Recently Released DVDs

Also on DVD September 22: "Castle: Complete First Season," "30 Rock: Season Three," "Lymelife," "The Complete Monterey Pop Festival: Criterion Collection," "The Mentalist: Complete First Season," "Paul Newman: The Tribute Collection," "Rage," "Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection," "Taxi: Complete Fourth Season," "Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection."

September 15

"Easy Virtue" (PG-13, 93 minutes): This traditional English comedy of manners is cut from the same drapery as "Gosford Park" and any Oscar Wilde film adaptation, minus the thematic heft and belly laughs of either. But for those thirsty for an unchallenging diversion, this may be your cup of tea. The English countryside is lovely, after all, and so are the actors: Kristin Scott Thomas as the cold matriarch Mrs. Whittaker, Colin Firth as her uncouth husband and Ben Barnes as their dapper son John. John recently married an American (heavens!) who's also a famous race-car driver with an accomplished sexual résumé (goodness gracious!). The American race-car driver, Larita, is played by Jessica Biel. What might've been a scrumptious, chocolatey dessert of a movie -- a Noel Coward delite -- is instead a scoop of lemon ice, not filling, faintly sweet and mostly water. Contains sexual content, smoking and brief partial nudity.

"Next Day Air" (R, 90 minutes): Benny Boom's flimsy comedy is fascinated by the mechanics of drug distribution, but, like its pot-addled protagonists, is easily distracted. When a doofus deliveryman (Donald Faison) accidentally delivers cocaine to a jittery, fast-talking hood named Guch (Wood Harris) and his partner Brody (Mike Epps), the two small-timers can't believe their good luck. "God sent this!" marvels Brody. But it wasn't God; it was a brutal California drug lord (Emilio Rivera), who's soon threatening his underlings with imminent death if they don't track down the shipment. As its appealing cast spreads across Philadelphia, the film settles into a heavy-lidded comic groove. But it screeches to a halt once all its characters come together in a gruesome, overcrowded final showdown that leaves few standing at the end. Contains pervasive language, drug content, violence and brief sexuality.

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (PG-13, 107 minutes): Hugh Jackman may be the contractual star of this Marvel Comics-inspired production, which explores (creates) the history of one of Marvel's most popular and conflicted heroes, but technology is what makes the movie what it is, a film with the personality of a $150 million video game. The story starts in 1845, in darkest Canada, where young brothers James and Victor see the man they think is their father gunned down. Before the intruder can spit out what he has come to tell them, he gets skewered on the irate James's nascent bone claws. Throughout history, James (Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) kick major enemy butt together. Victor/Sabretooth is always the more sadistic of the two. He's one twisted, unkillable dude, actually, and James, a.k.a. Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, constantly has to rein him in. But you can see where this is going: conflict. It's always the same: Guys have superpowers. You think they'd be happy. But no. All the time, conflict. Contains violence, intense action and fleeting nudity.

Also on DVD September 15: "An American Werewolf in London: Full Moon Edition," "Army of Darkness: Screwhead Edition," "The Big Bang Theory: Complete Second Season," "Bonanza: Official First Season, Vol. 1 & 2," "Doctor Who: The Next Doctor," "Fame" (1980 movie), "Fame: Complete Seasons One and Tw0," "Grey's Anatomy: Complete Fifth Season," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season Four."

September 8

"The Country Teacher" (NR, 103 minutes): Two-thirds of the way into "The Country Teacher" we see country-bumpkin mom Marie, a weathered, loveless woman with loose red pigtails and overalls, cleaning up a vomit-splattered floor. We get the feeling that quite a few of the characters in Czech director Bohdan Slama's latest film have been wiping up vomit all their lives. When a young schoolteacher, Peter (Pavel Liska, a Slama regular), from Prague comes to teach the backwoods local kids, Peter and Marie become fast friends, distracting each other from their loneliness. "The Country Teacher" ambles along like a herd of anxious cattle. Despite all the pain and self-loathing of its wounded characters, it's a pretty, heartwarming picture that tells us everybody needs somebody to help shatter that ol' boulder for good, and maybe clean up some vomit along the away. Contains adult themes and two calf birthings.

"Dance Flick" (PG-13, 83 minutes): The extended Wayans family of film and TV comics brings us this stunni ngly crude, tiresome spoof of just about every teen-focused dance movie of recent memory. Would-be dancer Megan (Shoshana Bush) loses her mother and moves in with her dad (Chris Elliott). At her new high school, she meets Thomas (Damon Wayans Jr.). They fall in love and work on dance routines. But Thoma s has to deal with violent rivals from a street dance contest and an oversize gangster named Sugar Bear (David Alan Grier, who is truly funny). Contains crude and sexual content and language.

"Valentino: The Last Emperor" (PG-13, 136 minutes): The legendary fashion designer Valentino Garavani glides through the movie in expensive suits and with the facial expression of one who has just smelled unwashed feet. Accompanied almost everywhere by his silver-haired business partner and ex-boyfriend, Giancarlo Giammetti, and a retinue of five Shar-Peis, he's given to making such pronouncements as "An evening gown that reveals a woman's ankles while she's walking is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen." It's not surprising, though, given the fact that Valentino created, during a 45-year run in the rag biz that lasted until his retirement from fashion in 2007, what Giammetti calls "a world unto himself." Calling him the last emperor may be hyperbolic, but he certainly is the last of a breed. Contains a bit of crude language and brief toplessness. DVD Extras: Includes previously deleted scenes and extra footage.

Also on DVD September 8: "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "Crank 2: High Voltage," "Fringe: The Complete First Season," "Harper's Island: DVD Edition," "Homicide: Criterion Collection,""The No.1 Ladies' Detectuve Agency," "One Foot in the Grave: The Complete Series," "The Office: Season Five," "Parks and Recreation: Season One," "Requiem for a Dream (Blu-ray)," "Shaq and Cedric the Entertainer Present: All-Star Comedy Jam," "Important Things with Demetri Martin: Season One," "Snakes on a Plane (Blu-ray)," "That Hamilton Woman: Criterion Collection," "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy Goes Boo."

September 1

"Earth" (G, 89 minutes): You may have seen the television ads for this debut documentary feature from Disney about the struggles of three animal families (polar bear, elephant and whale) to survive against the elements. They are the ads that begin "Wherever there is life, there are stories." That's really what this movie is: a gorgeously photographed storybook. It starts with a mother polar bear and her two cubs in Norway, moves to equatorial Africa for a look at a herd of elephants searching for water and ends with the journey of a humpback whale and her calf to Antarctica. In between, there's plenty of jaw-dropping cinematography of waterfalls, icebergs, meadows and mountains, along with by-turns funny and spectacular footage of birds of paradise, sailfish, caribous, wolves and a Mandarin duck or two, among others. Contains scenes of animals in peril and less-than-graphic violence.

"State of Play" (PG-13, 117 minutes): Taking some cues from such recent headlines as Chandra Levy and Blackwater, not to mention "All the President's Men," the genre's urtext, the film plays politicians and journalists against each other in a continually shifting game of back-scratching and back-stabbing. Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a rising political star, is caught up in a scandal that may or may not have anything to do with a string of murders being investigated by Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe). Caught in the middle is a plucky young blogger played by Rachel McAdams, who teams up with McAffrey to get to the bottom of events that spin more and more improbably out of control. The film features terrific performances from its aforementioned stars; Helen Mirren has some especially choice moments as Cal's vinegary editor. But the filmmakers seem less interested in its text than in its subtext, in this case the death rattle of Old Media. Contains violence, profanity, including sexual references, and brief drug content.

"Sugar" (R, 114 minutes): With this moving, absorbing drama, the writing-directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck ("Half Nelson") not only avoid the sophomore slump, they demolish it, delivering a film of rare intelligence, beauty and compassion. The film's title refers to its main character, Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a teenage baseball player in the Dominican Republic, who, early in the film, is recruited to a triple-A ball club in rural Iowa. Sugar, played by nonprofessional actor Algenis Perez Soto, navigates an entirely foreign life, including ordering food in English (he can manage only "French toast"), coping with the pressures of big-league scouts and competitive teammates and finally coming to terms with his own version of the American dream. The film gets the sports right. But more important, it gets the soul right, which makes it a must-see for everyone. It's a home run. Contains profanity, sexuality and drug use. In English and Spanish with subtitles.

Also on DVD September 1: "Supernatural: The Complete Fourth Season," "Gladiator (Blu-ray)," "Two and a Half Men: The Complete Sixth Season."

August 25

"Adventureland" (R, 104 minutes): In its own gentle way, the film restores a welcome note of humanism to a genre that has lately become little more than a repository for fart-and-vomit jokes. Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan, a recent college graduate whose plans for a European vacation before starting grad school are foiled when his family suffers an economic setback. James is forced to live at home and get a job at the local amusement park. There he meets an eclectic group of lost and striving souls, including a thwarted rock musician (Ryan Reynolds) and a sultry, mysterious girl named Em (Kristen Stewart), with whom he furtively falls in love. Thanks to an exceptionally deft touch, director Greg Mottola manages to capture the absurdity and anguish of young adulthood; his tender look back will ring wistfully true to anyone who has fallen in love, left home or still wonders what it would be like to do either. Contains drug use, profanity and sexual references.

"Duplicity" (PG-13, 125 minutes): Tony Gilroy's romantic espionage caper pits two pharmaceutical companies against each other. Burkett & Randle, led by Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), has discovered a cream that will revolutionize the industry. Equikrom, led by Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti) needs to steal the secret to that lotion. And there's romance, of sorts. Behind the scenes, Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) and Ray Koval (Clive Owen) work their nefarious magic, he on Equikrom's side, she on Burkett & Randle's. But are they both really working for each other? And can they really trust each other? Luckily, Owen and Roberts both get to play off Giamatti, who overacts gleefully. It's smart, it's for grown-ups and it lets Julia Roberts laugh, if just once. Short of a miracle cream, what else can you hope for from corporate America these days? Contains language, sexuality and displays of obscene wealth. DVD Extras: Includes commentary with writer/director Tony Gilroy and editor/co-producer John Gilroy.

"Sunshine Cleaning" (R, 102 minutes): Amy Adams is Rose, a maid. Emily Blunt is Norah, a burnout. The sisters' lives have dead-ended. When Rose's young son starts acting up at school, she decides to look for a private school where he can flourish. To help pay for it, Rose enters the expanding, lucrative market of crime-scene cleanup and entices Norah to join her. What should have been a madcap comedy of the macabre, or a tangled yarn about the metaphorical biohazards of living life at the margins, shoots for the middle and ends up being just that: middling. Adams and Blunt can't be faulted for signing up for this film, which is earnest and well meaning and tries to say something thoughtful about the untidiness of family relationships, which, if untended to, can decompose and start to smell. Contains language, disturbing images, sexuality and drug use.

Also on DVD August 25: "House: Season Five," "Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season," "NCIS: The Complete Sixth Season," "One Tree Hill: The Complete Sixth Season," "Lie To Me: Season One"; "thirtysomething: The Complete First Season."

August 18

"Hannah Montana: The Movie" (G, 98 minutes): The first moment of applause came early during a recent screening, so early, in fact, the house lights had just begun to dim. The source of the clapping was a pair of excitable girls who looked to be about 7 years old. Which is pretty much the target demographic of this innocuous feature-length adaptation of the popular Disney Channel series about Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus), an ordinary teenage girl who secretly moonlights as Hannah Montana. When Miley/Hannah gets too caught up in the celebrity swirl of Los Angeles, she's relegated to her family's home in Tennessee by her widowed father (Billy Ray Cyrus, the star's real-life dad). While there, she must cope with country life; evade a tabloid reporter seeking to expose her double life; save the community from a developer; and meet hunky Travis. The film may be, at heart, every Disney princess movie you've ever seen -- only with a stretch limo instead of a pumpkin-turned-coach and a prince who wears a cowboy hat. Contains nothing offensive whatsoever.

Also on DVD August 18: "Dexter: The Complete Third Season," "Surveillance," "Julia," "Gossip Girl: The Complete Second Season," "Sons of Anarchy: Season One," "The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season."

August 11

"The Class" (PG-13, 128 minutes): Director Laurent Cantet turns his camera on a French schoolroom and the nightmare that is the contemporary adolescent student body. But the real subject is the teacher, Mr. Marin (François Bégaudeau). You're afraid for him, you admire him, you want to know how he does it. And, most of all, you want to know why. The effect of Cantet's faux-doc, hand-held shooting style is one of intimacy but also suspense. As the relationship between teacher and class ebbs and flows and explodes and degrades, one never knows what is going to happen or where it might come from; the use of close-ups, which has as much to do with the development of the various young characters as anything they say, implies that you can't be everywhere, your eyes can't see everything. The film is not just the best film released thus far this year, it may be the most gripping. Contains vulgarity.

"17 Again" (PG-13, 102 minutes): Zac Efron is no Lindsay Lohan. That fact will come as a great relief to Efron's managers, who are no doubt crossing their fingers that their blue-eyed meal ticket, the beloved star of the "High School Musical" franchise, has no mug shots in his future. But it's too bad for "17 Again," Burr Steers's engaging but pedestrian comedy, that young Efron doesn't have a little bit more Lohan in him. Efron is effortlessly diverting as an adult trapped in a teen's body in "17 Again." But, unlike Lohan -- who gave a rich performance as another adult trapped in a teen's body in the 2003 remake of "Freaky Friday" -- Efron has no edge. And although that edgelessness might prolong his career, it keeps "17 Again" from having anything surprising to say about teenage life in 2009. Contains language, sexual material and teen partying.

"I Love You, Man" (R, 107 minutes): Paul Rudd is a phone book actor, meaning he's just one of those guys who could stand there and read a phone book and we'd laugh. Just watch him in the first few scenes of "I Love You, Man," when his character, Peter Klaven, listens in on a raunchy conference call between his fiancee, Zooey (Rashida Jones), and her best girlfriends. Or listen as he makes up fake guy-talk when he goes on a first man-date with Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), the shambling Lost Boy who lives in a self-described "man-cave" with a steady supply of pot, pornography and Rush records. When Peter befriends him in hopes of finding a best man for his wedding, Sydney takes it upon himself to make Peter into a "real" man, i.e., a creature entirely without conscience or consideration for others. It's a thin premise, and "I Love You, Man" features the usual quota of jokes involving masturbation, projectile vomiting and flatulence. But is it worth it? Thanks to Rudd and Segel (and some terrific cameos), totes magotes. Contains pervasive profanity, including crude sexual references. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes, outtakes, gag reel, commentary.

Also on DVD August 11: "Ichi the Killer (Blu-ray)," "Gigantic," "The Tiger's Tail," "St. Elmo's Fire (Blu-ray)," "90210: The Complete First Season."

August 4

"Obsessed" (PG-13, 108 minutes): Beyoncé Knowles is Sharon, a wife and mother threatened by a woman who is literally crazy for Sharon's husband in this cheesy, predictable thriller. The only nuanced performance is by Idris Elba as Derek, Sharon's stockbroker spouse. When Lisa (Ali Larter) makes a play for him and won't accept his rebuff, the wheels are set in motion. "Obsessed" can't end without a life-or-death fight between Sharon and Lisa, whose attempted seductions are steamy but nongraphic. Contains sexual material including suggestive dialogue, violence and thematic content.

"Race to Witch Mountain" (PG, 98 minutes): Screenwriters Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback have retooled the Alexander Key novel that provided fodder for the original 1975 film, creating a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson. Johnson is a sly delight here, playing ex-con Jack Bruno, who has traded in his NASCAR dreams to drive a cab in Las Vegas. In between trundling sci-fi geeks to a UFO convention, Jack picks up a pair of very anxious blond tweens named Seth (Alexander Ludwig) and Sara (AnnaSophia Robb). Once Seth halts a pursuing SUV with his breastplate and Sara levitates Jack's tip change, it becomes clear that Jack is dealing with two strays from outer space who have crash-landed in the desert. With government agents hot on his trail, Jack endeavors to spirit his young charges back to their ship. Johnson (the wrestler formerly known as the Rock) lifts the script above its conventional cat-and-mouse stratagems with his buoyant wiseacre timing. Contains sequences of action and violence, frightening and dangerous situations, and thematic elements.

"The Soloist" (PG-13, 119 minutes): The true story of a newspaper columnist (Robert Downey Jr.) and his friendship with a schizophrenic street musician in Los Angeles (Jamie Foxx), the film is suffused with heartbreak and humanism, as it takes one man's grim story -- early promise, bright future, mental breakdown, despair -- and turns it into a spiritual meditation on friendship. Downey plays Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who happens upon Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) playing a two-stringed violin in downtown Los Angeles's Pershing Square. Lopez discovers that Ayers once attended Juilliard, and his resulting columns wind up taking the writer not only into the tortured history and mind of his subject, but also into the Bosch-like world of the city's Skid Row. A quietly radical third-act reversal, raises the film above its own conventions. Hollywood loves the heroics of good intentions, but this movie is just as interested in the road to hell. Contains thematic elements, some drug use and profanity. DVD Extras: Includes a short feature with the real Nathaniel Ayers and Steve Lopez discussing the way they met and the friendship they formed.

Also on DVD August 4: "August," "Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season," "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: Season Three," "Project Runway: Season Five."

July 28

"Fast & Furious" (PG-13, 107 minutes): "Fast & Furious" refires the high-speed adrenaline and the fuel-injected bromance between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker that began in 2001's "The Fast and the Furious." The reunion is fun and frantic, like the original on double nitro. Gone is the young-boy innocence of the first, yet the guy-centric principles remain the same. The things of beauty in the "F&F" universe? Nitro-jacked speedsters that do horizontally what the Cape Canaveral program does vertically. The six-pack-abbed guys standing next to those cars. And bullet-shaped Corona beers, so men can raise them to victory or -- as one character so grandiloquently puts it -- "to the ladies we've loved and the ladies we've lost." And as long as the filmmakers keep giving us vicarious access to the good, fast, sleek things in life, we don't see this ride running out of fuel for a long time. Contains dangerous car chases and fatalities, beer drinking, fist violence and one F-word. DVD Extras: Includes special "Under the Hood" featurettes about the cars in the movie and an original short film by Vin Diesel.

Also on DVD July 28: "Streets of Blood," "Dollhouse: Season One," "Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)," "Repulsion (Blu-ray)," "Life on Mars: Series 1," "Torchwood: Children of Earth."

July 21

"Coraline" (PG, 100 minutes): The movie, adapted from Neil Gaiman's enormously successful book of the same name, follows 11-year-old Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning), whose wish to replace the adults in her life leads to a nightmarish experience in a parallel universe. She finds herself in another world where charming replicas of her parents invite her to live with them. There's a major hitch, of course. Coraline's "Other Mother" (Teri Hatcher) makes her a prisoner and demands unyielding devotion. For all its visual delights, however, the film remains more an engaging spectacle than a connective drama. That is chiefly because of the writing. Director-writer Henry Selick doesn't reach for the kind of universality that would enrich the movie. It's a shame because Fanning's performance is the movie's most emotionally persuasive element. Her assured modulations, from cheeky to sweet, from bored to anguished, should have been part of a bigger, deeper movie. Contains scary images, mild profanity and suggestive humor.

"The Great Buck Howard" (PG, 87 minutes): Buck Howard (John Malkovich) is a vaudevillian mentalist who gets through each day by reliving his best moments from 30 years ago, even though the rest of the world has moved on. Colin Hanks plays Buck's assistant, who caters to his strange needs and helps maintain his boss's delusion that he is still a beloved personality. A problem is the dull Hanks, who would not have gotten this role on his own merits (his father is Tom, who produces and acts in the film). A bigger problem is Hanks's character, Troy, a law school dropout. The story is Troy's, not Buck's, and the film is all the less interesting because of it. Malkovich is merely a vessel through which Troy learns an important lesson on the way to establishing his own writing career; he's like a jack-in-the-box that never pops out, and the movie plays like an endless, aggravating loop of "Pop Goes the Weasel." Contains language, including suggestive remarks, and a drug reference.

"Watchmen" (R, 163 minutes): The film, like the 1986 graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, follows the tormented daily lives of a ragtag band of retired superheroes caught up in a plot to save the Earth, and themselves, from the machinations of a self-appointed savior of mankind, who may not have mankind's best interests at heart. The gang's all here: the psychotically righteous Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the dangerously smart Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) and the shape-shifting blue nudist with seemingly limitless power, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). The movie exposes the glaring problems with the original material: The dialogue stinks and is filled with cliches. But when it marches in lock step with the tedious plot, the only watch that matters in "Watchmen" is the one on your wrist. Contains strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language. DVD Extras: Extended cut of the film; split screen commentary from Zack Snyder; featurettes.

Also on DVD July 21: "300: The Complete Experience (Blu-ray)," "Echelon Conspiracy," "Midnight Express," "Pushing Daisies: Season 2," "Prison Break: The Final Break," "Monk: Season Seven," "Psych: The Complete Third Season," "Charlie's Angels: Complete Fourth Season."

July 14

"The Edge of Love" (NR, 110 minutes): In John Maybury's speculative investigation of the romantic entanglements of poet Dylan Thomas, Keira Knightley plays Vera Phillips, Thomas's real-life childhood friend from Wales. As the film opens, the two reconnect during the London Blitz, when Dylan (Matthew Rhys) is writing British propaganda copy and Vera is crooning in tube stations turned into makeshift cabarets. For a moment it looks like the obvious spark between them will ignite into something more, when -- what ho! -- up pops Dylan's fiery Irish wife, Caitlin (Sienna Miller), and the three embark on a by turns passionate and toxic menage a trois. (Cillian Murphy plays Vera's long-suffering husband, William Killick.) That none of the protagonists earns the audience's sympathy is more likely a failure of the real-life characters rather than the actors. Contains profanity, nudity and adult themes.

"The Haunting In Connecticut" (PG-13, 92 minutes): Solid acting and handsomely realized effects depicting ghostly visions and visitations make this a chilling occult tale: There are flashbacks of someone preparing to snip the eyelids off a body, and of seances in which ghostly ectoplasm spews from a live person's mouth. Virginia Madsen plays Sara, whose teenage son, Matt (Kyle Gallner), has a life-threatening illness. She moves the family to an old house near the hospital where Matt is treated. He immediately starts seeing dead people and worse in the house and becomes detached and obsessed. A cleric (Elias Koteas) helps Matt reveal the secret behind the haunting. The narrative is repetitive but still effective. Contains intense sequences of terror and disturbing images.

Also on DVD July 14: "Bewitched: The Complete Eighth Season," "ER: Season 11," "Explicit Ills," "Grey Gardens," "Mad Men: Season 2," "Menage," "Night Train," "[Rec]," "The State: The Complete Series," "This Is Spinal Tap (Blu-ray)."

July 7

"Knowing" (PG-13, 110 minutes): John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), comes across a 50-year-old list of numbers that somehow seems to have predicted -- down to the precise date and location -- every major disaster of the last half-century, plus a few that haven't happened yet. His problems -- alcohol abuse, the recent death of his wife -- make him sound unhinged when he tries to warn people of the coming apocalypse. Yes, the film is creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way. But the narrative corner into which this movie, directed by Alex Proyas ("I, Robot"), paints itself is a simultaneously silly and morbidly depressing one. Well before the film neared its by turns dismal and ditzy conclusion, I found myself knowing -- yet hardly able to believe -- what was about to happen. Contains disturbing scenes of carnage and brief vulgar language. DVD Extras: Director commentary; featurettes.

"Push" (PG-13, 111 minutes): The premise here -- a hide-and-seek game between superhumans and a government agency in Hong Kong -- is old, but the execution is fresh, earnest and inoffensive. Dakota Fanning sheds her porcelain-doll image by playing Cassie, a grungy-haired, boot-wearing Watcher, or someone with the ability to divine and then sketch images from the future. Using that skill, she knows she must search out and team with a Mover named Nick (Chris Evans), who's hiding from a U.S. government agency called the Division. Together Cassie and Nick must snatch a briefcase from the Division or face certain death, according to Cassie's drawings of the future. The pleasure here comes from its glamorized grit, its no-nonsense pacing and the committed performances of the actors roughhousing in the gray area between heroism and villainy. Contains violence, brief strong language, smoking and a scene of teen drinking. DVD Extras: Commentary with director and cast; deleted scenes; featurette.

"The Unborn" (PG-13, 96 minutes): This visually polished slice of hokum introduces us to Young Casey (Odette Yustman), who is troubled by visions of a creepy little kid with a really bad haircut. He seems to have something to do with Casey's dead mother, though her dad (B-movie veteran James Remar) pooh-poohs the idea. At first. Then one of Casey's babysitting charges, another creepy kid with an equally unfortunate haircut, gets into the act. Before long, Casey has persuaded her best friend and boyfriend to help her find the truth about her past. It turns out that "genetic mosaicism" is at the root of the problem. Jane Alexander and Gary Oldman are also on hand to add a little maturity to the proceedings. More important, the special effects crew does exemplary work. They use subtle distortions to show Casey's point of view. The often clunky, cliched script is not as effective, particularly in the stretch. Contains violence, strong language and frightening images. DVD Extras: Includes the rated and unrated versions of the film; deleted scenes.

Also on DVD July 7: "Beau Geste," "Five Fingers," "Murder She Wrote: Season 10," "The Universe: Season 2 (Blu-ray), Mystery Science Theater 3000: XV."

June 30

"Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience" (G, 76 minutes): Youngsters who adore the Jonas Brothers will have fun at this movie. It contains virtually nothing offensive, unless parents are bothered by the mildly sensual style of dance the Jonas boys do onstage or the hilariously Freudian foam spray they aim at their audience in one silly concert bit. For parents, here a critic's opinion, for what it's worth: The film is a contrived and commercial bit of nothing. Even the supposedly "candid" moments backstage or in hotel rooms come off as awkwardly staged, with the brothers unable even to fake spontaneity. Contains nothing objectionable. DVD Extras: 2-D extended movie with two additional performances; two additional bonus songs; featurette; Digital Copy of extended movie in 2-D.

"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" (PG-13, 96 minutes): Though it's based on the arcade video game, this movie aims for a marginally coherent, humanized tale of good vs. evil in the martial arts genre. It is only semi-successful and too often a bore. One good thing: Kristin Kreuk (of TV's "Smallville"), who is effortlessly charming as Chun-Li, a young woman adept at martial arts. Chun-Li remembers her father's violent kidnapping. A mysterious scroll points to the man who took him, so Chun-Li studies with Gen (Robin Shou), a martial arts master, who goes with her to Bangkok in search of the evil Bison (Neal McDonough) and his enforcer. Contains violence and sensuality. DVD Extras: Contains both rated and unrated versions of the film; cast commentary; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Tokyo!" (UR, 110 minutes): The city of Tokyo is the most obvious link between the three short films that make up this feature-length triptych. The first chapter, "Interior Design," begins with the arrival of a young couple into the world of crowded streets, heartless landlords and entry-level jobs. The comic yet nightmarish second installment, "Merde," takes us under the streets, where a psychopathic man takes refuge when he's not terrorizing the social world above. The final installment, "Shaking Tokyo," shows us a society of recluses, in retreat from the stress and strain of urban life. If there are thematic connections, they are abstract. All three films deal with things hidden, or disappearing, or suppressed. If you can't find real connections between its disparate stories, you can always make them up yourself. But if that kind of film frustrates you, think twice before booking a ticket to this destination. Contains mild violence. In Japanese with English subtitles.

"Two Lovers" (R, 108 minutes): In James Gray's quiet, unadorned romantic drama, Joaquin Phoenix is his old, clean-shaven self as Leonard Kraditor, a troubled young man who has moved back in with his parents in Brighton Beach. Torn between a gorgeous if unstable shiksa goddess (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the nice Jewish girl (Vinessa Shaw) his mom and dad are clearly crazy about, Leonard ultimately has to decide which self to express: the romantic but doomed artist or the settled but thwarted family man. Movies have visited this terrain before, from "The Graduate" to last year's wonderful "Momma's Man." But the film has its pleasures, too, even if Paltrow seems wildly out of place in a drama committed to adamantly un-starry realism. The movie's chief value is to preserve Phoenix at the height of his wary physical grace, which recalls a young Marlon Brando. Contains profanity, sexuality and brief drug use.

Also on DVD June 30: "12 Rounds," "Do the Right Thing: 20th Anniversary," "Eastbound & Down: Season 1," "The Human Contract," "Entourage: Season 5," "Monk: Season 5," "Stargate Atlantis: Season 5."

June 23

"Confessions of a Shopaholic" (PG, 112 minutes): Is Rebecca Bloomwood the embodiment of irresponsible consumership? Absolutely, which makes the timing of the film either genius or fatal, but two things weigh in its favor: One is Isla Fisher. The other is that the film is oblivious to its own gravitas. Rebecca is the Lucy Ricardo of profligate spending. She desperately wants to work for the fashion rag, Alette magazine, run by the semi-satanic Alette Naylor (Kristin Scott Thomas). An opening has arisen at a sister mag, a personal-finance journal edited by the dashing and secretly wealthy Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy), and Rebecca lands the job. The film touches all the rom-com bases: the romance between Luke and Rebecca; Rebecca's friendship with her roommate Suze (the wonderful Krysten Ritter). And lots of comedy filler, including the digressions involving Rebecca's parents (Joan Cusack and John Goodman). And 12-step shopaholic meetings. Rebecca may owe everybody for everything, but Fisher definitely owns the movie. Contains vulgarity and adult themes.

"The Pink Panther 2" (PG, 90 minutes): Maybe one could expect a little bit more from a film that co-stars Jeremy Irons, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina and Lily Tomlin. Each of those blue-chip performers is criminally wasted in this sequel to the 2006 update of the old Peter Sellers comedies, which plays like a series of disconnected skits in a cut-rate "Saturday Night Live." Even Steve Martin's talents as a physical comedian are underused, except for a wonderful set piece early in the film where his character, Jacques Clouseau, gets to juggle a cascade of bottles as they fall from a teetering wine rack. Sure, it's dumb humor. But it's also, at times, mean. Clouseau calls one of his fellow detectives, a Japanese computer whiz played by Yuki Matsuzaki, "my little yellow friend." I know, we're not meant to laugh at the victim, but at Clouseau's bigotry, which is supposed to be just another example of his comic ineptitude. My only question is this: In the context of these by-the-book pratfalls, is it funny enough? Contains slapstick violence and brief suggestive humor.

"Waltz With Bashir" (R, 90 minutes): Directed by Ari Folman, the film tells the story of the September 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Twenty years after the massacres, Folman has blocked the war from his memory. Only when his friend Boaz tells him about a recurring dream does Folman start to ask himself questions. Was he at Sabra and Shatila? Why can't he remember? What is meant by the memories he does have? And are they his? Craftily, the details of Sabra and Shatila unfold, via interviews Folman does with his old army buddies, who are rendered, like Folman, animated, via the process known as rotoscoping, which transforms photographic footage into cartoon and reduces us to something basic and primal. The film is a thinking person's horror movie, about real horror and horrifying echoes, and the dark that coils around Sabra and Shatila. And around the hearts of men. Contains disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content. DVD Extras: Commentary with director Ari Folman; featurettes.

Also on DVD June 23: "Backwoods," "Bob Funk," "Legends of the Bog," "Table for Three," "Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection," "Zombie High," "The Pianist (Blu-ray)."

June 16

"Friday the 13th" (R, 97 minutes): A group of hot friends stumbles into Camp Crystal Lake, where 29 years ago a young boy (Jason) drowned, which prompted his mother to kill the counselors, which prompted a sole survivor to decapitate her, which prompted Jason to return from the dead to continue the vengeful spree, which prompted an endless movie franchise, blah, blah, blah. The friends are murdered in horrible ways. One girl survives but is imprisoned by Jason. The story jumps forward a month. The captured girl's brother comes poking around Crystal Lake. While posting fliers for his missing sister, he hooks up with a group of hot friends heading to a cabin. The same fate awaits. The movie has a couple of half-laughs, zero scares, only one moment of artistically inventive slaughter and just two scenes of marginal titillation. Contains strong bloody violence, graphic sexual content, language and drugs. DVD Extras: Featurette; deleted scenes

Also on DVD June 16: "The Cell 2," "Dr. Strangelove (Blu-ray)," "Ghostbusters (Blu-ray)," "Morning Light," "Spaceballs (Blu-ray)," "The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 6," "Burn Notice: Season 2," "Family Guy: Vol. 7," Lost: Seasons 1&2 (Blu-ray)," "John Adams (Blu-ray)."

June 9

"Crossing Over" (R, 113 minutes): Wayne Kramer's multi-linear immigration story recalls other similarly tangled roundelays such as "Crash" and "Babel" that dealt with the same subjects far more deftly. Harrison Ford plays Max Brogan, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent under whose gruff, scarred exterior beats a bleeding heart of gold. Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd and Jim Sturgess also appear, as an immigration official, a lawyer and a musician on the prowl for a green card, respectively. At once didactic and exploitative (Kramer makes lurid use of explosive sex and violence), the film isn't just offensive, it's redundant. The themes of tradition, assimilation, post-9/11 paranoia, bureaucratic injustice and inter-cultural tension have been portrayed more authentically in such recent films as "Under the Same Moon," "Persepolis," "The Visitor" and "Gran Torino." Contains pervasive profanity, strong violence, sexuality and nudity.

"Fired Up" (PG-13, 89 minutes): The pushing-30 Nicholas D'Agosto and 31-year-old Eric Christian Olsen seem a bit long in the tooth to be donning the antic mask of the sexually irrepressible high school jock in this arduous cheerleader comedy geared toward those too green to know that cheerleader comedies went out long before the last pompom shake of "Bring It On." That cunning Kirsten Dunst frolic is watched with reverence by the cheerleaders-in-training at Southern Illinois University, where ex-footballers Shawn and Nick have insinuated themselves in hopes of fulfilling their wildest carnal dreams. The bodacious babes who make up the camp's majority know just what the guys are up to, but they inevitably give in because the fellas are single-minded, straight and cute. Will Gluck directs with frantic, go-for-broke pacing, which is what you do when your reserves of wit are bankrupt. Contains crude and sexual content, partial nudity, language and teen partying. DVD Extras: Featurettes; gag reel.

"Gran Torino" (R, 116 minutes): Clint Eastwood delivers a breathtaking performance in a by turns appalling and hilarious role that recalls great ghosts of Eastwood vigilante thrillers past. Playing Korean War vet Walt Kowalski, Eastwood spits, swears and seethes as a man who watches the world change from the front stoop of his Detroit house. Surrounded by Hmong immigrants he persists in calling "slants," "slopes" and "gooks," at least Walt is an equal-opportunity bomb-thrower. He has an epithet for everyone, even growling and glaring at his grandchildren. (He does love his dog and the restored 1972 Gran Torino in his driveway.) If it weren't for Eastwood's amusingly self-conscious performance, Walt would be insufferable, but the film is full of surprises, especially when the old coot befriends a Hmong family next door. If you can survive the F-bombs and the near-constant ethnic invective, "Gran Torino" is not to be missed, if only as the gutsy, thoroughly unexpected valedictory of an icon fully willing to spend every bit of his considerable capital. Contains pervasive profanity and violence. DVD Extras: Featurettes.

"The International" (R, 116 minutes): Clive Owen plays Interpol agent Lou Salinger, a gruff, obsessed loner who for years has been on the trail of a corrupt bank. Now he's working with the Manhattan district attorney's office, specifically a comely assistant D.A. named Ella Whitman, played in an unobjectionable if undistinguished performance by Naomi Watts. Directed by Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run") with sober forthrightness, the film is in many ways a throwback to the monochrome urban thrillers of the 1970s, with the added and topical twist of having a diabolical financial institution at its center. Garbled at times, the movie still hums along with attractive, smooth efficiency. The compulsively watchable Owen makes for an ideal leading man of both action and angst. The film's eye-popping set piece, a shootout at the Guggenheim Museum, is an extravagantly choreographed valentine to philistines everywhere. Contains violence and profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary with director Tom Tykwer and writer Eric Singer; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Nobel Son" (R, 110 minutes): Eli Michaelson, who has just won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, is a garden-variety narcissist and egomaniac, cruel to his family and friends, and predatory with his female students. When son Barkley, who studies cannibalism, is kidnapped, dark figures and secrets from Eli's past emerge, rearranging the family chessboard and driving even poor Barkley (perhaps) to practice what he studies. It's all wildly implausible and occasionally fun, but it could be so much better if director Randall Miller had thrown in a little more character development and excised a half-dozen crazy plot twists. We see where this might have gone when Eli (Alan Rickman) and his wife, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), interact for a few, normal, human minutes in a car, coming back from the Nobel ceremony. But then a gruesome package arrives, and the movie lurches back to roller-coaster mode. Contains violent, gruesome images, language and sexuality. DVD Extras: Audio commentary with director/producer Randall Miller, writer/producer Jody Savin, musician Paul Oakenfold, cinematographer Mike Ozier and actors Brian Greenberg and Eliza Dushku; deleted scenes with optional director commentary; alternate ending.

Also on DVD June 9: "Fatal Attraction (Blu-ray)," "In Love We Trust," "Iron Maiden: Flight 666," "Reaper: Season 2," "The Shield: Season 7," "Spinning Into Butter." "Strike," "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music -- 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition."

June 2

"Defiance" (R, 137 minutes): Edward Zwick's often-stirring movie dramatizes the true story of Zus and Tuvia Bielski (Liev Schreiber and Daniel Craig), Jewish brothers who eluded their Nazi captors during World War II in what is now Belarus. With a younger brother, Zus and Tuvia helped their fellow Jews escape the German SS and their collaborators by hiding in a forest and joining forces with the Red Army. Zwick has perfected the art of marrying bombastic action, aestheticized violence and historical import, and he marshals all three effectively to bring this little-known and amazing story to life. Craig and Schreiber are terrific as the slightly thuggish Bielskis, and they're joined by an able supporting cast that includes Jamie Bell and the wonderful Mia Wasikowska. Here, viewers are treated not only to the cathartic pleasures of watching a band of Jewish outlaws gun down their Nazi oppressors, but also to the ambiguous truth that for righteousness to prevail, it helps to have a little larceny in your heart. Contains violence and profanity. In Russian, Yiddish and English with subtitles. DVD Extras: Commentary by director Edward Zwick; featurettes; trailers.

"He's Just Not That Into You" (PG-13, 132 minutes): As the protagonists rehearse the movie's core philosophical questions, they wind up making a text of the subtext that lies just under the surface of most romantic comedies: romantic complaint. Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) throws herself headlong into every relationship she's in. After an encounter with a real estate agent named Conor (Kevin Connolly), she waits for the callback that's clearly never going to come. Janine (Jennifer Connolly) has a husband, Ben (Bradley Cooper), who is distant when they talk about what color to paint a room, while Beth (Jennifer Aniston) has a boyfriend, Neil (Ben Affleck), who refuses to get married. Restaurant manager Alex (Justin Long) befriends Gigi and talks her through the messages that men routinely send women and that women routinely ignore. The film isn't a movie as much as a destination; it's the movie equivalent of a quick mani-pedi, with pleasures that go just about as deep, and last just about as long. Contains sexual content and brief strong profanity. DVD Extras: Additional scenes with optional commentary by director Ken Kwapis.

"Revolutionary Road" (R, 119 minutes): Sam Mendes's dirge-like adaptation of the 1961 novel by Richard Yates exerts an undeniable pull as its beautiful, doomed protagonists navigate the ennui of adult life in 1950s suburbia. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler, who are leading lives of not-very-quiet desperation. Frank, who works for a business machine company in Manhattan, seems slowly to be becoming his late father. April, who stays at home with the couple's two children, is clearly miserable. Frank and April make fitful, furtive attempts to be happy: Frank pursues an affair, while April hits on the idea of moving to Paris. The entire psychological arc of the film can be discerned in Winslet's face, while DiCaprio still seems too boyish, too insubstantial, to be playing a man coping with the realities of adulthood. It is a hard movie to love. Plenty of people will appreciate the hopelessness, but they might wish for a little less emptiness. Contains profanity, sexuality and nudity. DVD Extras: Commentary by director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe; featurette; deleted scenes with optional commentary.

Also on DVD June 2: "Air Force One (Blu-ray)," "Army Wives: Season 2," "Delirious: 25th Anniversary Edition"'; "Prison Break: Season 4," "Razortooth," "Spring Breakdown," "Rugrats: Seasons 1&2," "Weeds: Season 4."

May 26

"New In Town" (PG, 96 minutes): There's nothing novel about this overly familiar farce, a creaky rom-com-cum-fish-out-of-water tale about a tightly wound corporate executive (Renée Zellweger) who finds herself temporarily reassigned from sunny Miami to small-town Minnesota in the dead of winter. Throughout much of the movie, the actress's face appears botoxed into a frozen mask of misery, which melts only after meeting truck-drivin', beer-drinkin', plaid-wearin' hottie Ted (Harry Connick Jr.). But first Ted and Lucy have to act as though they hate each other. That is, until the handsome widower and single dad (all together now: awww) happens to have the opportunity to rescue the career-obsessed singleton when her car gets stuck in a blizzard, making her reevaluate her big-city priorities in the face of true love and a near-death experience. The real America, my foot. As Lucy remarks at one point, this whole endeavor looks like the world's coldest theme park. Contains a bit of crude language and suggestive material.

Also on DVD May 26: "Children of Men (Blu-ray)," "The Devil's Tomb," "Falling Down," "Field of Dreams (Blu-ray)," "Forever Strong," "Inside Man (Blu-ray)," "Killshot," "Law & Order: SVU: Season 9," "Princess of Nebraska," "Powder Blue," "The Ramen Girl," "True Romance."

May 19

"Fanboys" (PG-13, 90 minutes): Three years after graduating from high school, Eric (Sam Huntington), Hutch (Dan Fogler), Windows (Jay Baruchel) and Linus (Chris Marquette) are still living with their folks and working at dead-end jobs. When a terminal illness strikes one of the four and they fear he won't make it until the official release of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," they decide to drive from Ohio to George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California. There, they'll break in and watch a rough cut of the movie that they've been yearning for and dreaming about for years. Stops along the way include the birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk, a gay biker bar, a snack of peyote-laced guacamole and the obligatory stopover in Las Vegas. Director Kyle Newman doesn't capture the sense of landscape and movement that a good road movie needs, and two slapstick chase scenes are lethargic. The Force is not strong with this one. Contains strong language, sexual humor and drug use. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes; commentary by cast and producers.

"My Bloody Valentine 3-D" (R, 101 minutes): No cartoon cuddliness in this hand-drips-blood-in-your-lap exploitation picture that lacks the subtlety or horror foreplay of the original. Editor-turned-director Patrick Lussier treats the multi-writer script as an afterthought and jumps straight into the mayhem as he re-creates the mining disaster that gave us the miner-mass murderer Harry Warden "10 years before." A brisk opening shows us the mine owner's son Tom (Jensen Ackles), whose blunder caused a cave-in; the single comatose miner rescued six days later; and the awful realization that his fellow victims didn't die of asphyxiation or the crush of earth. They were killed by a guy who didn't want them using up his oxygen. The plot staggers from absurd to ridiculous, and we don't have enough time with any character to wish them well in the face of certain death. But if horror in general is the last great communal movie experience, 3D just heightens the shared fun. Contains brutal horror, violence, grisly images, strong sexuality, graphic nudity and language. DVD Extras: Contains both 2D and 3D versions; 4 pairs of 3D glasses included; SE includes commentary, deleted scenes, gag reel and featurettes.

"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" (PG, 90 minutes): Even though this film was co-produced by Adam Sandler, it never sinks to scatological humor. That's pretty much where the accolades end for this mediocre, unmemorable comedy, one with such obviously humble intentions that busting on it is a bit like harassing the junior high school outcast who just wants to eat his tater tots in peace. Kevin James plays an overweight mall security officer named Paul Blart. On a particularly unfortunate Black Friday, a posse of thieves assumes control of the mall and starts to take hostages. Will the man who can't even break up a catfight at Victoria's Secret step up when it really counts? James gamely pratfalls and stumbles through all 90 minutes of these proceedings, but his clumsy somersaults and silly Segway maneuvers elicit few giggles. More intriguing is Raini Rodriguez, a 15-year-old actress who conveys a believable sweetness as Blart's daughter and, with luck, will score a better part in a better movie someday. Contains violence, mildly crude and suggestive humor and language. DVD Extras: Commentary with Kevin James and producer Todd Garner; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Valkyrie" (PG-13, 120 minutes): Expectations for Tom Cruise's history-based thriller about Claus von Stauffenberg's July 20, 1944, attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, were low. And against all expectations he has fashioned a successful if not exceptional film. Von Stauffenberg's disillusionment with Hitler, and Hitler's disastrous two-front war, leads him to quickly take leadership of one of the more determined circles of anti-Hitler conspirators. Von Stauffenberg was not only untroubled by Hitler's nationalism and early aggression, he helped further it as a loyal soldier. It was only later, when he learned more about the master he served with military punctiliousness, that he saw the light. All of that is left out of the film. The film is so austere, so strangely inhuman in its depiction of heroism, that you can't help but admire it as an entertainment juggernaut, and fret about it, too, for its celebration of a very limited ideal of human behavior. Contains violence and strong language. DVD Extras: Commentary by Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer, and writer Christopher McQuarrie; commentary by writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander; featurettes.

Also on DVD May 19: "24: Season 7," "Driven to Kill," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Centennial Collection)," "Monsters, Inc. (Blu-ray)," "Outlander," "Pufnstuf," "True Blood: The Complete First Season."

May 12

"Passengers" (PG-13, 100 minutes): Anne Hathaway plays a grief and post-traumatic-stress counselor working with survivors of a plane crash in this dry, ineffective psychological thriller. Despite a strong cast, the film's dreary pacing and clumsily revealed mystery are more annoying than thrilling. Claire (Hathaway) comes to suspect the airline is hiding facts about the accident and thinks she's being followed. She falls, quite unethically, for one survivor/patient (Patrick Wilson) and gets unsought advice from a nosy neighbor (Dianne Wiest). The reenactment of the crash is chilling but not graphic. Contains scary images and sexuality. DVD Extras: Director commentary; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Taken" (PG-13, 94 minutes): The story of an ex-CIA spook (Liam Neeson) who trains his deadly skills on the Albanian slavers who have kidnapped his daughter, the film delivers action, car chases, gunfights and just enough queasy exploitation to make you feel bad about yourself afterward. Bryan Mills retired from his CIA job to be closer to his daughter, 17-year-old Kim (Maggie Grace), who lives in California with her mother (Famke Janssen). Kim wants to spend the summer in Europe despite the qualms of her dad, who sees danger around every corner. Needless to say, Bryan is right: Kim is nabbed less than an hour after landing at Charles de Gaulle airport, and it falls to her father to rescue her from the sex-slavery ring that plans to sell her to a sheik. The film is perhaps best viewed as a cautionary tale for nervous fathers as Neeson tears through the Parisian underworld. Its message: Dads, don't let your little girls go anywhere or do anything, ever. Contains violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, drug references and language. DVD Extras: Extended cut; audio commentary with director Pierre Morel, writer Robert Mark Kamen, and cinematographers Michel Abramowicz and Michel Julienne; featurettes.

"Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" (R, 92 minutes): An impressive cast of British actors lends Shakespearean importance to this dark and hilariously grandiose vampires vs. werewolves saga. High-school-age fans of gothic horror ought to be entertained. Intended as a prequel to "Underworld" and "Underworld: Evolution," the film is set in medieval times. Viktor (Bill Nighy), king of the vampires, has problems: Werewolves are multiplying in the forest, and his daughter (Rhona Mitra) is having a thing with the human-werewolf slave Lucian (Michael Sheen). Lucian leads a slave rebellion. The violence is more stylized than graphic. There are impalements, throat cuttings, skull crushings and a semi-explicit sexual situation with partial nudity. Contains bloody violence and sexuality. DVD Extras: Director commentary; featurettes; music video.

Also on DVD May 12: "633 Squadron," "Along Came Jones," "Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection," "Die Hard: The Ultimate Collection," "Fargo (Blu-ray)," "The Grudge 3," "Star Trek - The Motion Picture Trilogy," "Personal Effects," "S. Darko," "Taking Chance."

May 5

"Chandni Chowk to China" (PG-13, 154 minutes): Sidhu, a loser from the Dehli neighborhood of Chandni Chowk, travels East, fooled into believing he's the reincarnation of a great Chinese warrior. Overmatched in a battle with a local crime boss, he transforms himself into a kung fu expert. With his long, handsome face, Akshay Kumar resembles Sacha Baron Cohen, and he plays Sidhu like a more pathetic Borat, bumbling through a land he knows nothing about. Warner Bros., presumably hoping to piggyback on the success of "Slumdog Millionaire," is giving the film the widest U.S. release for a Bollywood film. But be warned: the Bollywood-lite of "Slumdog" is no preparation for the toll 2 1/2 hours of this film can take on a person. Interspersed with amazing sequences are stretches of amateurishness, wretched excess, stupidity, tedium and flat-out weirdness that will likely have you grimacing a lot of the time, but grinning more frequently than you might expect. Contains violence, adult situations and language. In Hindi and Cantonese with subtitles.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (PG-13, 165 minutes): Brad Pitt plays the title character, who is born in 1918 as an elderly man, then ages backward through the cataclysmic changes of the 20th century. Button is a naif, passively moving through a world and meeting colorful characters who continually amaze him and -- what else -- teach him how to live. Meanwhile, he nurtures a lifelong love for Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett at her most ethereally beautiful. Much of the narrative tension derives from watching Pitt drastically alter his appearance, going from a wizened, hunched "E.T."-like creature to a young man at the height of ripe handsomeness. The movie, directed with a firm hand by David Fincher, is often astonishingly beautiful, but in a way that's the problem: You wonder what visionaries such as Tim Burton or Michel Gondry might have done with the material. It plays too safe when it should be letting its freak flag fly. Contains brief war violence, sexual content, profanity and smoking. DVD Extras: Two-disc Edition contains commentary with director David Fincher; four-part making-of documentary.

"Last Chance Harvey" (PG-13, 99 minutes): This quiet romantic comedy takes a cinematic chestnut (two meet fleetingly, spend time together and embark on a tentative romance until fate intervenes) and somehow infuses it with a sense of rue and regret that makes it seem new. Dustin Hoffman plays the title character, a New York-based jingle writer who travels to London for his daughter's wedding. It's obvious almost immediately that Harvey is close to washed-up professionally. But once he gets to London, it becomes increasingly clear that he's on the outs personally as well. He's even shot down by his own daughter, who chooses her stepfather to give her away. But when he meets Kate (Emma Thompson), a mutual recognition of souls transpires, and the two wind up spending a day walking London's lively South Bank. Thompson and Hoffman develop an easy, unforced chemistry, resulting in a touching portrait of that rarity in the movies: a recognizably human couple with recognizably human problems and quirks. Contains brief strong profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary with writer/director Joel Hopkins, Hoffman and Thompson; featurette.

"Wendy and Lucy" (R, 80 minutes): A deliberately spartan tone poem of need and desperation, the film stars Michelle Williams in a role that is one long moment. Wendy is trying to make her way from Indiana to Alaska, because she has a vague promise of work in a fish-packing plant. When her Honda breaks down, she's faced with repair bills she can't pay. Wendy steals food for her dog, Lucy, and she becomes the victim of a self-righteous store employee: "If a person can't afford dog food, they shouldn't have a dog!" Wendy later searches desperately for Lucy, who disappeared while she was under arrest. Williams's performance is nuanced, moving and well worth any awards she gets. But Wendy is also anonymous. We are provided almost nothing about her background. She could be anyone, her circumstances anyone's. Which is writer Kelly Reichardt's point. We get the whole point. We just don't get the whole woman, despite a performance that puts flesh on words and pictures. Contains vulgarity.

Also on DVD May 5: "Bones: Season 2," "Enchanted April," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Blu-ray)," "Higher Ground," "Grin Without A Cat," "Incendiary," "Ivanhoe," "Momma's Man," "Smother," "Under the Bombs."

April 28

"Bride Wars" (PG, 90 minutes): Predictable, lazy and as overprocessed as Kate Hudson's hair, this thoroughly joyless movie also possesses a deep nasty streak, making it loathsome when it might have been merely annoying. Hudson plays Liv, a high-powered Manhattan lawyer who with her childhood friend Emma (Anne Hathaway) has always dreamed of getting married at New York's Plaza Hotel in June. When Liv and Emma get engaged around the same time, they book back-to-back Saturdays, only to discover ... oh, what's the point? You've seen the trailer. Sexist, mean-spirited and unforgivably unfunny, the film seems to have been manufactured chiefly as a vehicle for its two stars, who wobble through it with grim determination. Fresh from her art-house triumph in "Rachel Getting Married," Hathaway is back to her dewy, deer-in-the-klieg-lights stare. But it's Hudson who meets with the most indignity here, coming across as brassy, coarse and hardened. Forget "Here Comes the Bride." There goes the career. Contains suggestive content, profanity and rude behavior. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes; featurette.

"Hotel for Dogs" (PG, 100 minutes): This comedy, starring perfectly pleasant up-and-comer Emma Roberts (Julia's niece), is about kids, not parents. Andi (Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin) have been parentless for three years, smuggling their dog, Friday, from foster home to foster home, always getting evicted after infractions, violations or minor criminal acts. Social worker Bernie (Don Cheadle) is so desperate that he has placed the kids with Lois and Carl Scudder (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), married rockers who appear to have more fleas than the entire four-legged cast. Deprived of affection, guidance and decent nutrition, Andi and Bruce stumble on an abandoned hotel in downtown Los Angeles and decide to turn it into a home for unwanted pups. For all the latent social criticism of the film, it's a candy-coated romp through death and abandonment. On the upside, the movie could do something positive for the cause of homeless pets: If audiences respond the way they should, dog shelters could be emptied in a week. Contains thematic elements, language and crude humor. DVD Extras: Commentary by Thor Freudenthal, Ewan "Jack" Leslie, Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin; deleted scenes; featurettes; photo gallery.

"JCVD" (R, 92 minutes): Playing Jean-Claude Van Damme is what Van Damme does in Mabrouk El Mechri's inventive, insightful and utterly surprising movie. Van Damme may be the idol of millions, but his career has been a roller-coaster tour of fame, substance abuse and incipient ex-fatherhood. When he dashes into a bank, there's a robbery in progress. Outside, the police and the citizenry think Van Damme has gone rogue. Although humor, violence and nervous tension are generated here, El Mechri's prank is putting an action star in a movie that debunks the mythos of action stars. With a gun to his head, Van Damme is like anybody would be. In what is a rather phenomenally naked piece of acting, Van Damme at one point delivers a soliloquy on his past life and regrets, directly into the camera, and one can shrug it off if one has no heart. It sags and it gets cute, but it's hard to resist: Here's a battered superstar who has occupied so many fantasies, but in his fantasies he's just like us. Contains vulgarity and violence. DVD Extras: Bonus footage; thatrical trailer.

"The Uninvited" (PG-13, 87 minutes): This remake of the Korean "A Tale of Two Sisters" begins with teenage Anna (Emily Browning) in a mental institution. She can't get over dreams of the fire that killed her mother 10 months before, and she's troubled by visions of a creepy red-haired girl. Even so, her kindly shrink says it's time for her to go home. There she finds that her father (David Strathairn), a famous writer, has set up housekeeping with Rachael (Elizabeth Banks), the nurse who had been tending to Mom. Anna's smart-alecky older sister, Alex (Arielle Kebbel), is just disgusted by the whole thing. Soon the girls come to suspect that Rachael killed their mother. First-time directors Thomas and Charles Guard give the action a glossy polish and a properly measured pace. They also maintain the right narrative balance. Is Anna the victim of an archetypal wicked stepmother, or is she unstable? Experienced horror fans will probably stay one step ahead of the game, but it's still a nice ride. Contains frightening images, language and sexual content. DVD Extras: Alternate Ending; deleted scenes; featurette.

Also on DVD April 28: "Gangland: Season 3," "Johnny Got His Gun," "Martyrs," "Nothing but the Truth," "Stranded," "Beethoven," "The Waltons: Season 9," "What Doesn't Kill You," and "While She Was Out."

April 21

"Frost/Nixon" (R, 122 minutes): You expect something dry, historical and probably contrived here. But you get a delicious contest of wits, brilliant acting and a surprisingly gripping narrative -- no less dramatic even though the results are a foregone conclusion. British journalist David Frost was deemed a lightweight and bet his future career on a blockbuster television special. Former president Richard Nixon wanted rehabilitation and gambled that Frost would lob him softballs. As Nixon, Frank Langella is perfection. The character is generated from the inside out not predicated on surface imitation or caricature. Frost is portrayed by Michael Sheen as a shallow playboy with a profound hollowness in his ambitious soul. The writing is so good, the acting so powerful that the film goes well beyond the courtroom drama into the territory of the classic history play. It isn't Shakespeare, but it is drama at a level one doesn't often get in movies. Contains strong language. DVD Extras: Commentary with director Ron Howard; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Notorious" (R, 100 minutes): This biopic about the life and death of Notorious B.I.G., feels like Biggie's Wikipedia page reformatted for the big screen. A young Christopher Wallace develops a fascination with the rhymes of Kurtis Blow and the flash of street hustlers. In high school, Wallace, played by 33-year-old newcomer Jamal "Gravy" Woolard, has grown up to become a drug dealer himself, raising the domestic pressure with his protective mother, Voletta (played Angela Bassett). But the rookie actor compensates admirably on screen, channeling the rapper's imposing physicality. Woolard, a Brooklyn rapper himself, might be most convincing behind the microphone. Too bad he's rapping to such a lousy script filled with trite dialogue. As Biggie courts singer Faith Evans (Antonique Smith), she asks the rapper, "Are you a bad guy trying to be good or a good guy trying to be bad?" It's the million-dollar question "Notorious" completely fails to answer. Contains pervasive language, strong sexuality including dialogue and nudity, and drug content. DVD Extras: Special Edition contains rated and unrated versions; two feature-length commentaries; featurettes; deleted scenes.

"The Wrestler" (R, 109 minutes): As washed-up onetime ringmaster Randy "The Ram" Robinson, Mickey Rourke embodies the same tragedy of ego that afflicts his character. Rourke drags Randy's steroid-inflated corpus from battle to battle with the painful perseverance of Liza Minnelli and the weariness of a stop-lossed Marine. Following what is probably the movie's most gruesome sequence, Randy has a heart attack, and his long, slow denouement picks up reckless speed. As good as Rourke is, his performance constantly begs the question of whether the story would be worth telling without him. Marisa Tomei, as Cassidy the pole dancer, delivers a courageous performance; both Randy and Cassidy exist in fairly shadowy worlds that thrive on youth, and both are aging out. But in the broader sense, Randy is another in a long line of American screen characters who are facing the inevitable and can't ease their regrets. We feel for him. And we feel for us. Maybe that's enough. Contains violence, vulgarity, drug use, nudity, sexuality. DVD Extras: Featurettes; muisc video for Springsteen's "The Wrestler."

Also on DVD April 21: "America Betrayed,""Dallas: Season 11," "How About You," "Into the Blue 2: The Reef," "Caprica," "The Last Word," "My Own Worst Enemy: The Complete Series," "Top Gear 10."

April 14

"The Reader" (R, 123 minutes): Bernhard Schlink's highly regarded novel receives a graceful, absorbing screen adaptation by director Stephen Daldry, who conveys a technically and morally complicated story with consummate skill and smoothness. Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes deliver fine performances as the tortured souls at the center of this wrenching portrait of Germany reckoning with its Nazi past. But the standout here is 18-year-old German actor David Kross, whose portrayal of a teenage Michael Berg suggests a promising future. In 1958, 15-year-old Michael meets Hanna (Winslet), a 36-year-old tram worker who seduces the boy, then mysteriously disappears. Eight years later, as a law student in Heidelberg, Michael encounters Hanna again, this time in the troubling context of wartime atrocities. Traveling back and forth in time, from the 1950s and 1960s to the 1980s and 1990s, the story traces how Michael copes with the secret he and Hanna share and, by extension, the shame and silence that shrouded his country's past. Best Actress Oscar for Winslet's performance. Contains scenes of sexuality and nudity. DVD Extras: Featurettes; deleted scenes.

"The Spirit" (PG-13, 103 minutes): Frank Miller's latest film plays like a cheap "Batman" knockoff and wants to be sure everybody knows it. Denny (Gabriel Macht) is a murdered cop "reborn" as a vigilante crime fighter with supernatural healing powers. The story begins as the Spirit arrives at the place where, moments earlier, a beautiful woman (Eva Mendes) emerged Venus-like from computer-generated waters and shot a cop. The cop tears a locket from a chain around the woman's neck, which is how the Spirit discovers that his old flame and international jewel thief, Sand Saref, is back in town. He quickly realizes that the real cop-shooter is the villain, the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), an over-the-top caricature with a big gun collection. Macht's Spirit is cute, goofy and utterly vapid. At times, the movie resembles an incredibly expensive, and expressionistic, puppet show. Each line is an elbow to the ribs; each gesture is overplayed. Contains intense sequences of stylized violence and action, sexual content and brief nudity. DVD Extras: Commentary by Frank Miller and Deborah Del Prete; featurettes; trailer.

Also on DVD April 14: "8 Mile (Blu-ray)," "Dark Matter," "House of Saddam," "Malcolm and Eddie: Season 1," "Mean Girls (Blu-ray)," "My Best Friend's A Vampire," "The Pope's Toilet," "Splinter," "Trust Me," "Zombie Apocalypse: the Movie."

April 7

"Bedtime Stories" (PG, 99 minutes): Adam Sandler brings his immature charms to the role of Skeeter Bronson, a handyman with dreams of running the posh L.A. hotel where he changes the light bulbs. Saddled with his niece and nephew for a week and faced with the unwelcome concept of reading to the kids at bedtime, Skeeter instead makes up his own bedtime story, a tale of a medieval handyman who's allowed to compete for a chance to run the kingdom. The next day, Skeeter is shocked to learn that his hotel's owner (Richard Griffiths) is allowing him to compete for a chance to run the joint. Instantly, of course, Skeeter is back with the kids, eagerly telling a bedtime story that rewards him with a Ferrari. The movie's genial tolerability is thanks mostly to Disney's willingness to spend scads of money on its family hits. While there's a moral here about the power of storytelling, it's trapped pretty deep under layers of Sandler-worship and computer-generated booger monsters. Contains mild rude humor and mild language. DVD Extras: Featurettes; deleted scenes; bloopers.

"The Day The Earth Stood Still" (PG-13, 103 minutes): Although this remake, which stars Keanu Reeves, is likely to make audiences pine for the meta-irony of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," it's not a complete failure. Reeves is uniquely well suited for the role of Klaatu, the alien life form that warns earthlings of the coming apocalypse unless they change their ways. Helping him is astrobiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), whose young stepson, Jacob (Jaden Smith), thinks Klaatu is the enemy. The real star of both versions of the movie, a robot named Gort, has been confiscated after trying to save Klaatu's life. The big bells and whistles don't make their presence known until the last half-hour of the film, when a swarm of malignant metallic locusts descends upon the Earth. Solemn, sober and efficient, the film gets the job done and moves on. Contains sci-fi disaster images and violence. DVD Extras: Three-disc SE contains commentary with writer David Scarpa; deleted scenes; featurettes.

"Doubt" (PG-13, 104 minutes): Meryl Streep brings her characteristic focus and wily craft to Sister Aloysius, the steely principal of a Catholic school in the Bronx, circa 1964. When a charismatic young priest named Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) shows an interest in the newly integrated school's only black student, Sister Aloysius begins to entertain suspicions about the priest's motives. But the story comes to be about much more than just Father Flynn's guilt or innocence: power, spiritual discipline, institutional politics and corrupt hierarchical rot. Just when you begin to think you know who the cat and mouse really are, in steps Viola Davis to steal not just her scene but the entire movie from Streep. As the mother of the student in question, Davis presents "Doubt" with its most sobering and finally haunting philosophical quandaries, which give even the implacable Sister Aloysius a glimpse of life beyond her own unassailable ideals. Contains thematic material. DVD Extras: Commentary with writer/director John Patrick Shanley; featurettes.

"The Tale of Despereaux" (G, 93 minutes): The setup here is simple enough: The film's titular mouse is a big-eared outcast who has been an embarrassment since birth. He refuses to cower; instead he goes to school to learn and is treated as if he's developmentally disabled. His parents are mortified. The community is outraged. Out he goes. Lest we mislead the reader that there's something straightforward about this film, there is also Roscuro's (Dustin Hoffman) story to be told. He's something of an epicurean rodent who has come to the Land of Dor for the annual unveiling of a new soup. But when Roscuro inadvertently drops into the Queen's bowl, she drops dead. Matthew Broderick makes Despereaux sound like a white guy from the suburbs; Hoffman is terrific, just as he was earlier this year in "Kung Fu Panda." Neither, however, provides enough of a reason to care. Contains moments of peril. DVD Extras: Featurettes; games; interactive map of Dor.

"Yes Man" (PG-13, 104 minutes): Unless he had all his money in junk bonds, Jim Carrey is a very rich man. Why, then, did he make this movie? The film doesn't have a plot; it has a premise. What if someone never says no? Will his life improve by 1,000 percent? Yes. And that's it. There's no more to it than that. Open yourself up to experiences, and your life will burst into confetti and you will meet and fall in love with Zooey Deschanel, one-half of Hollywood's two-person cadre of raspy-voiced, blue-eyed brunettes who specialize in deadpan (the other being Catherine Keener). Is there anything good about the film? Yes. Terence Stamp, the lion-faced Brit, plays the self-help guru who converts Carrey into a yes man. But when it comes to "Yes Man" there is only one word. You know it, and sometimes it is worth saying. Contains crude sexual humor, language and brief nudity.

Also on DVD April 7: "Alexandra," "American High School," "American History X (Blu-ray)," "Beverly Hills 90210: Season 7," "Cleopatra: 75th Anniversary," "Donkey Punch," "Faith Like Potatoes," "I.O.U.S.A," "Last Days of the Filmore," "Operation Valkyrie," "Pre-Code Hollywood Collection," "Tango & Cash (Blu-ray)," "TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection," "The Wedding Singer (Blu-ray)."