Breach

• The Movie Blog reminds us "never to trust those pirates."
• The Film Experience is having a blog-a-thon to honor film's best action heroines.
• Give Me My Remote picks a cast of newcomers for "Grey's Anatomy."
• Popwatch shares the ways in which they bond with Dad through entertainment, for example, one can count on Dad walking in exactly during the sex scenes.
• Want to talk about last night's season 3 premiere of "Top Chef"? YumSugar's the place to go!
• ScreenGrab has an interview with Eric O'Neill, the ex-FBI agent on whom Ryan Phillipe's character is based in the movie Breach (which is now out on DVD).
• TV Squad thinks the petition to save "Traveler" is rather ridiculous.
• BuddyTV tells us where you might have seen those "John from Cincinnati" actors before.

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. Also releasing this week is Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider, which inexplicably took the No. 1 spot at the box office when it first came out.

Breach
There are more interesting and complex CIA thrillers than this one, but for what it is, Breach is perfectly adequate. Eric O'Neill (Ryan Philippe) is the new, young FBI agent hopeful assigned to the case of veteran operative and alleged mole Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper). Hanssen is suspected of providing information to the Soviets, costing the government financial drain and leading to the deaths of at least a few American agents, yet the FBI has never been able to gain enough evidence to take him down. As Eric gets closer to exposing Hanssen for what he is, he simultaneously puts his wife — and his own sanity — in danger. For more details, check out my review.

Two more newbies if you read more

It's Fri-day, you're at your job (or not) and there ain't much to say. Ryan's new movie Breach may not have done so hot at the box office, but he's looking pretty hot while enjoying some beverages with a friend. Perhaps that's because he's wearing a hat when it's clearly warm where he is! Dumb joke zing! Sigh.

Splash

Perhaps I've watched too much "Alias" and "24," because it turns out I expect espionage/government agency stories to be fast-paced, entertaining, and suspenseful to the point of biting off my fingertips. If one goes into Breach expecting these qualities, one will not find them. The real-life story on which the film is based is intriguing, but the film itself is not. If the intention was to make a great dramatic thriller, then something went wrong. But as a way to tell the story of a real-life FBI take-down, it's more titillating than your average Dateline special.

Ryan Phillippe plays baby-faced Eric O'Neill, the FBI agent hopeful assigned to the case of veteran operative and alleged mole Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper). Hanssen is suspected of providing information to the Soviets, costing the government financial drain and leading to the deaths of at least a few American agents, yet the FBI has never been able to gain enough evidence to take him down. The actual things Hanssen did or how he got away with his crimes for years are not the focus of the film, and I was left thinking that maybe they should have been, so read more

Ryan's career obviously hasn't been hurt by any of the negative press surrounding his split with Reese. Last night he went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote his new film, Breach that also stars Oscar winner Chris Cooper. Breach is a true story about a young FBI agent trying to bring down his boss for selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Ryan may have lost points with us over the past few months but he still looks pretty hot and it is Valentine's Day so we're just psyched to have some pretty boy shots to share with you all. Check out the trailer and more info on Breach here.

Source

Breach opens this Friday, Feb. 16, and it looks like Ryan Phillippe is mumbling his way through yet another movie he doesn't deserve to be in. In this true-life tale that — like the Enron saga — just begs to be made into a movie, Phillippe plays young Eric O'Neill, an FBI agent hopeful assigned to work with renowned operative Robert Hanssen, played by the excellent Chris Cooper.

It turns out, however, that Hanssen is an FBI mole who has been eluding his own bureau for years and is suspected of having committed the worst breach in the history of U.S. intelligence. O'Neill is selected to acquire enough hard evidence to bring Hanssen down. I'll let you know when I post my review on Friday if Phillippe ruins what looks like an interesting story. To check out the trailer, read more