This Week's DVD Releases

Over the next few cold and wintry days, it is definitely time to stay in and watch some of the latest new releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video. But first, some sad movie news from this week: Queen Anne's Uptown Theater will soon be no more. After eighty-four years of showing films, the three-screen is set to close a week from today, November 28. Frowny face. Apparently, the theater "no longer competes effectively in the marketplace." In other words, MOAR 3D PLS.

Exhibit A of why more 3D is not always the answer is one of last week's new releases, the three-disc Blu-ray edition of Clash of the Titans, whose rejiggered post-production 3D ain't worth the money. Truly, the only good thing to come from that flick is the oft-used phrase "Release the Kraken."  That's more than Bow Wow's Lottery Ticket can claim. Instead, your best bet this week is Lisa Cholodenko's mature family dramedy The Kids are All Right, which will assuredly garner an Oscar nom or two.

Plenty of new films for the kids that came out last week, including creepy animated Jim Carrey in Disney's A Christmas Carol. There's also the very punny Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and the film that did just well enough to keep M. Night Shyamalan making movies, The Last Airbender.

Out on DVD are two SIFF films, opening night selection The Extra Man, and midnight Japanese gorefest, Robogeisha. There's also the animated sci-fi thriller Metropia, featuring the voices of Vincent Gallo and Juliette Lewis, and a new special complete edition of Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis. Speaking of special editions, Criterion has two new ones: one of The SunBreak's favorite scary movies, The Night of the Hunter, and Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. There's also the remastered editions of opera Der Rosenkavalier and seminal surfing doc Endless Summer. And oh yeah, Avatar has a new extended edition, with, like, a bazillion discs and three versions of the film and so on and so forth.

Along with special editions, there's also plenty of foreign films new to DVD, like French sexy psychodrama Don't Look Back, Hong Kong crime thriller Vengeance, Danish Jekyll and Hyde Fear Me Not, and clandestine Orthodox Israeli gay affair Eyes Wide Open. In documentaries, definitely check out the honorific to so-bad-it's-good horror flick Troll 2, Best Worst Movie. There's also Back from Hell: A Tribute to Sam Kinison and Gauguin: The Full Story.

In the grab bag, there's The Office: Overtime, a collection of the long-running series digital shorts, originally only found online. And feel free to celebrate Coopers' Christmas, an eighties holiday with The Daily Show's Jason Jones and Samantha Bee.