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Clues, Symbols, Mysteries, and the Pope
Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson's War, Bachelor Party) returns as the superstar symbologist Robert Langdon in Ron Howard's (Frost/Nixon, Far and Away) sequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, new this week on DVD and Blu-Ray. After proving his skills in the first movie, the Catholic church summons Langdon to solve a the mystery of four cardinals kidnapped by the Illuminati and a threat to blow up the Vatican. Assisted by a beautiful physicist (Ayelet Zurer: Munich, Vantage Point), he's allowed access to ancient archives by Ewan McGregor (Incendiary, Down with Love), leading him to first clue in a series of codes, symbols, and riddles that lead to the solution to a complex puzzle that only Langdon can solve.
The Tragedy of Comedy
Adam Sandler (Bedtime Stories, Bulletproof) plays an aging comedy star in Judd Apatow's (Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin) Funny People. Past his prime but famous from doing family comedy films, Sander returns to stand up comedy but finds he's lost a lot of his comedic instincts, so he hires a younger comedian (Seth Rogen: Observe and Report, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) 
to help him write new material. The two men work together and start to form a friendship, one sees the fame and success he wants and the other sees the normal life and relationships he left behind. With Leslie Mann (17 Again, Stealing Harvard).
Christmas and Kids
Vince Vaughn (The Break Up, The Cell) and Reese Witherspoon (Penelope, Vanity Fair) are a couple who love the holidays in Four Christmases- their secret: every year they take off for a sunny vacation, away from their families. When a fog rolls in and cancels their flight, they're forced to spend Christmas at home, and with divorced parents, they have four separate Christmases to attend, each fraught with wild, comic dysfunction. With Robert Duvall (We Own the Night, The Great Santini), Sissy Spacek (North Country, Carrie), and Jon Favreau (Wimbledon, Very Bad Things). On DVD and Blu-Ray.
As December approaches, more and more Christmas movies are arriving. This week, we have the Finnish Christmas Story, about the young boy named Nikolas who grew up to be Santa Claus, and how he became the beloved Christmas symbol. We also have Disney's newest talking puppies movie, Santa Buddies, where the Buddies travel to the North Pole and share the meaning of Christmas with Puppy Paws and Santa Paws.
Robert Rodriguez's (Spy Kids, Sin City) newest family film is Shorts, about a boy (Jimmy Bennett: Orphan, Star Trek) who finds a magical "wishing rock" that completely re-writes reality. The movie comes together as a series of out-of-order short stories, that all fall together to tell the story of the Black Box corporation who want to use the rock for their own evil purposes, while the kids want to use the rock for better purposes... like turning an annoying brother into a beetle. With Kat Dennings (Charlie Bartlett, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist).
Reckless video has also received Disney's new DVD of the 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Crime
The Italian gangster film Gomorrah interweaves five separate stories of men whose lives are touched by organized crime. As the film drifts from the man who distributes money to imprisoned mobsters' families to the anxious kids who want to join their neighborhood gang, the film ties the stories together as the stories lead to a singular conclusion.
A museum security guard (Christopher Walken: The Stepford Wives, The Deer Hunter) finds out that his favorite painting is about to be moved to a different collection in The Maiden Heist. When he finds that the other guards (Morgan Freeman: The Bucket List, Unleashed and William H. Macy: Bart Got a Room, Magnolia) also have attachments to the collection, they devise a plan to keep the art that's so important to them: they'll rob the museum. With Marcia Gay Harden (P.S, Flubber).
Romantic Comedies
In Taking Chances, Justin Long (Drag Me to Hell, Dodgeball) is a history-obsessed patriot who finds out an indian casino is going to be built over his town's Revolutionary War battlefield. With the help of Emmanuelle Chriqui (Cadillac Records, 100 Girls), he takes on the town's corrupt mayor (Rob Corddy: Semi-Pro, Old School). With Keir O'Donnell (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Pathology) and Missi Pyle (Spring Breakdown, Feast of Love).
The French Toi & Moi is about two sisters who use their own love lives as inspiration for romantic stories that they publish in popular magazine. Their stories don't translate to real life, though, as their search for the kinds of rich, single men that populate their fiction puts them in the path of more realistic, commitment-phobic suitors.
New this week to Reckless Video's TV New Releases are the wildly crude Christmas special It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas and the fifth season of the Canadian comedy Trailer Park Boys.
