Reckless Video: Maple Leaf's DVD and Blu Ray Video Rentals

Week of January 31st

2012-01-31T14:17:00.000-08:00

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It's a Dangerous World

Ryan Gosling is a Hollywood stunt driver who sometimes hires himself out, Transporter-like, as a getaway driver in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. Working in a garage with a down-on-his-luck schemer (Bryan Cranston), he's about to find his fortune on the race track partnered with a pair of small time gangsters (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman)... until he takes on a job to help the girl down the hall (Carey Mulligan). Trying to protect her, he sets aside his professionalism and gets drawn into a situation more complicated and dangerous than he could have anticipated, putting everyone in his life in danger. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Outlaw Juliette Flowers (Lizzy Caplan) is on a mission to recover the body of Ransom Pride (Scott Speedman), gunned down in an arms deal gone wrong, in The Last Rites of Ransom Pride. Ransom's brother Champ (Jon Foster) is sent by their father (Dwight Yoakam) into the desolate, western landscape with Juliette as she tries to reclaim her lost lover, but their journey is packed with eccentric characters and the dangerous rogues of the old west. With Peter Dinklage and Kris Kristofferson.

When a recent murder points to a long-dead Soviet agent, code-named Cassius, the government call retired CIA agent Paul Stephenson (Richard Gere) in The Double. Stephenson was the leading expert on Cassius, but Ben Geary (Topher Grace), a young recruit who wrote his master's thesis on Cassius, thinks he might have picked up on something the older expert may have missed. If Cassius is still alive, they're both in mortal danger, and in a world of spies and assassins, that danger can come from the unlikeliest places. With Martin Sheen. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Poetic pulp film director Beat Takeshi returns to the Yakuza genre with Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, where a simple misunderstanding triggers an escalating series of violent retaliations between two gangster clans. When members of the family take action against one boss (Jun Kunimura), the slight can't go unanswered, and allegiances are shifted as soldiers carry out their bloody orders until the family can be at peace again. With Ryo Case. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Twin sisters, a youth group leader, and a rock singer are forced to work together when they find a body in the trunk of their car in Dead Hooker in a Trunk. A loud, bloody, low budget love letter to grindhouse cinema, the plot throws together a Badass, a Geek, a Junkie, and a Goody Two Shoes as they try to find out why there's a body in the trunk, who put it there, and whether or not they're next.

Tony (Wood Harris) grew up on the mean streets of Detroit, but left street life for law school in Joy Road. Living a life of social events and high profile work, he tries to ignore his sister's (N'Bushe Wright) pleas for him to help a gangster arrested for a triple homicide. As Tony's dragged further into the case, his public image is attacked, but he begins to suspect a coverup that reaches from local politics to the privatized prisons and a system that would make easy scapegoats of anyone who lives in the ghetto.

Sci-Fi/Action

In a world where everyone grows up to be 25 forever, money has been replaced by trading the time left in people's lifespans in Andrew Niccol's In Time. Will (Justin Timberlake) grew up in the ghetto and never had more than 24 hours to spend, but his life changes when he inherits a century from a stranger. Hiding in high society, he kidnaps Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of a time lending/banking entrepreneur (Vincent Kartheiser), while escaping arrest for stealing the time he was given. Returning to the underworld, Will and Sylvia have to survive time-stealing gangs (Alex Pettyfer) and time-enforcing cops (Cillian Murphy) long enough to upset a system where the poor could die at any minute so the rich can live forever. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Picking up where the first film left off, Gantz II: Perfect Answer rejoins the slapdash crew of black suited warriors as they're forced into battles with strange aliens. As their mission goals become more and more questionable, the group is forced to contend with hard choices when all their decisions are morally questionable. Even the members driven to do the right thing are compromised when they have no choice but to draw swords and guns.

Competition

Kim (Felicity Jones) gets a job to help her dad (Bill Bailey) with bills in Chalet Girl, working in a chalet in the Alps, catering to rich clients at an upscale ski resort. Her fellow chalet girl (Tamsin Egerton) doesn't have much use for Kim, who can't ski and doesn't look high class, but when a friend (Ken Duken) teaches her to snowboard, it's obvious she has natural talent... With a snowboarding competition coming up, Kim's driven to prove that she's more than a chalet girl, and grabbing a championship can win her the boy she likes (Ed Westick). With Sophia Bush.

Three very different birders (passionate, driven bird watchers) are on the same path in The Big Year: Brad (Jack Black), a cubicle-bound programmer, Stu (Steve Martin), the wealthy head of a large company, and Kenny (Owen Wilson), the alpha-birder who holds the record for most birds spotted in a year. As Stu and Brad both contemplate putting their lives on hold for a "Big Year," a year dedicated to birding, Kenny starts to worry that they might overtake his record, and the three find themselves in direct competition. Narrated by John Cleese. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Art Film

Film Socialisme is the newest release by Jean-Luc Godard. Split into three distinct sections (a multi-cultural cruise ship, children holding their parents at a tribunal for equitable treatment, and a quickly evolving series of clips that spin through all human history), Godard continues the densely symbolic exploration of humanity through film he began over fifty years ago.

Delving into the world of painter Pieter Bruegel's "The Way to Cavalry," The Mill & the Cross explores a mid-1500s awash in woodsmen cutting, musicians playing, and red-jacketed, Spanish militiamen. The sparse and painterly film casts Rutger Hauer, Michael York, and Charlotte Rampling, but it eschews dialog in favor of painterly world-building and visual storytelling, fleshing out a historic, symbolic world.

Musicality

Ethan (Alessandro Nivola) is on tour with his band when a former groupie (Elisabeth Shue) surprises him in Janie Jones-- he has a 13-year-old daughter named Janie (Abigail Breslin). Ethan's not just unprepared to be a father, he has trouble with every aspect of his life... chasing away his girlfriend and breaking up his band. After endless bad behavior and bad decisions, Janie's the only person left in Ethan's life, and she becomes not just his only friend, but she joins him on stage as well.

The story of a Texas high school band that became a popular touring act from 1968 to 1977, Thunder Soul is a documentary about a black band that broke through the color barriers of the time to gain international acclaim. Narrated by Jamie Foxx, the film not only recounts the groups formation and rise, but orchestrates a current reunion under the band's now-92-year-old bandleader.

Frizzy-haired, awkward social outcast Spork (Savannah Stehlin) is ridiculed in school by the blonde, popular mean girls. She finds herself among friends with the school's other outsiders, who help coach Spork for a middle school dance contest that could give her the chance to one-up the people who look down on her.

Spooky

A prequel set in the Norwegian camp that discovered by the characters in the 1982 The Thing, the new The Thing sends ambitious Dr. Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) to recruit American paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to join his Antarctic expedition. Kate's brought in because the team at the Norwegian base (including Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Joel Edgerton) discovered a space ship that had been buried for thousands of years, and a lone alien frozen in the ice. When they thaw the creature in the ice, the body count starts to rise, and Kate has to convince the survivors that whatever's hunting them can pass as human. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Will (Daniel Craig) has just quit his high-profile corporate job and moved his wife (Rachel Weisz) and two little girls into a new house in Dream House. When the children begin seeing strange, inexplicable things, the parents think it's just imaginations running wild, but when Will finds a group of teenagers in his basement celebrating the murders that occurred in his new home, he's forced to face the truth: everyone who lives in that house dies. While his across-the-street neighbor (Naomi Watts) tries to befriend him, she seems to know something she isn't saying, and the secrets in Will's house could endanger everyone around him. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Disney's talking puppies are back in Treasure Buddies, where the Buddies travel to Egypt, befriend a baby camel and a monkey, and search booby-trapped tombs for the greatest treasure in the animal kingdom: the lost collar of Cleocatra.

Week of January 24th

2012-01-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

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Everyone Loves an Underdog

Former boxer Charlie (Hugh Jackman) hasn't transitioned well in a world where human boxers have been replaced by robots in Real Steel-- he owes money to a boxing promoter (Kevin Durand), his robot is destroyed, and he's obligated to take care of a son he's never known. When Charlie runs into a childhood friend (Evangeline Lilly) who's taken over her father's gym, he bonds with his son as they fix up an old obsolete fighting robot. Together, father and son take their underdog robot to an unlikely series of victories until they have to face a well funded champion (Karl Yune) and his state of the art robot... Can a family and their pet project defeat the corporate giants? On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on a true story, The 5th Quarter stars Ryan Merriman as Jon, a college linebacker whose life is changed by the death of his little brother. While his parents (Aidan Quinn and Andie Macdowell) struggle with the loss of a son, Jon dedicates his football season to his brother; he's "playing for two" now. Driven to be the best he can be to honor his brother's memory, Jon becomes an example that could lead his normally-lackluster team to excellence.

Holding Together

Lynn (Ellen Barkin) travels across the country for her estranged son's wedding in Another Happy Day, navigating the tensions within her complicated family. While the groom was raised by Lynn's ex-husband (Thomas Hayden Church) and his new wife (Demi Moore), Lynn has raised her daughter (Kate Bosworth) and two boys from her second marriage on her own, and their family events are fraught with tension. Overseen by the family grandparents (Ellen Burstyn and George Kennedy), the wedding opens long-buried troubles throughout the family both comic and tragic.
27-year-old Adam's (Joseph Gordon Levitt) life is turned upside-down when he's diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 50/50. As he begins his chemotherapy treatments, shaves his head, and starts to deal with his new situation, he's helped by his loutish best friend (Seth Rogen), girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and starts session with an inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick). Knowing his chances are fifty-fifty, Adam tries to stay positive, meeting older cancer patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) and learning how to live with his disease, but he's got a difficult time ahead and no guarantee of a positive outcome. With Anjelica Huston. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Kaja maintains a relentlessly chipper attitude in the Norwegian Happy Happy, a small town schoolteacher with a repressed, distant husband and their young son. When a seemingly perfect couple move in across the street, they're everything Kaja imagines perfection to be: intelligent, elegant, and urbane. The relationship between the couples illuminates the troubles within each, but the ever-optimistic Kaja is determined to find her happiness however she can.

Alice (Isabelle Huppert) is a "specialist," a high-priced prostitute catering to the Parisian upper-class in Special Treatment. Treating her profession with more and more disdain over time, she's begun to view her clients a lump sums and the amenities they afford her... and her professional attitude is mirrored by psychoanalyst Xavier (Bouli Lanners), who sits silently as his patients bare their souls. As their worlds overlap, they discover how much they actually have in common and they struggle to overcome their professional distance, something neither of them have done in a long time.

Young Enoch has little attachment to life in Gus Van Sant's Restless: his best friend is the ghost of a WWII kamikaze pilot (Ryo Kase) and he visits strangers' funerals for fun. When Enoch meets Annabelle (Mia Wasikowska) at a funeral, the two begin an unlikely relationship, and they bond over their shared relationship with mortality... but they each have their reasons for their attitude toward life and death, and they can't avoid them forever. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on actual events, The Whistleblower is the story of Kathy Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), a Nebraska cop who takes a U.N. peacekeeping job in Bosnia in 1999. As she takes part in raids within the Bosnian sex trade, she sees girls forced into slavery ignored by the United Nations, and the corruption and payoffs that keep the system from changing. Finding an ally in the head of the Human Rights Coalition (Vanessa Redgrave) and an internal affairs officer (David Strathairn) who sees how dangerous the situation is, Kathy is entangled in a scandal the U.N. will do anything to avoid. With Monica Bellucci.

Documenting a tape-trading phenomenon, Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure is the story of two roommates who taped the loud and constant arguments of Pete and Jay, their next-door-neighbors. As the audio cassettes of the Shut Up Little Man circulated the world, they inspired an audio verite phenomenon, inspiring comics, plays, and even brokered a movie deal.

The Nine Nation Animation disc includes nine animated shorts from around the world, providing an anthology that reaches from South Africa to Norway.

Timmy Time
Timmy Takes a Bath

Timmy the lamb cleans up in episodes of Aardman Animation's Timmy Time.

Week of January 17

2012-01-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

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Behind the Curtain

Though he's young, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) has more experience than most campaign managers, and he's found a candidate he truly respects in The Ides of March. Working on the Democratic Primaries campaigns for presidential hopeful Mike Morris (George Clooney), Meyers has found a candidate he can truly believe in, and if he can guide Morris into the White House, he can improve people's lives. Getting involved with a young intern (Evan Rachel Wood) and struggling under the Senior Campaign Manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Meyers uncovers secrets, agendas, and conspiracies that force him to cope with the hard truths of political life. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Available for the first time in the united states, The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy provides extended versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on DVD and Blu-Ray, with hours of additional footage and bonus features.

Growing Up

Nigel's (Freddie Highmore) interested in cooking, but his mother (Victoria Hamilton) can't offer him much culinary help in Toast. When his mother passes away, his father (Ken Stott) begins a relationship with Mrs. Potter (Helena Bonham Carter)... and her lemon meringue pie. Nigel does the only thing he can: studies hard in his home economics class, advances his cooking skills, and competes with Potter for his father's attention with his skills in the kitchen.

Free spirit Danielle (Juno Temple) hits the road in a journey of self-discovery in Dirty Girl. With her mother (Milla Jovovich) ready to marry a Mormon (William H. Macy) who disapproves of her uninhibited lifestyle, she uses a class assignment as an excuse to take her class partner on a road trip from their Oklahoma home to California in search of her real father. Together, they travel through 1980s America with Joan, the sack of flour the teacher entrusted to them as their "baby."

Innocent and naive Bucky (Nick Swardson) believes he's found his true calling when he discovers his parents (Edward Hermann and Miriam Flynn) were 70's porn stars in Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. Heading for Hollywood, Bucky is determined to become the biggest adult star in the world, but there are two obstacles he needs to overcome: he knows nothing about adult movies, and even if he does get into the industry, he'll have the smallest penis ever filmed. With Don Johnson and Christina Ricci.

Action

Ruthless warlord Hou Jie (Andy Lau) does whatever it takes to maintain control in Shaolin, killing weaker warlords and betraying sworn brothers. When his own philosophies are turned on him, Hou Jie loses everything and finds himself at the mercy of Shaolin monks. Building a new life in the temple, he learns the error of his ways, but his former apprentice (Nicholas Tse) has become a brutal and murderous leader in his absence. When news of Hou Jie's location is leaked, Hou Jie and the monks must defend the Shaolin Temple and dethrone the unjust warlord. With Jackie Chan. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Nathan (Taylor Lautner) thinks he's a normal highschool boy when his life suddenly falls apart in Abduction. When a Serbian terrorist (Michael Nyqvist) finds him, Nathan discovers his whole life has been an illusion: the people he thought were his parents (Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello) are CIA operatives, and his psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver) is an agent protecting him on orders from his real father. On the run with a girl (Lilly Collins) from school, they have to find out why they're being chased and how they can survive when there's no one to trust. With Alfred Molina. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Corporal Rains (Danny Dyer) is inducted into a World War II commando unit in Age of Heroes, trained by Major Jones (Sean Bean) for a dangerous mission behind enemy lines: parachute into Nazi-occupied Norway and capture technology that could change the course of the war. If the British commando unit doesn't execute every step of their plan with crackerjack timing, they'll have to fight their way to the Swedish border against overwhelming odds. With Izabella Miko.

Real Life

Adapted from the one-man stage play, Thurgood stars Laurence Fishburn as Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Talking from the stage, Thurgood recounts his life and history, interweaving his law career with his personal life and battles to overcome prejudice and the system he helped change.

When their mutual friend Paul starts a band, Ben Barnes keeps his brother (Robert Sheehan) from joining and starts a band of his own in Killing Bono. When Paul (Marin McCann) changes his name to Bono can calls the band U2, there's only one way for Ben to make it up to his brother: become even bigger than Bono's band... but while U2 gets more and more famous, the brothers are living a comedy of errors: missed gigs, bad deals, and lousy investments always seem to be between them and even the smallest taste of success.

Teenage Bilal works at his uncle's Detroit taxi stand in Bilal's Stand, where no one supports his dreams of leaving the ghetto and going to school. When he receives an acceptance letter from the University of Michigan, he's determined to raise the money to attend, but he also has to overcome the pressures of his family and community who try to keep Bilal in the only life they've ever known.

Once built up as "Palm Springs by the Sea," the ghost town that is Bombay Beach is explored in the film that won Best Documentary at the Tribecca Film Festival. Though the town was a popular tourist destination and celebrity magnet in the 1950s, the location has become desolate and mostly abandoned. Comparing the lives of several remaining residents, the film explores the mostly neglected area and the people that make it their home.

Robert and Richard Sherman, the brothers who penned some of the most memorable tunes in the Disney songbook, are the subject of the documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story. Though the brothers were successful, most famously writing many of the songs in Mary Poppins, their personal stories are more complicated than their public appearances at Disney functions let on.

Dramas

Centered around a young orphan named Pedro, Mysteries of Lisbon is a wide-reaching and long-running drama that connects the teenage orphan to a story that spans more than fifty years and reaches from Portugal to South America to Italy. Spanning wars, corruption and intrigue, the Pedro's life branches to the priest who runs the orphanage and his own estranged family, spanning stories from aristocrats to pirates, where every character's full biography is a side note in another's.

Afraid of being arrested for smoking marijuana, Seong-Nam flees Seoul for Paris in the Korean Night and Day. Without knowing a word of French, he finds himself in the company of more Koreans living abroad, some who knew him back home. Trying to live quietly in a strange land, Seong-Nam's day-to-day life is colored by the tensions and attractions of his new group of peers.

A middle-aged railway pointsman finds a briefcase full of money in The Man from London. Though he lives in a decrepit shack with his daughter and high-strung wife (Tilda Swinton), he tells no one about the money... and the day after he finds the case, an inspector from London arrives in town. Could one of his neighbors have seen him take the money, and what will he have to do to keep his secret?

From the studio that produced Fireproof, Courageous is a Christian drama about the police officers in a small Georgia town. Seeing troubles in all of their lives, they create a resolution to live their lives to the highest possible standard, becoming the kind of people they want to be, and encouraging others to do the same.

Merlin
Series3

Merlin's adventures continue as he guides young Arthur, destined to be king, in a dangerous land of magic and treachery.

Week of January 10th

2012-01-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

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A New Angle

With a script by Oscar Winner Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. Since his team has roughly 1/3 the budget of better financed teams, Beane is losing his star players to baseball clubs who can pay them more, and his scouts are focused on finding their next superstar player. Beane has a different approach-- he hires a Yale grad (Jonah Hill) with an economics degree who looks into players statistics and finds game-winning players that other scouts ignore. Fighting the new plan every step of the way, the team's manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) thinks Billy's lost his mind and refuses to apply the new strategies, but, over time, Billy Beane's unconventional approach to baseball has become the stuff of legend. With Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop, and Robin Wright. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Vera Farmiga directs and stars in Higher Ground, playing Corinne Briggs, a young woman drawn into an evangelical Christian community. From her rebellious childhood, Corinne finds herself with a husband (Joshua Leonard) and a baby at 18, seeking a life apart from her own troubled parents (Donna Murphy and John Hawkes). She's drawn to Christianity, and finds a new community that spans from her open minded best friend (Dagmara Dominczyk) to their restrictive and controlling pastor (Norbert Leo Butz), but Corinne is still searching for her own beliefs and spirituality. With Nina Arianda. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Battlegrounds

Though he swore to leave his soldier of fortune life behind, Danny (Jason Statham) is drawn back in for one more mission in Killer Elite. When his friend and mentor, Hunter (Robert De Niro), is captured, Danny is forced to obey the kidnappers to save his friend. His mission: hunt down retired special forces soldiers responsible for the deaths of a sheik's sons. Danny reunites with his mercenary team (Dominic Purcell and Aden Young) to do the job, but a secret society is devoted to seeing Danny fail, and they dispatch an enforcer (Clive Owen) to stop him. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Jackie Chan's 100th movie is 1911 Revolution, set during the revolution against the imperial monarchy in China. Following the careers of Sun Yat Sen (Winston Chao), China's first president, and military commander Huang Xing (Chan) as they fight to overthrow the Quing dynasty (including Joan Chen). Their story unfolds as a historical drama decorated with enormous battle scenes and setpieces, dramatizing one of the great movements in the history of China. With Li Bingbing. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Robert Torres (Dougray Scott) is researching Josemaria Escriva (Charlie Cox), a man to be canonized as a saint, in Roland Joffe's There Be Dragons. Robert's investigation fleshes out Josemaria's story during the Spanish Civil war, and the connection between Josemaria and Manolo (Wes Bentley), Robert's estranged father. As the two men, friends since childhood, find different paths through the war, and Torres uncovers the secret that defined both the saint and his father. With Olga Kurylenko and Rodrigo Santoro. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The third sequel of the spin-off to The Mummy franchise, The Scorpion King: Battle for Redemption finds Mathayus (Victor Webster), the Scorpion King, without a people, a land, or a throne. Hired by a king (Ron Perlman) to fight his brother and rival (Billy Zane), Mathayus is paired with an oafish brawler (Bostin Christopher) and sent out on an adventure. On their way, they chase treasure, fight ninjas, rescue a princess, and confront supernatural warriors, an epic quest that could restore Mathayus' heroic title of Scorpion King.

Detective Sean Riley (Johnny Strong) is on a dark path in Sinners and Saints, under investigation for questionable shootings in post-Katrina New Orleans. Riley, a man with nothing to lose, is partnered with idealistic family man Will Ganz (Kevin Phillips) to investigate a series of brutal murders... but their investigation takes them through the city's violent underbelly, to professional killers, and could include Riley's childhood friend (Sean Patrick Flanery). With Tom Berenger.

Cristi Puiu's Aurora slowly develops Viorel's (Puiu) day to day life, quietly (and sometimes unsettlingly) moving through his native Romania. As events unfold and Viorel carefully enacts his plan, the movie becomes a mystery about mystery, and seeks to unravel not a crime but the ideas and questions behind the crime.

Dumped by her boyfriend and fired from her job, Ally (Anna Faris) is afraid of becoming undesirable in What's Your Number? Having been with 20 guys, she's convinced that no one will want a girl who's been with more than 20 people... so she starts hunting down her ex's to see if one of them could be Mr. Right. With the help of her one-night-stand devoted neighbor (Chris Evans), they find her past boyfriends: the awkward puppeteer (Andy Samberg), now engaged Chris Pratt, a presidential hopeful (Anthony Mackie), and an Englishman (Martin Freeman) she faked an accent for... but there's a reason these men in are in Ally's past. Even if she can reconnect with her hard-to-locate highschool prom date, now handsome and rich, is he really the right choice? With Ari Graynor. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A live concert filmed in London, Adele: Live at the Royal Albert Hall records a performance by singer/songwriter Adele, along with behind-the-scenes footage and an accompanying audio recording of the show.

	Boardwalk Empire Season 1	When Prohibition begins in 1919, the opportunity for profit isn't lost on Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), a crooked politician who has to out-maneuver bootleggers, gangsters, and the feds to keep control of Atlantic City.		Primeval Volume 3	A new field leader takes the helm as the team investigates and contends with time anomalies and the sci-fi fallout in our time, but new team members have new, private allegiances.
	The Penguins of Madagascar Operation Blowhole	Three episodes of the Penguins facing their arch enemy, Dr. Blowholde (Neil Patrick Harris), including the original episode that started it all.		An Idiot Abroad	Author Karl Pilkington travels to the seven wonders of the world, but his traveling companions (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) aren't making it easy for him

Week of January 3rd

2012-01-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

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Spreading Disease

Similar to the ensemble cast-driven, multiple perspective take on a large issue that won him an oscar for Traffic, Steven Soderbergh's Contagion tracks a deadly pandemic as it sweeps the globe. With no single point of view, Contagion tells its story through the doctors (including Marion Cotillard, Lawrence Fishburne, Kate Winslet) trying to identify and cure the disease, a normal family (Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow) dealing with the infection, and the world's reaction to placebos, hoarding, mass hysteria, and hopes for a vaccine. With Jude Law. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on a true story, Puncture centers around personal injury lawyer Mike Weiss (Chris Evans) and his business partner Paul Danziger as they take the case of a former nurse (Vinessa Shaw) infected with AIDS by an accidental needle stick. Weiss tries to balance his full time drug addiction with a case that could spread safer syringes, shunned by most hospitals, throughout the medical community. Championing the inventor of the "safety point" syringe (Marshall Bell), Weiss takes on a system that endangers health professionals and the corporate lawyer (Brett Cullen) that defends the status quo. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Killers, Monsters, and The Deranged

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Now & Then

Eight-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison) goes to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend, Kim (Katie Holmes), in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Moving into a 19th century mansion that her father is restoring, no one believes Sally when she says she hears voices. When they discover a blocked-off basement, the manor's caretaker (Jack Thompson) warns them to leave it alone... but the previously blocked basement only makes Sally's claims of voices and creepy, under-the-bed creatures stronger. Though no one believes the little girl, strange occurrences start to plague the household until they all have to accept that something is wrong. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis sends Sara (Sara Paxton) and her group of college friends (including Dustin Milligan and Joel David Moore) to her family's island vacation home on a private lake in Shark Night. Though they happen across Sara's ex (Chris Carmack) and his redneck buddy (Joshua Leonard), the real danger is in the lake: it's packed with a variety of sharks. With no signal on their cell phones, and no way to call for help or reach the local sheriff (Donal Logue), they're trapped and completely surrounded by dangerous predators.

Virginia (Felicia Day) is taking her fiance (Kavan Smith) home to meet her family in Red: Werewolf Hunter, but her family comes with a secret: they're werewolf hunters, and Virginia is the last living descendant of the original Red Riding Hood. Though the truce between her clan and the werewolves has stood for years, Gabriel (Steven McHattie), a wolf who can change without a full moon, has started a new war, and Virginia and her hunt-obsessed brother (Greg Bryk) are ready to fight back.

Cole (Mark Kelly) has been suffering hallucinations that cost him his high-power office job and his wife (Emma Caufield) in Removal. Cole is at the end of a long week of double shifts when an aggressive client (Oz Perkins) offers him $5,000 to do his house-- a three man job, at least-- in one night. Running low on his medication and still haunted by the murder/suicide of his friend (Billy Burke), Cole's grip on reality starts to slip throughout the course of the job, and he can't tell if there's actual danger in his client's eyes or if it's all just in his head.

Crime Fighters

Sergeant Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) works a quiet beat in County Galway, Ireland in The Guard, and the slow pace allows Boyle to indulge in booze, drugs, and prostitutes without being bothered too much. When an unconventional murder occurs in his jurisdiction, Boyle's saddled with FBI Agent Everett (Don Cheadle)-- Boyle is constantly infuriating the American, but Everett starts to suspect that Boyle is the only one who can help him. With a psychotic trio (Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot, and Mark Strong) on the loose in the otherwise-quiet county, the only hope of closing the case is the unlikely team of Boyle and Everett. With Rory Keenan. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Sean Donovan is a troubled high school student, haunted by the traumas of his youth in Boy Wonder. As a boy, he had to deal with an abusive, alcoholic father (Bill Sage), who only quit drinking after his mother was murdered in a carjacking-gone-wrong. When a driven police officer (Zulay Henao) gets transferred into his neighborhood, she's curious about the boy who spends his nights at the precinct, staring at mugshots, hoping to find his mother's killer... but she also begins to draw connections between Sean and recent vigilante: someone has been fighting and executing violent men who got away with killing women.

Comedy

Kate (Sarah Jessica Parker) has a lot on her hands in I Don't Know How She Does It. An executive by day and devoted wife and mother at night, she has the support of a good friend (Christina Hendricks) with a similar lifestyle to keep both lives on track. When her husband (Greg Kinnear) grabs a good job and Kate signs on for a new business deal-- one that will send Kate to New York regularly, and pairs her with a flirtatious associate (Pierce Brosnan)-- their already overbooked lives are spread even thinner. The comedy of desperation follows both sides of the marriage as they succeed in business, make it to the kids' afterschool activities, and still get dinner on the table. With Olivia Munn. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Recently departed stand-up comedian Patrice O'Neal's first full-length comedy special is Elephant in the Room, filmed at the New York Comedy Festival in February 2011.

Family-Friendly

Middle-schooler Whitney (Sammi Hanratty) was a princess in Philadelphia, a high-society girl with all the right friends and every luxury she could hope for The Greening of Whitney Brown. When her father (Aidan Quinn) loses his job, Whitney's taken away from everything she know and has to live in her grandfather's (Kris Kristofferson) country home, where cell reception is spotty and wi-fi is nonexistent. Though her mother (Brooke Shields) adapts smoothly from power lunches to making jam, Whitney hates the country... until she finds Bob, her grandfather's horse, and learns to care about something other than herself.

	Mildred Pierce	Kate Winslet stars in the Golden Globe-nominated miniseries about a woman struggling during the Great Depression		Justified Season 2	Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is still banished to Kentucky, but he's able to deal with the criminals in his home town better than any outside law enforcement.
	Fabric of the Cosmos	Professor and author Brian Greene explores the concepts of reality and spacetime, and how people in general perceive the world around them.		Royal Pains Season 3	Hank Larson continues to be a house-call "doctor for hire" among the privileged and isolated wealthy community in the Hamptons.

Week of December 27

2011-12-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

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Genre Pictures, Numerical

Taking place eleven years ago, Final Destination 5 is a prequel to the Final Destination series that sends a group on a company retreat. While aboard the chartered bus, Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) saves his co-workers after he has a vision of a bridge collapsing beneath him, killing all of the bus passengers. Though Sam saved them, his best friend's (Miles Fisher) girlfriend dies in a freak accident, followed by one of his co-workers (P.J. Byrne), and they slowly realize that surviving the bridge didn't stop their deaths... it just delayed them a little. Worse, they're being investigated by Courtney B. Vance, who's suspicious of the mounting deaths among the office-mates, and the mysterious coroner (Tony Todd) has only vague clues about how they might beat Death at its own game. With Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta, and David Koechner. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Though the launch was officially cancelled, the 18th Apollo mission was launched in secret in 1974, and the conspiracy of the flight is revealed in the science fiction/horror Apollo 18. Released Blair Witch-style as found footage, the film is cut together from NASA footage of astronauts Anderson (Warren Christie) and Walker (Lloyd Owen) as they touch down on the moon to place monitoring devices that could warn the US of ICBM launches. Once there, things are not what they seem-- finding a Soviet lunar vehicle in their destination, communications with Houston start to fail, and paranoia sets in. Stranded in space, the astronauts have to learn what killed the russians if they're to survive and make it home. With Ryan Robbins. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Cult-status filmmaker Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds trades the first movie's video game origins for time travel. Granger (Dolph Lundgren), an ex-special forces soldier who gets whisked away to a mystical land of dragons and sent on a quest. According to the king (Lochlyn Munro), Granger is "the chosen one," a prophesied hero from the future who has to fight the forces of darkness. With Natassia Malthe. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Explicitly Funny

Developmentally arrested partier Eric (Jason Sudeikis) is about to lose his father's house in the Hamptons and the site of his high concept theme events in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. He has time for one last party, and he's hosting an orgy. He invites an varied group of friends: his best friend (Tyler Labine), the real-estate agent (Leslie Bibb) he's always had a crush on, a psychologist (Lake Bell) on the rebound, a workaholic (Nick Kroll) who desperately needs to relax, a law student and his girlfriend (Martin Starr and Angela Sarafyan), a pair of newlyweds (Will Forte and Lucy Punch), a teacher (Lindsay Sloane) with self-esteem issues, and Michelle Borth, who's infatuated with Eric. Set up as an ensemble comedy, it assembles a who's-who of comic talent, puts them in an awkward situation, and turns them loose.

When Alex's internship after high school graduation dries up, he heads to Los Angeles to work for his
cousin's (Matthew Lillard) successful engineering firm in The Pool Boys. There's only one catch-- Alex's cousin is actually just a pool boy, but being pool boys to the Hollywood rich & famous gets access to a mansions while the owners are out of town. With an escort (Rachelle Lefevre) in the mix, the three of them hatch a get rich quick scheme before you can say "Risky Business," which leads to misunderstandings, naked women, and celebrity cameos..

Mysteries

A film noir set amidst the British clashes between the mods and rockers in the 1960's, Brighton Rock sets a small-time gangster called Pinky (Sam Riley) on the rise. Pinky romances and then intimidates Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a witness who works for Helen Mirren, but he doesn't kill her. Not killing a witness causes an upset within the gang, but Pinky starts making moves to take over, keeping Rose (who trusts him completely) under his wing... but Pinky's life is violent, and as the stakes increase, everyone around him is in danger. With John Hurt, Philip Davis, and Sean Harris.

Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a powerful businesswoman in Love Crime, but she uses her power to emotionally undermine Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier), her younger assistant. Isabelle's job depends on tolerating her boss' behavior, but both Christine and Philippe (Patrick Mille), Christine's boyfriend, are obsessed with Isabelle, and their cross-purposes drive them all towards an inevitable tragedy.

K.C. (Peter Dinklage) needs to pay off a loan shark when he finds out an old friend has died in Pete Smalls Is Dead. Jack (Mark Boone Junior), a mutual friend, offers to give him the money he needs if K.C. will fly to Los Angeles for the funeral, but once he gets there, both men find themselves drawn into a strange mystery. Though Jack doesn't actually have any money, K.C, Jack, and Pete's old friendship might still pay off some debts-- Pete Smalls (Tim Roth) was a director finishing a film, and if they can lay some claim to the in-demand movie, they could still get paid... but the trail leads through a strange, meta-noir of the Hollywood underworld, one strange character after another. With Steve Buscemi.

Reality

Based on the true story of an 84-year-old Kenyan man who decides to begin the education that had been denied to him, The First Grader takes place after the 2003 announcement of free, universal education by the Kenyan government. When the elderly Maruge goes to register for classes in his village's new school, the teacher (Naomie Harris) tells him it's impossible: the rest of her students are children. Maruge is determined-- after a hard life defying British rule, he's determined to get the education that was promised to all Kenyans, and he's not about to give up now.

Featured at the Seattle International Film Festival, the documentary Eames: The Architect & the Painter tells the story of husband and wife Charles and Ray Eames, creative partners who made an impact on several aspects of modern life. Making their initial splash with iconic designs for office furniture in the 1940s, their creative endeavors became more ambitious over time, including a 1970s application of "Apple" philosophy to computers years before the start of Apple Computers. Narrated by James Franco.

Jane Goodall, now in her 70s, has her life and achievements documented in Jane's Journey, covering her life in animal and environmental conservatism. From her arrival in Africa at the age of 26, the film recounts her fifty-plus years as an advocate of her personal and professional life and her relationship to the jungle, the environment, and animals.

The Borgias Season 1	Jeremy Irons is Pope Alexander in the Showtime historical drama about the rise of the Borgia dynasty in the 1400s.	Archer Season 2	Superspy Sterling Archer and the barely competent staff of ISIS have a new series of comic misadventures.
The Adventures of Tintin Season 1	The television series based on the original comic books about a young reporter whose job sends him on a series of heroic adventures.	The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Season 1	An American gets a job promoting an energy drink at a London office... but he's not well suited to the job or the culture.
Shameless Season 1	William H. Macy is the single father of six children in this Showtime drama, but he's an alcoholic with very little ambition for himself or his family.	Max & Ruby	Brother and sister rabbits Max and Ruby have a lot of activities and goals, but have different ways of going about things.
Doc Martin The Movies	The features that launched the popular BBC series, including Doc Martin and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie.

Week of December 20

2011-12-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

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Woody

Widely considered a return-to-form for Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris sends writer Gil (Owen Wilson) and his wife Inez (Rachel McAdams) to vacation in France. Gil dreams of giving up his lucrative screenwriting career and becoming a novelist, but his conservative in-laws (Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy) dismiss his ambitions and his wife wants to stay in California. While Inez and her parents go dancing with pseudo-intellectual blowhard Paul (Michael Sheen) and his wife, Gil explores Paris on his own... inexplicably ending up in the 1920s. Each night he goes out alone, Gil travels to the past, confiding in Luis Bunel, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali (surrealists who easily accept his story of time travel), having Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) take a look at his novel, and becoming enchanted by Picasso's mistress Adrianna (Marion Cotillard). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Action and Suspense

Dramatizing the 2007/2008 financial crisis, the dramatic thriller Margin Call begins with Stanley Tucci being fired from the risk management division of a large investment bank... but before he goes, he hands off a USB drive to one of the bank's junior members (Zachary Quinto). Examining the files on the drive, he discovers financial instability that could quickly rise to crisis levels, and takes the information step-by-step, up through executives (including Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore) to the CEO (Jeremy Irons), where the bank is forced to make a dangerous decision: protect the company or preserve the balance of the global economy. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Writer/Producer Luc Besson's Colombiana blends the professional hitwoman of his La Femme Nikita with his little girl bent on revenge from The Professional as young Cataleya sees a drug lord's capo (Jordi Molla) kill her family. Escaping Colombia, she arrives in America where she begs her uncle (Cliff Curtis) to teach her how to get her revenge... As an adult, Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) works for her uncle as an assassin, but she's also been murdering the people connected to her family's death, though the drug lord she wants is protected by the CIA (Callum Blue). With an agent (Lennie James) tracking her killings and a casual boyfriend (Michael Vartan) yearning to know more about her, she has to kill the drug lord she's been hunting for years before time runs out. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Straw Dogs
Now & Then

Relocating the story to the backwoods of Mississippi, the remake of Straw Dogs returns beautiful actress Amy (Kate Bosworth) to her small, country home, along with her husband, David (James Marsden). David isn't used to the country, and is intimidated by the louder, brasher countryfolk like Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard), the man they hired to fix the roof of their house. With tensions between city and country increasing, and a history between Charlie and Amy, one incident seperates a clash between those who ask and those who take, men who stand up and men who back down, and the civil and the brutal. With James Woods, Dominic Purcell, and Walton Goggins. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Unbeknownst to one another, two brothers sign up to compete in the same mixed martial arts tournament in Warrior. Tommy (Tom Hardy), the younger brother, beats a professional fighter in a gym and becomes an instant internet celebrity; he enlists his father (Nick Nolte) as a trainer and prepares to compete in a tournament called Sparta. Older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is a teacher struggling to support his wife (Jennifer Morrison) and daughters, and he and his friend (Frank Grillo) join the Sparta tournament for the cash prize. The brothers both have their reasons to fight, and their stories make them popular figures in the tournament, but their family history makes any and all exchanges between Tommy and Brendan explosive. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Having survived the Bolivian Army's barrage (as depicted in the final scene of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid), Butch changes his name and lives a quiet life in Blackthorn. As an older man calling himself James Blackthorn (Sam Shepard), he's saved up some money and is ready to return home to the United States. On his journey, he loses everything, and finds himself on the road with a young thief (Eduardo Noriega) and returning to the life of crime he tried to leave behind. With Stephen Rea.

Real

Based on a true story of a dolphin who lost her tail, Dolphin Tale stars young Nathan Gamble as Sawyer Nelson, a boy who discovers the injured dolphin on the beach. Dr. Hasket (Harry Connick Jr) takes the dolphin to his marine hospital, naming her "Winter," and Sawyer becomes part of her care when Dr. Hasket sees the effect the boy has on the dolphin's recovery. Along with an expert in animal prosthetics (Morgan Freeman), they work to restore Winter's life, but they have to work hard against pressures from the outside world to save the dolphin against impossible odds. With Ashley Judd and Kris Kristofferson. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

From the live stage performance of the popular show, Glee: The Concert assembles Rachel, Finn, Kurt, Artie, Quinn, Lauren, Brittany, Mercedes, Puck, and the rest for a live singing and dancing revue including favorites from the television show. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Bloody Funny

Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (Andy Serkis) are a pair of low level hustlers in 1820's Scotland in John Landis' horror/comedy Burke & Hare. With no money for rent and Hare's wife (Jessica Hynes) fighting to keep their inn afloat, the boys stumble into an interesting opportunity: one of the inn's lodgers has died. With Edinburgh being a center of modern medical thought, Burke and Hare are accidentally in possession of something of value: a fresh cadaver. With two competing doctors (Tom Wilkinson and Tim Curry) scrambling to outperform one another, Burke and Hare could be rich men... if they can keep up a fresh supply of corpses.

Like October's Rare Exports, the Dutch Saint Nick explores the darker origins of the Santa Claus myth. According to legend, every 32 years a full moon will rise on the December 5th celebration of Sinterklaas, and the violent Bishop Niklas and his horde will rise from the grave and take revenge during the full moon. Only Officer Goert, who was six years old during the last Sinterklaas full moon and saw the killer bishop, knows what's coming... but no one will believe him.

Futurama
Season 6.2

The second half of the newest season of the recently-ressurected Futurama, back by popular demand.

Week of December 13

2011-12-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

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Human or Beast?

Will (James Franco) is a scientist developing a gene therapy drug to heal the human brain in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but after an incident with one of his chimpanzee test subjects, his project is shut down. Though most of the chimpanzees are destroyed, Will takes baby chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) home and raises him in secret, thinking Caesar's remarkable intelligence is the key to a drug that could cure his Alzheimer's-suffering father (John Lithgow)... but Will can't keep Caesar a secret forever. When Caesar is sent to a primate sanctuary run by Brian Cox, he sees how the rest of ape-kind is treated, and begins to plan not just an escape, but a way for the rest of the ape inmates to live unharassed lives. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fright Night
Now & Then

Charley (Anton Yelchin) has left his nerdy past behind and started dating popular Amy (Imogen Poots). Even though Charley's been avoiding embarrassing people from his past, his childhood friend Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) forces him to investigate a preposterous theory in Fright Night: Charley's next-door-neighbor (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. Looking into the disappearances makes him a target, and Charley has to protect his mom (Toni Collette) and his home from a bloodthirsty killer... so he tracks down a "vampire expert" stage magician (David Tennant) and prepares to do battle with the undead. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Growing up in 1950s Idaho, young Seth attributes tragedies in his sparse farming community to vampires in The Reflecting Skin. Learning vampire lore from his troubled father (Duncan Fraser), Seth suspects the reclusive woman called Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) is a vampire, though his strict, religious mother (Sheila Moore) frowns on supernatural tales. When Seth's older brother (Viggo Mortensen) returns home from the Pacific he begins an affair with Dolphin, and Seth is terrified his brother will be the next casualty.

Kung Fu

Po (Jack Black) has become the Dragon Warrior, but Master Sifu (Dustin Hoffman) tells him he won't reach his full potential until he achieves inner peace in Kung Fu Panda 2. While Po and the Furious Five track marauders to Shen (Gary Oldman), a peacock developing modern weapons to conquer all of China, Po starts having memories of his mother and has to wonder why he was raised by an adopted father. If Po's parents and the villainous Shen are intertwined, then Shen could hold the secret to Po's inner peace. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Taking place before the popular Ip Man films, Ip Man: The Legend is Born shows the beginnings of the legendary master as Ip Man (Dennis To) and his sworn brother Ip Tin-Chi (Fan Sui-Wong) as they begin their studies in Wing Chun kung fu under their sifu (Sammo Hung). As they develop, the brothers Ip travel to Hong Kong, learning different takes on life and different schools of thought within Wing Chun, but their school's ultimate test will be surviving a Japanese plot and a spy in their midst. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A famous detective (Andy Lau) is released from prison to solve an elaborate murder plot in Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. Set free by the soon-to-be Empress (Carina Lau), Detective Dee teams up with Li Bing Bing to discover who is killing senior officials before the murderer eventually assassinates the Empress, but their investigation takes them into magical subterranean cities and pits them against inconceivable mystical forces. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Forbidden Loves

Traveling from 1950s Holland to New Zealand, three women seek their new lives in Bride Flight. Slipping forward and backward in time, the film constructs an epic, romantic drama as farm girl Ada, aspiring familywoman Majorie, and Holocaust survivor Esther are entangled in each other's lives, driving them towards not just friendship and love, but also betrayal and adultery. With Rutger Hauer.

Orphan Shireen and affluent Atafeh are coming of age in Iran in Circumstance, but as the sixteen-year-old girls begin to discover themselves, they clash with their restrictive culture. While the girls stray further from their culture's accepted norms, Atafeh's brother, turning to religion after overcoming a drug addiction, grows more fundamentalist and intolerant of the lives the girls are living.

Filmed by Swedish documentarians in the 60's and 70's, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 investigated the Black Power movement as it developed. Providing a different perspective than American journalism at the time, the Swedish footage has been made available after 30 years in storage, providing rare interviews and footage of cultural leaders.

The Disney Animation Collection Vol 7 is out in time for Christmas, and it features Mickey's Christmas Carol, where Scrooge McDuck is guided through his life by three spirits.

Family Guy
Volume 9

The Griffin family continues to skewer social mores with pop-culture asides.

Pie in the Sky
Series 5

The final series of Pie in the Sky could let gentle Inspector Crabbe finally get out of police work and cook full-time

Week of December 6

2011-12-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

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More Comedies

The gang from the first movie reunite for The Hangover Part II, this time traveling to Thailand to celebrate Stu's (Ed Helms) approaching wedding. After a night of celebrating, Stu, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha) wake up with no memory of how they wound up in a dirty Bangkok hotel room, why Stu has a copy of Mike Tyson's face tattoo, or how they acquired a chain-smoking monkey. Worse, Stu's brother-in-law-to-be has vanished, and the guys have to undertake another comic misadventure to find the missing member of their bachelor party. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The last thing Mr. Popper (Jim Carrey) receives from his father is a crate with a penguin inside in Mr. Popper's Penguins. Through some wacky misunderstandings, one penguin becomes six, and Popper's apartment is suddenly full of mischievous but lovable penguins... and he can't get rid of them because his son and daughter (Madeline Carroll) love the birds. The penguins help Popper reconnect with his kids and reunite with their mother (Carla Gugino), but a penguin expert (Clark Gregg) from the New York Zoo wants to take them away from him. With Angela Lansbury. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Dramatic

Set in the early 60's, Emma Stone stars as recent university graduate Skeeter Phelan in The Help. Returning to her Georgia home to find her childhood nanny quit while she was away, Skeeter, who wants to be a writer, begins writing a book about black housekeepers in white households. Though reluctant to be interviewed at first, she begins to learn the stories of Aibileen (Viola Davis), who has spent her life raising other people's children, and Minny (Octavia Spencer), who has a reputation for being a difficult employee and is often fired. Though Skeeter's book could be a rare opportunity for Aibileen's and Minny's voices to be heard, her friends (including Bryce Dallas Howard) have very different views of their hired help, seeing nothing wrong with the status quo. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

12-year-old Chanda takes responsibility for keeping her family together in the South African Life, Above All. With her family in shambles because of the loss of her baby sister, Chanda cares for her siblings and handleS funeral arrangements... with her mother unable to cope with her grief and her stepfather consistently drunk, Chanda fights for the survival of her family during a difficult time. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

For his final video project, high school senior Archie (Gabriel Sunday) announces that he will film his own suicide in Archie's Final Project. The formerly-invisible Archie is suddenly the most talked about boy in school as he films what will be his last days, documenting the frustrations of his age group with school, society, and suburban America's "everything all the time" culture. Between criticisms of his parents, classmates, police, and doctors, he captures the imagination of the prettiest girl in school (Brooke Nevin) who has dark musings of her own. With David Carradine.

Mysteries and Gunfire

Daniel Craig wakes up in an old west desert with no memory and a strange, alien device strapped to his wrist in Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens. He wanders into a town run by the severe Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and immediately gets into trouble with the Colonel's spoiled son (Paul Dano)... but before he can be carted off to jail, aliens attack and capture half the town. Now the amnesiac cowboy, the Colonel, the saloon owner (Sam Rockwell), the priest (Clancy Brown), and a woman with a mysterious past (Olivia Wilde) have to form a posse, find the invaders from space, and rescue their friends and family. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Made famous by writing about her exploits as a Mossad agent, Rachel (Helen Mirren) looks back on the event that changed her life in The Debt. As a young woman, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington), and Stefan (Marton Csokas) planned a mission in 1960's East Berlin to capture a Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen) and bring him to justice. As they execute their plan, the consequences of their success or failure weigh on them, and the divisions between their story in the 90s and the events in the 60s threaten to tear their lives apart. With Ciaran Hinds and Tom Wilkinson. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A married couple investigate an inn that is supposedly haunted in the short film A Penny Earned, but they soon learn that some ghosts don't like having their story told. T.J. Mino, one of our Maple Leaf neighbors, made this short film, and it has been accepted at the Sundance Film Festival. See it here first!

Training to be a nurse, Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) intervenes in an attempt on a patient's life in the French Point Blank. Samuel's good deed has repercussions, though-- a group of criminals abduct his pregnant wife (Elena Anaya), and now he has to deliver the man he saved (Roschdy Zem) -- now under police guard-- to the kidnappers as an exchange for his wife. In over his head, Samuel has to navigate a criminal underworld and corrupt police to reclaim his life. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Investigating the death of his boss and best friend (Michael Gambon), career MI-5 Agent Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) finds himself deep inside a conspiracy in Page Eight. Teaming up with Rachel Weisz, Worricker uncovers secrets that could shake the foundations of the MI-5 organization and may reach all the way to the Prime Minister (Ralph Fiennes).

Based on the popular book series, Three Investigators: The Secret of Skeleton Island has three boy adventurers, Jupiter, Pete, and Bob, help a girl escape Cape Town, South Africa, pursue an evil treasure hunter, and face off against a mysterious monster called "The Tokolosh."

Big Love Season 5	The final season of HBO's Mormon plural marriage drama follows Bill to his seat in the Utah state senate.	The Simpsons Season 14	Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie continue to have madcap comic escapades with a variety of guest stars.
Portlandia Season 1	The Pacific Northwest-based sketch show satirizes the personalities and attitudes of Portland from outdoor movies to organic farming.	Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXII	Volume 22 of MST3K includes Time of the Apes, Mighty Jack, The Violent Years, and The Brute Man
The Hour Series 1	A new BBC show set in the 1950s dramatizes the events behind the scenes of a fledgling news program during the Suez crisis.	Curious George Gets a New Toy	Eight episodes of Curious George hijinks where George discovers new playthings.

Week of November 29

2011-11-29T16:22:00.000-08:00

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Comedies

When low-key, easy going, biodynamic farmer Ned (Paul Rudd) gets out of jail after making an embarrassing mistake, he finds he has nothing left to go home to in Our Idiot Brother. Not welcome back at the farm, Ned reconnects with his family, aligning himself with his sisters: Ambitious writer Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), impulsive young Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), and domestic Liz (Emily Mortimer) living with her inattentive filmmaker husband (Steve Coogan). Though his sisters see him as a nuisance and embarrassment, laid-back Ned is one of the only people capable of coping with the craziness in all their lives. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

When Dylan (Justin Timberlake) moves to New York, the only person in town he knows is Jamie (Mila Kunis), the corporate headhunter who got him hired, in Friends with Benefits. Since they both just had terrible breakups, the two of them agree to have an emotion-free physical relationship. They manage to stay friends during their arrangement, and even after it ends, but even with their shared annoyance with romantic comedies and their cliches, are either of them ready to be less jaded and more open? On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Nick's (Jesse Eisenberg) life has stalled... he hates his pizza delivery job and has nothing going for him in 30 Minutes or Less when he gets roped into a crazy scheme. Dwayne (Danny McBride) and his friend (Nick Swardson) want money to hire a hitman (Michael Pena) to kill Dwayne's domineering father (Fred Ward), but to avoid any connection to himself, Dwayne orders a pizza and hijacks the delivery driver... which means Nick's life just got worse. With a bomb strapped to him and little time to come up with a huge sum of money, Nick grabs his best friend (Aziz Ansari) and lays out a plan: either they rob a bank together, or Nick explodes. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Right One

Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) spend one night together after their university graduation in One Day, but they forge a relationship that spans years. Emma's a working-class girl and Dexter's a wealthy socialite, but they never lose one another as their lives intersect every year. Their relationship grows and changes over the course of twenty years, even as Emma finds another guy (Rafe Spall) and Dexter another girl (Romola Garai), their connection doesn't break. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

George (Freddie Highmore) is a talented highschool senior, but he has a deep fatalistic streak in The Art of Getting By. Obsessed with his eventual death, George spends his time drawing, never paying attention in class, and usually getting in trouble... until he uses his reputation as a troublemaker to help Sally (Emma Roberts). Though the two form a connection, George's outlook on life makes him unromantic and unapproachable, but he's developed a bond with Sally that doesn't fit with his worldview. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Drive-In Fare

When a group of college students set out on a camping trip, movies and urban legend warned them about killer hillbillies in Tucker and Dale vs Evil, but Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are just out to fix up their new vacation spot. They save one of the students (Katrina Bowden) from drowning and try to help her, but her friends think she's been taken to a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style nightmare shack. As the alpha-male college student (Jesse Moss) declares war, Tucker and Dale are horrified to find themselves surrounded by city kids dying due to incompetence, ignorance, and one big misunderstanding. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A campy horror-anthology film, Chillerama is a feature with four short stories. Adam Rifkin directs and stars in Wadzilla, a 1950's style monster movie where a doctor's (Ray Wise) fertility drug unleashes a giant sperm that attacks New York. Tim Sullivan's I Was a Teenage Wear-Bear sees Sean Paul Lockhart transforming into a creature acting on its desires when influenced by leather-boy bikers. Adolf Hitler (Joel Moore) raises the dead to animate a Jewish monster in Adam Green's Diary of Anne Frankenstein, and a drive-in theater is attacked by zombies in Joe Lynch's Zom B Movie. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Belgian faux-documentary Vampires puts a camera crew into the heart of a vampire home... with added protection, since the first two documentary crews were eaten almost immediately. Georges is the patriarch of his vampire family, with his insane and monstrous wife Bertha. Their son is becoming an adult in the vampire world, and their daughter dresses in pink, files down her fangs, and repeatedly attempts suicide in hopes of "dying like a human." They all have a story to tell, if the film crew lives long enough to hear it.

The last piece of his father's antique collecting estate shows up at Ben's (Michael Dorman) college dorm in the form of an ornate box in Needle. The night after Ben shows the box to his friends, it vanishes-- and then his friends start dying. The box's clockwork insides accepts a picture of a person and creates a wax voodoo doll... hurting the doll will wound the actual person. With the machine missing and his friends being killed off, Ben and his brother (Travis Fimmel) have to find out who wants to take revenge on all of them.

Your Place in the World

As a high school senior, Rhoda drunkenly crashed into another car when she looked up to see a second planet Earth appear in the sky in Another Earth. Once she's released from jail, she connects with John (William Mapother), whose wife and son she killed in the accident, posing as a housekeeper. Though she intended to apologize, Rhoda lost her nerve, and she forms a relationship with John hoping to bring some peace to his empty, shattered life... though they both wonder about life on Earth 2, and if their Earth 2 selves have better lives than the ones they live. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Miranda July's The Future is the story of Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) whose lives change when they decide to adopt an injured cat named Paw Paw. Narrated by the cat, the film explores the thirty days before they can bring Paw Paw home and their impending future caring for Paw Paw leading directly to their middle age (which they see as the end of their lives.) As they contemplate their lives, make radical changes on a whim, create characters out of clothing, and re-tell bleak events and upbeat fables, but their crisis is so pronounced it can expand and contract time.

The German adaptation of the 1980s young adult novel, The Wave stars Jurgen Vogel as a teacher proving a point to his students. When his class claims that Nazi Germany couldn't happen today, he begins an experiment. Though he's just trying to illustrate the dangers of cults of personality, the teacher finds himself in front of driven, motivated, identically dressed students willing to do anything for him... which he thinks will win his argument, until it goes completely out of control.

Documentary

Exploring the recently unearthed Chauvet Cave, Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams provides rare footage of the oldest cave paintings known to man. Sealed for thousands of years, the cave offers a look at unspoiled artwork, tools, and remains from over 30,000 years ago, and Herzog both films the findings and speaks with the cultural and archeological authorities in an effort to explore humanity through the lens of history. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The story of Chastity Bono's gender reassignment to Chaz Bono, Becoming Chaz follows the female-to-male transition, from hormone therapy to surgery. Made an advocate of a misunderstood issue, Chaz documented the process as openly and honestly as possible.

Recording and preserving Tibetan folk music banned by communist China, Tibet in Song began as director Ngawang Choephel's quest to save the music of his home country. Jailed and held as a spy by the Chinese government in the middle of his project, Choephel weaves together Tibetan folk singers, the struggle of Tibetan people through the ages, and his own imprisonment and release.

Family

Gargamel (Hank Azaria), the evil wizard, chases a group of Smurfs into a magic cave and they all emerge in New York City in The Smurfs. Strangers in a strange land, Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters), Smurfette, Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen), Gutsy Smurf (Alan Cumming), Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin), Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez) and the rest befriend Neil Patrick Harris, who helps them in the big city until Papa Smurf can get them all back home... but Gargamel is in New York too, and he's still after the Smurfs. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

10-year-old Billy (Bobby Coleman) is still bald from chemotherapy, but determined to do something that will make him a legend before cancer takes him in Snowmen. Billy and his friends try a variety of stunts to find a way into the Guinness Book of World Records, but the friends that support him turn out to be more important than any publicity. With Ray Liotta.

Gifted pro-golfer Luke (Lucas Black) has his faith shaken by a disastrous round of golf while on tour in the family-friendly Seven Days in Utopia. On his way home, he crashes through Robert Duvall's fence and finds him to be a kind mentor, someone who can help the angry young man find peace and salvation and put him back on track. With Melissa Leo.

	30 Rock Season 5	The cast and crew of TGS with Tracy Jordan try to keep their sketch show on the air amidst dysfunction, neuroses, and showbiz self-obsession.		Smallville Season 10	The 10th and final season of Smallville, where Clark Kent embraces his future and superhero alter-ego.
	Southland Season 2	The police officers working in South Central Los Angeles try to balance their lives against their dangerous job.

Week of November 22

2011-11-22T15:45:00.001-08:00

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Kids

Set in a Spielbergian suburb in the late 70s, J.J. Abrams' Super 8 sees 14-year-old Joe and his friends making a movie with a super 8 camera and Alice (Elle Fanning), their new female lead, when they accidentally film an epic train crash. Joe and his friends find themselves holding evidence of the mysterious secret that escaped the train as the Air Force begins to overtake their community, and the kids try to stay together through disappearances and conspiracies while their town becomes a dangerous place. With Kyle Chandler and Ron Eldard. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

In Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, Marissa (Jessica Alba) has a secret that her husband (Joel McHale) and stepchildren Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil haven't guessed: she's a spy. With their dad clueless and Marissa off on a mission, Rebecca and Cecil have to become new Spy Kids, solving puzzles and using hi-tech gadgets in order to stop a supervillian (Jeremy Piven) from stealing all the time in the world. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Morgan (David James Elliott) copes with trouble in his personal life by returning to the summer camp of his youth in Rainbow Tribe. Reuniting with his best-friend-turned-camp-director (Ed Quinn), Morgan becomes camp councilor to a wild group of 10-year-olds who help him through his difficult time as they all have the best summer of their lives.

Atrocities

Based on a true story, Latif (Dominic Cooper) is brought to Uday Hussein (also Cooper) to serve as his double in The Devil's Double. Pulled from military service, Latif doesn't want to work for Uday, but as the son of Saddam Hussein, Uday generally gets what he wants... even if it takes kidnapping, torture, or murder to get it. As Latif is forced into his new position, he finds himself trapped in the employ of a psychopath who derives perverse pleasure from owning his life. With Ludivine Sagnier. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) is an American reporter in Paris, asked to cover the World War II round-up of Jewish citizens of France during the Nazi occupation in Sarah's Key. Flashing from present-day Julia's investigation and the life of young Sarah 60 years before, the film pieces together the story of Sarah's struggles to survive in a nightmarish time in French history and Julia's research into that time, and the threads that connect them. With Aidan Quinn.

Hack & Slash

Conan the Barbarian
Now & Then

Born in the middle of a battlefield, Conan (Jason Momoa) is destined to be a warrior in Conan the Barbarian. Conan is driven by finding the man who razed his village and killed his father (Ron Perlman)... but when he discovers the man he's hunting is the powerful warlord Khlar Zym (Stephen Lang) his hunt becomes an epic quest. Protecting the maiden (Rachel Nichols) that Zym is tracking, Conan brutally slices his way through mercenary hordes to finally confront Khlar Zym and his evil sorceress daughter (Rose McGowan). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Beginning with an introduction from director Yoshihiro Nishimura where he encourages viewers to enjoy his film with a beer (or other special beverage) in hand, the Japanese splatter movie Helldriver is set in a zombie infected future where half of the country has been walled off in quarantine. Kika, a schoolgirl wounded and reassembled as a cybernetic super-soldier, leads a hysterically bloody expedition into the zombie controlled wastelands to defeat the zombie queen (Eihi Shiina) once and for all. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Documentary

A film about a group of people who came out as gay after the age of 50, Out Late explores the lives of four people and their lives in and out of the closet. Detailing the struggles of their lives (and sometimes marriages) in the less-than-tolerant 1930s, 40s, and 50s, the film's subjects tell the stories of times when coming out "just wasn't done."

Telling the story of twenty years of Pearl Jam, Cameron Crowe's rockumentary Pearl Jam Twenty covers the beginnings of the band, rising from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, finding new singer Eddie Vedder, and dealing with their sudden, instant fame... as well as their later days, and how the band evolved.

Christmas

Wayne (Dave Foley), one of Santa's elves, makes sure the houses are ready for Santa's visit in Prep & Landing, but he's upset when he doesn't get a promotion he wants. Upset about still working for Prep & Landing, Wayne's stuck with a goofy new assistant (Derek Richardson) and starts to slack off at his job... which could have disastrous results for Christmas.

Belle is preparing the castle for Christmas in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, but the many magical objects in the castle are afraid a special Christmas will end Beast's curse and make them obsolete. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Week of November 15

2011-11-15T16:35:00.001-08:00

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Starting Over

When ernest, non-cynical Larry (Tom Hanks) loses his job because of his lack of a college education, he enrolls in community college in Larry Crowne. Beginning his college education in his fifties, Larry's life undergoes drastic changes: he buys a scooter from his neighbor (Cedric the Entertainer), attracting the attention of the girl (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who leads the school's scooter gang, someone who re imagines Larry's clothes, hair, and home. Along with his new lease on life, Larry also develops an unexpected crush on one of his professors (Julia Roberts). With Bryan Cranston. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Written by playwrite Horton Foote, Main Street unfolds in a North Carolina town in decline. The town's future could change when a Texas businessman (Colin Firth) rents a warehouse from Georgianna (Ellen Burstyn), though her niece (Patricia Clarkson) has some reservations about the newcomer's honesty and intentions. As the town's future is decided, the locals continue their lives, including the local cop (Orlando Bloom), the girl who dreams of life outside the small town (Amber Tamblyn), and an unscrupulous white collar businesman (Andrew McCarthy). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Odd Pairings

Following the death of his father (Christopher Plummer), Oliver (Ewan McGregor) contemplates his life, and his parents' lives, in Beginners. As Oliver starts a new relationship with a French actress (Melanie Laurent), his time with her is colored by his grief over his father, his sense of self, reflections of love and life across several decades, and what it means to be here, now. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Shy, unassuming Woodrow and his brash, outgoing friend Aiden spend their time making flamethrowers and modifying cars to rule a Road Warrior-style wasteland after the eventual apocalypse in Bellflower. When Woodrow meets Milly, she's initially drawn to his strange lifestyle and attempts to impress her, but trouble in their relationship spirals out of control, especially with access to weapons and an ability to blur apocalyptic fantasy into heartbreaking reality. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Griff (Ryan Kwanten) spends his days in an office, bullied by an abusive co-worker (Toby Schmitz), but at night he fights crime in a superhero costume in the Australian Griff the Invisible. Though his well-meaning brother derides him for living in a fantasy world, Melody (Maeve Dermody), who also lives in a world of impossibility and wonder, sees him as a kindred spirit and encourages his superhero alter ego. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Uptight Marcus and boyish slacker Danny, estranged brothers, return to their father's home for the reading of his will in The Drummond Will. Inheriting the house (and all of its contents), the brothers consider their options when they find one of their father's friends has broken in to retrieve a bag of unexplained money. Before they can decide what to do, people who know about the money begin to accidentally, comically die-- Danny tries to deal with the situation with optimism while Marcus has neurotic episodes, but they have to work together to stay out of jail and figure out why people keep dying.

Dawn's (Charlotte Gainsbourg) life in an idyllic country home is shattered when a car accident kills her husband (Aden Young) in The Tree. Of her four children, eight-year-old Simone tells Dawn she can hear her father speaking to her through the the branches of a tree in their yard. Dawn finds comfort in her daughter's imagination, and finds herself spending more and more time at the tree, but her blooming relationship with Marton Csokas puts her past life at odds with her ability to move forward.

"I remember a guy from New York saying to me 'So, New Zealand... who's a big comedy act in New Zealand?' and I said 'Some yodeling, lesbian twins.' And at that point he just kind of went 'Oh look, there's someone I know," and ran off..."

A documentary about the New Zealand comedic musical duo, The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls tells the story of Jools and Lynda Topp, from their childhood on a farm to their life on stage, playing songs and adopting characters as part of their show. Celebrating their songs, variety-show stage performance, infectious enthusiasm, and out-and-proud lifestyle, the film paints their portrait through interviews and recorded live performances.

When Alvin gives away his harmonica to a sick boy for Christmas, he has to find a way to play his harmonica solo at Carnegie Hall in Christmas with the Chipmunks. Determined not to tell Dave that he doesn't have an instrument, Alvin asks Simon and Theodore to raise enough money to replace the harmonica and make their Christmas concert a success.

	Being Human Season 1	The remake of the British Being Human introduces three unusual roommates to a Boston neighborhood as they attempt to lead normal lives, despite being a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire.
	Whitechapel The Ripper Returns	When the new Detective Inspector suspects a murder might be the work of a Jack the Ripper copycat, no one believes him, but as the body count rises and the trend continues, he has to stop the killer from becoming the next Ripper.

Week of November 8

2011-11-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

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In Series

The final movie of the Harry Potter series, part two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) reaching the end of their years-long confrontation with the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). With Voldemort holding the incredibly powerful Elder Wand and Harry searching for the Sword of Gryffindor, the two of them are destined to face off in their ultimate battle as Hogwarts becomes the site of the largest battle in the world of Harry Potter. With Alan Rickman. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The first part of a proposed trilogy adapting the famous Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is set in a future where gas prices have made train travel essential. Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling), CEO of a railroad, joins forces with Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler), an entrepreneur whose new experimental metal could save her company. As two, strong, self-reliant businesspeople, they're naturally poised for success, but liaisons from the government (Michael Lerner), unscrupulous businessmen (Jsu Garcia), and the crumbling society around them are determined to undermine "the people who move the world." On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Body-Swap

Lifelong friends Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) envy each other's lives in The Change-Up, but before they can say "Freaky Friday" they wake up in each other's bodies. Low-rent actor and lifelong slacker Mitch has no idea how to live Dave's life, married to Leslie Mann, raising children, and going to work as a high-power lawyer. Though Dave wanted Mitch's man child lifestyle, he's not prepared for Mitch's compromising positions, troubled relationship with his father (Alan Arkin), or the ability to live like an unmarried man and follow through on his crush on a beautiful co-worker (Olivia Wilde). Through a comedy of errors, they each see their own lives from a new perspective and discover what they might be doing wrong. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Quiet Lives

The independent Putty Hill begins the day after the death of a young man in a small community, drifting between fly-on-the-wall observations of the people in the town to interviewing his friends and family. As the film explores the community's questions about life and death, it builds a portrait of the community and the characters in a naturalistic, cinema verite style.

Gus (Zach Gilford) is a fishing savant in The River Why, seeking his own path after rebelling against his famous, fly-fishing father (William Hurt) and mother (Kathleen Quinlan). As he sets out on the road, he begins a quest for enlightenment on the water, the one thing he truly understands, but Gus' journey is complicated when he meets a tomboy fly-fisher named Eddy (Amber Heard).

National Geographic's Life in a Day asked people around the world to shoot video and upload clips to YouTube. The film is assembled from worldwide submissions of July 24, 2010, putting together a patchwork of life around the world as submitted by the self-filmed.

Catherine Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty creates a blessed/curse princess Anastasia, a tomboy destined to fall into a 100-year sleep. Twisting and subverting classical fairytale logic, the film provides an adult fairytale full of magical faeries, ghost trains, a snow queen, dwarf station masters, and not-so-heroic princes.

13
Now & Then

Vince (Sam Riley) steals someone else's invitation, follows elaborate instructions, and ends up the contestant in a dangerous, illegal, underground game in 13. Though Vince has no idea what he's gotten himself into, he cannot leave the game, stuck with players who been sold to the game runners (Mickey Rourke) or hijacked from institutions (Ray Winstone), and the gamblers (Jason Statham) invested in the fates of the players. One police officer (David Zayas) might be able to intervene... but only if Vince cooperates. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Merry Christmas

The newest Barbie Christmas movie is A Perfect Christmas, as Barbie and her friends take a musical vacation from their New York home to the town of Tannenbaum. In appreciation for Tannenbaum's hospitality, the friends use their musical talents to put on a show and give them all a perfect Christmas.

A group of golden retriever puppies help an older married couple play matchmaker in A Golden Christmas 2: The Second Tail. Making sure everyone finds true happiness in time for Christmas. When the dogs interrupt a marriage proposal, only the puppies can make it right again.

An elf runs away from the north pole with Santa's sleigh and presents in Beethoven's Christmas Adventure, but he crashes in the suburbs. With the bag of presents in the wrong hands, it's up to Beethoven (voiced by Tom Arnold) to get the bag back and save Christmas. Narrated by John Cleese. With Curtis Armstrong.

	Doctor Who Series 6 Part 2	The Doctor continues his adventures through time and space, following the connections between Amy Pond, her new baby Melody, and the mystery of River Song.
	Bramwell Series 2	Victorian-era doctor Eleanor Bramwell runs a free hospital for the poor in East London in defiance of the male-run medical community.

Week of November 1

2011-11-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

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Mater takes the lead

When a former oil tycoon (Eddie Izzard) hosts a race to promote his new biofuel, he brings in Piston Cup champion Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) to compete in Pixar's Cars 2, but Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), McQueen's tow-truck sidekick, is off on another adventure. Accidentally teamed up with a pair of British spies (Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer) who think his personality is the cover of a brilliant American agent, Mater is thrown into a comic wrong-man story, evading enemy agents and getting to the heart of an oil/biofuel conspiracy almost in spite of himself. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Meaning of Love

Cal (Steve Carell) is shocked when his wife (Julianne Moore) says she wants a divorce during the middle of dinner in Crazy Stupid Love, but is too shocked to do anything. Depressed and moping at a bar, Cal is rescued by Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a hyper-confident playboy determined to help Cal be an effective single man, wooing women and getting over his divorce. Though both men seem to be doing well, new women don't change the fact that Cal will never stop loving his wife, and Jacob is inspired to settle down when he meets Hannah (Emma Stone), who's unlike any woman he's ever met. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

As a young girl, Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) gave up everything she enjoyed in An Invisible Sign as part of a "deal with the universe" to heal her ailing father (John Shea). As a young woman, this deal has stunted her ability to relate to anything but math, a passion she and her father shared, and she's unprepared when her mother (Sonia Braga) asks her to move out and find a life of her own. Finding a job as an elementary school math teacher, she begins to reconnect with the world trough her 8-year-old students... and the science teacher (Chris Messina) determined to be a part of her world.

Baya Benmahmoud (Sara Forestier) is a free-spirited, left-leaning girl who sleeps with right-wing men to change their politics in the French The Names of Love. When she meets Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin), a middle-of-the-road scientist, the two form a stronger relationship based on each of their complicated histories.

Years Past

When an elderly gentleman (Hal Holbrook) walks into a traveling circus in the middle of packing up, he's nearly sent away, but he begins to tell the story of his life in the Benzini Brothers circus in the 1930s in Water for Elephants. As a young man, Jacob (Robert Pattinson) dropped out of veterinary hopped a train and found himself put to work in the circus. The circus' owner, August (Christoph Waltz), puts Jacob's schooling to use, working with the animals and making sure the show's star attraction brings in the crowds... but the star attraction is August's wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), and as Jacob and Marlena grow closer, August shows his dangerous side. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Wayne Wang's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is the story of two "sworn sisters" in 19th-century China, Snow Flower (Gianna Jun) and Lilly (Li Bing Bing). Separated by their families, they stay connected by writing in a secret language in the folds of a silk fan, maintaining their friendship through almost impossible hardship. The fan is discovered by two friends in New York (also Jun and Li), and the story of Snow Flow and Lilly's friendship redefines their own lives as well. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Documentaries

In Bill Cunningham New York, Bill is celebrating his 80th birthday. During his decades pedaling a Schwin around New York City, taking pictures, Bill Cunningham's photographs were made famous in the pages of Vogue, Details, and eventually the New York Times. Happy to have found his calling, Cunningham continues to shoot people and fashions, more drawn to collecting culture and recording looks than to fame or even publication.

Errol Morris' Tabloid tells the widely publicized story of Joyce McKinney as her image evolved in newspapers, interviewing McKinney herself and the people who were around her during the events that made her notorious. Beginning with her initial fame as a kidnapper, the film follows her notoriety as she fights to be with the man she loves through to her more recent headlines, measuring the gulf between all the versions of the stories being told.

A look into the aftermath of Sierra Leone's civil war, Fambul Tok follows Sierra Leonean John Caulker as he travels from village to village with a system to heal broken communities. Caulker's Fambul Tok (translated as "Family Talk") brings victims and aggressors together, seeking apologies and forgiveness, which becomes more challenging as the level of the crimes being addressed rises.

When Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and The Merry Pranksters hit the road in a brightly painted bus in 1964, they filmed the adventure intending to record a documentary of their cross-country journey. Though their movie was never completed, Alex Gibney's Magic Trip uses the Pranksters' raw footage, along with current reflections of the times, to flesh out the story of their psychedelic experiment.

Bad Bad Men

Masked bandits (including Ben Mendelsohn and Cam Gigandet) break into Nicolas Cage's opulent house in Joel Schumacher's Trespass. They're searching for his wealth, but Cage is concerned about his wife (Nicole Kidman) and daughter (Liana Liberato)-- if he gives the robbers what they want, what's their incentive to keep his family alive? As they maneuver for control of the situation, secrets start to emerge, complicating an already difficult caper. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

In a post apocalyptic world where there are no guns, an aimless stranger (Josh Hartnett) wanders into town in Bunraku. Set in a candy-colored, comic book town the stranger navigates hyper-stylized gangs armed with swords, knives and axes, aiming for The Woodsman (Ron Perlman), the vicious gangster who runs everything. With Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fairytale

Mary's (Elle Fanning) Christmas becomes a fantasy adventure when her Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane) gives her a nutcracker as a gift in The Nutcracker: The Untold Story. The Nutcracker (Shirley Henderson) comes to life and whisks Mary off on a fairy tale journey with Rat Kings, Snow Fairies, adventure, and magic.On DVD and Blu-Ray.

	Californication Series 4	Hank emerges from jail to find his role as the inspiration for Mia's book has become public, and he could be facing more serious charges and a real prison sentence.
	Saxondale Series 1 & 2	Middle aged former roadie Tommy Saxondale (Steve Coogan) now runs a pest control business, but still sees himself as a Mustang-driving, leather-jacketed rebel.

Week of October 25

2011-10-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

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Avengers in the 40s

Weak and sickly Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is repeatedly rejected by the army when he tries to enlist during World War II, but a scientist (Stanley Tucci) makes him a super soldier in Joe Johnston's Captain America. Now bigger, stronger, and faster, Rogers is made into Captain America, an American icon, handled by his colonel (Tommy Lee Jones) and a British agent (Hayley Atwell), but he has to rise to the level of a real hero: Germany's super soldier, Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), has gone rogue. Red Skull's plans are so destructive he's left the Nazis behind and has set his own course for mayhem and world conquest, and he's as fast and as strong as Captain America. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Kids in Peril

Fifteen-year-old Moses and his gang roam the streets around their apartment complex with their hoods up, fighting, robbing, and causing trouble in Attack the Block, but their lifestyle is set aside when monstrous, feral aliens descend on their neighborhood. The boys use what little they have to survive the monsters loose in their building, and from one of their victims (Jodie Whittaker) to the drug dealer upstairs (Nick Frost), their survival depends on them rising to the challenge together. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

When an excavation team discovers a burial mound in a Finnish mountain in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, they awaken the sacred grave's inhabitant, the basis for the Santa Claus myth. A creature from before he was re-imagined as a jolly gift giver, this Santa terrorizes naughty children, and begins a reign of terror once he's awakened. Even when captured and prepared to be sold as a "rare export," the madness doesn't stop: Santa's elves will do anything to free their master. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Doc or Doc-like?

Exploring the conflict between Star Wars fans and George Lucas, the franchise's creator and continual revisionist, The People vs George Lucas looks to see if the fans have a legitimate complaint against Lucas. Sifting through legions of super-fans who've developed a wide spectrum of complaints about George Lucas' manipulation of the Star Wars franchise, the film documents not just Star Wars, but fandom itself.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play slightly fictionalized versions of themselves on a restaurant tour of northern England in The Trip. As the pair reprise the roles of their fictional selves from Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, they riff together as two different comedians clash over fame, ego, and celebrity voices.

Killers

A group of friends (including Tenika Davis and Dean Armstrong) are headed to a friend's cabin for winter break in Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings, but they get lost in a storm and find shelter in an abandoned sanatorium... the same sanatorium that held the deformed cannibals from the first three Wrong Turn movies. When the cannibals killed their caretakers in the 1970s, they remained at the sanatorium, and aren't likely to respond well to the intrusion of a group of college students .

Anna Merchant (Milla Jovovich) survives an attack by a serial killer at large in Faces in the Crowd, but the attack leaves her stricken with prosopagnosia, or "face blindness." Though she is the only person to have seen the killer, she's unable to recognize or remember faces, which complicates working with a detective (Julian McMahon) to find and stop the killer... a killer that wants to get rid of a potential witness like Anna. With Michael Shanks and Sarah Wayne Callies. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Pooh

Disney reintroduces a stable of classic characters this year in the major motion picture release of Winnie the Pooh, reuniting Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Piglet, Kanga, and Roo to search for Eeyore's missing tale. Created in the style of the hand-drawn Pooh films from the 60's and 70's, the new movie is adapted from the original stories by A.A. Milne and narrated by John Cleese. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Dramedy

Laura (Jenna Fischer) lives an unfulfilled life in A Little Help, sneaking beer and cigarettes to cope with a son that doesn't respect her, a mother (Lesley Ann Warren) who never stops criticizing her, and an unfaithful husband (Chris O'Donnell). As one thing after another goes wrong, her life spins completely out of control as she tries to find some stability and security in her life. With Kim Coates.

Infomercial titan Robert Axle (Kevin Spacey) loses everything when one of his products maims thousands of customers in Father of Invention. Released from prison eight years later, his ex-wife (Virginia Madsen) and her new husband (Craig Robinson) have squandered his fortune, and he's stuck living with his estranged daughter (Camilla Belle) and her roommate (Heather Graham). Robert is dedicated to getting back on top with a new infomercial and a new product, but he's almost a decade behind the times and saddled with an incompetent employee (Johnny Knoxville).

	Luther Series 2	Conflicted and obsessive DCI John Luther uses unique (and sometimes questionable) methods to solve crimes.		Going Postal Miniseries	The miniseries adapted from Terry Pratchett's novel follows a con man through his supernatural journey as a Postmaster
	The Street Complete Series	An ensemble BBC show with an all-star cast, dramatizing the lives of several Manchester neighbors.		Robot Chicken Season 5	The newest installment of stop-motion, puppet and action-figure based sketch comedy from Adult Swim.

Week of October 18

2011-10-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

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Stranger Tides

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) takes to the high seas again in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, this time ordered by King George to find the legendary fountain of youth. Forced to work with his old nemesis, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Jack searches for another mystical treasure, but Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his voodoo-magical daughter (Penelope Cruz) are after the same prize. With everyone searching for the Fountain, the three captains race to win the ultimate prize, but the contest is fraught with magic chalices, shrunken ships, and mermaids. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Survival

A British journalist (Mira Sorvino) is on assignment in Leningrad in 1941 when the Nazi's attack in Attack on Leningrad. While she avoids capture and goes into hiding to survive, her partner (Gabriel Byrne) believes her dead-- she has to endure the harsh environment, invading forces, and the threat of starvation without being discovered, and becomes a part of the underground resistance. With Vladimir Ilin. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Director Kevin Smith's first non-comedy, Red State sees three highschool boys (Michael Angarano, Nicholas Braun, and Kyle Gallner) on their way to an internet hookup, but their date (Melissa Leo) is simply bait. Drugged, abducted, and taken to a religious compound where Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) preaches intolerance of sin, vice, and wickedness... but their congregation does more to punish sinners than just preach and picket. As the boys' trip becomes more nightmarish, the situation pulls in the local sheriff (Stephen Root) and even the ATF (John Goodman) as Pastor Cooper's congregation spirals out of control. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Coco an his pregnant wife Pipi are quarantined in their apartment building in the Argentinean Phase 7. As the neighbors begin to worry about food and supplies, residents begin to take sides against on another. Coco befriends the prepared (and well armed) Horatio, but are Horatio's warnings about contagion, a New World Order, and their neighbors the key to Coco and Pipi's survival or the rantings of a paranoid lunatic?

Comedy

When Elizabeth Halsey's (Cameron Diaz) attempt to marry rich and retire doesn't work out, she has to go back to work in Bad Teacher. Miss Halsey's mission hasn't changed-- she still wants a rich man to take care of her-- but her new plan is to raise enough money to get plastic surgery and win the heart of Justin Timberlake, the new teacher in school who comes from a rich family. Though she's willing to lie, cheat, and steal to make her goals, and easily wins over the naive principal (John Michael Higgins), some of the faculty see Halsey for who she really is: one teacher (Lucy Punch) who wants to expose what a bad teacher she really is, and another (Jason Segel) who likes her... cynicism, vanity, and all. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Craig Ferguson's new stand-up DVD, Does This Need to Be Said?, is a live performance of Ferguson's comedy, performed and recorded in Nashville, Tennessee.

Documentaries

Granted rare access to film in North Korea, the Danish comedy team of Simon Jul Jorgensen and Jacob Nossell claim to be filming their show and praising North Korea in The Red Chapel, but their goal was to expose one of the most totalitarian societies in the world. Since all of their footage had to be turned in to the North Korean government daily, they had little choice but to accept the changes made to their act, say what they were asked to say, and participate in state functions... but their secret weapon was Jacob: though both performers are Korean-born, handicapped Jacob speaks what he calls "Spastic Danish," untranslatable by Korean censors, so his thoughts on the society survived government scrutiny.

A behind-the-scenes look at one of the country's most prestigious newspapers, Page One: Inside the New York Times looks at the Times in the era of internet, where many respected papers have gone bankrupt. Documenting a full year within the New York Times newsroom, the paper works to stay relevant in the instant-access mediascape as well as keep their own journalistic standards, researching and breaking new stories.

Michael Rapaport's Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest documents A Tribe Called Quest's 2008 reunion tour, focusing on the past, present, and future of the influential hip-hop group. Interviewing the members about their beginnings in New York and the rise of the band to their break-up, eventual reunion, and the current state of A Tribe Called Quest... and the effect their career together has had on their friendship.

Talking to all the captains in the Star Trek universe, William Shatner's The Captains talks to all of the actors who've led a Star Trek cast, including The Next Generation's Patrick Stewart, Deep Space 9's Avery Brooks, Voyager's Kate Mulgrew, Enterprise's Scott Bakula, and the new Captain Kirk, Chris Pine. Shatner talks to them all about their impact on the Star Trek franchise, and, conversely, Trek's impact on each of them.

A Danish filmmaker posted for six months at a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan in Armadillo, recording the day-to-day life of soldiers stationed on the front lines, in direct conflict with Taliban fighters. The film documents the soldiers' experiences from their down time in the base to the violent clashes that await them on patrol, as well as the effect that life in a war zone has on them.

Monsters

Javier is a "sad clown" in 1970's Spain in The Last Circus, there to support the happy clown, to laugh at his jokes and be the butt of his pranks... but the happy clown in his new circus is Sergio, a sadistic and abusive scoundrel who abuses everyone around him. While Sergio may be a monster, there is also a darkness buried within meek and unimposing Javier: as a child, he saw his father recruited to fight in the Spanish Civil War, sent into battle in his clown costume, wielding a machete. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Will (Landon Liboiron) is about to graduate highschool in The Howling: Reborn, the newest entry in The Howling series, but he continues to spend his time trying to blend in and not be noticed. When he finally decides he doesn't want to miss a chance at the girl of his dreams (Lindsey Shaw), he decides to let some of his animal instincts take over, but but does this align him with or set him against the aggressive pack in his school? With Ivana Milicevic.

When a group of friends anger a truck driver on the freeway, they end up harassed and run off the road in Bunnyman. Stranded and hunted by a man in a bunny suit, they have to survive backwoods hillbillies, traps, chainsaws, and cannibals as they're picked off one-by-one.

Teenagers

A coming-of-age story set in apartheid-era South Africa, Master Harold and the Boys is the story of 17-year-old Hally (Freddy Highmore) who spends all his time with his family's two servants: intellectual Sam (Ving Rhames) and Willie (Patrick Mofokeng), who still calls Hally "Master Harold." When they receive news that Hally's abusive father is about to return from the hospital, Hally begins to take out his frustrations on Sam and Willie, beginning to treat them as servants instead of friends.

Grace (Selena Gomez), Meg (Leighton Meester), and Emma (Katie Cassidy) have been dreaming of Paris... but their Paris vacation is a huge disappointment. Their vacation is saved when Grace is mistaken for a wealthy heiress in Monte Carlo, and they're whisked away to enjoy high society in ritzy Monaco. With Cory Monteith.

	Da Vinci's Inquest Series 2	Vancouver's Dominic Da Vinci works as an undercover officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
	Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 3	The continuing adventures of the Jedi, Obi Wan, and Anakin during the Clone Wars.

Week of October 11

2011-10-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

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Room for Advancement

Jason Bateman works for a sadistic jerk (Kevin Spacey) who manipulates and lies to him, Charlie Day's boss (Jennifer Aniston) sexually harasses and attempts to blackmail him, and the owner of Jason Sudeikis's company dies and leaves him under the authority of the owner's selfish, drug abusing son (Colin Farrell) in Horrible Bosses. The three friends decide their only way out is to kill the awful people they work for, but none of them know a thing about crime, so they hire a "murder consultant" (Jamie Foxx) and end up in a massive comic misadventure-- trying to get rid of three people the world would be better off without. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fighting Impossible Odds

Kellan Lutz is living in the gutter, drinking to forget a devastating tragedy, when he's scooped up by an underground gladiatorial tournament in Arena. Held against his will and forced to fight for an online audience, he's offered a deal by Samuel L. Jackson: defeat ten opponents and win his freedom. No one's ever won more than five battles, and the anything-goes, to-the-death combat is vicious and bloody, but fighting (and winning) is the only way out.

Cocky, self involved test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is chosen to join an intergalactic peace-keeping force in Martin Campbell's Green Lantern. When Hal discovers a crashed, alien ship, his discovery ushers him into the Green Lantern Corps. As the first human Green Lantern, he's not immediately trusted by his Green Lantern mentor (Mark Strong), but his duties to protect the Earth are quickly put to the test; a planet-destroying entity is poised to destroy the world, and only Hal can stop it. With Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, and Angela Bassett. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Art Film

Julie Taymor's stylized, gender-bending adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest stars Helen Mirren as the sorceress Prospera, usurped by her brother (Chris Cooper) and set adrift on a raft with her daughter (Felicity Jones). Stranded on an island with only one inhabitant (Djimon Hounsou), Prospera claims it as her own and waits... When the King of Naples' (David Strathairn) ship sails by her island, she conjures a tempest to strand the king and his shipmates on her island, and Prospera begins to plot her revenge. With Reeve Carney, Alfred Molina, and Russell Brand. On Blu-Ray. (DVD not yet available)

A meditation on life, family, the cosmos and mankind's place within it, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life focuses on the O'Brien family, where the father (Brad Pitt) is stern and authoritarian, preparing his sons for a dangerous and unforgiving world, and the mother (Jessica Chastain) is warm and loving, encouraging the boys to see the world as a place of wonder. As Jack (Sean Penn), one of the O'Brien boys, looks back on his childhood and forward to his future, the film explores not just his life, but all life, from the beginnings to the ends of the Earth. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Character Drama

Terri is a depressed, overweight 15-year-old whose tardiness and lack of participation in school earns him weekly counceling sessions with Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly) in Terri. With Mr. Fitzgerald's guidance, Terri makes his first steps towards connecting with his classmates, but he's still a little confused, and kind of awkward, and prone to mistakes... just like everyone else around him. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate's (Maria Bello) college freshman son (Kyle Gallner) goes on a shooting spree before turning the gun on himself in Beautiful Boy. With the press surrounding their house, they stay with Kate's brother (Alan Tudyk) and his wife (Moon Bloodgood) and try to cope with their son's actions, the public's response, and the question of blame. The crisis forces them to re-evaluate their relationship, and their roles as a family and as parents. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Family

Griffin (Kevin James) loves his job in Zookeeper, but his devotion to the zoo and its animals drives away Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), the love of his life, who wants him to find another career. When Stephanie comes back into his life, the animals at the zoo work together to ensure Griffin's happiness... but that means breaking the "animal code" and talking to Griffin. With a team of talking animals helping him out, Griffin can accomplish anything, but maybe he ought to pay more attention to the zoo's veterinarian (Rosario Dawson) who shares his love of animals. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Third grader Judy Moody and her brother, Stink, are staying with their aunt (Heather Graham) for the summer in Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, and she has a plan to ensure her not-bummer summer: a list of "thrill points." Her perfect summer is threatened when she finds out her friends have more thrill points than her, so Judy, Stink, and their aunt find a way to out-thrill everyone-- they plan to catch Bigfoot. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fact or Fiction

A pair of filmmakers investigate a claim that the inhabitants of the moon are controlling life on Earth, Lunopolis is presented as their documentary of the widespread lunar conspiracy. As they investigate what they think is a hoax, the film they're making begins to expose a greater danger than they could have imagined.

The only actual documentary this week is Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, where Joe Cross, overweight and suffering from an autoimmune disease, wasn't being helped by doctors and modern medicine. Trading pills for a juicer, Joe seeks to heal himself with fresh fruits and vegetables, and takes his new fitness regimen on the road, interviewing Americans about food, health, and longevity.

Independence

Cornelius Rawlings returns home to his family farm after eighteen years in Septien. Though his parents are dead, his brothers Amos, who fills the barn with odd, expressionist painting, and Ezra (Robert Longstreet), who is devoted to housework and taking care of the other brothers, are still maintaining the farm. Though they have trouble relating, the events that led them to their dysfunctional state slowly come to light.

When Richard's hamster is diagnosed with cancer, he takes time off work to spend time with his terminal friend in Etienne! As they bicycle through California, spending quality time, their road trip leads them from one unlikely encounter to another.

Spooky

Six strangers are stranded in Bangkok in the Pang Brothers' The Child's Eye, unable to fly home. With the airport locked down during Taiwan's 2008 anti-government protests, they find a hotel together, but after strange occurrences and weird visions in their creepy hotel, they begin to disappear one by one.

Officer Frank Talbot is about to say goodbye to both his wife and his current partner when a zombie attack forces them to barricade themselves in together in Silent Night, Zombie Night. With his partner suffering from a gunshot wound, Frank has to keep the group together if he wants to keep them alive... even though they're the two people he was ready to say goodbye to.

Unfolding in real-time, the Uruguayan The Silent House follows Laura as she tries to survive her escape from a mysterious house. Hired to clean the house, which has no phone or electricity, Laura's night turns terrifying as her struggle to leave the house begins to uncover the secrets that haunt the house.

Smaller Titles

Based on the exploits of Welsh drug dealer Howard Marks, Mr. Nice stars Rhys Ifans as Marks, who stumbled from his Oxford education into a life of hashish smuggling in the early 1970s. From his IRA contact (David Thewlis) who uses weapons connections to smuggle Marks product to the MI6 agent who recruits him for his ability to access circles that agents can't penetrate, Marks navigates his own life like a desperado, spy, and rock star. With Chloe Sevigny and Crispin Glover. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Winning the lottery allows Colin Hanks to win the girl of his dreams (Ari Graynor) in Lucky... but the extra attention and a new bride brings unwanted attention, and could expose his hobby: he's a serial killer. Their honeymoon doesn't exactly go as planned, but like any new couple, they have to learn to adapt and compromise if they're going to make things work. With Jeffrey Tambor and Mimi Rogers.

Mexican journalist Laura (Monica del Carmen) is living a tragically unfulfilled existence in Leap Year, until she begins a dark, sadomasochistic affair with Arturo (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) that awakens the dark secrets that haunt her past. Though he affects her deeply, he still can't change her plans for February 29th, which she has made the fixed end-point of her life.

	Bones Season 6	"Bones" Brennan and Agent Booth continue to solve crimes with investigative expertise and forensic science.		Workaholics Season 1	Fresh out of college, three roommates share a house... and a cubicle at a telemarketing company.
	Chuck Season 4	Reluctant super-spy Chuck Bartowski digs deeper into the mystery of his family's background.

Week of October 4th

2011-10-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

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Friday, September 30th

Maybe it's got something to do with director Michael Bay's outsized personality, but his larger-than-life Transformers: Dark of the Moon wasn't released on Tuesday with the other movies... the third Transformers movie arrived on Friday, September 30th, and is already in our New Releases section.

Once again, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) reunites with the Autobots to save the Earth from the Decepticons, battling over the evidence of a previous Transformer encounter that inspired the Apollo 11 moon landing... which results in massive amounts of gunfire, chases, and giant robots crashing together. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Number Five

Hiding out in Rio de Janeiro, street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and ex-cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) are caught up in a heist-gone-wrong in Fast Five. To settle the score, they set aside the street racing plot of the previous Fast and the Furious movies and plan and Ocean's 11-style heist to take revenge on the crime boss who burned them. They assemble a team of fast talking Roman (Tyrese Gibson), driver and reconnaissance expert Han (Sung Kang), tech-savy Tej (Ludacris), weapons specialist Gisele (Gal Gadot), and explosives duo Leo and Santos (Tego Calderon and Don Omar)-- the team has to face not just an extended crime organization and an army of corrupt cops, but also special agent Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) on a mission to track down Dom and O'Conner. They face almost impossible odds, but with a good plan and the right team, they might pull off the perfect heist and ride off into the sunset. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Spooky

The Riverton Seven were all born on the same day, sixteen years ago... the same day notorious serial killer "The Riverton Ripper" died... in Wes Craven's My Soul to Take. On their sixteenth birthday, the Riverton Seven botch their annual Ripper Day ritual hosted by Brandon (Nick Lashaway), the bully of the group. Only Bug (Max Thieriot) thinks this will cause trouble, until, one by one, members of the Riverton Seven start turning up dead. Is the Ripper still alive, or is someone else killing the teenagers linked to the murderer's legacy? With Jeremy Chu, Zena Grey, John Magaro, and Denzel Whitaker.

Wes Craven also shepherds the newest entry in the Scream franchise onto video this week, where Sidney (Neve Campbell) returns to Woodsboro after years of being immortalized as a real-life "survivor girl" in Scream 4. Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) is still looking after the town, but Sidney's arrival coincides with a new set of murders, as Sidney's highschool-age cousin (Emma Roberts) and her friends (Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, and Erik Knudsen) are stalked by a new, movie obsessed, ghostface mask-wearing killer. With Courtney Cox. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A photographer is hired to take the final pictures of recently deceased Angelica (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), but she comes alive through the lens of his antique camera in Manoel de Oliviera's The Strange Case of Angelica. The photographer begins to see her as a perfect but unattainable love, as she only lives, breathes, and moves in the pictures he has of her, but his obsession with her still grows.

Recently divorced Mary (Rachel Lefevre) moves into a new apartment, hoping to escape her abusive ex-husband in The Caller. When the antique phone in the apartment rings, Rose (Lorna Raver) is on the line... but she's calling from 20 years in the past. When Mary angers Rose, they discover that Rose's life in the past can affect Mary in the present, and she knows Mary's parents and the younger versions of the people in her life. With Stephen Moyer and Luis Guzman.

Mira Sorvino retreats to the cabin from her childhood in The Presence, but an invisible presence (Shane West) haunts her there, whispering dangerous thoughts into her subconscious. When her fiance (Justin Kirk) arrives, the presence's influence threatens to tear both their lives apart, drawing on the damaging memories from her past

Documentaries

Buck is the story of Buck Brannama, the real-life figure that inspired The Horse Whisperer. The film covers Buck's difficult childhood and how his experiences in youth informed his approach to training horses with sensitivity instead of violence, and the skills that have made him an almost mythical figure.

Lemmy is a portrait of Motorhead's hard-living rock icon Lemmy Kilmister, covering his time in the Beatles-era The Rockin Vicars and the early 70s space rock band Hawkwind, and the continuing legacy of Motorhead, still playing after more than 35 years. The film also covers Lemmy's day-to-day life, his home, family, and relationship with other bands and musicians. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Documenting the 40th Irish Dancing World Championships, Jig goes behind the scenes of the competition to see the dancers and trainers that struggle to win world dance titles. Following six dancers, ages ten to nineteen, the film looks at all of the training, expense, and costuming that go into the struggle for the championship.

Disney Nature's African Cats documents two families of cats in the wilds of Africa. As a cheetah family and a lion family both compete for the limited resources of the savannah, their prides embark on a real-life adventure through the untamed wild. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Smaller Dramas

Oliver (Craig Roberts) lives in his own private fantasy world in the coming-of-age film Submarine, re-imagining himself as the star of his own documentary. He's not quite sure who he is or how to behave, but he works on pursuing his goals, namely: winning the mischievous girl (Yasmin Paige), and keeping his depressed dad (Noah Taylor) and unsatisfied mother (Sally Hawkins) together. With Paddy Considine.

Nathalie (Isabelle Blais) finds an unexpected protector in The High Cost of Living. Just as her life is falling apart, she meets Henry (Zach Braff), a kind stranger dedicated to helping her through her tough times, though Nathalie doesn't know why Henry is so driven to help her.

Giant Beasts

Based on the classic novel, Moby Dick stars William Hurt as the mad Captain Ahab obsessed with hunting the white whale. Ishmael (Charlie Cox) joins the crew of the whaling ship Pequod where he meets the contemplative Starbuck (Ethan Hawke) and the tribesman Queequeg (Raoul Trujillo), but once they're on the water, they all have to survive Ahab's single-minded quest.

15-year-old Jun is transported out of modern-day Japan to an ancient time in Legend of the Millennium Dragon, where he becomes a reluctant hero in the middle of a war between humans and demons. Both sides want to recruit Jun to gain the advantage in the war, but neither side is exactly as they seem, but Jun hasn't yet discovered his destiny or all of his power. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

On Stage

A filmed performance of his current stage show, "Weird" Al Yancovic's Alpocalypse captures the live renditions of some of Al's most popular songs, including original songs, parodies, medleys, and (of course) a polka.

Paul Reubens takes Pee-Wee live in The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway, performing the show in front of a Broadway audience, recreating Pee-Wee from his original life in the 1980s.

Bored to Death Season 2	Inspired by detective stories, a struggling writer leads a double life by pretending to be a private detective.	The League Season 2	The members of a fantasy football league will go to any extreme to upstage one another.
Ken Burns Prohibition	Ken Burns' three part miniseries about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.	Vera Series1	Forthright and hard drinking British inspector Vera Stanhope investigates murders with dedication and professionalism.
CSI Season 11	Raymond Langston and his team investigate crime scenes and solve cases.	Lie to Me Season 3	Dr. Lightman reads the facial expressions of suspects to help the police close cases.
In Treatment Season 3	Psychologist Dr. Paul Weston treats a new series of clients.

Week of September 27

2011-09-27T16:08:00.001-07:00

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

Friday, September 30th

Maybe it's got something to do with director Michael Bay's outsized personality, but his larger-than-life Transformers: Dark of the Moon won't be released on Tuesday with the other movies... the third Transformers movie will arrive this Friday, September 30th.

Once again, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) reunites with the Autobots to save the Earth from the Decepticons, battling over the evidence of a previous Transformer encounter that inspired the Apollo 11 moon landing... which results in massive amounts of gunfire, chases, and giant robots crashing together. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Joanna (Keira Knightley) and Michael (Sam Worthington) are a married couple in the middle of a fight in Last Night, triggered by Michael's sexy co-worker Laura (Eva Mendes). Worse, Michael and Joanna leave for an overnight business trip the day after the fight; while they're away, Joanna runs into an old flame (Guillaume Canet). As they spend a night apart from one another, each with their own temptations, they have to face what they really want, and who they really are. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Released by the Criterion Collection, Olivier Assayas' three-part miniseries Carlos is the story of the notorious terrorist called The Jackal. From his raid on OPEC in 1975 to his eventual capture in 1994, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (Edgar Ramirez) was known to the world as "Carlos the Jackal," an enormous personality who publicly fought for the Liberation of Palestine-- Carlos covers the infamous actions that made him a target around the world, and the insatiable personal life that drove him. With Alexander Scheer. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Victor (Jay Baruchel) moves into an apartment in Montreal while the city is being terrorized by a serial killer in Good Neighbors. He's immediately infatuated with one neighbor, Louise (Emily Hampshire), but Victor's fidgety, neurotic demeanor makes him an easy target for another neighbor, sardonic, aloof, wheelchair-bound Spencer (Scott Speedman). The brittle relationship between three neighbors are compounded by the tension in the city, and they each use the fear to their own advantage, but none of them really understand the consequences of what they're beginning to do. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Freddy "Dead Cert" Frankham (Craig Fairbrass) has left his gangster life behind, and runs a legitimate nightclub with his friends (Perry Benson, Danny Dyer, and Jason Flemyng) in Dead Cert. When a Romanian businessman (Billy Murray) offers to buy the club, Freddy refuses, but the Romanians are more persuasive than he could imagine... they're vampires. Now Freddy and his gang have a war on their hands-- a war with the undead.

Don Lee (Nick Cheung) needs an informant if he's going to bring down a kingpin called The Barbarian (Lu Yi) in The Stool Pigeon. Don's suffering a crisis of conscience because of the fate of his last informant, but he still brings in Ghost (Nicholas Tse), a driver fresh out of prison, to infiltrate The Barbarian's gang. Ghost doesn't want to inform and Don doesn't want another informant to get hurt, but they're both placed in high pressure situations with very few options, and a slim chance of making it out in tact.

When guerillas take nearly all the men from a remote Latin American village, Eva Longoria reshapes the village as an all-woman utopia in Without Men. Though their priest (Oscar Nunez) is still with them, the society is predominantly women, and run by women, until a journalist (Christian Slater) arrives to investigate, and ruins the delicate balance of the town.

Officer Hollis Lucetti (Terrence Howard) is called out of personal crisis to talk down a suicidal jumper in The Ledge. On the ledge, Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) doesn't want to jump, but he begins to tell Hollis the story of how he got there, about the timid wife (Liv Tyler) and her stern, Evangelical husband (Patrick Wilson), and the battle of wills that escalated to a life-and-death face off with a rapidly approaching deadline.

Iris (Rose Byrne) is struggling to advance in Australia's jazz-age underworld in The Boxer and the Bombshell, playing the angles in a dangerous love triangle between her gangster, con man lover (Hugo Weaving) and a new boxer in their lives. As the gangster, boxer, and femme fatale each vie for position at the top of the triangle, but their secrets and moral compromises make their competition increasingly dangerous.

The new documentaries this week are the meditation on astronomy and human rights Nostalgia for the Light, a Chilean film that centers on the Atcama Desert, where the heat and dry climate make it the home of astronomers and the fallout from Pinochet's regime occur under the same clear skies.
Also new is The Godfather of Gore, a documentary about horror film provocateur Herschell Gordon Lewis, whose subversive exploitation films were the first "gore" movies, staples of the drive-in circuit of the 1960s, and a continuing influence on horror movies through the decades.

Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, the animated The Gruffalo is the story of a mouse (James Corden) who has to outwit a variety of predators as he makes his way to a faraway hazelnut tree, making up a creature called a "gruffalo" to threaten the animals who would eat him... until he meets a real gruffalo, and has to outwit him, too.
:

	How I Met Your Mother Season 6	Ted, Robin, Lily, Marshall, and Barney “suit up” for another season of fun and frolic in NYC.		Adventure Time My Two Favorite People	Come on, grab your friends, we'll go to very distant lands. Jake the Dog and Finn the Human-- the fun will never end.
	Call Me Fitz Season 1	Unscrupulous car salesman Fitz is haunted by Larry-- a wholesome salesman who claims to be Fitz's conscience.		Hung Season 2	A former high school sports legend and middle-aged high school basketball coach makes ends meet as a gigolo.

Week of September 20

2011-09-20T15:29:00.001-07:00

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Bridesmaids

When Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged, she asks Annie (Kristen Wiig) to be her maid of honor in Bridesmaids. Annie is introduced to Lillian's new friends and fellow bridesmaids, meeting beleaguered housewife Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), uninhibited Megan (Melissa McCarthy) and young newlywed Becca (Ellie Kemper), but her problem is Helen (Rose Byrne)-- Helen is impossibly perfect, rich, and beautiful, upstaging Annie at every turn, while Annie's life continues to fall apart. As Helen seems determined to take Annie's place as Lillian's best friend, Annie struggles to keep up while her world unravels in a series of comic misadventures. With Jon Hamm and Chris O'Dowd. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Documentaries and Subtitles

Following a traveling circus through rural Mexico, Circo documents a family on the road, trying to keep the century-old circus alive. While Tino, the ringmaster, tries to keep the circus' traditions in tact, like his father before him, his wife struggles with their nomadic lifestyle and dreams of a more traditional life for their children.

Star Wars Blu Ray

All six Star Wars movies have arrived in Blu Ray, bringing everything from A New Hope to Revenge of the Sith to high definition, with new commentary tracks and enhancements to the films from George Lucas, and new documentaries, archives, and interviews from each of the movies.

Agnes Varda's 1976 documentary Daguerreotypes is New to Reckless this week, capturing on film the rue Daguerre where she lived for decades. Varda explores the shopkeepers and personalities in the neighborhood, providing a unique look into a specific time and place in Paris.

Monster Movies

The Colonel (Bruce Boxleitner) in charge of America's extraterrestrial secrets is ordered to play host to reporters in 51, but he's only going to show Jason London and the other reporters a sanitized version of Area 51 and Hangar 18. Regardless of the Colonel's plans, the alien secrets are about to be discovered when the creatures break free and start killing everyone in the compound. With Rachel Miner.

A group of friends get together to have a "boy's weekend" in a remote town in the British Doghouse, to help raise Vince's (Stephen Graham) spirits after a painful divorce... but the all of the town's women have been turned into cannibalistic zombies. Now cocky womanizer Neil (Danny Dryer), restless husband Mikey (Noel Clarke), comics obsessed Matt (Lee Ingleby), self-help obsessed Patrick (Keith-Lee Castle), sensitive homosexual Graham (Emil Marwa), and goofball Banksy (Neil Maskell) have to help Vince survive their men's retreat, surrounded by women who threaten their lives and worse... their egos.

Keith (Chris Makepeace) and A.J. (Robert Rusler) are having a tough night in 1986's Vamp, New to Reckless this week-- the frat they're pledging sends him into into town to hire a stripper, so they find a misfit (Gedde Watanabe) with a car and head out to prove themselves. Downtown is hard on frat boys, though: they're assaulted by townies (Billy Drago) and, when they finally get to the strip club, it's run by a vampire queen (Grace Jones). Suddenly, pledging to the fraternity is the least of their troubles.

Setup

When a robbery goes wrong, Sonny (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson) is left for dead in Setup. His second chance at life comes with the realization that his longtime friend and partner Vincent (Ryan Phillippe) set him up, and Sonny can't start his new life until he settles the score with Vincent, so he makes a deal with the most dangerous gangster (Bruce Willis) in town to get the job done. With Jenna Dewan-Tatum. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Puppies

The newest movie in the Air Buddies series is Spooky Buddies, where the talking puppies are aided by a friendly ghost to save the world from Warwick the Warlock..

Modern Family Season 2	Emmy winning show follows three different families and the comic trials they face in their everyday life.	Castle Season 3	“Naked Heat” is in the book stores and Castle is MIA. Beckett, Ryan and Esposito find Castle in a compromising position.
Hawaii Five-0 Season 1	The exploits of a special task force investigating crimes on the Hawaiian islands.	Raising Hope Season 1	A single father raises his baby girl, conceived in a one-night stand with a criminal.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 6	Mac pulls out the big guns to protect the sanctity of marriage and the gang reaps the rewards.	Body of Proof Season 1	A medical examiner balances solving crimes with her personal life.
Mike & Molly Season 1	A police officer and a school teacher meet at overeater's anonymous and become an unlikely couple.	The Kennedys Complete Miniseries	History Channel miniseries about the triumphs and tragedies of the Kennedy family.
The Mentalist Season 3	Jane and Lisbon continue to work on cases and chase Red John.	Happy Endings Season 1	A group of Chicago friends cope with a break-up in their midst.

Week of September 13

2011-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

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Gods and Mortals

Kenneth Branagh's Thor is the newest superhero movie from Marvel, where Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) arrogance and recklessness forces Odin (Anthony Hopkins), his father, to banish him from Asgard. As a scientist (Natalie Portman) finds Thor stranded in New Mexico without his powers, Asgard is brought to the brink of war by Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). To reclaim the ability to save both Asgard and the Earth, Thor first has to prove himself worthy of the power he once took for granted. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Journeys

The French-Canadian Incendies was nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film, where twins Jeanne and Simon are grieving the loss of their mother, Nawal (Lubna Azabal). Nawal has left two letters for her children to deliver: one for the father they never knew, the other for a brother they never knew they had. Travelling to the middle east to deliver the letters, they learn about the tumultous religious turmoil in their mother's past, and how the strife they're born into may not be a valid reason for hate. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff accompanies Oregon Trail settlers over the Cascade Mountains in 1845. A small group of the Tetherows (including Michelle Williams), the Gatelys (Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan), and the Whites (including Shirley Henderson) head west through the arid and desolate landscape, fearing harsh weather and diminishing supplies. The length and hardship of the journey leads the wagon train to question the abilities of their guide, Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), and consider drastic actions to ensure their survival.

Song and Dance

The story of Tasi, celebrated in the local ballroom dancing scene, and her sister Toni, a quiet wallflower who serves as her sister's practice partner, in Leading Ladies. The sisters live under the rule of their larger-than-live mother (Melanie LaPatin), herself a former ballroom dancing champion, who has their family and stage life well planned... except that Tasi and Toni both make their own choices, which could confound her expectations.

Willie's mother sends him to boarding school in 1969 Australia in Brand New Day. Studying to be a priest under the strict Father Benedictus (Geoffrey Rush), Willie's less interested in embracing a life of celibacy than returning home and wooing his girl Rosie. When Willie runs away and heads home, chased by Benedictus all the way, his story becomes a musical (complete with dance numbers), a wild farce, and a road movie, until Willie and everyone in his wake can make it home for a big finish.

School Age

While T.J. (Devin Brochu) is having trouble dealing with the death of his mother in Hesher, his father (Rainn Wilson) is too depressed to do anything at all, including help his son. They're both lost, and T.J. is miserable, grieving, and picked on at school, when Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) drops into their lives-- Hesher is profane, combative, disrespectful, and invariably scored by 80's Metallica, and though he's never pleasant, neither T.J. nor his dad are functional enough to make him leave. If Hesher's never actually helpful or even nice, he could still be disruptive enough to shake them out of their rut. With Natalie Portman. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Peck (Keir Gilchrist) is beginning high school in Just Peck, but even though he's got a good idea what he wants, his parents (including Adam Arkin) and his principal (Camryn Manheim) keep making his decisions for him. When he befriends the seemingly-perfect Emily (Brie Larson), she inspires a rebellious streak in Peck that sneaks out in unexpected ways and could have concequences no one anticipates.

Live

A taping of her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking is Carrie Fisher's stage show. Fisher tells the stories surrounding her extended show business family, her own fame, and the scandals and troubles that link them, all with a sense of humor and wry wit.

After Conan O'Brien's short run as the host of the Tonight Show, he used the six months he wasn't allowed on television to go on tour. His journey from the beginning of his live show to its conclusions is documented in Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, an all-access, behind-the-scenes look at Conan O'Brien, whose sense of humor can be more viscious and combative when he's off stage and dealing with the stresses of putting on a show.

35 & Ticking is the story of four friends: Zenobia (Nicole Ari Parker), a professional woman looking for Mr. Right, Phil (Keith Robinson), unhappily married to his party-girl wife, Victoria (Tamala Jones) who wants a baby with her young and unsure husband, and shy and unemployed Cleavon (Kevin Hart), trying to make an impression on his dream girl (Meagan Good). The friends navigate life in their late 30s as they each try to find their own take on happiness in adulthood.

With everyone fearing the end of the world, Philip (Joseph Cross) is embraced as a new messiah in Son of Morning. Made famous by an ambitious reporter (Heather Graham), Philip is put up in a luxury apartment with only his butler (Edward Herrmann) as council... but though he's famous for everyone's assumption, he doesn't have a message or any kind of godly wisdom. With Danny Glover.

A series of short stories, American Breakdown features Josh Hartnett driving LA at night looking for the perfect car to crash, Steve Carell looking to take revenge for what happened to him as a child, James Gandolfini as a lesson-teaching spirit, Scott Caan and Paul Walker thrown together by a car accident, Ioan Gruffudd as a man offering perspective to a suicide attempt survivor, and Paris Hilton finding an unorthodox way to nurse a broken heart.

The newest Barbie DVD is Barbie Princess Charm School, where Barbie attends a school for princesses-in-training, but will have to stand up to the people who want to make sure she never reaches the throne.

Glee Season 2 Part 2	The second half of season two is finally available for all the Gleeks who have been waiting patiently.	Spartacus Gods of the Arena	Before Spartacus struck down his first opponent, other gladiators passed the gates and onto the sands.
Rescue Me Season 6	Tommy is shaken after he has a terrifying vision of the afterlife and the department is dealing with budget cuts.	Grey's Anatomy Season 7	Seattle Grace’s staff deals with the physical and emotional trauma after the deadly rampage.
Camelot Season 1	A young Arthur, under the care of Merlin, begins to carve his legacy and legend in the court of Camelot.	The Big Bang Theory Season 4	Knock, knock, knock, Penny? Knock, knock, knock, Penny? Knock, knock, knock, Penny?
Sanctuary Season 3	The sanctuary for “abnormals” continues to deal with the Cabal and the remote vampire enclave.	Supernatural Season 6	Sam and Dean resurface a year late. Dean is with Lisa and her son. This time Sam comes to recruit Dean.

Week of September 6

2011-09-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

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Better than Normal

Set in the 1960's, before he became Professor X, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is using his pro-mutant patter to pick up pretty undergrads in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class. When a CIA agent (Rose Byrne) discovers diamond-skinned women and teleporters plotting against the government with Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), she finds Xavier, an expert on mutants, and in tracking Shaw, they find Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), a powerful mutant who can control magnetic fields. Now Xavier and Lensherr have to assemble a team of mutants to become the first X-Men, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones)-- they have to stop Shaw and his mutants from tipping the Cuban Missile Crisis into a full-scale nuclear war. With Jason Flemying, Zoe Kravitz, and January Jones. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

16-year-old Hanna (Saorise Ronan) was raised in the forest in isolation by her father (Eric Bana) in Joe Wright's Hanna. She's never met another person or lived with running water or electricity, but she's trained her whole life to fight and shoot, hunt and evade, waiting for the day she's ready to meet Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the agent that will come for her. When that challenge finally comes, Hanna is set loose in an unfamiliar world where her ability to be a soldier and survivor come naturally, but her ability to be a normal girl is more questionable. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Nick (Will Ferrel) is having a bad day in Everything Must Go-- on his drive home after being fired from his high ranking corporate job, he finds all of his possessions in the yard, his locks changed, and house empty. Nick's wife won't answer the phone, so he sits in the furniture on the lawn and begins to drink. Nick has very few friends, going against the advice of his AA sponsor (Michael Pena), but his new life on the front lawn acquaints him with a neighborhood boy who helps with Nick's impromptu yard sale and the neighbor (Rebecca Hall) who has more in common with Nick's predicament than she could guess. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Allison (Alexandra Daddario) has moved to a rural town to live with her uncle (Michael Biehn) in Bereavement, but there are hidden dangers lurking behind the quiet country idyll. When she sees strange occurrences at an abandoned slaughterhouse, her investigation puts her in the path of a deranged killer (Brett Rickaby) and the small boy forced to watch his horrific work.

The documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front tells the story of the group labeled "the #1 domestic terrorist threat" in the wake of 9/11. The film explores the idea of "terrorist" as a loaded term, specifically during the war on terror, as applied to a group that never targets people, but also weighs the group's civil disobedience and destruction of symbols of environmental abuse against truly non-violent forms of protest.

The third entry in the Cinderella Story series is A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song, where Katie (Lucy Hale) lives a hard life under the thumb of her vain and cruel stepmother (Missi Pyle). Katie dreams of being a pop star and forms an instant connection with the boy (Freddie Storma) who could make that happen for her, but she's forced to pretend she has no talent to make her stepsister (Megan Park) seem like the singer in the family. Can Katie show her prince charming that hers is the voice he's looking for?

Adrien Brody wakes up in a crashed car in Wrecked, pinned in the wreck with a broken leg, and little hope for rescue. He's alone in the forest, trapped in the car, and he doesn't remember much about the accident, how he got there, or who he is... he does have to deal with the dead man in the back seat, and basic survival-- getting out of the car, and being mobile enough to get to some kind of civilization-- but the details of how he ended up in this position might complicate matters. With Caroline Dhavernas and Ryan Robbins.

Filmed as a stage play, The Ideal Husband stars Shanti Lowry as the head of a beauty shop, going through the day's business with a host of colorful characters both in the shop's staff and among the customers. She's got a good life, with a successful husband (Darrin Dewitt Henson) recovering from an injury and heading back into professional football, and a baby on the way... until some loose talk under the hair dryer changes her perspective on love, marriage, and her own version of happiness.

Community Season 2	Greendale’s favorite study group is at it again, with all the tensions and competition in tact.	Fringe Season 3	Olivia is shockingly left “over there” and Peter and Walter move ahead with the alternate Olivia.
Parks & Recreation Season 3	Amy Poehler continues to lead her motley crew of misfits as they pursue sundry projects to make their city a better place.	Criminal Minds Season 6	The Prince of Darkness is still on the rampage in California, and the BAU tries to save Det. Spicer’s daughter.
The Office Season 7	The Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin prepares for the departure of Michael Scott..	The Good Wife Season 2	Alice stays with Peter and she gets appointed as counsel in a murder case.

Week of August 30

2011-08-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

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Not Quite Right

John Taylor (Clayne Crawford) is on the run after a bank robbery in The Perfect Host. Injured and wanted by the police, John needs to get off the street, so he tricks his way into the well-to-do home of effete, non-threatening Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce). John's a career criminal on the run, and even when his flimsy ruse fails him, he'll have no trouble threatening and controlling a man like Warwick... but Warwick is expecting guests, and John's about to become the guest of honor at a party where his status as the most dangerous man in the room might be in question. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Anna and Lucie grew up together in an orphanage in the French Martyrs, but Lucie remains haunted by the trauma of escaping the people who imprisoned and tortured her. Grown up, Lucie's found the people who hurt her as a child and starts to take her revenge and calls Anna for help. While Anna doubts the people in her sights are actually the ones who hurt Lucie, Lucie needs to take her revenge to appease the demons that have haunted her since her escape... but when everyone's dead, will she finally be at peace?

Sarah and her unborn child survive the car crash that kills her husband in the French Inside, but she's suffering doubts on her first Christmas alone. When a mysterious woman (Beatrice Dalle) appears at Sarah's home, she's shaken, but the police have little to go on and there doesn't seem to be any immediate threat... then Sarah wakes up as the savage woman swings a pair of scissors down on her, and the rest of her night is a struggle for the survival of herself and her unborn child.

Drama Imports

Susanne Bier's In a Better World won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film this year, where 12-year-old Elias, the son of a doctor (Mikael Persbrant), is harassed by bullies at school. When Christian, the new boy in school, intervenes, the two boys form a bond that began with self defense, but includes hiding evidence and lying to police. When Elias's father doesn't fight back during a confrontation, the boys think they know the right way to handle the situation, but they can't possibly understand the doctor's perspective on justice or revenge. With Ulrich Thomsen. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Lee Chang Dong's Poetry tells the story of Mija, a grandmother who combats her increasing forgetfulness by taking a poetry class to sharpen her mind. Though her world can be terribly dark, caring for an antagonistic grandson and fearing Alzheimer's, her poetry class opens her eyes to the beauty that surrounds her. Mija's new awareness of life around her also inspires her to act against tragedies she might be able to correct.

Teens

19-year-old Ritchie (Shiloh Fernandez) is directionless in Skateland, navigating a sea of parties in Texas, 1983, with his best friend Brent, gal pal, Brent's sister Michelle (Ashley Greene), and buddy Taylor Handley. Ritchie ought to be applying to colleges or apprenticing in his father's business, but he's content to work at the local roller rink and never make any big changes in is own life... but changes are coming whether he wants them or not, and Ritchie must come-of-age to adapt. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

And ensemble cast of high schoolers prepare for their big night in Disney's Prom, where class president Aimee Teegarden has made all the decorations and set up the perfect prom night. All the seniors have their stories leading up to the party, even the outcast (Nicholas Braun) and class bad boy (Thomas McDonell).

Foreign Action

Based on the real-life exploits Arne Treholt, Norwegian Ninja spins the truth into a tall tale of a comedic action film. Though he was convicted of espionage and treason, the movie's myth posits Arne as the leader of the king of Norway's secret ninja commando unit, blowing up his own legend into a massive, over-the-top spy spoof.

Gantz:
Now and Then

Following manga comics and an anime series, Gantz puts a group of strangers in a room with a mysterious machine that sends them out on missions. Though they're not given much information, the group are dropped into a variety of situations with odd futuristic weapons, uniforms, and a target each time... and after each hunt, they have slightly more understanding of their role in the grand scheme.

Tyler Perry's newest Madea film is Madea's Big Happy Family, where Shirley (Loretta Devine) receives news about her cancer and summons her family together to share the news. With her adult children Kimberly (Shannon Kane), Tammy (Natalie Desselle), and Byron (Shad "Bow Wow" Moss) gathered, along with everyone they bring to the family outing, they work out all of the family's complications together.

The documentary Forks over Knives explores the concept that most degenerative diseases can be fought or eliminated by removing animal products and processed foods from a person's diet. Based on several doctors findings, the documentary encourages a plant-based, unprocessed diet.

House M.D. Season 7	House and Cuddy in a relationship, and no neurosurgeon on site, all threaten the Level 1 Trauma Center standing.	Parenthood Season 2	The families continue to deal with the day to day while keeping the kids and the crises in check.
Sons of Anarchy Season 3	Jax’s son Abel has been kidnapped, Gemma is still on the lam and the Sons are entrenched family issues	The Vampire Diaries Season 2	Mystic Falls and Elena and Jeremy still struggle with their parents death and the Vampires that cross their paths.
Nikita Season 1	Trained by The Division, assassin-for-hire turns against her former employers and faces the wrath of an army of killers.	Desperate Housewives Season 7	The women of Wisteria Lane continue to support and sabotage each other.
Cougartown Season 2	This unfortunately named sitcom is actually sharp and witty and a highly irreverent look at a group of very mixed up suburban friends.	Yo Gabba Gabba	Human host DJ Lance Rock and five colorfully costumed characters who dance, sing, and play together while learning about things like friendship, differences, and problem solving.

Week of August 23

2011-08-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Week of August 16

2011-08-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

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The One You Love

Zoe's Corner

Ok, here is why I am not a huge fan of the newest Jane Eyre. Don't get me wrong, it is beautifully done, Judi Dench is probably my favorite Mrs Fairfax, and there are lovely nuisances that have been lacking in other versions. My problem with it is the gloomy, dark gothic feel. Yes, Jane Eyre has a tragic past, but the fact that she and Rochester (also with a tragic past) have kept their humor, playfulness, and ability to see the joy in life is sadly missing from this version. They are two of a kind, witty, vibrant, self aware individuals that know that their lives are not the ones they want, but they move ahead in integrity. The book, which I have read a couple of times never ceases to impress upon the reader that they can find joy if life would just get out of the way. This movie also skirts the desire and final joy that comes to Jane, not in the ways of money and means, but by having family and loved ones.

So, of course I will recommend this movie, because, let's face it, it is full of corsets and beauty, and I am a pushover for that. But do yourself a favor and check out the other versions of Jane Eyre we have here at Reckless. My favorites being the BBC Miniseries (which captures the playful roguishness of Rochester) and the one with Samantha Morton, who captures the flowering of love in such a wonderful way.

Jane Eyre:
Now and Then

Based on the classic novel, the most recent adaptation of Jane Eyre stars Mia Wasikowska as Jane as the story sees her out of the care of her dismissive and uncaring aunt (Sally Hawkins), to a strict boarding school, and into the care of the clergyman (Jamie Bell) who rescues her in her darkest moment. Most of the story revolves around her time in the employ of Rochester (Michael Fassbender), and while she acts as governess and teaches Rochester's young ward, Jane and Rochester form a connection with their honest intentions, they still conceal their dark histories and secrets from one another. With Judi Dench. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

When Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) bumps into Dex (Colin Egglesfield) in a cab after celebrating her 30th birthday, she admits she's had a crush on him since they were law school study partners in Something Borrowed. Unfortunately for her, Dex is about to marry Darcy (Kate Hudson), Rachel's lifelong best friend, and acting on her crush puts them both in a delicate position. With her platonic friend (John Krasinski) as a voice of reason, Rachel can't balance discretion, her own happiness, and her best friend's wedding forever... she'll have to choose. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Hotel maid Helene (Sandrine Bonnaire) becomes fascinated by chess in the French Queen to Play. She finds chess to be sly, flirtatious, emotional conversation across a board, but the handheld chess game she hopes will inspire similar feelings in her husband (Francis Renaud) is ignored by everyone but herself. When Helene finds a chess board while cleaning the home of an American widower (Kevin Kline), she trades housekeeping for chess lessons and her natural talent and passion set her life on a new path.

17-year-old outcast Tobe (Dustin Ingram) is more interested in rarities and collectibles than other people in Meet Monica Velour. Tobe's road trip to Indiana is partly to sell his graduation present (an old hot dog truck) to a collector (Keith David), but mostly to see a rare performance by his favorite 70's pornographic actress, Monica Velour (Kim Cattrall). Though she's still the girl of Tobe's dreams, the 50-year-old ex-porn star has been through a lot since her iconic heyday, and innocent, naive Tobe isn't equipped to handle what it means to be a part of her life. With Brian Dennehy.

History

Set against Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Robert Redford's The Conspirator tells the story of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), owner of the boarding house where John Wilkes Booth (Toby Kebbell) made his plans. Because the distinguished southern lawyer (Tom Wilkinson) can't defend the southern woman accused of killing a union president, he appoints Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), a former union soldier, as her lawyer... but Aiken struggles with the burden of defending someone he thinks is guilty. With the court demanding retribution for Lincoln's death, it doesn't seem like Surratt can get a fair trial, but Aiken begins to fight when he sees the injustice of the system hungry for a scapegoat. With Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, and Johnny Simmons. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on the exploits of conflict photographers in South Africa in the 1990s, The Bang Bang Club stars Ryan Phillippe and Taylor Kitsch as daredevil photojournalists covering live fire situations between the South African government, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, and the Zulu Inkatha movement. The flashes of brilliance within the group earn two if its members Pulitzer prizes, but living life dashing into gunfire takes its toll on each of the men in different ways. With Malin Akerman. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fighting Monsters

After the war with the vampires, the cleric warriors that won the fight for the human race were retired in the sci-fi action Priest. When a girl in a small town is captured in a vampire raid, the local sheriff (Cam Gigadent) heads into the fortified city looking for help... but the church won't listen to him: the vampires are contained, so there couldn't be more attacks. The one priest (Paul Bettany) who believes him joins him to venture into the badlands, risking excommunication to slice and shoot through endless hordes of vampires to rescue the girl from the black hat (Karl Urban) holding her hostage. With Maggie Q. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

John Carpenter's first film in roughly 10 years, The Ward is set in mid-60's Oregon, where Kristen (Amber Heard) is committed after being caught burning down a farmhouse. The ward's doctor (Jared Harris) may or may not have her best interest at heart, but she joins the tough Emily (Mamie Gummer), arrogant Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), childish Zoey (Laura-Leigh), and the innocent Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca) in the institution when the girls start disappearing. Kristen has a hard time believing the other girls' stories of being haunted by the mysteriously vanished Alice (Mika Boorem), but there's no question that the girls are being picked off, one by one. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Animated

An evil witch (Joan Cusack) has kidnapped Granny (Glenn Close) to gain her powerful truffle recipe in Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil. Sassy, independent Red (Hayden Panettiere) has to team up with streetwise gumshoe Wolf (Patrick Warburton) to rescue Granny and foil the evil plot... but once they get there, the plot isn't what they thought it was. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on a 50's memoir My Dog Tulip is the tale of BBC editor and novelist J.R. Ackerley (Christopher Plummer) and his fifteen years with his german shepherd. Shuffling through several styles of animation, Tulip is shown in the story as a real dog, not made cartoonishly human, as the story artfully renders the life of a dog in memoir style. With Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rossellini.

Made for the jazz legend's 100th birthday, Life after Django Reinhardt finds one hundred of Reinhardt's disciples, students, and musicians whose life he impacted. Including the "Django 100" world tour, the film recounts Reinhardt's career, his legacy, and his continuing impact on current musicians.

Week of August 9

2011-08-09T16:28:00.001-07:00

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Aliens

Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) are on a pilgrimage through America's alien hotspots, starting at Comicon and taking an eastward road trip in Paul. Their journey takes a detour when they take on an unexpected hitchhiker: Paul (Seth Rogen), an alien on the run, trying to get back to his homeworld... but the slacker, pop culture savvy, wisecracking little-green-man isn't exactly what they imagined for their close encounter. Now they're on the run, being chased by a "man in black" (Jason Bateman) and the father (John Carroll Lynch) of a sheltered girl (Kristen Wiig) they accidentally kidnapped, but their road trip has become the kind of adventure a pair of alien-obsessed nerds dream of. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

When Milo sees his mom (Joan Cusack) abducted by aliens, he follows her all the way to Mars to try to rescue her in Disney's Mars Needs Moms. Stranded on Mars, he meets Gribble (Dan Folger), another human hiding from the martians long enough to understand the way Mars works: they abduct good moms and use their mothering skills to program the robot nannies that raise martian children. With Gribble and Ki (Elisabeth Harnois), a renegade martian, Milo has to save his mother before The Supervisor (Mindy Sterling) catches him, hurts his mom, or both. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Heroes

Frank's (Rainn Wilson) not sure if he's actually receiving visions and messages from God or if he's just seeing things... but when his wife (Liv Tyler) runs off with Jacques (Kevin Bacon), a sleazy drug kingpin, Frank accepts the divine mission to become The Crimson Bolt in Super. With a homemade costume, a pipe wrench for a weapon, and an overeager sidekick (Ellen Page) with a very warped sense of right and wrong, The Crimson Bolt punishes evil in all its forms: drug dealers, purse snatchers, and people who cut in movie lines... but he must eventually face his biggest challenge: rescuing his wife from Jacques. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Thadeous (Danny McBride) has always lived in the shadow of his brother, Fabious (James Franco), in David Gordon Green's Your Highness-- while Fabious was off battling dragons and completing quests, Thadeous was always content to drink, smoke, and generally get into trouble with his lackey (Ramsus Hardiker). When Fabious' bride-to-be (Zooey Deschanel) is captured by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), Thadeous is forced to join in the heroics for a change... but the brothers soon find themselves out matched and out numbered, with only a wandering warrior (Natalie Portman) on a quest for revenge on their side. Thadeous may never become a great swordsman or overcome his personal shortcomings, but he could just save the day anyway. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Family and Home

Cheng Lai-Sheung (Josie Ho) has found the perfect luxury apartment in Dream Home. Growing up in a working class family, sharing a room with her brother, she works two jobs and saves every penny to secure her perfect apartment... but devoting her life to the home she's fixated on has driven her to obsession. With all her planning, saving and waiting, Lai-Sheung will do anything to make the dream home her own, even if she has to murder someone to do it.

A whirlwind romance leads to a hasty wedding in Jumping the Broom, but Pam (Loretta Devine), the head of the blue collar Taylor family, isn't ready to see her son Jason (Laz Alonso) married to a girl he just met. Claudine (Angela Bassett), the matriarch of the wealthy Watson family, isn't thrilled to see her daughter Sabrina (Paula Patton) bringing a downtown boy into her uptown, old-money family. But the wedding is on, and the two families have to overcome their differences in culture and class to see the happy couple through their big day.

Stand up comedian Craig Ferguson's concert disc Craig Ferguson: A Wee Bit o' Revolution films the Scottish commedian's stand up show live, filmed at the Wilbur theater in Boston.

Week of August 2

2011-08-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

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Family Friendly

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), a domesticated blue macaw, is living as a pet in a Minnesota book store in the animated Rio. When an ornithologist (Rodrigo Santoro) finds out about a rare blue macaw in the US, he contacts Blu's owner (Leslie Mann) and flies them both to his aviary in Rio de Janeiro... so while Blu is being set up for a blind date, Jewel (Anne Hathaway), another blue macaw, is more interested in being free and returning to the wild. Everyone's plans are foiled when a smuggler (Carlos Ponce) and his exotic-bird-hating cockatoo (Jemaine Clement) kidnaps the Blu and Jewel, the two birds are bound together in an adventure to find what they're missing. While they're being chased by both friends and foes, and though they have different ideas of their goals and their homes, Blu and Jewel might just end up in the same place. With Jake T. Austin and Tracy Morgan. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Henry Sawyer (J.K. Simmons) reunites with his estranged son Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) after 20 years in The Music Never Stopped. Henry finds Gabriel hospitalized; a brain tumor has taken his ability to form new memories. A therapist (Julia Ormond) discovers that music brings Gabriel to life, so in order to communicate with his son, Henry has to embrace the music from Gabriel's coming-of-age: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Grateful Dead. The songs bring them back to their shared past, but Henry blames 60s music for changing is son from a sweet little boy to a hippie runaway. With Mia Maestro and Tammy Blanchard.

13-year-old Vanessa earns a minority scholarship to a prep school in Dear Lemon Lima, but finds herself at the bottom of the social system in her new school. Lumped in with the FUBARs, the school's social misfits, Vanessa is befriended by sweet but socially awkward Hercules (Zane Hutt), pathological liar Samantha (Vanessa Marano), and the rest of the FUBARs... but she comes to learn the power of her Eskimo heritage and individuality, as well as the individual traits of her new friends. With Melissa Leo and Meaghan Martin.

True Stories

The story of surfer Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophia Robb) who overcame the loss of a limb with the help of faith, family, and friends, Soul Surfer introduces Bethany as the child of surfing family-- while her parents (Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt) surf, Bethany and her best friend (Loraine Nicholson) have become competitive surfers. Bethany thinks her championship days are over when she loses her arm in a shark attack, but she gains some perspective through relief work with her youth ministry, and returns to surfing with a new outlook. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based actual events, The Perfect Game is the story of the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series. When Cesar Faz (Clifton Collins Jr) returns home to Monterrey, Mexico, he find the Padre Esteban (Cheech Marin) bringing kids together through baseball, he assembles the first Mexican Little League team to compete in the World Series. Coming to the United States in the 1950s, they have to overcome racism and a language barrier, but with the help of a sports reporter (Emilie de Ravin) and the field's groundskeeper (Louis Gossett Jr), they can become the only team to have a perfect game in Little League championship history. With Jake T. Austin.

Television writer Phil Rosenthal and creator of Everyone Loves Raymond filmed his journey to Russia in the documentary Exporting Raymond. Brought to Moscow to help with a Russian adaptation of Raymond, the film documents the comic misadventures of trying to overcome cultural and language barriers of translating a slice-of-life show.

Horror

Normal for remake-sequels, though Quarantine was a nearly shot-for-shot remake of [·Rec], Quarantine 2: Terminal doesn't have anything to do with [·Rec] 2. As flight leaves from Los Angeles on the same night as the events in Quarantine, the same, rabid sickness breaks out on the plane. Forced to the ground, the remaining passengers and crew are quarantined in the terminal, and a flight attendant (Mercedes Masohn) and a passenger (Josh Cooke) ensure everyone's survival... but as the infection spreads, danger grows, and their hopes for escape dwindle.

Much like Zombieland but with vampires, Stake Land sees another teenager (Connor Paolo) traveling under the protection of a fearless vampire killer (Nick Damici). As they travel the vampire-infested American wasteland, they have to contend with another horror: a militant preacher (Michael Cerveris) and his flock, overtaking the roads for their own purposes. As the travelers search for a haven called New Eden, they find obstacles, oases, and new companions, including Kelly McGillis.

Researching a disappearance from the 1940s, a research team tries to retrace the missing group's steps in Yellowbrickroad. Trying to discover why the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire walked into the woods and disappeared 70 years ago, the researchers head down the same trail... but days into the voyage, their instruments seem unreliable, the group becomes disoriented, and they can all hear music off in the distance. As they become more divorced from reality, terrible things start to happen.

Mysteries

Cold Weather is a slacker detective story where Doug, a forensic scientist, quits his academic pursuits and returns to his hometown of Portland, Oregon, and moves in with his sister (Trieste Kelly Dunn). Rachel, Doug's ex-girlfriend, shows up on his doorstep and encourages Doug to get his life back on track... but she mysteriously vanishes. Doug becomes an unwilling detective, unsure of himself, but still on the trail of the disappeared Rachel.

Tom Selleck returns to play the title role in he seventh Jesse Stone movie, Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost. Forced to retire from his position as Paradise's Sherrif, Jesse is still investigating murders: looking into both a long lost friend and a murder suspect he believes is innocent. His former employees (Kathy Baker and Kohl Sudduth) urge Stone off his unofficial cases, but his friend from the Boston police (Stephen McHattie) enlists his help. With William Devane.

Adapted from Taras Bulba, the Russian The Conqueror tells the epic tale of a farmer who loses everything in war. Bent on vengeance, Taras Bulba becomes a fierce warrior capable leading armies of overthrowing cities.

Tracy Morgan: Black & Blue is a comedy DVD of Tracy Morgan's HBO comedy special, filmed live at the Apollo.

Week of July 26

2011-07-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

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Re-Living the Past

Source Code is director Duncan Jones' follow-up to Moon, where Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is being projected into a time loop-- through strange technology, he's inserted into someone else's body, repeatedly experiencing the last 8 minutes before a terrorist bomb goes off on a train. His handlers (Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright) have sent him onto the train in an eight-minute-loop before the bomb goes off to find the identity of the bomber, but every time his mission starts, he finds himself face-to-face with Christina (Michelle Monaghan). As Colter develops a relationship with Christina, he begins to question the rules of his time loop, the inevitability of the bombing, and his future beyond the next eight minutes. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Shattered Lives

14-year-old Annie Cameron meets and becomes infatuated with Charlie, a boy she meets over the internet, in Trust. After months of online activity, their first meeting reveals her online boyfriend is nothing like he described himself. Annie's father (Clive Owen) becomes obsessed with revenge and her mother (Catherine Keener) tries to give her comfort, while Annie is convinced Charlie still loves her, only staying away because the case is being investigated by the FBI. With Jason Clarke and Viola Davis. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Wartime

Returning to the lives of the characters (but not the cast) of Happiness, Life During Wartime applies director Todd Solondz's dry humor to the tragedies of Trish (Allison Janney), Joy (Shirley Henderson), and Helen (Ally Sheedy). Though Helen has cut ties with the family and retreated to California, the ensemble story sees Trish's husband (Ciaran Hinds) out of prison after serving his sentence, while Trish has begun dating Michael Lerner. Joy has married Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), who is still driven to making obscene phone calls, but she's haunted by the suicide of Andy (Paul Reubens) from Happiness' prologue. Though the characters have been slightly distorted and reinvented, their lives progress as the characters from the first movie must...

Set in Nazi-occupied Holland in 1945, the Dutch Winter in Wartime follows 13-year-old Michiel as he discovers Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower), a downed British pilot. Aiding Jack ushers Michiel into the resistance with his favorite uncle (Yorick van Wagening), which Michiel sees as an adventure. As the seriousness of the situation dawns on him, Michiel begins to understand the war around him and the danger of not knowing which adults he can trust. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Siege

After signing the Magna Carta and reducing the power of the throne, King John (Paul Giamatti) refuses to honor the document and begins executing the Barons who signed it in Ironclad. One baron (Brian Cox) recruits a Templar Knight (James Purefoy) and a band of misfits to hold Rochester Castle-- the legendary siege plays out in bloody, extended battles as the warriors holding the castle fight fir their freedom and the king fights to reclaim the power of his throne. With Kate Mara and Jason Flemyng. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Imports

Kohei's clone agreement becomes active when he dies in an accident in the Japanese The Clone Returns Home, and his clone-self sets off to pick up his life where it left off. The terms of the cloning resurrect him exactly as he was at the time of the agreement, with all of Kohei's memories and feelings, including his guilt and grief over the death of his twin when they were both children, but coupled with the burden of being a duplicate of himself.

Helena, obsessed with medical illustrations and finding imperfections in her own body, strikes up a relationship with Benoit, a radiologist who notices her interest in X-rays, in the French The Sentiment of the Flesh. As their relationship continues to push new boundaries, they start a journey of exploration that includes medical instruments and a new definition of "knowing" one another.

The Undead

Once, Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh) was the barrier between the normal world and the zombies, werewolves, and vampires that walk the streets of New Orleans... but he's resigned himself to photographing infidelity as a two bit detective in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. When a murder case falls into his lap, he doesn't want to get involved with Elizabeth (Anita Briem) whose father was murdered by a werewolf, but the case won't let go of him. Soon, he and his sidekick (Sam Huntington) are calling on connections from Dylan's supernatural past, vampire entrepreneurs (Taye Diggs) and the heads of werewolf clans (Peter Stormare), but what seemed like a murder case could be something more complicated and dangerous. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Michael travels to Berlin to return his ex-girlfriend Gabi's keys, but he arrives at the beginning of a citywide crisis in Rammbock Berlin Undead. As an infection spreads on the streets below, Michael is trapped in his ex's apartment complex with limited food and water. Banding with the few survivors in the building, he tries to find his way out of a zombie apocalypse and hopefully reunite with Gabi.

Week of July 19

2011-07-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

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Full Potential

Eddie's (Bradley Cooper) life is going nowhere-- he has no money, no motivation, he's just been dumped, and he can't even begin the novel he's supposedly writing. When his ex brother-in-law (Johnny Whitworth) lets him try an experimental drug, Eddie suddenly reaches his potential in Limitless: he reclaims his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish), writes his book, and with a mind that can suddenly comprehend anything, starts to turn his life around... but his new ambition puts him in league with dangerous and powerful men (Robert De Niro, Andrew Howard, and Richard Bekins). Worse, the addictive properties and side effects of the drug is unknown, but what are Eddie's chances without it? On DVD and Blu-Ray.

80's

Though he just graduated from MIT, Matt (Topher Grace) is working in a mall at a dead end job with Barry (Dan Fogler), his best friend, in Take Me Home Tonight. With the help of his sister (Anna Faris) and Barry, Matt will try to make sense of his life and correct the mistakes of his past... namely, mustering the courage to ask out his high school crush (Teresa Palmer). Over the course of on 1980s night, they'll each find their own path in Matt's quest through parties, stunts, and suburban adventure. With Chris Pratt. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Family Stories

Nathan (Ben Schwartz) became a famous and successful writer on the strength of his novel in Peep World, but the book tells all of his family's secrets. Reuniting the whole family for their father's (Ron Rifkin) birthday, Nathan has to contend with his shallow and materialistic sister (Sarah Silverman) who's suing him over the book, his constantly in trouble black sheep brother (Rainn Wilson), and his reliable brother (Michael C. Hall)... who's ready to crack under the stress of being "the good one" in a famously dysfunctional family.

Fighting Games

Jin (Jon Foo) arrives out of the wastelands of a dystopian future to fight in a ruthless martial arts tournament in Tekken. Though Jin wants to stop the man running the tournaments (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and end the fighting forever, he'll have to beat the champion (Gary Daniels) and win the game to get there. Aided by a former tournament fighter (Luke Goss) and making allies within the games (including Kelly Overton), Jin fights for freedom and justice, but doesn't know how much the games have already shaped his life. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Trophy

Catherine Deneuve is the trophy wife to an oppressive husband (Fabrice Luchini) in Potiche. Set in 1977, she's fairly happy in her life, until her husband is incapacitated and she has to take his place managing an umbrella factory. Put in charge because her husband assumed she would be obedient and do very little, she becomes an excellent plant manager, outshining her husband and reconnecting with an old flame, the town's mayor (Gerard Depardieu).

Autobiographical

Based on a actual events, Desert Flower tells the story of Waris Dirie (Liya Kebede) from Somalia to Britain. Befriending and moving in with an English girl (Sally Hawkins), she learns English and lands a job, but eventually meets the photographer (Timothy Spall) and publicist (Juliet Stevenson) that make her a famous model. Her fame allows her to become a UN spokeswoman against female circumcision, a common practice in her homeland.

Rural

Walter (Peter Stormare) is a local cop in Small Town Murder Songs, trying to put his violent past behind him and live a quieter life. When his estranged ex (Jill Hennessy) reports a dead body, the balance of small town life is upset, and Walter is suddenly involved in a murder investigation. As the stresses of his life and the case mount, the threat of the old rage he tried to leave behind continues to grow. With Martha Plimpton.

Documentaries

Detailing the history of one of the most beloved authors and novels of the 20th century, Hey Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird unearths photos, letters, and interviews that tell the story of Harper Lee and her enduring literary classic.
Transcendent Man focuses on Ray Kurzweil and his beliefs regarding "the singularity," merging of human consciousness and advanced computing technology. Exploring Kurzweil's accomplishments and credentials, the documentary provides experts that believe him to be a crackpot or a genius.

Week of July 12

2011-07-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

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Cowboys

In Gore Verbinski's first animated movie, Rango (Johnny Depp) seems like just the kind of hero a troubled desert town needs. His tales of wild west adventures are enough to give hope to the townsfolk and have the mayor (Ned Beatty) pin a sheriff's star to his chest... but a Isla Fisher needs him to solve the most important problem in a desert town: there's no more water. With the town on the verge of collapse, a conspiracy around the water, and a mercenary gunfighter (Bill Nighy) ready to take him down, Rango still has a bigger problem: he's a pet chameleon who's never been out of his tank before. Shot like a classic western, Rango is the first animated film rendered by Industrial Light and Magic, with a completely unique animation style. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Dax Shepard tries to reinvent himself (I'm Not Here style) in the mockumentary Brother's Justice. Done with comedy, Shepard has decided to become a martial arts action hero ("like Chuck Norris!") and make a movie called Brother's Justice. He calls in favors from directors he knows (Jon Favreau) or someone who might be able to get James Cameron on the phone (Tom Arnold), but he quickly burns through his connections with a project that no one else believes in. With David Koechner.

Heirs to the Family Fortune

Mercenary defense attourney Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey) has a long history of winning cases for guilty clients in The Lincoln Lawyer, but he takes Louis Roulet's (Ryan Phillippe) case because Roulet is the heir to a real estate wealth. Roulet insists the charges against him are a scam to get at the family fortune, but Mick starts to suspect that the case is tied another case from his past, and his world is suddenly a very dangerous place. With William H. Macy and Marisa Tomei. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Arthur
Now & Then

The Bach family's millions have given Arthur (Russell Brand) everything, but having his every whim provided has prevented him from growing up in Arthur. Though his private messes are cleaned up by his nanny Hobson (Helen Mirren), his public spectacles have forced him into a corner: he must either marry someone he doesn't love (Jennifer Garner) or he'll lose his fortune. Though his partying lifestyle is nearly everything to him, Arthur meets Greta Gerwig, who teaches him that there may be more to life than money. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

In the wrong house

Taking place on the same night as [ •Rec], a doctor and special operations team are sent into the quarantined building in [•Rec] 2. As they search for "patient zero" and an answer to the infection that has overtaken the building, they quickly discover that they're not as prepared for the dangers in the building as they thought. While the doctor and his team search the building, three local kids have snuck into the quarantine, and the two groups end up in the same fight for survival.

Josh and Renai (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) move their family into a new house in James Wan's Insidious, but strage disturbances disrupt their new life. When their son (Ty Simpkins) doesn't wake up one morning, doctors can't explain his coma-like state, but his condition and the increased disturbances in the house inspire them to call an expert in the paranormal (Lin Shaye)-- if they can accept what she says, they'll have to bring their son's spirit back from a place she calls "The Further." On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The story of a young Palestinian, Julian Schnabel's Miral stars Freida Pinto as Miral, who must deal with the socially and politically charged environment of the Israel-Palestine conflict. As the story follows her journey from forceful patriotism to the people who encourage her to more active paths, she finds her own perspective on the world she's constantly chafing against. With Hiam Abbass and Willem Dafoe.

An ailing Uncle Boonmee reflects on his life and lives before in the Thai Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, trying to find the source of his illness. The film unfolds as an exploration of his physical and spiritual life, as animals talk to humans and the dead speak to the living, with a surreal concept of time, space, and reality.

Week of July 5

2011-07-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

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Vigilantes

Grindhouse Trailers

Long ago, a filmmaker would shoot a movie, and before the movie came out, a trailer would be released.
Today, independents film trailers that become viral video successes, and then a feature film is made. Black Dynamite was a trailer for a faux-blaxploitation film before it became a parody of exploitation. The Quinten Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature offered a handful of fake trailers... but the "fake" Machete trailer has become Machete, and now another of the Grindhouse joke trailers has become an actual movie: Hobo with a Shotgun.

Expanded from one of the joke trailers in the Grindhouse double-feature, Hobo with a Shotgun stars Rutger Hauer as a homeless man who wanders into a lawless, violent town. Set in the 80s in a city that seems imported directly from Tromaville, the Hobo meanders through depraved streets until he can't take any more... and picks up a shotgun. Though he becomes a hero in a town full of corruption, the Hobo's fight makes him the target of a ruthless gangster, his new wave sons (including Gregory Smith), and an army of hired killers, which can only lead to the kind of ultraviolent showdown that form the cornerstone of grindhouse vigilante pictures. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A good cop (David Lyons) is framed, hunted by his own men, and assumed dead in the superhero series The Cape. Discovered underground and adopted by Max Malini (Keith David) and his Carnival of Crime, he's trained in magic and illusions to become The Cape. Along with Summer Glau, a hacker who uncovers dastardly plots for him to foil, The Cape becomes a vigilante freedom fighter driven to stop the corruption that stole his life and defeat the mastermind supervillain (James Frain) who's responsible for all the evils in the city.

Assassins

A warlord is driven to conquer all of China, so he sends assassins to destroy all the most powerful kung fu schools in Empire of Assassins. Two young brothers survive the attack: one boy is adopted by the warlord and raised as his own son, while the other is left behind. As the brothers grow up, they're destined to clash; one's faithful to the warlord while the other is bent on vengeance.

Based on an actual battle, Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins is the story of a privileged young lord whose position has made him untouchable-- he tortures and murders on a whim, and criticism of him would cause a samurai to lose their title, their honor, and their life. One samurai (Koji Yakusho) who's lost everything to the lord's viciousness takes the mission to go rogue and kill the lord-- he gathers a handful of men willing to sacrifice themselves to stand against a small army and assassinate the monster, before he becomes more powerful. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Drama

Set in 1990s Algeria, Of Gods and Men is the story of Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) and the Trappist monks (including Michael Lonsdale, Oliver Rabourdin, and Philippe Laudenbach) who are respected "friends of Algeria," taking sides with neither the government or the Islamic rebels. The monks live in a quiet monastery, but violence escalates outside their walls, and it can't be kept out forever. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Pierre (Danny Keogh) is an athlete and comparative religion student whose injuries drive him to self destruction and loss of faith in Riding Tornado. When he finds Tornado, an Arabian stallion with Self Mutilation Syndrome, he feels a kinship with the horse-- together, they find a horse whisperer who may be able to save Tornado, but only if Pierre commits to the process, saving himself along with the horse.

Serialized Sci-Fi

Part one of the fourth season of Eureka sends Sheriff Carter (Colin Ferguson), Dr. Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), Dr. Deacon (Joe Morton), and more back in time. As the strange and improbable air around the town of Eureka breeds experts capable of handling shifting timelines, eccentric minds on both sides of the rift in time work to set the continuum right.

Including a crossover with Season 4 of Eureka, the second season of Warehouse 13 rejoins Agents Bering and Lattimer (Joanne Kelly and Eddie McClintock), banished to the midwest, researching and investigating the government's cache of supernatural items. With the agent-in-charge (Saul Rubinek), they solve the seemingly inexplicable mysteries that exist outside of the natural world.

Magic

Patrick and Louise (Aiden Gillen and Eva Birthistle) are mourning the death of their 9-year-old daughter when they move to the remote town of Wake Wood. When a local man (Timothy Spall) offers them a chance to resurrect their little girl for a few days, to make their peace and say goodbye, they're skeptical... but curious, and hopeful. If they can get their daughter back, will they be able to let her go again, and what would the consequences of breaking the deal be?

National Geographic's documentary Witchcraft: Myths and Legends explores the centuries old belief in magic, from British practices of white magic to a "witch cleanser" in Zimbabwe, as well as all of the modern believers in magic and the histories of their practices.

Week of June 28

2011-06-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

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Swords and Guns

After adapting two comic books for the screen, Zack Snyder made his own live action graphic novel with Sucker Punch, where a girl (Emily Browning) committed to an asylum retreats into an odd burlesque fantasy where her doctor (Carla Gugino) is a madame and the head orderly (Oscar Isaac) is a sadistic director. Her plan for escape takes her and her fellow inmates (Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, and Jamie Chung) into a series of fantasy adventures, fighting steampunk Nazi zombies, dragons, and giant samurai, gathering the real world tools to win the girls' actual escape. With Scott Glenn. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

After Yang (Jang Dong Gun) establishes himself as the greatest swordsman in the world, he turns his back on his people and his legacy in The Warrior's Way when he refuses to kill the last surviving member of his rival's clan: a baby. Arriving with the child in America in the old west, he finds a place in a desolate town run by Eight Ball (Tony Cox) and his carnival folk, and befriends a cowgirl (Kate Bosworth) with tragic past and the town drunk (Geoffrey Rush)... but the town is preyed upon by the Colonel (Danny Huston) and his gang of masked outlaws. Yang has to defend his new home, but waging war means his former clan will soon find him, and the town will have both swordsmen and gunfighters loose on its streets. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Behmen (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are 14th century knights who desert the Crusades, questioning the killing they've done in by church's orders in Season of the Witch. Caught as deserters, they're ordered to escort a priest (Stephen Campbell Moore) and a young girl (Claire Foy) to a remote abbey-- they girl is accused of witchcraft, and if the monks in the abbey can "cure" her, they believe it will end the plague that has ravaged europe. Accompanied by a knight (Stephen Graham) and an unscrupulous guide (Ulrich Thomsen), Behmen and Felson fight strange, supernatural occurrences to get them all to their destination, but if the girl is not a witch, will they allow another innocent's death? On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Norwegian Max Manus: Man of War is a World War II action movie about a soldier who returns from battling the Soviets to find his homeland occupied by the Germans. Max Manus joins the underground resistance and begins a campaign against the invaders that make him a person of interest with the Gestapo. As his own personal war escalates and the body count on both sides grows, Max has to face the consequences of waging war, as it affects his friends as well as his enemies.

Actual Events

Young Jesco White (Edward Hogg) was always a problem child, discovering solvents and gas-huffing at an early age, until his father (Muse Watson) teaches him mountain dancing in White Lightnin'. At his best when he's dancing, on the road with musicians, he always felt the pull of his darker urges. As the story's told from Jesco's point of view, he recounts his time on stage, meeting the woman of his dreams (Carrie Fisher), and his lapses into bouts of substance abuse, violence, and crises of faith.

Standing up to the Soviets by hiring Jewish musicians, conductor Andrei Fillipov's greatest orchestral performance was interrupted by the Communist Party and his career was destroyed in The Concert-- thirty years later, Andrei is still working at the same Moscow orchestra... as a janitor. When he happens across the news of a concert's cancellation in Paris, Andrei sees what may be his last chance and tries to reassemble his orchestra, who haven't aged particularly well. Worse, his last-minute show insists upon an untested violinist (Melanie Laurent) who's never played the piece before, but the orchestra may play again, and recapture the show they never got to play three decades ago.

Fairy Tale

Wealthy and arrogant Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) usually treats people badly in Beastly, but when he singles out a witch (Mary-Kate Olsen) masquerading as a high school student, she gives him the Beauty and the Beast curse: he becomes ugly, twisted, and scarred, and will remain that way unless he can find someone to love him. Beginning to feel something for Vanessa Hudgens, Kyle may have found his salvation, but the road to redemption is difficult as he learns to exist without good looks, but strives not to be ugly. With Neil Patrick Harris. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Dramas

A long walk through Barney's (Paul Giamatti) memories of his life, Barney's Version, from his idealistic youth to old age. Spanning three wives (Rachelle Lefevre, Minnie Driver, and Rosamund Pike), Barney's fiercely opinionated and politically incorrect, and his life is a chaotic mix of drinking, smoking, and womanizing, but his stories range from his relationship with his father (Dustin Hoffman), his son (Jake Hoffman), his inexplicably missing friend (Scott Speedman), and the detective (Mark Addy) that believes Barney's responsible. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Peruvian Undertow is the story of Miguel, a young fisherman with a beautiful wife and a baby on the way. Miguel's seemingly idyllic life is haunted by his secret love of Santiago, a painter treated poorly by the rest of the village for being gay. Miguel must face the consequences of being true to himself, and make his own difficult decisions.

Traveling to Lebanon, PA from Philadelphia, Will (Josh Hopkins) arrives in the small town to settle his father's affairs, but the small town starts to become a part of his life. As Will becomes involved with dramas and relations of the family across the street and begins to fall in love with a married schoolteacher (Samantha Mathis), he begins to shirk his high-power city life for the simpler world that his father embraced in his later years. With Mary Beth Hurt.

Documented

Filmmaker David Bond tries to remove himself from public data gathering in the documentary Erasing David. David hires private investigators to find him, and begins to scrub himself from public records. Amazed at how much data about himself is publicly available, he adapts to the information provided to the world by his Internet Service Provider, his Facebook account, his cell phone, and his car's registration. As he tries to disappear, he keeps finding new, subtle ways he's left a trail.

A recording of his standup performance, comedian Aziz Ansari's Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening is a live comedy show filmed in Los Angeles.

Week of June 21

2011-06-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

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Reclamation

An American traveling abroad for business, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) wakes up in a German hospital after a car accident to find everything's been taken from him, even his identity, in Unknown. When he finds his wife (January Jones) she doesn't recognize him, and she's with a man who claims to be the "real" Dr. Harris (Aiden Quinn) and has the paperwork and identification to prove it. Aided by a former East German secret police agent (Bruno Ganz), Martin must find the only person who remembers him, the taxi driver (Diane Kruger) from his accident, and unravel the mystery that has stolen his life. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A movie centered on the popular Roman Ninth Legion, The Eagle stars Channing Tatum as Centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila, the son of the Ninth's standard bearer, whose family lives with the shame of having lost the legion's bronze eagle. Discharged from the military after an unfortunate battle, Marcus concocts a plan to reclaim his family's honor: he and his slave (Jamie Bell) will travel into the enemy-controlled lands in the north of Britain and return with the Ninth's eagle... but in enemy lands, his slave is in familiar territory, and Marcus himself is surrounded by enemies. With Mark Strong. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fate

David Norris (Matt Damon) reconnects with Elise (Emily Blunt) on a bus months after their chance meeting and first kiss in The Adjustment Bureau, but they were never supposed to meet again. As the strange, supernatural agents (including Anthony Mackie and John Slattery) of the Bureau slightly rig human lives to take certain paths, they never intended for these two to meet, but David stands up against fate and the omnipresent Adjustment Bureau to be with, and stay with, Elise... though he may have worse problems than the anger of the bureau, as pursuing the woman he loves and stepping away from his written destiny could derail both of their fates. Based on a story by Philip K. Dick. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Comedies

"I get that this is killer material for a novel: Sensitive white guy learns life lessons by taking in small black child... You can't just keep him. He's not a goldfish."

Josh Randor's indie comedy Happythankyoumoreplease stars Randor as Sam, a slacker writer who unofficially adopts Rasheen, a foster child who follows him home and refuses to leave. In Sam's orbit are his best friend (Malin Akerman) with terrible taste in men, his cousin (Zoe Kazan) and her boyfriend (Pablo Schreiber) who are considering leaving New York for Los Angeles, and the beautiful waitress (Kate Mara) who tests his fear of commitment. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Innocent, small-town insurance agent Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) has to fly to a regional conference in Miguel Arteta's Cedar Rapids. Tim needs to win the prestigious Two Diamonds Award for his hometown insurance company and his good nature seems a perfect way to win the favor of the morals-obsessed head of the convention (Kurtwood Smith), but he falls in with a group of insurance agents (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, and Isiah Whitlock Jr) who show the naive Tim what wild antics the big city has to offer... and though he thinks his innocence hangs in the balance, Tim learns that the morals in Cedar Rapids aren't as easy to understand as he thought. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Family

Kenji is a high school student with a gift for math in Summer Wars, by the director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. He gets taken by his classmate, Natsuki, to her family's estate for her grandmother's 90th birthday... but when an internet virus causes global mayhem with Kenji's name, he finds himself surrounded by a huge clan with a proud military ancestry, and they band together to combat a threat that no one else in the world can face.

Greg (Zachary Gordon) and his best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) are beginning seventh grade in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, but they're still the "undersized weaklings" they were in the first movie. To make matters worse, Greg's mother (Rachel Harris) has decided to curb the antics at home by introducing a system of "Mom Bucks," which puts him in direct competition with his brother, Rodrick (Devon Bostick). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The documentary film Living in Emergency: Doctors without Borders recounts the stories of the doctors who travel to war-torn nations to provide emergency care. Taking place in Congo and Nigeria, doctors struggle with the intense workload and the challenges of the field.

Two new documentaries from PBS' Secrets of the Dead series are China's Terra Cotta Warriors, exploring the recently unearthed 8,000 individual statues of the army of China's first emporer from 2200 BC, and Lost in the Amazon, recounting famed explorer Percey Fawcett's 1925 expedition to the Amazon, ending in his still-unsolved disappearance. Narrated by Liev Schreiber.

Week of June 14

2011-06-14T15:21:00.001-07:00

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Warriors

Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), a combat weary Marine, is about to retire when the United States is attacked in Battle: Los Angeles. Thrown into a new platoon with an inexperienced lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez), Nantz and his men charge into war torn Los Angeles to face an enemy they don't yet understand: aliens. As the Marines go in to rescue a group of civilians before an air strike levels the area, they have to fight for their lives against invaders that could destroy the earth. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Thai Kingdom of War is a historical drama about King Naresuan of Siam, and his ascent in the 1500s. Rising from his youth studying under a Buddhist monk to the beginning of his military career, Naresuan becomes a formidable leader and, through his exploits, founds the kingdom of Siam.

Donnie Yen puts on a mask and fights for justice in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen. Set in the 30s, Chen Zhen stands against the looming Japanese invasion of China, rooting out spies and foiling assassination attempts. With a list of anti-Japanese activists made public and all of its members in danger, Chen Zhen has to don a mask, save the marked men, and retaliate against their attackers. With Qi Shu and Anthony Wong Chau-Sang. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Comedies

Owen Wilson is married with three kids in the Farrelly Brothers' Hall Pass, but he and his friend (Jason Sudeikis) spend most of their time bantering about other women. Fed up, their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) come up with a plan to cure them: they're given a week off from marriage, a "Hall Pass," where the boys can do whatever they want... but it's been a while since they've been single, and their week of freedom might not be what they were expecting. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Composed of stunts, pranks, and gags not included in Jackass 3, Jackass 3.5 puts together the scenes shot but not included in the film's official release.

FBI Agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) dons his fat suit for the third time in Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. When his stepson (Brandon T. Jackson) witnesses a murder and has to hide by posing as a girl, Malcolm resurrects his old alter ego, Big Momma, to watch over his stepson and conduct an undercover investigation.

Valerie's (Amanda Seyfried) life is torn between the boy she's loved since childhood and an arranged marriage to someone she barely knows in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood, but her worries increase when a werewolf starts terrorizing her village. The villagers hire a famous witchhunter (Gary Oldman) to hunt the big bad wolf, but his certainty that the werewolf is actually one of the townsfolk makes everyone a suspect, and tracking the wolf draws unwanted attention to the one girl the wolf seems obsessed with: Valerie. With Billy Burke. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Based on actual events, Kill the Irishman follows Danny Green (Ray Stevenson) through the criminal underground of Cleveland in the 1970s. Green's refusal to back down from a fight and survive multiple attempts on his life led him through several careers, running a union, collecting for a loan shark (Christopher Walken) and eventually teaming up with a gangster (Vincent D'Onofrio) to run his own businesses without paying a percentage to the mob... which leads to frequent attempts to kill Danny Green. With Val Kilmer. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

14-year-old Filipa's coming of age is complicated by her parents' failing marriage in the Brazilian Adrift. Her relationship with her father (Vincent Cassel) changes when she sees him with a beautiful American (Camilla Belle) and spies on their liaisons... inspiring Filipa to rebel in dangerous ways.

Theo (Chris Messina) is a wedding photographer and part-time "stalker for hire" in Monogamy when a new client hires him to secretly photograph her sex life. Nervous about his impending marriage to Rashida Jones, Theo becomes obsessed with his voyeuristic new client, forcing him to confront uncomfortable truths about his own love life.

Vincent Dooly is determined to win the Thomas Alva Edison Award for Young Inventors in the mockumentary The Mother of Invention. He's never won before, but now that Vincent's 25, it's the last year he's eligible to win an Eddy. Vincent's convinced that winning an Eddy will turn his life around, but he has to compete with multiple Eddy winner Martin Wooderson (Jimmi Simpson)... who never loses.

Narrated by Ellen Page, Vanishing of the Bees is a documentary about Colony Collapse Disorder, a little-understood phenomenon related to the sudden disappearance of honey bees around the world.

New this week to Reckless Video's TV New Releases are the first seasons of the supernatural mystery series Haven and the police drama The Glades. Also new is the BBC's Fortunes of War with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and the complete anime sci-fi action series Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Week of June 7

2011-06-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

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Western Traditions

True Grit
Now & Then

When 14-year-old Mattie Ross' father is killed by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), one of his hired hands, she travels to settle his affairs in Joel & Ethan Coen's True Grit, but she stays to see her father avenged. Mattie hires surly and drunken marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to bring Chaney to justice, though Texas Ranger LaBeouf (Matt Damon) wants to collect the reward for Chaney in his home state... their paths cross repeatedly as they track their man, who's joined Lucky Ned Pepper's (Barry Pepper) gang. Mattie and her lawmen hunt their outlaws through wild and untamed country, each with their own goals and unsure of one another, but they all intend to see their job done. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Couples

Mike Leigh's newest slice-of-life film about class and family in Britain is Another Year, where Tom and Gerri Hepple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) continue their happy marriage into their senior years. The story of their relationship is simple and blissful, but their stability makes them the support system for all their less predictable friends... such as Gerri's emotionally messy co-worker (Lesley Manville). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Adam Sandler plays a successful L.A. plastic surgeon who pretends to be unhappily married to attract women in Just Go with It. Though he meets Palmer, a beautiful middle school teacher, honestly, she discovers his fake wedding ring-- now he has to rope his best friend (Jennifer Aniston) into pretending to be his estranged wife and reassuring Palmer... but as fast as as you can say "Three's Company," the comic misunderstanding spirals out of control. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Obsessed with the Wrong Woman

Young Eun-Yi is hired as a nanny for a wealthy husband and his pregnant wife in the Korean The Housemaid, but introducing a young woman into the household tempts the husband to begin an affair. As the domestic situation slowly falls apart, the rights and wrongs of the family begin to reveal themselves, and Eun-Yi's choices narrow as she's forced into an impossible position.

William Vincent (James Franco) he returns to New York after years in exile to reclaim the woman he loves in Shadows and Lies. Four years ago, Vincent assumed a new identity and restarted his life as a small time crook when a stranger (Martin Donovan) approached him and offered him a job: he would work for The Boss (Josh Lucas). Threatened with death if he ever returned, Vincent comes back for Julianne Nicholson, The Boss' favorite call girl, and the reason for his exile. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Told in flashback from the point of view of superstar matador Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez (Adrien Brody), A Matador's Mistress follows Manolete's ascent in the bullfighting ring and his passionate affair with actress Lupe Sino (Penelope Cruz). Set during the 1940s, the film plays out the all-consuming romance that led to Sanchez's last fight. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Erik (Ricky Mabe) pursues his girlfriend to a Live Action Role Playing weekend in The Wild Hunt. Erik has no interest in role playing, but his brother Bjorn (Mark Antony Krupa) leads a tribe of Vikings in the games and helps him get in. Unfortunately, Erik's girlfriend (Kaniehtiio Horn) is with the leader of the Celts (Trevor Hayes), and the play competition of the games begins to mix with the mens' real competition over a woman, until the rules start to blur and the battles are no longer safe.

Down Under

In an ensemble crime comedy centered around crime lord Terence Fink, the Australian Pros & Ex Cons follows an irreverent series of coincidences that crosses a handful of slackers, a pair of hackers trying to electronically rob a bank, and four hired killers (including Sam Worthington). As the heists, cons, and hits get in each others' way, there's no telling who'll be left standing in the end.

Based on a true story, In Her Skin begins with the parents of Rachel Barber (Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto) searching for their daughter when she doesn't come home from dance class. Their story merges with the life of Caroline Reid (Ruth Bradley), a disturbed young woman who envies everything about Rachel's life, and the tragedy that progresses as Caroline loses touch with reality. With Sam Neill and Rebecca Gibney.

A master diver (Richard Roxburgh) and his team, along with his son and his financiers (Ioan Gruffudd and Alice Parkinson), get trapped in an underwater cave system in Papua New Guinea in Sanctum. With limited supplies and diving gear, they can't go back the way they came, and the only way out is to explore the underground caverns and search for a new exit. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

GTX, a company in a down turn, begins to downsize in The Company Men, as the company president (Craig T. Nelson) starts laying people off. Hotshot salesman Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is unemployed in the first round and struggles to find new work to support his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) and son, as the senior members (Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper) question the firings while the president purchases extravagant new office space. With businesses struggling, nothing is certain, and the company men have to compromise to stay afloat. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A documentary about the influential comedian, American: The Bill Hicks Story interviews friends and family throughout Hicks' life, beginning with his early days writing and performing while still in school. Continuing with his early attempts for stardom in Los Angeles and struggles with addiction to finding his voice and becoming an icon with comedy, the film combines interviews and performance footage to realize a portrait of Bill Hicks.

A tire wakes up in the desert, discovers it can kill, and heads into town on a rampage in Rubber. For some reason, it decides not to kill Roxane Mesquida, who becomes part of the tire's story as the local police (led by Stephen Spinella) try to stop the killing spree. The movie warns to audience early that all movies contain elements that aren't explained or make no sense... and it goes on to continue to confound expectations, providing an audience within the film and a running commentary about the events as they unfold. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A privileged teenager (Sasha Jackson) runs away to surf her mother's old stomping grounds in South Africa in Blue Crush 2: No Limits. Quickly befriending a local surfer (Elizabeth Mathis), she proves herself on the waves, wins the love of a local boy, and makes a rival/enemy in the local circles as she tries to find herself in a new place.

New this week to Reckless Video's TV New Releases is the 3rd season of the critically acclaimed Breaking Bad, as Walter White (Bryan Cranston) continues to work towards providing for his family with the help of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a local, small-time drug dealer.

Also new is the 4th season of Burn Notice, as Michael Westen (Jeffery Donovan) finances tracking the people who ruined his life by solving cases in Miami with his trigger-happy ex-girlfriend (Gabrielle Anwar) and his former special ops buddy (Bruce Campbell), as well as the 2nd season of White Collar, which commissions a former white collar crook (Matt Bomer) to assist with FBI agents on his particular area of expertise.

Reckless has just acquired the debut seasons of The Big C, about Cathy Jamison's (Laura Linney) struggles with cancer as she tries to keep her suburban life in tact, and Pretty Little Liars, where four friends (including Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, and Lucy Hale) begin receiving threatening notes from an anonymous adversary after the leader of their clique (Sasha Pieterse) goes missing.

Finally, we have the newest release by DC Comics, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, setting up a story that inhabits the universe of the upcoming summer live action movie.

Week of May 31

2011-05-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

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Fatherhood

Javier Bardem was nominated for Best Actor this year of his performance in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful, starring as Uxbal, a father of two trying to survive both his personal issues and his life in the criminal underworld of Barcelona. Estranged from his wife and hiding health problems from his children, Uxbal struggles through a bleak life, though not all of his secrets are dangerous... some are inexplicable and magical. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Young Ivan and his teenage brother Andrei are growing up in the care of their mother in the Russian The Return until the father they've never known mysteriously reappears. Recognizing the man from an old photograph, the two boys hop into his car and head out for a fishing trip, but their newly returned father has plans for them. As he tests Ivan and Andrei, they try to understand what role their father has in their lives, and what they mean to him.

John Milton (Nicolas Cage) breaks out of Hell to avenge the death of his daughter in Drive Angry. Adopting a surrogate daughter (Amber Heard) on his adventure, Milton shoots, punches, stabs, and drives his way through the world, tracking down the cult leader (Billy Burke) that destroyed his daughter's life... but Hell doesn't take escapees lightly, so as Milton borrows a series of classic muscle cars to hunt down his enemies, an agent of Hell (William Fichtner) is chasing him down as well. With David Morse. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Artists

A young man returns to Strasbourg looking for Sylvia, a woman he met years before, in In the City of Sylvia. Armed with only a drawing he made when they met, he sits at an outdoor cafe sketching the beautiful women around him, always watching for Sylvia... and when he sees a face that matches his sketch, is it really her?

Left for dead, a down-on-his-luck trumpet player (Mickey Rourke) stumbles upon a traveling carnival in the desert in Passion Play. When he sees Lily (Megan Fox), the birdwoman in the sideshow, he's amazed; not a cheap gimmick, she has real wings. While he could be Lily's ticket to a new life, she could be his way of making amends with Bill Murray, the gangster who wanted him dead in the first place... but Lily could be more than that; she could be his salvation. With Kelly Lynch.

Love and Success

Late night sports talk DJ John (Matt Bush) travels to New York for a job interview in Edward Burns' Nice Guy Johnny. While his fiance and her family want him to take a high paying, but boring, job, John's uncle (Burns) tells him he's too young to marry, and to stay with the job he loves... but it's hard to take advice from his unreliable scoundrel of an uncle. However, when he meets Brook (Kerry Bishe), a free spirit who also thinks he should reject a job that would make him unhappy, John begins to reconsider the obligations standing before him.

Journalist Liam Marple (Robson Green) charms his way into private access with Prime Minister Laura Bowden (Caroline Goodall) in Me & Mrs. Jones. Liam writes under a the name Mrs. Jones, so the stories aren't traced back to him and he keeps his access to the PM, but things get much more complicated when he falls in love with Laura, and she with him. With Keeley Hawes.

Week of May 10

2011-05-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

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Relationships

The unglamorized slice-of-life relationship drama Blue Valentine earned Michelle Williams a Best Actress Academy Award nomination. The story of Cindy (Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling), the film switches between their early time together and their current struggles as an unhappy married couple. Cindy is a hardworking professional mother and Dean is more childish, a high school dropout picking up side jobs; their relationship is shown in both their early romance and their later years as their frustrations surface in their day-to-day routines. With Mike Vogel. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) get together for a purely physical affair in Ivan Reitman's romantic comedy No Strings Attached. While Adam's looking for something simple after his former-TV-star father (Kevin Kline) has started seeing his ex-girlfriend, Emma is too focused on her career to have her time and energy taken up by a serious relationship, and if their time together starts to become something more serious, they've agreed to stop... but if they really do fit well together, can they call the whole thing off? With Lake Bell. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Later in Life

Adapted from an unfilmed script by Jacques Tati, Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist sees a once-popular magician towards the end of his career, playing to smaller and smaller audiences. When a young girl sees the performer as a man with supernatural powers, she follows him to his next destination and shares his space in a boarding house filled with out-of-work vaudevillians. As the girl begins her journey toward adulthood, the magician tries to keep the last spark of his career and vocation alive, and they must both take separate steps to the next stage in their lives. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Ulrik (Stellan Skarsgard) tries to put his life together after the end of a twelve year prison sentence in Hans Petter Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man, but his past isn't easily avoided. Greeted upon release by his old petty-crime boss (Bjorn Floberg), Ulrik's set up with a dingy apartment and a job in an auto garage, but his criminal history is never forgotten. Ulrik approaches everything with an unflappable deadpan acceptance, from the women he meets to his work as a mechanic to criminal propositions, but he's not easily controlled, and must eventually choose the path of his future.

Define "Devil"

Set in the 1300s during the bubonic plague, Christopher Smith's Black Death sends a young, idealistic friar (Eddie Redmayne) away from the woman he loves (Kimberley Nixon). He escapes the temptation to break his vows by joining a soldier (Sean Bean) on a mission to investigate a mysteriously plague-free village-- they know what they must do if the community's leader (Carice van Houten) keeps the plague away with witchcraft, but the village couldn't stay safe without being wary of soldiers from the outside world. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Kim Jee Woon's revenge film I Saw the Devil sees a sadistic serial killer (Choi Min Sik) make a mistake with his most recent victim, the young fiance of a talented special agent (Lee Byung Hun). The predator becomes the prey as the agent takes slow and excruciating revenge on the killer, but the cat-and-mouse game isn't as simple as it first seems: the killer isn't ready to stop playing, and claims no fear or remorse. If the measure of vengeance is to make the psychopath feel loss and despair, can a good man claim that kind of revenge without becoming a monster? On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Cody (Cory Knauf), Q (Bret Roberts), Q's lady (Taylor Cole) and the hardened members of his motorcycle club are the remainder of a secluded party in The Violent Kind. When their members are found beaten, bloody, and inexplicably possessed, the club's troubles are just beginning... stranded in their cabin in the woods, they're assaulted by an evil group of Rockabillies from the 1950's whose motives and origins are too strange to be believed. With Tiffany Shepis. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Documentaries

Looking into the popularity of its teenage star, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never puts together the YouTube'd home videos that led to Justin Bieber's discovery, behind-the-scenes tour footage, and live performances in a fan-friendly package. The film interviews friends, family, members of his team, and fellow pop stars to paint an adoring picture of the young performer and the people who love him. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Michael Apted's next entry in his acclaimed Up series, 49 Up rejoins the children introduced in 7 Up and updated every seven years. Now at the age of forty-nine, the film considers the subjects of the documentary series and how their past reflects the adults they've become.

A pair of Staten Island filmmakers, raised on folktales of a child killer and boogeyman, investigate the very real child disappearances in their area in Cropsey. Part documentary, part mystery/thriller, part courtroom drama, the film explores the mythology that informed the criminal investigation of a suspected kidnapper and killer, and the abandoned hospitals and legends of satanic cults that made the urban legends part of real-world crime and punishment.

Fredrik Gertten's Bananas!* covers the legal battle between Nicaraguan banana plantation workers and the Dole food company. Compiling a case that the Dole company knowingly used harmful chemicals in the plantations, the workers strive to prove the negative effects of their working conditions in a case that could become a cornerstone of human rights in multinational business.

Comedian David Cross' newest stand-up comedy DVD is David Cross: Bigger and Blackerer, recorded live in front of an audience in Boston.

Week of May 3rd

2011-05-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

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Heroes

Seth Rogen and Jay Chou star as the pulp heroes The Green Hornet and Kato in Michel Gondry's big screen adaptation of The Green Hornet. Britt Reid (Rogen) is the directionless heir to a media empire, but when his father dies and he's suddenly in a position of power, he realizes he's done nothing with his life. Reid's response: team up with Kato (Chou), his driver, inventor, and martial-arts master, and fight crime as The Green Hornet. When they set their sites on a powerful Russian mobster (Christoph Waltz), they have to step up and be real heroes to face the dangerous criminals who want them dead. With Cameron Diaz. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Awkward

Ronny (Vince Vaughn) is poised for success in Ron Howard's The Dilemma: he and his business partner, Nick (Kevin James), are ready to close an important deal, and Nick and his wife (Winona Ryder) have convinced Ronny to propose to his beautiful and successful girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly). On the verge of everything going right, Ronny sees something he shouldn't... and as he tries to figure out how to get the truth out, he begins to wreck his own life with a series of cover-ups and lies. While Ronny tries to find the right moment and method of telling the truth, everything in his life starts to crumble under misunderstandings and poorly thought-out scams before he can do the right thing. With Channing Tatum. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Non Fiction

Based on the autobiography of ballet dancer Li Cunxin, director Bruce Beresford's Mao's Last Dancer follows Li's story from his time at the Beijing Dance Academy to the American theater director (Bruce Greenwood) that leads to his rise at the Houston Ballet. In love with a fellow dancer (Amanda Schuli) and wishing to stay in America, Li has hard choices to make when the Chinese government refuses to extend his stay in America: he doesn't want to return to China, but he's afraid of the consequences his defecting would have on his mother (Joan Chen) and the rest of his family.

Surviving an attack that put Mark Hogancamp in a coma and left him hospitalized until his insurance ran out, the documentary Marwencol details Mark's method of re-assembling his life. With few memories of his life before the beating, Mark begins rebuilding his life in a 1/6-scale town called Marwencol, a WW-II era village populated by doll character alter-egos of himself and the people in his life.

Complications

A Latina adaptation of Sense & Sensibility, From Prada to Nada follows two sisters, studious Nora (Camilla Belle) and socialite Mary (Alexa Vega), from Beverly Hills to East LA. Made destitute after the death of their father, they move in with a mostly-estranged relative (Adriana Barraza) and try to adjust to their new conditions... which includes romances and heartbreaks with a local tough (Wilmer Valderrama), a caucasian lawyer (Nicholas D'Agosto), and a Spanish literature teacher (Kuno Becker). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Will (Tom Sturridge) always believed his destiny and true love was his childhood friend Emma (Rachel Bilson) in Waiting for Forever. When Emma, now a TV star, returns to her small-town home because of her father's (Richard Jenkins) failing health, Will's life as a homeless street performer lets him return home at the same time... but Will hasn't actually spoken to Emma in years, and his devotion might be a unhealthy. At the same time, Emma's got her own history and troubles. With Matthew Davis.

Younger

The story of four 11-year-old friends over one summer, Summer Eleven is a coming-of-age family film. The last summer before middle school brings together Vanessa, an aspiring actress, Lizzie, coping with her brother coming home from war in a wheelchair, Jess, dealing with her parents' separation, and Peri, the new girl with a secret. Their summer together will strengthen their friendship and see the girls through to the last day of summer.

Graduating from High School Musical, Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) heads to New York to find fame and fortune as a Broadway diva in Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, but the big city is tougher than she thought. When she thinks she finds her big break, the opportunity is actually for her little dog Boi... but even that's not a sure thing, and Sharpay has to fight for Boi's success against another starlet's dog.

Horror

A Blair Witch-style tale of two fourteen-year-old friends, sheltered Amy and reckless party girl Megan, Megan Is Missing is a story told through clips from Amy's video diary, cell phone footage, and clips from news stories. When Megan vanishes after a chat-room hook-up, Amy documents the search for her friend, but an abductor wouldn't respond well to the continued publicity.

Week of April 26

2011-04-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

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Off the beaten path

Dan Ireland's Jolene paces fifteen years of the title character's life, following Jolene (Jessica Chastain) from a fifteen-year-old child bride along her journey of self discovery. Thrown out of her home because of an affair with her uncle (Dermot Mulroney), Jolene matures as she forms a string of relationships (including Chazz Palminteri, Rupert Friend, and Michael Vartan), each leading her to the next stage of her life. With Denise Richards.

Car-obsessed Bo's (Gabriel Macht) life is turned upside-down when he lands another DUI and his prized 1970 Plymouth Barracuda is impounded in One Way To Valhalla. Forced to bike to work, an accident lands him in the hospital with a head injury, changing Bo from a chain smoking, hard drinking motorhead into someone his wife (Kim Dickens) and friends (Brad William Henke and Kate Walsh) don't recognize. Only his black sheep stepdaughter (Alison Pill) sees his new state as an "awakening," and she tries to guide the new Bo through a life not obsessed with beer and cars.

Based on a controversial French autobiography, Student Services is the story of Laura (Deborah Francois), a university student who can't make rent or afford food. Feeling she has no options, Laura answers a personal ad offering 100₣ for "tenderness," but she quickly slides into a life of prostitution. Though she's able to pay rent, her new profession begins to take over her life instead of financing her student life, and threatens to take her over completely.

Irreverent

Raju is going to engineering school to raise his family's fortunes and Farhan's parents decided he'd be an engineer the moment he was born, but their life in college is quickly defined by their friend Rancho (Aamir Khan) in 3 Idiots. While the dean (Boman Irani) teaches rote memorization, Rancho infects his friends with understanding and imagination, and the war is one... especially when Rancho meets the dean's daughter (Kareena Kapoor). True to form, the movie mixes comedy and drama, and tells a large-scale story of love and friendship punctuated by musical numbers.

Stephen (Edward Hogg) goes on an epic journey without leaving his apartment in Bunny and the Bull, abandoning his hermetically sealed life by an adventure in his mind. Recalling last year's travel through Europe with his reckless friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby), the duo bounce from one strange situation to another, funded by a winning bet on a longshot horse. Though Stephen is withdrawn and sheepish, Bunny is usually drunk and carousing, and the two always seem to find some kind of trouble to keep their trip interesting.

B-Pictures

Bonnie (Tiffany Shepis) and Clyde are shooting their way through 1930s America, living a hardscabble life between jobs in Bonnie & Clyde vs Dracula, until their next heist puts them in the way of someone more notorious than themselves: Dracula. Blending mad scientist science fiction with monster movies and wild outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde have to survive both Dracula and the doctor that resurrected him.

Continuing SyFy's tradition of bad-but-lovable creature features, Dinoshark follows Sharktopus' example, putting a sailor (Eric Balfour) in the wake of a murderous, ancient shark released from its glacial suspended animation by global warming. As the body count rises, no one will believe Balfour when he tries to warn the world about the Dinoshark... until it's too late. With Humberto Busto.

Week of April 19

2011-04-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

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High Profile Dramas

The story of King George VI, The King's Speech was the big winner at this year's Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Director (Tom Hooper), and Actor (Colin Firth). After a disastrous speech, Prince Albert (Firth) begins seeing Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an unconventional speech therapist. With broadcasting becoming a fundamental part to leadership and his brother's (Guy Pearce) abdication, Logue must help Prince Albert overcome the impediment that's handicapped him since childhood and become King George. With Helena Bonham Carter and Jennifer Ehle. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Nicole Kidman was nominated for an Oscar for her role in John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole as Becca, a woman mourning the recent death of her four-year-old son. While Howie(Aaron Eckhart), her husband, believes in support groups and wants to keep reminders of their son, Becca has closed herself off, keeping house and looking after her unruly younger sister (Tammy Blanchard). As they both seek solace in their own way, they try to keep their family together and come to terms with the turns their life has taken. With Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Stephen Dorff is aimless movie star Johnny Marco in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. Johnny's adrift in random drink, pills, and women when he's suddenly put in charge of his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning). As the two spend time together in luxury hotels and travel to promote Johnny's new movie, he has to adapt to being a father, which could be the most meaningful thing he's ever done. With Chris Pontius. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is sent to Siberia for being critical of Stalin in Peter Weir's The Way Back. As his fellow inmates starve and freeze, Janusz joins an escape attempt with a hardened Russian criminal (Colin Farrell), a solitary American (Ed Harris), and an actor (Mark Strong). They escape during a snowstorm so their tracks can't be followed, but their real challenge is surviving the elements through the long walk to Mongolia, especially after they're joined by a runaway (Saoirse Ronan) when food is already scarce. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Comedies

Gulliver (Jack Black) has a dead-end job in the mail room in Gulliver's Travels, but his attempts to impress a travel writer (Amanda Peet) end up stranding him in the strange land of Lilliput. The tiny Lilliputians see Gulliver as a giant beast, and he's imprisoned by their General (Chris O'Dowd) along with Horatio (Jason Segel), who committed the crime of liking the General's betrothed, Princess Mary (Emily Blunt). When he saves the king's (Billy Connolly) life, Gulliver becomes the most powerful man in Lilliput, and his buddy Horatio is on the top of the world... but the General doesn't like the new order, and wants Lilliput to return to its pre-Gulliver ways. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Terry and Dean (David Lawrence and Paul Spence) are back in Fubar: Balls to the Wall, doing the unthinkable: getting jobs. Traveling to Alberta for high paying jobs laying an oil pipeline, they finally have some money, but while Dean tries to make the best of workman's comp, Terry's starting to settle into domestic life with a local waitress. Trouble between Terry and Dean is guaranteed to involve vandalism and violence, but is the new rift so serious it can split them up forever?

Imports

Continuing where Ip Man left off, Ip Man 2 follows Wing Chun Master Ip (Donnie Yen) to Hong Kong, where he opens a school. Master Ip has trouble attracting students because he has no reputation in the new city, but a series of challenges make a name for him quickly. A new school isn't welcomed, and Ip man has to face his challengers to secure his school before finally accepting the challenge of Twister (Darren Shahlavi), who disparages all Chinese fighters. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The German Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen is the story of the progressive 12th century Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen (Barbara Sukowa), a scientific-minded and progressive woman in an era where her ideals weren't celebrated. As von Bingen applies strategy to have her will done against all who would be resistant to her, she emerged as a writer, composer, and mystic who rose to lead her order and become a force within the Roman Catholic church. With Heino Ferch.

Luciano lives a slacker life, listening to records and putting off finishing his work in the Argentine The Paranoids. Struggling to complete his screenplay, he's visited by his successful childhood friend Manuel and Manuel's beautiful girlfriend Sofia. When Manuel is called away on business to develop his show ("The Paranoids," about a hypochondriac loser named Luciano), Luciano is left alone with Sofia.

Maria and Andre (Isabelle Huppert and Christopher Lambert) run an African coffee plantation in the French White Material. Their plantation is already failing, but the eruption of civil war means they will soon be overrun with rebel soldiers, and as Maria and Andre struggle to keep their world from falling apart, Maria complicates matters by tending to a wounded rebel officer (Isaach De Bankole).

Documentaries

Lixin Fan's Last Train Home documents the migration that occurs in China every spring as city residents travel to their home villages. Focusing on one couple, the film follows their journey from the city where they work to their rural home amidst the largest human migration in the world, including 130 million people.

Billy Corben's Square Grouper: The Godfather of Ganja is the story of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, who asserted smoking marijuana was part of their religious freedom. Though the Coptics were a fiercely conservative church, their ganja use made them high volume drug smugglers between Jamaica and Miami, and they became high profile targets for the FBI and DEA.

An investigation into the effects of producing and distributing plastic, Plastic Planet asks several scientists and manufacturers about the negative effects of the widely used substance. As well as looking into the issue of widespread litter and pollution, the film interviews manufacturers and scientists about plastic, generally considered non-toxic, and it's possible harmful effects on humans and animals.

Following the release of Burlesque, Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque recounts the history of the form via first-hand accounts by the performers. Tracing Burlesque from chorus girls to traveling circuses to variety shows and large-scale dance hall acts, the film discusses not just the dancers but the entire show and it's heritage from vaudeville.