The first time we see Walt Kowalski, Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino, he looks like he’s about to explode — literally — as in spontaneously combust. Standing at his wife’s funeral and growling to himself as his family files in, he looks as if he could go nuclear at any given second, like he might take off sprinting through the pews, snapping as many necks as possible in a grim attempt to ensure that his recently deceased wife isn’t lonely in the afterlife. The impression that his character makes is direct and unmistakable, and the whispered conversation that takes place between his two sons as they ponder what will become of the rancorous war veteran ensures that we know exactly where he’s at in life before the end of the first scene. It’s plain to see that Walt has precious little tolerance for foolishness, and now that he’s alone, there’s no buffer between his bitterness and the outside world.

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Completely riveting, yet about as emotionally distant as the chilly former concentration camp guard portrayed in the film by Kate Winslet, director Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-bait follow up to his 2002 award winner, The Hours, stays coolly detached despite featuring some pretty steamy sex scenes and dealing with a highly confrontational subject matter. Still, emotional impact is admittedly not the be-all and end-all of a great film, and those in search of an absorbing, intellectually stimulating study of German Holocaust guilt will certainly have something to talk about after the credits roll.

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If you were secretly (or not so secretly) hoping that the WWII thriller Valkyrie would be a train wreck — with Tom Cruise manically steering the locomotive toward its fiery demise by playing Nazi saboteur Claus von Stauffenberg like he’s starring in “Top Gun Part II: Maverick Mutiny” — you might be disappointed. History buffs and World War II fans probably never put Cruise on the shortlist of actors to play the loyal German soldier-turned-righteous traitor, who became a key player in the most nearly successful attempt to assassinate Hitler and overthrow his government. But the notorious action star keeps his bombastic persona remarkably reeled in, and the resulting film is earnest, somber, and extremely modest — almost to a fault.

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Think back a bit. How many times have you heard an old man spout that time-honored cliche, “If I knew then what I know now, things would have been a lot different growing up.” In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a man has the extremely rare opportunity to do just that. Adapted from author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story by director David Fincher and Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Munich, Forrest Gump), the film allows us to take two journeys simultaneously — one physical, and the other psychological. At its core, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an inventive and involving mortality fantasy that isn’t as much about the eponymous protagonist as it is about the people he meets along the way in life, and the profound effect they can have on his existence and world view — even if their names tend to escape him from time to time.

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As a modest little dramedy about the everyday adventures of starting a family, Marley & Me is pretty solid, but as a movie about the joy and heartbreak of owning a dog, it goes straight for the jugular. Based on the autobiographical book by columnist John Grogan, the story effectively begins with newlyweds John and Jennifer (played Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) adopting the titular blonde lab puppy as a sort of precursor to having kids. Marley soon grows into a wacky, 95 lb. canine wrecking ball, and serves as the constant in their lives as they navigate the waters of buying houses, having babies, choosing career paths, and (of course) accidentally discovering the meaning of life. (Hint: It was there all along!)

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Adam Sandler became a comic star by mining arrested development for laughs. He found variations to his attack: there is the infantile Sandler of Billy Madison, and the sweet, innocent Sandler of The Wedding Singer. However, Bedtime Stories marks the first time he’s tried to make a child friendly movie.

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Sam Mendes won the Best Director Oscar for his debut film, American Beauty. The 1999 black comedy took a jaded view of suburban ennui and emasculated middle-aged men, and while Mendes returns to this subject matter with his adaptation of Richard Yates’ cult novel Revolutionary Road, it’s hardly a case of an artist reverting to safe, familiar territory. Set in the 1950s, Revolutionary Road stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet – reunited for the first time since Titanic - as Frank and April Wheeler, thirtysomething suburbanites who imagine themselves free spirits, but are in fact just as ordinary as all the neighbors they condescend to. He takes the train into the city to work as a white-collar drone for a company that sells “business machines,” she’s a housewife who once dreamed of becoming an actress. On the surface, they have achieved the middle-class American dream, but in truth, their marriage has deteriorated into an emotionally deadening game of playing house that, after a particularly lacerating argument, sends Frank running into the arms (and bed) of another woman. April, on the other hand, responds to that row by offering a radical change that will shake them out of their rut: she suggests they pack up their two kids and move to Paris. After some discussion, she wins him over with the argument that she will work and he can find what it is he wants to do. They then proceed to gleefully spring the news on their friends and neighbors, who respond with a combination of shock and dismay that tickles the Wheelers’ sense of superiority. Soon, however, an unexpected complication throws a wrench in their plan, and forces them to face the truth about themselves.

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I’m a veteran of the laserdisc era.

I was thinking about that as I pondered the first decade (or perhaps even 11 years) of the DVD, which 2008 marked, on December 24 of the year.

To a lot of people under the age of 25 — and actually, to just plain a LOT of people — the “laserdisc format” won’t mean too much, because at the peak of its popularity, around 1996 or so, there were never more than about a million laserdisc players in use in the United States.

Those with longer memories, or who spent time in Japan (where there were several million players in use, even in the 1980’s), however, will remember the format: LP-size platters, usually silver on both sides (distinctly non-compact discs was the best way to summarize them), massively heavy, and usually in fairly flimsy LP-size jackets, all containing visual programming (movies, TV shows, still-frames, but in the end mostly movies). They were never overly popular, partly owing to the cost ($25 to $100 list, in a $15 CD marketplace), their cumbersome size, some production problems, and the fact that one couldn’t record in the format. As a clue to their lack of visibility, until the 1990’s laserdiscs were hardly ever mentioned in mainstream video advertising, except as an after-thought.

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