X-Men: First Class (+Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] (2011)

X-Men: First Class (+Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] (2011)
James McAvoy (Actor), Michael Fassbender (Actor), Matthew Vaughn (Director) | Rated: PG-13 | Format: Blu-ray

When Bryan Singer brought Marvel's X-Men to the big screen, Magneto and Professor X were elder statesmen, but Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) travels back in time to present an origin story--and an alternate version of history. While Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) grows up privileged in New York, Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) grows up underprivileged in Poland. As children, the mind-reading Charles finds a friend in the shape-shifting Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Erik finds an enemy in Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), an energy-absorbing Nazi scientist who treats the metal-bending lad like a lab rat. By 1962, Charles (James McAvoy) has become a swaggering genetics professor and Erik (Michael Fassbender, McAvoy's Band of Brothers costar) has become a brooding agent of revenge. CIA agent Moira (Rose Byrne) brings the two together to work for Division X. With the help of MIB (Oliver Platt) and Hank (A Single Man's Nicholas Hoult), they seek out other mutants, while fending off Shaw and Emma Frost (Mad Men's January Jones), who try to recruit them for more nefarious ends, leading to a showdown in Cuba between the United States and the Soviet Union, the good and bad mutants, and Charles and Erik, whose goals have begun to diverge. Throughout, Vaughn crisscrosses the globe, piles on the visual effects, and juices the action with a rousing score, but it's the actors who make the biggest impression as McAvoy and Fassbender prove themselves worthy successors to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. The movie comes alive whenever they take center stage, and dies a little when they don't. For the most part, though, Vaughn does right by playing up the James Bond parallels and acknowledging the debt to producer Bryan Singer through a couple of clever cameos. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger

Synopsis: Steve Rogers volunteeers for a top secret project.
Starring: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving
Supporting actors: Hayley Atwell, Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper
Directed by: Joe Johnston
Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes
Release year: 2011
Studio: Marvel

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Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern (2011)

Synopsis: Protectors of peace and justice, the Green Lantern Corp must rely on their newest and only human recruit, Hal Jordan, to save the Earth from a new enemy called Parallax.
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively
Supporting actors: Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes
Release year: 2011
Studio: Warner Bros.

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Wanted Dead or Alive: The Complete Series

Wanted Dead or Alive: The Complete Series
Starring: Steve McQueen, Michael Landon Director: various

Join Hollywood-legend Steve McQueen in his career defining role as bounty hunter Josh Randall. Originally aired on CBS from 1958-1961. His legacy as the ultra-cool 60s pop culture icon continues, and his films sold millions of units on DVD. Starring Steve McQueen, Michael Landon, James Coburn, Deforest Kelly, Warren Oates, and many more!

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Taken (Single-Disc Extended Edition)

Taken (Single-Disc Extended Edition) (2008)
Liam Neeson (Actor), Famke Janssen (Actor)

What could be a skillful but ordinary action flick gets a surprising emotional heft from the presence of Liam Neeson as the hero. Bryan Mills (Neeson) has given up his career as a spy to form a relationship with his estranged teenage daughter--but when, on a trip to Paris, she's kidnapped by slavers, Mills uses all his connections and skills to turn the city of lights upside down and rescue her. Like most of the movies that writer/producer Luc Besson has a hand in (such as La Femme Nikita, The Transporter, Unleashed, and many other French action movies), Taken drips with lurid violence (a bit toned-down to get a PG-13 rating, but there's still plenty of it), deranged sentimentality, and stereotypes of all kinds. But this doesn't stop his movies from being effective thrill-rides, and Taken is no exception. Taken pays just enough attention to the illusion of procedure--making it seem like Mills knows all the right steps to track down his daughter--that the movie cheerfully seduces your suspension of disbelief, despite many plot holes and scenes where Mills doesn't get scratched despite bullets flying in all directions or pretends to be a French policeman despite not speaking French or even adopting a French accent. What holds it all together is Neeson; his gravitas and emotional availability make his character--the usual action fantasy of impossible competence and righteous fury--somehow seem real and relatable. --Bret Fetzer

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Angels & Demons (Single-Disc Theatrical Edition)

Angels & Demons (Single-Disc Theatrical Edition) (2009)
Tom Hanks (Actor), Ewan McGregor (Actor), Ron Howard (Director)

If the devil is in the details, there's a lot of wicked fun in Angels & Demons, the sequel (originally a prequel) to The Da Vinci Code. Director Ron Howard delivers edge-of-your-pew thrills all over the Vatican, the City of Rome, and the deepest, dankest catacombs. Tom Hanks is dependably watchable in his reprised role as Professor Robert Langdon, summoned urgently to Rome on a matter of utmost urgency--which happens to coincide with the death of the Pope, meaning the Vatican is teeming with cardinals and Rome is teeming with the faithful. A religious offshoot group, calling themselves the Illuminati, which protested the Catholic Church's prosecution of scientists 400 years ago, has resurfaced and is making extreme, and gruesome, terrorist demands. The film zooms around the city, as Langdon follows clues embedded in art, architecture, and the very bone structure of the Vatican. The cast is terrific, including Ewan McGregor, who is memorable as a young protégé of the late pontiff, and who seems to challenge the common wisdom of the Conclave just by being 40 years younger than his fellows when he lectures for church reform. Stellan Skarsgard is excellent as a gruff commander of the Swiss Guard, who may or may not have thrown in with the Illuminati. But the real star of the film is Rome, and its High Church gorgeousness, with lush cinematography by Salvatore Totino, who renders the real sky above the Vatican, in a cataclysmic event, with the detail and majesty of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. --A.T. Hurley

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Saving Private Ryan (Special Limited Edition)

Saving Private Ryan (Special Limited Edition) (1998)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon Director: Steven Spielberg

When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was abackyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.

A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.

The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas

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TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection (Dark Alibi / Dangerous Money / The Trap / The Chinese Ring)

TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection (Dark Alibi / Dangerous Money / The Trap / The Chinese Ring)
Sidney Toler (Actor), Roland Winters (Actor), Phil Karlson (Director), Terry O. Morse (Director)

# Actors: Sidney Toler, Roland Winters, Benson Fong, Victor Sen Yung, Gloria Warren
# Directors: Phil Karlson, Terry O. Morse, Howard Bretherton, William Beaudine
# Format: Box set, Black & White, NTSC
# Language: English
# Number of discs: 4
# Studio: Warner Home Video
# DVD Release Date: June 8, 2010
# Run Time: 199 minutes

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Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness (2009)
Starring: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone Director: Martin Campbell

The good news is that Edge of Darkness (no relation to the fine 1943 war picture of that name) brings back Mel Gibson in front of the camera for the first time in nearly a decade. Although he's grown creased and leathery and his thatch has thinned, the movie star who was Mad Max still has the charisma and gravitas to center a dodgy suspense tale and propel it to the finish line. Gibson plays veteran Boston police detective Tom Craven, who welcomes home daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) for a rare visit, then sees her shot down at his front door. Because the gunman shouted "Craven!" and because a cop makes enemies, Tom assumes Emma took a bullet meant for him, which adds considerably to his grief and pain. But as he looks into the life of a daughter he loved yet scarcely knew, he discovers she'd been preparing to turn whistleblower on her employer, a corporation doing unsavory clandestine things for the government. Craven starts having oblique chats with a philosophical Brit named Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who keeps turning up unexpectedly--in Craven's backyard at night, say--always giving the distinct impression that he could just as well kill a fellow instead of schmoozing. Their strange rapport, like Craven's tendency to mutter ironical asides as if in ongoing conversation with the departed Emma, is more intriguing than the conspiracy involving corporate skullduggery and a rogue assassination bureau. The bar for that sort of thing was set in post-Watergate days by Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View, and we're nowhere near its cinematic elegance or pervasive paranoia. Edge of Darkness, based on a British miniseries from 1985, was directed by Martin Campbell, who also handled the six-hour original (and more recently the successful James Bond reboot Casino Royale). Campbell does decent-enough work--the occasional bursts of "shocking action" do shock even as we know they're coming--but rarely exceeds generic requirements. For killing comparison among contemporary suspense films, catch Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, in which every frame unsettlingly conveys a world where disquiet is the natural order of things. --Richard T. Jameson

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In Plain Sight: Season One

In Plain Sight: Season One (2008)
Starring: Mary McCormack, Fred Weller

An amusing blend of cop show action and dysfunctional family fireworks, the comedy-drama In Plain Sight benefits greatly from the charisma of its lead, Mary McCormack, as well as some promising episodes in this first-season set. TV and film vet McCormack (The West Wing, Murder One) finally gets a lead as Mary Shannon, a U.S. Marshal working in the Albuquerque office of the Witness Protection Program. The array of offbeat characters that fall under Mary’s jurisdiction--everyone from innocent witnesses of terrible crimes to less scrupulous types like Dave Foley’s obnoxious mob squealer (“Trojan Horst”) to a diamond smuggler (Missi Pyle) with wedding fever (“Never the Bride”)--present less problems for her than her family, which includes her overly dramatic mom (Lesley Ann Warren) and troublemaking sister (Nichole Hiltz), who has designs on Mary's on-again-off-again boyfriend (Cristian de la Fuente). Frederick Weller (as her quirky partner) and Paul Ben-Victor as her boss offer solid support, but In Plain Sight is McCormack’s showcase, and she shines in both the comic moments and more serious elements, most notably a confessional monologue in “High Priced Spread.” One wishes the scripts lived up to the performances--too often, the program coasts on glib dialogue, or worse, heavy-handed voice-overs--but these are fixable problems in the face of considerable potential. All 12 episodes of the first season are included in the three-disc set, as well as brief deleted scenes from each episode. --Paul Gaita

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The Protector [Blu-ray]

The Protector [Blu-ray] (2006)
Starring: Tony Jaa Director: Prachya Pinkaew

Thai-born martial artist Tony Jaa, whose gravity-defying stunts wowed American audiences in Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, returns in an equally eye-popping stunt fest that should thrill all but the most jaded action fans. The very simple plot has the soft-spoken, mild-mannered Jaa as a young man from a rural community dispatched to Australia to recover a pair of sacred elephants. Once there, he discovered that a female crime boss (played by transgendered actor Jing Xing) is behind the missing pachyderms, and Jaa pulls out all the stops to recover the animals for his village. As in Ong-Bak, the appeal of The Protector is watching Jaa unleash his muay thai skills on a host of villainous types, and he gets several astonishing showcases in this film, most notably a nearly-unbroken take in which he dispatches some 50 goons as he makes his way up a four-story structure. Those looking for the depth of story or character found in the best of Hong Kong action cinema won't find it in The Protector, but the rewards for action fans are plentiful and thoroughly entertaining. The two-disc Collector's Edition of The Protector includes a wealth of extras, most notably the original Thai version of the film (titled Tom Yum Goong), which runs approximately 30 minutes longer than the American version. Commentary by martial arts writer and fan Bey Logan is featured on the American edit, along with a deleted scene, a featurette about Jaa with Logan and rapper/producer The RZA (who scored the American version and, for some reason, is described as a major force in bringing Asian entertainment to the States), making-of featurettes on both the English and Thai versions of the film (the latter features a subtitled Thai-language commentary track with Jaa, director Prachya Pinkaew, and stunt coordinator/mentor Panna Rittikrai), and three fair short films that were produced for a promotional tie-in contest. -- Paul Gaita

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Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5 (2004)
Series: Battlestar Galactica

# Studio: Universal Studios
# DVD Release Date: July 28, 2009
# Run Time: 763 minutes

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Legion [Blu-ray]

Legion [Blu-ray] (2010)
Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid

As pure check-your-head-at-the-door popcorn entertainment, the apocalyptic action-horror hybrid Legion delivers in nearly every frame--its story of a band of strangers fighting an army of angels and demons for the fate of mankind is proudly loud, bullet riddled, and knee-deep in gore and CGI. That doesn't mean it's particularly good or even coherent--the story has renegade angel Michael (a glum Paul Bettany) come to the aid of diner owner Dennis Quaid (equally glum) and his patrons (a cross-section of stereotypes embodied by a capable cast, which includes Lucas Black, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, and Jon Tenney) as a host of heavenly and diabolical beings, dispatched by an angry God, descend on the diner with the intent of killing waitress Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), whose unborn child may be the salvation of humanity. The orgy of special effects--endless hails of bullets and a menagerie of unpleasant demonic creatures, the most unsettling of which is the ice cream man (Doug Jones, Hellboy)--is eye popping but ultimately repetitive, and since no character rises above a cipher in director Scott Stewart's script (cowritten with Peter Schink), the whole affair feels unwieldy and eventually tiresome under a barrage of hackneyed dialogue. Naturally, Legion ends with the possibility of a sequel, though one wonders where the story can go after Armageddon. --Paul Gaita

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Walker Texas Ranger: The Seventh Season

Walker Texas Ranger: The Seventh Season
Series: Walker, Texas Ranger

Texas Ranger Cordell Walker, one of the last old-fashioned heroes in the West, is a protective friend but a relentless foe who will stop at nothing to bring a criminal to justice.

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In Plain Sight: Season Two

In Plain Sight: Season Two
Starring: Mary McCormack, Fred Weller Director: Bethany Rooney, Bryan Spicer

For Mary, living a double life is all in day’s work. Mary McCormack (The West Wing) returns as Mary Shannon, a U.S. Marshal with the highly secretive Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC), in Season Two of the suspenseful and quirky hit series In Plain Sight. For Mary, living a double life and getting shot at on a regular basis are all in day’s work. So are teaming up with her trusted partner, Marshall Mann (Frederick Weller), to protect Federal Witnesses who relocate to Albuquerque and juggling a complicated personal life. Gripping and refreshing, In Plain Sight co-stars Lesley Ann Warren (Desperate Housewives), Paul Ben-Victor (The Wire) and Nichole Hiltz (Bones), and features phenomenal guest stars that include Will McCormack (Brothers and Sisters), Martin Landau (Entourage), Laura Prepon (That '70s Show), Joshua Malina (The West Wing), Richard Schiff (The West Wing) and David Denman (The Office). Get lost In Plain Sight!

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Full Metal Jacket (Deluxe Edition) [Blu-ray] (1987)

Full Metal Jacket (Deluxe Edition) [Blu-ray] (1987)
Starring: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey Director: Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point. --Tom Keogh

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Spirited Away (2001)

Spirited Away (2001)
, Hayao Miyazaki (Director)

The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro (voice by Daveigh Chase--Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch) plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba (Pleshette again). The resolve, bravery, and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. MPAA Rated: PG ("Some scary moments") --Charles Solomon

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Skynet Edition) [Blu-ray] (1991)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Skynet Edition) [Blu-ray] (1991)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor), Linda Hamilton (Actor), James Cameron (Director)

After he pushed the envelope of computer-generated special effects in The Abyss, director James Cameron turned this hotly anticipated sequel to Terminator into a well-written, action-packed showcase for advanced special effects and for one of the most invincible villains ever imagined. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a legitimate sequel: there's more story to tell about a hulking, leather-clad android (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who arrives from the future to protect a rebellious teenager and future leader (Edward Furlong) from being killed by the tenacious T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick), whose liquid-metal construction makes him seemingly unstoppable. The fate of the future lies in the balance, with Linda Hamilton (who would later marry her director) reprising her role as the rugged woman whose son will change the course of history. The digital video disc of this blockbuster hit is presented with a digitally mastered THX soundtrack. --Jeff Shannon

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Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme Director: John Hyams

Universal Soldier: Regeneration is a rare sequel that far outstrips the original. A small terrorist group seizes the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, threatening to release a toxic cloud. A military squad is sent in--and decimated by a new and more lethal "UniSol" (played by former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski). Desperate, the American military forces the decommissioned UniSol Luc Devereaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) to revert back to a killing machine--even though the consequences to his damaged psyche could be severe… and dangerous. But the standard plot isn't what makes Universal Soldier: Regeneration so much better than its predecessors (incidentally, you don't need to see the earlier films to enjoy this one). The movie looks better (thanks in large part to superb cinematography by Peter Hyams, who directed Van Damme in Timecop); the script is skillfully written, with well-drawn characters and dialogue that actually sounds like human beings speaking; and the fighting, rather than being absurdly spectacular, is gritty and brutal--director John Hyams (Peter's son) has made documentaries about mixed martial arts fighters and clearly understands that real combat isn't about backflips and whirling kicks but vicious hitting. Van Damme has always had an odd vulnerability; he's a soulful action hero, and this sense of inner sadness lends a strange gravity to the stakes. Dolph Lundgren, who also repeats his previous role as a malevolent UniSol, gives a brief but unnerving performance. Universal Soldier: Regeneration is a gripping action thriller that sneaks in moral ambiguity and stealthy questions about free will--all in all, an unexpected and welcome pleasure. --Bret Fetzer

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Tarzan (Special Edition) (1999)

Tarzan (Special Edition) (1999)
Starring: Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver Director: Chris Buck, Kevin Lima

After viewing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote to Walt Disney about adapting his novel of an ape-man into a feature animated cartoon. Sixtysome years later, the tale is finally told with brilliant design work that looks unlike any previous animated film. The story is a natural for Disney since the themes of misunderstood central figures have been at the heart of its recent hits. Disney's Tarzan doesn't wander far from the familiar story of a shipwrecked baby who is brought up by apes in Africa. What gives the film its zing is its clever use of music (the songs are sung by Phil Collins himself rather than onscreen characters) and the remarkable animation. Deep Canvas, a 3-D technology, was developed for the film, creating a jungle that comes alive as Tarzan swings through the trees, often looking like a modern skateboarder racing down giant tree limbs. The usual foray of sidekicks, including a rambunctious ape voiced by Rosie O'Donnell, should keep the little ones aptly entertained. The two lead voices, Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan and Minnie Driver as Jane, are inspired choices. Their chemistry helps the story through the weakest points (the last third) and makes Tarzan's initial connection with all things human (including Jane) delicious entertainment. Disney still is not taking risks in its animated films, but as cookie-cutter entertainment, Tarzan makes a pretty good treat. (Ages 5 and up) --Doug Thomas

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