Movie reviews of The High School Flashback Collection, Speed Racer, The Love Guru, 88 minutes

The High School Flashback Collection (Universal, $39.98)
Risky Business (Warner Bros, $19.97)

The calendar may say “2008″ but you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d somehow time-traveled back to 1985 based on this week’s new-to-DVD line-up. Take Universal’s new box set The High School Flashback Collection, which packages special editions of three decade-defining teen flicks—1984′s Sixteen Candles and 1985′s The Breakfast Club and Weird Science—in a nifty tin box that resembles a high-school locker. (All three are also available individually for $20 a pop.) Warner Bros., meanwhile, is putting out an anniversary edition of 1983′s Risky Business, the movie that launched then-19-year-old Tom Cruise on the road to superstardom. What’s striking about all four of these films is that they still feel contemporary, dated fashion choices and synth-heavy soundtracks aside. The Breakfast Club remains the best of the lot and is easily the gold standard when it comes to high-school dramas. John Hughes captured lightning in a bottle with that cast and script and (despite my deep love for Ferris Bueller’s Day Office) it may just be his masterpiece. Sixteen Candles and Weird Science are far less emotionally affecting, but they hold up as sweet and funny comedies. As for Risky Business, I have to confess that I’ve never been a huge fan of this ordinary-boy-hooks-up-with-hot-call-girl flick, but I appreciate the intelligence and low-key satire that writer/director Paul Brickman brings to his directorial debut. That his career never exploded the way his leading man’s did is a damn shame.

Extras: Each of the “Flashback Editions” come with multi-part making-of featurettes, although The Breakfast Club is the only one that features a commentary track (with Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall…apparently Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and Molly Ringwald all had better things to do). Tom Cruise talks over Risky Business with the film’s director and producer and appears in a half-hour retrospective documentary. Also included is a the director’s preferred version of the final scene and footage from Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay’s first screen test.

Speed Racer (Warner Bros., $28.98)

Hello, my name is Ethan Alter and I freakin’ love Speed Racer. Now, I’m not talking about the ’60s animated series, although that’s pretty fun too. I mean the Wachowski Brothers mega-flop that was savaged by critics and ignored by audiences when it hit theaters back in May. I actually didn’t get a chance to see it until its final week of release in a deserted theater in Times Square. Maybe it was just relief at not having to put up with the behavior of the usual 42nd Street crowd, but Speed captured my imagination five minutes in and never let go. It wasn’t just the incredible visuals that transfixed me; I loved the world that the Wachowskis were creating, a candy-colored dreamscape where racing had evolved from boring NASCAR style drag races to elaborate, gravity-defying automotive ballets. As with the eternally underappreciated Matrix sequels, the Wachowskis weren’t given proper credit for developing such a lived-in universe. The cast, which includes John Goodman, Emil Hirsch, Christina Ricci and Susan Sarandon, all do an excellent job playing this material straight and not camping it up for those folks in the audience who expected Speed Racer to be a goofy big-screen version of a goofy cartoon. To the Wachowskis credit, they try and bring some drama to this story and if they do one thing wrong, it’s that they don’t always trust their material enough. It was a mistake, for example, to devote so much screen time to Spirtle, the youngest member of the Racer clan, and his troublemaking pet chimp Chim Chim. These scenes are obviously designed to make the movie more kid-friendly, but honestly most kids that I know be much happier watching more of the fantastic racing sequences. This sounds like heresy to admit, but of all this summer’s blockbusters, Speed Racer was the only one that actually took my breath away. Hellboy II had stronger characters, The Dark Knight had a richer story and Iron Man was funnier. But for pure spectacle, you can consider me a Speed demon.

Extras: A measly pair of short featurettes. Here’s hoping the movie turns into a DVD hit so it can score a much-deserved deluxe special edition a la The Matrix.

The Love Guru (Paramount, $34.98)

I’ve made some bad calls before when it comes to box-office predictions, but I must have really been drinking the spiked Kool-Aid when I said that The Love Guru, Mike Myers’ first live-action feature since 2002′s Austin Powers: Goldmember, would bank $140 million during its theatrical run. In my defense, I hadn’t seen any footage from the movie at the time I made that call; I was going on the love affair audiences (particularly young guys) seemed to have with Myers and, specifically, his Austin Powers routine. I was sure that the same crowd of moviegoers would follow him anywhere, even to a movie where he played a vaguely Indian relationship guru. Then the film came out and laid a big, stinky egg, garnering some of the worst reviews of the year and grossed a pitiful $30 million. I bypassed Guru in theaters after hearing the awful word of mouth, but figured that I had to see it on DVD as penance for my terrible prediction. And boy, is it a terrible movie. I mean, really terrible. 80 unfunny minutes of juvenile penis jokes, bad cover versions of classic rock songs and Myers prancing around like a loon. The film has no story and never even tries to pretend like it should. I felt sorry for everyone involved, but particularly Jessica Alba, who is forced to bat her eyes at Myers like she actually finds the guy attractive. Casting a twentysomething starlet as your love interest is just one of the many signs of an out-of-control ego. Writing, producing and acting in a bomb like this is another.

Extras: Mike Myers attempts to explain why Guru is funny in three uninspired making-of featurettes, while 11 deleted scenes and a gag reel prove that the scenes that were dropped from the film were even lamer than the ones that made it into the final cut.

88 Minutes (Sony, $28.96)

Now that I’ve seen 88 Minutes, I can honestly say that Righteous Kill is Al Pacino’s second-worst film of 2008. Because as boring as Kill is, at least its not as deeply stupid as this preposterous, would-be thriller, which asks us to believe, among other things, that a capital punishment case would depend solely on the testimony of a forensic psychologist and that the septuagenarian Pacino would have the stamina to run all over Seattle without needing some downtime to take a nap. After twenty dull minutes of exposition, the silly plot kicks into gear when Pacino’s character receives a cell phone call informing him he only has 88 minutes to live. The reason? Well, he’s being blamed by defenders of convicted criminal Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) for influencing the court’s decision through his heavily hypothetical testimony. Forster is being executed later that afternoon and in a last-ditch effort to save himself, he’s gotten one of his acolytes to threaten Pacino into recanting his statements. But who is this mystery person? Could it be someone in his office? One of his students? The random stranger he slept with the night before? Who knows? And, to be more accurate, who cares? Screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson (the “genius” behind NBC’s recently cancelled Las Vegas and the new Knight Rider reboot) has concocted a narrative that’s as pointless as it is ridiculous. The movie’s worst sin though, is that it actually goes on for much longer than its title implies. I could have handled 88 minutes of 88 Minutes—107 minutes, on the other hand, could be legally considered torture.
Extras: An alternate ending that’s even sillier than the theatrical version; two overly enthusiastic making-of featurettes and a snooze-inducing commentary track.

Also on DVD
Made of Honor (Sony, $28.96) a.k.a. My Best Friend’s Wedding 2: Wait…The Maid of Honor’s a Dude?! took a solid box-office thrashing when it opened opposite Iron Man last May. But the rom-com bounced back, grossing a respectable $50 million during its run and stand poised to make a whole lot more on DVD as Patrick Dempsey’s legion of admirers run out to repeatedly rent and/or purchase the film. Extras are sparse—just a director’s commentary—so those viewers hoping for more Dempsey will have to get their McDreamy fix with the new season of Grey’s Anatomy. Once upon a time, Matthew Broderick was also a sex symbol, but those days are long gone. Now the former Ferris Bueller primarily plays frustrated, sexless middle-aged mensches like the one in Finding Amanda (Magnolia, $26.98). After discovering that his niece may be entering into a career as a Las Vegas prostitute, Broderick heads off to the desert capital of sin to bring her back into the family fold. Good luck with that Ferris. The death of Ismail Merchant in 2005 put the kibosh on those hoping for a sequel to Howard’s End, but the company he owned with longtime producing and life partner James Ivory is still funding movies like Before the Rains (Lionsgate, $27.98), an India-set period romance about a wealthy English spice importer who falls in love with a married woman from a small village. In considerably lower-brow news, Lionsgate is also releasing Class of 1999 (Lionsgate, $14.98) a loose sequel to the cult ’80s flick Class of 1984 (which—trivia alert—starred a young Michael J. Fox). Released in 1990, 1999 is just your average high-school punks vs. cyborg teachers sci-fi action flick starring folks like Stacy Keach, Pam Grier and Malcolm McDowell all cashing a paycheck.

A handful of indie films make their way to DVD this week, beginning with Tortured (Sony, $24.96), which stars newly installed CSI lead Laurence Fishburne as a mob accountant who helps a dedicated FBI agent (B-movie staple Cole Hauser) take down his boss. Or is the meek numbers cruncher really setting up the Fed for a fall? Don’t be confused by the title—The Rape of Europa (Menemsha, $29.95) is actually a fascinating documentary about the Nazi’s theft of numerous works of art from European museums during World War II. Several art historians have devoted their lives to tracking these missing paintings and sculptures down and the film, which is based on the book of the same name by Lynn H. Nicholas, examines several cases where the objects were successfully recovered. The small-town comedy Kabluey (Sony, $24.96) stars Lisa Kudrow as an army wife who invites her n’er-do-well brother in law to live in her house and help pay off the bills while her husband is deployed in the Middle East. With few other jobs available, the slacker takes a low-end gig as an Internet company’s big blue mascot. Saturday Night Live‘s Chris Parnell and Christine Taylor a.k.a. Mrs. Ben Stiller co-star.

It’s dalmatian city over in Walt Disney land this week, as the studio releases the new direct-to-DVD animated feature 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure ($29.99), which finds Patch, one of the titular 101 doggies, tasked with the mission of saving his siblings from the clutches of the badder-than-ever Cruella. The Mouse House is also taking this opportunity to re-release both live-action dalmatian features, 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians ($29.99 each).

In TV news, the three-disc set Star Trek: Alternate Realities (Paramount, $39.98) collects episodes from all five Star Trek shows—from the original series to Enterprise—that find the crews encountering parallel worlds or alternate timelines. You know, in my personal alternate reality, Voyager and Enterprise never existed. The Best of What’s Left Of Not Only But Also (BBC, $18.99) collects what little remains of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s hilarious ’60s sketch comedy series. The bulk of the show was lost by the Beeb (along with the early years of their signature sci-fi series Doctor Who) but some gems remain, most notably a dead-on spoof of the marionette show Thunderbirds called Superthunderstingcar. If you’re at all a fan of British comedy, this disc is a must-own, not only for the sketches but also for the half-hour doc about this unheralded comedy duo. Finally, the ABC onslaught continues as two of the network’s 2007 freshman shows Dirty Sexy Money (ABC, $39.99) and Private Practice: Season 1 (ABC, $39.99) hit DVD. From what I understand, Dirty Sexy Money will be significantly different this year, so don’t get too attached to some of the characters (such as Samaire Armstrong’s Paris Hilton-type heiress). Private Practice, on the other hand, will continue Shonda Rhimes’ formula of hot medical professionals having hot sex in between solving crazy heath problems.

Movie Reviews of The Fall, House of the Dead, Baby Mama, The Forbidden Kingdom and many more…

The Fall (Sony, $24.96)

There’s one shot in Tarsem’s long in the making ode to the power of storytelling that I can honestly say I’ve never seen before. The moment begins with a close-up on the pale, white face of a villainous priest who has just betrayed the hero and his lady love in the story-within-the-story to the evil Governor Odious. This image than fades to a shot of the white desert sand, which is spotted with objects that form the image of the priest’s face. The frame remains static for almost two minutes until these objects start to move and the camera pushes in slowly, revealing that they are actually men on horseback headed towards our captured protagonists. It’s the most impressive image in a movie filled with beautiful, memorable visuals shot in parts of the world that are rarely, if ever, glimpsed on film. The visual splendor of The Fall goes a long way towards making up for its rather insipid framing story, which finds a precocious (or, to be more accurate, annoying) little girl befriending a suicidal cripple (played by Pushing Daisies star Lee Pace) in a Los Angeles hospital in the early days of the movie business. In order to get his new friend to do things for him—like say, swiping morphine pills from the hospital pharmacy—the man dreams up the epic tale of a masked bandit, who travels around the world on a quest to slay Odious for killing his brother. The story behind the making of The Fall is in some ways more interesting than the film itself. Tarsem shot the movie over a four-year period in 18 different countries, including India, Bali, South Africa and an extremely remote part of Nepal. So many American films tend to recreate other countries on soundstages or via bluescreen, it’s incredible to have the opportunity to see the real locations in all their splendor onscreen. I just wish the movie didn’t grind to a half every time Tarsem cut back to the “real world.” Here’s a tip: turn off the dialogue track, chapter skip directly to the fantasy portions of the movie and crank up some of your favorite instrumental tunes (I’d recommend Peter Gabriel’s score from The Last Temptation of Christ or anything by Mozart) and just let the music and images wash over you. That’s the best way to enjoy a film that’s heavy on style, but light on substance.

Extras: Tarsem’s commentary track is a must-listen, even if his ego can be a bit hard to take. If you’re at all curious how this film was put together, he walks you through all the far-flung locations the production journeyed to and what scenes were filmed when during the multi-year shoot. The second commentary track, which features Pace as well as the film’s producer and co-writer, is okay, but far less informative. A few deleted scenes and two behind-the-scenes featurettes round out the set.

House of the Dead Director’s Cut: Funny Version (Lionsgate, $19.98)

The idea of Uwe Boll making a new, funny version of his 2003 zombie flick House of the Dead is in and of itself laughable because the theatrical version was already one of the most hilarious movies released that year. Ineptly made, indifferently acted and impossible to watch with a straight face, House launched Boll’s career as the Most Hated Director in Hollywood, a title he seems to take some kind of perverse pride in, even as he rails against all the “critics on the Internet” who he claims are always hounding him. For this new cut of House, Boll has edited bloopers, outtakes and pop-up jokes into the original film. This all feels more than a little desperate—an attempt by the director to prove he can have a laugh at himself, even though he’s notoriously thin-skinned. Worse still, none of the added material is particularly funny. In fact, I chuckled harder at the scenes that hadn’t been tampered with. Now Alone in the Dark on the other hand…that’s a Boll film that could use some laughs!
Extras: The main attraction here is Boll’s new commentary track, where he takes aim at his Internet bashers, makes fun of his cast, praises his directorial flourishes and answers a number of cell phone calls. The guy may be a true blue bullshit artist, but he’s fun to listen to—provided you’re not in the same room with him, of course. Don’t bother with the two featurettes also included on the disc—they already appeared on an earlier edition and are complete wastes of time…much like the movie.

Baby Mama (Universal, $29.98)

I’d happily watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler read Moby Dick for two hours, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I mostly enjoyed Baby Mama, the duo’s first big-screen collaboration after years of working together on Saturday Night Live. The movie casts Fey as Kate Holbrook, an uptight businesswoman who desperately wants a baby, but is unable to conceive thanks to a T-shaped uterus. After exhausting all other options, including adoption and artificial insemination, Kate turns to an agency that will set her up with a surrogate mother. The woman turns out to be the trash-talking, Arena Football-loving Angie (Poehler), who agrees to carry Kate’s child despite their obvious personality differences. Once that premise is established, all writer/director Michael McCuller really needs to do is sit back and let his two stars riff off each other. Unfortunately, he goes out of his way to impose an actual plot on the proceedings, revealing that Angie may not actually be carrying Kate’s baby. This results in a series of complications that sometimes steals too much attention away from the comedy. Luckily, Fey and Poehler are too good at their jobs to let their star vehicle devolve into a Lifetime TV-movie. Whether they’re rocking out to a karaoke version of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” or arguing about who put gum under a fancy coffee table, these actresses are a gifted comedy team. They’re backed up by a nimble supporting cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear and Steve Martin, who scores some big laughs as the spacey CEO of an organic food company. To be honest, Baby Mama is basically a sitcom disguised as a movie, but that means it plays better at home than it did on the big screen.

Extras: The best and most substantial extra here is a lively commentary track featuring McCuller, Fey, Poehler and a largely quiet Lorne Michaels. Learn which of the kids in the background is actually Tina’s real-life daughter Alice. Learn that Amy calls Tina “Betty” for some unexplained reason. Learn that Richard Gere was originally considered for the Steve Martin role, but wisely dropped out. Less interesting is a four-minute featurette about the comedic legacy of Saturday Night Live and a standard-issue making of documentary.

The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate, $34.98)
Fist of Legend (Dragon Dynasty, $24.95)

If you want to understand why this spring’s The Forbidden Kingdom disappointed so many hard-core martial arts movie fans, you only have to check out Fist of Legend, the 1994 flick that catapulted Jet Li and choreographer Yuen Wo-ping to international stardom. A loose remake of Bruce Lee’s The Chinese Connection, Legend features some of the best hand-to-hand combat scenes you’ll see in any Hong Kong flick. The story, as always, is absurdly simple. Li plays a kung-fu fighter extraordinaire who returns to his homeland to avenge his murdered master. The main attraction here is seeing a never-better Li beat up dozens of opponents before the climactic battle royale with the big bad guy. Compare to the simplicity of Legend with the ridiculous plot of The Forbidden Kingdom, which finds a dorky white kid time-traveling to ancient China, where he has to return a magical staff to the long-missing Monkey King, with the help of a silent monk (Li) and a drunken warrior (Jackie Chan). Billed as the first time Chan and Li square off onscreen, the movie really only gives us one sequence where the two get to show their stuff. Other than that, they’re mainly on hand to lend some authenticity to this Hollywoodized version of Hong Kong martial arts epics, which was outsourced to Haunted Mansion director Rob Minkoff. Whatever his enthusiasm for the genre, Minkoff is decidedly not the ideal director for this material and that comes across in the film’s choppy battle scenes. If The Forbidden Kingdom gets young kids interested in exploring real Hong Kong movies, than maybe its existence will be justified. As its own movie though, it’s a major missed opportunity.

Extras: Kingdom comes with five featurettes, a blooper reel and two commentary tracks, as well as a bonus disc with a digital copy of the film. Legend is accompanied by a yak track with HK movie lover Bey Logan, four short documentaries and an appreciation of the film featuring comments from critic Elvis Mitchell and director/fanboy Brett Ratner.

Also on DVD
Released just before Kevin Smith’s similarly-themed Zack and Miri Make a Porno hits theaters on October 31, the British comedy I Want Candy (Magnolia, $26.98) follows two film-school buddies who decide to make a flesh flick in order to jumpstart their movie careers. In order to secure the financing though, the lads have to somehow convince Candy Fiveways (Carmen Electra)—the biggest porn star in the world—into appearing in their super low-budget movie. And if you think that’s improbable just wait until Candy starts to fall for her much-younger director! Filled with recognizable Brit faces like Eddie Marsan and Mackenzie Crook (one of the stars of the original Office), I Want Candy is entertaining enough, but here’s hoping Smith’s version of the story comes with bigger laughs. Speaking of big laughs, the Coen Brothers’ 1998 stoner flick The Big Lebowski: 10th Anniversary Edition (Universal, $19.98) has emerged as one of the great cult comedies of all-time. I know I’m risking my film buff card by admitting this, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the movie. It’s just a little too smug and self-satisfied for me to completely embrace. That said, Jeff Bridges is absolutely marvelous and John Goodman does some of the best work of his career as well. It’s a movie I’m always willing to watch again, just to see if I’m ready to change my mind. This 10th Anniversary Edition comes in a standard two-disc set as well as a limited edition gift package where both discs are enclosed in a mini bowling ball. Extras include a retrospective documentary with new cast and crew interviews, a look at the movie’s surreal dream sequences and a trip to The Lebowski Fest, an annual meet-up for the movie’s most devoted fans.

A pair of vintage ’80s horror flicks celebrity their twentieth anniversary this week, Child’s Play: 20th Birthday Edition (MGM, $14.98) and Pumpkinhead: Collector’s Edition (MGM, $19.98). Of the two, Child’s Play remains the best-known, largely because the pint-sized killer doll Chucky is a genuine a fright movie icon. Chalk that up to novelty value as well as Brad Dourif’s awesome vocal performance. Dourif and the other principal actors (including female lead Catherine Hicks who went on to star in the considerably more wholesome 7th Heaven) appear in a new making-of documentary and on a commentary track, while Chucky himself can be heard yakking over four select sequences. The directorial debut of recently deceased effects guru Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead stars Lance Henriksen as a grieving father who has a witch summon an evil spirit to wreak vengeance on the teens that killed his only son. Not quite as extras-laden as the Child’s Play disc, Pumpkinhead still comes with a commentary track and five featurettes.

I haven’t had a chance to check out the new Spider-Man animated series that’s currently airing as part of the Kids WB! animated line-up on The CW, but based on the direct-to-DVD cartoon The Spectacular Spider-Man: Attack of the Lizard (Sony, $19.94) (which strings three episodes back-to-back into a loose “feature”) it seems like this is a worthy successor to the classic ’60s animated series as well as the version that ran on FOX Kids during the mid-’90s. Updated to the 21st century and focusing entirely on a teenage Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man makes room for dozens of familiar Spidey faces, from Gwen Stacy (recast here as Pete’s geeky science buddy) and Eddie Brock (the future Venom) to Flash Thompson and Curt Connors a.k.a. The Lizard. All in all, this show does a good job satisfying comic-book purists while also appealing to younger viewers who only know the movie version of Spider-Man. Finally, ABC is ramping up for the fall season by releasing a slew of TV-on-DVD titles this month, beginning with two of their biggest hits, Grey’s Anatomy: Season 4 (Disney, $59.99 and Ugly Betty: Season 2 (Disney, $59.99). Now you can see for yourself whether Katherine Heigl storylines in Grey’s fourth year were as bad as she claims and if Ugly Betty fell victim to the sophomore slump after an acclaimed, award-winning freshman season.

Heroes: Season Two (Universal, $39.98)

After a phenomenal first season, NBC’s surprise hit Heroes went into its sophomore year riding high on a wave of fan love and record ratings. But like Lost before it, problems set in early on in the season as the writers struggled to find compelling storylines for the established ensemble, while also introducing a bunch of new characters into the mix, many of whom were…well, let’s just say kinda bland.  The worst offenders on this front were the so-called Wonder Twins, Maya and Alejandro Herrera, a pair of Mexican teenagers who crossed the border into the U.S. seeking a cure to their frightening powers.  It wasn’t just that these two characters were annoying—it was also unclear what purpose they served to the other, more interesting stories running through the season.  But that wasn’t the only error the writers made as the season progressed: they also squandered the promising premise of transporting Hiro (the show’s breakout star) back to 16th century Japan, allowing that plot to drag on much longer than it should have.  Elsewhere, poor Claire was saddled with a lame new love interest, Peter turned up in Ireland suffering from amnesia and Sylar popped up occasionally to glower and grimace.  At least the show’s production values remained top-notch throughout the season, meaning that the effects were often able to distract from the clumsy storytelling.  But here’s hoping that the writers have learned from their mistakes as they embark on the third year.  After all, if Lost was able to bounce back, Heroes certainly can too.
Extras: The bonus feature sure to attract the most eyeballs is the 15-minute “alternate ending” to the season finale, which shows where the show would have gone had the strike not forced the writers to wrap the storyline up and start fresh in season three.  The show’s producers discuss other abandoned story ideas in a ten-minute featurette that follows the alternate finale.  Meanwhile, a season three teaser attempts to reassure the fanbase that the show is firing on all cylinders again.  The usual array of deleted scenes, production featurettes and cast and crew commentaries round out the set.

Redbelt (Sony Pictures Classics, $27.96)

There’s a point in every David Mamet production where a character sums up the theme of the piece in one pithy (and often profanity-laden) line of dialogue.  Glenglarry Glen Ross? “Always be closing.”  The Edge? “I’m gonna kill the bear.”  The key phrase of Mamet’s latest film Redbelt is uttered in the first five minutes: “There is always an escape.”  It’s the life philosophy of main character Mike Terry, a jiu-jitsu instructor  played by Chewitel Ejiofor. No matter how stormy things get, Mike remains cool and collected, secure in the knowledge that he’ll find a way out of every situation.  Mamet would no doubt love for Redbelt to be the thinking man’s action flick. Poblem is, if you think about it too hard, the movie doesn’t make any damn sense.  Redbelt‘s plot twists are blindingly obvious to anyone who has seen Mamet’s House of Games or The Spanish Prisoner.  What holds it together is Ejiofor, who proves himself a genuine, grade-A movie star.  Should Daniel Craig decide to hang up his monogrammed 007 tuxedos, the James Bond producers would be wise to recruit Ejiofor as his replacement.

Extras: Mamet chats with mixed martial arts champ Randy Couture on a commentary track and appears in a separate video Q&A that delves into his own martial-arts training.  A behind-the-scenes documentary follows the film’s production and another featurette about the mixed martial arts industry sheds some light on how the controversial sports has evolved over the years.

What Happens in Vegas (Fox, $29.99)

Outside of the Judd Apatow movies, it’s hard to think of a good mainstream romantic comedy that’s been made in the past three or four years.  Sadly, What Happens in Vegas doesn’t really do much to improve the genre’s prospects.  This lame-brained rom-com casts Cameron Diaz as an uptight stockbroker and Ashton Kutcher as a goof-off furniture maker who meet cute while on vacation in Vegas and wind up getting hitched after an alcohol-fueled night out.  Once they’ve sobered up, they immediately plan to divorce, but that changes when they hit the jackpot at the slot machines and can’t agree over who really “won” the money (see, it was Cameron’s quarter, but Ashton pulled the lever).  Fed up with their squabbling, a New York City judge (Dennis Miller) forces them to live together for six months in order to give their marriage a real shot.  Naturally, the apartment quickly turns into a war zone (he pees in the kitchen sink, she invites his parents over for dinner) but it isn’t long before they start to feel stirrings of what might just be love.  If these characters weren’t so nasty to each other, we might actually root for them to get hitched for real, but so much of the humor in Vegas is unpleasant and uncomfortable and not in an Office-kind of way.  Excuse the overused gambling pun, but What Happens in Vegas isn’t money.

Extras: Cameron and Ashton trade dumb quips in an eight-minute “Conversation With…” featurette  and a gag reel contains more laughs than the actual movie.

Son of Rambow (Paramount Vantage, $19.99)

Son of Rambow is one of the wittiest, most enjoyable films of the year and I’d say that even if my name weren’t emblazoned on the cover of the DVD box.  (“Wildly funny!” says Ethan Alter.)  Granted, as a lifelong film buff, I’m more or less Rambow‘s target audience, as co-writer/director Garth Jennings is drawing on his own nostalgic love of being young and in love with movies.  The story revolves around two young kids in suburban London circa 1983 who decide to make their home movie sequel to First Blood in the hopes of winning a local amateur filmmaking competition.  A classic odd couple, these boys come from wildly different backgrounds but bond over their shared passion for Rambo.  The young actors (neither of whom had acted in a movie before) are wonderful and Jennings’ affection for them and the material resonates throughout.  Son of Rambow isn’t just a great film about filmmaking–it’s a great film about family.

Extras: A half-hour making-of documentary, a commentary track with the filmmakers and boys and Garth Jennings’ own childhood action film that inspired Rambow.

Also on DVD
Morgan Spurlock became an overnight celebrity after knocking back 30 days worth of Big Macs in the hit documentary Super Size Me, but lightning didn’t strike twice with his follow-up Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (Genius Products, $24.95), which finds the outspoken New Yorker heading off to the Middle East in pursuit of the world’s most wanted man.  The movie’s premise casts Spurlock as a nervous daddy-to-be (his long-suffering wife is preggers) who decides to track down Osama bin Laden in order to put his mind at ease about bringing a child into this increasingly violent world.  But that aspect of the movie is forced and awkward; Spurlock is on firmer ground when he attempts to lay out the region’s many social problems in a clear, easy-to-follow fashion.  Even so, Where in the World…? can’t escape the dreaded curse of the sophomore slump.  Better luck next time Morgan.  In other documentary news, A/k/a Tommy Chong (DVD Masters, $24.98) takes an in-depth look at stoner icon Tommy Chong’s recent legal troubles, which all started when the government busted him for selling bongs on his website.  Chong himself is interviewed at length in the film, which also touches on his early career and tempestuous partnership with Cheech Marin.  Chicago 10 (Paramount, $29.99) takes an interesting approach to the usual historical documentary, mixing animation and live-action in its recounting of the violence that engulfed the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the subsequent trial of some of the peace movement’s leaders.  The archival footage is more compelling than the animated recreations, but overall the film is a helpful primer for people first learning about the events of those tumultuous days.

If you’re doing some DVD shopping for your kids this week, you’ve got a trio of new releases to choose from, beginning with the smash hit Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus concert movie Best of Both Worlds (Disney, $34.99), which arrives on disc in all its 3-D glory.  Extras include songs not seen in the movie and lots of behind-the-scenes footage.  The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (Disney, $29.99) is a prequel to the Mouse House’s 1989 classic and follows the cute-as-a-button mermaid’s early years before she went to the sea witch Ursula to become part of a new world.  The Nightmare Before Christmas: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (Disney, $32.99) wasn’t exactly a box-office hit when it arrived in theaters in 1993, but it’s become a genuine holiday classic over the years, thanks largely to its beautiful stop-motion animation and wonderful soundtrack.  Available in both standard and Blu-ray versions, this two-disc set comes with a making-of documentary and, best of all, two early shorts by producer/mastermind Tim Burton, Frankenweenie and Vincent.

Hollywood has tried many times to revive The Lone Ranger for a new audience, most recently in an ill-fated pilot for the defunct WB network.  Before that, the masked man and his companion Tonto rode onto the big screen in 1981′s The Legend of the Lone Ranger (Lionsgate, $14.98), which starred Klinton Spilsbury as the title character and Jason Robards as President Ulysses S. Grant.  The NYC-set horror film Skinned Alive (Lionsgate, $26.98) sounds like a rejected teleplay for a Law & Order: SVU episode.  A cannibalistic prostitute stalks the streets of Manhattan, leading three ordinary citizens to try and track her down  French filmmakers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet took the world by storm in 1991 with the release of their off-the-wall fantasy/comedy/horror hybrid Delicatessen (Lionsgate, $19.98), which takes place in an apocalyptic future and follows the residents of a crumbling apartment building where the meal of the day may be…themselves.  Speaking of cult French movies, Christophe Gans’ 2001 martial-arts extravaganza Brotherhood of the Wolf gets a Director’s Cut (Universal, $19.98) which comes with new documentaries and 40 minutes of extra footage.

Street Kings (Fox, $29.99)

James Ellroy is credited with dreaming up the story for this gritty L.A. cop drama, but the real inspiration has to be FX’s stellar series The Shield. Certainly, Keanu Reeves’ grizzled veteran cop could be a not-too-distant relative of Vic Mackey, the bald-headed bully played brilliantly by that show’s Emmy-winning star Michael Chiklis. Reeves is an unlikely choice for this kind of part, but he actually delivers a nuanced performance as Tom Ludlow, a morally ambiguous LAPD detective who discovers just how corrupt his own department is. Director David Ayer (who wrote Training Day and last year’s Harsh Times) is a lifelong Angeleno and you can sense his intimate knowledge of the city in the extensive location work and attention to detail. It’s a shame that the story is just too familiar and generic to really grab our attention. Devote your time to catching up on The Shield instead, especially since the final season starts in two weeks.

Extras: Ayer takes a ride-along with former LAPD officer and the film’s technical advisor Jaime FitzSimons in an interesting 15-minute featurette that covers some of the real stories that are worked into the film. The director also contributes a commentary track to the feature and 11 minutes worth of deleted scenes. Additional featurettes and behind-the-scenes vignettes round up the bonus features.

Miss Petigrew Lives for a Day (Universal, $29.98)

A slight, but enjoyable period comedy, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day owes its modest charms entirely to the spirited work of its lead actresses, Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. The latter plays a nightclub singer and aspiring actress in 1930s London with the too-good-to-be-true name Delysia Lafoose. Juggling the attentions of three men in addition to pursuing a plum role in a new West End musical has left the poor girl exhausted and in need of a social secretary. Enter the dour Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand), whose ultra-conservative ways have cost her numerous jobs with the city’s wealthy elite. To avoid ending up on the street, Miss Pettigrew vows to keep her own opinions in check and serve her new employer’s every whim. Since she’s working for Delysia, this means lying to the different men in her life and lunching at revealing lingerie shows. Over the course of their single day together, both women face life-changing decisions and grow into better, happier people. It’s all very uplifting and sweet—I just wish there was a little more dramatic meat to this wispy story.

Extras: Director Bharat Nalluri contributes a commentary track and McDormand and Adams are interviewed for a making-of documentary. Another featurette examines the novel on which the movie is based and tracks its long journey to the big screen.

The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior (Universal, $29.98)

A direct-to-DVD prequel to The Mummy’s Rock-oriented spin-off franchise, The Scorpion King 2 looks and feels like one of those cheaply made Sci Fi Channel Original Movies like Mansquito or Ice Spiders. In fact, that’s almost certainly where the film will end up after it earns its coin back on disc. Since The Rock has long since graduated to more high-class fare (like…uh, The Game Plan) the new film turns back the clock to the days before his character Mathayus became The Scorpion King. Former That’s So Raven star Michael Copon plays the younger Mathayus, who watches his father fall in gladiatorial combat to the villainous Sargon (played by ultimate fighting champ Randy Couture) and is subsequently shipped off to a remote training school to become one of the king’s elite warriors. When he returns, Sargon has claimed the throne in a coup and tries to take care of unfinished business by slaying the son of the man he killed all those years ago. But Mathayus escapes and makes his way to the Underworld in search of a weapon powerful enough to bring Sargon down. Cheesy special effects, wooden acting and awkward dialogue make The Scorpion King 2 a candidate for the title of future camp classic.
Extras: See what was left on the cutting room floor with a collection of deleted Scenes and a gag reel. Several making-of featurettes, including a one-on-one with Couture, round-out the bonus features.

The Fletch Collection (Universal, $19.98)

I’ve been steadily working my way through all of the generation-defining ’80s flicks I missed growing up—just crossed Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Revenge of the Nerds off my list not too long ago—so I was pleased to see this two-disc containing Chevy Chase’s adventures as the quick-witted investigative journalist/amateur detective Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher cross my desk. What little I know of the Fletch movies mainly involve the tortured history of the long-in-the-works remake, which was originally supposed to be written and directed by Kevin Smith (and starring Jason Lee) before it passed along to Scrubs duo Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence. Hearing those various players wax rhapsodic about the 1985 original made me curious to finally see it for myself and now that I have, I’m not entirely sure that I get what all the fuss is about. Sure, Fletch is enjoyable in a low-key kind of way and it certainly provides Chase with his best film role ever. But unless I’m way off base here, the movie isn’t all that funny. It’s clever and occasionally amusing, but I can’t say I was in hysterics watching it. Perhaps that’s the point, though. I do give director Michael Ritchie a lot of credit for making the mystery play like an actual mystery instead of just an excuse for Chase to do his holier-than-thou shtick. That’s the mistake that the 1989 sequel Fletch Lives makes and the results aren’t particularly pretty. Clearly I needed to see this movie when everyone else did: 1985.

Extras: Though billed as a new release, this set is really just a repackaging of the special “Jane Doe Edition” that came out a few years back. The same bonus features that popped up on that earlier disc reappear here, most notably the half-hour retrospective documentary that features interviews with almost every major cast member except for Chase. (Did they not offer him airfare?) The disc for Fletch Lives, on the other hand, only sports a theatrical trailers, which is probably for the best.

Also on DVD
Not to be confused with their 8 Films to Die For series, Lionsgate’s new 3-disc horror anthology 6 Films To Keep You Awake (Lionsgate, $27.98) collects six freaky frightfests directed by up-and-coming Spanish filmmakers, who are clearly angling to become the next Guillermo Del Toro. Interestingly, most of the films deal with children and childhood, from The Baby’s Room (about a married couple who discover a phantom is sharing their newborn’s room) to A Real Friend (in which a ten-year-old girl befriends a bloodthirsty vampire). Each film includes a making-of featurette and English subtitles for the non-Spanish speaking viewers out there. Speaking of foreign horror directors, Aussie filmmaker Greg Maclean (who helmed 2005′s controversial Wolf Creek) returns unleashes Rogue (Dimension Extreme, $24.95), a slasher movie where the killer is…a giant alligator. That’s only slightly less ridiculous than The Wizard of Gore (Dimension Extreme, $19.97), a remake of a cult ’70s horror movie, which casts Crispin Glover as an illusionist who may or may not be a homicidal killer. Glover’s co-stars include Brad Dourif, Kip Pardue and those web celebs The Suicide Girls. Pardue also stars in Wasted (Genius Products, $19.98) as one of a trio of twentysomethings who return to their small hometown after the death of a high-school buddy to reminisce and renew old ties. Dexter: The Complete Second Season (Paramount, $42.99) contains all 11 episodes from the hit Showtime series’ sophomore year, which recently racked up a ton of Emmy nods, including a Best Actor nomination for the show’s terrific leading man, Michael C. Hall. In classic TV news, the 1982 TV-movie The Executioner’s Song (CBS, $19.99) gave Tommy Lee Jones a breakout role as real-life convicted killer Gary Mark Gilmore, who made history in 1975 as the first prisoner to petition for his own execution. On a more upbeat note, John Oliver: Terrifying Times (Comedy Central, $19.99) is an extended cut of The Daily Show correspondent’s recent one-man special lampooning the freaky era in which we live. Forget The Dark Knight! Comic-book lovers need to check out DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures (Warner Bros., $24.98), a two-disc collection of 18 cartoons from the ’50s and ’60s starring such second-tier heroes as The Atom, Hawkman and Kid Flash. Stiffly animated and awkwardly written, these museum pieces are so much fun to watch. Finally, The Life Before Her Eyes (Magnolia, $26.98), my pick for worst movie so far this year, limps onto DVD and if you’re smart, you’ll stay far, far away from this cheap, manipulative drama. I put it on again to see if it was bad as I remembered and guess what? It was.

Tropic Thunder

You can’t talk about Tropic Thunder without talking about Robert Downey Jr. and that’s not just because he’s the funniest thing in this big, broad spoof of war movies. The newly minted box-office superhero plays Kirk Lazarus, an acclaimed Aussie method actor with piercing blue eyes and five Oscars on his shelf. For his latest role, Lazarus has been cast in a big-budget Vietnam War flick opposite action superstar Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller, who also serves as Thunder’s director and co-writer), obese comedian Jeff “Fats” Portnoy (Jack Black) and rapper-turned-actor Alpha Chino (Brandon T. Jackson).

Shooting on location in Asia, the four stars are dropped into the middle of the jungle to shoot some gritty battle footage and end up getting involved in an actual firefight with local drug lords. But here’s the twist that will really have everyone buzzing: Lazarus, who is white, is playing an African-American character. As if that’s not enough, he’s undergone a radical pigmentation procedure to have his skin darkened. So, in essence, Downey Jr. is doing his role in blackface. Are we really expected to laugh at this? Isn’t it horribly offensive? Can a white actor really don blackface in the 21st century and get away with it?

The answers to these questions are, in order, yes, no and not entirely. Historically, blackface performers sought to entertain their audience with horribly offensive caricatures, which mocked black culture, appearance and speech. But in Tropic Thunder, both Downey Jr. and the filmmakers make it clear from the get-go that the joke isn’t on African-Americans, but on Lazarus for believing that surgically darkening his skin and repeatedly quoting The Jeffersons will make him “black enough” to play a role he never should have won in the first place. Still, there’s no question that Downey Jr.’s performance may generate some uncomfortable silences amongst moviegoers of all races.

And he’s not the only actor who takes a walk on the provocative side in Thunder. Much of the pre-release publicity has focused on Simple Jack, a mentally challenged farm boy played by Stiller’s Speedman character in another film-within-the-film. Simple Jack understandably has a lot of real-life advocacy groups concerned, but like his co-star, Stiller is careful make himself and not the mentally disabled the butt of the gag. What the actor/director is really spoofing here is the way leading Hollywood actors view playing a disabled character as a direct path towards Oscar glory. (Kate Winslet made a similar observation, albeit one geared towards the Academy’s endless fascination with Holocaust dramas, during her appearance in the first season of Ricky Gervais scabrous satirical series Extras.)

Seen out of context, I can understand why some viewers are concerned about the film’s more extreme elements, but a toned down Tropic Thunder would be far less funnier and, arguably, much more insulting. The main reason the satire succeeds is because all of the actors are willing to go big and broad, even when they risk looking foolish or, worse, like a bunch of ignorant assholes. In its best moments, the movie generates the same kind of delirious laughter that greeted Blazing Saddles, another film that used outrageous comedy to explode conventional definitions of “good taste.” I don’t mean to put Thunder in the same category as Mel Brooks’ comic masterpiece, because, truth be told, it can’t sustain itself for its nearly two-hour running time. Much of the best material happens within the first hour and, by the end, Stiller is forced to recycle jokes, most notably a stunt cameo appearance by Tom Cruise as a foul-mouthed studio head, that are funny the first time, but are decidedly less so the second, third and fourth. And like the recent Pineapple Express, the film also casts some truly talented comedians in supporting roles and gives them almost nothing to do; Nick Nolte, Bill Hader, Steve Coogan and Jay Baruchel all do their best to steal a few moments of screentime, but all too often they’re drowned out by the main stars, as well as the numerous explosions that turn the last thirty minutes into a too-conventional war picture.

Still, Tropic Thunder deserves to be seen solely for Downey Jr.’s brilliant one-man show, which, in a perfect world, would be recognized by Oscar voters come January. That the actor commits so fearlessly to a role that would challenge even Daniel Day-Lewis is another example of his ongoing career renaissance. And with a dramatic turn in November’s The Soloist (co-starring Jaime Foxx) on the horizon, by this time next year, Downey Jr. may just be another King of Hollywood…behind Will Smith, of course.

Also in Theaters
Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The fact that the newest entry in the Star Wars franchise is a PG-rated animated feature should tell you all you need to know about who The Clone Wars‘ target audience is. And yet, some older fanboys (most notably many of the crew over at Ain’t It Cool News) can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that they may have outgrown the franchise that shaped their cinematic personalities. From its broad physical comedy to its wisecracking Jedi-in-training (who playfully calls her tormented mentor Anakin Skywalker “Sky Guy”) The Clone Wars is directed first and foremost at kids and their families. It’s also little more than a feature-length pilot for Cartoon Network’s upcoming animated series, which also takes place during the galaxy-spanning battle that followed the events of Attack of the Clones. But here’s the thing: The Clone Wars is actually kind of fun. Though certainly not up there with the original Holy Trilogy, it goes down far smoother than either Episode I or Episode II (Episode III is still pretty good) thanks largely to the absence of any awkward romance or one Jar Jar Binks. (The movie does have its own Jar Jar in the form of Ziro the Hutt, the ambiguously gay uncle of Jabba.) Director Dave Filoni keeps the action fast and furious, staging a relentless mountainside battle as well as a great mano-a-mano lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and new villainess Asajj Ventress. Whenever the fighting stop of courses, the movie starts to drag, but with a zippy 99-minute runtime, The Clone Wars rushes to its finale before wearing out its welcome. If you take your Star Wars seriously, chances are you’ll view this flick as sacrilege, but younger viewers will be able to enjoy themselves without feeling the weight of the franchise’s history on their shoulders.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

After making a roaring comeback with Match Point, Woody Allen stumbled badly with his next two films, the diverting, but pointless Scoop and the almost unwatchable Cassandra’s Dream. Fortunately, Allen’s 39th feature is a breezy delight. While it falls just short of his A-list, it fits snugly amongst such B-movies as Broadway Danny Rose, Mighty Aphrodite and Deconstructing Harry. All the credit has to go to the film’s cast, specifically Javier Bardem, the best leading man in any Allen film since Sean Penn ran away with Sweet and Lowdown. The recent Oscar-winner plays Juan Antonio, a Spanish artist who gets involved with two beautiful American tourists visiting Barcelona for the summer. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is a soon-to-be-married grad student who is initially put off by Antonio’s advances, but ends up feeling strangely attracted to him. In contrast, her tempestuous friend Christina (Scarlett Johansson) is more than ready to leap into the handsome stranger’s bed, eventually becoming his artistic muse, a position she ends up sharing with his mentally unstable ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, in the film’s second-best performance). Allen’s views about marriage and its impact on artistic expression will no doubt ignite spirited debates amongst the film’s audience. Given his own past, it’s more than a little creepy to imagine him advocating the kind of three-way relationship that Juan Antonio, Christina and Maria Elena wind up enjoying. That said, the actors make the questionable gender politics work, investing their characters with an emotional honesty that may not have existed on the page. The film is gorgeous to look at too; the sun-dappled Spanish metropolis has rarely been lovelier onscreen and Bardem, Johansson and Cruz register an off-the-charts sex appeal (Hall does as well, of course, but Allen makes sure the most beautiful close-ups are reserved for his gal Scarlett.) Movies like Vicky Christina Barcelona make all of us Allen devotees believe that our one-time hero still has a few good stories left up his sleeve.

Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer

A heartfelt tribute to the iconic crooner, who passed away just before the film was completed, this touching documentary mixes vintage archival footage with recently taped interviews with the star and her many admirerers. Like last year’s documentary about Pete Seeger, the tone is relentlessly upbeat, focusing primarily on O’Day’s triumphs, although not completely sugercoating the hardships she experienced, some of which were of her own making. Although the film is accessible for all audiences, it will be best appreciated by those with a knowledge of O’Day and the era of music she represents.

The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO, $59.99)

Oftentimes, Emmy voters wait until an acclaimed, but underseen show is in its final season to honor it with a slew of nominations. At least, that’s what everyone though would happen with the fifth and final season of HBO’s The Wire, which is considered by almost every major television critic out there to be one of the greatest shows ever broadcast, but has been routinely passed over by the folks at the Academy of Televisions Arts & Sciences. And, once again, when this year’s nominations were announced, The Wire went almost entirely overlooked, scoring a lone writing nod. Perhaps one day we’ll learn why the voting body apparently hates creator/producer/writer David Simon’s passion project, but until then we’ll just have to content ourselves with the box sets of the show’s five-year run. As every Wire fan knows, each season focuses on a particular institution in Baltimore, where the action takes place. Last year zeroed in on the school system and this time around, Simon zeroes in on the place where he got his start: the city’s local newspaper The Baltimore Sun. (Interestingly, this storyline was criticized by a sizeable number of journalists—both in Baltimore and elsewhere—that normally worship the ground the show walks on. Is Simon settling old grudges, as they claimed, or are they unhappy being turned into the story instead of just observing the story? You decide!) To say anything more about the season’s plotlines would spoil the pleasure of getting lost in The Wire‘s rich, novelistic storytelling. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the final bow of a genuine American classic…no matter what those Emmy voters say.
Extras: David Simon and his cast and crew discuss The Wire‘s legacy in a retrospective documentary and contribute commentary tracks to six episodes.

South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season (Comedy Central, $49.99)

Earlier this year, Comedy Central released the three-episode Imaginationland arc—the highlight of South Park‘s eleventh season—as a standalone DVD. For those of you who missed that disc, all three can also be found here along with the 11 other episodes that made up one of the show’s better late-period seasons. By my count, there was only one flat-out awful episode this year (the appropriately titled “More Crap,” which found Stan’s dad attempting to set the world record for Biggest Dump) and just a few middling half-hours, like “D-Yikes,” yet another entry in the now stale Mr./Mrs. Garrison plotline. These lowlights were balanced by such terrific high points as “Guitar Queer-O,” an absolutely brilliant spoof of “Guitar Hero” fanatics, “Night of the Living Homeless,” a very funny zombie movie take-off and “The List,” where the boys of South Park Elementary attempted to steal a secret list penned by their female classmates that ranked each of them from hottest to nottest. With the show’s twelfth season fast approaching, the South Park crew has definitely set the bar high for themselves. Here’s hoping they’re able to keep this comeback going.
Extras: Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone contribute their standard mini-commentaries to each episode, which are almost as funny (not to mention expletive-filled) as the show itself.

Felon (Sony, $24.96)

For fans of the show Oz, the idea of watching a prison drama with Harold Perrineau (who played inmate Augustus Hill on that late, great HBO series) as a jailhouse guard sounds too perfect to pass up. And Perrineau is pretty great in Felon as is the movie itself…until it all goes off the rails in the final half-hour. Up until that point, this gritty, absorbing film completely immerses you in the horrors of prison life in a way few movies do. Stephen Dorff plays Wade Porter, a family man and small business owner who accidentally kills a robber that breaks into his home. Because the incident occurred outside of his home, Wade is arrested for manslaughter and ends up pleading guilty to a reduced charge to avoid serving a lengthy prison sentence. Once on the inside though, he makes a series of bad choices that keep him behind bars. Fortunately, help arrives in the form of John Smith (Val Kilmer), a lifer with a gruff exterior that masks a reluctant willingness to help his new cellmate. Watching Wade struggle to navigate the rules of his new environment is nerve-wracking and certainly made me never, ever want to see the inside of a prison. But writer/director Ric Roman Waugh commits the fatal error of romanticizing hardened criminals like Smith, even suggesting that his act of violence was justified because it was in service of a grander kind of justice. The movie’s too-tidy ending feels like a cop-out too, as it all but lets Wade off the hook for his mistakes, instead pointing the finger at corrupt guards like Perrineau. Felon starts out in the real world, but by the end, it might as well be taking place in a fantasy land like Narnia.
Extras: A 13-minute making-of featurette with interviews from the cast and crew.

Also on DVD
This year’s winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar, The Counterfeiters (Sony, $28.96) is a Holocaust drama with a twist. Imprisoned in a concentration camp, counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch agrees to manufacture fake currency in order to keep the Nazi war machine going. In exchange, he receives his own living space and edible food and is left alone by the sadistic guards. In other foreign film news, Stephen Chow’s CJ7 (Sony, $28.96) is an interesting departure from the actor/director’s standard action comedies like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. Mixing E.T. with a dash of Gremlins, the movie casts Chow as a devoted single father who brings home a strange green creature as a present for his adorable young son. This creature turns out to be an alien from a distant galaxy and much wackiness ensues as father and son try to keep their discovery hidden from the media and overeager scientists. The Stuart Gordon/Christopher Lambert sci-fi action flick Fortress (Lionsgate, $9.98) turns fifteen this year and Lionsgate is celebrating by reissuing the film in a new edition that’s surprisingly bare-bones in terms of bonus features. The Killing Gene (Genius Products, $19.97) features the unlikely ensemble of Stellan Skarsgard, Melissa George and Selma Blair in a mystery about a vicious serial killer who tries to turn the tables on the cops investigating the case. Belly 2: Millionare Boyz Club (Lionsgate, $26.98) is an in-name only sequel to the 1998 Hype Williams cult classic that casts The Game as an ex-con who gets involved with a smoking hot undercover DEA agent. Speaking of unnecessary sequels, The Art of War II: Betrayal (Sony, $24.96) finds tax evader Wesley Snipes revisiting a character her last played eight years ago, federal agent Neil Shaw. Gorgeous Spanish actress Paz Vega (the thinking man’s Penelope Cruz) plays the title role in Carmen (Lionsgate, $19.98), a new version of the oft-performed French opera about a Gypsy temptress. Finally, the PBS-produced documentary Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami (PBS, $19.99) recounts the famed boxer’s time in Miami, where he honed his fighting skills and made first contact with the Nation of Islam.

Pineapple Express

It took me two viewings to really start grooving on the latest Judd Apatow comedy, Pineapple Express and even the second time around I didn’t come away with a complete contact high. This fitfully funny, but wildly uneven picture tries to blend a stoner comedy with an ’80s action movie and the two genres never really fit together comfortably. Fortunately, the cast is good enough that they are usually able to carry you through some of the film’s rougher spots. Seth Rogen, who also co-wrote the film, stars as Dale Denton, a slovenly process server with a serious pot addiction and aspirations of being a radio talk-show host. After picking up some choice weed from his dealer Saul (James Franco), Dale is relaxing in his car, enjoying his latest purchase when he sees a guy get shot in the head by a local drug kingpin (Gary Cole) while a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) looks on. Speeding away from the scene of the crime, the addled stoner can’t think of anyplace to go except right back to his dealer’s pad, where he convinces Saul that it’s vitally important they both go on the lam. At this point, Pineapple Express essentially becomes a chase movie, with Dale and Saul on the run from Cole, Cole’s enforcers (played hilariously by Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan) and a crew of Asian gangsters. Also in the mix is Saul’s own weed supplier Red (Danny McBride), who initially tries to aid their enemies before crossing over to the good side. As you can tell, there’s a lot going on in Express and director David Gordon Green can’t quite keep up with the movie’s pace. The fact that this is his first experience directing a comedy doesn’t exactly help matters. Unlike Apatow, Green doesn’t have a great feel for his actors’ rhythms; he allows some scenes to run on way too long, while others feel ultra-abbreviated, ending before anything really funny happens. He’s also not certain how to direct Rogen, a very funny guy who needs a strong presence behind the camera to help him deliver an actual performance, not just a series of riffs. The other thing that might catch viewers (myself included) off guard at first is how violent the movie is. I enjoy a good bloodbath as much as the next guy, but you don’t exactly expect to see a dude get his ear bitten of in a gory close-up in a Judd Apatow production. All this said, I have to admit that the movie plays better on a second viewing, once you’ve adjusted your expectations to what it is rather than what you imagined it would be. The one element that worked each time I saw it was Franco’s brilliant turn as Saul, a marvelous comic tour-de-force that ranks amongst the best pot performances ever captured on film. In fact, I’d watch a Saul solo sequel in a heartbeat, particularly if he somehow managed the make the acquaintance of Harold and Kumar. Pineapple Express itself may not be perfect, but Franco’s performance pretty much is.

Also in Theaters

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Shot in beautiful black-and-white, this ultra low-budget drama revolves around an unlucky-in-love twentysomething who has a day-long date with an overly chatty gal on New Year’s Eve. Resemblances to Richard Linklater’s classic Before Sunrise and Before Sunset flicks may not be intentional, but they’re impossible to ignore as we watch these two characters wander around Los Angeles talking about life, the universe and everything. Talk-a-thons like this live and die on the strength of the performances and while the two leads start out fairly insufferable, we grow to like them over the course of the film’s slender 90-minute runtime. I don’t know that I’d recommend anyone rush out to the theater to see this (and, truth be told, it won’t be out for very long anyway) but it’ll undoubtedly play well on DVD or cable.

Red

Brian Cox a.k.a. The Original Hannibal Lecter delivers another strong performance as a senior citizen in a small Texas town who seeks justice against the three young kids that murdered his dog in cold blood. After his appeals to the shooter’s father (Tom Sizemore, who could almost be playing himself) go unheeded, he enlists a lawyer and a TV journalist to put pressure on the D.A. to prosecute the case. But his assailants strike back, repeatedly threatening his life and burning his store to the ground. Although it’s a little difficult to believe the way the violence escalates, Cox is heartbreaking as a tortured soul just trying to stand up for what’s right.

Movie Reviews of Shine a Light, Pete Seeger, Jack Ryan and many more…

Shine a Light (Paramount, $34.99)

The first of half 2008 saw the release of two great concert films feature veteran rock-and-rollers. First out of the gate was U2 3D, which featured some of the best 3D photography ever committed to film in addition to Bono & Co. playing the hell out of standards like “Sunday Blood Sunday” and “One.” That flick (which still isn’t available on DVD for the obvious reason that 3D looks like crap on your television screen) was followed a few months later by Martin Scorsese’ Shine a Light, a condensed recap of a two-night gig the Rolling Stones played at New York’s legendary Beacon Theater. Given that both Scorsese and all of the Stones are in their 60s, one couldn’t help but wonder if they’d need some No-Doz to make it through the show. As it turns out, we shouldn’t have worried. Within five minutes of taking the stage, Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie and their extensive backup band are grooving in a way that puts most modern-day rockers to shame. Scorsese more than keeps up with the band, shooting the concert with 16 different cameras and cutting between them without missing a beat. Special guest stars Christina Aguilera, Jack White and Buddy Guy turn in memorable performances as well, but the Stones are the undisputed stars of the show. Four decades into their career and they still play with an energy and passion that keeps them sounding eternally young.

Extras: Four bonus songs from the concert and an additional 16-minute featurette containing behind-the-scenes footage not seen in the documentary.

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (The Weinstein Co., $24.95)

Although on the opposite end of the musical spectrum from the Stones, folk singer Pete Seeger is as important a 20th century icon as the boys from Britain. Born in 1919, Seeger first began plucking at the ukulele and banjo when he was a kid and became a voracious consumer of American folk music. By the early ’30s he was already a working musician and devoted political activist, a pasttime which would land him in trouble as Cold War paranoia infected the country in the 1950s. Blacklisted by every major media outlet during that dark time in our history, Seeger nevertheless found friendly audiences at colleges and in major cities like New York. He also inspired numerous musicians to pick up the guitar, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen, all of whom are interviewed in this uplifting documentary about their mentor. Seeger himself is still alive and kicking of course and the now 89-year-old regales us with stories about his early years, while his family members contribute their memories. Although the documentary doesn’t delve as deeply into certain areas of his life as it perhaps should, The Power of Song is an excellent primer on Seeger’s historic career and wonderful music. Don’t be surprised to find yourself surfing over to iTunes after the movie’s over to download some of his best records.

Extras: Three deleted scenes and five short films shot by the Seeger family.

Jack Ryan on Blu-ray (Parmount, $29.99 each)

As rumors swirl about Sam Raimi possibly stepping in to revive the long-dormant Jack Ryan franchise, Paramount gives the four previous Ryan adventures—which were all based on best-selling novels by Tom Clancy—a Blu-ray makeover. Next to the James Bond and Batman movies, it’s hard to think of a franchise where the leading man changed so frequently. Alec Baldwin portrayed the first big-screen Ryan in 1990′s The Hunt for Red October, which became one of that year’s biggest hits. But rather than continue the role, the unpredictable Baldwin decided to walk the boards on Broadway instead and a considerably older Harrison Ford promptly stepped in for the next two films in the series, 1992′s Patriot Games and 1994′s Clear and Present Danger. Although both films performed well, eight years went by until the next entry in the series, The Sum of All Fears, by which point Ford was considered far too old to continue to be on the CIA’s payroll (of course, that didn’t stop him from picking up Indiana Jones’ fedora one more time). Instead, the filmmakers rewound the clock and cast Ben Affleck as a young and inexperienced Ryan with the intention of letting him grow into the part. For whatever reason though, that plan was abandoned after the movie hit theaters and future Ryan movies were put on hold…until now of course. The only question is, who will step into Ryan’s shoes next? Matt Damon already has the Bourne series, plus it might make holidays at Ben’s house kinda awkward. Daniel Craig and Christian Bale are already the stars of two other major franchises and Shia LaBeouf, as nice a guy as he seems, would be hard to buy as a government enforcer. So who exactly does that leave? Well, may we suggest Jon Hamm? He’s already a man of mystery every week on Mad Men and his square-jawed good looks make him a natural leading man. Get on it Raimi!

Extras: All four films come with Blu-ray enhanced featurettes and documentaries, while director John McTiernan contributes a yak track to Red October and writer/director Phil Alden Robinson pops up on Sum of All Fears.

Also on DVD
Soaring onto Blu-ray alongside the Jack Ryan movies is Top Gun: Blu-ray Edition (Paramount, $29.99), in which Tom Cruise tries and fails to out-act a fleet of Navy fighter planes. Elsewhere, The Hills: The Complete Third Season (MTV, $39.98) collects all 20+ episodes from the MTV reality phenomenon’s junior year. One of my favorite guilty pleasures of ’08 is Neil Marshall’s post-apocalyptic flick Doomsday (Universal, $29.98), which takes every low-budget futuristic action movie ever made and blends them into one kick-ass package. The flick is now available in an unrated edition that comes with a commentary track from Marshall and some fun featurettes. In sci-fi news, Stargate: Continuum (MGM, $26.98) is the latest direct-to-DVD feature based on Sci Fi Channel’s long-running TV series and the storyline apparently involves all of the kooky alternate timelines the crew has visited over the course of the series. Casper Van Dien returns to the franchise that (sort of) made him a star in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (Fox, $27.96) another straight-to-DVD feature that chronicles the ongoing war between mankind and a race of gross alien bugs. If you’re more in the mood for old-school science fiction, pick up Star Trek: The Original Series—Season Two (Paramount, $84.98), in which the Enterprise crew met those troublesome Tribbles and encountered intergalactic rouges like Harry Mudd.

Spaced: The Complete Series (BBC, $59.98)

Before Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, friends and collaborators Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright wrote, directed and stared in this BBC series about a pair of twentysomething slackers, frustrated comic-book artist Tim (Pegg) and aspiring journalist Daisy (Jessica Hynes), who agree to pose as a couple in order to rent an affordable apartment in a good neighborhood. As with any odd-couple situation, the two clash at first, but over the course of the show’s two season run, come to feel something like love for each other. The ensemble cast includes Frost as Tim’s paintball-obsessed friend Mike, Julia Deakin as the flat’s boozy landlord and Mark Heap as eccentric artist Brian. Fueled by its creators’ love of fanboy culture, Spaced is a geeky delight that references everything from Batman to Star Wars. The show also taps into the aimlessness and anxiety that so many people in their 20s experience. The good news is that even though it was made almost a decade ago, the show doesn’t feel dated at all. Just goes to show you that, like fine wine, geekiness ages well.
Extras: It’s taken awhile for Spaced to arrive on DVD in this country, but now that its here, the good folks at BBC haven’t stinted on the bonus features. One could spend hours listening to the 28 commentary tracks—I repeat: 28 commentary tracks!—alone. Each episode gets two tracks, the first devoted to the original cast and crew and the second featuring cameos from such guests as Kevin Smith, Diablo Matt Stone and Quentin Tarantino (who also turned up on the awesome three-disc edition of Hot Fuzz released earlier this year). Also included here is a feature-length documentary about the origin and making of the show, a Q&A from a recent London screening, deleted scenes and vintage trailers that hyped the show during its original BBC run. In other words, this is one set that’s worth every penny of its $60 price tag.

Robot Chicken: Star Wars (Warner, $14.98)

Infinitely superior to the Star Wars-themed Family Guy DVD released earlier this year, Adult Swim’s popular stop-motion series Robot Chicken spoofs the legendary sci-fi franchise with true fanboy gusto. But don’t worry if you don’t know the difference between a wampa and a ton-ton—there are gags here for Star Wars buffs of all stripes, from inexperienced padawans to battle-tested Jedis. Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich convinced a whole galaxy of famous folks to lend their voices to this twenty minute special, including George Lucas, Donald Faison, Conan O’Brien, Joey Fatone, Mark Hamill, Hulk Hogan and, most amazingly, Ahmed Best a.k.a. the voice of franchise killer Jar Jar Binks. Hearing Best spoof his own creation is worth the price of admission alone.
Extras: Even funnier than the main feature are the disc’s copious bonus features. You’ll find dozens of deleted skits here, along with behind-the-scenes documentaries and audio outtakes. And then there are the seven—count ‘em seven!—commentary tracks, the best of which features Green and Senreich chatting with George Lucas’ teenage kids, Katie and Jett. And guess what? They’re not Star Wars geeks at all! Now Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the other hand…

21 (Sony, $34.95)

Poker and blackjack aren’t quite as hot as they were a few years ago, but the gambling-themed drama 21 defied the odds, grossing $76 million during its theatrical run in March. Loosely based on Ben Mezrich’s hugely entertaining true-life book Bringing Down the House, the film casts Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell, an MIT student who is desperate to attend Harvard Medical School. Unfortunately, his bank account isn’t big enough to fund this dream and his chances of landing a coveted scholarship seem slim to none. Enter Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who notes Ben’s skill with math and invites him to join a secret after-hours club he’s organized—call it Card Counters Anonymous. Rosa’s crew heads off to Vegas every weekend, where they attempt to beat the bank at the casinos and avoid detection by old-school floor monitors like Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne). At first, Ben only intends to count cards long enough to earn enough money for school. It goes without saying that winning quickly goes to his head and he finds it increasingly difficult to leave his new life—and his new girlfriend Jill (Kate Bosworth)—behind. If you’ve read Bringing Down the House, you’ll notice that 21 only bears a passing resemblance to the book, the most significant change being the race of the lead characters, who were Asian in real life. Their team also wasn’t marked by internal feuds and betrayals that the screenwriters cram into this story in a largely unsuccessful attempt to make it into more of a thriller. Decently acted and directed, 21 passes the time, but as is often the case, the real story is so much more interesting.
Extras: The first disc sports a commentary track from director Robert Luketic and two of the film’s producers, while Disc 2 houses a featurette advertising various Vegas casinos and a making-of documentary.

Also on DVD
On the heels of their recent Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve collections, Lionsgate releases another set of films a renowned European artist. André Téchiné: 4-Film Collector’s Edition (Lionsgate, $34.98) houses a quartet of movies by acclaimed French filmmaker André Téchiné. The titles included here are Wild Reeds, I Don’t Kiss, Hotel America and, best of all, My Favorite Season. There’s not much in the way of extras, but its great to have these movies available on disc. The only other significant releases this week are all TV box sets. Las Vegas: Season Five (Universal, $59.98) collects the final season of the once-hot NBC series Las Vegas, in which Tom Selleck took over Vegas’ famed Montecito Casino from a departing James Caan. The finale famously ended on a cliffhanger as the network kept the writers guessing up until the final moments whether it would be coming back for one more season. Guess fans will be left literally hanging forever! L.A. Ink: Season One, Vol. 1 (Genius Products, $24.95) catches you up on the TLC reality series that follows the employees at Los Angeles’ famed High Voltage Tattoo studio. Just don’t try tattooing your friends at home. Finally, Comedy Central brings the funny with two sets: Reno 911: The Complete Fifth Season (Comedy Central, $39.98) featuring material from the long-running series considered too hot for cable TV and Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse (Comedy Central, $26.98) a grab-bag of skits and animated shorts.

The Bank Job (Lionsgate, $34.98)

One of the best reviewed movies of the first half of 2008, Roger Donaldson’s The Bank Job is a throwback to a classic ’60s or ’70s heist picture, where colorful characters come together to pull off a seemingly impossible robbery and barely get away clean. Jason Statham plays the ringleader Terry, who is lured into breaking into the Bank of England by Martine (Saffron Burrows). Assembling a crew of expert safecrackers, the gang gets the goods only to discover that they may have been set up by their own government. I won’t say anything more about the plot as the joy of any heist movie is watching the plan unfold in front of you. But for sheer style and entertainment value, The Bank Job is definitely the best movie you could rent (or buy) this week.

Extras: The Bank Job is available in single and two-disc editions, both of which share the same bonus features. The only difference with the two-disc version is that the second disc houses a digital copy of the movie you can download to your iTunes or PC desktop. Otherwise, the extras are all housed on the first disc and include a commentary track with Burrows and Donaldson, a making-of documentary, deleted scenes and a featurette about the real robbery that the film is loosely based on.

Birds of Prey: The Complete Series (Warner Bros., $39.98)

In the wake of Smallville‘s massive (and unexpected) success, the gone-but-not-forgotten WB network (currently still on your TV dial as The CW) launched several superhero themed series that either died soon after debuting (Tarzan) or never even made it onto the primetime schedule (Aquaman). The most successful of these failed Smallville clones was Birds of Prey and even that only managed to last 13 episodes before the network pulled the plug. Loosely based on the long-running DC Comics title, the show cast Ashley Scott (best known for frolicking in a bikini alongside Jessica Alba in Into the Blue) as The Huntress, the vigilante offspring of Batman and Catwoman, who patrols the streets of New Gotham some twenty years after her Mom was killed and her Bat-daddy vanished. In their absence, the Huntress has been in the care of Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer), who fought alongside her parents as Batgirl until a run-in with the Joker left her in a wheelchair. Now she supervises Huntress’ excursions as the all-knowing Oracle, a computer whiz with the sleekest home office since Bill Gates. Rounding out the trio of birds is Dinah (Rachel Skarsten), a teenage runaway with psychic powers. Although the series featured solid production values and some fun cameos from classic Bat villains (including Harley Quinn and Lady Shiva), Birds of Prey never overcame inconsistent scripts and an uneven ensemble cast. But its nice to finally have the complete run available on DVD, if only for its novelty value.

Extras: Sadly, the studio didn’t try to reassemble members of the cast and crew for commentary tracks or a retrospective documentary. For some reason, they also declined to loop in some DC Comics folks to talk about the comic book that the series was based on. Instead, the only extras included here are the unaired pilot for Birds of Prey (which featured some different performers in key roles) and the first season of Gotham Girls, a series of web shorts made in the style of the seminal Batman animated series from the mid-’90s.

Penelope (Summit Entertainment, $25.99)

This long delayed Tim Burton-style fractured fairy tale isn’t as awful as its tortured road to the big screen might suggest. Originally filmed in 2006, Penelope, which tells the story of a girl (Christina Ricci) who grows up with a pig nose thanks to an ancient family curse, was picked up by The Weinstein Company and IFC Films, which then bounced it around their release schedule for over a year. After that, it found its way back to the open marketplace, where it was acquired by Summit Entertainment and given an ultra-brief theatrical release this past February. Now the film has finally arrived on DVD, where I expect it to attract a sizeable audience that will enjoy its modest charms. The cast deserves most of the credit for making the unlikely story work—Ricci is charming in the title role, Catherine O’Hara chews the scenery as Penelope’s frazzled mother, James McAvoy is suitably scruffy as her possibly traitorous suitor and Peter Dinklage brings his usual low-key hilarity to a small part as a tabloid journalist. My only real problem with the movie is that, even with a prosthetic pig snout on her face, Ricci is still a knockout, which makes it hard to accept that the mere sight of her would cause grown men to run for their lives. If the filmmakers really wanted to drive home the “looks don’t matter” message, perhaps they should have worked a little harder to make Ricci unattractive. That’s would be a tall order, I know, but sometimes beautiful people have to suffer for their art.
Extras: A fifteen-minute making-of featurette that very carefully avoids mentioning Penelope’s pre-release problems.

Step Up 2 The Streets (Disney, $34.99)

When the step-themed dance drama How She Move hit DVD a few weeks back, I promised to cover the impending release 2008′s other dance movie Step Up 2 The Streets, which skunked Move at the box office by a grand total of $58 million to $7 million. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Step Up is a Disney product, which is a marketing machine when it comes to teen and tween-friendly entertainment. The filmmakers were smart to align themselves with several of hip-hop’s brightest stars, including Missy Elliott and Flo Rida, both of whom contributed exclusive tracks to the flick. The cast is also Disney Channel-ready, from Briana Evigan to Zac Efron-clone Robert Hoffman to pop singer Cassie, cast here as the mean girl to Evigan’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks dancer, Andie. The generic plot finds Andie joining the Maryland School of the Arts, where she initially clashes with and then falls for golden boy Chase (Hoffman), who is eager to inject a little street cred into his dance routines. But Andie’s old friends from the block are none too happy about her “selling out” and kick her out of their dance troupe, leading her to form a new group with other MSA outcasts before the city’s big step competition. To How She Move‘s credit (and detriment), that movie tried to tell a more complex and emotional story, but, let’s face it—the audience turning up for these things is mainly interested in watching attractive teens flirt with each other while shake their tailfeathers on the dance floor. And on that level at least, Step Up 2 succeeds. Just don’t be surprised to find yourself chapter-skipping past all the talky bits to the dancing.

Extras: Director Jon Chu introduces about a half-hour’s worth of deleted scenes, which eliminate some fairly big plot points (such as Cassie’s betrayal of Andie to the school’s principal—guess her reps didn’t want her to come off as too much of a mean girl). Also included are no fewer than five music videos, an outtakes reel, a two-minute video pranks and two making-of featurettes.

Also on DVD
Based on Raven-Symoné’s popularity with the tween audience, I expected her first foray into feature film production to be an enormous success. Instead, College Road Trip (Disney, $29.99), which cast the That’s So Raven star as the college-bound daughter of an overprotective cop (Martin Lawrence), wound up earning a middling $43 million at the box office. That’s nothing to cry over of course, but I imagine Disney was hoping to make something in the area of $80-$100 million instead. The studio’s accountants can rest assured that the film will almost certainly earn that kind of coin on DVD, where family friendly movies really thrive. This single-disc edition comes with plenty of Raven-Symoné friendly extras, including her personal video diaries, a music video for her single “Double Dutch Bus” and a making-of featurette about that video. Elsewhere, horror fans have a quartet of titles to choose from this week, beginning with the photography-themed ghost story Shutter (20th Century Fox, $29.99), an American remake of a Thai film directed by a Japanese filmmaker (got that straight?). Joshua Jackson and Rachel Taylor play a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon in Japan, where they discover that a ghostly figure is haunting them through their pictures. The unrated cut comes with a commentary featuring Taylor and screenwriter Luke Dawson, seven featurettes and a handful of deleted scenes. The direct-to-DVD frightfest Steel Trap (Dimension Extreme, $19.97) traps a group of partygoers on the 27th floor of a high-rise, where they’re forced to participate in a bizarre series of party games in order to earn their freedom. As penance for making Snakes on a Plane, David R. Ellis’ new film Asylum (MGM, $26.98) is also going straight to disc. The plot involves a nubile college student discovering a horrifying truth behind her college dorm. Finally, Trapped Ashes (Lionsgate, $26.98) offers five short horror stories from such scary movie specialists as Gremlins‘ Joe Dante and the legendary British director Ken Russell. Extras include a five-part making of documentary and extended cuts of two of the films, “Stanley’s Girlfriend” and “Girl with the Golden Breasts.” In non-horror news, Lionsgate is also re-releasing Jamie Foxx’s 1999 comedy Held Up (Lionsgate, $9.99), in which the future Oscar winner played a convenience store hostage. Now where’s that special edition of Booty Call? For TV fans, Eureka: Season Two (Universal, $39.98) offers up all 13 episodes from the sophomore year of this Sci Fi Channel hit, which follows the misadventures of a small-town sheriff (the excellent Colin Ferguson) who has to serve and protect a community filled with accident-prone scientists. Finally, Robbie Coltrane: Incredible Britain (Acorn, $29.99) puts you in the driver’s seat alongside English comedian Robbie Coltrane as he escorts your around the Sceptred Isle in search of oddball eccentrics like rugby players who chase a beer keg around the pitch and a monster truck driver given to popping the occasional wheelie in his enormous vehicle.

Batman Fever

Hey, have you heard about this new Batman flick coming out next? Apparently it’s called The Dark Knight or something like that. Think it’ll do well? Just kidding, of course. Like every other fanboy on the planet, I can’t wait to check out what director Christopher Nolan’s got in store for his second go-around with Gotham City’s Caped Crusader. To whet our appetite for TDK, a guano-load of Bat-related merchandise is headed our way starting with Batman Begins: Limited Edition Gift Set (Warner Bros., $39.92/$49.99 Blu-ray). Although the actual DVD is the same two-disc edition that was released a few years back, this package does come with several new goodies, including a special preview of The Dark Knight, a flash drive with images from the new movie, collectible postcards and a 32-page booklet containing Knight’s comic-book adaptation (the latter is only available in the Blu-ray set). Taking a page from The Matrix movies, Warner Bros. has also released an animated tie-in to The Dark Knight entitled Batman: Gotham Knight (Warner Bros., $29.98). An anthology of six short stories, all of which were written by established comic-book authors (including Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarrello) and animated by leading Japanese anime companies, Gotham Knight is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the shorts perfectly capture the mood of the character, while others are weighed down by bad writing or indifferent animation. All in all, chalk this up as a good idea that suffers from so-so execution. Finally, jump in the wayback machine for a trip back to 1966 courtesy of Batman: The Movie (Fox, $9.99/$39.98 Blu-ray), out now in a new Blu-ray edition. This is the big-screen version of the immortal ’60s TV show that starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder. Light years removed from the somber mood of The Dark Knight, this version of Batman perfectly captures the spirit of the comics published during that era and contains one of the funniest lines every penned: “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.”

Extras: We’ve already covered the Batman Begins set, so let’s move onto Gotham Knight. Disc 1 comes with a commentary track featuring various DC Comics head honchos as well as a preview of the company’s next animated feature, Wonder Woman. Disc 2, meanwhile, comes with a half-hour documentary devoted to Batman’s rogue’s gallery and another doc about the Caped Crusader’s creator, Bob Kane. (Despite some fun archival footage, this fluff piece loses points for not addressing the importance of Bill Finger to the character’s staying power.) As for Batman: The Movie, the standard edition comes with a West/Ward commentary track and a retrospective featurette. The new Blu-ray disc has a lot more to offer, including an isolated music score, three new featurettes and an interactive map to the film’s L.A locations.

Mummy Madness

The Dark Knight isn’t the only blockbuster sequel on the horizon. August 1 brings the third installment of The Mummy franchise, entitled The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Seeing as how it’s been seven years since the last film, it makes sense that Universal is issuing new two-disc editions of the first two films, 1999′s The Mummy: Deluxe Edition (Universal, $19.98) and 2001′s The Mummy Returns: Deluxe Edition (Universal, $19.98). Personally, I’ve never seen the appeal of this series—too much CGI, not enough character development—but they have been huge hits and helped launch the career of Rachel Weisz. I’m much more excited about Universal’s other mummy-themed release, The Mummy: Special Edition (Universal, $19.98), a two-disc edition of the classic 1932 horror flick, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris “Frankenstein” Karloff. But the tie-ins don’t stop there! Jet Li apparently plays a major role in the new Mummy movie, so the studio is issuing Jet Li’s Fearless: Director’s Cut (Universal, $19.98), which was supposed to be Li’s final martial arts epic. (Li’s retirement proved to be even shorter than Jay-Z’s!) This special edition comes with three versions of the movie: the theatrical cut, an unrated cut and a director’s cut that features deleted scenes with Michelle Yeoh, who, coincidentally enough, is also appearing in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Finally, Universal is also putting out Van Helsing: Collector’s Edition (Universal, $19.98), a would-be franchise starter starring Hugh Jackman as the legendary vampire hunter who battles the triple threat of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man. The only monster missing from the movie? The Mummy! Maybe he was supposed to be in the sequel…

Extras: All of these discs sport several new bonus features along with extras that were available on previous editions. The Mummy and The Mummy Returns offer sneak peeks at Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, as well as behind-the-scenes featurettes devoted to the special effects and production design. The ’32 Mummy has a commentary track from film historian Paul M. Jensen and a second one from several monster experts, including makeup guru Rick Baker, as well as a retrospective documentary devoted to Universal’s classic creature features. Fearless only offers a new documentary and a deleted scene, but considering they’ve also included three cuts of the film, it would be churlish complain. And finally, Van Helsing sports outtakes, an interactive map and featurettes galore.

X-Files: Revelations (Fox, $22.97)

Sure you could prepare for the impending return of The X-Files on July 25 by picking up the entire nine-season run on DVD. But let’s be honest: 1) That’s an insane commitment of time and money and 2) Who really wants to watch Season 7-9 (otherwise known as “The Robert Patrick Years”) anyway? Fortunately, X-Files guru Chris Carter has got your back. The two-disc set sports eight episodes from the show’s pre-Season 7 run that, the box promises, “are essential viewing for fans who want to fully experience all the thrills, mysteries and nuances of the upcoming theatrical movie.” Uh-huh…if you say so, Chris. Anyway, the episodes featured here include the pilot, which debuted waaay back in 1993, as well as that awesome Flukeman episode from season two, a Lone Gunmen-heavy adventure from season four and one of my personal favorites, “Bad Blood,” where Mulder and Scully find themselves in a small Texas town populated by vampires.

Extras: Cater and fellow exec producer Frank Spotnitz provide an introduction to each episode and the new movie (entitled I Want To Believe) is teased via a trailer as well as the full-length Q&A from WonderCon earlier this year. Personally, I want to believe this new film will be worth the decade-long wait…but I’m not getting my hopes up.

City of Men (Miramax, $29.99)

A visually dazzling look at life on the mean streets of Rio’s crime-ridden favelas, Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s City of God caused a sensation when it was released in American art-houses in early 2003. In addition to scoring numerous awards (including four Oscar nominations), the film was a big seller on DVD and launched a television series entitled City of Men, which aired here on the Sundance Channel. Over the course of 19 episodes, viewers watched two young residents of one favela, Ace (Douglas Silva) and Wallace (Darlan Cunha) grow up while avoiding getting caught in their neighborhood’s never-ending drug war. The new film version of City of Men functions as the show’s finale, but can also be watched without having seen any of the series. Having survived their childhood and teenage years, Ace and Wallace are now 18 and find themselves confronted with grown-up responsibilities. Ace, for example, has a young son with his girlfriend, but he can’t quite get used to the idea that he’s somebody’s father, particularly since he grew up without one. Also a product of a fatherless home, Wallace dreams of meeting his dad and, to his surprise, he gets the chance after Ace uncovers information about the man’s whereabouts. While these two are wrestling with daddy issues, their favela erupts in a new bout of violence as the current gang leader Midnight is usurped by his former lieutenant Fasto. City of Men may be less stylish than its predecessor, but in some ways it’s a richer, more emotional film. City of God frequently allowed its aggressive visuals to overpower its characters, whereas Men keeps its locked focus on the men (and, sadly, only a few of the women) that make up this community. Even if the tale of Ace and Wallace has come to an end, there’s still plenty of material for more stories about Rio’s teeming favelas.

Extras: An informative fifteen-minute featurette walks you through the history of this franchise from God to Men.

Shotgun Stories (Liberation Entertainment, $24.95)

Last year, I made the mistake of skipping Craig Zobel’s indie drama Great World of Sound during its limited theatrical release and didn’t catch up with it until the end of the year, at which point I didn’t have enough time to fully consider it for my Top Ten list. I’m glad I didn’t commit a similar error with Shotgun Stories, the debut feature of Jeff Nichols, who studied alongside Zobel at North Carolina School of the Arts. Both men are also friends and colleagues of David Gordon Green, NSCA’s breakout star who is making his big-budget debut this August with the Seth Rogen comedy Pineapple Express. (Green is a producer on both of their films as well.) A modern-day version of a Hatfield & McCoy-style family rivalry, Shotgun Stories follows two sets of brothers who share the same father, but have otherwise led separate lives. The first set of Hayes children knew their father as an abusive drunk who couldn’t even be bothered to give them real names. As a result, they’ve grown up referring to each other as “Son”, “Boy” and “Kid” respectively. After splitting from their mom, Hayes Sr. cleaned up his act and married another woman, with whom he had three more sons. The two Hayes families cross paths when their father dies, leading the eldest Son (played by Michael Shannon) to deliver a venomous eulogy at the funeral. That speech pits the sets of brothers against each other in an intense rivalry that ends up having deadly consequences. Spare and quiet, but never dull, Shotgun Stories is an impressive directorial debut.

Extras: A commentary track from Nichols and a few deleted scenes.

Also on DVD

Kimberly Peirce’s Iraq War drama Stop-Loss (Paramount, $34.99) was a dead film walking before it even opened in theaters in March. Coming off a string of high-profile Iraq-themed flops, journalists and critics alike devoted a lot of their coverage of the film to whether or not moviegoers would turn up to support it and—guess what?—they didn’t. Which is a shame, because they missed out on a pretty good film, marred only by some shaky writing in the back half. Peirce talks about the making of Stop-Loss (though not its less-than-stellar reception) on a commentary track and a behind-the-scenes featurette and 11 deleted scenes reveal what was left on the cutting room floor. I read Scott B. Smith’s horror novel The Ruins (Paramount, $34.99) in one sitting and I can honestly say that experience was more frightening than any horror movie I’ve seen in the past two years. Sadly, the movie version of this terrific book is a tremendous disappointment made all the worse by the fact that Smith himself wrote the screenplay. What came off as terrifying on the page is alternately silly or implausible on film and the film’s young cast don’t bring any dimension to their roles. The biggest sin, however, is that Smith didn’t even retain the book’s brilliantly apocalyptic finale for the movie, instead concluding on a completely stupid note that betrays the rules the story establishes early on. A slightly better, but still compromised, alternate ending has been included on the DVD, along with a handful of other deleted scenes, a commentary track from the film’s director Carter Smith (no relation) and three making-of featurettes. Prior to starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s unintentional comedy The Happening, indie film golden girl Zooey Deschanel appeared in the intentional comedy Flakes (Genius Products, $19.95), as the kooky girlfriend (a role she specializes in) of a frustrated New Orleans musician (Aaron Stanford), who earns a steady paycheck by managing a diner that serves only breakfast cereal. Problems arise when an aspiring businessman opens a competing restaurant and hires Deschanel as his assistant manager. Clocking in at an ultra-brief 85 minutes, Flakes is enjoyable enough while you’re watching it, but don’t expect to remember a thing about it an hour later. From indie comedy to indie thriller, the crime caper Toxic (Genius Products, $19.97) features a Who’s Who of B-List stars, from Master P and Ron Jeremy to Tom Sizemore and Dominique Swain. Swain plays a mental patient who goes on a murder spree in response to her pops taking out a hit on her life. 2008 has been the year of the superhero blockbuster, so the David Zucker-produced spoof Superhero Movie (The Weinstein Company, $29.95) seemed like it would have plenty of targets to ridicule. For some reason though, the filmmakers stick largely to the first Spider-Man flick, which came out six years ago—a lifetime in comic-book movie years. Although a few gags hit the mark, much of the humor is groaningly obvious. You can tell a spoof is in trouble when the deleted scenes and outtakes aren’t any funnier than what’s actually in the film.

In Bruges (Focus, $29.98)
Buyers beware: The trailers for playwright Martin McDonagh’s feature filmmaking debut made In Bruges out to be an oddball hitman comedy, along the lines of Pulp Fiction, Snatch or Assassins (okay…so the last one wasn’t an intentional comedy).

But while this film is frequently hilarious—just try to keep a straight face when Colin Farrell’s hired gun insults a family of overweight American tourists—there’s a serious emotional edge to the proceedings not hinted at in any of the ads.  Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play low-rent British assassins Ken and Ray, who are dispatched to the medieval Belgian city of Bruges by their boss after they botch an assignment, accidentally killing a little boy.  Ray is the one that pulled the trigger and his conscience has been eating away at him ever since.  While Ken tries to interest his partner in dull sightseeing tours, a guilt-ridden Ray prefers to get wasted on booze and make time with beautiful drug peddler Natalie.  Eventually Ken is informed that his newest assignment is to put the young man out of his misery…permanently.  He can’t go through with this job, of course, which forces his boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to make the trip to Bruges to sort out the situation.  This story would be compelling on its own terms, but McDonagh weaves in a fascinating allegorical element, setting the city of Bruges up as purgatory, the way station the three killers have  to pass through before they find out whether the crimes they’ve committed put them in heaven or hell.  It’s a potentially ruinous theme, but McDonagh pulls it off, thanks largely to the stellar performances of the film’s stars.  Gleeson is wonderful as the world-weary Ken and Farrell does some of his very best work in what’s easily the most demanding role he’s had in ages.  And then there’s Fiennes, who completely upends his refined screen image as the down-and-dirty Harry.  Swearing a blue streak and dispatching friends and enemies alike with a maniacal glee, he’s the scariest angel of death since Ben Kingsley put the fear of God into us in Sexy Beast.  (Now there’s a team-up I’d love to see!)  In Bruges may not be the film the trailers promised, but that’s okay—it’s better.
Extras: The main attraction is the collection of deleted and extended scenes, which run about twenty minutes and contain some choice moments.  (Favorite cut line: “He’s a priest—he should be prepared to get what’s coming to him.”)  These scenes are actually funnier than the five-minute gag reel that’s also included here, along with two making-of featurettes and a five-minute boat tour of Bruges accompanied by facts about this picturesque city.  The Bruges City of Commerce should remember to thank McDonagh for any spike in tourism they receive this year.

My Blueberry Nights (The Weinstein Company, $19.98)
Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai has long been a favorite amongst snooty critic types, who flip for such languid, almost plotless films as In the Mood for Love and 2046.  (Full disclosure: I’m one of those snooty critic types.)  But his loyal fanbase largely deserted him after they caught a glimpse of his first American feature, My Blueberry Nights, which stars singer Norah Jones (in her silver screen debut) as a New York City gal who takes to the open road after a bad breakup, spending time in Memphis and Nevada, where she learns all about life and love and from such folks as David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman.  Along the way, she sends postcards of her travels back to a lonely Manhattan café owner (Jude Law), the guy she was almost seeing before deciding to go on her journey of self-discovery.  Like almost all of Wong’s films, Blueberry‘s story is wispy at best; the reason people keep coming back to his work is for his command over mood and atmosphere.  Shot on digital video, My Blueberry Nights is just as visually sumptuous as his other work, but unfortunately, in this case, it’s not enough to make up for the lack of an interesting narrative or complex characters.  Wong’s first mistake may have been anchoring the movie around a novice actor like Jones; the singer/songwriter has an appealing screen presence and the camera clearly loves her, but she can’t effectively communicate her character’s internal emotional state.  Her greenness is exposed whenever she shares a scene with an actor like Strahairn or Portman, both of whom are able to add layers to their roles not suggested in the screenplay.  Clocking in at a brief 90 minutes, My Blueberry Nights is by no means a painful sit and there are several moments that are quite beautiful.  Ultimately though, this is a case where Wong allowed his sense of style to completely overwhelm any kind of substance.
Extras: A short, uninformative making-of documentary and a half-hour Q&A with the director recorded after a screening of the movie at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image.

Drillbit Taylor (Paramount, $34.99)
Judd Apatow has been on a winning streak for so long, it was inevitable that he’d put his name on something that audiences and critics would soundly reject.  That movie turned out to be Drillbit Taylor, which scored an anemic $30 million at the box office (and a whopping 27% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes) when it made its way into theaters last March.  Based on an idea developed by reclusive ’80s icon John Hughes, Drillbit casts Owen Wilson as the titular homeless dude who passes himself off as an expert bodyguard to a trio of picked-upon teenagers looking for someone to protect them from two psychotic bullies.  In a featurette included amongst the copious bonus features, the movie’s screenwriters—Seth Rogen (yes, that Seth Rogen) and Kristofer Brown—talk about the many different versions their script went through on its way to the big screen.  The constant rewriting is apparent onscreen as the movie can never quite decide whether it’s a high-school comedy about three super-nerds or an adult comedy about a loser in need of a lifestyle change.  In the end, it doesn’t actually matter as both of these stories are lame and unfunny.  It’s a shame to three good comic actors like Wilson, Stephen Root and Leslie Mann (a.k.a. Mrs. Judd Apatow) wasted on such sub-par material.  At least Apatow and Rogen can take comfort in knowing that they have a much stronger movie (Pineapple Express) coming in August.
Extras: Although Drillbit doesn’t get the deluxe DVD treatment that most Apatow productions receive, it does come with a surfeit of deleted scenes, outtakes and short, gag-oriented featurettes, none of which are really worth the price tag.

Also on DVD:
If you passed on the opportunity to watch Matthew Weiner’s brilliant series Mad Men when it made its debut on AMC last July, here’s your chance to rectify that grievous mistake.  Just in time for the July 27th debut of the show’s second season, Mad Men: Season One (Lionsgate, $49.99) arrives in stores in a beautiful 4-disc box set (shaped like a Zippo lighter!) that contains all 13 episodes, commentary tracks galore and a documentary about the show’s fantastic ’60s-era production design.  Pour yourself a martini, grab a cigar and settle down with the best show on television (next to Battlestar Galactica of course).  Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (Lionsgate, $34.98) is the third directorial effort from the wildly successful writer/director/actor and it marks the first time he’s donned the wig and outfit of his most popular character Madea since 2006′s Madea’s Family Reunion.  But Madea is just a supporting role in this film, which mainly revolves around the trials and tribulations of a single mother (Angela Bassett) trying to start her life over in a new town and with a new man.  This two-disc special edition comes with a digital copy of the movie and a number of behind-the-scenes featurettes.  Finally, the multi-perspective thriller Vantage Point (Sony, $34.95) was a surprise box-office champ during its February release.  Apparently, moviegoers were so desperate for something to see, they willingly forked over money for this ridiculously implausible flick, which presents a presidential assassination through the eyes of several different witnesses, including a Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver) and a family man on a solo vacation (Forest Whitaker).  All of the actors do their best to sound enthusiastic about the movie in a half-hour documentary included on the DVD, while director Pete Travis yaks away on a self-serving commentary track.

DVD Reviews of Futurama, Persepolis and more…

Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs (Fox, $29.98)
One of my favorite things about the late, great cartoons series Futurama was its wild imagination, not to mention the willingness to completely upend the laws of reality and logic in pursuit of a great gag.  This resulted in some spectacularly funny (and absolutely insane) half-hours of television, like the episode where giant brains conquered Earth and dunderheaded delivery boy Fry had to save the day or the episode where borderline psychotic ‘bot Bender went to robot hell.  One always got the sense that the suits at Fox were never happy with the show’s wild flights of fancy though, which explains why they let it languish for four seasons without a lot of promotion before dumping it without fanfare or even a series finale.  But thanks to the power of Adult Swim and DVD sales, Futurama is back in production with four direct-to-DVD movies, the first of which (Bender’s Big Score) came out earlier this year.  The Beast with a Billion Backs is the second installment in this new quartet and it’s by far the strangest story the Futurama writers have ever spun.  See if you can follow this: an interdimensional rift has opened up in the skies above Earth leading to a brief bout of panic before people go back to their normal lives.  For the crew of Planet Express, “normal life” means attending the long-awaited wedding of Amy and her green alien boyfriend Kif.  Meanwhile, Fry finds new love with a female cope who has five other lovers and Bender joins a super-secret society known as the League of Robots.  Just when everyone seems to have forgotten about that rift in space, giant tentacles suddenly emerge from the void and latch themselves onto the necks of every person on Earth.  But these aren’t evil tentacles—instead they belong to a lonely alien (voiced by David Cross) who, like everyone in the galaxy, is just looking for a little love and affection.  Things only get weirder from there and not always in a good way.  Whenever the series took a turn towards the bizarre, I always trusted that the writers understood where the plot and characters were going.  I didn’t feel that way in Beast with a Billion Backs—the screenplay is oddly disjointed, as if the scribes were making it up as they went along.  The final half-hour is particularly uneven as the film rushes to wrap up a narrative that doesn’t make a lot of sense to begin with.  Let’s hope the third Futurama film, Bender’s Game, turns out better.  A trailer for that holiday release is included here along with a commentary track from the filmmakers, deleted scenes and, best of all, a “lost episode” of the series that’s actually all the cut-scenes from the old Futurama video game edited together.  Anyone want to do that with the Metal Gear Solid series?

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Genius Products, $29.99)
From Knocked Up to Juno, 2007 was a banner year for comedies about unwanted pregnancies.  Interestingly though, neither film was all that eager to discuss abortion, which makes sense as few subjects are less funny than that emotional minefield.  Still, Hollywood’s continued reluctance to engage with this issue is disappointing, especially since abortion rights seem more and more at peril these days thanks to the Supreme Court’s current conservative bent.  Instead, we have to look overseas to find movies that attempt to deal with abortion in an honest, dramatic way.  Movies like this intense, devastatingly effective Romanian drama, which won the top prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.  Set in 1987, when the country was still under the iron rule of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the film is told through the eyes of a college student who is trying to secure an abortion for her roommate.  Because the procedure is illegal—thus making a hospital visit impossible—they have to arrange what amounts to a back-alley procedure with a man who is most definitely not a doctor.  Taking place over the span of a single day, the movie is paced like a thriller, even though the tasks the main character has to complete (booking a hotel room, going to her boyfriend’s house for dinner) are wholly mundane.  An art-house hit when it was released in America earlier this year, 4 Months has yet to be seen by a wide audience in its home country, largely because there are less than a hundred cinemas scattered throughout Romania.  In a fascinating fifteen-minute documentary included on the DVD, we watch a small crew take the movie on the road, setting up impromptu screenings in small towns where cinelexes are non-existent.  It’s an eye-opening short, particularly for those of us who live in places like New York or L.A., where it often seems like there’s a movie theater located on every single block.  Other extras include an interesting half-hour interview with 4 Months‘ director Cristian Mungiu and a six-minute chat with the cinematographer, Oleg Mutu.

Persepolis (Sony, $29.95)
Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel is brought to vivid life in this black-and-white animated film that received an Oscar nod for Best Animated Feature earlier this year (it wound up losing to the more popular, but less deserving Ratatouille).  Released on DVD in both the original French version with English subtitles and a more American-friendly dubbed cut featuring the voices of Sean Penn, Catherine Deneuve and Gena Rowlands, Persepolis provides a fascinating look into life in Iran, a country that looms large in our daily newspapers, but a sizeable chunk of the population still knows next to nothing about.  It’s also yet another example of how animation can be used to tell more mature, complex stories than ones involving cute talking animals or surly green ogres.  Other extras on this single-disc release include video from the press conference at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival (where the movie premiered), a behind-the-scenes documentary and commentary by Satrapi and her co-director Vincent Paronnaud.

Also on DVD:
A modest hit when it arrived in theaters in February, the Nickelodeon produced family fantasy adventure The Spiderwick Chronicles (Paramount, $39.99) arrives in a kid-friendly two-disc edition with lots of DVD-based games, colorful field guides and informative featurettes.  Harry Potter it ain’t, but Spiderwick should tide youngsters over until The Half Blood Prince bows in November.  The indie comedy Charlie Bartlett (Fox, $27.98) is clearly shooting for a slightly age group, namely teenagers who have never seen Rushmore or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Those folks would be wise to head straight to Blockbuster or Netflix and rent both of those movies instead of wasting time with this one, which is smarmy when it should be smart and annoying when it should be addictive.  Director Jon Poll and the two young stars Anton Yelchin and Kat Dennings rave about the film on an overly peppy commentary track, the only significant extra included on this single-disc release.  Speaking of annoying, I normally find ex-Man Show host Adam Carolla about as appealing as having my teeth cleaned, but his indie star vehicle The Hammer (Genius Products, $19.98) has a certain low-key charm.  A close cousin of Rocky Balboa, the film finds Carolla playing a lazy, past-his-prime boxer who is convinced to step back into the ring in a longshot attempt to qualify for the Olympics.  As unlikely as this premise sounds, it’s far more plausible than the film’s romantic subplot, which finds this schlub romancing a pretty lawyer (Heather Juergensen).  As long as The Hammer stays in the ring, it’s an agreeble triumph-of-the-underdog story–just make sure you fast-forward through the schmoopy love stuff.  If you are in the mood for schmoopy love stuff though, your best option is the new rom-com Definitely, Maybe (Universal, $29.98), which stars Ryan Reynolds as a single dad who regales his daughter (Abigail Breslin) with the tale of how he met one of her three possible mothers.  The film received surprisingly strong reviews when it was released in theaters in February and should do well on DVD, where romantic comedies thrive.  Extras include a commentary track with Reynolds and the film’s director Adam Brooks, a featurette about the production design and a behind-the-scenes documentary sponsored by the good folks at Volkswagen.  Because nothing says “romantic comedy” like one of those little love bugs.  Finally, the South Korean horror film The Wig (The Weinstein Company, $24.95) sounds like a cross between The Eye and an episode of that Bravo series Shear Genius. When car accident survivor Ji-Heyon buys a beautiful black wig to perk up the spirits of her cancer-stricken sister, little does she suspect that the hairpiece actually houses an evil spirit eager to wreak blood vengeance.  What’s next–a possessed ankle bracelet?

Be Kind Rewind (New Line, $27.95)
After helming a trio of critically acclaimed but little seen features, it stands to reason that Michel Gondry would want to try and earn some box-office cred by directing a Jack Black/Mos Def buddy movie.  But because this is Gondry we’re talking about, he couldn’t suck it up and churn out a straight comedy where Black ran around shirtless in bright tights while Mos Def glowered in the background.

Instead, he made another one of his eccentric comedies that will please his fanbase, but leave general audiences cold.  Filmed on location in picturesque Passaic, New Jersey, Be Kind Rewind casts Mos Def as Mike, an employee at a run-down video store operated by Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover).  When Elroy goes away on vacation, Mike is put in charge of the shop and he makes his first managerial mistake when he lets his bumbling friend Jerry (Black) through the front door.  See, Jerry’s brain has been magnetized after a run-in with an electric fence, which means that whenever he’s in range of a VHS tape, he instantly wipes its contents clean.  So within seconds of his arrival, every single tape in the store is rendered blank and customers keep flowing in looking for cheap entertainment.  What’s a resourceful, slightly weird guy to do?  Remake every single movie as a super-low budget home movie of course!  “Why would anyone in their right mind want to watch a homemade version of Ghostbusters or Rush Hour 2?” I hear you ask.  Well…that’s a good question and one that the movie never bothers to answer.  And you know what?  I’m okay with that.  Like all of Gondry’s movies, Be Kind Rewind takes place in a slightly skewed version of the real world—heck the fact that VHS is still a popular home entertainment format in this universe tells you that the film bears only passing resemblance to reality.  Besides, the larger point that Gondry is making has to do with the joy of creating something to give back to your community.  Like this summer’s delightful coming-of-age story Son of Rambow, Be Kind Rewind encourages us to stop swallowing overpriced Hollywood entertainments and get out there with friends and family and make our own films.  Even though that message will likely fall flat with a mass audience, amateur filmmakers around the country are bound to feel a small swell of pride with Gondry’s feature-length pat on the back.  Surprisingly, the studio has released Be Kind Rewind on a virtually bare-bones DVD; the only extra included here is a 10-minute featurette about Passaic—no commentary tracks, no extended clips from Jerry and Mike’s Ghostbusters and no “how to make your own home movie” documentary.  Here’s hoping that those extras will be included on a two-disc special edition somewhere down the line.

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Universal, $29.98)
A rambunctious family comedy that wears out its welcome around the 45-minute mark, Malcolm D. Lee’s Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins nevertheless functions as a fun showcase for comedians like Mike Epps and Cedric the Entertainers and unexpectedly hilarious actors like Michael Clarke Duncan and Joy Bryant.  Interestingly, the one performer who isn’t very funny happens to be the film’s star—Martin Lawrence.  The former Bad Boy plays a Dr. Phil like chat-show host who reluctantly agrees to return to his small Southern hometown for his parents’ anniversary.  Accompanying him on this rare pilgrimage home are his tweenage son Jamaal and his new fiancée—and recent Suvivor champion—Bianca (Bryant).  Naturally, the vacation gets off to a rough start as Bianca’s “me-first” ways clash the laid-back Jenkins clan and Roscoe re-starts an old rivalry with his cousin Clyde (Cedric).  But before long, life lessons are learned, parental wisdom is absorbed and everyone is happy and healthy as the final credits roll.  On the commentary track, Lee talks about how the actors seized every opportunity to go off book and that’s obvious in the way scenes ramble on past their natural stopping point.  At the same time, many of the film’s best lines are clearly ad-libbed making it harder to blame the director for not clamping down on his cast.  With all that improvisation going on during filming, it’s no surprise that there’s such a wealth of deleted and extended scenes included on the DVD.  The outtakes reel alone lasts almost 15 minutes and there’s almost a full half-hour of alternate takes or dropped scenes.  Other extras include two making-of documentaries and a music video.

Control (The Weinstein Company, $28.95)
Joy Division (The Weinstein Company, $22.95)
Released to a surprising amount of acclaim last fall, Anton Corbijn’s Control arrived on DVD two weeks ago and, to my eyes at least, it’s standard issue musical biopic fare.  This time, the subject is Ian Curtis, lead singer of the English rock band Joy Division, who committed suicide at the age of 23, just as the group was poised to conquer America the same way the Beatles had over a decade ago.  Shot in beautiful black-and-white, Control does do a fine job evoking the gritty, desolate feel of late ’70 Manchester, but all of the beautiful photography can’t hide the deep flaw at the movie’s center–namely that Curtis comes across as a spectacularly boring and unpleasant guy.  As played by Sam Riley, Ian is, simply put, a pill–he’s unhappy with the band’s growing success, unhappy with his wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) and their young daughter and unhappy with his mistress Annik.  If there’s a source for this depression, it’s not well dramatized by Riley or the film’s screenplay.  Mainly, you find yourself wanting to slap Curtis across the face in the hopes that he’ll finally get over himself.  A more objective portrait of Ian and the band at large is offered by the feature-length documentary Joy Division, which interviews the surviving band members as well as the real Annik.  (Debbie Curtis is represented only by passages from her book, though.)  The truly devoted Joy Division groupies will want to check out the 75-minutes of bonus interviews included on the DVD, which touch on the band’s post-Curtis career as New Order among other topics.  Although the studio is clearly hoping you’ll see both movies together, if you only get the chance to see one Joy Division film this year, pick Joy Division and leave Control on the shelf.

Also on DVD
TV-on-DVD fans have their hands full this week as two soon-to-return summer shows and one recently cancelled cult oddity make their way onto disc.  In their ongoing attempts to steal HBO’s thunder, Showtime unleashed Californication (Paramount, $42.99) on the American public last August and viewers responded well to this adult sitcom’s mix of sex, lies and David Duchovny’s naked rear end.  This two-disc set collects all 12 episodes from the show’s first season along with bonus episodes of Showtime’s other hits, Dexter and The Tudors.  Earlier in the summer, USA Network grabbed a sizeable amount of eyeballs for their spy series Burn Notice: Season One (Fox, $49.98), about a Jason Bourne-like covert operative (played by Michael Western) who finds himself “burn noticed” (i.e. “blacklisted) by his former employers.  Extras on this set are more extensive, with cast and crew commentaries on almost every episode as well as a gag reels and a handful of featurettes.  Last but not least, Jericho: Season Two (Paramount, $39.99) collects the final seven episodes from the post-apocalyptic CBS series that was brought back from a premature burial thanks to a peanut-themed fan campaign.  Unfortunately, all that passion didn’t generate into higher ratings.  The network cancelled the series right before the final episode aired.  An alternate ending—which would have served as a set-up to a third season—is included among the extras.  In kid movie news, the Disney classic The Sword in the Stone (Disney, $29.99) turned 45 this year and scored a special edition DVD release.  Loosely based on the first part of T.H. White’s seminal book The Once and Future King, the film tells the tale of young boy named Wart who, with the help of a wizened wizard named Merlin, grows up to be—you guessed it!—King Arthur.  Not as extras-packed as most Disney special editions, The Sword and the Stone does come with DVD games for young viewers and bonus movie shorts.  While your kids are watching the adventures of Wart and Merlin, sneak off to another room to check out Boarding Gate (Genius Products, $26.98), a twisted, sexy thriller starring Asia Argento and Michael Madsen.  Or, if you’re in the mood for action, Jackie Chan’s son Jaycee headlines the Hong Kong cop flick Invisible Target (Dragon Dynasty, $24.95), also starring Shawn Yue and Nicholas Tse and directed by Benny Chan, who made the smash hit Gen-X Cops.  As usual, Dragon Dynasty does a bang-up job with this two-disc release, throwing in a plethora of action-oriented featurettes that should please HK movie buffs.  Finally, the newly founded company Legend Films has partnered with Paramount to release 17 rarely-seen titles from the studio’s extensive back catalogue all for the bargain price of $14.95.  Among the movies making their DVD debut are the sci-fi parable ZPG: Zero Population Growth, the Richard Pryor drama Some King of Hero, the twisted (and, frankly, unwatchable) comedy Jekyll and Hide…Together Again and, best of all, the politically incorrect historical drama Mandingo, which really has to be seen to be believed.  Set in the pre-Civil War Deep South, the film follows a torrid affair between a slave and his master’s sex-starved wife.  Sounds ordinary enough, but trust me, this movie is seriously messed up.