Week of December 4th

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Gotham's Reckoning

It's been eight years since anyone's seen the Batman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, and since the events of The Dark Knight, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) has kept the secret that made Batman a scapegoat. After years as a recluse, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is inspired to reemerge when a beautiful cat burglar (Anne Hathaway) breaks into his mansion, and the Batman reappears when the city is threatened by a masked mercenary called Bane (Tom Hardy). Wayne is in no shape to take on a younger, stronger opponent, and Arthur (Michael Caine) is afraid Bruce is courting death by putting on the cape and mask again, but Batman will have to give everything to stop his enemies from destroying the city and everything he stands for. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, and Morgan Freeman. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Children

Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) are devastated to learn they can't conceive a child in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and they spend one night writing down the details of the perfect child they wish they could have, put the notes in a box, and bury the box in their garden. Later that night, they discover ten-year-old Timothy, who claims Cindy and Jim as his parents, magically hatched from their wishes. Timothy is a special boy, and the Greens are immediately called upon to be new parents, and they're bound to make mistakes, but Timothy naturally becomes the boy that is everything they wished for that night... but there are conditions to having their wishes fulfilled. With Rosemarie DeWitt and David Morse. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Six-year-old Hushpuppy lives with her father in a Louisiana bayou called "The Bathtub" in the Cannes & Sundance Award Winning Beasts of the Southern Wild. With the polar ice caps melting (and releasing giant, dinosaur-like beasts from the ice), The Bathtub-- separated from the rest of the world by a levee-- is flooded by a storm. As Hushpuppy, her father, and the rest of the community plot to blow up the levee, drain the water, and start rebuilding The Bathtub, their journey shows Hushpuppy how sick her father has become, and how she will have to cope with his illness. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Comedies

Kay and Arnold Soames (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) sleep in separate rooms in the romantic comedy Hope Springs until Kay decides she wants to put some life back into their marriage. They head to a resort town in Maine to spend a week in the care of prestigious marriage counselor Dr. Bernie Feld (Steve Carell). While Kay is enthusiastic about the intensive therapy, Arnold sternly resists any break in his deeply rutted routine and doesn't want to even leave town, much less have frank discussions about his love life with a stranger. Once therapy begins, Kay and Arnold learn that keeping their relationship alive will take a lot of work from both of them. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Paul Maddens (Martin Freeman) always dreamt of being in show business in Nativity!, but his life as a teacher has left him uninspired and barely present. When his headmaster (Pam Ferris) asks Paul to direct the school's nativity play, he's got plenty to deal with: his formal drama school rival is directing the play at a competing school, his kids don't seem to be very talented, his assistant is an unmanageable manchild, and his feelings towards Christmas have been pretty negative since his girlfriend (Ashley Jensen) left him during the holidays. Paul tries to inflate his pageant by saying a Hollywood producer is interested in his production, but as the play progresses and he starts working with the kids, the pageant becomes the largest part of his life.

Destiny (Yara Shahidi) is a 10-year-old in her newest foster home, taken in by Jill and Ethan Emmett (Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry) in suburban Iowa in the competition satire Butter. Always told she was never good at anything, Destiny is inspired by a compliment by champion butter-sculpture-carver Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell) and tells her new foster parents she wants to compete in the state fair. Destiny doesn't have to win against Bob's undefeated sculptures, since he's stepping aside, but Bob's shrill, competitive wife (Jennifer Garner) has entered the butter-carving contest to ensure the Picklers keep winning, and she'll do whatever it takes to stay on top. With Olivia Wilde and Ashley Greene. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Splatter

A killer Santa Claus is on the loose in a small midwestern town in Silent Night, and the sheriff (Malcolm McDowell) refuses to believe that a serial killer is crossing off the "naughty" entries on his naughty/nice list. While the sheriff is convinced he's solved the problem by locking up a misanthropic, foul-mouthed, department store Santa (Donal Logue), but his deputy (Jaime King) knows the rampage isn't over-- the town will be consumed with flamethrower deaths, Christmas light electrocutions, and topless women running from killer Santas until she finds and stops the murderer. On DVD and Blu Ray.

A horror anthology film, V/H/S sends a group of petty criminals into a house to steal a VHS tape, but the house is littered with tapes. As they look through the tapes, they find a collection of found-footage recordings: a group of internet pornographers with a hidden-in-glasses camera that recorded a disastrous hotel encounter, the video diary of a couple's second honeymoon that captures a mysterious third party (directed by Ti West), a girl who brings her friends and a camera into the woods to prove a legend, a video chat session that records ghostly images in an apartment, and a group that interrupts a Halloween party that turns out not to be a game.

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An ambulance driver is the leader of a group that impersonates recently deceased people for their mourning friends and family in Dogtooth director Giorgos Lanthimos' Alps. Consisting of the driver, a nurse, a gymnast and her coach, they go about the strange and highly symbolic business of grief counseling via impersonation, conducted with the shock and absurdity Lanthimos' previous film.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Eastbound & Down Season 3	Arrogant former baseball star Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) has finally made it back into the minor leagues and can start rebuilding his career... but he's still not ready to take responsibility for his own life, much less his 1-year-old son.		The Simpsons Season 15	Season 15 lets the Simpson family reunite with Homer's mother, Marge writes a romance novel, Bart and Lisa become friends, and more
	Angry Boys	The 12-part mockumentary investigates the lives of the 21st century male, from Australian delinquent twins to an LA rapper, all played by Summer Heights High Australian comedian Chris Lilley.		We Can Be Heroes	Five nominees for the Australian of the Year (again: all played by Chris Lilley) compete for the fame and fortune that come with the award..
	Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXV	Joel, Mike, and the bots are keep their sanity on the Satellite of Love by mocking terrible movies, including Robot Holocaust, Operation Kid Brother, Kitten with a Whip, and Revenge of the Creature.		Call the Midwife Series 1	A new midwife in a nursing convent in 1950s London learns the realities of women's health in a poor neighborhood.