Season of the Witch
Netflix Streaming
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Dominic Sena
Starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, Stephen Campbell Moore, Stephen Graham, Christopher Lee
Rogue / Relativity Media
Originally Released: January 7, 2011

Lead us not into temptation”¦

Like the title says, this Dominic Sena movie is about a witch. Or is it?

Establishing itself during the middle ages, full of religious persecution, the Crusades, and the Plague, Season of the Witch (totally unrelated to the 1972 George Romero classic of the same name; or the third chapter of the Halloween franchise) is a journey movie, that is essentially a medieval (and tamer) homage of The Exorcist, taking influence from adventure films such as Lord of the Rings, National Treasure, and more.

“¦or is it?

With the grandiosity of the above description being fairly accurate, Season of the Witch actually falls short of the epic feel of the comparisons above. In fact, the movie has been critically panned since its release, rightful in some areas, but snubbing one particular element worth highlighting: While many areas of the film are a bit of a let-down, there is a fun aspect to the film that props it up, making it a movie worth checking out at least once.

Whiteout
DVD | Blu-ray | Video On Demand
Directed by Dominic Sena
Starring Kate Beckinsale, Tom Skerritt, Gabriel Macht
Warner Bros Home Entertainment
Release date: January 19, 2010

In the frozen wasteland of the South Pole a serve storm, known as a ‘whiteout’, is rapidly making its way to the across Antarctica, prompting an early winter evacuation of a geological encampment. All non-evaculating personal will stay behind for the winter with no flights in or out for six months, so those scheduled for winter leave have get out now. Agent Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is one of the people on their way out. After a two-year stint in Antarctica, the agent is ready to leave her sub-zero beat and resign from her position as a U.S. Marshal all together. Unfortunately, just as she’s about to finally leave, a body is found on the ice, with evidence of foul play. While her friend, Dr. Fury (Tom Skerritt) offers to ship the body elsewhere to absolve Carrie of her duties, the Agent decides to continue the investigation herself with only days left to solve the case before she’s stuck there for the winter.

Based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, Whiteout takes quite a few liberties from its source material, the major one being how Agent Stetko is presented. In the film, Beckinsale plays Agent Stetko as a beautiful, yet withdrawn woman married to the job which she seemingly once loved, but is now conflicted about after a pre-Antarctica drug bust gone array left her traumatized. In the comic, Agent Stetko’s reasons for taking an assignment in Antarctica remain the same — to run away from the trauma from her previous assignment — but how others treat her is entirely different.