Action

As our colleagues at Omnivoracious and Amazon Game Room have already noted, The New York Times just released its 2008 Holiday Gift Guide with its critics' picks for top releases of the year, including movies (selected by Dave Kehr, who years ago wrote some reviews for Amazon.com, including The Talk of the Town and The Hitch-Hiker) and TV (selected by Ginia Bellafante).  They're fun lists, combining critical hits (The Dark Knight, Mad Men) with quality reissues (A Christmas Story Ultimate Collector's Edition, Freaks and Geeks Yearbook Edition) and under-the-radar gems (Murnau, Borzage and Fox, Fortysomething).  If you're interested in adding any of these to your gift list, we've made a buyable list of all their selections.  --David

First impressions of upcoming movies, based on trailer (Click on the title to watch the high-resolution trailer: You may need QuickTime for most). Release dates are subject to change. --Ellen

Duplicity (dir. Tony Gilroy): After playing cheating spouses in Closer, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen re-team as ex-spies and ex-lovers for this con film by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton). Given that it also stars Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, I was all set for a shaky-camera/gritty drama (Gilroy is also the writer of the Bourne films) but halfway through... whoa, it's a comedy! It's like Mr. and Mrs. Smith without blowing up the house! It'll be interesting to see if the wink-wink banter works here, but I'm a believer in Gilroy (not to mention the two pretty leads), so I'll bite. (Mar. 20)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (dir. David Yates): I admit, I can no longer remember what happened in Order of the Phoenix as it was the least memorable book and movie for me. And in an alternate universe where Warner did not push this movie to next summer and opened last weekend as planned, we'd all be talking about it now instead of that one about vampires that would've been opening in another three weeks (Instead it moved into HP's slot). The newest trailer covers less about the story than the first one, just offers more comedic moments, the usual flash of characters and Jim Broadbent as Prof. Horace Slughorn.  (Jul. 17)

The Wrestler (dir. Darren Aronofsky): You may have heard something in the trades linking "Mickey Rourke" and "Oscar" and thought someone was playing a prank. But it's true; after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Aronofsky's tale of a down-on-his-luck wrestler with one more chance at glory is putting Rourke on the Best Actor shortlist with Milk's Sean Penn. And why? Watch the trailer. Watch Rourke's face, once handsome and now weathered and leathered, so vulnerable, pitiful, and hopeful at once, and try not to be moved. (Dec. 17)

Gran Torino (dir. Clint Eastwood): That sneaky Clint Eastwood. Just as he did two years ago making Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima back to back, he's gone and quietly made Gran Torino while everyone was flapping about the Angelina Jolie-starrer Changeling. Here, Eastwood also stars as a racist, grizzled Korean war vet who becomes an unintentional protector to a Hmong family next door who are threatened by a gang. And you can bet, all these decades later, seeing Clint (now 78 years old) squint at you and make a gun with his thumb and forefinger, you're still gonna pee your pants a little. Have they figured out how to clone this guy yet? (Dec. 17)

Up (dir. Pete Docter): As a Pixar fan, I am a little tired of new Pixar trailers starting with a lot of clips from all the old Pixar movies. (We get it, you guys rock, move on!) Maybe they just didn't have enough footage to fill out this teaser, which is about an ol' grumpy man (voiced by Ed Asner) who ties thousands of balloons to his home to fulfill his dream of floating to South America. Strangely, this guy is supposed to be 78 years old and looks nothing like Clint Eastwood. (May 29)

(Blu Monday Wednesday is our roundup of what's new in Blu-ray...)

My Browncoat-loving heart was pretty tickled to watch Firefly on Blu-ray.  Joss Whedon's much-loved, much-lamented sci-fi/Western is one of my all-time fave TV shows, and it's a treat to have it in high definition.  The series wasn't shot in HD so it's not the best thing I've ever seen, but it is an improvement over upconverted DVDs, and the punchy sound (DTS HD 5.1 compared to the DVDs' 2.0 surround) is a definite upgrade.  In addition to the original bonus features, there are a couple new ones: a 25-minute conversation among Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, and Alan Tudyk in which they discuss the series and a number of specific episodes (Fillion recalls thinking he was getting fired after the first episode), and a new commentary track by the four fellows on "Our Mrs. Reynolds."  And since it's easy to get sucked into watching multiple episodes, it's nice to have a Play All feature on the BDs.  Also coming this year: the follow-up movie, Serenity, on Blu-ray.  I confess that I already have Serenity on HD DVD, DVD, and Collector's Edition DVD, and will no doubt be picking up the Blu-ray as well.  Hey, it's Firefly! --David

New Blu-ray pre-orders that have recently hit the catalog:

• King Kong
• Groundhog Day
• John Adams
• Miracle at St. Anna
• Pretty Woman
• Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway
• The Bourne Trilogy
• RocknRolla

The power of BD-Live is starting to be harnessed in some cool ways--Guillermo del Toro will be having a live chat via BD-Live for the recently released Hellboy II: The Golden Army on Blu-ray, today, November 23rd 6pm Pacific.

To participate in this event, this is what you must do:

1. Have Hellboy II: The Golden Army on Blu-ray
2. Go to www.UniversalHiDef.com and login or register
3. Click 'Director's Chat' under 'My Account' and submit up to three questions early
4. Connect to BD-Live through either your enabled Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3
5. Chat

Here are my three questions for you Guillermo:
Where does your fascination for hellish things come from?
What hellish rock and roll music are you listening to?
How's The Hobbit coming along?

--Rich

Have you seen Primeval, the BBC series about dinosaurs rampaging through modern-day Britain?  Cast members Hannah Spearritt and Andrew Lee Potts took a break from the set to answer some Amazon questions, such as how the show developed as it went along, how they like working with CGI effects, and their favorite scary moment.  --David

As I type this, I'm watching the latest episode of the TV juggernaut that is ... NCIS. Yes, NCIS, the procedural about the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. While shows with big expections, movie-star leads and stylish pedigrees get canceled (adios to Christian Slater's My Own Worst Enemy, and Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle) and the interwebs buzz about the hot stars of Gossip Girl, it's really silver fox Mark Harmon who's ruling the airwaves, according to no less an authority than Sunday's New York Times. Why? Said the NYT:

NCIS is part of a swing toward more traditional storytelling, the kind of shows that also prove to be valuable assets to their owners because they can play well over and over. “I don’t know if there’s a complete swing back to closed-end storytelling,” said David Stapf, president of Paramount Network Television, the studio that produces NCIS. “But those shows certainly seem to be working right now.” He added, “I think what really works is the reliability if it.”

I've seen the show a couple of times. It's reliably good, but not so much great, or ground-breaking. I consider it a TV version of The Olive Garden: Popular, likable, even endearing, mixing its murders with humor and quirk. (OK, that murder part is the TV show, not the restaurant.) But I never hear anyone talking about the show. Unless they, like my colleague Dan, say something like, "Can you believe what the Times said about NCIS?" Do you watch it? Heck, maybe I can talk to you about this week's episode, 'cause my usual crowd just wants to talk Office or Gray's. -- Stephanie Reid-Simons, Amazon Video On Demand

(Blu Monday Friday is our roundup of what's new in Blu-ray...)

Chances are you've already run across today's Gold Box deal, which has James Bond sets on both Blu-ray and standard-definition DVD.  I've been spinning my way through the six Blu-ray discs, and they're exceptional-looking and -sounding discs (unlike some BDs these days, they use DTS HD 5.1 master lossless audio).  There are also a bunch of bonus features, including commentary by the director (and sometimes others) on each film, and Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, and Die Another Day have commentary by Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan.  (A preliminary comparison of DAD with the original two-disc DVD revealed a lot of duplicated features, though they were organized differently so it was hard to check everything.)  One major note and one minor quibble:  A lot of Bond fans are reporting problems playing their Blu-ray discs.  I had no problems with my PS3, but other players may need a firmware update; check for details in High-Def Headquarters, especially if you have a Samsung BD-P1500 or LG BH200 Blu-ray player.  The minor quibble is that my copies (individuals, not in packs) came with movie-cash coupons to see the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace--yay!--but the coupons were glued to the slipcovers, and left both ink and glue residue when I peeled them off.  (I've heard that denatured alchohol will remove it--I'll have to try that.) --David

What it is: In a remake of the classic 1960s spy-spoof series, Steve Carrell is Maxwell Smart, super-savvy desk jockey of the crime-fighting organization CONTROL.  He can only dream abuot the exploits of Agent 23 (Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson), until unexpected circumstances throw Max into the field, partnered by supertough Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). Naturally, high-flying hijinx and hilarity ensue.

Why it's Significant: Honestly, I expected going into the theater that Get Smart would be one of those juvenile-humor vehicles that make me groan  But it was laugh-out-loud funny, with some good stunts as well.  Silly?  Sure, but in a good way.  The cast is great, including the quite-stunning Hathaway, and there are a lot of inside jokes for fans of the classic series. One of my surprise favorites of the year.  --David