The holidays have different meanings to everyone. For better or worse it's usually a time for family. Now from Aardman Animations, the creator of WALLACE & GROMIT, comes a modern look at Santa and his family. What we find out is that even good ole Saint Nick has a dysfunctional family.

Being the big guy in the red suit is a Claus family tradition that has been passed down for generations. The current Santa (Jim Broadbent, IRIS), however, is more of a figurehead these days. The one-night present delivery enterprise has been streamlined by his heir apparent, his oldest son Steve (Hugh Lurie, TV's HOUSE), a military type hunk with a Christmas-tree-shaped goatee. Steve has the elves working like special ops soldiers who can get a package in and under the tree in a matter of seconds.

Read my review of RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Those damn, dirty apes look quite amazing in this 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 Blu-ray. This is certainly one of the best Blu-ray releases of the year. The picture quality is crystal clear adding great depth and detail. Weta's CG apes really stand out from fur to skin textures to their realistic looking eyes. The color palette is natural and clean with black levels inky throughout. There is a light film grain that runs through the picture, which does not increase during night scenes. Crush in those night scenes is also nonexistent. As for compression issues and other digital artifacts, they are completely absent.

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master soundtrack is just as impressive as the picture. The audio mix never misses a beat either in dialogue scenes or the epic action sequences toward the end. Ape growls and screams rattle the LFE track. Directionality is nicely handled, especially in the action scenes when spears come whizzing by the viewers and apes stampede past. Ambience is also handled wonderfully throughout whether it's quieter scenes in the redwood forest or the loud ape-filled cages of the animal sanctuary. Patrick Doyle's great score also surrounds the audience to great effect in getting the audience wrapped up in the plight of Caesar and his fellow apes.

The best compliment I can pay Tony Scott's film is that it's SPEED on a train. Once the runaway train starts rolling the suspense just keeps climbing to the very end. This is one of Scott's best films for its craftsmanship alone.

Trainer conductor Dewey (Ethan Suplee, MALLRATS) leaves his train thinking the breaks are on, but he was wrong. His expression as the train starts down the track without him tells it all. The nearly half mile long train is in full throttle racing away at over 70 miles per hour headed toward heavily populated areas. Its cargo is highly toxic.

From Warner Bros. Animation comes another beautiful looking HD release. The most memorable element is the vibrant colors. Darkly lit sets often find their way to bright locations whether it be the glow orange ooze bubbling in vats or train stations. Flashbacks to happier times utilize a wider color palette, helped by the presence of Robin’s costume. I say this with every one of these DC Direct titles, but animation looks so good in 1080p and Warner Direct serves it up well. The picture is so crystal clear that it makes for increased engagement. The stormy title sequence looks amazing. Just seeing the episodes of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES on the disc one can see the difference high definition makes in picture quality. Now this isn’t a perfect release. There is some banding in backgrounds, but I never noticed artifacts, aliasing, pixelation or noise like I read in other reviews. But the problems are minor in the larger scope of the release.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is dynamic. I was impressed the directionality of the soundscape. Machine gun blasts sound like they’re buzzing past you. It really helps make the sound seem more robust than it really is. This isn’t the most immersive experience, but it feels like a full sonic world, which is important for animation. One element no one will miss is the LFE channel because it booms during explosions.

Disney continues their winning streak with this showroom quality release. The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer has impeccable detail from the slightest dents and rust on the cars to the vast crowds of vehicles at the races. Color quality is electric, giving viewers vibrant primary colors, especially the neon in the Japanese sequence. Digital anomalies are pretty much absent. With so much red in the palette, the absence of banding and aliasing is impressive.

Sonically the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track matches the luxury level of the picture. Combining cars and spy action provides for a great many opportunities to impress and the release delivers. From the engine revving races to the explosions and gunfire of the chase sequences the soundtrack utilizes the full range of the sound field. Races and bullets race from left to right speakers and front and back. The LFE track rumbles as racecars zip by. All the powerful sound effects are balanced perfectly with the dialogue and Michael Giacchino’s classic Bond-esque score.

Albert was not born with a stammer, but developed one around four or five. He was born a prince. The former creates a great problem for the latter when public speaking is key to the job he was born to do. Making matters worse, he was prince during the boom of wireless radio and disturbing times with an older brother that had little interest in being king. He would become King George VI.

Colin Firth plays Albert, or Bertie as his family knew him. Inside Bertie was very capable of being a great king, but the stutter made him sound like a fool. His father King George V (Michael Gambon, HARRY POTTER) lorded over him with an iron fist and had no time for his "problems." His brother Edward (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) was a globetrotting party boy right up until the moment his father died. He was not capable of being a great king. He wanted what he wanted and gave up the crown to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson (Eve Best, TV's NURSE BETTY). Now Bertie wasn't just a stammering prince, but a stammering king, the only king to ever take the thrown with the previous king still alive and well. This kind of pressure didn't help his stutter.

There are a bunch of movies that this thriller brings to mind. It's like THE PROFESSIONAL crossed with the BOURNE series and a touch of KICK-ASS. The first and last of those films because of the young female protagonist and the middle one for its reality grounded action. But then you get a dose of fairy tale woven in as well.

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan, THE LOVELY BONES) is 16 and has been living in the frozen woods with her father virtually her whole life. He is Erik (Eric Bana, HULK), a rogue CIA agent who has trained his daughter to be a ruthless killer. She is a smart girl who speaks multiple languages and can best her dad in a physical fight. He has prepared her for the inevitable day when Marissa, known as The Witch (Cate Blanchett, INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL), finds them. His motto is "adapt or die."

In all honesty it's surprising this wasn't been done sooner. Beginning with STAR WARS, the sci-fi genre has been borrowing Western motifs. Jon Favreau's comic book adaptation puts sci-fi smack dab into a Western. Even the sci-fi has a Western tingle to it. The heart of this film is in the Wild West and most importantly with its characters.

Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig, CASINO ROYALE) wakes up in the Arizona desert without a memory of who he is or how he got there. A strange metal bracket is locked on his wrist. Outlaws stumble upon him and with the violent way he handles them, we know that the black hat he puts on suits him well. He comes to a small town to take care of the wound in his side. Due to a wanted poster and a band of deputies, he discovers he is a man on the run. He is arrested and handed over to the marshal, but he doesn't get taken very far because aliens attack and lasso citizens, taking them hostage. Turns out, Jake's mysterious bracelet has the power to blast an alien spaceship out of the sky.

This film is a germaphobe's worst nightmare. You'll finish watching this movie and want to wash your hands. There have been other disease outbreak films before, but none have been this realistic, which of course makes it more frightening.

Beth Emoff (Gwyneth Paltrow, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) comes back from a business trip in China and she's sick. At first she thinks it's just the flu, but before she knows it she's having convulsions and her husband Mitch (Matt Damon, GOOD WILL HUNTING) is taking her to the hospital. The disease spreads fast and within a month Mitch and his daughter Jory (Anna Jacoby-Heron) are virtual prisoners in their home as Minnesota becomes like a scene out of a zombie flick.

Duncan Jones follows up his ingenious "ideas" sci-fier, MOON, with this more conventional sci-fi thriller. That said I'm not saying that film is mindless in the least. It actually has lots of ideas, maybe too many. It's like watching GROUNDHOG DAY filtered through Hitchcock and 12 MONKEYS.

Solider Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal, DONNIE DARKO) wakes up on a train. Christina (Michelle Monaghan, GONE BABY GONE) sits across from him and keeps calling him Sean. He thinks he's going crazy. The last thing he remembers is flying helicopter missions in Afghanistan. Then a bomb blows up on the train.