Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Week of January 22

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The Law

LAPD officer Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes a camera with him to document daily life as a beat cop in South Central in End of Watch. With a handheld video camera and "button cams" on Brian and his partner Miguel Zavala (Michael Pena), they record the everyday job in a patrol car in one of Los Angeles' most dangerous neighborhoods... as well as the bond between the partners, and the family they create between Miguel, his pregnant wife (Natalie Martinez), Brian, and his developing relationship with his new girlfriend (Anna Kendrick). Over the course of filming, Brian's cameras also capture the partners' stumbling into a case that is deeper and more dangerous than they're qualified to handle. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Jack's (Zac Efron) life is turned upside-down when his brother, Ward (Matthew McConaughey), begins investigating a new case in Lee Daniels' The Paperboy. Set in Florida in the 1960s, Ward and his partner (David Oyelowo), investigative journalists, are looking into the conviction of death-row inmate Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack)... and their way into the career-making story is Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), the hyper-sexualized woman who established a prison correspondence love affair with Van Wetter. In the pressure cooker of the 60s, the film intermingles the scandalous lawlessness, sex, and race into a mix that changes young Jack's world forever. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Detective David Callahan (Stephen Dorff) is recovering from a shooting in Officer Down, and though his Captain (James Woods) is willing to do anything to keep the department's reputation spotless, David needs to take a more active approach. Callahan's life before the shooting was compromised-- doing drugs, taking bribes, neglecting his family-- and he dedicates his second chance at life to living right: cleaning up and finding out who saved his life. The mystery of his savior puts him onto a new case, and offers him a new suspect (Walton Goggins) who may not be what he seems. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Based on the transcripts of the actual trial, the courtroom drama The Chicago 8 tells the story of the landmark trial of eight men charged with conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Collecting founders of the Yippies Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (Thomas Ian Nichols and Danny Masterson), Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale (Orlando Jones), elder pacifist David Dellinger (Peter Mackenzie), Port Huron Statement author Tom Hayden (David Julian Hirsh), student protest leader Rennie Davis (Bret Harrison), chemist John Froines (Jamie Elman), and quiet sociology student Lee Weiner (Aaron Abrams), defense attorney William Kunstler (Gary Cole) tries to prove his clients weren't conspirators or violent instigators to inflexible prosecutors (Steven Culp and Scott Lowell) and an old-fashioned judge (Philip Baker Hall) in one of the defining trials of the Vietnam era.

Searching for Truth

Looking to start a new life, French Frederic Bourdin claims to be a 16-year-old kidnapping victim in Spain in the documentary The Imposter, but the halfway house in Spain needs to confirm his identity. To keep from getting caught, he spins lie upon lie until he picks up the identity of Nicholas, a missing Texas boy. Though he's older than Nicholas would be, and has brown eyes instead of blue, he's "returned" home to his family... who accepts him immediately. As the stories get stranger and stranger, the lies start to give way, but the extent of the deception and the uncertainties of all aspects on Nicholas' story hint at even deeper mysteries.

Though his two records in the early 70s never sold in the United States, Detroit folk musician Rodriguez became a sensation in South Africa. The documentary Searching for Sugar Man follows the fans' investigation into the mysterious Rodriguez... without knowing his full name, where he's from, or if there is any truth to the stories of his on-stage death. From the little information they can glean from the album covers, and hints in Rodriguez's lyrics, the fans begin the search to discover what happened to the songwriter who became an icon in South Africa.

Comedies

Dumped by her boyfriend, Lauren (Lauren Miller) needs a new apartment in For a Good Time, Call..., and a mutual friend (Justin Long) matches her with roommate-seeking Katie (Ari Graynor). The girls have been enemies since college, and worse: Lauren looks down on Katie's job taking phone sex calls. When Lauren puts her business sense behind Katie's skills on the phone, the two begin a partnership that could make them a lot of money, and make them into friends.

Randy (Patton Oswalt) has always loved being a scout in Nature Calls, but his brother Kirk (Johnny Knoxville) has hated scouting since they were kids. When his troupe would rather watch TV at Kirk's than go scouting, Randy makes a drastic move: he sneaks the kids out into the woods. Now Kirk, his gung-ho business partner (Rob Riggle), and one of the kids' concerned dads (Patrice O'Neal) venture into the woods to retrieve the kids... while Kirk's wife (Maura Tierney) tries to convince the rest of the troupe moms that their children have not been kidnapped.


When young Martine (Olivia Thirlby) moves into their poolhouse, Julie (Rosemarie DeWitt) asks her husband Peter (John Krasinski) to help their new tenant in Nobody Walks. Martine is working on a short film and Peter is a sound engineer, so helping with the audio on her film makes sense... but as the laid back family man spends more time with the exciting young woman, the situation becomes more dangerous, and Julie has temptations of her own. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Cesar (Luis Tosar), the manager of an apartment building, believes he was born without the ability to be happy in Jaume Balaguero's Sleep Tight, so he believes his mission is to make others miserable. Normally, he has no trouble ruining his tenants' days, but the building's new tennant, Clara, is harder to upset. Unwilling to let her happiness interfere with his life's work, Cesar goes to stranger and more unsettling extremes to push Clara over the edge.

Picking up where the last movie left off, Death Race: Inferno finds Frankenstein (Luke Goss) with only one race left to win before earning his freedom... but the mastermind of the Death Race (Ving Rhames) is having the show taken from him by an ambitious new programmer (Dougray Scott) who wants to make the race international. Now Frankenstein and his pit crew (led by Danny Trejo) have to survive a race across Africa in a contest where all the rules have changed, where even winning might not secure their prize.

When his family is killed, John (Scott Adkins) vows revenge in Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and he places the blame on one of the original Universal Soldiers: Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme). With the operatives of the super-soldier program gunning for him, John has to infiltrate their ranks to seek justice and find Luc, but an even more dangerous Universal Soldier (Dolph Lundgren) is still active... and preparing for worldwide destruction. On DVD and Blu Ray.


New this week in our TV New Releases:
Merlin
Series 4
With Morgana turned against Camelot, Uther's spirit is broken, leaving Arthur and Merlin to hold the kingdom together as fortunes turn against them.

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