Die Hard on a White House.

That’s basically it right there. You have your former law enforcer — here his name is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and he used to be Secret Service assigned to protect the President (Aaron Eckhart). During a snowstorm, Some Damn Thing hit the Presidential Limo’s windshield and fishtailed the car nearly off a bridge. Banning was able to save the President, but not his wife, and since the President can’t stand to be reminded of that night, he has Banning reassigned.

Okay, then you have your terrorists commandeering a building — here they attack the White House in a cargo plane the same day the President (whose name is Benjamin Asher, and whom I’ll be referring to as Asher for the remainder of this), Vice President, and Secretary of State are meeting with the South Korean Prime Minister.

As the gang retreats to the Presidential Bunker, one of the PM’s aides reveals himself as Kang Yeonsak (Rick Yune), a North Korean terrorist with a backstory that blah, blah, blah. He shoots a lot of people in the head and wants to blow up things. That’s all we need to know.

You have your former law-enforcer invading the building — in this case, Banning storms the White House after Kang’s goons take out every Secret Service man and Marine on the premises.

Fortunately, each week brings a new chance to see a great movie or TV show that you’ve never seen before. Or, you can go back and watch something you’ve seen a hundred times and still enjoy it. Both of these things are possible because new moves and TV programs come out on Blu-ray and DVD each and every week.

This week brings some titles, new and old, that we’re excited about including The Warlords, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, season one of Warehouse 13 and the Blu-ray releases of The Crazies remake and Hot Tub Time Machine (pictured above with Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry and John Cusack).

Movies

Brotherhood VI: Initiation (2009) ~ Tyson Breech, Burke Carter (Blu-ray and DVD)

Creation ~ Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly (Blu-ray and DVD)

Don McKay ~ Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue (Blu-ray and DVD)

Hot Tub Time Machine ~ John Cusack, Clark Duke (Blu-ray and DVD)

New York Confidential ~ Broderick Crawford, Anne Bancroft (DVD)

Night Train to Munich (Criterion Collection) ~ Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison (DVD)

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief ~ Logan Lerman (Blu-ray and DVD)

It is getting more and more difficult for filmmakers to breathe new life into the tired zombie genre as of late. The most successful zombie movies in recent memory are infused with humor (Zombieland) or introduce a new spin on the classic tale (Pontypool.) The Crazies is a cool little horror film that works because its zombies are not quite typical zombies, which I found more believable and thus more scary than a true zombie movie.

Time for me to fess up. I haven’t seen George Romero’s 1973 film that was the original source material for this film, so this was all a new concept to me.

The Crazies opens with a nifty juxtaposition of small town tranquility and calm (the whole town is watching a local baseball game) with modern day horrors, as a man pointedly walks across the baseball field with a shotgun. He doesn’t look like a zombie.

Instead, he appears to be channeling Michael Douglas’ character from Falling Down. As the horrified crowd looks on, the local sheriff  David (Timothy Olyphant) shoots the man before he can harm anyone.

It’s almost February and some really great movies are hitting store shelves this week for the first time and for the first time on Blu-ray. This week’s releases include This Is It, Surrogates, Whip It, Saw IV, the complete run of NBC’s canceled-too-soon Southland and the Blu-ray release of Wim Wenders’ classic Paris, Texas with Nastassja Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton. (pictured above).

Check out this week’s new releases:

Movies

Atonement ~ James McAvoy (Blu-ray)

Bright Star ~ Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw (Blu-ray and DVD)

Fame (1980) ~ Irene Cara (Blu-ray)

Give ‘Em Hell Malone ~ Doug Hutchison, Thomas Jane (Blu-ray and DVD)

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell ~ Matt Czuchry, Geoff Stults (Blu-ray and DVD)

The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero film of the same name, has gotten it’s second theatrical trailer and it ups the creepy factor. The first trailer set up a great mood of unsettling psychosis that pervades a town; even if it might have given a little too much of the movie away.

The story is, “a small town in Iowa, starts seeing it’s inhabitants go crazy, after a mysterious toxin infiltrates their water supply.” The new film stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, written by Scott Kosar (The Machinist) and Ray Wright (Pulse), and directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara).

The second trailer, lives up to the name of “crazy” as there’s psycho laughter; crazed, zombie-looking people, and the always great black and white fade out freeze frame. One of the best parts of the trailer is towards the end, when I actually jumped out of my own seat – if you’re a guy, you’ll probably know which moment I’m referring to.

Overall, though, I’m pretty interested in seeing this when it comes out in February of 2010. All I can say is, this is why I only drink Diet Coke.