This Week's DVD Releases

This weekend you've got one more chance to check out Destroy All Movies!!!, an encyclopedic guide to the punk movement in film. Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly will be on hand at the Fantagraphics store in Georgetown to sign copies of the book, and they'll also show clips from the thousand-plus films included in the guide. With that in mind, let's take a look at the latest films on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

The biggest release for the last week was Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, which was a totally satisfying love story-comic book-videogame Michael Cera nerdfest. (I dare not mention the other big release this week, Grown Ups--what little I saw of it on an airplane last month was more than enough.)

From manchildren to kids, there's Ramona and Beezus, the feature film version of the beloved Beverly Cleary book. Also based on a book is Charlie St. Cloud, in which Kurt Cobain-to be Zac Efron spends a lot of time hanging out with his dead ghost brother.

There's a new HBO film out on DVD this week: I Knew It Was You, a tribute to gone-too-soon '70s legend, John Cazale. There's also the PBS series Circus, which takes a behind-the-scenes-look at the world under the big top. In more TV on DVD, check out The Boondocks: Season 3, as well as season 3 of Metalocalypse. For the nerds, there's season 5 of the latest incarnation of Doctor Who, and for your dad, season 1 of TNT's middle-aged dude dramedy Men of a Certain Age. And the BBC's first season of Sherlock, which just wrapped up last weekend, is now out on DVD. 

If you like Scott Pilgrim, you might want to check out the live-action version of anime Detroit Metal City. No one wanted to check out Lars Von Trier's sexual mutilation-heavy Antichrist, and yet Criterion just released their special edition of the film. Slightly lighter in tone is Lovely, Still, a mature romance with Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn, Love Ranch, starring Dame Helen Mirren as a brothel madam, and The Dry Land, a back-from-Iraq drama with Ryan O'Nan, Wilmer Valderrama, America Ferrera, and Melissa Leo.

In documentaries, there's Jean-Michael Basquiat: Radiant Child, a look at the artist, and Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky an examination of the Russian director, as well as his death. And for something completely different, it's Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives, which is exactly what it sounds like. Meanwhile, helloooooo, ultimate Golden Girls box set!