Welcome back to This Week In Discs! As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. Killer Joe Chris (Emile Hirsch) is having a bad day, but when he decides the key to solving all of his problems is to have his mother whacked by a hit man (Matthew McConaughey) he discovers that things can always get worse in this refreshing return from William Friedkin. Gina Gershon, Thomas Haden Church and Juno Temple are all along for the violent and darkly comedic ride, but it’s McConaughey who shines through the grime, brutality and Southern hospitality gone bad. He excels as a cruel bastard looking for love in some very wrong places who’s unafraid to take what he wants even if that means abusing Gershon with a KFC drumstick. Also available on DVD. [Extras: Featurette, Q&A, SXSW intro, commentary, trailer]

Resident Evil: Retribution won the box office this weekend with $21.1m domestic (an average amount for the franchise), but it was The Master which impressed most with a stunning $146,000 per theater average (scoring a total of $730,000 before expanding next week) and Arbitrage which scored over $2m in just under 200 theaters. The 5-theater feat from Paul Thomas Anderson‘s latest makes it the second-highest opening per theater average in history for a limited release live-action film (behind Red State). If that seems like a lot of qualifiers, it’s because it is. However, it’s important to keep in context that top record-makers for per theater averages are 6 Disney-released films (The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Princess and the Frog, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Hercules) followed by Red State, followed by another Disney-released film (Atlantis: The Lost Empire), followed by The Master in the #9 spot. So it’s not like this is a wide-open field or anything. This is an achievement almost solely regulated to animated features, but it’s unsurprising considering the massive buzz that The Master has achieved ahead of a very small release. [Box Office Mojo]  

The Resident Evil film series has always been a directly self-aware and reflexive property, an aspect that became all the more obvious with the fourth installment, which featured the most knowingly gratuitous 3D spectacle since the format’s digital resurgence began. Part five, the newly released Resident Evil: Retribution, is similarly in your face, both with its use of screen-popping 3D and with Paul W.S. Anderson’s typical straightforward exposition and an action style that’s so clear it’s cocky. Yet there also appears to be a subtext we tend not to expect from these movies, one involving a little girl who metaphorically represents the film itself. This child, Becky (played by 11-year-old Aryana Engineer), is found by series protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) in a suburbia simulation within an undersea Umbrella Corp. complex used for trial exercises in mass T-virus infection. Mistaken for the girl’s mother (who was a blonder clone of Alice), the heroine feels a need to protect and save the kid, even if this holds her and the rest of the mission back. And even if it would also seem the girl is barely a legitimate human being. On a superficial level, Becky simply seems to be Anderson’s latest homage to the Alien movies, specifically to the Newt character in Aliens. But unlike Newt, Becky has no significance to any movie centered on themes of motherhood. And why is she deaf? That’s a question I don’t think can be answered solely by the fact that the actress herself is partially

Resident Evil: Retribution represents Paul W.S. Anderson‘s worst tendencies as a filmmaker. Empty, clunky, and ugly, this is Anderson’s most dull picture yet and the weakest installment in an already weak series. Retribution begins shortly after the events of the previous film, Resident Evil: Afterlife. Alice (Milla Jovovich) is shooting quarters off a shipping boat, standing still while simultaneously dodging countless amounts of bullets, and is finally knocked unconscious. When she wakes up — or when her “clone” awakens — she’s been captured and sits isolated in, of course, a very white room in an underground Umbrella Corporation lair. Once she escapes that white room, thanks to a traitor from the inside, Alice has to fight off hordes of the same zombies and beasts we’ve seen her battle far too many times before. However, this time all the battles are done within a virtual dome, which makes no difference whatsoever. She wanders through “New York City” to “Moscow,” and despite the changing environments, all the set pieces stay the same.

The Resident Evil series of movies has no special place in my heart and it’s slightly confusing how many there are compared to how many games there are, which characters are which in each installment, and why some characters have developed mental powers. That being said, they’re all pretty watchable in a bad/good battle way. On Friday at San Diego Comic-Con director Paul W.S. Anderson was joined by Milla Jovovich, Mika Nakashima, Boris Kodjoe, Oded Fehr, and Michelle Rodriguez, the latter two who are both returning from the dead for the franchise. What can we expect from what might be – but probably won’t be – the last installment?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a “a sleazy, slimy, adolescent, over-sexed, over-paid, blowhole!” Or at least that’s how it all works out in the version written by Aaron Sorkin. If the man decides to write it, we’ll take it. We begin this evening with an image of Christian Bale looking rather dour as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises, a film the Los Angeles Times says should open in the area of $200 million dollars. The fact that it’s tracking for big numbers comes as a surprise to no one. Chris Nolan’s final Batfilm has been the movie of the year from day one. So smile, Mr. Wayne, it’ll all be over soon.

Hey, we’re as surprised as you, but apparently the Resident Evil franchise is still alive and well, and we’ve got an all-new trailer for the series’ eighty-ninth (approximately) entry. For whatever reason, the franchise is still hung up on expanding on Alice (Milla Jovovich) and her past, with the evil Umbrella Corporation continuing to wage mental warfare on our leather be-clothed heroine while the world burns. Here’s a tip – the Umbrella Corporation has totally destroyed Earth and turned most of its population into zombies, Alice doesn’t need to be pissed at them for playing Matrix-y mind games with her, because we’re all pissed off enough with them as is. But at least Resident Evil: Retribution also looks to have more explosions, more guns, and a big-ass monster thing, so that’s cool, too. Also, it’s in 3D, because of course. Check out the latest trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution after the break, and just imagine all that stuff flying at your face.

Unfortunately for this year’s WonderCon, I was only able to spend one day at the convention. When busting your cherry, convention or otherwise, it is often best to go nice and slow. While I’d have loved to get a few more hours at the convention, which moved to Anaheim, California, this year, I did more than just get my toes wet. Because it was raining. I spent the better, longer part of Saturday sitting in the massive ballroom at the Anaheim Convention Center, just down the street from Disneyland, staring up at a gigantic screen projecting clear images of actors, actresses, writers, and directors which, to my naked eye, were tiny specks about a quarter of a mile away. The panels I managed to get into included Lockout, Battleship, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Resident Evil: Retribution, so let’s all take a look together at the joyous cinematic wonders they had to show!

The inevitable has finally happened – I’ve confused Resident Evil with Underworld and somehow completely forgotten that there is yet another Resident Evil film on the way. My confusion might just be a mask for basic ennui, but it’s unclear at this point. In any case, look, there’s another Resident Evil film. According to its first teaser trailer, it appears to borrow (pretty loosely) from equal parts The Thing, its own mythology, Dawn of the Dead, and Independence Day, with a dash of The Fast and the Furious hat-tipping (you’ll know it when you see it). I can’t make heads or tails of it, and that’s likely due to two things: one, I haven’t watched an R.E. film all the way through since the first one, and two, this teaser trailer is essentially a Sony ad. No, not like, “oh, there’s a lot of product placement in this trailer!” more like “oh, there’s about 30 seconds of a film trailer in the middle of this Sony ad.” It’s a weird enough move already, and one that will likely be mocked for quite a bit, but what’s even weirder is that, if the trailer is taken literally, it means that the rest of the world in Resident Evil is having a super-fun, technology-connected good time while America smolders into monster-laced ash. So, you know, fun. Check out the first trailer (sort of?) for Resident Evil: Retribution after the break.