The DVD and Blu-Ray versions are out on 15th February.

Amongst the outsiders he encounters is witty co-worker Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart) who instantly captures his heart. Clueless to her secret affair with rocker turned maintenance man Mick Connell (Ryan Reynolds), he sets out to win her affections, but not without the typical teen trials and tribulations thrown in along the way.

Adventureland is available from February 8th 2010 on Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD. Here is a clip from the film.

It’s contrived and obvious – and doesn’t deviate from that with any enormous surprises, but just keeps ploughing the rom-com genre. The two leads are pleasant and convincing enough but without some originality it’s difficult to be sold on the story, let alone the characters.

This really is one just for those who are either Rom-com completists or like the work of Bullock/Reynolds. Not my cup of tea.

In the end the festival took place in White Lake with nearly half a million people attending or at least trying to.

Ang Lee’s latest film Taking Woodstock tells the story of Elliot Tiber and how he brought the festival to his hometown. Played wonderfully by Demetri Martin, Elliot is finding his feet as an interior designer in Greenwich Village, and feeling at home with the burgeoning gay rights movement.

But he still feels duty bound to return each summer to help his parents failing El Monaco motel, run by his strident, outspoken Jewish Russion mother (Imelda Staunton) and fading father (Henry Goodman). In the summer of 1969 Elliot hears that the Woodstock festival is being chased out of town after town and sees an opportunity to offer his motel to the promoters and make some much-needed income.

Of course things begin to take on a life of their own as the Woodstock chaos and magic comes together to create a generation-defining experience that will change Elliot – and popular culture – forever.

Ang Lee has created a beautiful piece of cinema, as he not only tells Elliot’s story but also shows the importance of the events going on around him. Two hours has rarely gone by so fast.

Highly Recommended. Taking Woodstock is released this Friday 13th November 2009 in cinemas nationwide.

The Invention of Lying is about Mark Bellison, a man who is down on his luck as he finds himself out of a job, facing eviction from his home and unable to woo the girl of his dreams. He is almost ready to admit defeat when he discovers his hidden ability to lie in a world where people only ever tell the truth; this completely turns his life around but, is it really for the better?

The opening credits and the first sequence of this film are very strange and as the plot continues it all becomes a bit too silly; there are a few funny moments throughout but, nothing that really makes you want to laugh out loud, which is quite a disappointment. Gervais is ok as Mark Bellison but, none of the characters in the film are particularly gripping, which adds to the feeling that the film is a bit of a let down. The idea behind this film is really clever and it’s a real shame that it doesn’t quite hit the mark.

The Invention of Lying is the kind of film that is fine to watch if there’s nothing better on but, it’s definitely not one of this Autumns must see movies.

Taking Woodstock will be in cinemas November 13th. Find out more at www.takingwoodstockthemovie.co.uk

Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.

Taking Woodstock is directed by Academy Award®-winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) with a screenplay by James Schamus (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm), based on the book Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber. The film stars Demetri Martin (Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central) as Elliot Tiber, Emile Hirsch (Milk, Into the Wild), and Liev Schreiber (Defiance).

Release date: 13th November 2009

Don’t let this fool you though, as the initial promise soon falls well short of expectations. Surrogates has a great concept based of a successful graphic novel and is directed by Jonathan Mostow of Terminator 3 fame. The running time however is its largest downfall as plot holes quickly squash away any initial promise the film displays.

The plot sees us taken to an unnamed year in earth’s future where society now consists of people laying in bed controlling their robot selves. (Think of The Sims with a pulse). However, society’s flawless lifestyle is quickly disrupted by an unidentifiable criminal who possesses a gun that can kill not only the robot, but the humans controlling it as well.

This is when we get introduced to Bruce Willis in not so unfamiliar territory as a rogue cop by the name of Tom Greer, who quickly goes investigating into the crime. He quickly abandons his dashing, flawless and full haired surrogate in the process to mix it up with balding stubble and a bad attitude, much to the chagrin of his loved ones and peers. By this point it’s best to just sit back and enjoy the pretty colours as the films cohesion quickly unravels before your eyes. Characters motivations go completely unanswered as you’ll find yourself somewhat looking across to the person in the seat next to you with a quizzical look. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. These scenes likely did exist; they’re just probably laying on the cutting room floor somewhere.

Lack of cohesion aside, Surrogates is not a massive failure. The action scenes are slick and effective, but it largely suffers from style over substance. Large portions of the film are very dialogue heavy and will likely spark some fruitful coffee shop discussion about where society is heading, but generally you’ll always likely come back to the fact that the plot quickly lost any semblance of structure to be taken seriously.

I’m unsure as to whether Mostow intended this to be the 1950’s style B movie it very closely resembles. If you go into it with that attitude then you may be pleasantly surprised. Bad timing may be against the film with audiences likely going to watch it after Sci-Fi blockbusters such as Star Trek and more recently District 9, so expectations may be slightly misplaced. However I would say Surrogates is still a rental at best. Hopefully the DVD release will see an uncut version with the plot tightened up.

Maybe this is the dilemma of the DVD distributor these days – with so much choice on digital TV, and on-demand television gaining ground, what is the selling point of the Box-set?

In the case of the Series 12 of the Simpsons DVD Boxset the selling point is the imaginative and detailed extras, as well as appealing to the Simpsons completists out there. You’ve got episode commentaries, deleted scenes, animation showcase and a whole lot more.

And then there are the 21 episodes – some great, some middling but worth a watch.

So it’s a good boxset, if you like that sort of thing.

The film is about a group of aliens who become stuck on earth after their Mothership breaks down. The people of Johannesburg find them malnourished and so they set up a secure camp for them to live in where they can be separate from the human population.

However, this does not quite work for the locals as the aliens (or ‘prawns’) start to break the rules of their confinement. The authorities decide it’s time for them to be moved outside of Johannesburg into a new camp and so they are all served eviction notices which they are expected to cooperate with.

One vigilante alien has other ideas; he has been running an operation under his home in District 9 where he has been working on a special substance which will enable him to repair the Mothership to take his people home again.
The government agent in charge of the evictions is exposed to the liquid when searching the alien’s home and slowly finds that he is transforming into one of the ‘prawns’.

District 9 is a really interesting film. It’s shot in a documentary style which feels strange at first but really works as you adapt to the technique. The film is gripping from start to finish and the interaction between the aliens and the humans is great to watch and offers plenty of laughs. The film feels fresh and quite different to the alien films we usually see, which makes it a brilliant watch.