Warner Premiere has some large shoes to fill with its adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns Part 1.  Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns is considered by many to be the defining Batman story (neck-in-neck with Miller’s other Batman masterpiece, Year One), reestablishing a tone and mood for the character that would resonate throughout the comics and films.  So conscientious is the studio of the material’s loyal fanbase, they have decided to split the graphic novel into two animated films, thus allowing proper breathing space for the rich plot and complex characters.

The blacker-than-oil narrative is set in a dingy, 1980s Gotham City.  Batman has been retired, living in obscurity for over ten years.  Violence (or rather, ultra-violence) runs like a disease through the city, chiefly authored by a gang of sadistic thugs known as the Mutants.  When Harvey Dent/Two-Face is released from Arkham Asylum, a new crimewave is about to strike Gotham.  Batman is drawn back into the vigilante game, but fighting crime isn’t exactly what it used to be.  My review of the Blu-ray after the jump.

Sony’s move to release one of the greatest science fiction action films ever made on blu-ray just around the time they put out their all-flash-and-no-substance remake in theaters may only prove to be more of a backfire than anything else.  Other than pocketing some cash off the newly tricked-out Total Recall disc, this only proves how vapid, empty and utterly useless the current theatrical release is.  But enough about the trash.  Let’s talk about the good version after the jump.

Your Highness, set in the medieval days of knights, dragons and sorcerers tells the story of two brothers.  Fabious (James Franco) is the quintessential debonair prince, prone to victory in innumerable death-defying quests and feats.  His brother Thadeous (Danny McBride) is an out-of-shape, lazy slob who excels at toking herb and chasing sheep.  But when Fabious’ bride-to-be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), Fabious sets out on a mission to rescue her.  And by order of their father (Charles Dance), Thadeous is told he must help his brother on his quest.  My review of the DVD after the jump.

Set in 19^th century feudal Japan, 13 Assassins is the story of well, thirteen assassins who are recruited to take out a sadistic overlord named Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki) before he finds protection with another clan and continues his spree of brutal dominance.  How brutal is he?  Well, let’s see… he slices off appendages of women he grows tired of (not to be cliché and only cut off arms and legs, Naritsugu goes for the legendary resonance by removing their tongues, too) and shoots arrows at bound children for no other reason than he can.  The thirteen assassins of the film’s title are assembled by the samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho), who is given top-secret orders to do so by another lord, Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira).  The plan is to ambush Naritsugu on his trek and wipe him out with extreme prejudice.  Let the games begin, after the jump.

Back when he made good movies, and just prior to leaving an indelible impression on the cinematic landscape with Star Wars, George Lucas co-wrote and directed a low-budget masterpiece called American Graffiti. An ensemble nostalgia film that takes place over the course of a single night in 1962, the movie, like all great films, can’t be tucked into a neat box, genre-wise.  It manages to transcend genre and be all at once funny, sad, exhilarating, and touching (Yes, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused owes more than a little to this movie). Hit the jump for my review of American Graffiti on DVD.

One of network primetime’s greatest series closes out with an incredibly strong season.  The critically-lauded (but underwatched) Friday Night Lights takes its final bow with all the grace, eloquence and emotion that gave it such a devoted fanbase through its turbulent run at NBC (while the critics and a small group of followers adored it, the rest of the world never seemed to catch on; marketing was blamed for the show’s low numbers, and then the intelligence level of the television-watching populace was indicted, but I digress).  Friday Night Lights takes place in the fictional Dylan, Texas, an all-American town that holds nothing more sacred than the rowdy Friday night high school football games that transpire every Friday night.  But just as ER wasn’t really about hospitals, The Sopranos wasn’t really about the mob and Mad Men isn’t exactly about advertising in the 1960s, Friday Night Lights is more about people than anything else.  My review after the jump:

Loaded with sex, drugs, violence and nudity, Middle Men is the “inspired by” true story of Jack Harris (Luke Wilson), a Texas businessman (and family man) who is called in to serve as a company fixer for a couple of dunderheads named Buck Dolby (Gabriel Macht) and Wayne Beering (Giovanni Ribisi) who have somehow managed to figure out a way to make money off of smut on the World Wide Web.  Jack’s brilliant idea, which involves serving as a go-between for consumers and suppliers would have proved smooth sailing if not for the conniving lawyers, sick perverts and Russian mobsters that get in the way.  It’s not long before temptation and greed send everyone into a vicious downward spiral.  In short, it’s the story of the beginnings of internet porn. Hit the jump for my review of Middle Men on Blu-ray.

One of the most haunting and overlooked films of the 80s, Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder is a trip of a movie with a twist ending that it actually earns (I’ll not name the plethora of films guilty of not warranting their surprise finales here).  It tells the story of Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) who, in the opening moments of the picture, gets stabbed in the jungles of Vietnam.  The movie then picks up years later to find Jacob as an overworked United States postal worker in New York City.  Only the city (while normally depicted as drab and dangerous in most movies) seems more treacherous and strange than ever here.  Odd occurrences surround Jacob.  The city seems infested by what can only be described as demons.  As reality begins to crack around Jacob, his girlfriend Jezebel (Elizabeth Pena) and chiropractor Louis (Danny Aiello) take on polar opposite roles in his world, seemingly in a battle for possession of his soul.  The atmosphere grows haunting and turbulent and it’s not until the final moments of the film that everything we’ve seen before finally makes sense. More after the jump:

Writer-director Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham still resonates, twenty-two years after its release, as the baseball movie to hold all others up to.  Veteran Catcher and minor-league veteran Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) finds his contract bought out, placing him with the Durham Bulls.  The Bulls’ star player is Pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh (Tim Robbins), an empty-headed hotshot who dreams of nothing more than making it to “the show,” (the major league, in layman’s terms).  And the team’s hope is that Crash will be able to impart some wisdom on Laloosh to better prep him for that career leap.  Meanwhile, a hardball devotee named Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), a local who chooses one player per season as a personal “project”, selects Laloosh as flavor of the season.  But it’s Crash who steals her heart and the movie quickly becomes as much about human emotions as it does baseball.  Continued after the jump:

Arguably the best high school movie ever made, John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club finally makes its way to Blu-ray.  Punished with detention, a group of five students are sentenced to spend an entire Saturday together sequestered in the school library.  With each kid representing a different social class – Brian the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), Andrew the athlete (Emilio Estevez), Claire the princess (Molly Ringwald), Allison the basketcase (Ally Sheedy) and Bender the criminal (Judd Nelson) – the five start out disassociated and by the end of the day, discover they’ve got more in common with one another than they ever could have expected.  Not much in the way of plot, but heavy on character development and even moreso on emotion and the realism of the American high school system, the film is the best of its kind; a strong and insightful portrait of people, more than teenagers.  More after the jump:

Rescue Me’s sixth season (we’ve been allotted the first four episodes) kicks off as any fan of the show would expect it to – with Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) lying on the barroom floor where we last saw him.  Bleeding out from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by his Uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke).  I don’t think I’m really ruining anything here by giving up this piece of information – Tommy doesn’t die.  Or at least, he doesn’t stay dead. Within the opening moments of the show, Tommy goes to an otherworldly place that may be heaven, or more likely, somewhere else, and is soon brought back.  It’s what he sees and feels during his flatlining moments that fuel much of these opening episodes.  More after the jump:

Hot Tub Time Machine is way better than it has any right to be.  It’s the story of three forty-something men, Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Cordry) and Nick (Craig Robinson).  Once upon a time, twenty years ago, the guys were best friends who would cut loose at a ski resort in Kodiak Valley.  None of them are happy with the current states of their lives, highlighted by Lou’s recent episode of falling asleep in a parked car/suicide attempt (the exact verdict here depends on who’s making the call).  In an attempt to relive some past glory, the trio – along with Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) – rolls to Kodiak Valley.  Only the place is nowhere near what they remembered it as.  It’s now a fallen paradise of boarded up shops and ratty hangouts.  And that’s when a repairman played by Chevy Chase shows up to fix the broken hot tub in their nasty motel room.  After he tinkers with it, the guys hop in and soon find themselves back in 1986 – the last year they rocked it in Kodiak.  More after the jump:

Reviewing Caddyshack is difficult.  The film is not artful, high minded, or cerebral by any means.  It never tries to be heady, sentimental or deliver a message to its audience.  Instead, it’s irreverent, zippy, and more often than not, sheer comic genius.  A milestone of comedy, setting a standard so many films would try to live up to, the movie is less a narrative than a string of insanely uproarious moments inhabited by unforgettable characters.

The paper-thin plot (does anyone even care?) centers on a young man named Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe) trying to get a new scholarship offered to caddies at an exclusive country club.  But that quickly gets forgotten, only to vaguely resurface throughout the rest of the film.  This leaves ample time for (seemingly) lesser subplots (who will take over Bushwood Country Club, and a power struggle with a gopher, for example), which involve its A-list cast of comedy kings – Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield – to riff, improvise and deliver some of cinema’s most resonating bits of hilarity.  More after the jump:

Anvil! The Story of Anvil! is the most entertaining behind the scenes look at a heavy metal band since This is Spinal Tap, which is saying a lot.  In fact, the two movies are so similar, one could easily assume Anvil is as fictitious as Spinal Tap.  But it’s not.  Funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and insightful, Anvil! The Story of Anvil! is a true, uncompromising look at a shot of near-stardom. My review after the jump:

After over two decades of controversy, fan anticipation, lawsuits, and thousands of naysayers claiming that it could never actually happen, Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen finally got its silver-screen translation.  Although Moore’s name is conspicuously absent from the film’s credits (Dave Gibbons is oddly given solitary “co-creator” credit for the graphic novel), this is an adaptation that does more than stick to its source material.  It literally becomes it.  Warner Bros. has released director Zack Snyder’s extended cut in a two disc DVD set.  The added sequences manage to enhance the movie and further Snyder’s testament of devotion to the source material. Read my review after the jump: