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Science fiction can encompass many genres–suspense, horror, action-adventure, romance, even comedy–but director Duncan Jones’s Moon doesn’t fit neatly into any of them. This smart, provocative film has no aliens or cool spaceships, and the effects (mostly consisting of model vehicles lumbering across the lunar surface) aren’t all that special; instead, the material is character- and story-driven, centering on an excellent, multilayered performance by Sam Rockwell. The scene is some undetermined point in the future. Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an employee of Lunar Industries, the company responsible for mining a fusion energy source called Helium-3, which is vital to Earth’s efforts to reverse a serious energy crisis and can only be found on the far side of the Moon. Sam is all by himself, and as he nears the end of his three-year contract, the solitude is starting to get to him (“Three years is a long haul,” he says. “Way, way, way too long. I’m talking to mys (more…)

The making of honest action movies has become so rare that Kathryn Bigelow’s magnificent The Hurt Locker was shown mostly in art cinemas rather than multiplexes. That’s fine; the picture is a work of art. But it also delivers more kinetic excitement, more breath-bating suspense, more putting-you-right-there in the danger zone than all the brain-dead, visually incoherent wrecking derbies hogging mall screens. Partly it’s a matter of subject. The movie focuses on an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, the guys whose more or less daily job is to disarm the homemade bombs that have accounted for most U.S. casualties in Iraq. But even more, the film’s extraordinary tension derives from the precision and intelligence of Bigelow’s direction. She gets every sweaty detail and tactical nuance in the close-up confrontation of man and bomb, while keeping us alert to the volatile wraparound reality of an ineluctably foreign environment–hot streets and blank-walled building (more…)

Tenacious D, “The Complete Masterworks” features a concert shot live at Seattle’s Moore Theater as well as a full length documentary. Follow the band after the release of their first feature film, Tenacious D “The Pick Of Destiny” and see how they handle the less-than-stellar success of that film and tons of behind the scenes footage…all totally uncensored. Blu-ray Disc Tracklisting 1.Kielbasa 2.History 3.Wonderboy 4.Dio 5.Lee 6.Saxaboom 7.The Road 8.Hell Movie Skit 9.Kickapoo 10.Karate 11.Dude (I Totally Miss You) 12.Kyle Quit The Band 13.Friendship 14.The Metal 15.Papagenu (He’s My Sassafrass) 16.Master Exploder 17.Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown) 18.Double Team 19.F*** Her Gently 20.Tribute 21.Who Medley Disc 2 D TOUR: A TENACIOUS DOCUMENTARY Running Time: 1:08Extras: “Time Fixers” VIDEO “Classico” VIDEO LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O’BRIEN Performance “Master Exploder” MTV MOVIE AWARDS 2006 Performance “Saturday Night Live” Performance “The Metal” Video/Audio 720p24 (more…)

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The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great–in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision–is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City’s new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralyzed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon–and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution–kill the Batman. Further compli (more…)