decided not to tell her they know one another and let Lauren decide which of them she prefers... but FDR and Tuck are both competitive, professional agents, and they employ a variety of dirty tricks to ruin each other's chances. While they're both trying to win Lauren's heart, a real villain (Til Schweiger) could put all three of them in danger, and boys have to stop worrying about dating Lauren and start rescuing her. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Originally slated to be directed by ,and now executive-produced by, George Lucas, Red Tails is the fictionalized story of the real-life Tuskegee Airmen, the all African-American fighter pilots in World War II. When their commanding officers (Cuba Gooding Jr and Terrence Howard) struggle against racial prejudice to get them front line flights, the ambitious fighter group proves themselves against the German Luftwaffe. Consisting of hotheaded "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo), reckless rookie "Junior" Gannon (Tristan Wilds), wisecracking "Joker" George (Elijah Kelley), and led by "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker), the Tuskegee Airmen are given distinctive, red-tailed planes and sent into battle. Through a series of aerial dogfights, they earn the respect of prejudiced American servicemen, stand against the racist Nazi pilots that think them inferior, and carve themselves a place in WWII history. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Couples, in perspective

A British author, touring on his new book, is giving lectures regarding the value of fakes, or counterfeit art, as their own form of individual expression in Certified Copy. He debates his points on authenticity and merit with a French antiques dealer (Juliette Binoche), they sit down together in a cafe, and their time together is a puzzle of their relationship to one another, what they pretend to be, and who they really are. Receiving its initial DVD and Blu Ray release by the Criterion Collection, the story is an elaborate exploration... are they playing the roles their waitress casually applied to them, or are they pretending to be strangers, acting together as only people with history can?

Michael (Ewan McGregor) and Susan (Eva Green) fall in love just as a worldwide epidemic begins to remove humanity's senses in Perfect Sense. Beginning with the sense of smell, the world's population is helpless to the continual loss of senses, but the story is told through the day-to-day lives of Susan and Michael, as they try to adapt to the changing world around them. Working to stay connected as they can sense less and less of the outside world, their ability to relate changes as their senses dwindle to nothing... On DVD and Blu Ray.

Creepers

Melancholy widower Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) travels to a small town in early-1900s England in The Woman in Black, discovering a series of children dying under mysterious circumstances. A solicitor looking over the will and estate of a recently deceased woman, Arthur finds that no one in town will help him except wealthy Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds)... because all of the townsfolk besides Sam believe the estate is haunted. When Arthur sees a mysterious, black-veiled woman, he begins to think villages are right about the haunting, and the only way to stop the ghostly woman from leading more children to their deaths is to solve the mystery of her anger and drive towards revenge. With Sophie Stuckey and Janet McTeer. On DVD and Blu Ray.

From the hyper-violent Japanese team that created RoboGeisha and Machine Girl, Mutant Girls Squad is an over-the-top action film where a schoolgirl learns she's descended from a clan gifted with mutant powers. She is sent to train with others like her, learning to control the powers that let her manifest grisly weapons on her body, and meeting a transvestite samurai (Tak Sakaguchi) working to restore the name of their mutant clan... but if fighting for her rights means killing innocent humans, can she truly turn against her own humanity to embrace a pro-mutant future? On DVD and Blu Ray.

Skateboards

Winner of the 2011 Grand Jury Prize at South By Southwest for Best Documentary, Dragonslayer records the southern California youth culture of skateboards, empty swimming pools, and aimless youth. Following skateboarder Screech Sandoval in Fullerton, CA, as he leaves professional skating behind and spends a summer looking for parties and places to make money by putting on impromptu demonstrations. A sort of non-fiction coming of age tale, the documentary follows Screech through a hazy endless summer as he tries to find his new direction.



New this week in our TV New Releases:
Sherlock
Season 2
The second season of BBC's modern Sherlock Holmes tale provides three, long-form stories: A Scandal in Belgravia, The Hounds of Baskerville, and The Reichenbach Fall, once again setting Holmes and Watson into mysteries, with stories that include Irene Adler and Moriarty.
The River
Season 1

When long-lost explorer Dr. Cole's emergency beacon sounds, his son and a group of adventurers head to the Amazon basin to find the reason Cole disappeared, and the "magic" he was seeking. Rizzoli & Isles
Season 2


Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Laura Isles use their skills to work together and solve crimes.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Week of May 15th

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Suspense

John (Liam Neeson) works at an Alaska oil refinery, killing the wolves that threaten the workers in Joe Carnahan's The Grey. When his plane goes down over the frozen wilderness, John must lead the survivors (including aggressive Frank Grillo, low key Dermot Mulroney, Nonso Anozie suffering from altitude sickness, Dallas Roberts, and Joe Anderson) from the oil drilling team to safety. Hunted by wolves, they must survive freezing weather, high altitude, and scarce food. Picked off one by one, the team has to decide to run for safety or make a stand against the predators who would kill them all. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Set in 1999 Los Angeles, Rampart focuses on corrupt police officer Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson). He is both a bad cop and bad provider, with daughters from each of his two ex-wives (Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche), along with drug dependency, violent tendencies, and sexual addiction. His most recent transgression on the job garners the negative attention of district attorney Sigourney Weaver, out to take down the crooked cop. With Ned Beatty. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Seattle high school senior Andrew Detmer begins videotaping his life, partly as a defense against his abusive father (Michael Kelly), in the sci-fi superhero film Chronicle. When he, his cousin Matt, and popular sports star Steve (Michael B. Jordan) find a glowing crystal in the woods, Andrew's video diary shifts from his homelife to their newly discovered superpowers. As the boys' power grows, Matt and Steve suspect that Andrew, who has been victimized his whole life, might abuse his new abilities. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Bounty Hunters

Based on the popular book series by Janet Evanovich, Katherine Heigl portrays feisty Stephanie Plum in One for the Money. Poor and desperate for work, Stephanie turns to her cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) and picks up some cash head hunting for his bail bonds business. Her main target is Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara), the ex-cop wanted for murder who dumped her in high school. Mentored by a veteran bounty hunter (Daniel Sunjata), Stephanie now must catch the one who got away.

It's a man's world...

Glenn Close garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Albert Nobbs, playing a woman who spent thirty years living as a man in 19th century Dublin. Working as a waiter in a hotel, Albert is forced to room with the hotel's new painter only to discover his new roommate is also a woman posing as a man. Hubert (Janet McTeer) has even taken a wife... an idea that inspires Albert, who begins courting the hotel's flirtatious maid, Helen (Mia Wasikowska). When a handyman (Aaron Johnson) catches Helen's eye, Albert uses his means and station to try to win her affections. With Pauline Collins. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Horror Abroad

After discovering a string of mysterious tourist disappearances in a small Polish village, reporter Carmen (Cindy Sampson) and her photographer boyfriend Marcus (Aaron Ashmore) set out to find out what happened in The Shrine. After encountering unhelpful and hostile locals, their search leads them into the forest, at the center of which lies the titular shrine and the site of rituals.

Documentaries

Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World details the life of the former Beatles' guitarist. From his childhood and early years in Liverpool, his success in the Beatles, and later spiritual discoveries, activism, and contributions to the arts, the film provides interviews, live performances, and behind-the-scenes footage of Harrison's career.

From the beginning of martial arts films to modern action films in Asia and America, Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie provides a detailed history of kung fu movies. Following the evolution of classic genre pictures to the rise of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen, the documentary spans the eras of classic folk tales, mysticism, reality, the inclusion of gunplay, and the integration of kung fu into Hollywood.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
Hell on Wheels
Season 1
A former Confederate soldier works on the first transcontinental railroad in 1865 while looking for the Union soldiers who murdered his wife and son. Bob's Burgers
Season 1


As owner of a small burger restaurant, Bob and his family contend with day-to-day absurdities in their Fox animated universe.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Week of May 8th

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Vampire Wars

Kate Beckinsale returns as Selene, the last Death Dealer from her vampire coven, Underworld: Awakening. In the fourth movie in the series, vampires and lycans have shifted from fighting each other to trying to survive the attention of humanity, who have purged almost all of the supernatural creatures from the world. When Selene escapes the lab that cryogenically froze her with a mysterious young girl and another vampire (Theo James) in tow, she finds herself on the run in a world that has forgotten about warriors like the Death Dealers. Keeping the girl safe and searching for the family that was taken from her, Selene has to face the scientist (Stephen Rea) that held them all and uncover the secret of the laboratory that had been experimenting on them. With Kris Holden-Ried. On DVD and Blu Ray.


When Paige and Leo (Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum) are in a tragic car accident, Paige loses her memory of the last few years in The Vow. Leo tries to put their life back together, but Paige doesn't remember him or their marriage, and she works on piecing together why she left law school and the guy she was dating at the time (Scott Speedman). Her parents (Jessica Lange and Sam Neill) don't think Leo fits into Paige's life, so Leo has to do whatever he can to save his marriage and win back his wife. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Unfortunately, the home viewing
of Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar
Movie
does not allow for the
enhancements provided by the
Schlaaang Super Seat.
"Tim & Eric were given a billion dollars to make a movie by the Schlaaang Corporation, but when Tommy Schlaaang (Robert Loggia) sees their three-minute movie, he wants his money back in Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. When the owner (Will Ferrell) of the S'wallow Valley Mall promises them a billion dollars profit if they repair and run his mall, they accept, and suddenly they're working with the owner's sickly son, Taquito (John C. Reilly), sleeping in the mall, and driving out the squatters. Tim & Eric face an uphill battle: they have to deal with the traitorous owner of the mall's sword shop (Will Forte), their spiritual advisor (Zach Galifianakis) has been let go, there's a wolf on the loose, the mall may be haunted by The Yogurt Man, Eric is more fixated on the woman (Twink Caplan) who runs the balloon kiosk than business, and figures on Taquito's Taquter suggest they won't even make their billion dollars. At least Dr. Struts (Ray Wise) is there to provide the Shrim. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Filmed in 1992, Werner Herzog brought his documentary crew to war-torn Kuwait to film Lessons of Darkness. Exploring the blasted landscape as if it were an alien planet, Herzog's documentary provides images of the Gulf War's aftermath from a perspective very different than that of the news media. The DVD is bundled with Herzog's similar exploration of deserts and mirages, Fata Morgana.


Returning from a robbery, Ike Coffin (Patrick Flueger) and his brothers pull in to their mother's driveway in Darren Lynn Bousman's Mother's Day, only to find a new family living there. Beth and Daniel (Jamie King and Frank Grillo), who bought the house at an auction two months ago, suddenly shift from entertaining guests to being hostages. The Coffin brothers, dangerous and unstable on their own, are nothing compared to their crafty and controlling mother (Rebecca De Mornay). The boys say they've been sending money to the house, the new owners say they never got any envelopes, and Mother wasn't there to receive the money-- no one is leaving the house until the money turns up, and the Coffin family is not above torture and manipulation to get what they want.


Lieutenant Kang (Shin Ha-Kyun) is sent to the front to investigate the murder of a mole during the Korean War in The Front Line. Brought into a questionable company towards the end of the war, Kang is surrounded by war orphans, serving a drug addicted commanding officer, and stationed with men struggling to survive until the armistice negotiations are finalized. As the war draws to a close, the rules of combat around the Korean DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) blur, and the soldiers do whatever they can to see the end of the war. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Teenage Nicole (Aimee Teegarden) doesn't want to move to California to live with her grandmother (Patricia Richardson) in the coming-of-age surf movie Beautiful Wave. When Nicole discovers her grandfather's map of the most amazing secret surf spots along the coast, Nicole and a group of surfers set out on a road trip to discover the hidden beauties of the ocean and a little something about themselves. With Lance Henrikson and Helen Slater.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
The Big C
Season 2
Suburban wife and mother Cathy Jamison continues to live her life in the shadow of her terminal cancer diagnosis, taking more chances and expressing herself more freely. Chuck
Season 5


In the show's final season, Chuck, now a fully realized spy, has started his own private firm with Sarah and they take assignments and forge their own future as independent operatives.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Week of May 1

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On the Wrong Side

Mixed Martial Arts fighter Gina Carano stars as Mallory Kane in Haywire, Steven Soderbergh's new action/spy movie, as an ex-Marine who works for a private security firm. Flashing back and forth between missions, Mallory finds herself compromised and on the run, trying to find out who betrayed her and who she can trust: her boss at the firm (Ewan McGregor), other agents on her most recent missions (Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender), the foreign contact (Antonio Banderas), or a high ranking government agent (Michael Douglas). Through a series of fights, chases, and infiltrations, Mallory inches closer to the motives for her betrayal, and the people responsible for ruining her life. With Michael Angarano. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Real Life

Garbo the Spy is a documentary about the World War II spy known as Arabel to the Germans, a man who was considered one of Germany's most valuable source of information during the war. To the British, the same man was called Garbo (the greatest actor in the world), and, by feeding misinformation to the Germans, served a vital role in the success of the Normandy invasion. Garbo/Arabel's story weaves together a long history of his resistance to fascism and a talent for weaving elaborate tales, and how, though he never considered himself a fighter, he helped fight in a way that best utilized his talents.

Focused on one of the most famous romances in recent history, Madonna's W./E. mixes the story of King Edward (James D'Arcy), who gave up the British throne to be with American Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough). Though the abdication of the throne is the most celebrated part of the story, the film looks at Wallis' life, and what her part of the famous romance cost her. Her story is framed Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), an unhappily married woman in 1998 who becomes obsessed with Simpson's romance, life, and eventual consequences. With Oscar Isaac.



Garry Marshall's new, holiday-themed, ensemble comedy New Year's Eve blends the fates of a huge group of characters as the new year approaches. Through a series of vignettes, the film mixes the tales of a record industry professional (Michelle Pfeiffer) who quits her job, a delivery man (Zac Efron) who helps her with her list of resolutions, his beleaguered sister (Sarah Jessica Parker) and bitter single friend (Ashton Kutcher) who gets stuck thinking about his estranged ex-girlfriend (Katherine Heigle), a cancer patient (Robert De Niro) without much time left, an expecting mother (Jessica Biel), and a businessman (Josh Duhamel) on his way to an important event... just to name a few. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Atsuko and Rintaro, sister and brother, break down in a small California town in Littlerock. Intending to visit San Francisco and the Manzanar internment camp, where Japanese-Americans were held during World War II, the siblings find themselves stuck in a rural town while their car is repaired. With very little English between them, they make halting friends with people, as they try to feel their way around their strange new world.

When the choir director (Kris Kristofferson) of a small town church dies, his second-in-command Vi Rose (Queen Latifah) and his widow G.G. (Dolly Parton) wrestle for control of the choir in Joyful Noise. Under their pastor's (Courtney B. Vance) guidance, Vi Rose is given control of the group, but both she and G.G. are headstrong and have different visions for the choir... but can they pull the group together in time for competition in the finals in Los Angeles? With Keke Palmer. On DVD and Blu Ray.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
Batman:
The Brave & The Bold
Season 1, Part 2

Batman teams up with other characters from the DC universe in the lighter, more family-friendly series. Suits
Season 1


A genius college dropout and a high powered lawyer team up, telling their firm the younger man is a Harvard graduate, in this USA network law drama.