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Danny Boyle’s abrupt exit last week from the new James Bond sequel upset many Bond fans, who now face a longer wait for Bond 25, but my own reaction was one of relief. Boyle is too interesting a filmmaker to be making franchises rather than films — the Bond business had already consumed another talented Brit, Sam Mendes, for a few years (Skyfall and Spectre). Bond is surely a damn good business (the last four iterations grossed over $3 billion worldwide) but, by and large, British filmmakers haven’t been creating the sort of truly and innovate fare that they contributed in years past.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I spoke at a 50th anniversary salute to Midnight Cowboy at the Coronado Island Film Festival. Screening Cowboy pinpointed that extraordinary mid-1960s moment when the Brits essentially annexed the film world. John Schlesinger’s movie created a sort of...

Director Ted Kotcheff Talks Wake in Fright, fully-restored and on Blu-ray now!

Alongside Mad Max and Walkabout, Wake in Fright is widely acknowledged as one of the seminal films in the development of modern Australian cinema. Directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Donald Pleasence, this thriller tells the nightmarish story of a schoolteacher's (Gary Bond) descent into personal demoralization at the hands of drunken, deranged derelicts while stranded in a small town in outback Australia. Believed to be lost for decades and virtually unseen in America until now, Wake in Fright returns fully-restored in stunning HD in what the New York Observer says "may be the greatest Australian film ever made."

Wake in Fright is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. To celebrate this home release, we caught up with director Ted Kotcheff to chat about the film's revival and its near destruction. Ted is a luminary in the field of action cinema,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 6, 2012

Price: DVD $249.99, Blu-ray $299.99

Studio: HBO/Warner

All eight seasons of comedy, drama, women and Hollywood parties are together in the Entourage: The Complete Series DVD and Blu-ray sets.

HBO’s TV show ran from 2004 to 2011 and stars Adrian Grenier (The Devil Wears Prada) as movie actor Vincent Chase. Loosely based on the life of real actor Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter), who’s an executive producer on the series, Entourage follows Chase as he navigates the ups and downs of fame with his… entourage… Drama (Kevin Dillon, Poseidon), Eric (Kevin Connolly, Secretariat), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara, Battleship) and, of course, agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World).

The Complete Series DVD and Blu-ray sets, packaged in fashionable black boxes, also contain more than six hours of bonus features. Although the extras aren’t anything new from the earlier released single-season sets of the show,...

They're baaack! Catch the action for the first time or relive the ups and downs that come with fame as Vince, Eric, Drama and Turtle take you on a whirlwind ride through the high-stakes world of Hollywood with Entourage: The Complete Series. The perfect holiday gift for HBO fans, Entourage: The Complete Series on Blu-ray ($299.99) and DVD ($249.99) streets November 6, 2012. The set is boxed in a stylishly cool, black casing and features all 8 seasons along with more than 6 hours of bonus content and is the first time seasons one through five are available on Blu-ray.

Entourage: The Complete Series Blu-ray and DVD sets contain a wealth of bonus materials that give viewers a wildly entertaining look inside one of television's most celebrated comedies. Included are audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, panel discussions and exclusive interviews that offer candid and amusing views of Hollywood and the cost of being a celebrity.

Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Elmer Gantry Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month Jean Simmons' film series comes to a close tonight, with the presentation of seven Jean Simmons movies. Directed by veteran Mervyn LeRoy, Home Before Dark is on right now. Next in line is Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry (1960), which earned Burt Lancaster a somewhat undeserved Oscar. Lancaster gutsily tackles the role of a charlatan traveling preacher, but as was often the case in his career, "gutsy" didn't exactly translate into "truthful." Simmons, on the other hand, quietly shines as an Aimee Semple McPherson-inspired Christian preacher, and so does Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Shirley Jones as the traveling preacher's pet sex worker. Though hardly as hard-hitting as it could have been, Elmer Gantry should be mandatory viewing at Christian schools and churches everywhere. Adults will learn that if you sin, you'd better not get caught; kids will enjoy the circus fire.

Green Zone

Damon and Greengrass' Iraq war film was a big disappointment for me. You don't get to know a single character and the plot has no suspense since you already know how the whole Wmd situation ends.

Extras include:

CommentaryDeleted ScenesMatt Damon: Ready for ActionInside the Green Zone

The Last Station

I really enjoyed this indie about Leo Tolstoy's final days. James McAvoy is great in a role very similar to his in The Last King of Scotland.

Extras include:

CommentaryDeleted ScenesOuttakes

She's Out of My League

Looks decent and Apatow-regular Jay Baruchel always delivers.

Extras include:

CommentaryDeleted ScenesBlooper ReelDevon's Dating Show![Read More...]

Hung: The Complete First Season

I am a big fan of lead Thomas Jane and Alexendar Payne (Sideways, Election), who produces and directed the pilot, so I will have to check this out.

Extras include:

Three audio commentaries by series creators-executive producers Colette Burson and...

Chicago – The wave of TV on DVD sets that always comes crashing down upon us after the end of a traditional September-to-May season is still a few months off, but a few interesting releases have popped up recently and we thought they each deserved a mini-review for potential fans out there looking for something new now that their DVRs have gotten pretty empty. Take notes, there might be a test at the end.

The Closer: The Complete Fifth Season

Photo credit: Warner Bros.

DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0

“The Closer: The Complete Fifth Season”

Kyra Sedgwick continued her stellar work on one of cable’s most successful shows with the most recent installment of TNT’s mega-hit. “The Closer” is arguably starting to get repetitive but Sedgwick continues to get better and better like so many leads on serial shows do as they settle into their roles. And she has a...

Sydney, Feb 24 – Life at the top is not necessarily a breeze – even for teenagers, suggests a survey by a girl magazine which found that cool kids are actually disliked by a lot of people.

Magazine Girlfriend quizzed 1500 readers aged between 13 and 18 surveyed to come up with the conclusion, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Most of the respondents said they were glad they were not in the popular group.

“A massive 94 per cent of readers rank being well liked as more important than being popular,” Girlfriend’s.

British-born film star known for her roles in Great Expectations and Spartacus

Jean Simmons, who has died aged 80, had a bounteous moment, early in her career, when she seemed the likely casting for every exotic or magical female role. It passed, as she got out of her teens, but then for the best part of 15 years, in Britain and America, she was a valued actress whose generally proper, if not patrician, manner had an intriguing way of conflicting with her large, saucy eyes and a mouth that began to turn up at the corners as she imagined mischief – or more than her movies had in their scripts. Even in the age of Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor, she was an authentic beauty. And there were always hints that the lady might be very sexy. But nothing worked out smoothly, and it is somehow typical of Simmons that her most astonishing...