I wasn’t quite sure at first how to tackle a list of the Best DVDs of the Year… by definition, aren’t the best dvds the ones containing the best movies? (Yes, they are.) We don’t want this to be a list of the year’s best movies though, so instead we’re looking at the best collections, box sets, and special editions. Obviously the quality of the movies or shows within still matter, but they’re just one aspect of a truly great dvd release. The other two most important things in a quality dvd are the extras and the packaging. The best dvds of the year should ideally have all three traits… awesome feature, awesome extras, awesome packaging. (At the very least they should have two out of three.) So here we go. These are the Best DVDs of 2009! AK100 (Criterion) This may be considered cinematic heresy but I’ve only seen three of Akira Kurosawa’s many movies. Forgive me. Happily the fine folks at Criterion have long been supporters of the director, and this year they released the most comprehensive dvd set ever seen for any director. AK100 celebrates what would have been Kurosawa’s 100th birthday and includes 25 of his movies from a career that lasted half a century. It includes the ones I’ve seen (Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Yojimbo) and several others including a few that have never even had an official dvd release. The films each come in their own case, and the set also comes with a [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

We see them plastered in lobbies and wish we had them all on our walls. Pieces of art with the purpose of selling us on a movie. Here they are: the best movie posters of 2009.

Perhaps one of the greatest honors, yet most difficult tasks of my year is the creation of my annual top ten list. As this site’s editor in chief (or whatever title suits me this week), I get to kick-off our Year in Review every year with my picks for best of the year.

Strap in, friends, as we’ve got another turbulent (and potentially expensive) week of selections in This Week in Blu-ray.

Last night, Universal held a special Blu-ray and DVD launch party for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds at New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. There, the director unleashed trailers for 9 of the films that influenced the Basterds.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards. But that’s not all!

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves hunting Nazis. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs. This week… The Hangover, The Goods, The Other Man, and the more.

It’s been a busy weekend for Awards season, the busiest thus far. The folks at AFI, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and our friends at the New York Film Critics Online group have all weighed in with some big pre-Oscar rewards to some major favorites.

From the Inglourious Basterds DVD release, Eli Roth poses as yet another character (this time a Nazi) and tells a bit about propaganda.

Why at least one film journalist seems to think so.

To movie critics (including myself): yer doin’ it wrong.

Instead of doing a cheesy list for Veteran’s Day, we here at FSR decided just to give a run down of all the war-type movies that we’ve covered over the years (the good, the bad, and the boots on the ground).

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is Spyglass’s number one choice to direct Angelina Jolie kicking ass and taking candid pictures in front of famous landmarks in The Tourist.

Magic, ravens, forbidden love, an evil flour mill, and a retarded Baldwin brother! (There aren’t actually any Baldwins in this film).

We’ve got some heavy A-list talent on hand this weekend at the theaters: Matt Damon! Jennifer Aniston!! Megan Fox!!! And in the end these folks may all end up losing at the box office to 3D CGI spaghetti and meatballs.

After impressing audiences around the world in Inglourious Basterds, it looks like Waltz will be exhausting his English for The Green Hornet.

It was the most predictable first place finish ever this weekend, as Tyler Perry continued his usual domination of the box office against all the usual September also-rans and flops. Such is life in September at the theaters.

Stalag 17 begins with an escape from the tightly controlled Luftwaffe prison camp during the last year of WWII. As the two men snake their way through a tunnel, it’s a little too easy for the Germans to find them and fill them full of bullets. The meaning is clear. There’s a rat amongst our heroes.

As expected it was a dead weekend at the theaters this Labor Day weekend — so much so that The Final Destination ended up winning the box office with a haul of only $12.4 million!

If you are going to the movies this weekend, there will be less lineups to navigate and more of a chance you’ll get a good seat, far away from other noisy and annoying theater patrons. And maybe you’ll be able to watch Gamer, All About Steve and Extract in relative peace.