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.