Directed by “Ice Age”‘s Carlos Saldanha, animated family film “Rio” centers on a rare, domesticated macaw, Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, who must have beaten out a crestfallen Simon LeBon), who lives an easy life in Minnesota. Believing he’s the last of his kind, Blu has never spread his wings and learned to fly — both figuratively and literally. When he learns of a female counterpart in Rio de Janeiro, Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway), however, Blu sets off a wild adventure and makes some new friends along the way. The supporting vocal performance (from George Lopez, Tracy Morgan and Jamie Foxx, among others) are energetic and peppy, but not always  [ Read More ]

Back when he was busy being a figment of Russell Crowe’s imagination in “A Beautiful Mind,” no one likely would have much expected Paul Bettany to be an ass-kicking action hero. Of course, folks would have said the same thing about Liam Neeson too, and look how that turned out. While wrestlers-turned-actors like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and other muscle-bound he-men in the vein of Jason Momoa still fit the mold for a certain breed of action flick, there are other movies that don’t require the correlative “Men’s Fitness” magazine cover, per se, and in the slick streamlined “Priest” — a sort of vampiric re-telling of the classic Western “The  [ Read More ]

Walt Disney Pictures rolled the dice with producer Robert Zemeckis’ “Mars Needs Moms”, which was trotted out in 3-D to great fanfare earlier this year, and took a critical and commercial beating, to the tune of a meager $39 million worldwide gross. The film — produced by the same team behind “A Christmas Carol” and “The Polar Express” — isn’t quite as much of a stinker as that dismissal might indicate, but neither is it a wonderful romp or, as Boxoffice Magazine’s Pete Hammond claims on the cover, “the perfect family film in every way.” The storyline — in which nine-year-old Earthling Milo (Seth Green, but also voiced by another,  [ Read More ]

Title: The Misfits Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Thelma Ritter “The Misfits” stands as the last completed film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, but its value and engagement extends well beyond that trivia question value, or any of the other salacious stories behind its troubled production. An unusual and illuminating ensemble drama from director John Huston and screenwriter Arthur Miller, the 1961 film is long on color and a bit short on plot, but so striking for the empathy it radiates for its fringe-dwelling, booze-happy characters. Set in Reno, the story centers around Roslyn Tabor (Monroe), a freshly divorced but still downhearted woman who, with her landlady Isabelle Steers  [ Read More ]

Science-fiction is often so terribly difficult to get right on screen because its makers get bogged down in minutiae, trying to craft expansive, futuristic and/or alien worlds, or over-explain the processes that differentiate and separate their plane of reality from that of the present day. “Source Code “, thankfully, is not one of those movies. It grooves, it pulses, it entertains — deftly balancing smarts with a streamlined aim to please. The sophomore effort of director Duncan Jones ( “Moon “), the high-concept techno-thriller is kind of amusingly impatient with some of the nitty-gritty specifics of its own conceit (“Every second explaining things puts more lives at risk!” one character  [ Read More ]

The crushing ambivalence of young adulthood is often lost under the thick glaze of hormonal revelry typically applied to teenage and twentysomething coming-of-age tales. But “Take Me Home Tonight” — an in many respects pedestrian comedy that otherwise coasts along on its energy and the winning appeal of its cast — gets this crucial detail of feeling right, which helps mitigate direction that often lacks a sense of snappishness, and a second and third act that don’t emotionally resonate as much as they could or should. The film, co-written by director Michael Dowse, from a story co-conceived by star Topher Grace, unfolds in 1988 and centers on a recent MIT  [ Read More ]

Millennium Entertainment’s action film “Blitz” starring Jason Statham, Paddy Considine and Aidan Gillen is about to be available on DVD and Blu-Ray. “Blitz” is based on a novel by Ken Bruen and adapted by Nathan Parker and directed by Elliot Lester. In the film, Statham acts as a hard-nosed cop who is on the hunt for a serial killer: Tough, uncompromising and totally un-PC cop Brant (Statham) joins forces with Officer DC Porter Nash (Considine) to hunt down a serial killer (Gillen) who has been targeting police officers. This fast-paced action-thriller is a raw, gritty tale of moral ambiguity, outsiders and the sacrifices the police make to keep crime off  [ Read More ]

Julian Schnabel’s background as a painter and artist lends his films an undeniable quality lacking in not only many Hollywood studio films but most modern films in general — the ability to summon emotional connection through a sort of dreamlike, non-pandering visual subjectivity. He puts that same evocative stamp on his latest film, Miral, a look at the generations-old Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but it isn’t enough to save what is an inert, self-important script. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Rula Jebreal, Miral opens in 1948, with Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbas) coming across and rescuing more than four dozen orphaned kids in East Jerusalem. In the midst of  [ Read More ]

Its sequel, also from director James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a worldwide smash that stood at the forefront of a special effects revolution, but a lot of folks forget the brutal, streamlined efficiency of 1984′s The “Terminator”, which laid all the groundwork for the labyrinthine Skynet conspiracies of a trio of other futuristic-killing-machine flicks as well as assorted media tie-ins and even, eventually, screaming Christian Bale soundboards. The film was part of distributor Sony’s first wave of Blu-ray titles five years ago (and arguably the most preferable, given company like “50 First Dates”, “Hitch” and “xXx”), but gets another pass with this special, limited edition Blu-ray release, in  [ Read More ]

Tim Robbins’ searing, Oscar-winning account of crime, compassion, forgiveness and redemption, 1995′s “Dead Man Walking”, arrives on Blu-ray for the first time, reaffirming Susan Sarandon’s brilliance, and again showcasing a moral complexity that few Hollywood studio films these days even attempt, much less get right. Inspired by a true story, the movie centers on a nun, Sister Helen Prejean (Sarandon), who gets a letter from a convicted killer on Louisiana death row, Matthew Poncelot (Sean Penn), asking for her assistance on his final appeal before execution. She has no real experience in such matters, but relents, and finds herself sucked into Poncelot’s story, feeling empathy for both the alleged killer  [ Read More ]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dreamworks’ 2010 3D-animated film “Megamind” has become this year’s first film to top all three of the home video charts. The movie came in at No. 1 on the Nielsen Blu-Ray Disc and VideoScan First Alert charts as well as the “Home Media” Magazine’s rental chart for the week ending Feb. 27. This record-setting performance is even more exciting because a) the film, starring heavy hitters such as Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, had a “soft sell” at the box-office and was competently received by critics, receiving a 72% from Rotten Tomatoes, and b) the DVD was released on a Friday  [ Read More ]

Techie or not, there was something for everyone at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even for movie lovers. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment was on hand to bring the issue of the future of technology in entertainment to the forefront, particularly the Blu-ray format, during “The Director’s Vision” panel. The Los Angeles Time’s Geoff Boucher spoke with directors Michael Mann, Oliver Stone and Baz Luhrmann to get their perspectives on the topic. Mann took the reigns to start and explained that thanks to Blu-ray’s higher bit rate, “it’s the premiere format to reproduce all the work we do.” In terms of on-set decisions concerning depth of  [ Read More ]

Star Wars fans rejoice; the time has finally come! All six Star Wars film will hit Blu-ray next year! The news came straight from George Lucas himself while at Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando. He said all of the films will arrive in a massive box set “utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with extensive special features – including documentaries, vintage behind-the-scenes moments, interviews, retrospectives and never-before-seen footage from the Lucasfilm archives.” It’s been five years since the franchise’s last installment, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, hit theaters, so it’s about time. At Celebration V Lucas explained, “We’ve been wanting to do it as  [ Read More ]

Money, power and blood reign supreme when “Sons Of Anarchy” Season Two roars onto Blu-ray Disc and DVD August 31 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. From the creative mind of Kurt Sutter (“The Shield”), the adrenalized drama centers on a notorious outlaw motorcycle club intent on protecting their sheltered small town against encroaching drug dealers, corporate developers, and overzealous law officers. The club is equally determined to protect their ruthless and illegally thriving arms business. Charlie Hunnam stars as Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller, a man whose love for the brotherhood is tested by his growing apprehension for its lawlessness. Katey Sagal stars as Gemma Teller Morrow, Jax’s force-of-nature mother, who  [ Read More ]

Funny Games, writer-director Michael Haneke’s (The White Ribbon; Hidden) return, ten years on, to the provocative film that built his international reputation in 1997, transforms the action of his original film to the idyllic world of the Hamptons in America in a remake that garnered a five star review in Time Out and four star reviews in Empire, Total Film, The Guardian, News of the World and Loaded. Taking a much-needed vacation, a young family prepares for a relaxing time at their secluded holiday home. When a polite young man makes a surprise call and asks to borrow some eggs, his clumsiness leads to the appearance of his equally charming  [ Read More ]