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Ten steps beyond "Too Far"
Generally, action movies fall into two camps: the kind that try to hew close to real life (such as Michael Mann's Heat) and the kind that throw reality aside, and have a hero blasting through legions of enemies. 2006's Crank not only falls into the second camp, but took all the glee of a ridiculous premise and embraced how wild these movies can be: in short, Crank went to 11.
Given that sequels always escalate, how much further can this weeks's Crank 2: High Voltage go? Answer: A lot. Where the first movie had Chev Chelios (Jason Statham: The Bank Job, Snatch) in a constant need to keep his adrenaline up, High Voltage fits him with an artificial heart that needs constant electric recharge. Until he can reclaim his heart and get to his doctor (Dwight Yoakam: The Minus Man, Wedding Crashers) and be made whole again, Chelios has to endure superhuman punishment, kill hundreds of gangsters, help a grieving victim (Efren Ramirez: Napoleon Dynamite, Employee of the Month) find vengeance, avoid an obsessed junkie (Bai Ling: The Gene Generation, Southland Tales), and shoot it out with everyone who wanted him dead from the first movie... all the while, keeping his mechanical heart charged by jumper cables, stun guns, high voltage power stations, and even friction... via his girlfriend (Amy Smart: Mirrors, The Butterfly Effect). On DVD and Blu-Ray.
Slightly More Reasonable
Sin Nombre is a Mexican picture about a young gang member chafing against the confines of his violent world. After suffering the abuse of his gang's leader, he finds himself on a northbound train, heading to the United States, along with a Honduran family... and he begins to change the course of his life, towards the family and away from the gangs.
Dance Flick is the most recent Wayans Brothers (Scary Movie, White Chicks) spoof tackles the dance movie craze. Starring Shoshana Bush (Fired Up!, Lie to Me) as the suburban dancer and Damon Wayans Jr. as the inner city kid who shows her a new side of her art, parodying the normal dance movie cliches. With Essence Atkins (Deliver Us from Eva, How High) and Affion Crockett (Soul Men, Never Back Down).
The two new documentaries this week are Disney's Earth, documenting the journeys of three animal families across the planet with beautiful photography and narration by James Earl Jones, and Valentino: The Last Emperor, a look at the work and life fashion designer Valentino, his history, and his impact on the world of fashion.
TV Series
New this week in Reckless Video's TV New Releases are the 4th season of Criminal Minds, a mystery/procedural set around the profilers at the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. The 2nd series of the BBC's Doc Martin is also new this week, continuing the life of the surgeon who takes up private practice in a small Cornish village. We also have the 4th and 5th seasons of the popular young adult drama One Tree Hill, and the 5th season of the popular 
office comedy The Office and the 1st season of the Office-inspired Parks and Recreation.
Set in Botswana, the series No.1 Ladies Detective Agency is a joint BBC/HBO production about a woman who fulfills a longtime dream (against incredible odds) by opening her nation's first female run detective agency.
The newest show by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), Fringe centers, X-Files-like, on a special branch of the FBI focused on investigating incidents that form "The Pattern." They investigate crimes that fall outside the norm, in fringe science: teleportation, mind control, invisibility, astral projection, mutation, reanimation, and more.
Harper's Island is a horror/mystery series that takes place on an island off the coast of Seattle, where a wedding party between the blue collar groom and groomsmen and the bride's wealthy high society becomes a tragedy: each episode kills off at least one character. The series proceeds almost like a slasher movie, as a killer stalks the island, murdering the members of the party one by one.
