Hilary Swank takes a page out of Michelle Pfeiffer's book in Richard LaGravenese's Freedom Writers. By teaching her hardened students the craft of writing, Swank turns them into emotive, compassionate thinkers. Sound a little too much like Dangerous Minds? You decide as Freedom Writers opens this weekend. Also in theaters this week is Little Children - this excellent adaptation of Tom Perotta's best selling novel is Todd Field's long-awaited follow-up to his 2001 indie hit In the Bedroom; Notes on a Scandal - Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench star in this adaptation of Zoe Heller's hit novel What Was She Thinking?; and Code Name: The Cleaner - Cedric the Entertainer plays an amnesiac janitor tricked into thinking he's an undercover agent is this listless film. Be sure to catch reviews of other recent Theatrical Films: Pan's Labyrinth, Miss Potter, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Breaking and Entering, Inland Empire, Black Christmas, Rocky Balboa, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Good Shepherd, Night at the Museum, We Are Marshall, Children of Men, Venus, Curse of the Golden Flower. As always, we invite you to share your thoughts on films in theaters in our Movie Talk Forum Area.

In the latest installment of High-Def Revolution, Joshua Zyber takes a look back at the debut year for High Definition Video. Find out which titles made the cut and which received our top honors for the best HD DVD and Best Blu-Ray Disc releases of the year. Also find out which and format took our top prize. With two new dueling formats and no clear winner 2007 is set to be the defining year for the next generation of home entertainment and we hope you'll join us as we continue to cover it. Read High-Def Revolution: The Best in High Definition - 2006 and check out our over 200 HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc Reviews.

DVD Savant starts the year off with Savant's DVD Wish List 2007 - For the New Year, Savant inaugurates a SuperList of desired feature films not yet released on DVD ... Collect 'em all; A tout de suite - Benoit Jacquot returns to the small B&W 60s idiom to tell the true tale of a Parisian teenager who runs away with a fugitive bank robber; Mouchette - Robert Bresson weighs in with another rumination on the human spirit lost in a pitiless existence; Devil Times Five - This bizarre and rather indigestible independent 70s horror film can boast some notable names in the cast -- Sorrell Booke, Gene Evans, Leif Garrett; The Last Days of Mussolini - Rod Steiger and Lisa Gastoni are excellent in this account of the final, messy finish to the reign of Italy's Il Duce; The Great Yokai War - Takashi Miike takes time out from crime and horror to put together a lavish family spectacle about Japan's fantasy monster-rama of Yokai -- spirit creatures that can take the shape of people, monsters or inanimate objects. Read all this and more in this week's DVD Savant.

Top 10 lists suck. No really, they suck. When you consider that in 2006 DVD Talk reviewed well over 3000 discs, and 96 of them received DVD Talk's highest rating of DVD Talk Collector Series, pulling ten titles from that huge pool and calling them 'the best' is an exercise in futility. Add to that the fact that DVD Talk has a review staff of over fifty writers, and I can promise you that even internally, there's no way we'd all agree on one single list. The truth is there are just so many amazing DVDs that were released last year that we could assemble and reassemble this list every week and it would change. So with all that, I bring you this year's DVD Talk Top 10 DVD list. It's arbitrary, non-inclusive, anglocentric and all wrong. It shuns indie films in favor of big studio ones, it's seriously lacking in TV on DVD, and is 'safe' on many levels. But warts and all, it's our list.

A shockingly thin week for DVD to start 2007. The only real notable DVD to hit the streets this week is Snakes on a Plane [Review]. Prior to its theatrical release the film was treated as 'the next best thing' with a 'surefire' strategy to use the Internet to ensure the film's success. When reality met expectations Snakes on a Plane proved that when it comes to making and marketing films 'nobody really knows anything'. Now, after the hype and hoopla have died down, Snakes on a Plane can be viewed for what it is - a hokey and cheesy film that is a lot of fun, worth checking out if for no other reason than to see Samuel L. Jackson chew up the scenery. Other DVDs out this week include: Artie lange's Beer League [Review], The Covenant [Review], Martin: S1 and Sparkle . Be sure to check out our DVD Talk Review Database for all the latest reviews including an entire section devoted to reviews of DVDs out this week.

With over 18,000 DVD reviews in the DVD Talk Review Database, it's easy to overlook some of the great reviews. Recent DVD Reviews include: The Illusionist - combination thriller and romantic drama deserves a lot of credit for its attention to period and place; Invincible - a fairly predictable but otherwise enjoyable sports drama that is worth watching; The Emerald Diamond - a marvelous documentary that not only gets the joy of playing baseball, but makes room for the reverence that traditionally follows skill; Walt Disney Treasures - More Silly Symphonies - a hypnotic compilation of early Disney sound cartoons presented in a way worthy of its legacy; Walt Disney Treasures - The Complete Pluto, Volume Two - a collection that truly lives up to the 'treasure' name, a worthwhile addition to any DVD lover's library; New Adventures of He-Man, Vol. 1 - while this series may be considered by many to be the black sheep of the He-Family it's still worth checking out for the quality of the DVD and decent moments found in the show. Visit the DVD Talk Review Database for all the latest reviews including an entire section devoted to reviews of DVDs out this week including a new feature which lets you Browse reviews by studio.

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