Vacancy [Blu-ray]

Vacancy [Blu-ray] Overview

When David (Luke Wilson) and Amy Fox's (Kate Beckinsale) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they are forced to spend the night at the only motel around, with only the TV to entertain them... until they discover that the low-budget slasher videos they find in their room were all filmed in the very room they're sitting in. With hidden cameras now aimed at them... trapping them in rooms, crawlspaces, underground tunnels... and filming their every move, David and Amy must struggle to get out alive before they end up the next victims on tape.

Vacancy [Blu-ray] Specifications

A confined setting is a useful tool for thriller-makers, and Vacancy is definitely boxed in: a rundown motel way, way off the Interstate, the kind of place where unsuspecting movie characters go to get stabbed to death in the shower. If Vacancy doesn't quite live up to its Hitchcockian forbears, at least it provides 80 minutes of well-designed mayhem. You know somebody's paying attention just from the opening credits, a clever vortex with pounding music by Paul Haslinger. Then we meet unhappy couple Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, driving along in the dark and forced to stay at the Pinewood Motel after a car breakdown. There's a night man (Frank Whaley, decadent) in the tradition of Dennis Weaver's Touch of Evil gargoyle, but the real mess of trouble is waiting in room number 4. Director Nimrod Antal, who scored a stylish international hit with the Hungarian thriller Kontroll, squeezes maximum juice out of the Route 66 atmosphere of the motel, although the movie doesn't get under your skin the way Kontroll did. Wilson and Beckinsale are a little too marquee-namish for this kind of heavy-breathing work, and the script doesn't give them much to play with. But hey, it's not that kind of movie. Where it really belongs is on the top half of a drive-in double bill, or maybe as a nightmare-scenario TV movie from the Seventies. Either way, it works. --Robert Horton

Stills from Vacancy (click for larger image)

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Vacancy on DVD

Avoid Your own Travel Disaster

By the Director

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Band of Brothers with The Pacific Part One [Blu-ray]

Band of Brothers with The Pacific Part One [Blu-ray] Overview

Based on the bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose, the epic 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers' journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. They were an elite rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were also a unit that suffered 150 percent casualties, and whose lives became legend.

Band of Brothers with The Pacific Part One [Blu-ray] Specifications

An impressively rigorous, unsentimental, and harrowing look at combat during World War II, Band of Brothers follows a company of airborne infantry--Easy Company--from boot camp through the end of the war. The brutality of training takes the audience by increments to the even greater brutality of the war; Easy Company took part in some of the most difficult battles, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the failed invasion of Holland, and the Battle of the Bulge, as well as the liberation of a concentration camp and the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. But what makes these episodes work is not their historical sweep but their emphasis on riveting details (such as the rattle of a plane as the paratroopers wait to leap, or a flower in the buttonhole of a German soldier) and procedures (from military tactics to the workings of bureaucratic hierarchies). The scope of this miniseries (10 episodes, plus an actual documentary filled with interviews with surviving veterans) allows not only a thoroughness impossible in a two-hour movie, but also captures the wide range of responses to the stress and trauma of war--fear, cynicism, cruelty, compassion, and all-encompassing confusion. The result is a realism that makes both simplistic judgments and jingoistic enthusiasm impossible; the things these soldiers had to do are both terrible and understandable, and the psychological price they paid is made clear. The writing, directing, and acting are superb throughout. The cast is largely unknown, emphasizing the team of actors as a whole unit, much like the regiment; Damian Lewis and Ron Livingston play the central roles of two officers with grit and intelligence. Band of Brothers turns a vast historical event into a series of potent personal experiences; it's a deeply engrossing and affecting accomplishment. --Bret Fetzer

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Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Overview

Just how fabulous do you have to be to make it big in the Big Apple? One aspiring diva is about to find out...the hard way! Ashley Tisdale shines in this totally captivating comedy.

After a talent scout spots her performing with her dog Boi at a charity gala, Sharpay Evans (Tisdale) sets off for the bright lights of NYC, convinced instant fame and fortune are in the bag (designer bag, that is). But theatre's a dog-eat-dog world, as she and Boi discover when they encounter the devious owner of a pampered pooch named "Countess" and a scheming Broadway starlet who will do anything to crush the competition. Fortunately, Sharpay also meets Peyton (Austin Butler), a handsome student filmmaker who finds Sharpay nearly as fascinating as she finds herself.

Sparkling with fun, fashion and fantastic bonus features, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure will make your whole family stand up and cheer!

Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Specifications

Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale, High School Musical) has never lacked self-confidence, so when a Broadway casting agent sees her perform with her dog Boi and offers to set up an audition in New York, Sharpay assumes she'll immediately succeed as a Broadway star. Her father is skeptical, but Sharpay quickly arranges for a penthouse in New York, sets up an appointment to audition, and convinces her father to give her a month to follow her dreams and achieve success. New York has some surprises in store for the aspiring young actress, starting with a no-pets policy that lands Sharpay and her dog out on the street on their very first day in town. Enter Peyton, a budding filmmaker and the son of Sharpay's mother's college friend, and the realization that it's Boi who's auditioning for a part rather than Sharpay, and Sharpay's dreams quickly begin to unravel. Forced to stoop lower than she could ever have imagined, Sharpay scrambles to salvage some shred of her dreams, but it looks like failure is imminent. Like Sharpay, this film is quite predictable, very pink, and often overdone--but then, that's the whole point--and the target audience of tweens and young teens is sure to find it all quite entertaining. Sharpay will likely never learn humility, but her character does grow during the film as she learns to adapt, to at least take note of the motivations and feelings of those around her, and discovers an unexpected inner strength. Austin Butler gives a strong performance as Peyton, the only real two-dimensional character in the film, and Tisdale is once again frighteningly believable as the self-absorbed Sharpay. Bradley Steven Perry (Good Luck Charlie) and Cameron Goodman (Friends with Benefits) are both adequate in their respective roles, but the rest of the cast is fairly marginal. All formats include several brief doggie bloopers. The Blu-ray two-disc pack includes an "Evolution of Sharpay" featurette with interview footage of Tisdale and an "Austin Cam" segment with backstage and onstage footage shot by Butler. The three-disc limited-edition combo pack offers all the aforementioned features and comes packaged in a pink clutch purse and a tri-fold cardboard sleeve with pictures from the film. (Ages 9 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

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Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-ray]

Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-ray] Feature

• Condition: New
• Format: Blu-ray
• AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; Subtitled; Widescreen

Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-ray] Overview

Twenty-six years ago, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. Subsequently, their father raised them to be soldiers. He taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America ... and he taught them how to kill it. This haunting series follows the Winchester brothers as they crisscross the lonely and mysterious back roads of the country in their '67 Chevy Impala, hunting down every evil supernatural force they encounter along the way. At the end of the fourth season, Sam unwittingly broke the final seal – that held Lucifer captive in Hell. Now, Lucifer is free, the Apocalypse is here and angels prepare for a spectacular final battle. Against a landscape of celestial violence, natural disasters and a rising human death toll, Sam and Dean, with the help of fallen angel Castiel, must find a way to achieve the impossible: Kill the Devil.

Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-ray] Specifications

How's this for a story arc: the Gates of Hell are opened, unleashing both Lucifer himself and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and bringing to an end civilization as we know it. That's what awaits fans of Supernatural in its fifth and most epic season to date. The stumbles in plot or character that are typical to most long-running series are largely missing from this season (though some might consider the stunt casting of Paris Hilton as a pagan goddess in "Hammer of the Gods" as such); instead, there's a solid, complex, and entirely satisfying run of episodes, and even a pair of series highlights in "Changing Channels" and "The Real Ghostbusters." The former finds heroes Sam and Dean (Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki) trapped in a TV-influenced netherworld populated by perverse small-screen archetypes, while the latter is a clever bit of meta-fiction involving a real ghost at a Supernatural fan convention, complete with Winchester brothers look-alikes. The other 20 episodes bounce between stand-alone adventures and the larger story at hand, which finds the brothers racing to collect the rings of the Four Horsemen, which will return Lucifer to his prison. This is fantasy storytelling for television at its best--broad in scope and heavy with special effects, but never forgetting that the core of the show is the relationship between Sam and Dean and their joint quest to rid the world of evil. Both are well represented here in a season that brings the show's main story line to its fitting and satisfying conclusion.

Fans should also be pleased with most of the extras on the six-disc set for Season 5. The most ambitious feature is the Apocalypse Survival Guide, hosted by Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver). Presented as a tour through Bobby's house, the guide gives viewers a detailed lowdown on the major players in the war against Satan, including the Horsemen, various demons, and the Man in Red himself. Navigating one's way through the interactive videos can be a challenge, as the layout requires viewers to constantly restart the disc in order to review certain videos, but for sheer informational content, it's hard to beat. Also present is a commentary track by series creator Eric Kripke (who left the series at the end of this season) and writer Ben Edlund on "The End," which required such elaborate sets that the show earned its own back lot; said location also gets a once-over, as does an unaired scene from "The Real Ghostbusters." Best of all is perhaps the entire web series Ghostfacers, which pokes much-needed fun at the reality show Ghost Hunters in addition to providing some minor scares. --Paul Gaita

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In the Line of Fire (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

In the Line of Fire (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Overview

A gripping, gut-wrenching thriller that delivers suspense in almost unbearable doses, In the Line of Fire showcases Clint Eastwood at his finest. In a performance that won universal acclaim, Eastwood stars as Frank Horrigan, a veteran Secret Service agent haunted by his failure to protect John F. Kennedy from assassination. Thirty years later, he gets a chance to redeem himself when a brilliant psychopath threatens to kill the current president and take Horrigan with him. Taunting him by phone and tantalizing him with clues, the assassin (John Malkovich) lures Horrigan into an electrifying battle of wits and will that only one man can survive. Co-starring Rene Russo as Horrigan's risk-taking Field Chief, In the Line of Fire is a high-wire balancing act of searing suspense, explosive action and surprising romance.

In the Line of Fire (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Specifications

Between his directorial duties on A Perfect World and The Bridges of Madison County, Clint Eastwood starred in this pulse-racing 1993 thriller. In the Line of Fire was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, the brilliant director of the World War II U-boat masterpiece Das Boot. Eastwood gives one of his best performances as Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, who still feels responsible for the death of JFK 30 years earlier. Horrigan gets a shot at redemption when challenged by a psychotic but highly intelligent assassin (John Malkovich) who intends to kill the current U.S. president. Tension builds as this intellectual cat-and-mouse game reaches its climactic confrontation, but not before we've seen the killer at work, covering his trail with ruthless precision. Tightly scripted by Jeff Maguire, the film cuts Malkovich loose as one of the most memorable screen villains of the 1990s, and costars Rene Russo as Eastwood's sharp Secret Service colleague and romantic partner. --Jeff Shannon

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