J. Edgar may not have taken home any Academy Award nominations, but the film does deserve special accolades for Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance. I can’t say that I’m a fan of younger actors who put on makeup to look much older. Usually the illusion takes away from the film. However, in this case, DiCaprio does a stellar job of playing the dual role of a younger insecure J. Edgar and the older J. Edgar shrouded in lies and cover-ups. The biopic tried to expand on the FBI director’s personal life, while simultaneously exploring J. Edgar’s philosophy on secrecy. However, in trying to do both, it fell short of doing either equally well.

The film explores J. Edgar’s relationship with his mother as well as his closest colleague Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The story spans the FBI director’s fifty years of service to the nation, starting with his humble beginnings. ...

Are you a fan of Young Justice? I know I am. It’s by far one of the best new series to hit Cartoon Network. Thundercats, Young Justice and Ben 10 are the triumvirate of cartoons that can be enjoyed by children young and old. Give me a marathon of those three cartoons and I’m in total utopia.

Unfortunately, all three of these series have one universal problem. Home video releases. Much like the schedule of episode airings on TV, the home video releases tend to come to us in fragmented bits. We can never get an entire season at once to sit down with and enjoy. Young Justice Season 1 Volume 3 is the latest release in this home video fiasco. It collects four episodes from the series: “Bereft”, “Targets”, “Terrors” and “Home Front”. However, don’t expect any cool bonus features. As great as Young Justice is, there is no ...

Eddie Murphy’s original idea to unite several black comics on screen becomes a mediocre crime comedy in Tower Heist. This one-time watch popcorn flick has a few laughs thanks to lesser-known actors like Casey Affleck and Michael Peña. Murphy appears in rear form, sidestepping the past ten years of slapstick comedic roles for a straight character. Although he only takes center stage for a small part of the movie, it’s the segment with the most laughs. Murphy helps to bolster the energy whenever Matthew Broderick tries to suck the life out of the heist with his Debbie downer performance. When you’re not distracted by Gabourey Sidibe’s bad Jamaican accent or the odd romance that buds between Ben Stiller and Téa Leoni, you may even find yourself enjoying this Tower Heist. The Blu-ray comes with a few bonus features that warrant watching, especially two alternative endings that seem better than the ...

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is one of the most loved and memorable musicals of the theatre. In October 2011, the 1986 musical celebrated its 25th anniversary by staging a show at London’s Robert Albert Hall. The anniversary production was filmed so that this once-in-a-lifetime performance could join the rising number of theatre performances coming home to Blu-ray. While the complex set changes and some of the more dramatic theatre effects are marginalized due to the location and filming concerns, the overall production stays in tact. It’s a mesmerizing display of theatre talent, complete with a reunion performance. There are a handful of moments, however, that will make die-hard theatre fans wince – as I did when I saw them use LED screens. I still thoroughly enjoyed the performance what it was, a chance to see Phantom performed once again at a fraction of the cost of ...

“Maybe birthdays are dangerous, like Christmas.”

The Sunset Limited, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, is one of the best film adaptations of a stage play. Jones and Jackson do a magnificent job of bringing to life Cormac McCarthy’s rich, provocative dialogue. It’s a minimalist story, but the actors find ways to get under your skin and make you question your every waking breath.

Often when a stage play is converted into a film, something is lost from the performance and the experience. The subtle magic of a theatre’s imperfect lighting, larger than life stage sets and the reality of a live show draw you into a world that can’t be mimicked on film. Sometimes I can’t help but cringe when a classic play or musical gets a film adaptation.

So when The Sunset Limited, the minimalist stage play from McCarthy (The Road, No Country for Old Men), was adapted ...

The year was 1992. Spike Lee’s Malcolm X was on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the neighborhood. Teens and children were listening to jazz inspired hip-hop from Tribe Called Quest’s second album, The Low End Theory. The Native Tongues were encouraging unity in their music. Wearing Africa Medallions became a trend in fashion, along with clothing that reflected African unity and education. Cross Colours proclaimed catch phrases like “Academic Hard Ware” and “Racism Hurts Everybody”, while sweatshirts marked African American College Alliance bolstered the youth’s interest in higher education. The word in the street was “spread love not war”. The winter season was just coming to a close in the first quarter of ‘92 and Malcolm X had yet to even open in the theaters.

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Spike Lee’s Academy-Award-nominated biopic Malcolm X. When you look at a film when it is first released, the ...

If you are not a fan of Delocated yet, then a marathon sitting at home is the only way to digest it. You just have to keep in mind that it gets better once you learn the characters. Jon Glaser has created an awkward comedy with an even more awkward and bizarre premise. A family in federal witness protection gets a deal for a reality TV series. The government lets them move to New York and do the series as long as they always wear their masks. Although this mockumentary is outrageously unbelievable, in today’s world of Kim Kardashian dominated pseudo-reality TV, anything goes. Just remember you have to want to stick it out through the first few episodes.

The pilot opens up with Jon (Glaser) and his family moving with their security detail to New York City. It’s not long before you realize that Jon is a self-absorbed jerk. ...

In the treacherous realm of horror movie sequels and prequels, Final Destination 5 ranks as one of the more rewarding. The creative team had originally meant to close off the series with the fourth movie The Final Destination, but then opted for one last go round. The fifth movie serves as a prequel that loops back into the first movie. For long time fans, there are several Easter eggs with regards to character appearances as well as a few of the horrible deaths that take place. The Blu-ray release will delight fans of the film. The producers included step-by-step featurettes on some of the large-scale death sequences. If you’re up watching this film late at night, seeing the deaths demystified is a nice way to ward off the nightmares.

Final Destination 5 stars Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, and Tony ...

In life and science there are a few rules that can never be broken. For instance, energy and momentum are always conserved. It’s a law – that as far as the leading thinkers in the world know – will never be changed. There are also unwritten rules. Such as, boys will be boys no matter how old they get. A thirteen year-old adolescent is inherently no different from a grown man. That’s the rule we were reminded of in The Hangover Part II: that guys, when left to our own vices, will always find a way to party and inevitably make a mess of things. The film also was a reminder that sequels – save those based on Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings books – are generally travesties waiting to happen.

Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms’s Thailand reunion of debauchery had several things going ...

Some television shows reveal their greatness within their first few episodes (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad). Some take an entire season (Fringe) while others take two or three (Sons of Anarchy). Great TV is never a certainty and Boardwalk Empire, whose first season is finally being released on DVD and Blu-ray, is the perfect example of that. It boasts a killer pilot, written by Terence Winter and directed by none other than Martin Scorsese, that the following eleven episodes don’t necessarily live up to. It’s not a disappointment by any means. It’s about high expectations. Boardwalk Empire is a good show but it doesn’t become great until its second season. But the first season is fascinating in its own right.

For the uninitiated, Boardwalk Empire takes place in early 1920′s Atlantic City. Prohibition is the law of the land but that doesn’t stop city treasurer and Republican puppet master Nucky Thompson ...