Outrage is the latest yakuza film from Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. It is a look at the cyclical nature of organized crime in Japan, and what it takes to survive in this world. The yakuza are gangsters, hell bent on ruling their turf, and getting what they want. There is no mercy among the yakuza, and one step out of line results in torture or swift death. As we soon find out, to rise to the top of the yakuza food chain, “Outlasting everyone is the best revenge these days.”

Director Kitano is known for his over-the-top gangster films, yet most of Outrage is far from over-the-top. An eerie grey tone shrouds the film, clearly a stylistic choice by the director. Kitano, who also plays a large role in the film, dresses both characters and settings in shades of black and white, creating a monochromatic world in which these men fight one another. The film is so slow it barely holds your attention for the its full two hours. For a film where so many people get murdered, very little actually happens. There is far too much dialogue and almost no action in the film. What action does occur, however, is well done and highly stylized. His torture scenes are full of exaggerated blood and are gruesome to watch. He uses simple torture tactics, but they’re horrific to see. It’s cringe-worthy to see someone stabbed in the ear with chopsticks or sliced in the face as blood spurts across the room. In these moments Kitano chooses these forms of torture in a calculated manner. They seem so simple they could happen to anyone, making them even more grisly. But besides the few bloody moments, the film plods along.

Depending on how it’s used, voiceover narration can either be a pivotal part of the storytelling process or a crutch. Sometimes it’s both. There Be Dragons leans heavily on the latter to the point where any support the voiceover could have given the story of man discovering his own past by investigating another’s snaps under the pressure. There isn’t so much a cohesive narrative to be found in There Be Dragons as there is a narration with sparse scenes breaking up the voiceover’s monotony. At some points it gets so bad that you can’t help but wonder if Roland Joffe intended to make a film, or an audio book. The over-the-top acting would have felt more at home in a radio dramatization, and were it not for some well filmed (but poorly edited) scenes of war, There Be Dragons would be every bit as entertaining to listen to as to watch. Though, that’s not saying much.

Warner Brothers has outdone itself in reviving the Scooby-Doo franchise with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, an updated take on the Hanna-Barbera classic that maintains the hokey quality of the original and then mixes in some subversive and off-hand comedy that often catches you off-guard in its send up of classic cartoon tropes. Gone are the corny puns, stock laughter, and Scrappy-Doo; in their place are an overarching storyline, Fred’s trap fetish, Daphne’s unrequited love, a more competent Shaggy, a bitingly sarcastic Velma, and police chief with the voice of Patrick Warburton. Is there anything in that list that doesn’t sound like an improvement? After a few volumes of 4-5 episode discs released over the span of Mystery Incorporated’s first season, Warner Brothers has now released the “second part” of the first season as a single 14-episode release. To say the least, it’s a far more satisfying purchase.

First it was homes, then it was restaurants, and now it’s salons; nowadays, no place is safe from some sort of televised makeover. Tabatha’s Salon Takeover follows in the grand tradition of Kitchen Nightmares, with Tabatha Coffey, whose television career progressed rather rapidly from a win on the Bravo program Shear Genius to her own show, going into salons on the verge of ruin (if not already there). Once there, she revamps them by redecorating, restructuring, and ironing out the parts of the business that didn’t work. It’s straightforward and formulaic reality television, but it’s also easy to watch and an audience’s ability to enjoy the show has little to do with whether or not they care about hair styling.

Long regarded as a film series for the sci-fi nerds and geeks in the world, The Planet of the Apes franchise found longevity in countless replays on lazy Saturday afternoons and then saw a brief but failed resurgence when Tim Burton gave the world his ill-conceived update with Mark Wahlberg back in 2001. Most reboots don’t have the luxury of a decade separating the newest entry from the latest failure, but it turns out that decade-long lapse was just enough time for a writer to find a new approach to the series. Rise of the Planet of the Apes wipes the franchise’s slate clean and makes those damned dirty apes accessible for a new generation. Though not without its flaws, it is the perfect example of a reboot that exceeds all expectations and also includes motion capture work by Andy Serkis that’s absolutely mind blowing.

Outside of the Spanish speaking world, bull fighting has a reputation as a cruel and unnecessary bloodbath where animals are killed for no purpose other than selling tickets. For those who know the sport’s cultural significance, the combination of cunning and violence has a sort of beauty to it. Of the few films that have been made on the subject, none cover it with such clarity and depth as Francesco Rosi’s The Moment of Truth. The bull fights are real, gallons of blood are shed, and the spectacle of the sport comes through in brilliantly rich colors. Even if you find the idea of killing animals for sport revolting, The Moment of Truth tackles bull fighting in a way that’s seldom seen in film and does it in a way that puts it into the proper religious context that many people never see.

It’s unfortunate when mediocre, formulaic films happen to good actors, especially two with the comedic chops of Anna Faris and Chris Evans, who’ve time and time again shown themselves to be hilarious when given the opportunity. What’s Your Number is not that opportunity. At times each of them has a chance to shine through, but for the most part they go through the motions of a clichéd romantic comedy about a woman reeling from the implications of a magazine article that tells her she’s socially abnormal.  How many romantic comedies have gone down the route of a woman thinking she’s reached some arbitrary limit and needs to make a quick change? To make matters worse, the script puts Chris Evans in as the obvious friend, who goes from platonic to romantic, follows the overused romantic comedy formula to the letter. Faris and Evans deserve better material than this, but they do elevate it to something watchable.

It should strike you as ironic that the film Anonymous asks you to consider the source in regards to who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare, when in fact the most questionable author in the equation is the filmmaker themselves: Roland Emmerich. Here’s a director who has made a name for himself creating one loud, thoughtless film after another, but withAnonymous there’s a notable depletion in his bluster. Or is there? Granted, Anonymous takes a much smaller scope—there are no world ending catastrophes, aliens, or monsters to speak of—and the theory he’s basing his film on isn’t just his own, but ultimately the film should be taken with however big a grain of salt you used to season his last “theoretically true” films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow. Just like with those disaster films, Emmerich does little more than ask “What if?” and then sets in motion a visually rich but substantially empty film that doesn’t so much answer the question but distract the audience long enough to make them forget if they ever cared. The fact that it’s a decent period drama with solid performances by Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave and David Thewlis does little to fix a shallow conspiracy story awkwardly told through characters initially indistinguishable from one flashback to the next.

Since the rise of the independent comedy, “quirky” has become both the genre’s golden standard for success and a dirty word. When a film has little else to show for itself, it pours on the quirk: characters spout obscure pop culture references ad nauseum, every character has a ridiculous affectation, and even the plot seems sarcastically conceived. Sadly, this strategy seems to have become the blueprint for 90% of the independent comedies that find distribution. This might explain why Dirty Girl feels remarkably fresh and yet so familiar. There are a few broad archetypes thrown in, and a few quirky relationships, but for the most part Dirty Girl completely lacks in pop culture overload and instead relies on a potty-mouthed teenager and her gay class project partner’s chemistry as they ride cross country; it’s not a voyage of self-discovery but one of escape.

You have to imagine that everyone in the history of the world who ever went through the ritual of spring cleaning or a garage sale and didn't get on television must be pretty bummed right about now. All that work, and they didn't get their 15 minutes of fame which American Pickers has convinced me is a pivotal aspect of parting with the junk in your crawlspace. For the most part though, it seems like the world has gotten over all the times they never got on television when cleaning out their attics, because American Pickers has become one of History's top programs. Now that might have a lot to do with the hosts, Mike Wolfe and Frank Fitz, or the fact that it combines Hoarders with Antique Roadshow. Or it could be because they figure eventually Wolfe and Fritz will make it to their doorstep.

Until that day comes, you might have to settle for just living vicariously through other owners of random junk by watching the second season of American Pickers. In which case, you're in luck because we've got one to give you.