We’ve all been depressed, at one time or another. And the more we do with that depression, the better off we’ll be in the end. Whether it’s getting help or getting through, it’s the getting somewhere that means the most. And with The Beaver, from the folks out at Summit Entertainment who sent a copy for me to review, the end result is going to be stranger, more disturbing, and yet more uplifting, than you might think.

The Beaver follows Walter, a family man who’s seen better days. In fact, things are looking pretty grim for old Walter; his wife is growing fed up with his depression (which, by itself, is a telling commentary), his son is manufacturing term papers for a pretty good rate and his youngest son is sufficiently invisible that no one seems to care if he’s been thrown in a dumpster. But when things are at their lowest, Walter finds a hand puppet in the shape of–you guessed it–a beaver. And when the beaver takes control of Walter’s life in a bid to improve it, it may not go off according to plan.

Before you say it, I’m quite aware (as I’m sure many of you are too) that this is pretty much the plot of a couple dozen horror films, with the critical difference is that this time the puppet isn’t out to lead the main character into fits of homicidal rage, but rather is out to improve the main character’s life.

But that’s not the only difference, merely the critical one. See, The Beaver is an absolute masterwork of a movie, putting up a bizarre combination of preposterous and believable with every shot. It wavers wildly between the disturbing and the natural, the irrational and the rational. And while it seems so much in the beginning like if the rational would just bow to the irrational, everything would work out so much better, the rational eventually begins to work on the irrational, until a semirational hybrid starts to come around and changes the world.

And of course, getting Mel Gibson, who only in recent memory did more than a few purely lunatic things himself, to handle the lead is a smart idea.

But the strange part is that it turns a little dark toward the end, and this abrupt change in tone isn’t just irrational, it’s disturbing. But this in turn brings about the synthesis I talked about earlier. There’s no need for psychobabble here, no weird film-school nonsense. Just know that you’re in for a ride quite thoroughly unlike any you’ve had before.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this lump of massive crazy, that also happens to be a work beyond the pale, a full ten out of ten for doing something few have ever done before, and doing a thoroughly amazing job with it. The Beaver is a spectacular work that will inspire long after its conclusion.

I am going to go and wash my hands right now!

Contagion is filled with actors spreading the message “wash you hands!”

The worldwide medical community races to find a cure to a deadly epidemic and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. The movie stars Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne and Gwyneth Paltrow.

“I live. I love. I slay…I am content.” – Conan The Barbarian

The most legendary Barbarian of all time will return Friday, August 19, 2011.

A quest that begins as a personal vendetta for the fierce Cimmerian warrior soon turns into an epic battle against hulking rivals, horrific monsters, and impossible odds, as Conan realizes he is the only hope of saving the great nations of Hyboria from an encroaching reign of supernatural evil.

Deftly adapted from the original works of Robert E. Howard and faithful to the mythology and psychology of his iconic character, Conan The Barbarian stars Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan, Saïd Taghmaoui and Ron Perlman. The film is directed by Marcus Nispel, and written by Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood.

Visionary director Tarsem Singh, who has spun stuff like The Cell, The Fall, transports us in this epic tale of treachery, vengeance and destiny in Immortals. It looks rather stylish as a visually spectacular 3D action adventure.

The story concerns a power-hungry king razes ancient Greece in search of a legendary weapon, a heroic young villager rises up against him in a thrilling quest as timeless as it is powerful.

The brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his murderous Heraklion army rampage across Greece in search of the long lost Bow of Epirus. With the invincible Bow, the king will be able to overthrow the Gods of Olympus and become the undisputed master of his world. With ruthless efficiency, Hyperion and his legions destroy everything in their wake, and it seems nothing will stop the evil king’s mission.

The movie opens in theaters November 11, 2011.

It’s not every day we get a crack at historical drama around here, and so, I was definitely glad when Lions Gate sent out a copy of The Conspirator for me to review. After all, this was something we didn’t see every day, but how would it turn out?

The Conspirator takes us to the closing days of the American Civil War, with the Union winning and the Confederacy about to close up shop. And of course, it’s inevitable that John Wilkes Booth should stage his assassination of Abraham Lincoln. But that’s not who we’re dealing with here; no, we’re dealing with the lesser-known names, the names who went to trial as accessories, as conspirators, in the death of a president. The trial surrounding said conspirators was, if you believe The Conspirator, a deck so spectacularly stacked as to be mindboggling. But since history already shows what happened, the ultimate ending won’t be much of a surprise.

Admittedly, this is a little bit of a farce. Anyone with three minutes and Wikipedia handy will know exactly what happened to these people, and that wouldn’t take two hours to run through, as The Conspirator does. But the appeal of The Conspirator is not in its plot, but rather, in its execution. Accomplished actors (Kevin Kline, Colm Meaney, Stephen Root, and a host of others) backed up by a script that’s only slightly familiar.

It’s a little heavy-handed at times, so much so that it’s a wonder they didn’t have director Robert Redford walk in front of the camera at random intervals and scream “THIS TRIAL WAS AN UTTER TRAVESTY!” and then walk off. Frankly, they might as well have for all the subtlety they exhibited in this one. But still, for all the sheer and crashing lack of subtlety in The Conspirator, it’s still a well done, and well put together, piece of work that’s well worth watching for any history buff out there, or anyone who appreciates a good and extremely authentic period drama.

The Conspirator is not for everyone, but for those who enjoy this specific class of film, they will find a masterfully done piece of work, even if it’s decidedly lacking in subtlety.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Conspirator an eight out of ten for doing a great job, if doing it a little too enthusiastically for its own good at times. It’s a good old fashioned piece of historical drama, and you should enjoy it.

Laugh, cry and win when WIN WIN comes to Blu-ray and DVD on August 23, 2011 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. It is not just another sports movie, but an unconventionally uplifting film. Yes, Screenhead not only has one DVD to give away, but we have two DVDs to give away.

The story combines action on the mat with the hilarious highs and heartbreaking lows of a new kind of family. Indie film writer-director Tom McCarthy (The Visitor) guides a celebrated cast including Academy Award nominees Paul Giamatti (Sideways, “John Adams”), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and high school wrestling star and newcomer Alex Shaffer in this quirky coming-of-age tale.

Giamatti stars as a lovable yet long-suffering lawyer and high-school wrestling coach who takes us on a brilliantly heartfelt journey through the game of life…where you can’t lose ’em all. When Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) comes across a teenage runaway who also happens to be a champion wrestler, Mike’s luck turns around in spectacular fashion. But his win-win situation soon becomes more complicated than he ever imagined when the boy’s family affairs come into play. Co-starring Amy Ryan and directed by Tom McCarthy, this touching and funny comedy will leave you cheering.

WIN WIN also highlights the critically-acclaimed performances of Bobby Cannavale (Sex and the City, “Third Watch”), Burt Young (Rocky), and Jeffrey Tambor (“Arrested Development,” The Hangover).

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner September 7, 2011.

You’ve seen our giveaway of Winter In Wartime thanks to my able cohort Kenna, and now, we’re going to tackle it right here for a review. The folks out at Sony sent me a copy to cover too, and now, we’re going to check it out right here.

Winter In Wartime takes us to a snow-covered village in the midst of Nazi-occupied Holland in 1945. Specifically, to a thirteen year old boy named Michiel in said Nazi-occupied Holland, who has found himself only somewhat willingly dragooned into the resistance after aiding a downed British paratrooper. Michiel finds himself in a much more dangerous world than he ever imagined possible, and is desperate to find who he can trust, and who won’t turn him in to the Nazis, themselves progressively more desperate as Hitler’s two-front war finds itself collapsing on either side.

It’s an interesting concept, but fair warning: this movie is shot mainly in Dutch, with optional French audio, and the only bone Anglophiles will get is subtitles in English and some dialogue that isn’t subtitled for some reason. So, know this going in in case you’re put off by subtitles. Me, I prefer them, even in English-language film, so I can always be sure of the dialogue, which is why I was deeply saddened to see that the actual English language dialogue for some reason didn’t get a lick of subtitling.

You might wonder about a movie like this; foreign language film has a not-altogether unearned reputation for being dull and inaccessible, but at the same time, you know many World War II movies have proven exciting. This one will be somewhat in the middle, a mix of inaccessible and exciting. It’s a strange mix, no mistake–call this an action-drama hybrid, which is always a strange animal in its own right–and will spend more than a bit of time talking while throwing in some interesting twists and thrills from time to time.

The end result is surprisingly watchable, and not so much as a hint of the ending is given away in advance. You’ll have a pretty good time here, especially if you like World War II fare and don’t mind a shortage of action in favor of more drama.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives Winter In Wartime a somewhat surprised eight out of ten–it’s a little short on action, but makes that up with a surfeit of drama and suspense. All things considered, it’s a very welcome title that does a nice job.

Screenhead is hosting a giveaway for Kim Cattrall’s scandalous comedy-drama Meet Monica Velour, which will be available on DVD and Blu-ray August 16th. In celebrating the upcoming release, we have three copies of Meet Monica Velour to giveaway.

Starring also Dustin Ingram, who makes an impressive adolescent, teenage boy, the movie is written and directed by Keith Bearden. The movie is considered an irreverent comedy about an awkward teenager Tobe (Ingram) who sets off on a road trip to meet Monica Velour (Cattrall), his favorite 80s porn star. He is headed for her rare live appearance hundreds of miles away.

Instead of the glamorous sexpot portrayed on film, he finds a 49-year-old single mom living in a trailer in rural Indiana. Still captivated by his crush, Tobe befriends Monica, further complicating her difficult life. Cattrall gives a career-defining performance in this offbeat love story that appeal to the dreamer – and the nerd we often see in the best of us.

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winners September 3, 2011.

Speaking as someone who has only recently cleared the threshold into thirty-somethingdom himself, I understand where The Long Slow Death Of A Twenty-Something, a copy of which the folks out at Maverick Entertainment sent out for review, comes from. And there’s a pretty good chance that most of you–including you not quite thirtysomethings–will get it too.

The first couple of minutes of The Long Slow Death Of A Twenty-Something actually manage to describe the plot pretty well, and so, I’ll quote them. “Ben Baker was a mediocre person at a mediocre job with mediocre friends who he wasn’t even sure he liked.” But the thing about Ben Baker is that he’s just about to turn thirty, and when that happens, a person generally tends to start looking back at their life up until then–a process which they really couldn’t do until then because they were largely too busy actually living it to even notice it had gone–and evaluating where they are against where they want to be. And more often than not, they’re not happy with the result. That will be the case with Ben Baker, and what he does following this realization is going to be…well…something to see.

A bit of background: this is actually directed and written by Larry Longstreth, whose work I’ve been watching since his animated shorts (Batman’s Gonna Get Shot In The Face is still easily one of the best DC pseudo-parodies I’ve seen in the last few years), so if you’ve been following along since the Bullcrank days, you’re going to be feeling this.

The newcomers, meanwhile, should be prepared for an adventure in the grandest Kevin Smith tradition, with all that that entails, including lengthy profanity-laced monologues at seemingly random intervals, and more than enough weed and ex-girlfriend jokes to choke an entire herd of horses.

Admittedly, I haven’t laughed like this since early Kevin Smith, which is, as we all know, better than later Kevin Smith in the same way that milk a day past its expiration date tastes vastly better than milk served chunk-style. The part where they show a LARP both as the characters see it and as how everyone else would see it is a sheer and unquestioned delight.

This is a conflict that most folks have likely had at some point, in which everything looks wrong. When acting like a grownup feels like an act, and doing what you always did feels less like a routine and more like a rut. The end result may not be as conclusive as one would like, but it’s authentic, realistic, and the exact kind of thing that we’ve all probably lived through.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this funny and thoroughly authentic portrayal of a man on the cusp of something a full ten out of ten. It’s entirely too good not to see, and should be required viewing for everyone between the ages of 25 and 35, or anyone who’s ever looked back on their life and asked the inevitable question: How the hell did I get here?.

As Fernanda (Rooney Mara) enters her senior year at Tanner Hall—a sheltered boarding school in New England—she’s faced with unexpected changes in her group of friends when a childhood acquaintance, the charismatic yet manipulative trouble-maker Victoria (Georgia King), appears.

Shy and studious, Fernanda is usually the voice of reason among her friends—adventurous and sexy Kate (Brie Larson) and tomboy Lucasta (Amy Ferguson)—but when she begins a complicated friendship with Gio (Tom Everett Scott), an older family friend, she decides it’s finally time to take some risks. Jealous of Fernanda’s exciting relationship, Victoria begins to sabotage Fernanda’s plans and plots to publicly humiliate her.

Meanwhile, Lucasta struggles with her newfound feelings towards another classmate, and mischievous Kate is too preoccupied with making her teachers nervous to pay much attention to her actual classes.

However, as each of the girls flirt with adulthood, they realize they still need each other to help get through their first grown-up decisions—and the consequences they bring. But, does the movie have enough ups to go with the downs?

Directed by Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg, Tanner Hall also stars Amy Sedaris and Chris Kattan. Tanner Hall hits select theatres September 9, 2011.