Warner Bros.

CHICAGO – My love for “Venture Bros.” is well-documented. It’s one of the funnier cartoons of the last decade and I recently complained about the half-season released only on DVD. I apologize. Now that the whole recent season is available on Blu-ray all is right with the world. And Cartoon Network has released another animated adventure to piggy back on one of their best shows in the intriguing “Firebreather.”

CHICAGO – I must admit that I was dreading “Yogi Bear” like most teenagers dread 3rd period Calculus. I have avoided the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movies with just cause and can’t stand the new trend of CGI characters talking to human ones in kids movies. They’re usually pale excuses for family entertainment and the previews for “Yogi Bear” made my stomach turn. So consider it faint praise when I say it’s not THAT bad. Oh, it’s still bad and you can do a lot better for your family movie dollar but it’s more forgettable than truly wretched.

CHICAGO – “All-Star Superman” would be perfectly enjoyable on a Saturday morning but it once seemed that the straight-to-DVD series of films that wore the “DC Universe” banner aimed a little higher than lazy weekend entertainment. Oh, how even the superheroes have fallen. This once-ambitious series (that might be again with an exciting fall release of “Batman: Year One”) has released what is, in many ways, their most lackluster affair to date.

CHICAGO – Todd Phillips followed up his mega-hit and award-winning comedy “The Hangover” with a decidedly lesser affair, a traditional road movie that simply isn’t funny enough to warrant a look except for die hard fans of its stars. Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis don’t do anything particularly wrong in “Due Date,” but the lackluster script and pedestrian direction lets them down.

CHICAGO – As drama circulates around this weekend’s Oscar awards and people question what winners will hold up over the years, it makes sense to look back 35 years to two Best Picture nominees from 1976, a pair of critical darlings (not unlike “The Social Network”) beat out by a popular favorite (“Rocky”) — “All the President’s Men” and “Network.” Both films have recently been released on Blu-ray in great editions for film collectors everywhere.

CHICAGO – I recently made a reference to Katherine Heigl being the symbol of the modern decline of the romantic comedy and was reminded that she’s done good work on “Grey’s Anatomy” and was actually quite good in “Knocked Up.” Then why has she made such horrible films since then? Why have we had to suffer through “27 Dresses,” “The Ugly Truth,” “Killers,” and, now, “Life As We Know It,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD and a film that doesn’t break her downward slide even if it does slow it a bit.

CHICAGO – “Unknown,” the latest thriller to attempt to turn Liam Neeson into an unusual choice for an action star (a la “Taken” and “The A-Team”), is one of those films that nearly works but falls just short of its audience’s expectations. The elements are there — a (mostly) strong ensemble, an interesting concept, an intriguing location, a promising director — but the film never comes together because the script needed one more rewrite that it just never received.

CHICAGO – Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 and became a highly-acclaimed film just two years later from what was then-seen as an unlikely directorial choice in Steven Spielberg. Despite the controversy, the film went on to be nominated for a stunning eleven Academy Awards and is now one of the first Spielberg works to get the HD upgrade.

CHICAGO – The entertainment machine often turns in an unusual way that allows for a wave of material featuring the same star in the same month. Just as Robert De Niro was preparing his odd speech for the Golden Globe Awards, two of his most beloved films were being released on Blu-ray in “Raging Bull” and “Once Upon a Time in America,” while one of his 2010 works in “Stone” was about to hit the market as well. January 2011 is De Niro month. Sadly, while the “Raging Bull” Blu-ray is a gorgeous must-own, “Once Upon a Time in America” is merely satisfactory. The film is still strong but the release is nothing special.

CHICAGO – With shooting expected to begin in May 2011 for “The Dark Knight Rises,” Warner Bros. is currently busy scouting filming locations. While rumors have been running rampant for the last six months about which cities make the lucky cut, we now have two confirmed: Los Angeles and somewhere in the United Kingdom.