DVD Reviews - #-C

An Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Black Swan (2010) stars Natalie Portman in a bravura performance that earned her an Oscar for Best Actress. The movie also received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Director (Darren Aronofsky).

'Avatar' grossed billions in theaters, and now it comes to DVD and Blu-ray. However, be advised that these are 2-D versions of the original theatrical release on discs that contain no bonus materials. Also, an extended version which contains six additional minutes of new scenes is expected to play in theaters in August 2010.

Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man (2009) is laugh-out-loud-funny at times, yet the worldview embodied by the film is bleak. For some viewers, the edgy humor will be too unsettling, but for many others, it will be cathartic. However, there can be no argument that the movie is thoughtful and humanistic.

Benicio del Toro gives a superb performance as the title character in Che, Steven Soderbergh's idiosyncratic Spanish-language biopic about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967).

This is a documentary that shows how emotionally powerful film can be when used for advocacy journalism.

Written and directed by Atom Egoyan, the English-language drama Adoration takes on terrorism, cultural identity, Internet video chat rooms and other challenging issues.

Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes and an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, The Class has received nearly universal critical acclaim.

A masterpiece of world cinema, Ashes and Diamonds was initially released in 1958. The movie was co-written and directed by Andrzej Wajda, who in the year 2000 was given an Academy Award for "five decades of extraordinary film direction."

Directed by Edward Zwick, Defiance stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber. The movie is based on the nonfiction book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans.