Maxim’s Movie Reviews and Opinions Blog

These movies come out on DVD and Blu-Ray the week of September 9, 2008.

The Forbidden Kingdom

(2008) PG-13
Kung fu legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li star in this exciting adventure about a martial arts movie fanatic named Jason (Michael Angarano) who discovers a mystical Chinese staff in a local pawnshop that transports him to war-torn ancient China. When he learns that the staff belongs to the mighty Monkey King, who’s been unjustly imprisoned by an evil warlord, Jason joins a group of skilled warriors to free the captive king and return the weapon. [Maxim's Review] DVD | Blu-Ray

Baby Mama

(2008) PG-13
Tina Fey (TV’s “30 Rock”) stars in this hilarious comedy as Kate Holbrook, an ultra-driven career woman who, upon learning she’s infertile, hires Angie (Amy Poehler), a South Philly working girl, to be her live-in surrogate. As the pair struggles to adjust to their unconventional partnership, Kate and Angie soon discover that sometimes family can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Sigourney Weaver and Greg Kinnear co-star. DVD | Blu-Ray

Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2

(2003-2004) R
In this film noir tale written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, an assassin called the Bride (Uma Thurman) is shot at her wedding by her employer, Bill (David Carradine), and other members of their assassin circle. She survives, though a bullet in her brain keeps her in a coma for five years. Setting out for some payback, the Bride hunts down the various assassins, saving Bill for last. This is the first half of a planned two-part movie. The second half of Quentin Tarantino’s outrageously inventive Kill Bill series is just as murderously brilliant as the first. The Bride (Uma Thurman) wakes up from a coma five years after she was shot in the head. Revenge is on her mind, and she sets out to pick off her ex-mentor’s band of assassins one by one, until there’s nothing left to do but … kill Bill (David Carradine). Co-stars Lucy Liu, Vivica Fox and Michael Madsen. DVD (Volume 1, Volume 2) | Blu-Ray

The Fall

(2006) R
Set in the 1920s, director Tarsem Singh’s visually lush drama stars Lee Pace as paralyzed movie stuntman Roy Walker, who bonds with an imaginative 5-year-old named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) as they convalesce together in a Los Angeles infirmary. To coax the girl into procuring the cache of morphine he wants from the hospital pharmacy, the suicidal Roy regales Alexandria with an elaborate fantasy about larger-than-life heroes. DVD | Blu-Ray

Night Watch

(2005) NR
A.k.a. “Nochnoi Dozor”, this first installment of the trilogy based on the best-selling science fiction novels by Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko plays upon the tension between light and dark, pitting the superhuman Night Watch patrollers (known as the “Others”) against the shadowed forces of the night. But the biggest fear of all stems from the lines of an ancient prophecy, which warns of a renegade Other whose betrayal could bring chaos to the land. DVD | Blu-Ray

Day Watch

(2006) NR
A.k.a. “Dnevnoi Dozor”, Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) finds himself in the middle of a mythic conflict between the forces of Light and Dark in this sequel to Night Watch, the surprise 2004 hit from Russia. To protect his son, who has come under the control of the dark side, Anton must seek an ancient artifact. But the powerful relic threatens to upset the uneasy peace between the two sides and puts Moscow at risk for a devastating cataclysm in this supernatural thriller. DVD | Blu-Ray

This TV series come out on DVD:

• Gray’s Anatomy: The Complete Fourth Season
• Smallville: The Complete Seventh Season
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3
• Ugly Betty: Season 2
• C.S.I. Miami: Season 6
• Wings: Season 7

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