This Week's DVD Releases

It's finally the beginning of the fall movie season, which means that there's actually decent stuff in the theaters. This weekend marks the cinematic arrival of two films well worth your while: The Social Network, in which the methodical, artistic eye of David Fincher, a whipsmart script by Aaron Sorkin, and a universally strong cast team up to tell the story of how an Aspergery sociopath who doesn't know how to be anyone's friend created a new method of friendship for the modern era, and Waiting for 'Superman', in which An Inconvenient Truth director David Guggenheim gives a pointed, devastating blow-by-blow on the failures of the American public school system.

But there's also new releases on DVD this week, so let's get to the rundown, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. The biggest release this week was Iron Man 2, but you wouldn’t know it from all the promotion for rowdy rock comedy Get Him to the Greek. And you know Banksy doesn't follow conventions--out Friday was his doc lampooning the art world, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

I didn't see Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me at Sundance last year. While I love the director's varied work, I just don't wish to watch Casey Affleck spend two hours raping, beating, and killing women, even if the women in question are Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. Also at Sundance was Frozen, a thriller in which three snowboarders get stranded on a chairlift and now must face the cold night and everything it brings. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a lush period piece that tells the tumultuous romance between the two artistic luminaries, while Good stars Viggo Mortensen as a doctor whose beliefs are twisted for nefarious Nazi purposes.

In TV on DVD, there's the new Kids in the Hall series, Death Comes to Town. There's also the second season of beloved (read: gone too soon) ensemble catering comedy Party Down. Epic '70s miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man is now available in Complete Collection form.

Criterion has two new editions out this week: British soldiers have a Japanese POW holiday in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, while Terence Malick explores man's inhumanity to man at Guadacanal in The Thin Red Line. New to DVD is The Law (La Loi), starring Gina Lollobrigida’s breasts. And My Favorite Spy is a Bob Hope comedy in which Hope plays both a spy and the comedian recruited by the government to act as a doppelganger and deliver microfilm to Tangiers, where he meets a girl spy in Hedy Lamarr. This week also marks the Bluray debut of two more recent classics: Amelie and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

In documentaries, experience the first year of life all around the world through the eyes of Babies. All Boys looks at the rise of gay porn in Eastern Europe post-Communism, while Am I Black Enough for You examines the music and civil rights struggle of Philadelphia R&B artist Billy Paul. Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue gives a detailed look at the history of the American horror film with host Lance Henriksen. In the most modern of horrors, Laura Poitras delves into the divergent terrorist paths of Osama Bin Laden's driver and his brother-in-law in The Oath, which played at SIFF and the NWFF earlier this year.

There's a few new superhero DVDs for the child or manchild in your life. In Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman battle the evil Doomsday with their new recruit Supergirl. And the X-Men get a Joss Whedon relaunch in Astonishing X-Men: Gifted.

In this week's grab bag is Grimm Love, in which grad student Keri Russell researches a cannibal killer for her thesis, only to become obsessed with her subject, ultimately entering his dark world. Somehow this is based on a true story, so kids don’t let this happen to you--say no to grad school. And finally, in Pig Hunt, some guys go for a weekend of hunting wild pigs, until the predators becomes the prey of The Ripper, a three-thousand-pound black boar.