Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, District 9 begins as a mock documentary about the imminent eviction of extraterrestrials from a pathetic shantytown (called District 9).  The creatures, it turns out, have been on Earth for years, having arrived sickly and starving.  Initially received by humans with compassion and care, the aliens are now mired in blighted conditions typical of long-term refugee camps unwanted by a hostile, host society...  [F]or a while District 9 is a powerful movie with a unique tale to tell.  Seamless special effects alone are worth seeing:  the (often brutal) exchanges between alien and human are breathtaking. -- Tom Keogh

Julie & Julia is a film that should be relished with gusto -- accompanied by the freshest and best ingredients, pounds of butter, and bottles of the very best wine.  It lovingly celebrates the life of one of American food's most influential and beloved figureheads: Julia Child -- played here with zest, humor, and a sweet, subtle respect by Meryl Streep, whose performance is spectacular.  ... Julie Powell, a frustrated New York bureaucrat who wants to be a writer ... gives herself a challenge:  to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and to blog about it ... [T]he film [is] so involving and rewarding ... [and] a recipe for something truly sublime. -- A.T. Hurley

Since crime auteur Michael Mann, like his protagonists, plays by his own rules, Public Enemies eschews back story and motivation for a closely-observed, action-packed examination of men at work.  FBI supremo J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) kick-starts a nationwide manhunt when he proclaims John Dillinger (Johnny Depp, in top form) Public Enemy #1. Hoover taps Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to bring the Tommy Gun-toting bank robber in by any means necessary ... If Public Enemies is less overtly commercial than The Untouchables or Bugsy, it's still the best mainstream gangster epic in ages and ranks among Mann's finest works. -- Kathleen C. Fennessy

[This is a] seriously funny film from writer-director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up).  When famous comedian George Simmons (Sandler) is given a second chance at a new beginning, he and his assistant, a struggling comedian, Ira (Rogen), return to the places and people that matter most ... including the stand-up spots that gave him his start and the girl that got away ([Leslie] Mann)... it's the film critics cheer as "uproariously funny!"  (Sonny Bunch, The Washington Times)

The brilliant British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen dips into his stable of pre-existing characters and comes up with a big-screen vehicle for Brüno, a gay Austrian fashionista.  Brüno is blond, fame-hungry, and prone to wearing unexpected combinations of lederhosen and hot pants.  But it's his runway disaster with an all-Velcro suit that gets him barred from the Milan fashion scene and leads to the cancellation of his TV show...  Brüno rolls out in a fashion similar to Borat, a combination of a scripted through-line interspersed with scenes of Baron Cohen improvising with people who don't realize they're being set up, Candid Camera-style... --Robert Horton

Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star in this wildly funny battle of the sexes.  Abby (Heigl), a successful morning show producer, is looking for a lot in a man.  Mike (Butler), her obnoxious TV star, knows men only want one thing.  Determined to prove that she's not romantically challenged, Abby takes Mike's advice during a promising new romance, but the unexpected results will stun everyone.  (from Amazon)

At a time when too many animated films consist of anthropomorphized animals cracking sitcom one-liners and flatulence jokes, the warmth, originality, humor, and unflagging imagination of Up feel as welcome as rain in a desert.  Carl Fredericksen (voice by Ed Asner) ranks among the most unlikely heroes in recent animation history... When well-meaning officials consign Carl to Shady Oaks Retirement Home, he rigs thousands of helium balloons to his house and floats to South America... Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc. ) and Bob Peterson direct the film with consummate skill and taste, allowing the poignant moments to unfold without dialogue to Michael Giacchnio's vibrant score...  Even by Pixar's elevated standards, Up is an exceptional film that will appeal of audiences of all ages. Rated PG for some peril and action. --Charles Solomon

Four armed men seize a New York City subway train, isolate one car, and threaten to start killing passengers if a ransom isn't paid within the hour...  John Travolta ... shamelessly has a blast in the master villain role. His adversary, cagily underplayed by Denzel Washington, has been upgraded [from the original] in civil-service rank but also demoted on suspicion of taking a bribe.  This colors the dynamics of the dialogue between Washington at his control-center console and Travolta on the motorman's microphone aboard the stalled train... --Richard T. Jameson

Comedic genius Will Ferrell stars as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, who gets more than he bargained for when his expedition takes a wrong turn into the Land of the Lost.  Now, Marshall, his crack-smart research assistant Holly (Anna Friel) and a redneck survivalist named Will (Danny McBride), have no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts to survive in a world full of marauding dinosaurs, fantastic creatures and laugh-out-loud comedy!

Helen Keller was the young girl who was blind, deaf, and mute since infancy.  She was in danger of being sent to an institution until a persistent and outspoken teacher named Annie Sullivan came into her life.  Together they accomplished the impossible and taught one another the values of patience, tolerance and compassion. 

Watch an audio described excerpt from the DVD.

Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, BLINDSIGHT follows the gripping true-life adventure of six blind Tibetan teenagers on a climbing expedition up formidable Mount Everest. Believed to be possessed by demons because of their blindness, the children are feared by their parents, scorned by their villages and rejected by society. Rescued by a blind educator and adventuress, the students invite a famous blind mountain climber to visit their school and let him lead them higher than they have ever been before. The result is nothing anyone could have predicted

The follow-up to Batman Begins.  The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime.  With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker...  - Amazon

The feverish Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a very busy sequel that might have looked unhinged in the hands of a less visionary director than Guillermo del Toro.  Ron Perlman returns as Hellboy, aka "Red," the Dark Horse Comics demon-hero with roots in the mythical world but personal ties in the human realm... it's really the juxtaposition of visual marvels with not-so-unusual relationship issues that gives Hellboy II a certain jaunty appeal hard to find in other superhero movies. --Tom Keogh

A more accessible and less heavy-handed movie than Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk is a purely popcorn love affair with Marvel's raging, green superhero, as well as the old television series starring Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the beast within him... --Tom Keogh

The third film in the The Mummy series freshens the franchise up by setting the action in China. There, the discovery of an ancient emperor's elaborate tomb proves a feather in the cap of Alex O'Connell (Luke Ford), a young archaeologist ... Unfortunately, a curse that turned the emperor (Jet Li) and his army into terra cotta warriors buried for centuries is lifted, and ... the action inevitably leads to a showdown between two armies of mummies in a Chinese desert...  --Tom Keogh

Our unlikely hero is mild-mannered Chicago accountant Wesley Gibson (Atonement's James McAvoy), whose father died when he was a tot.  Wesley never learned to stand up for himself, ...[but at] the Fraternity, where leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) informs Wesley that Cross, a rogue agent, executed his father ...  he undergoes the Fraternity's brutal training regimen ... Sloan sends him out to fulfill his duty, but matters become complicated when Wesley finds out someone isn't telling the truth...  --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Blind Dating, starring Frank Gerrish (2008)

A blind man enters the world of dating with mixed success and lots of surprises.  This movie was not released in theaters.  Read more information on Blind Dating.

Sunshine, starring Hiroyuki Sanada (2008)

A novel blend of doomsday thriller and meditative science fiction, Danny Boyle's Sunshine imagines a disturbing future in which mankind must re-ignite the sun or face total extinction. A team of scientists and crew members ... is dispatched to the dying star, but disaster strikes from almost every conceivable angle; as the crew is whittled down by accidents and psychological breaks, the survivors must discover a way to carry out the mission or seal the fate of the world's population.... -- Paul Gaita

The Ultimate Gift is a tale of one man's tumultuous journey toward personal growth and fulfillment.  Surrounded in life, and death, by avaricious family members fueled by a sense of entitlement, billionaire Red Stevens (James Garner) wants to bequeath at least one member of his extended family "the ultimate gift":  something he perceives as immensely more valuable than material wealth....  Far from a straightforward gift of cash, land, or stock, Red's bequest comes in the form of a series of mysterious recorded instructions, the first of which requires Jason [Red's arrogant grandson] to hop on a plane for Texas the very next morning without a hint of the trip's purpose or the nature of the gift that awaits him....  Unbeknownst to him, his journey toward claiming the ultimate gift has only just begun.... [I]n the end, Grandpa Red's "ultimate gift" of life lessons profoundly and permanently improves the quality of Jason's life... [and] has a very positive affect on the larger community.  This very powerful film is funny, heartbreaking, and intensely thought-provoking. --Tami Horiuchi

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, New Yorkers from all walks of life felt compelled to overcome their sense of powerlessness by volunteering to help out in the recovery effort.  Many deep and unexpected -- even unlikely -- relationships developed out of this.  Using cinema verite footage, interviews and archival photographs, we follow several characters through a series of events reuniting them after the closing of the site.  Through their stories we present a portrait of the city within a city that was Ground Zero, and examine how an extremely diverse group of people transcended politics and culture in an effort to heal their city and themselves.  This 60-minute character-driven documentary is a vibrant, moving, sometimes funny, sometimes painful portrayal of hope and healing in the wake of disaster.

Available from Eleventh Hour Films for $19.99 for home use (higher for organizational use).

The last time we saw Evan Baxter (Carell), he was being tormented by rival Bruce Nolan onscreen, live from their Buffalo TV station.  But as time passed and Evan has made up with Bruce, he's gone onto bigger and better things.  Newly elected to Washington D.C. as a congressman, Evan has left Buffalo, New York in pursuit of a greater calling.  But that calling isn't serving in the illustrious ranks of America's politics, but being summoned by the Almighty himself (Freeman), who has handed Evan the task of building a new ark, much as Noah did before.  With time passing by and his family belittled by Evan's newfound realization, Evan will have to do the work that God has given him in what promises to be an unusual adventure for a man who just wanted to serve his country, might actually be serving humanity.  Rated PG.

Slobby Ben (Rogan) and up and coming career girl Alison (Heigl) meet at a bar, and end up having a one night stand.  Eight weeks later, Ben is shocked when Alison meets him and reveals that she is pregnant.  Despite having little in common, the two decide that they have to at least try to make some kind of relationship work for the baby's sake.  Rated R. 

Two blind men and a man with no legs climb a difficult eight pitch rock climb during the No Barriers festival in Cortina, Italy.   Extraordinary people and revolutionary technologies.  Available from the producer, Serac Adventure Films.  (See also Farther Than the Eye Can See, below)

Bearing absolutely no resemblance to the 1980s TV series that helped to propel Michael Mann into big-time filmmaking, Miami Vice is the kind of serious, and seriously stylish, crime drama that Mann does better than anyone else...  [O]nce Mann shifts into high gear with a plot to foil a powerful drug kingpin ... and his ruthless middle-man ..., Vice pays off with the kind of smart, realistic action that Mann's fans have come to expect...  [T]his is an above-average crime thriller that demands and rewards close attention, with a climactic shoot-out that's pure Mann, worthy of the brooding drama that precedes it. --Jeff Shannon. 

One of the most shocking events in modern American history gets a skilled and respectful treatment in United 93.  The movie begins by following the four terrorists who hijacked the plane that never reached its target on 9/11/2001 ... cuts to and fro among air traffic controllers and the military as ... the focus turns to the captive United Flight 93... [T]he movie is more relentlessly gut-wrenching than suspenseful (though the dawning realization of the air traffic controllers has an effective creeping dread).  But writer/director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) manages to keep the scale of the events human; there are no glamorous heroics, only terrifying confusion and desperate, hopeless bravery...  United 93 is the cinematic equivalent of a war memorial, commemorating lives lost in a moment of horrible, harrowing conflict. --Bret Fetzer

Spike Lee scored his biggest hit to date with Inside Man, an unconventional thriller with fascinating details in the margins of its convoluted plot.  The screenplay (by first-timer Russell Gerwitz) could've used a few more rewrites... That makes Inside Man more fun to watch than to think about afterwards ... but it's curiously involving, especially as NYPD Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) struggles to outsmart a high-stakes bank robber (Clive Owen) who, along with a well-trained crew of accomplices, has seized control of a Wall Street bank, turning what initially looks like a hostage crisis into a personal crusade to expose some mysterious evil secrets. ... With the benefit of his most stellar cast to date (including Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor), Lee seems more interested in character details than well-crafted suspense, but that doesn't stop Inside Man from being engrossing, subtly amusing, and quirky enough to qualify as a welcomed break from the formulaic thrillers that are Hollywood's bread and butter. --Jeff Shannon

At its core, Munich is a straightforward thriller ... innocent people are killed, the bad guys got away with it, and someone has to make them pay.  But director Steven Spielberg uses that as a starting point to delve into complex ethical questions about the cyclic nature of revenge and the moral price of violence ... The opening portrays the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the 1972 Olympics with scenes as heart-stopping and terrifying as the best of any horror movie.  After the tragic incident is over and several of the terrorists have gone free, the Israeli government of Golda Meir recruits Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a team of paid-off-the-book agents to hunt down those responsible throughout Europe, and eliminate them one-by-one ... and the deeper moral questions of right and wrong come into play... --Daniel Vancini  

Obviously, the older the DVDs get, the harder it may be to purchase or rent them.  Information beyond this point is left as-is, and you may or may not be able to find the described DVDs today ...

Cinderella Man is a wholesome slice of old-fashioned Americana ... dramatizing the legendary Depression-era comeback of impoverished boxer Jim Braddock...  Russell Crowe['s] portrayal of Braddock is simultaneously warm, noble, and tenacious without resorting to even the slightest hint of sentimental melodrama...  [H]is supportive wife (Renée Zellweger) and three young children, and his loyal manager (Paul Giamatti) all are forced to make sacrifices leading up to Braddock's title bout against heavyweight champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko) in one of greatest boxing matches in the history of the sport.  Boasting the finest production design, cinematography and editing that Hollywood can offer, this is a feel-good film that never begs for your affection; it's just good, classical American filmmaking, brimming with qualities of decency and fortitude that have grown all too rare in the big-studio mainstream. --Jeff Shannon

Cult comic actor Steve Carell--long adored for his supporting work on The Daily Show and in movies like Bruce Almighty and Anchorman--leaps into leading man status with The 40 Year-Old Virgin.  There's no point describing the plot; it's about how a 40 year-old virgin named Andy (Carell) finally finds true love and (well, you know...).  Along the way, there are very funny scenes involving being coached by his friends, speed dating, being propositioned by his female manager, and getting his chest waxed...  --Bret Fetzer

Jamie Foxx's uncannily accurate performance isn't the only good thing about Ray.  Riding high on a wave of Oscar buzz, Foxx proved himself worthy of all the hype by portraying blind R&B legend Ray Charles in a warts-and-all performance that Charles approved shortly before his death in June 2004.  Despite a few dramatic embellishments of actual incidents ... the film does a remarkable job of summarizing Charles's strengths as a musical innovator and his weaknesses as a philandering heroin addict who recorded some of his best songs while flying high as a kite.  Foxx seems to be channeling Charles himself, and as he did with the life of Ritchie Valens in La Bamba, director Taylor Hackford gets most of the period details absolutely right as he chronicles Ray's rise from "chitlin circuit" performer in the early '50s to his much-deserved elevation to legendary status as one of the all-time great musicians.  Foxx expertly lip-syncs to Ray Charles' classic recordings, but you could swear he's the real deal in a film that honors Ray Charles without sanitizing his once-messy life. --Jeff Shannon

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ ... ("Passion" in this context meaning "suffering") [is] a quite literal, in-your-face interpretation of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted almost directly from the gospels (and spoken in Aramaic and Latin with a relative minimum of subtitles) and presented as a relentless, 126-minute ordeal of torture and crucifixion.  For Christians and non-Christians alike, this film does not "entertain," and it's not a film that one can "like" or "dislike" in any conventional sense. ... Rather, The Passion is a cinematic experience that serves an almost singular purpose:  to show the scourging and death of Jesus Christ in such horrifically graphic detail ... that even non-believers may feel a twinge of sorrow and culpability in witnessing the final moments of the Son of God, played by Jim Caviezel in a performance that's not so much acting as a willful act of submission, so intense that some will weep not only for Christ, but for Caviezel's unparalleled test of endurance. --Jeff Shannon

ONE USER reported (in late 2011) that this DVD has description.  We do not know if the currently available DVD has description, so it is not "officially" listed here yet in the count.  If you order it and find it has description, please let us know!  (It's cheap -- under $5 when we looked.)

Darker than its popular comic-book predecessor Spider-Man, Daredevil was packaged for maximum global appeal.  It begins when 12-year-old Matt Murdock is accidentally blinded shortly before his father is murdered.  Later an adult attorney in New York's Hell's Kitchen, Murdock uses his remaining, superenhanced senses to battle crime as Daredevil, pitted against dominant criminal Kingpin and the psychotic Bullseye, who can turn almost anything into a deadly projectile.

In Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks plays a hit man who finds his heart.  Michael Sullivan (Hanks) is the right-hand man of crime boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), but when Sullivan's son accidentally witnesses one of his hits, he must choose between his crime family and his real one. 

Set in Paris in the 1890s, this version is unlike previous film versions.  Everyone and everything is encouraged to shatter boundaries of time and texture, colliding and careening in a fast-cutting frenzy.  Viewing this film, you are reminded of the cinema's power to renew itself while paying homage to its past. 

An intimate look inside one of the most successful Mount Everest expeditions ever.  The 75-minute award-winning film beautifully captures the emotion, humor and drama of blind climber Erik Weihenmayer's historic ascent as well as four other remarkable 'firsts' on Mount Everest.  Winner of 18 International Film Festival Awards.  Available from the producer, Serac Adventure Films.  (See also Mountains Without Barriers, above)

Every Who down in Who-ville likes Christmas a lot.  But the Grinch who lived just north of Whoville did NOT!  So the cuddly as a cactus Grinch (with termites in his smile and garlic in his soul) tries to wipe out Christmas for the cheerful Who-villians, only to discover:  Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.  Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more!  Magnificently narrated by Boris Karloff and animated by cartoon legend Chuck Jones, it's an award-winning Who-roast-beast-feast of a holiday classic!.