“Sometimes I just take the seat off and ride for hours.”

Welcome to this week’s installment of Your Mid-Week Guide to DVD and Streaming. Our beloved Morton Salt is currently nursing a hangover after attending the Metropolitan Museum’s Gala as Sarah Jessica Parker’s merkin. In the meantime, I’m going to recommend a bunch of movies for you to watch this week and then talk about at your next parent-teacher conferences.

This week’s streaming pick: Hemlock Grove on Netflix. I know it’s not a movie, but I just started watching this series and eventually I’d like to have other people to complain about it with. So watch it and then we can pretend that we’re experts together. [Vince's Note: Screw Burnsy, watch Top of the Lake so we can whine about how everyone mumbles.]

On DVD and Blu-Ray this week:

Safe Haven
Mama
Jack Reacher
Steel Magnolias (2012)
Norman
Starlet
The Oranges
Mighty Fine
The Assassin’s Blade
If I Were You
In the Hive
Revenge for Jolly!

Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

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“I’m thinking next one we should fight aliens.”

Opening Everywhere: A Good Day to Die Hard, Beautiful Creatures, Safe Haven

FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince and I don’t see eye-to-eye very much on movies like A Good Day to Die Hard, because he doesn’t love America like Bruce Willis and I do. So I thought that instead of trying to convince everyone to think one way or another this week, I’d channel Rex Reed in order to tell you what’s hitting theaters this weekend.

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^{(Sparklebomb’d!)}

Nicholas Sparks is a writer of weepy romance fiction who, if Nicholas Sparks is to be believed, is has more talent in his WWJD bracelet than Cormac McCarthy has in his entire collection of archaic dictionaries. Past Sparks books to be made into movies include A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, and that one with Miley Cyrus and the sea turtles and the raccoons.  Sparks recently wrote a thriller, and with such a successful track record, it’s no surprise to hear that a bidding war for the movie rights is about to begin.

Anyway, the book’s called “Safe Haven” and it carries the tagline, “in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven.”  (Yeah, tell that to a guy being chased by a bear).

When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard.

But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo’s support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards . . . and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven. [NicholasSparks via Playlist]

I kid, but I actually love this Nick Sparks stuff. Writing Plot-Recreated-With-Reviews posts for his movies is the most fun I ever have at this job. Oh boy,  I wonder what Katie’s dark secret will be!  Haunted by her nephew’s fatal go-kart accident, did she turn down a hackey-sack scholarship to Vassar?  Or maybe she’s a disgraced former paddleboat champion with a full ride to Sarah Lawrence and a head full of bee-sting memories.  Oooh, I can’t wait!