Monday, October 13, 2008; 12:05 AM

The following is a list of recently released DVDs. All capsule reviews have been taken from The Washington Post's Weekend section.

Oct. 14

" 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" (Unrated, 113 minutes): This shattering Romanian movie is not for the faint of heart, but for film connoisseurs passionately interested in how far the medium can go in depicting human stories, it will provide a bracing breath of fresh cinematic air. Anamaria Marinca delivers a transfixing performance as Otilia, a young woman who helps a friend (Laura Vasiliu) obtain an illegal abortion in the waning days of Romania's communist Ceausescu regime. Writer-director Cristian Mungiu films Otilia's harrowing day in virtual real time. The result is a sobering, unsettling portrait of the extremes people must resort to under tyranny, a portrait all the more powerful because of Mungiu's adamant refusal to gloss over unpleasant truths. Contains profanity, brief nudity and adult situations, including a graphic depiction of an abortion.

" The Edge of Heaven" (Unrated, 122 minutes): Written and directed by the enormously gifted Fatih Akin, the film deals with many of the same themes of Alejandro González Iñárritu's over-praised 2006 film "Babel" but engages them so honestly, with such fluency and sophistication, that what in "Babel" was a fuzzy-headed tract becomes sheer poetry. An intercontinental, interlocking roundelay of six people, some German, some of Turkish descent living in Germany, possesses the searing ironies of an O. Henry story. The most famous of the ensemble, Hanna Schygulla, delivers a by turns serene and shattering performance as a mother struggling with loss, conscience and the first glimmers of unexpected connection. She's only one essential and unforgettable part of a flawless whole. Contains profanity, suggestive sexuality and violence. In German, Turkish and English with subtitles.

" Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull " (PG-13, 126 minutes): The boy is back in town. Indiana Jones, the macho, whip-flinging archaeologist with the granite fists? Well, yes, him. Or Harrison Ford, 65, still rangy, still cool in a '30s fedora? Yes, that one, too. The movie follows Jones (Ford) on a series of contests between good Yanks and bad Russkies, first for an alien corpse in America, then for a crystal skull in Peru and finally for the site of the crystal skull, a magic city in Central America. The joinery between each segment is mostly chewing gum, baling wire and spit. Almost on the template of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Crystal Skull" ends with an invocation of awesome power in one of those grandiose special-effects sequences for which George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic shop is so well-known. Does it pay off? Maybe not quite, but the movie sends you out as it should, exhausted and happy, and you won't begin to think about its flaws for hours. Contains mild violence and scary images.

" Mongol" (R, 124 minutes): A wallow in old movie pleasures, full of battles, flying dust, thousands of men on horseback, beautiful women, treachery, slaughter, really cool hats and even more slaughter. When the big-budget, cast-o'-thousands Russian epic begins, Temudjin (played by Japanese heartthrob Tadanobu Asano), as the man who would become Genghis Khan was once known, is a 9-year-old kid on his way to pick out a bride. Temudjin has seen Borte, and that's enough for him. So that core of love, lust and touchy-feely is what drives "Mongol". Still, there's a lot of guy stuff. They ride, they fight, they ride some more, they fight some more. Whoever was on the electronic blood spurt machine probably got overtime or at least a bonus. In the end, we're about a third of the way through the great Khan's life. That suggests two sequels. I, for one, can't wait. Contains violence. In Mongolian with subtitles.

" The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Veggie Tales Movie" (G, 84 minutes): This umpteenth entry in the 15-year-old animated franchise and the first to forsake the Bible for Robert Louis Stevenson, is clever enough to keep adults entertained, even if the story is something of an antique. Dynastic intrigue. Adventure at sea. Imperiled maidens. Pirates who say "Arrrrrr." Longtime fans know that the veggies play different roles in each story. In this one, the Helpseeker takes them, via magical rowboat, to the 1600s. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything don't, in fact, do much. But at least they won't raise your cholesterol. Contains nothing offensive.

" War, Inc." (R, 106 minutes): John Cusack does his best to mine sharp polemical material from the rich vein of the Iraq war and the appalling combination of bumbling and malfeasance with which it was launched and executed. He meets with uneven success in a film that, in attempting to ridicule the Bush administration, finally just settles for being ridiculous itself. Cusack plays Blackwater-esque operative Brand Hauser, who arrives in the fictional Turaquistan to off the country's leader, who has had the temerity to take control of one of his own pipelines. Marisa Tomei plays a Naomi Klein-like journalist, and Hilary Duff delivers a surprisingly effective portrayal of a Turaqui pop tart. But what might have had the teeth of "Wag the Dog" finally loses its bite in taking too many cheap 'n' easy shots. Contains violence, profanity and brief sexual material.

Also on DVD Oct. 14: "Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection"; "Alien-Predator Total Destruction Collection"; "Back to You: Season One"; "Chaplin 15th Anniversary Edition"; "CSI: Season Eight"; "Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures Collection"; "New World: Extended Cut"; "Notorious"; "Standard Operating Procedure"; "Still Life"; "Stuck"; "That 70s Show: Complete Series Stash Box"; "The Ultimate Matrix Collection"; "The Unit: Season Three"; and "XXY."

Oct. 7

" Boy A" (R, 100 minutes): Directed with unerring assurance and sensitivity by Irish filmmaker John Crowley, this finely tuned chamber proves that cinema doesn't have to be spectacle-driven to be spectacular. British actor Andrew Garfield, in a stunning, breakout performance, plays 24-year-old Jack Burridge, who in the film's opening scene is getting out of prison. Nervous and shy, Jack is being ushered into freedom with the help of his social worker, Terry (Peter Mullan), whose unflappable calm acts as ballast and counterpoint to the younger man's coltish mix of excitement and apprehension. It's not immediately clear what Jack did to wind up in prison; the film unfolds like a thriller, but winds up being a powerful meditation on power, manipulation, trust and redemption. A cloud of tragedy hovers over the film, and when it finally descends, the film's grip begins to tighten with wrenching finality. It's beautiful. I loved it. And it broke my heart. Contains profanity, sexuality, disturbing content and brief drug use.

" The Happening" (R, 92 minutes) : If you like suicide, here's your main ride. All others, steer clear. As M. Night Shyamalan imagines it, a strange airborne toxin is loosed upon the region, beginning in New York's Central Park at exactly 8:33 in the morning; soon, people stop moving for a few seconds, and then hasten to find methods of self-obliteration. Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wide-eyed wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), plus a friendly couple's child, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), take to the road in a tide of refugees. Shyamalan isn't entirely sure what kind of movie he's making, and he shuffles through personalities looking for one that interests him. The film stutter-steps its way in this direction and that to a disappointing ending. Contains disturbing images, gore and violence, some directed at children.

" Paranoid Park" (R, 85 minutes) : Jake Miller plays Jared, a high school student and skateboarder who, with his best friend, Alex (Gabe Nevins), decides to brave one of the dodgier skate hangouts in their home town of Portland, Ore. The film tells a disjointed story of what happened to him one particularly fateful night. The film is almost inescapably absorbing; filmmaker Gus Van Sant has found a particularly engaging leading man in Miller, whose face goes from blank to angelic in the blink of a long-lashed eye. Ultimately, though, this might best be counted as minor Van Sant, exhibiting his characteristic flourishes and love for obscure music but little of the lasting emotional wallop that marks his best work. Still, even something as modest as this manages to reflect Van Sant's greatest strengths as an artist: his seemingly limitless fluency with his chosen medium and his willingness to tell even the oldest stories in bold new ways. Contains disturbing images, profanity and sexual situations.

" The Visitor" (PG-13, 103 minutes): Richard Jenkins plays widowed economics professor Walter Vale, who reluctantly agrees to give a paper at NYU and, upon arriving at his Manhattan pied-a-terre, discovers that it has been illegally sublet to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), both of whom are undocumented. After first throwing the couple out, Vale impulsively takes pity on them. What ensues is a remarkable friendship and, when Tarek's mother arrives, a budding romance. The film gives viewers a perceptive, deeply personal take on the timeless immigrant narrative, in which the most epic journey is finally one of self-discovery. Contains strong language.

" You Don't Mess With the Zohan" (PG-13, 106 minutes): Adam Sandler plays the Zohan, a fabled Israeli special-operations hero who decides he has had enough of fighting and decides to immigrate to America and become a hairdresser at the famous Paul Mitchell salon. There's some humor in the way Sandler and his pet director, Dennis Dugan, envision the Zohan as a gymnast rather than a commando. He, of course, can find work only in a shop owned by a Palestinian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui, the best thing by far in the picture). The movie is gross but not unfunny as it covers the Zohan's rise through hair culture, aided by his steamy heterosexuality, until the old ladies are lined up all the way to the Bronx for a few minutes of bliss in the Zohan's chair. But in the end, the movie feels as if it exists only to display the Sandler's biceps. Contains sexual situations and crude language.

Also on DVD Oct. 7: "30 Rock: Season Two"; Brotherhood: Season Two"; "The Devil's Chair"; "The Devil's Mercy"; "Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds"; "How I Met Your Mother"; "Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead"; Keeping Up With the Kardashians: Season One"; "Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane: Season One"; "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"; "Normal"; "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; "Rear Window"; "Ripple Effect"; "Robot Chicken Season Three"; "The Sarah Jane Adventures"; "The Three Stooges Collection: Vol. 4, 1943-1945"; "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad: 50th Anniversary Edition"; "Touch of Evil: 50th Anniversary Edition"; and "Vertigo."

Sept. 30

" Bigger, Stronger, Faster" (PG-13, 107 minutes): Chris Bell uses his own family almost as a kind of lab specimen for his examination of what, if anything, steroids have done to America as the country has come to fetishize the size and speed of its heroes. He chronicles the dreams, then dashed hopes, of his two bulked-up brothers (pro wrestlers) and interviews them and their wives about using the stuff that makes the muscles grow like the Incredible Blob. Then there are the interviews with jocks on both sides of the issue: the pure Carl Lewis, the impure Ben Johnson and otherwise self-interested participants and even the grieving father of a Texas boy who committed suicide, supposedly in a post-steroids depression. He treats jocks like humans, not stars or superheroes, and in the end has managed something unique for documentaries these days: It's as entertaining as it is fair. Contains drugs, sexual situations, violent images and profanity.

" Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (R, 110 minutes): We can either laugh or weep at man's infinite capacity to do stupid things. Which is why guffawing at the naked guy flexing his breasts in this film is not only time enjoyably spent, but philosophically cathartic. The male of the species -- amusingly hapless Peter (Jason Segel) -- retreats to Hawaii, trying to get over a traumatic breakup, only to find himself in the same hotel as his recent ex, TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). The movie follows producer Judd Apatow's doctrine perfectly, which is to use semi-improvisational scenes to find the hilarious interface between man's vulnerability and dorkability. Contains nudity, profanity, slapstick violence and sexual situations.

" Iron Man" (PG-13, 120 minutes): Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is taken prisoner by a warlord who orders him to build a state-of-the-art weapon. Instead, Stark builds a suit of iron, the better to bust out of the cave and give his enemies a beat-down. The real Iron Man doesn't emerge until Stark is back in California. He announces that his company is getting out of the weapons business. Thenceforth, the film sets about the business of proving that plowshares can be as sexy as swords. It succeeds only fitfully. Amid so many generic fireballs, kill shots and earsplitting thumps, bumps and crunches, the film finally collapses under its own weight. Contains intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggested sexuality.

" Kenny" (PG-13, 100 minutes): You'd think Kenny would be happy. He has a good job, a future, a son and the respect of -- er, nobody. That's the problem right there. He works on the canal. You say: Hey, that's sounds okay. What, the Erie, the Intercoastal? More like: the Alimentary. He services outhouses in Melbourne, Australia. Do you want to see this motion picture? I didn't think so. Actually, though, it's pretty funny. Kenny (big, bluff Shane Jacobson) is decent, even slightly noble, the type of guy in the platoon who'd carry everybody's pack. The film is a mockumentary, and if you didn't know better you'd think Kenny wasn't an actor, so naturalistic is Shane's performance and so true to milieu is Clayton's camera work. The movie is possibly too long, but when it's over, you'll be glad Kenny has visited, though you'll probably be relieved it was only by movie, not real life. Contains crude content, language and partial nudity.

" OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" (PG-13, 99 minutes): It's hard to see much prosperity ahead for this low-wattage parody of an already over-parodied genre, the James Bond pictures (themselves parodies). Jean Dujardin, as Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a.k.a. OSS 117, France's top secret agent, bears an almost stunning resemblance to the Sean Connery of "Dr. No" vintage, but as Dujardin plays him, OSS 117 is clueless, clumsy and klutzy. The comedy is strained to the point of lameness, most of it exaggerated clumsiness, stupidity or inappropriateness. The plot was nonsense; the jazz, cool; Cairo, phony; and that's about all. Contains mild violence and cleavage. In French with subtitles

" Taxi to the Dark Side" (R, 106 minutes): Even the most dedicated supporter of the war on terror might have trouble digesting what Alex Gibney serves up in his latest film, whether it's the crimes that have been perpetrated in the name of freedom, or the people who've had to pay for those crimes, or the higher-ups who've run away from them and toward the tender embrace of the Patriot Act. On Dec. 1, 2002, an Afghan cabdriver named Dilawar was abducted, likely by piratical bounty hunters working for U.S. dollars. He wound up at the infamous Bagram detention center and five days later was dead. Gibney tries and largely succeeds in establishing that torture was not the work of the oft-cited "few bad apples," but an institutionalized policy. Contains disturbing images and content involving torture and graphic nudity.

Also on DVD Sept. 30: "2008 Olympics: Beijing 2008 Complete Opening Ceremony"; "Adam 12: Season Two"; "Barack Obama: The Power of Change"; "Beaufort"; "B.L. Stryker: The Complete Series"; "Buried Alive"; "Can't Hardly Wait: 10 Year Reunion Edition"; "Chapter 27"; "CSNY: Déjà Vu"; "Gangland: The Complete Season One"; "Jellyfish"; "Jewel: The Essential Live Songbook"; "Larry Flint: The Right to Be Left Alone"; "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil"; "My Name is Earl: Season Three"; "My Three Sons: Season One, Vol. 1"; "Numb3rs: Season 4"; "Pulse 2: Afterlife"; "The Rebel"; "Soccer Mom"; "The Unforseen"; and "Universal Remote."

Sept. 23

" Deception" (R, 107 minutes): Ewan McGregor plays accountant Jonathan McQuarry, whose lonely world becomes rabidly interesting when a dashing man (Hugh Jackman) lures him into a private sex club. The movie starts with a potentially rich array of themes, but the filmmakers are compelled to turn this into a sexually charged, murderous thriller -- and a hackneyed one at that. We're forced to endure one of those tedious paranoia-meets-"The Wrong Man" scenarios in which an innocent finds himself accused of murder and can't seem to convince anyone that he's not crazy. Contains violence, nudity, profanity, drug use and sex.

" Leatherheads" (PG-13, 114 minutes): George Clooney plays Dodge Connelly, a World War I vet and pioneer in the doomed sport of professional football. No one in 1925 thinks the enterprise will last, until Dodge has a brainstorm: Lure war-hero-turned-Princeton-gridiron-star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) away from law school to help spearhead pro football's drive into the American imagination. Rah! Ace reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) has been assigned to get the goods on Carter, whose exploits in the trenches may not have been as glorious as the nation has been led to believe. There's a flatness about the whole enterprise. This misfiring begins with the casting of Zellweger but is seen, too, in the way Clooney frames his picture. There's a claustrophobia in "Leatherheads." But Clooney's performance is terrific. He possess the combination of supreme confidence and humility that has been the hallmark of the biggest male Hollywood stars. Contains vulgar language.

" Run Fat Boy Run" (PG-13, 100 minutes): Simon Pegg plays Dennis, a scrawny potbellied Londoner who made the mistake of his life by running out on a wedding with Libby (Thandie Newton) when she was pregnant. Realizing his mistake five years later, when a new slick suitor (Hank Azaria) threatens to marry Libby and become stepdaddy to young Jake, Dennis decides to try to get her back. Somehow he thinks that running a charity marathon in London is going to do the trick. Rather like the faltering way Dennis runs the race, Pegg the performer insists that we keep watching, ever hopeful for a decent gag. Contains nudity and profanity.

" Sex and the City" (R, 136 minutes): With its unapologetic materialism, raunchiness and heroines who managed to be sympathetic even in the midst of almost pathological self-absorption, "Sex and the City" became one of the most successful guilty pleasures in the history of Sunday night TV. The movie version succeeds just as well, cramming what used to take a whole season into a nearly 2 1/2 -hour marathon of men, misery and Manolos. Clearly made for the show's devoted fans, newcomers to the story might be puzzled at the movie's worship of Louis Vuitton purses and the silly women who carry them. But one of the movie's great pleasures is how the filmmakers embrace their characters' advancing ages while celebrating over-40 fabulosity. Like the show, the movie invites inevitable questions: Does it simply perpetuate retrograde, materialistic myths about having it all, or is it an example of feminism in four-inch heels? Altogether now: We can't help but wonder. Contains strong sexual content, nudity and profanity.

Also on DVD Sept. 23: "Aki Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy"; "The Anderson Tapes"; "Brothers and Sisters: Complete Second Season"; "Far North"; "Friday the 13th -- The Series: The First Season"; "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration"; "iCarly: Season 1, Vol. 1"; "L.A. Confidential: Special Edition"; "Peanuts Holiday Collection"; "Rob and Big: Complete Third Season"; "Samantha Who: Complete First Season"; "Schoolhouse Rock: The Election Collection"; and "This American Life: Season 1."

Sept. 16

" 88 Minutes" (R, 105 minutes): Al Pacino plays a playboy-forensic-psychologist-professor who, on the eve of the execution of the man whom he most famously testified against, receives a phone message that he has 88 minutes to live. He must find the putative killer and prevent his own death even as bodies are being uncovered in crime scenes that so replicate those of the man Pacino testified against it suggests that he may have helped convict the wrong man. The implausibility of the movie is only one problem, there are so many others. The truth hasn't been stretched, it has been drawn and quartered. Contains disturbing violent content, brief nudity and strong language.

" Before the Rains" (PG-13, 98 minutes): Director Santosh Sivan's drama, set in 1937 India, is a hodgepodge in the raj: a predictable patchwork of forbidden romance, English arrogance, a gun given as a gift, suicide, corruption, deception, rising Indian nationalism and a short-lived chase through the jungle. There's the married English planter Henry Moores (Linus Roache), seeking to make his fortune building a jungle road. There's his beautiful Indian housemaid Sajani (Nandita Das), who is married to a thuggish villager and believes the Englishman's promises of a future together. Though tinged with politics, the film's potboiler aspects remind the viewer of the exotic-locale melodramas churned out by Hollywood studios in the 1940s. But "Before the Rains," which often struggles to keep its head above water balancing many themes, is not nearly as much fun. Contains violent content and a scene of sexuality.

" Finding Amanda" (R, 100 minutes): Does anyone play hapless better than Matthew Broderick? In a role reminiscent of his hilarious star turn in "Election," here he portrays a hack TV writer named Taylor Mendon, a compulsive gambler and recovering alcoholic who goes to Las Vegas to rescue his niece, Amanda (Brittany Snow), the most cheerful hooker on the Strip -- all to prove to his skeptical wife (Maura Tierney) that he's 100 percent reformed. Thrown into America's deepest pit of iniquity, Taylor inevitably succumbs, not just to his favorite vices of ponies and Jameson, but to the outlandishly optimistic charms of the title character. Broderick, a consummate pro and master of subtle timing, deserves a better foil than a way-too-cute Snow, who is punching above her comic and thespian weight here. Still, "Finding Amanda" has its wispy charms, including a funny scene when the ecstasy Taylor pops begins to kick in, and later when he encounters a pimp with showbiz aspirations.Contains strong sexual material, including graphic dialogue; pervasive profanity; drug content; and brief nudity.

" The Love Guru" (PG-13, 88 minutes): Mike Myers is anti-comedy if one presumes comedy ought to be smart, new, surprising or, yes, funny. In guru Pitka, half swami, half con man, he hasn't cooked up a character nearly as memorable as Dr. Evil, Linda Richman or Shrek (his best creation). He laughs at his own jokes far more than anyone in the audience ever will. The results are a wheezy, tired attempt to milk more laughs out of the '60s, by doing exactly what "Austin Powers" did: collect cultural references from the period, run them through a wringer of self-satisfaction and -- presto, change-o -- cultural satire. Although satire seems a strong word for something so insignificant. Let us give thanks to Krishna that "Love Guru II" is at this point only a gleam in a studio executive's third eye. Contains crude humor, sexual situations, drug references, violence and vulgarity.

" Made of Honor" (PG-13, 101 minutes): Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan have it all, in terms of looks, likability and even how they blend together. But they're hapless prisoners in a nasty little caper that follows convention as conventionally as possible. Tom (Dempsey) is a lady-killer, and Hannah (Monaghan) is the one woman he never quite seduces. Who becomes his best friend. And the one, he realizes, he has been in love with all along. Cue the impossibly wonderful Colin (Kevin McKidd), whom Hannah decides to marry. So she asks Tom to be her male maid of honor. You'll never -- ever! -- guess how this turns out. Contains profanity and sexual situations.

" Snow Angels" (R, 110 minutes): The film feels like a comedy at first and is often blackly comedic, but it also reflects a universe in which each human spins alone. That makes David Gordon Green's casting of Sam Rockwell all the more ingenious. As the problematic Glenn Marchand, Rockwell is playing a man who tries to resurrect his marriage and his life by convincing himself he is born-again. Found the Lord. In this, he is not just deluding himself. He's trying to con God. Glenn is getting divorced from Annie (Kate Beckinsale), his high school sweetheart who works as a waitress. There in the kitchen is Arthur Parkinson (Michael Angarano), a likable misfit with a crush on Annie and a budding romance with his social equal, Lila (Olivia Thirlby). Like Glenn and Annie, Arthur's parents are splitting up. To say that stability is elusive in this little corner of the cosmos is to seriously understate the case. Green has developed quite a cult following and deserves it. Contains violence, profanity and adult situations.

" Speed Racer" (PG, 129 minutes): Larry and Andy Wachowski lay it on thick in this film, a frenetic, densely layered, narratively scrambled blob of moviemaking that will leave viewers alternately baffled and sensorially stunned. This supercharged adaptation of the beloved Japanese cartoon of the 1960s bears little resemblance to that anime classic of yore. Emile Hirsch barely registers as the title character. But Hirsch's decision to underplay is probably a wise one in a story overstuffed with plots and subplots involving filial betrayal, corporate malfeasance, criminal corruption and races that never seem to end. Contains sequences of action, violence, profanity and brief smoking.

" Young@Heart" (PG, 110 minutes): This film is a festival of good behavior, a little talent, a lot of work and a kind of commitment to the ideas that shows must go on, that individuals must sacrifice for the whole and that doing good is better, though harder, than talking good. It follows a choir of generally peppy septuagenarians from Northhampton, Mass., through six weeks of practice, trial, tribulation and performance. The gimmick that has propelled the group to a small measure of fame is that they're rockers, rappers and punkers. Singing in the chorus gives meaning to life; living for the whole and not the self, the love of comrades of the same circumstance and situation, that's what keeps them alive. Contains adult themes.

Also on DVD Sept. 16: "An American in Paris: Special Edition"; "Avatar -- The Last Airbender: The Complete Book 3 Collection"; "Beetlejuice: Collector's Edition"; "Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science: Flashback Editions"; "The Busby Berkeley Collection, Vol. 2"; "Chuck: Complete First Season"; "Dirty Sexy Money: Season One"; "Duckman: Seasons One and Two"; "Gigi: 50th Anniversary"; "Glenn Beck:Unelectable"; "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains"; "Risky Business: Deluxe Edition"; "Private Practice: The Complete First Season"; "Pushing Daisies: Complete First Season"; "The Rape of Europa"; "Torchwood: Complete Second Season"; and "Will and Grace: The Complete Series."

Sept. 9

" Baby Mama" (PG-13, 96 minutes): Tina Fey is an overachieving corporate vice president who hires a working-class party girl named Angie (Amy Poehler) to be a surrogate mother. Angie is a hard-edged, slightly ditzy dame who has decided to rent out her womb on the advice of her loser of a common-law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). Fey and Poehler could easily have become caricatures. Instead, each actress gives her character dignity, grounding her as a recognizable human being. For those who crave mannerisms and shtick and like their jokes set up and knocked out with plenty of arrows and quote marks, the film may fall flat. But audiences alive to the modest charms of the film's take on female friendship will be rewarded with at least a few quiet chuckles. Contains crude and sexual humor, profanity and a drug reference.

" The Fall" (R, 117 minutes): In a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, Alexandria, played by Catinca Untaru, is recovering from a broken arm suffered while picking fruit. While visiting another ward, she befriends a stuntman named Roy (Lee Pace) who begins to tell her a story about five epic heroes engaged in various acts of derring-do, romance and revenge, a story she visualizes by way of her own nascent understanding of the life and language around her. Meticulously staged and extravagantly costumed, the film pays homage to the foundational principles of moviemaking even while sending up the cultural caricatures it went on to create. This visually dazzling evocation of matinee heroes and mythmaking fancy by turns plays with Hollywood's most cherished conventions and worships art for art's sake. Contains violent images.

" Forbidden Kingdom" (PG-13, 113 minutes): Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) is an American teenager in the present day. His friendship with an elderly pawnshop proprietor in Chinatown leads to a journey to ancient China. He finds himself hurtling into the past, dispatched to return a precious wooden staff. And he teams with a scruffy, drunken kung fu master (Jackie Chan). Chan manages to endear himself in the worst of movies, which is what he does here. The kung fu includes master fighter Jet Li as a warlord, but it's wan and disappointing, all choreography and no real damage. People fly with all the grace and credibility of a Photoshop animation quickie. Contains mild profanity, bodily functions and stylized violence.

Also on DVD Sept. 9: "The Big Lebowski: 10th Anniversary Edition"; "Child's Play: Chuckie's 20th Anniversary"; "Cool Hand Luke: Deluxe Edition"; Fox Horror Classics Collection, Vol. 2"; "Grey's Anatomy: Complete Fourth Season"; "How the West Was Won: Ultimate Collector's and Special Editions"; "Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, Seasons 1 and 2"; "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3"; "Pumpkinhead: Collector's Edition"; and "Ugly Betty: Complete Second Season."

Sept. 2

" Married Life" (PG-13, 90 minutes): Set in 1949, this movie stars Chris Cooper as Harry, a middle-aged husband having an affair with a kept, much younger woman, Kay (Rachel McAdams.). His wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson), is oblivious and seemingly devoted to him. When he confides his secret to playboy-pal Richard (Pierce Brosnan), Harry creates more problems: Richard starts falling in love with Kay, too. And in this movie, romantic entanglements turn increasingly life-threatening. There is a perverse pleasure in knowing that, no matter how badly we run our lives, someone somewhere is doing something even dumber -- or more dangerous. Contains sexual content and macabre story elements.

" The Promotion" (R, 85 minutes): Less a comedy than a labor parable, two lumpen grocery store workers vie for the same pitiful management job when instead they should be taking on The Man. Doug (Seann William Scott) is more or less languishing in a dead-end job where his boss (Fred Armisen) takes long lunches, a gang of black youths harasses female customers and employees are thieves. It's interesting in a sociopolitical sense that amid all the black and Hispanic workers at Donaldson's, the leading shoo-in to manage the new store across town is the principal white guy in the place. Until Richard (John C. Reilly) gets transferred down from Quebec. And then there are two. You have to wonder whether writer and director Steve Conrad had something more hefty in mind before Harvey and Bob Weinstein came aboard and marketed his movie as a laugh riot. Regardless, it's not the stuff of lighthearted summer comedy. Contains vulgarity, drug use and sexual content.

" Then She Found Me" (R, 100 minutes): April Epner (Helen Hunt) is a 39-year-old teacher whose biological clock is clouding her judgment: April is marrying Ben. Like anything done for the wrong reasons, there's an implicit doom hanging over the nuptials. And then . . . the domestic effluence hits the rotary appliance: Mom dies. Ben leaves. And local TV celebrity Bernice Graves (Bette Midler), materializes to announce that she is April's biological mother. In the midst of this, Frank (Colin Firth), one of April's school dads, whose wife has abandoned him and their two children, starts lighting up April's life. The film suffers from, if anything, a lack of pure confidence in the story, the actors or the audience. But anyone going to see it won't need quite the number of clues as to how they're supposed to be feeling. They'll know. And a lot better, and a lot sooner, than April Epner. Contains sexual situations and vulgarity.

" Water Lilies" (NR, 85 minutes): French filmmaker Celine Sciamma's debut feature is notable for one chief reason: boys. They're almost nonexistent in this soft-spoken drama of adolescent sexual awakening. Oh, they're there, in all their hormonal glory. It's just that they take a back seat to the three girls around whom Sciamma's tale revolves. The film's only prominent male character, a teenager named Francois (Warren Jacquin), appears primarily as an object of longing, jealousy and confusion, depending on the girl. That dynamic makes for a fascinating exploration of female friendship, love, manipulation, betrayal and healing. Writer-director Sciamma and her cast are at their best in evoking the fragile, inflated dramas of adolescence. Every slight is the end of the world; every minor triumph feels like ecstasy. It's a world where every emotion feels like the earth moving, and where the shifting tectonics of young lust and friendship, along with the lifelong lessons of a broken heart, have never felt more real. Contains nudity, profanity, sex and discussion of sexuality.

Also on DVD Sept. 2: "The Big Bang Theory: The Complete First Season"; "Bright Lights, Big City: Special Edition"; "Desperate Housewives: Complete Fourth Season"; "Eli Stone: Complete First Season"; "Fist of Legend"; "Lagerfield Confidential"; "Life: Season One"; "The Office: Season Four"; "Outsourced"; "Remembrance of Things to Come"; "Skeleton Key 2"; "Supernatural: Complete Third Season."

Aug. 26

" Redbelt" (R, 99 minutes): Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a martial arts academy, specializing in teaching cops, soldiers and other professionals. He will not compete in the profitable world of televised Brazilian jujistu even though he's related by marriage to the sport's reigning champion. He thinks competition, especially for TV money, desecrates the sanctity of his art. Mike is in a bar one night when a tough guy tries to take down a drunken movie star (Tim Allen). Mike jumps in. He's soon drawn into the orbit of the movies, and he encounters a whole new world of prosperity just in time, as he's discovering how little money there is in integrity. What is memorable is the film's portrait of a man of honor in a sleazy world, possibly a metaphor for the struggle of the artist to stay honorable in a world of backbiting, betrayal and hunger for easy money. Contains violence and strong language.

" What Happens in Vegas" (PG-13, 99 minutes): Not that this film is any kind of great movie, but it's an exceedingly bright comedy that never makes you feel stupid for enjoying its brisk pacing, smart lines, sound construction and superb comic acting. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz have gone to Vegas for some healing. They meet one drunken evening and get married. Okay, time for quickie divorce, except she gives him a quarter, he feeds it into a slot machine and they win $3 million. Who gets it? Each tries to get the whole pot, and an irritable judge (Dennis Miller) isn't satisfied they've tried hard enough, so he sentences them to live together for six months. The real pleasure in the film comes from the two stars, both of whom put vanity and narcissism far behind and are pleased to let the movie deploy them as less than noble, less than capable, less than smart, less than selfless and less than beautiful and, therefore, more than human. Contains sexual situations and crude language, including a drug reference.

" Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" (PG-13, 93 minutes): Morgan Spurlock's film, a light romp on the themes of international terrorism and jihad, follows his own halfhearted efforts in Mediterranean and South Asian countries to locate Osama bin Laden. He gives us a fact-less, citation-less lefty history of our involvement in the Third World. And he talks to people. This is the Spurlock gift, and I wish he'd build a movie around his wondrous interview techniques. He has a way of getting people to open up, to use their real voices and express their real opinions, the likes of which never make it onto network news. That's his gift, and when he uses it, "Where in the World" opens up into a miraculous document. Contains adult themes.

Also on DVD Aug. 26: "Afro Samurai: Director's Cut"; "Chicago 10"; "Entourage: Complete Fourth Season"; "Errol Flynn Westerns Collection"; "Heroes: Season Two"; "The Secret"; "Three Stooges Collection: Volume Three"; "The Nightmare Before Christmas: Collector's Edition."

Aug. 19

" Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" (PG-13, 101 minutes): Set in 1930s London, the story of a dowdy governess who finds adventure and love when she works as a starlet's personal assistant for 24 hours is just the tonic for filmgoers eager for a film that celebrates the bearable lightness of being. Frances McDormand plays Guinevere Pettigrew, who, as the movie opens, is being summarily sacked. Director Bharat Nalluri jumps right into the action, sending Miss Pettigrew from firing to employment agency to the posh apartment of aspiring actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) within scant minutes. For the rest of the film, Adams flirts, froths, simpers and sings her way into our hearts as a round-heeled woman with a heart of only-just-slightly-tarnished gold. The film's flaws are nothing compared with the pleasures it offers, chiefly in its unapologetic pursuit of old-fashioned sweetness and romance. Contains partial nudity and innuendo. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes; featurettes.

" Prom Night" (PG-13, 88 minutes): Though we can celebrate the substitution of suspense for gore in this remake of the 1980 film, this movie feels just plain dumb. The police are hilariously inept, and the way in which the teen victims wander off alone so the psychopath can get them is flat-footed, even for a slasher flick. High school senior Donna (Brittany Snow) still has nightmares about the home invasion and murder of her family, which she barely escaped. As she and her pals head off with their dates to the prom, the cop (Idris Elba) who caught the killer (Johnathon Schaech) learns that he has escaped. But does he warn Donna right away? Nooooo. Besides relatively stylized stabbings and throat-slittings, the movie contains sexual innuendo, teen drinking and rare profanity. "Prom Night" is not for nightmare-prone teens. Contains violence and terror, sexual material, underage drinking and vulgar language.

" Street Kings" (R, 107 minutes): The movie's moral relativity (that the dividing line between good cop and bad cop is a matter of inches) seems like a flimsy pretext for hard-core shock value: nasty violence, colorful cussing and multi-bullet executions. The big-name casting brings no honor, or even fun, to the hackneyed roles. Forest Whitaker treats his cliched cop commander as if he were a gravitas-laden Iago. Keanu Reeves's too-cool-to-emote approach keeps us eternally distanced. Cedric the Entertainer adds no special chuckles to his cop informer. And as a Machiavellian internal affairs officer, Hugh Laurie phones in the jaded, wiser-than-thou mannerisms of Dr. Gregory House, his character in TV's popular "House." Contains violence and profanity.

Also on DVD Aug. 19: "Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana Best of Both Worlds Concert: 3-D"; "Camp Rock"; "Dexter: Complete Second Season"; "A Four Letter Word"; "Gossip Girl: Complete First Season"; "House: Season Four"; "Quid Pro Quo"; "Recount"; "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Complete First Season"; Criterion's "Twenty-Four Eyes"; and "Wimbledon: The 2008 Finals."

Aug. 12

" CJ7" (PG, 98 minutes): "CJ7" is the name of a squeezable alien toy that comes into the lives of an impoverished father and son in Stephen Chow's peculiar follow-up to his cult successes, "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kung Fu Hustle." Chow plays the slum-dwelling father to 9-year-old son Dicky (played by Xu Jiao, a girl). He works construction to pay for his son's private school education. (Tuition must be a bargain in Hong Kong.) Because Dicky comes to school in torn clothes taken from the local dump, he is an outcast at school. That is, until his father finds the aforementioned toy, which has sprung from a spaceship. The movie is littered with thematic elements from Chow's previous films: a poor antihero, the tyranny of bullying and cartoonish superhuman stunts, as Dicky briefly develops superhuman powers. But these are tired cribbings; they only remind us we've seen better and funnier. Contains profanity, sad events and rude humor.

" Irina Palm" (R, 103 minutes): There's always room for movies to explore the alternative side of conventional morality. But "Irina Palm" does so more conventionally than it realizes. The movie stars Marianne Faithfull as middle-aged Maggie, whose young grandson's last hope for cancer treatment requires travel to an Australian medical facility. Forced to find money fast, Maggie takes a deep breath and applies for the job of "hostess" at a sex club in London. But an unseemly job becomes an odd sort of personal triumph when she becomes the legendary Irina Palm, an unseen presence with special qualities that have the customers lining up for more. She keeps her moonlighting job a secret from her family as the money piles up. But inevitably, the busybody climate of her neighborhood and the curiosity of her family have to be answered. Although director and co-writer Sam Garbarski takes great care in tracing this difficult dramatic path (he has to balance the twin tracks of other people's morality and Maggie's personal course), he can't avoid the predictability. It is, however, a baby boomer's treat to see Faithfull, romancer of Mick Jagger back in the day and a pop siren in her own right, show her qualities as an actor. One is hopeful she'll find her way to other, better projects. Contains profanity, nudity and unsavory material.

" Smart People" (R, 93 minutes): As a widowed, burned-out English professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Dennis Quaid tries his best to bring specificity to the well-worn archetype of the misanthropic pedant. This film often seems cobbled together from other movies: Ellen Page, who plays Wetherhold's overachieving teenage daughter, here reprises the irritatingly precocious persona that made her a breakout star in last year's "Juno." Ashton Holmes stars in a thankless role as Wetherhold's disaffected son, and Thomas Haden Church delivers the film's few near-laughs as the family black sheep who provides deadpan stoner humor and shots of his bare rear end. When Lawrence begins to date an attractive physician (Sarah Jessica Parker), viewers will want the relationship to succeed if only to stop all the snarky sniping. It's impossible to tell whether the film's ending is happy because it's happy or because it's ending. Contains profanity, brief teen drug and alcohol use, and sexuality.

Also on DVD Aug. 12: "Aftermath: Population Zero"; "Brand Upon the Brain: Criterion"; "Caroline in the City: First Season"; "Dave's World: First Season"; "Prison Break: Season 3"; "The Secret"; "South Park: Complete Eleventh Season"; "That Girl: Season 4"; "Tru Calling: Complete Series" and "The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season."

Aug. 5

" The Counterfeiters" (R, 94 minutes): Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) finds himself in a concentration camp where his credo of self-preservation takes on starker tones. Sorowitsch and other Jewish prisoners with expertise in banking and printing become central to the Nazi plan to devastate the English and American financial markets with a flood of forged currency. The degree to which they assist forms the moral core of director Stefan Ruzowitzky's film. The story's most compelling personality, and the best reason to see the film, is Sorowitsch. He is uneasy in the role of protagonist, and when his dignity is shattered, it is fascinating to watch him use his outlaw instincts to maneuver and manipulate. The film convincingly examines the complex nature of humanity under inhuman conditions. Some people, like Sorowitsch, manage to rise above an existence as counterfeit as the money they are forced to produce. Contains violence, brief nudity and profanity.

" My Brother is an Only Child" (Not Rated,108 minutes): This Italian movie set during the 1960s and '70s, centers on Accio (Elio Germano), a plucky force of nature, who walks out on seminary school (the abstinence thing doesn't work for him), then becomes enthralled with the ideology of fascism at an early age. His political belief, and his commitment to it and anything he pursues, causes constant collision with his older, good-looking brother, Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio), a socialist. Their ongoing love-hate relationship, which lasts from adolescence into early adulthood, is the movie's spine. Like virtually every Italian movie, it evokes the sensual, intimate dynamics of family, with Accio battling, hugging, punching and cursing his relatives as an almost daily matter of course. Although the movie never quite dispels the sense of being dated, it's a memorable, often moving timepiece. Contains sexual situations, nudity and profanity. In Italian with subtitles.

" Nim's Island" (PG, 95 minutes): The plucky heroine at the center of this film is an 11-year-old girl named Nim (Abigail Breslin), who, since her mother died at sea, has lived with her scientist father, Jack (Gerard Butler). When Jack goes plankton hunting and leaves Nim behind, mayhem breaks loose. As luck would have it, her favorite author, the world explorer Alex Rover, e-mails her dad for research information, resulting in the world-famous writer making a trip to Fiji to come to Nim's aid. Jodie Foster comes in, and she gamely hits her mark. Kids will no doubt vicariously enjoy Nim's adventures and Edenic existence. And how refreshing to see a girl embark on derring-do that, in Nim's own words, makes her the hero of her own story. Contains mild adventure action and brief mild profanity.

Also on DVD Aug. 5: "Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (25th Anniversary Edition)"; "Family Ties: The Fourth Season"; "Get Smart: Season One"; "Miss Conception"; "Route 66: Complete First Season"; "Starship Troopers 3: Marauder"; and "Star Trek The Original Series: The Complete Second Season."

July 29

" The Band's Visit" (PG-13, 89 minutes): Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin's comedy was disqualified as a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar because it contained too much English. Audiences can see for themselves that this little film was robbed. It begins just as eight men arrive at an unnamed Israeli airport. They're on their way to a performance, but between their Arabic, broken English and nonexistent Hebrew, they wind up in a dusty desert backwater. Kolirin lets scenes unfold with few words and a multitude of gestures, resulting in a small masterpiece of quiet, physical comedy. What ultimately makes the movie a pleasure to watch is the unforced way Kolirin brings the journey to its natural but deeply affecting end. Contains brief profanity. In English, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

" Doomsday" (R, 105 minutes): There are cool bits in this futuristic British action-horror film -- chiefly the idea that a new Hadrian's Wall keeps post-apocalyptic hordes out of England in 2035, echoing the Dark Ages. The over-the-wall barbarians dress like 1970's punk rockers, but fight in medieval armor. Yet "Doomsday" is really just a warmed-over version of other plague-inspired British horror flicks, and its primary aesthetic is bloody mayhem. In a prologue, we learn that an Ebola-like virus decimated Britain in the present day. The uninfected were confined to London. In 2035, there is a new outbreak and evidence of survivors living like barbarians in Scotland. A female security officer (Rhona Mitra) is sent to lead a few soldiers over the wall in search of a vaccine or other hope. Contains bloody violence, strong language, sexual content and nudity.

" Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" (R, 102 minutes): Success-motivated Harold (John Cho) and stoned slacker Kumar (Kal Penn), get arrested and racially profiled on a flight to Amsterdam after Kumar lights up an electronic bong that looks rather like a bomb. An idiotic Homeland Security agent (Rob Corddry) has them sent to Guantanamo Bay. They escape and make their way back to clear their names. The political satire in this semi-obscene frat-house romp has a really clever edge, so it's too bad the film limits its audience with such fatiguing lewdness. Contains crude and sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.

" Never Back Down" (PG-13, 110 minutes): This is teensploitation at its most obvious: a boneheaded cliche-rama built around six-pack-ab standoffs between preening studs. It stars Tom Cruise-clone Sean Faris as Jake Tyler, the cliched Edgy Outsider with the usual family issues at home who moves to a new school and has to break into a social circle with his fists. The competitive sport du jour is mixed martial arts, in which kicking feet are part of the oh-so-choreographed backstreet duke-outs. After picking up pointers in this new contact sport, Jake sets himself up for a tourney finale with ultimate bad boy Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), which leads all but directly to winning the heart of the bodacious Baja (Amber Heard). Well, read this message: OMG DNT GO! Contains stylized violence, sexual content, profanity and teen alcohol consumption.

" Shine a Light" (PG-13, 122 minutes): Captured in two 2006 performances at the Beacon Theatre in New York during the group's "A Bigger Bang" tour, the Rolling Stones demonstrates why they never left pop music's forefront. Despite the increasingly gargoyled quality of their aging faces, the sameness of their ritual, they simply believe in themselves. Judging by the ecstatic enthusiasm of their audiences, old and young, the fans believe, too. There is great footage of the Stones in previous times, but for the most part, Martin Scorsese largely lets the Stones be the Stones. Contains profanity, drug references and smoking.

Also on DVD July 29: "Beverly Hills, 90210: The Fifth Season"; "Dark City"; "The Hills: The Complete Third Season"; "Inglorious Bastards"; "Lost Boys: The Tribe"; "Stargate: Continuum"; "Surfwise"; "Tyrone Power Matinee Idol Collection"; "WarGames: 25th Anniversary"; "WarGames: The Dead Code"; "Witchblade: The Complete Series."

July 22

" 21" (PG-13, 123 minutes): Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), MIT professo r by day, gambling entrepreneur by night, who recruits six of his best and brightest students to fly to Sin City on weekends and cheat themselves rich. It's hard to throw them a high-five. Yes, Ben Campbell (Sturgess) is a sweet, lower-middle-class kid who has dreamed all his life of going from MIT to Harvard med and accepts Micky's invitation into the circle only to put himself through school. Unfortunately, this characterization feels too saintly, too schematic. The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false. It's a would-be parable about greed that emptily celebrates it, a drama about gifted people who are one-dimensional voids and, most laug hable of all, a story about the giddiness of risk-taking that safely plays everything by the numbers. Violence, nudity and sexual content.

Also on DVD July 22: "Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning"; "Electroma"; "L.A. Ink: Season 1"; "Robot Chicken: Star Wars"; "Spaced: The Complete Series"; "Vampyr: Criterion Collection."

July 15

" The Bank Job" (R, 110 minutes): In the early 1970s, Terry (Jason Statham), owner of an unsuccessful car dealership in London, gets a tip from an old friend (Saffron Burrows) about a bank vault whose alarm system is temporarily disabled. But as he recruits a team to steal the valuables, he is unaware of the Machiavellian hands at play. He is soon embroiled in a tragicomedy of errors that includes black militants, MI5 operatives, sexually licentious aristocrats and one sleazy crime lord (David Suchet) hellbent on saving his skin. What makes director Roger Donaldson's movie greater than zany heist fare is that this particular robbery really happened and that this episode illuminated an almost moral clash between the haves and the have-nots of Great Britain. It gives an extra dimension to our entertainment. These robbers aren't just people to root for, they're practically heroic -- or at the very least, they're noble victims. Contains nudity, sex, profanity and violence. DVD Extras: On special edition -- featurettes; deleted scenes; commentary.

" College Road Trip" (G, 86 minutes): This movie ran out of ideas just after they came up with the title. Martin Lawrence's James is the police chief of the town that he and his family call home and as such is painfully attuned to the evils of the world. He wants his daughter (Raven-Symone) unscathed by any of it. She wants to par- tay-- although she still has great grades, a great attitude and virtually her pick of colleges. Dad wants her to go to Northwestern; she wants to go to Georgetown. Eventually, however, he relents and agrees to drive her to Washington. Perhaps there will be people who do laugh at Lawrence and Raven-Symon¿ screaming in tandem, or mugging their way along every tortured mile of their road trip, or unwittingly joining a sky-diving club and having to parachute into Washington so Melanie can make her interview. Roger has a talent for the twisted that was never going to be allowed to run free in a movie starring these two. Contains nothing objectionable.

" Penelope" (PG, 90 minutes): A witch placed a curse on Penelope's family that said their first-born daughter would be born with a pig face; the afflicted heiress (Christina Ricci) could shake off the curse, but only if she were accepted and loved by "one of her own." Anyone willing to tolerate the premise of the story will be paid off by several winning performances and a moral that makes most of the absurdity worthwhile. Penelope's mom (Catherine O'Hara) arranges for a parade of male suitors to call, each of whom wants the dowry but jumps out the window (literally) when he sees Penelope's face. Eager to get the story, a reporter hires dissipated blue-blood Max Campion (James McAvoy) to take Penelope's picture. Things, as they will in such stories, don't quite go according to plan. A story like this provides so many opportunities for snarky comments -- about hamminess, or acting "chops," or reaping what you sow, or being the wurst movie of the year -- but they just won't stick. Contains mature themes, innuendo and strong language.

" Shutter" (PG-13, 85 minutes): There's scarcely a plot twist in this remake of a Thai horror film that one couldn't predict before it happens. Yet because the acting is strong, this ghostly revenge thriller is intriguing. Newlyweds Ben (Joshua Jackson) and Jane (Rachael Taylor) move to Japan, where Ben works as a photographer. Jane becomes obsessed with odd, blurry images in their wedding photos and in shots Ben takes at work. She learns they are "spirit photos" and discovers why she and Ben are being haunted. Contains terror, disturbing images, sexual content and strong language.

" Step Up 2 the Streets" (PG-13, 97 minutes): This follow-up to 2006's "Step Up" has a message that slips through, at odds with the movie's blatant insincerity: Youthful physicality is pure and impervious, even when it's framed, choreographed, directed and generally falsified by corporate grown-ups. We groan at the two leading, squeaky-clean performers (Robert Hoffman and Briana Evigan) pretending to be oh so "street" in their designer togs and exchanging "attitude"-laced dialogue that induces unintentional laughter. Let's leave these herky-jerky lovebirds to utter those false nothings between their gyrations and wait for a movie where they do get it all right: story, acting and dancing. Contains stylized street beatings and very little resembling authentic human behavior.

" The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" (PG, 104 minutes): In 1970, Mauro (the post-cherubic Michel Joelsas) is dispatched to his grandfather's home in the Sao Paulo Jewish quarter while his parents, Communists facing death under Brazil's junta, go on "vacation." That Grandpa drops dead in the few moments between the phone call made by Mauro's father (Eduardo Moreira) and Mauro's arrival at his tatty apartment is just one of the many contrivances plaguing this ostensibly heartwarming coming-of-age story. The whole thing culminates in the World Cup final featuring the Pele-led Brazilian team, which becomes the rallying point for Brazilians of every stripe. Contains adult content and themes, smoking and mild language.

Also on DVD July 15: "Birds of Prey: The Complete Series"; "Eureka: Season Two"; and "Saving Grace: Season 1."

July 8

" The Ruins" (R, 101 minutes): This horror-thriller with an overdeveloped sense of gore and an underdeveloped story follows the classic formula: A few callow young American tourists find themselves in mortal danger and must show courage and ingenuity when cell phones, credit cards and whining don't work. At a Mexican beach resort, four Americans (Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore and Laura Ramsey) and a German acquaintance (Joe Anderson) trek out to see a little-known Mayan pyramid. At its base, they're surrounded by heavily armed villagers who won't follow them up the ruin but won't let them off it, either. Plenty of bloody violence and gory injuries follow. Contains strong violence, gruesome images, strong language, sexuality and nudity.

" Sleepwalking" (R, 100 minutes): Charlize Theron plays an addled, self-centered mother who, after a run-in with the police when her pot-dealing boyfriend is arrested, suddenly leaves her 11-year-old daughter (AnnaSophia Robb) in the care of her brother, James. Played by Nick Stahl with blank lack of affect, James leads a marginal, somewhat sketchy existence that leads the bureaucrats to question whether he's an appropriate guardian. There's no escaping it: Theron is a force of nature, illuminating every scene she's in with commanding ferocity. But when she's not on screen, this movie begins to act like its own title. With escalating degrees of overstatement and hyperbole, culminating in an over-the-top performance by Dennis Hopper. Wake me when it's over. Contains profanity and violence.

" Stop-Loss" (R, 112 minutes): Brandon King is an Army sergeant played by Ryan Phillippe who has spent his time in Iraq alongside his best friends, Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Though Steve yearns to leave Texas and even his girlfriend, Michele (Abbie Cornish), it's Brandon who's told he has to go back. Phillippe deftly translates the unspeakable anger of a soldier into action. He has been told by his senator that if there's anything he needs, just ask. So Brandon decides to go to Washington and ask not to go to Iraq. When Brandon hits the road, Michele is indignant enough, and maternal enough, to go with him. It's a remarkably entertaining movie, thanks in part to a first-rate cast and a director who knows you can't make a point without calling everyone to attention. Contains violence, language and adult content. DVD Extras: Commentary; deleted scenes; featurettes.

" Superhero Movie" (PG-13, 85 minutes): A revolutionary comedy in 1980, "Airplane!" now seems to have been more like a virus. In this movie, Leslie Nielsen plays Uncle Albert, whose nephew, Rick Riker (Drake Bell), has been bitten by a radioactive dragonfly. Rick then becomes . . . Dragonfly, a conflicted, wall-scaling superhero who needs to learn that with great power comes great responsibility. It turns out to be a "Spider-Man" clone accessorized with toilet jokes. The more interesting casting choice is Christopher McDonald, who plays bad guy Hourglass. But McDonald is like the entire comedy conceit of "Superhero Movie": You know exactly what you're getting, in a format that hasn't packed a delightful surprise since, well, maybe 1980. Contains crude and sexual content, comic violence, drug references and language.

Also on DVD July 8: "Batman: Gotham Knight"; "Cannon: Season One, Vol. 1"; "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten"; "Monk: Season Six "; "Psych: Complete Second Season"; "Soul Food: The Final Season"; "Stargate Atlantis: Complete Fourth Season"; "The Tracey Fragments"; and "X-Files: Revelations."

July 1

" City of Men" (PG-13, 110 minutes): The ostensible, sort-of sequel to 2002's "City of God" tells a multilayered story coherently, with propulsive action and a naturalistic nod to the fact that so much of the world is a violent place. Wallace (Darlan Cunha) is looking for his father, and no one around wants to help him out. Wallace's BFF, Ace (Douglas Silva), is a father, of a 2-year-old named Clayton (Vitor and Vinecius Oliveira) who provides the audience with a constant source of apprehension. Guns are everywhere, as is a blithe resignation to death. It deftly balances the moral chaos of the gang life with two boys desiring to do the right thing, either by reuniting with a father or by being a good one. As in any successful epic, the action is shored up by frail humanity, misunderstanding, inadvertent betrayal and pride. Contains violence, strong language and sexuality.

" Drillbit Taylor" (PG-13, 102 minutes): When the three geeks are threatened by a psychotic bully (Alex Frost), they hire Drillbit (Owen Wilson) to coach them in self-defense; what they don't know is that he's a homeless drifter who's stealing them blind. With the formula firmly in place, the film goes through all the motions, culminating not in the mother of all high school rumbles. And like most of those fights, there's nothing to see here, folks. Best to move along. Contains crude sexual references, strong bullying, profanity, drug references and partial nudity. DVD Extras: Commentary; gag reel; deleted scenes; featurettes; extended edition available.

" My Blueberry Nights" (PG-13, 90 minutes): This film is for people who want to see how cute singer Norah Jones looks in different hats. Or when she parts her lips. Or lies asleep on a countertop. And that's not all! Technically, there is a story. Elizabeth (Jones) and Jeremy (Jude Law), who meet in a diner, are getting over romantic relationships that went sour. After enjoying his blueberry pie and striking up a friendship, she crosses America on a soul-searching trip. As a waitress in Nevada, she'll have a friendly extended encounter with Leslie (Natalie Portman), a gambler on a losing streak with daddy issues. And while he awaits the inevitable, Jeremy mopes and smokes at the diner. These middle episodes take the story nowhere. They simply eat up the clock until Elizabeth heads east, where the pie is good and where, best of all, the movie is sure to end. Contains violence.

" Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns" (PG-13, 100 minutes): Angela Bassett stars as Brenda, a single m other who lives a tough life in the Chicago projects with a teenage son, Michael (Lance Gross), and two younger daughters. She has just lost her job, her son's deadbeat father won't pay her child support and the power company has shut off her electricity. She gets a temporary reprieve when she travels to rural Georgia to attend the funeral of the father she never knew. This means meeting country kin, including the kind of spirited characters au diences expect in a Tyler Perry movie. Sit with any appreciative crowd and that special connection with Perry can rock the joint. Contains drug content, strong language, sexual references and brief violence. DVD Extras: Two-disc special edition comes with several featurettes and a digital copy of the movie.

" Vantage Point" (PG-13, 90 minutes): The president of the United States (William Hurt) has come to Spain to make an announcement about the war on terror. Shots are fired. And then a huge explosion occurs in a city square, killing virtually no one -- no one with a name in the credits, anyway -- which allows the director to rewind the story's first 23 minutes and lay out the same scenario from a different point of view. And to do this multiple times. Conceivably, it might have worked. In reality, however, during the third or fourth reprise of the assassination attempt and bombing, a member of my audience let out an involuntary "Oh, God . . ." and the rest of the house erupted in sympathetic laughter. Contains intense violence and action, disturbing images and brief strong language. DVD Extras: Featurettes; director's commentary; also available in two-disc edition with more features.

Also on DVD July 1: "30 Days: Complete Second Season"; "Baby It's You"; "Heathers: 20th High School Reunion Edition"; "Mad Men: Season One"; and "Where the Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles."

June 24

" 10,000 B.C." (PG-13, 109 minutes): Director Roland Emmerich takes the time-honored Hollywood tradition of spectacle, overkill and narrative absurdity and manages to zap almost all the fun out of it. When D'Leh (Steven Strait) manages to fell the biggest mammoth of 'em all, he wins the hand of Evolet (Camilla Belle), a blue-eyed beauty. When a band of warlords invades their settlement, making off with Evolet and a boy named Baku (Nathanael Baring), D'Leh and master hunter Tic Tic (Cliff Curtis) set off on an epic journey. On a trek that goes from mountain plateaus to jungle to desert in what seems to be a scant few days, the group winds up in what looks like Giza -- if it were the 3rd millennium B.C. and not the 10th. And who's counting, anyway? It's computer effects, not logic, that reign supreme. Contains sequences of intense action and violence.

" Charlie Bartlett" (R, 97 minutes): Charlie (Anton Yelchin) is a sweet-faced but scheming student whose penchant for bootleg activities keeps getting him thrown out of prep schools. In desperation, his mother enrolls him in a public school where he immediately appoints the school bully to help him become the student body's main rainmaker, the one who procures them various psychotropic meds. He also becomes an in-house shrink, listening to their problems from his office in the restroom. But even with the presence of Robert Downey Jr. as a beleaguered headmaster and father of a teenage daughter, and Hope Davis as Charlie's rich, devoted but inattentive mother, the movie feels forced, cliched and derivative. Contains drug use, nudity, sexual content and profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary tracks; deleted scenes; featurettes.

" Definitely, Maybe" (PG-13, 151 minutes): As our tale begins, Maya (Abigail Breslin) is staying with her dad, soon-to-be-divorced Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds), and she wants to know how he met her mom and why it went wrong. So Will weaves a story that chronicles his history of female trouble, changing the names of the women so Maya doesn't know whom he eventually married. She tries to figure it out as the film goes down memory lane. The filmmakers don't bother to adjust the film to the period with which they're concerned, or orient themselves at all. Of course, it's not the kind of movie concerned with character or verisimilitude. It's about love, dude. And I would have loved had it ended sooner. Contains sexual situations, frank dialogue, strong language and smoking.

" Honeydripper" (PG-13, 123 minutes): In this film, writer-director John Sayles reaches back to 1950 in rural Alabama where, in this fictional story, rock-and-roll is born. Danny Glover plays Tyrone Purvis, who runs a ramshackle roadhouse and who, for contrived reasons, won't allow guitars in the club. When a young wanderer mysteriously appears on the scene brandishing that very instrument, Tyrone must decide if the kid and his contraption just might save the juke joint. Trudging nobly under a mantle of earnest intentions and a too-quaint-by-half production design, the movie lags and drags to its predictable end. There's not a spark of spontaneity or soul about it. Contains brief violence and suggestive material.

" In Bruges" (R, 107 minutes): Writer-director Martin McDonagh's first feature film is a dry, wine-dark comedy, powered by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who play two wry Irish hit men named Ray and Ken. The pair find themselves in Bruges, the Flemish port city known for its medieval architecture and bell tower. Ken (Gleeson) is willing to make the best of it. Ray (Farrell), not so much. Ray may be restless, but it's his fault they're here: They have been remanded to Bruges by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), because when Ray murdered a priest outside a confessional he also put a bullet in the head of a little boy at prayer. Those who know McDonagh's work know a vein of darkness will run deeply through the comedy. It has seldom been darker. Or funnier. He has made a hit-man movie in which you don't know what will happen and can't wait to find out. Contains bloody violence, pervasive profanity and drug use.

" Persepolis" (PG-13, 95 minutes): The unusual format in Marjane Satrapi's film is not that it's in black-and-white (though it is), not that it's based on a graphic novel (it is), but that it's animated. Satrapi, with co-director Vincent Paronnaud, has taken her work and turned it into a vigorous, revealing and tragic film. The film pretty much stays with three women -- Satrapi, her mother (voiced by Catherine Deneuve) and her grandmother (Danielle Darrieux) -- through the upheavals of recent Iranian history. This is good old cel animation, where things are simply drawn and immensely suggestive, and the movie, while no fun, faces hard truths and asks hard questions. Contains mature content, including violent images, sexual references, profanity and brief drug content. In French, German and Farsi with subtitles. DVD Extras: Commentary on selected scenes; featurettes.

" The Spiderwick Chronicles" (PG, 97 minutes): This movie, based on a best-selling young people's novel, no doubt has been eagerly awaited by the book's fans, who most likely will be pleased by the visualization of the story's otherworldly creatures. But for the uninitiated? It's a bummer. The Spiderwick of the Chronicles in question is Arthur, a metaphysical explorer who 80 years ago discovered how to see into the supernatural world. Cue time shift to the present day, when his great-niece Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) moves into ye olde Spiderwick estate with her twin sons, Simon and Jared (Freddie Highmore, playing both characters), and daughter Mallory (Sarah Bolger). Soon enough, though, the three Graces are on a hunt for the ghosties and gobblies that make things go bump in the night. The action is intense, violent and possibly terrifying, making it difficult to recommend as a movie the whole family will love. Scary creature action and violence, peril and mature themes. DVD Extras: Two-disc version comes with several featurettes and deleted scenes.

Also on DVD June 24: "Before the Rain: Criterion"; "Bonneville"; "Early Edition: First Season"; "Evening Shade: Season One"; "The Furies: Criterion Collection"; "Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs";"New Adventures of Old Christine: Complete Second Season"; "Xanadu: Magical, Music Edition."

June 17

" 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" (Unrated, 113 minutes): This shattering Romanian movie is not for the faint of heart, but for film connoisseurs passionately interested in how far the medium can go in depicting human stories, it will provide a bracing breath of fresh cinematic air. Anamaria Marinca delivers a transfixing performance as Otilia, a young woman who helps a friend (Laura Vasiliu) obtain an illegal abortion in the waning days of Romania's communist Ceausescu regime. Writer-director Cristian Mungiu films Otilia's harrowing day in virtual real time. The result is a sobering, unsettling portrait of the extremes people must resort to under tyranny, a portrait all the more powerful because of Mungiu's adamant refusal to gloss over unpleasant truths. Contains profanity, brief nudity and adult situations, including a graphic depiction of an abortion.

" Be Kind Rewind" (PG-13, 101 minutes): The films of Michel Gondry aren't for everyone, but viewers who vibe to his playful, cerebral, wildly imaginative sensibility might get a kick out of this story about a New Jersey slacker (Jack Black) who runs afoul of a power plant and becomes magnetized, unwittingly erases every tape in his neighborhood video store, then records over the tapes with condensed, low-tech reenacted versions of the movies. Such a far-fetched yarn borders on the patronizing. But the movie remakes are hilarious. Gondry's belief in community-based, handmade, DIY culture is infectious, and his cry against big-box homogenization (fewer choices, more copies) a noble one. Contains sexual references. DVD Extras: Featurette.

" Fool's Gold " (PG-13, 101 minutes): The films of Michel Gondry aren't for everyone, but viewers who vibe to his playful, cerebral, wildly imaginative sensibility might get a kick out of this story about a New Jersey slacker (Jack Black) who runs afoul of a power plant and becomes magnetized, unwittingly erases every tape in his neighborhood video store, then records over the tapes with condensed, low-tech reenacted versions of the movies. Such a far-fetched yarn borders on the patronizing. But the movie remakes are hilarious. Gondry's belief in community-based, handmade, DIY culture is infectious, and his cry against big-box homogenization (fewer choices, more copies) a noble one. Contains sexual references. DVD Extras: Featurette.

" Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins " (PG-13, 113 minutes): Martin Lawrence plays a narcissistic talk show host begrudgingly attending a family reunion and running afoul of country kin, old flames and a nasty rival. The latter would be Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), a cousin-cum-adopted-brother who beat him in everything as a kid and even stole his sweetheart. For Lawrence, this movie (which includes James Earl Jones, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mike Epps and Mo'Nique) is the comedic equivalent of shooting catfish in a barrel. Lawrence just builds an ensemble of recognizably cliched archetypes, each more hackneyed than the next, and simply reacts amusingly to them. Contains crude, sexual comedy, profanity and drug references. DVD Extras: Featurettes, commentary, deleted scenes, alternate ending.

Also on DVD June 17: "Burn Notice: Season One"; "Californication: Season One"; "Carmen Miranda Collection"; "Cut Off"; "Dynasty: Season Three, Vol. 1"; "ER: The Complete Ninth Season"; "It's a Boy Girl Thing"; "Jericho: The Second Season"; "Jungle Book 2: Special Edition"; "Just Add Water"; "My Mom's New Boyfriend"; "Patriotism"; "Popeye The Sailor: 1938-1940, Vol. 2"; "Rails and Ties"; "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch: The Fourth Season"; "The Sword in the Stone (45th Anniversary Special Edition)."

June 10

" The Bucket List" (PG-13, 97 minutes): The lowest of high concepts, this movie is about two old coots (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) with terminal cancer who decide to live out a few last-minute thrills before kicking the bucket. It is professionally made, but the overall sense is of a movie coasting on an obvious and somewhat flimsy premise, to which no one thought to bring much else besides Nicholson and Freeman. Each man is playing his own cliched persona: nihilism vs. nobility, mischief vs. morose introspection, arrested adolescent vs. ageless wisdom. No need to explain who is who, which is part of the movie's very tired problem. Contains profanity and a sexual reference. DVD Extras: Featurettes

"Chaos Theory " (PG-13, 86 minutes): "Chaos Theory" shows just how crucial casting can be to a movie, especially something as sensitive to nuance, idiosyncrasy and timing as a romantic comedy. Ryan Reynolds, an actor with good looks, plays Frank Allen, a control freak whose sure, steady life is rocked by a series of darkly comedic misunderstandings, which causes his wife (an appealing Emily Mortimer) to believe he's having an affair. But he's pitched way too sharp and edgy to be endearing. We couldn't help wondering what a comically assured performer, such as Jim Carrey, would have done with the role. After all, Carrey had a similarly life-upending role as the lawyer suddenly forced to tell only the truth in "Liar Liar." In that 1997 movie, we looked forward to every possible permutation of the premise, thanks to Carrey's ability to surprise. But in "Chaos Theory," Reynolds's performance is taut, crabby and tense. And his beard and glasses, which intensify those already narrow eyes, suggest a mad bomb-builder rather than a hapless soul with whom we can identify. Instead of making us laugh with a grimace at his long string of bad luck, he just makes us grimace at him. Contains profanity and sexual situations. DVD Extras: Altenate scenes.

" Funny Games" (R, 107 minutes): With this movie, Michael Haneke's uber-disturbing remake of his own 1997 Austrian thriller, the director reasserts his omnipotence over all he surveys and constructs -- namely, a home invasion on Long Island's tony North Shore that features terror, murder, degradation and a Bunuelian bursting of characters' bourgeois bubbles, sans the Bunuelian laughs. During the humiliation and assault on the family, the feelings generated are repugnance, anxiety and a thirst for reprisal. We are under vicarious attack and want to perpetrate our own retributive violence on the criminals invading our field of vision. It isn't a pretty feeling. Although the movie's star is Haneke himself, his actors are sublime. Tim Roth, despite being in the subordinate role to Naomi Watts's resilient Ann, provides a perversely elevating element to an otherwise dour story. Watts is magnificent in what seems to have been a toughly physical role. Both Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet as his partner make their repellent characters funny as well as frightening. Contains intense action, violence, vulgarity.

" Jumper" (PG-13, 88 minutes): This science-fiction fantasy, in which Hayden Christensen plays a young man with genetic teleporting powers that he uses for everything from robbing banks to scooting down the couch to grab the remote, is oddly inert. It suffers from long, talky sequences and a shocking lack of visual imagination. Part of the problem is Christensen, who has never managed to project anything but a sullen air of lazy entitlement. That persona actually fits his character, David Rice, who's a spoiled, petulant creep, so when he's visited by a mysterious stranger named Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), who proceeds to beat the stuffing out of him, it's difficult to know whom to root for. Contains sequences of intense action violence, profanity and brief sexuality. DVD Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes.

" The Other Boleyn Girl" (PG-13, 114 minutes): This movie is half a notch above a shameless bodice ripper, starring Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn, the "other" of the title, and Natalie Portman as her more famous sister. T his Anne stops at nothing to secure that snug spot in His Majesty Henry VIII's (Eric Bana) four-poster bed. Her modus operandi includes sib-on-sib back-stabbing and even attempted incest with brother George (Jim Sturgess). All this to produce a male heir. There's a guilty pleasure to these and other soap-opera shenanigans, visually ennobled by the costumes and royal lifestyles. The movie also serves as a telling indictment about the way women have historically been treated as chattel for the sake of social and financial advancement. But the movie becomes increasingly macabre and ludicrous as Anne's machinations get the better of her, and everyone is left feeling shattered, shaken and vaguely unclean for having participated in all this. Contains nudity, sexual situations and off-camera gore. DVD Extras: Featurettes.

" Witless Protection" (PG-13, 97 minutes): Haven't satellite TV and podcasts made Larry the Cable Guy obsolete? And would somebody please tell him? This latest assault on our common culture by the comedian who has made a fortune playing a fat, dumb redneck has him playing wannabe lawman Larry Stalder, who mistakenly kidnaps a beautiful federal witness (Ivana Milicevic) and embarks on a chase from Mississippi to Chicago. Clearly aimed at red-state America with humor that is by turns pandering and poisonous, this movie is a worthless protraction; if you go, you get what you deserve. Contains crude sex-related humor. DVD Extras: Featurettes, deleted scenes, extended scenes.

Also on DVD June 10: "7th Heaven: The Fourth Season"; "Army Wives: The Complete First Season"; "Boondocks: The Complete Second Season"; "Chaos Theory"; "The Fugitive: Season Two, Vol. 1"; "Hawaii Five-O - The Fourth Season"; "Home Improvement: The Complete Eighth Season"; "John Adams (HBO Miniseries)"; "The List"; "McLeod's Daughters: The Complete Sixth Season"; "The Odd Couple: The Fourth Season"; "Otis"; "Out of the Blue"; "Planet"; "The Protagonist"; "The Sidekick"; "Soap: The Complete Series"; "Waiting For God: Season Three"; "Weiners."

June 3

" The Eye " (R, 85 minutes): This remake of a 2002 Hong Kong horror film sits in no man's land between a lowbrow genre terrorizer (it's never that scary) and a high-end ghost story, the kind that would use a big-name director, more high-end effects and -- oh, yes -- a better script. Jessica Alba brings beauty but no particular brilliance to the central role as a blind, classical violinist (yeah, right) who agrees to a corneal transplant only to learn that she is suffering three-dimensional hallucinations. She sees people burning and the ghosts of the recently departed, including the previous owner of those corneas. But is she supposed to be seeing dead people or medium-level special effects? Contains violence and scary images. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes, featurettes.

" Flawless " (PG-13, 108 minutes): Playing a mysterious janitor and an unpredictable force, Michael Caine is the emotional center of this darkly told tale of diamond theft, tight-lipped secrets and moral payback. Demi Moore stars as Laura Quinn, the highest-ranking female executive of a diamond concern that has a monopoly on the market. All hell breaks loose when their trove of gems is suddenly missing from the vault. Recently denied promotion to a top spot in the firm, Laura may have motivation for the deed -- or so thinks insurance investigator Finch (Lambert Wilson), who's determined to find the culprit. Is Laura part of it? And what does the janitor know? We have knowledge of what's truly going on as it unfolds. But the joy of this movie is in the gradual revelation of intrigue. Contains violence and profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes, additional scenes, interviews with cast members.

" Meet the Spartans " (PG-13, 84 minutes): It's common practice among film critics to dub each unspeakable turkey "the worst movie ever made!" But in the case of this movie, it may actually be true. A takeoff on "300," it's also a satirical survey of recent cultural phenomena: Think "Scary Movie" for the gladiator set. But this bore-fest is a parody of things that can't be parodied. How do you puncture the dignity of Paris Hilton? Or satirize "America Idol," which is a satire already? Punctuated by the most shameless series of product placements, gay-bashing "humor" and explosions of body fluids, it looks as if it were made for $14. Contains crude and sexual content, language and comic violence. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes, trailers.

" Semi-Pro " (R, 90 minutes): Someone looking exactly like Will Ferrell appears to be starring in this head-shaker of a comedy in which the actor plays Jackie Moon. Our hesitation to identify him as the genuinely funny star comes after seeing this actor's halfhearted, crude and only occasionally amusing performance. As the player-coach and owner of the Flint, Mich., Tropics, a team in the American Basketball Association he's meant to be a comical sign of his times. But his 'fro, sweatband and tight pants are cosmetic affectations more than comic applications. The movie's R-rated material doesn't suit the Ferrell we have come to appreciate. That Ferrell brings a sort of bird-just-born innocence to his roles. He is a perpetual child who portrays an irrepressibly funny personality forever trying to come to grips with a complex world. Andrew Benjamin, Woody Harrelson, Maura Tierney and David Koechner seem amazingly zombie-like here. Contains crude humor and profanity. DVD Extras: Deleted scenes, featurettes.

" Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show "(R, 100 minutes): Actor Vince Vaughn takes four comedians on a tour of the southern and central United States, exposing their talent, creating goodwill and giving us a glimpse of some funny guys and the mechanics of stand-up comedy. There are moments of performing brilliance, and there are a few gripping moments when everything seems ready to go terribly wrong. All the men present a distinctive comedic style, rich in vulgarity and mirthful loutishness, and make a very engaging trip along the cutting edge of America's funny bone. Contains strong language, smoking and sexual humor. DVD Extras: Featurettes, commentary, extra scenes.

Also on DVD June 3: "Almost An Angel"; "The Best of Radiohead"; "The Boarding Gate"; "Chips: The Complete Second Season"; "Control"; "Dante's Cove: Season Three"; "Dead Zone: The Final Season"; "Houdini"; "The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Third Season"; "Jekyll and Hyde Together Again"; "The Machine Girl"; "Mandingo"; "Mannix: The Complete First Season"; "Prairie Fever"; "Rescue Me: The Complete Fourth Season"; "The Skull"; "Student Bodies"; "Villa Rides"; "Weeds: Season Three."

May 27

" Cassandra's Dream "(PG-13, 105 minutes): In Woody Allen's third consecutive movie set in England, Ian (Ewan McGregor) works at his father's restaurant in London, while brother Terry (Colin Farrell) is a mechanic with a weakness for drinking and gambling. Their lifestyles lead them into desperate financial straits, but we don't really care, since the characters are, variously, money-grubbing, conniving, nakedly ambitious, helpless or easily bribed. And we're never quite sure if the movie is a comedy or drama, given the scarcity of laugh cues and Allen's dismissive vision of the British working class. Instead of offering a perspective that, at the very least, laments a world where the flow of money hurts otherwise good people, Allen simply pushes the movie into an uncertain sinkhole between morality play and black comedy. Contains macabre themes, sexual material and brief violence.

" Darfur Now " (PG, 99 minutes): Through the eyes of actor Don Cheadle, international prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, relief worker Pablo Recalde and student activist Adam Sterling, as well as a Sudanese rebel named Hejewa Adam, filmmaker Ted Braun cogently demonstrates how a cruel matrix of dictatorship, racism, geopolitics, environmental destruction and apathy have created a genocide and, perhaps most important for American audiences, what citizens can do. The film provides an invaluable human face to a story that too many Westerners perceive as distant or irrelevant, if they perceive it at all. Contains thematic material involving crimes against humanity.

" Rambo " (R, 93 minutes): This movie, which marks Sylvester Stallone's fourth appearance as the bow-bending angel of death, urges us to appreciate the miserable plight of the Burmese, just before our laconic hero kills, maims and -- in one gruesome shot -- decapitates them. Of course, the movie presents John Rambo's wholesale killing as a response to social injustice. He's icing the bad Burmese who rape women, torch babies and force their victims to run through mine-rigged rice fields. But Rambo's motivation seems more psychotic than noble. No longer is he killing for a cause, but for kicks. Contains profanity, graphic violence, grisly images and sexual assaults. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes.

Also on DVD May 27: "The Air I Breath"; "Back Soon"; "Cleaner"; "Dragon Ball Z - Season Five"; "FRONTLINE: Bush's War"; "Grace is Gone"; "Holocaust"; "The Invaders: The First Season"; "Lipstick Jungle: Season One"; "Minutemen"; "Shelter"; "Suspension"; "The Take"; "The Three Stooges Collection Volume Two: 1937-1939"; "Valentina's Tango"; "The Walker."

May 20

" Diary of the Dead" (R, 95 minutes): This movie centers on a group of film students making a horror movie. When the inevitable zombie invasion occurs, their director, Jason Creed (Joshua Close), decides to make a hand-held reality movie about it. So, it becomes a movie within a movie that, a voice-over tells us, has been downloaded off the Internet. The target is too obvious and easy: the amoral, perpetually media-obsessed youth of today. Romero once used the zombie movie as a way to be ahead of the zeitgeist. But with his new film, he seems to have joined the satirical rank-and-file, the filmmakers who simply reprise existing notions about our times. Not that it stops us from enjoying those walking, talking stiffs and the terror they can bring, even in this tongue-in-rotting-cheek movie. Contains graphic horror violence and gore, and pervasive profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes.

" National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (PG, 120 minutes): Benjamin Franklin Gates is a movie hero of the old school, a dashing treasure hunter with an obsessive interest in American history. Played by Nicolas Cage in the 2004 hit "National Treasure," Gates emerged as a new kind of leading man, one with the brains of Stephen Ambrose and the brawn of Indiana Jones. Cage is back in crackling good form in this sequel, which finds Gates trying to disprove an unpleasant twist in his vaunted family history. It's clear that everyone involved in this movie is having fun, and with expectations properly managed, the audience will, too. Contains violence and action. DVD Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes.

" Strange Wilderness" (R, 87 minutes): This movie, starring Steve Zhan, occupies a very special place indeed -- at the dead bottom of the stoner comedy pile. And nestled down there with it is Zahn as Peter, a wildlife host who takes off on a search for Bigfoot to save his beleaguered wildlife nature show from getting the ax. If you can imagine "Dumb & Dumber" as a road trip through the Mexican jungle with characters who make Beavis and Butt-head seem sophisticated, that's only part of it. Add the "twist" that the movie, which also features Allen Covert, Jonah Hill and Ashley Scott, is not funny. Not. At. All. Contains nonstop language, drug use and crude and sexual humor . DVD Extras: Featurettes, additional scenes.

Also on DVD May 20: "Charles in Charge: Season Three"; "Company"; "Cranford"; "Finishing the Game"; "A Haunting: Season Three"; "JAG (Judge Advocate General) - The Sixth Season"; "Killing Zelda Sparks"; "Lost Coloy"; "The Muppet Show: The Complete Third Season"; "Pokemon Movie: The Rise of Darkrai;" "Robot Chicken: Star Wars"; "Square Pegs: The Complete Series"; "What Did You Do in the War Daddy?"; 'What Would Jesus Buy?"; "Vexille."

May 13

" The Great Debaters" (PG-13, 120 minutes): Denzel Washington, who directed and stars in this film, turns the tale of how tiny black Wiley College, of Marshall, Tex., out-argued the white national debate champion in 1935 into a stunner. He plays Mel Tolson, a poet, debate coach, labor organizer and mentor who coaches Henry (Nate Parker) and three others to a significant assertion of black intellectual chops on a national scale. It's a David and Goliath tale played to the max, all stops removed. It's a great family movie, if not historically perfect, and something that a lot of people are going to like. Contains violence and disturbing images, profanity and brief sexual content. DVD Extras: Commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes.

" Mad Money " (PG-13, 102 minutes): In this caper comedy, Diane Keaton mostly plays it straight as Bridget, an upper-class Kansas City matron who, when her corporate husband falls on hard times, takes a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve. She notices that the Fed shreds money too old to stay in circulation and persuades single mom Nina (Queen Latifah) and rocker chick Jackie (Katie Holmes) to join with her to "recycle" the bills -- straight into their own bank accounts. The movie possesses its share of modest laughs, but it doesn't have the dash needed to make it a comic heist on par with "Ocean's Eleven." And once Bridget gets just plain greedy, all rooting interest in her scheme disappears like so many pulped Benjamins. Contains sexual material, profanity and brief drug references. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes.

" Untraceable" (R, 100 minutes): Diane Lane stars as Jennifer Marsh, a widowed cyber-crime expert with the FBI living with her mother and young daughter. From its very first scene, this isn't the sophisticated, brainy thriller it so nearly could have been, but just another movie about a serial murderer, in this case a deranged computer whiz who kidnaps people, drags them to a basement and then tortures them, uploading the images to a Web site. The more people who log on, the faster the victim dies. As the movie descends into the progressively more perverted territory, it begins to practice the very hypocrisy it condemns in its audience, eng aging in the rancid voyeurism it pretends to abhor. Contains prolonged sequences of strong, gruesome violence and profanity. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes.

" Youth Without Youth" (R, 124 minutes): This is Francis Ford Coppola's valiant, inspired but flawed attempt to create a meaningful movie out of the meaning of life itself. As in: Why do we die? How can we find immortality? The story, adapted from Mircea Eliade's novella of the same name, follows the existential journey of Dominic (Tim Roth), an aging Romanian teacher who, in Bucharest in 1938, is struck by lightning. Instead of succumbing to burns, he becomes rejuvenated, becoming a super being who can understand many languages and finds himself getting ever younger. Unfortunately, the film becomes so lost in its own conceptual vortex, it becomes virtually incomprehensible. Contains sexuality and nudity. DVD Extras: Commentary, featurettes.

Also on DVD May 13: "Aces N' Eights"; "The Big Trail"; "Botched"; "The Cottage"; "Cover"; "Crash and Burn"; "Drawn Together - Uncensored: Season Three"; "Frontiers"; "Graduation"; "Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection"; "Little Devils"; "Man of the West"; "The Man With the Gun"; "Mission: Impossible The Fourth TV Season"; "Saturday Night Live: Complete Third Season"; "The Rat Pack Ultimate Collectors Edition"; "Sinatra"; "Twelfth Night"; "Two and a Half Men: The Complete Third Season"; "The Wager"; "The Western