Bradley Cooper

CHICAGO – Holiday shopping season always inspires studios to try and find new ways to market their most successul films. If people loved a movie enough to buy it once, maybe they’ll buy it again with a few new special features and collectibles. Such is how we end up with releases like “The Hangover: Extreme Edition,” a cash grab that seems awfully quick considering most people probably bought the original Blu-ray less than a year ago. This is for hardcore fans only.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – A film where a little girl screams as her foster parents attempt to brutally murder her can be a tough sell to theater owners. Perhaps that’s why Paramount’s “Case 39” with Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper has been sitting on studio shelves for years since it closed production in 2006. How do you market a film that chooses to turn the world of foster parenting into a horror thriller?

CHICAGO – The 2010 version of “The A-Team” (read our review here) may have been a bit of a disappointment at the box office this weekend (producers learned that there’s only space for one ’80s throwback per weekend as Hannibal and B.A. got their ass kicked by “The Karate Kid” — read our review here), but enough people saw it that it probably inspired a bit of nostalgia for the original show or interest by a younger generation who may not be sure why Mr. T. was famous. Collectors should immediately track down the awesomely-packaged “The A-Team: The Complete Series.”

CHICAGO – “Overkill is underrated.” So says Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) near the end of Joe Carnahan’s “The A-Team” and it clearly was the operating principle for not just the characters but the entire production.

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Face (Bradley Cooper) remains defiant, despite his imprisonment in stack of tires.

CHICAGO – This 11-image slideshow features the official press images for Twentieth Century Fox’s “The A-Team” starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, and Gerald McRaney. It was directed by Joe Carnahan and will open on June 11th, 2010.

CHICAGO – Clearly conceived as something like an American version of “Love Actually,” Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day” is an unqualified disaster, a film that’s only interesting in that it may hold the record for the most household names sucked into one horrible film.

CHICAGO – For film lovers unable to attend international film festivals, “Paris, je t’aime” provided an irresistible glimpse at world cinema. Eighteen celebrated filmmakers were each recruited to make a short subject set in the City of Love, thus allowing audiences to view the same town from different cultural perspectives. Some shorts worked better than others, but the resounding majority of them were utterly captivating.

CHICAGO – Sandra Bullock may have had a spectacular 2009, headlining hits “The Proposal” and “The Blind Side” and being named Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the Year, but she also reached the low point of her career (yes, lower than “Speed 2”) in the horrendous, awful, laugh-free “All About Steve,” a worthy candidate for the worst film of the year just passed and now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

CHICAGO – “The Hangover” is arguably the most successful comedy of all time (only a few dollars below “Meet the Fockers” that would probably disappear if you adjust for inflation). The comedy that proved that star power and sequelitis don’t have to drive every Summer movie was wildly beloved by audiences and fans of the film have been given a Blu-Ray release drunk on the film’s success and loaded with special features, including an unrated version of the movie itself.

CHICAGO – Those who seek out “The Hangover” will do so wanting a good laugh. Those who see this film will occasionally be struck with the feeling that they shouldn’t be laughing. But laugh and laugh often they will as “The Hangover” will whirl you through all the fun of inebriation without the consequence of the nasty, next-day headache.