This isn't a thriller in the American sense of the term. It certainly has more in common with meticulously paced French thrillers, which were as much character studies as they were genre pieces. Director Anton Corbijn has no intentions of making this film for the ADD crowd accustomed to lightning fast editing and adrenaline-fueled action sequences at regular intervals. He is certainly asking his audience to be patient.

Jack, or Edward, (we're really not sure which name is true) (George Clooney, SYRIANA) is a master assassin. He's as cold and remote as the wintery mountain setting the film begins in. He is being hunted by Swede assassins. His handler Pavel (Johan Leysen, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) says he is slipping and needs to lay low. He doesn't like the safe house set up for him, so he changes the plans. One might expect this to really piss off his boss, but Jack is the best at engineering weapons to precise specifications and Pavel has a new client.

Best videogame adaptation ever! Wait, but it's adapted from Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel. This send-up of videogame culture is frantic and funny. It uses videogames as a style with wit and ingenuity. Director Edgar Wright, the maker of SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, has taken a simple, quirky love story and blown it out into a grand cinematic spectacle that had me smiling form the moment the 8-bit version of the Universal logo came up on the screen.

It is announced right from the start that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera, JUNO) is dating a high school girl. Now you might be thinking that a 22 year old dating a 17 year old is one year short of being right, but Scott seems too innocent to expect anything more than a kiss. Scott just likes the adulation of Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) even though his sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick, UP IN THE AIR) thinks there's twisted fantasy fulfillment going on in him dating a Chinese Catholic school girl with the uniform and all. But he seems satisfied with her simply being amazed at his knowledge of the origin of Pac-Man's name. She of course thinks he's awesome because he plays bass in a band called Sex Bob Omb.

It has been reported that Ursula K. LeGuin granted Studio Ghibli the rights to her EARTHSEA series largely based on her love for Hayao Miyzaki's work. When Miyazaki was not available to direct the film, the studio hired his son Goro instead. Hayao publicly said his son was not ready to write and direct his first feature film. They should have listened to the master.

The land of Earthsea is out of balance. Dragons have been spotted over the sea. The King walks to his study and is stabbed by a young man who turns out to be his son Prince Arren (Matt Levin, BLADES OF GLORY). Arren flees and winds up in the desert where he meets the Archmage Sparrowhawk (Timothy Dalton, HOT FUZZ), who takes the young man under this wing. When they arrive at the city of Hortown, Arren has a run in with slaver traders led by Hare (Cheech Marin, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN), who try to enslave the scared young woman Therru (Blaire Restaneo), who is the ward of Sparrowhawk's old friend Tenar (Mariska Hargitay, TV's LAW & ORDER: SVU), a former witch. Sparrowhawk soon learns that the evil wizard Cob (Willem Dafoe, ANTI-CHRIST) is behind the turmoil in Earthsea. The male wizard who looks like Cher needs Arren to obtain immortality.

I have mixed feelings about this buddy cop comedy. I went in hoping for a satire of outlandish cop flicks. For the most part that's what I got. Then the film hints at something more, dealing with desk cops doing "boring" police work to catch the biggest thieves like Bernie Madoff. I really wish this area had been developed deeper instead of focusing on unconnected and very broad character moments. Then again some of those moments are really funny. But then again some of them aren't.

P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson, PULP FICTION) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne Johnson, GET SMART) are NYC's celebrity cops. They engage in all sorts of reckless chases and stunts, destroying more than they save and yet they are still touted as heroes. Detectives Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell, ANCHORMAN) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) are the other guys. Gamble gleefully does the paperwork for cocky Highsmith and Danson. Hoitz is riding a desk not because he wants to, but because of an accidental shooting, which has made him the pariah of the city. Hoitz taunts Gamble into taking more dangerous cases, but Gamble is more interested in a scaffolding violation involving businessman David Ershon (Steve Coogan, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY).

Henry Selick's children's film is dark in both its tone and look. That is translated over into the new 1080p release from Disney. The color palette is muted, so one doesn't get the pop that animation often brings to Blu-ray. The images don't have the same depth as other animated films on Blu-ray do as well. I believe this is certainly more to do with the source than the transfer. Just looking at the standard definition trailer you can see a huge improvement. The picture is much clearer than the murky DVD transfer. There is noise throughout, especially in the live-action sequences, but no artifacting or banding. I'm not convinced this is the best the film could look, but it's the best available for home viewing to date by far.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 provides for a nice immersive experience. The scene where the peach rolls away stood out for me. The LFE channel boomed as the giant fruit broke free and started to move. As James and the bugs are flung around inside the peach, the audio gave a good sense of forward movement as objects crash in the foreground and roll toward the back speakers. The dialogue is clear and balanced well with the Randy Newman score.

The special features, however, are no improvement over the DVD. The DVD making of doc really puts the promotional in promotional featurette. It only provides basic information about the production. Very weak sauce… and it's too short too. Additionally from the DVD is the awful looking "Good News" music video and a standard-def trailer. The only new feature to the Blu-ray is a "Spike the Aunts" Interactive Game. It's entertaining for about one play at best and the design looks slapped together.

Based on the Roald Dahl’s book, director Henry Selick made this project his follow-up to the successful NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Bookended by a live-action opening and closing, this stop-motion feature is generally an episodic adventure following a classic tale of a young boy dreaming beyond his circumstances.

After the death of his parents, James Trotter (Paul Terry) becomes a virtual slave to his ghoulish aunts Spiker (Joanna Lumley, TV’s ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS) and Sponge (Miriam Margolyes, BABE). One day he meets a wandering old man (Pete Postlewaite, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER), who gives him magic worms that he claims will help him attain his dream of getting from England to New York City. Spilling the worms on the ground, James sets off a series of events that grows a giant peach on a barren tree where human-sized bugs come to live.

This character-driven animated feature reminded me of the landmark BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. The production from Warner Premiere takes the "Under the Hood" story arc from the comics and creates the best filmic treatment of the relationship between Batman and Robin.

Shockingly the story begins with The Joker (John DiMaggio, TV’s FUTURAMA) beating Robin with a crowbar. Batman (Bruce Greenwood, STAR TREK) races to save him, but as he arrives and explosion rocks the building and he carries out the body of his dead ward Jason Todd (Jensen Ackles, TV’s SUPERNATURAL). Struggling to cope with the loss, Batman continues his crusade against the underbelly of Gotham City. However, he’s more brutal and cold than ever. His original ward Dick Grayson (Neil Patrick Harris, TV’s HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER), who moved on from being Robin to don the identity of Nightwing, can’t even get him to open up.

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.

To get a sense of this actioner take an awesome Bond girl, say like Tatiana, have her train with Jason Bourne and let her loose against the CIA. And one of the main reasons it all works is that you have Angelina Jolie at the helm. She really is the first female action star.

To start Evelyn Salt (Jolie) has been taken prisoner by the North Korean government. When a prisoner swap is arranged, she asks her partner Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber, TAKING WOODSTOCK) why the CIA didn't just write her off — his answer is that her boyfriend Mike Krause (August Diehl, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) wouldn't let them. Now free and married, Salt is looking to take a desk job. But a Russian spy named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski, BREAK POINT) walks into CIA HQ and wants to defect. He has an elaborate tale of Russian agents planted in the U.S. since they were children and that one is about to assassinate the Russian president on U.S. soil. He says the agent's name is Evelyn Salt.

An idea can change the world. In Christopher Nolan's mind-bending thriller, big ideas are vulnerable to be stolen within a person's dreams. Powerful businessmen spend millions on setting up projections in their minds to protect them from extractors who are hired by competitors to steal secrets. But what's infinitely more difficult is to put an idea they did not think of in their mind. This is inception.

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, BLOOD DIAMOND) is a skilled extractor who has been hired to steal company secrets from billionaire Saito (Ken Wantanabe, THE LAST SAMURAI). While Cobb ultimately fails, Saito is impressed with his skills and hires him to attempt an inception on the son of his rival. The mission seems impossible, but Saito promises to use his connections to allow Cobb to return to the U.S. where there is a warrant out for his arrest.