Written by Dave Younger

Young Adam (2003, 98 min.), set in drab postwar Glasgow, Scotland, combines the kitchen-sink dramas of late 50s/early 60s northern England with a Hitchcockian tale – what if you discovered your girlfriend floating dead in a river?  Throw in explicit full-frontal NC-17 sex (most movies, like Blue Valentine, will do anything to avoid this kiss of death, but Young Adam embraces it; they wanted to cut Ewan McGregor’s junk for the American release, but he fought to keep it in)

The comedy team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should be commended for their unwavering attempt to destroy the spoof comedy entirely. Sure, they aided the Wayans brothers in creating the first Scary Movie film (which is decent spoof film) but in 2006 they started their campaign with Date Movie and continued right through Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and now Vampires Suck. Did they succeed? And did it take the recent loss of Leslie Nielsen to have us be reminded that spoofs where once a glorious and enjoyable thing.

The Haunting of Sorority Row has one of those titles that, when you first hear it, you immediately make assumptions about. My initial assumption was that the movie might very well feature a house full of hot young girls in various stages of undress, acting all catty between pillow fights and being menaced by a supernatural entity of some kind. And then I looked down to the bottom of the dvd case and noted that this was produced by Lifetime. Wait, I thought, isn’t a horror movie by the Lifetime Network akin to Spike TV producing a Jane Austen film festival?

A mysterious figure or organization going by the name of War on Crime is apparently engaged in just that in the streets of Soweto. Known drug dealers are being gunned down. On the case is Lt. Deel (Nigel Davenport). Caught up in the case is newspaperman Chaka (Ken Gampu), who is contacted by War on Crime and given tips as to when the next attack will take place. Deel and Chaka are friends of long standing, but their friendship is challenged by the fact that the police captain now views Chaka as a possible accomplice in the vigilante killings. The question, too, is whether there is more to these killings than meets the eye.

Bryce and Juli first meet in the second grade. Juli is convinced that Bryce is walking around with her first kiss, while Bryce is not returning any sense of being similarly infatuated with Juli. As the years pass by, Bryce manages to keep her at bay, until things “flip” (as it were) and it is Juli who may be veering away from Bryce.

A suave Tom Cruise and a flustered Cameron Diaz (wow, what a stretch for both actors) bump into each other at Wichita airport, and a few minutes later do so again. Diaz thinks she might be on to something with the charming hunk, but she is more accurately into something, and in far out of her depth, as the plain flight turns into a gun battle and forced landing. Before she knows it, she doesn't know where to turn and whom to trust: the various menacing government officials (headed up by a sinister Peter Sarsgaard), or the cheery but possibly psychotic rogue Cruise. There will be many a narrow escape and an international location visited before she knows the answer.

Friday and the end of the week brings us to the last of our Gift Guide editions for this week. Today's studio is Lionsgate. Over the last year there have been plenty of solid titles from the roaring studio. I'll bet you have at least one someone on your Christmas list who is into either action or horror. Lionsgate is going to have just the ticket to get that adrenaline going. You better prepare an extra hearty man helping of holiday dinner when you put these titles under the tree, because someone's going to get one heck of a workout.

When I was asked to do a Holiday Gift Guide this year, I quickly realized I wasn’t exactly the best person in the world to tell the public what games they should be buying this year. I’m a cheapskate by nature and my idea of a good game to get this Christmas is the one that is at the bargain bin for twenty bucks or less. But I also realized that by knowing games like I do, I can provide a great traditional and a not-so traditional Holiday Gaming guide. Enjoy.

Our fourth edition of the Upcomingdiscs Holiday Gift Guide takes us to Warner Brothers. For this edition I'm going to help you tackle those people on your Christmas list that have Blu-ray players and love genre television shows. Warner has the best selection of Blu-ray supercharged television shows and seasons to pick from. From the small screen to that big screen hanging in that certain someone's home theater, Warner Brothers is the place to shop.

"The war between sorcerers was fought in the shadows of history, and the fate of mankind rested with the just and powerful Merlin. He taught his secrets to three trusted apprentices, Balthazar, Veronica and Horvath. He should have trusted only two."

It was one of the most memorable Walt Disney moments in the long history of animation. The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment in Fantasia would become the most recognizable piece of the film.