There are some highly-anticipated new releases in Amazon’s Instant Video store beginning today, including Cloud Atlas, which won’t be released on DVD or Blu-ray until 5/14, Beautiful Creatures and The Last Stand, which won’t be released on disc till 5/21! Note: all movie descriptions provided below are from IMDB.
Cloud Atlas (R, 4.5/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $14.99 to buy)
The reincarnation of a soul travels through time beginning with the diary of a potential slave-owner voyaging across the Pacific in 1849, then a talented composer writing letters to a lover in the Britain’s 1930s, followed by a reporter investigating a corrupt case about a US nuclear power-plant in the 1970s, succeeded by a publisher’s comical entrapment in a nursing home in 2012, followed by a clone’s thrilling escape and rebellion in 2144’s Korea, and finally a tribesman fighting cannibals in Hawaii in a post-apocalyptic world past 2300.
Each story challenges the corrupt norms of the time, changing the course of history, and shaping the future through acts of kindness, big and small.
– Written by Ivan Escobedo
Beautiful Creatures (PG-13, 3.5/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $14.99 to buy)
Ethan longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town.
Based on the bestselling YA novel Beautiful Creatures, which is described on Amazon like this:
Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
The Last Stand (R, 4/5 stars, closed captions available, currently priced at $14.99 to buy)
Sheriff Owens is a man who has resigned himself to a life of fighting what little crime takes place in sleepy border town Sommerton Junction after leaving his LAPD post following a bungled operation that left him wracked with failure and defeat after his partner was crippled.
After a spectacular escape from an FBI prisoner convoy, the most notorious, wanted drug kingpin in the hemisphere is hurtling toward the border at 200 mph in a specially outfitted car with a hostage and a fierce army of gang members. He is headed, it turns out, straight for Summerton Junction, where the whole of U.S. law enforcement will have their last opportunity to make a stand and intercept him before he slips across the border forever.
At first reluctant to become involved, and then counted out because of the perceived ineptitude of his small town force, Owens ultimately accepts responsibility for the face off.
– Written by Production
Broken City (R, 4/5 stars, currently priced at $4.99 to rent and $12.99 to buy)
In a city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure: Mayor Nicholas Hostetler.