This Week's DVD Releases

Finally, it is the best time of the movie year, in which all the Oscar bait hits the cinemas at the same time.  In just a few weeks, Black Swan, The Fighter, and True Grit will all be out in Seattle theaters, with Blue Valentine and Somewhere soon to follow. But that's to come; in the interim you'll have to make do with with the latest DVD releases, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

And what a lousy week for new releases. Not sure which is worse: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz's action-romance Knight and Day, yet another Nicholas Cage in a wig adventure The Sorcerer's Apprentice, or the latest low-brow Movie Movie "satire" Vampires Suck. Probably the least offensive film in major release is Going the Distance, the Justin Long-Drew Barrymore long-distance rom-com. At least it's got Charlie Day.

And then there was Twilight. Because the Mormon Vampire-Werewolf saga is special, Eclipse didn't deign to come out on Tuesday, like most DVDs. Instead it waited for a Saturday night release. Not to be outdone, Destination Forks: The Real World of Twilight also came out on Saturday, to give all the superfans a look at Bella's hometown.

Since we're getting into kids films (or at least films meant for children), last week marked the release of Standing Ovation, "a movie musical for the whole family," i.e., for fans of High School Musical or Glee. There's also the Ultimate Fan Pack of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the newly remastered Chuck Jones-animated version of The Phantom Toolbooth. And don't forget about the 4-disc Blu-ray edtion of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.

In the foreign films arena, there's Liverpool, Argentine director Lisandro Alonso’s existential drama of solitude off of Tierra del Fuego, one of the most desolate places on Earth. There's also The Sicilian Girl, based on the true story of a Mafia daughter breaking her silence to give evidence on the crimes of her family. Only slightly more violent is Valhalla Rising, made by Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director of the Pusher trilogy and starring Mads Mikkelsen (best known as the Bond villain who cried blood in Casino Royale). And from Syrian-Canadian writer/director Ruba Nadda, Cairo Time stars Patricia Clarkson as a writer who traveled to Egypt to see her UN official husband, only to fall for a security officer giving her a tour of the city.

In the documentary section, there's three big docs all covering Disney's animation heyday: The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, about the tumultuous relationship between the writers of some of Disney's most famous songs; Waking Sleeping Beauty, about the feature-length animation renaissance that took place in the late '80s; and Walt and El Grupo, about Disney's goodwill trip in the '40s down South American way. Meanwhile, The Nine Lives of Marion Barry looks at the long illustrious career of D.C.'s finest crack-smoking mayor, and Floored covers the waning relevance of the traders in the pits of the Chicago Board of Trade in the face of computerized trading. And Scarecrow is currently giving away free rentals of Bullied: A Teaching Tolerance Documentary about a gay high school student who filed (and won) a federal lawsuit against the school administrators that did nothing to stop his bullying.

In TV on DVD, Parks and Recreation season 2 is out now, allowing you time to catch up before the season 3 premiere in January. There's also another bit of recent history from HBO films in The Special Relationship, about the tenuous partnership that developed between Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid) and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, of course). But my pick for the week is by PBS. You just can't go wrong with Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence,which covers one of the biggest ferret shows in the country.