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Family Matters

Christian Bale and Melissa Leo won Best Supporting Actor and Actress Oscars this year for their roles in David O Russell's The Fighter, based on the real life events of welterweight boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Micky's career has been run by his family, namely his ex-fighter brother (Bale) and his forceful mother (Leo), but his losing streak and life in crisis inspires him to retire. When Amy Adams turns his life around, Mickey gets back into the ring... but without his mother's interference or his brother's drug addiction to weigh him down. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) is single, but ready to have a child, so she opts for artificial insemination in The Switch. Her neurotic best friend Wally (Jason Bateman) isn't thrilled with the idea... and, when he meets the boy years later, he's shocked how much he has in common with the boy. As Kassie begins to date Roland, (Patrick Wilson) the donor, Wally starts to suspect he might be a better match for the family than Roland. With Jeff Goldblum. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Coping with Loss

Director Clint Eastwood's meditation on death and loss, Hereafter intertwines several stories of people with connections to the afterlife. Cecile De France survives a catastrophic tsunami that kills thousands around her, a young boy suffers a shocking loss and begins to search for answers, and a medium (Matt Damon) who communicates with the deceased tries to lead a normal life by hiding the skill he considers a curse. Their lives intersect in ways both large and small, each connected in some way to the world beyond this one. With Lindsey Marshal. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Documentaries

The Oscar-nominated Waste Land, by a team of directors (including Lucy Walker), is both about the state of landfills and the artists and trash-pickers who create acclaimed artwork by using waste material. The film focuses on Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist creating art from landfills, making well-received pieces that help bolster awareness of the conditions from which they were created.

An exploration of the friendship between two legendary filmmakers, Two in the Wave tells the stories of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, two of the most prominent auteurs in the French New Wave of the 50s and 60s.

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Creature Feature

Hot on the heels of Piranha, SyFy's Sharktopus releases another underwater terror on unsuspecting swimmers. An ambitious scientist (Eric Roberts) designs a shark/octopus hybrid as a weapon for the navy, but the dangerous creature goes rogue and begins wreaking havoc off the coast of Mexico, providing the kinds of mayhem, bikinis, blood, and monsters that only appear in Roger Corman productions.

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Family Friendly

Tomas, a young orphan, has a hard time with his classmates in the Irish A Shine of Rainbows, but his life is changed when he's brought home by Connie Nielsen, the headmaster of his school. Her husband (Aidan Quinn) wanted an older and more confident boy, but Tomas has to adapt to his new family, make new friends, and begin to truly discover who he is.

Barbie: A Fairy Secret is the newest of the popular series of Barbie computer animated movies, where Barbie has to rescue Ken from a secret Fairy World.

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Older films new this week to our New to Reckless section are Ronald Neame's 60's heist film Gambit, starring Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine. We also have Ann-Margret and John Forsythe in Kitten with a Whip and the Australian family adventure BMX Bandits (Nicole Kidman's first film).