Disconnect
Blu-ray | DVD
Directed by Henry Alex Rubin
Starring Jason Bateman, Alexander Skarsgard, Frank Grillo, Michael Nyqvist, Paula Patton, Jonah Bobo, Andrea Riseborough and Max Thieriot
Lionsgate
Theatrical Release Date: April 12, 2013
Blu-ray/DVD Release Date: September 17, 2013

First time director, Henry Alex Rubin, masters one of the most formidable difficulties in cinema with the greatest of ease and subtlety. He is able to take multiple narratives and seamlessly connect them in plausible ways in Disconnect. This weaving of narratives can be cumbersome and tackily melodramatic. Such was the case in 2005 when Crash made this storytelling popular, and a year later Babel grandly exploited the ploy to achieve artistic splendor. Each of these films was successful in their own right (Crash winning Best Picture at the Oscars and Babel receiving much critical acclaim).

After those two aforementioned films it seemed that the interlocking narrative was bound for obsolescence, following many botched attempts to replicate the magic that directors Paul Haggis and Alfonso Cuaron captured. But Mr. Rubin, working with an impeccable script crafted by Andrew Stern, resuscitates this form of narrative, attaching to it a social and domestic relevance that will undoubtedly leave viewers reeling after realizing there is a latent infection not only constantly threatening our society today but also our personal lives.

Another year, another set of fascinating panels here at San Diego’s Comic-con international 2013. First off this Thursday is a panel for Europa Report, the film Space.com called “One of the most thrilling and realistic depictions of deep-space exploration since Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The panelists were director Sebastian Cordero, composer Bear McCreary (composer of Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead), producer Ben Browning, and actress Karolina Wydra, alongside JPL scientists Steve Vance and Kevin Hand. Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait moderated.

Starting the panel off, Dr. Plait mentioned that the three reasons we explore space are resources, danger, and simply to explore — sheer curiosity. And sometimes that exploration comes with a price.

We’ve already seen a bunch of photos of Twilight star Taylor Lautner in action in his new conspiracy-thriller Abduction, as well as the first trailer for movie.

Now, Lionsgate has released the second trailer for the film, directed by John Singleton. Watch the new trailer here below.

In Abduction, Lautner plays a teenager who finds his baby photo on a missing persons website, which makes him question his background, and eventually he becomes a target of the CIA and the Serbian Secret Service.

The Girl Who Played With Fire
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Daniel Alfredson
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, and Hans Christian Thulin
Music Box Films Home Entertainment
Released: October 26, 2010

In early 2009, I recall browsing Amazon for some new reading material. I was after something different, something new, and by an author I had not yet read material from. Topping the bestsellers at the site that month was a series of three novels from a Swedish author named Stieg Larsson. Curious at the books, I became even more intrigued upon the discovery that these books were published posthumously and that they had since become the biggest selling novels in his home country of Sweden.

The first tale, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was an absolutely riveting tale, a book to which the “cliché” absolutely applies. With the first few chapters I was an advocate in Larsson’s world of the Millennium Trilogy (named after the magazine company one of the main characters works for), and completely a fan.