In the utterly enjoyable Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate down-sizer.  Like a gun for hire, Ryan is kept on retainer to deliver pink slips instead of bullets; though some might argue there is little difference. Ryan has no personal relationships, rarely sleeps in the same city two days in a row, can fit everything important to him into a carry-on and he could not be happier.

Midway through the movie, Ryan explains that he is on the road traveling over 322 days of the year. That may sound awful to most of us, but to him “that means 43 miserable days at home.” That statement is perfectly indicative of how Ryan sees the world.

He doesn’t like attachments of any sort, human or material. He has a better relationship with the airline ticket agent than his own sisters, and prefers the tidiness and order he finds in all the rituals of traveling to anything authentic. He has the perfect job that by nature requires a skilled detachment.

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Night of the Creeps, the original Stargate, The Sam Fuller Collection, Orphan and the complete The Prisoner series starring and created by Patrick McGoohan (pictured above).

Check them out.

Movies

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ~ Edward James Olmos, Tricia Helfer (DVD and Blu-ray)

42nd Street Forever 5: Alamo Drafthouse Edition ~ Charlton Heston, Robert Englund (DVD)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ~ Ray Romano (DVD and Blu-ray)

Into Temptation ~ Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Sisto (DVD and Blu-ray)

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Writer David Leslie Johnson is pretty new to a lot of people, but he plans to be making a name for himself this Friday, as his film Orphan hits theaters across the country. The film is about a married couple who go through an abortion and decide that adoption is their last chance at having a child.

They meet Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) who, on the outside, seems perfect, but later shows herself to be something “different.” We got a chance to sit down with David right before the hoopla at San Diego Comic-Con and talk about a few things.

The Flickcast: Given the premise of Orphan, would you call it more of a supernatural horror or more like a suspense thriller?

David Johnson: It has horror elements but it plays more like a suspense thriller. My mother actually compared it to films like Fatal Attraction and Cape Fear.

TF: So more of the human condition?

DJ: Yes, absolutely.

TF: A movie like this seems to stem from a history of horror and suspense thrillers, did you pick up a lot of influences from other films for the script?

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