Dear John This Nicholas Sparks weepie stars beefcake Channing Tatum as a Special Ops soldier and cupcake Amanda Seyfried who meet while he's on leave and she's attending college. After a whirlwind romance, he’s sent back to Afghanistan and she continues on with school, though they try to keep the love alive via snail mail and voice-over narration. Things turn even more sticky when his intended year of service turns indefinite after war breaks out.
Extras: Alternate ending; deleted and alternate scenes; featurettes: “Transforming Charleston,” “Military in Movies: Dear John's Military Advisors,” “A Conversation with Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried and Lasse Hallstrom” and more (DVD/BD); movieIQ and BD Live (BD)
The Road The other movie also based on a novel (this one by Cormac McCarthy) will also have you crying, but for seriously different reasons. Quite possibly the most depressing film of late, it stars an always excellent Viggo Mortensen as a dying father of a young boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee, who is outstanding) who are traveling south in an (inexplicably) post-apocalyptic world devoid of most plant, animal and human life other than, oh, a few cannibalistic scavengers and hostile survivors. This isn’t an action flick, an eventually uplifting road picture or even a horror movie—it’s a story about survival, love and a father’s determination that you’ll admire even as you’re running for the Zoloft.
Extras: Making-of featurette, deleted scenes, director commentary (DVD/BD)
