I’m still surprised by how deeply Les Miserables touched me.  I’m not a huge fan of musical theater and while I’d been mildly impressed by the 10^th anniversary concert, I never grasped what all the fuss was about.  I went into Tom Hooper’s 2012 movie adaptation with high hopes, but no expectations.  I left a blubbering wreck, reduced to tears a good half-dozen times in the course of its 150-minute running time.  Plenty of folks feel the same way… and plenty of other folks still see nothing but bombastic sentiment.  The new Blu-ray isn’t likely to change anyone’s minds.  Or is it?  Hit the jump for my full review.

In films, alcoholism is rarely treated as the crippling, devastating disease that it is.  It’s oftentimes romanticized or portrayed as some quirk for comedic aspects.  A lot of diseases and mental illnesses are treated this way on screen.  There are some great films about alcoholism that take it seriously, like Lost Weekend and Under the Volcano.  But for the most part films tend to leave out the lies, shame, and heaps of ruin laid on the alcoholic and their family.  James Ponsoldt‘s Smashed manages to find the perfect balance between a romantic comedy and a compelling study of a relationship fueled by booze.  More on Sony Pictures Classics’ Smashed Blu-ray after the jump.

Enterprise had the misfortune of arriving at a low point in Star Trek’s history, as the TNG movies staggered to an ignominious conclusion and franchise burnout seemed insurmountable. Competing sci-fi series like Farscape arrived with a freshness that Trek couldn’t hope to match, and for a time it looked as if the iconic sci-fi property would fade into oblivion. Enterprise arrived with the mandate of reversing that trend, a task it simply wasn’t equipped to manage. It vanished four years after it arrived, the shortest-running series since the original. Ten years on, however, the dust has settled and the show has aged better than its detractors might think. It’s not perfect, but its attempts to find a different vibe for Star Trek produce some surprisingly good stuff. Hit the jump for the full review.

The events of September 11, 2001 had a profound effect on the United States of America that forever changed us as a nation.  We live in a post-9/11 world, and it is impossible to go back to “the way things were before.”  Though it’s been a decade since the event, in the scope of things we’re still living in the immediate aftermath of the most devastating domestic terror attack in history.  Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow has now dealt with these effects in two films, as she previously focused on the events of the Iraq War with her 2008 Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker, and her brilliant 2012 drama Zero Dark Thirty masterfully chronicles the decade-long hunt for the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks: Osama Bin Laden.  The result of the latter is a taut procedural thriller that not only entertains, but also provides a difficult and introspective look at America’s place in the post-9/11 world.  Hit the jump for my review of Zero Dark Thirty on Blu-ray.

It’s weird to think we’re only four movies in to Judd Apatow’s directing career, because for the last ten years he’s become a brand.  Between working with Adam McKay and Will Ferrell on their comedies, to launching Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig (and more), he established that he was one of the biggest forces in comedy.  But his most recent film, This is 40, came out and it didn’t feel like event.  It’s a modest film that’s enjoyable enough, but feels like a B side.  Our review of This is 40 follows after the jump.

The grindhouse doesn’t get any grindy-er than Stuart Gordon, a titan of 80s exploitation fare who found a potent hook in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Inspired by the horror master but happy to riff when and where he pleased, he launched a strange Renaissance of Lovecraftian works with 1985’s ghoulish Re-Animator. His follow-up effort, From Beyond, delved even further into gratuitous sex and violence than his earlier film, cementing a unique fusion of Lovecraft’s existential musings with good old fashioned drive-in depravity. Hit the jump for the full review.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her third Emmy in as many series for Veep and it’s not hard to see why. She’s more than just a funny lady here – though to be sure, you may not see anyone quite as funny on television today. Underneath her hapless vice president’s pratfalls and panic attacks, she conveys a strange and abiding sadness. This figure is smart and capable. She wants to make the world a better place. She possesses the tools to leave the government in a better place than she found it. But by the very nature of the system in which she’s trapped, all her assets come to naught. She can only flail about in a mad effort to protect her image and her standing, a process as hysterical as it is quietly troubling. Hit the jump for my full review.

Tackling a seminal work of fiction always presents a filmmaker with a unique set of challenges, even more so than book adaptations in general.  For director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard on Anna Karenina, those included not only condensing a mammoth book into a slightly over two-hour movie but doing so in a manner that stood out from the numerous previous adaptations.  The result is a mixed bag with many parts to love individually but a whole that simply falls short. 

In the aftermath of last year’s holiday dud The Guilt Trip, it’s difficult imagining a time when Barbra Streisand’s name was synonymous with major box office. But during the late ‘60s and ‘70s, Streisand starred in a string of massive movie hits, including Funny Girl, What’s Up, Doc? and A Star Is Born, all three of which would be considered the equivalents of a modern-day, $300 million-plus grosser after adjusting their ticket sales for inflation. (Quick, name the last time a female-starring romantic comedy or drama earned anything close to that amount, Mses. Bullock, McAdams and Witherspoon). Of course, we all know money doesn’t equal quality and, taken out of the context of its ‘70s-era success, A Star Is Born certainly stands as proof that yesterday’s milky-smooth hit can be today’s cheese-crumbled miss.  Hit the jump for our review of A Star Is Born on Blu-ray.

Airline pilots, for the most part, are like the mysterious man behind the curtain.  Passengers only get a glimpse of them when exiting the plane and hear their voices  once in a while over the intercom.  These guys have hundreds of lives in their hands and we just take it for granted that they are not drunk out of their minds.  Robert Zemeckis‘ Flight is about a very talented alcoholic pilot who averts a major disaster and winds up nosediving right into his dark inner-demons.  More on Paramount’s Flight Blu-ray after the jump.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey exemplifies the difference between “disappointing” and “bad.” Director Peter Jackson created a modern classic with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and fans had every right to expect the same genius from the prequel. Sadly, it was not to be: The Hobbit is too long, too bloated and too unsure of its ultimate purpose to rank alongside its fellows. That said, it still captures the essence of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imaginary world, as well as providing reliable entertainment in its own right. Hit the jump for my full review.

And now we come to the curious case of one Fredrick Charles Krueger: pederast, serial killer and beloved boogeyman of one of the biggest horror franchises of all time. The A Nightmare on Elm Street series didn’t start the slasher movie trend, or even perfect it, but it did take it on one hell of a ride. With the release of a new Blu-ray compilation – containing the first seven films in the series – we have a new chance to look at its various highs and lows. Hit the jump for my full review.

Not so long ago, two girls at Florida State were roommates. One was a quiet, “Felicity” type, the other, a bold virgin who ran a phone sex line to cover college costs. A decade later, the quiet one (Lauren Miller) hit Hollywood, married Seth Rogen, and met up with her old friend (Katie Anne Naylon) to brainstorm film ideas. The result, For a Good Time, Call…, became a reality, and now the fun and foul-mouthed buddy girl comedy has hit DVD and Blu-ray.  Hit the jump for our review.

Confession time: I’m not all that fond of Peter Pan. Walt Disney’s animated classic took the world by storm in the 1950s, justifying decades of development and turning an entire generation of boomers into entitled man-children in the process. Disney certainly wasted no time in exploiting its success, re-releasing it in theaters numerous times and granting it perennial status as one of his company’s signature films. But in truth, it pales before many of the studio’s less commercially profitable movies, and now remains a fossilized product of its era rather than a timeless enchantment for all ages. Hit the jump for my full review.

It’s been 25 years since the diminutive title hero of Ron Howard’s Willow first saved the world from an evil queen; now you can relive the swords-and-sorcery epic on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time.  Warwick Davis (Harry Potter series) stars as an unlikely hero who must rescue an infant destined to overthrow a wicked queen before she can sacrifice the child.  Assisting him in his quest are the roguish swordsman Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), the impaired sorceress Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) and two comical creatures known as Brownies (Rick Overton, Kevin Pollak) who are even smaller than Willow himself.  Standing in their way are Princess Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) and the vicious General Kael (Pat Roach) who will do anything to deliver the infant to the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh).

While the remastered edition of Willow on Blu-ray is well worth the purchase, there are sufficient extras to please fans of all ages.  Though there is a lack of a feature commentary option, Howard takes viewers through a variety of deleted scenes as well as a retro making-of featurette.  Davis is also on hand to narrate his own personal video diary he captured during the production and there are a variety of special effects artists who explain the then cutting-edge techniques applied to the film.  Plus, find out what happened to the missing acorn!  Hit the jump for my review of Willow on Blu-ray.