Recently released DVDs

"Angels & Demons" (PG-13, 138 minutes): Praying for another $750 million absolution at the global box office, the fairly unholy trinity of Tom Hanks, director Ron Howard and "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown reteam on Brown's earlier novel and manage to be more obscure than a Latin Mass. As Langdon, Hanks is recruited by a mysterious emissary of a mysterious biotech firm to help explain the mysterious death of a mysterious scientist whose chest was branded by his killer with the word "Illuminati," an ancient league of science-minded elites. What the killer was after was antimatter, which the killer promises will be used to level St. Peter's Basilica. As he embarks on a mission to save Roman Catholicism, Langdon encounters a young papal assistant (Ewan McGregor) a churlish Vatican policeman (Stellan Skarsgard) and an imperious cardinal (Armin Mueller-Stahl). The filmmakers may have faith, but they also know that God helps those who help themselves. Contains violence and gore.

"Four Christmases" (PG-13, 82 minutes): There's a good movie buried here, underneath the layers of baloney and ham, but we never get much of a taste. Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn play San Francisco lovebirds who avoid Christmas with their divorced parents by planning vacations disguised as volunteer expeditions. But this year, a thick fog grounds all the flights. Before Christmas Day is out, the pair has to make four stops, one for each divorced parent. Vaughn and Witherspoon, both peppy and likable, have before them four scenarios in which to preen, riff, jab and yuk-yuk. And get a load of their parents: Robert Duvall, Oscar winner. Mary Steenburgen, Oscar winner. Sissy Spacek, Oscar winner. Jon Voight, Oscar winner. Unfortunately, the actors are nothing but fancy window dressing in this movie, which rushes from scene to scene before bad gags have time to land their bad punch lines. Contains sexual humor and language.

"Funny People" (R, 146 minutes): As the film opens, comic superstar George Simmons (Adam Sandler) gets the news that he is suffering from a probably fatal form of leukemia. Meanwhile, Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) works the unpaid L.A. comedy club circuit by night. George catches Ira's act and asks him to be his writing assistant and, it turns out, one-man entourage. Writer-director Judd Apatow's alert, crude and compassionate film takes digressive, thoroughly unexpected turns as George takes stock of his life, reconnecting with family, friends and his ex-fiancee (played by Apatow's wife, the sublime Leslie Mann). At nearly 2 1/2 hours, the film is arguably too long, but in the final analysis it earns that running time, if only because it's that rare mainstream Hollywood movie that feels genuinely spontaneous. Contains profanity and crude sexual humor throughout, and sexuality.

"Imagine That" (PG, 107 minutes): The film, in which Eddie Murphy plays a careerist investment banker redeemed by fatherhood and fantasy, is a redemptive act for Murphy. Little Yara Shahidi is beautiful and natural as Murphy's daughter, Olivia; Thomas Haden Church is inspired as an inspired character, Johnny Whitefeather, a faux mystic who parlays Native American spirituality into snake-oil salesmanship. As he struggles to maintain clients, Murphy's Evan Danielson discovers a quick path to happiness: In his daughter's fantasy world there are princesses who can make winning stock predictions. So he travels with Olivia to glean a kind of insider information and keep his customers from running off to Whitefeather. Audiences will make do with a movie that takes a major step toward reasserting Murphy's place as the comic heir not just to Richard Pryor, but to Groucho Marx. The return of Eddie Murphy? Imagine that. Contains mild language and questionable behavior.

"Shorts" (PG, 89 minutes): Toby "Toe" Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) lives in the company town of Black Falls, where both his parents (Leslie Mann and Jon Cryer) work for Black Box Industries, which makes a device that can do everything from placing a phone call to brushing your teeth. While Mom and Dad Thompson desperately try to find a way to improve the Black Box lest they be fired, Toe finds a rainbow-colored "wishing rock" that will grant his every stated desire. The poor kid's first request is for friends: The rock provides him with a flotilla of little E.T.s that promptly whip up a gourmet meal while Toe's parents obliviously dine on ramen noodles and type away at their PDAs. A big, grown-up kid who happens to have major-cool special effects and a few million bucks at his disposal, Robert Rodriguez remains in perfect sync with viewers who, when presented with a giant, goopy piece of nasal effluvia, don't think, "Gross." They think, "Now that's entertainment!" If parents feel like they've seen much of "Shorts" before, its celebration of mayhem and restless, thrill-seeking vibe will absorb young viewers. Contains mild action and rude humor.

Also on DVD Nov. 24: "The Golden Age of Television," "Gomorrah: Criterion Collection," "Hogan's Heroes: The Komplete Series, Kommandant's Kollection," "The Jerry Lewis Show Collection," "Life on Mars: Series 2" and "Santa Buddies."

November 17

"Bruno" (R, 88 minutes): The latest mock-documentary satiric ritual from comic provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen, may count as the summer's biggest misfire. Taken from Cohen's TV program "Da Ali G Show," Bruno is a gay, Austrian host of a fashion show. As the film opens, he makes a mess of a runway and is "schwartzlisted" from the industry. He attempts a comeback by going to Hollywood and, eventually, the Middle East and American South. Whether it's a painful episode involving Bruno trying to trap presidential candidate Ron Paul into making a sex tape or trying to broker Arab-Israeli peace or his encounters with gay "converters" in Alabama, the skits here don't add up to anything substantive. Cohen's targets are too easy, and with stakes this low, his rauncy, puerile stunts are just that, nothing more. Contains pervasive, strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and profanity.

"Humpday" (R, 95 minutes): If prizes were handed out for a low-budget movie with the year's highest concept, one would have to be reserved for Lynn Shelton's film, in which two straight, former college buddies decide to make a gay porn film together. Shelton's Ben and Andrew (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) are aging avatars of the "awesome" generation. Ben, a "transportation planner," is endeavoring to have a baby with his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore). Andrew is an itinerant artist who avoids finishing anything by shuttling between Lonely Planet destinations. The friends emerge from an uninhibited art-crowd party, where they agree to go at each other for an amateur porn festival. Delmore, Duplass and Leonard work up a loose-limbed, improvisatory energy, but the film radiates with the sheen of a film that has been thought out within an inch of its witty and insightful life. Contains strong sexual content, pervasive language and a scene of drug use.

"Is Anybody There?" (PG-13, 94 minutes): As Edward in this sweet if not terribly innovative film, Bill Milner plays a boy who lives in a rambling house in a green, leafy corner of England. But he has a dark side, and it's no wonder. Edward's mother (Anne-Marie Duff) runs Lark Hall, a small retirement home where death is an everyday occurrence. Edward has been displaced from his own room to make space for the elderly boarders, and his resentment seems to take the form of a morbid fascination with life's final chapter. Enter Michael Caine as Clarence, a former magician who is getting a little dotty and definitely should not be behind the wheel of a car. Clarence sets out to divert Edward's attention from the morbid side of life, and the two eventually forge a brief friendship. Caine is magnificent, and the film is worth a look for his contribution alone. But Milner is a promising actor, too, and the pairing of young and old is believable and occasionally very moving. Contains language, including sexual references, and disturbing images.

"The Limits of Control" (PG-13, 90 minutes): Jim Jarmusch's latest meditation on male soloism has no emotion, no compelling characters, no unity of effect and, consequently, no good reason to be seen. It does have great actors slumming as vague philosophical notions, though. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Gael García Bernal pass in front of Jarmusch's camera and say weird things. A lone man in a sharkskin suit (Isaach De Bankolé) encounters each of them while on an undefined criminal mission in Spain. He must rely on these strange people to lead him from clue to clue, location to location, till he arrives at his mark. Jarmusch has taken the idea of a caper, drained it of plot, action and suspense, and set it against an absurdist background, where every symbol, person and incident should convey meaning but doesn't. Contains violence and brief sexual and drug references.

"My Sister's Keeper" (PG-13, 109 minutes): Anna (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old conceived by her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) in order to harvest umbilical-cord blood, bone marrow and various organs for their daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia. Anna has hired an attorney (Alec Baldwin), demanding to be "medically emancipated" from her parents: She doesn't want to donate the kidney she was bred to give up. As long as the movie stays with that issue, it toggles smoothly between intellectual arguments and rank emotionalism. But then the focus turns to Kate's story, when she meets a fellow patient and falls in love. It's an undeniably affecting sequence, but it represents one of several tonal shifts that make the film an ever-widening shaggy dog story. Contains mature thematic content, disturbing images, sensuality, profanity and brief teen drinking.