'Perfect Stranger' creeps in on DVD
Bruce Willis does better at the box office without hair. Before he saddled up as the bald action hero in the summer hit "Live Free or Die Hard," he let his hair grow and joined Halle Berry earlier in the year for this cluttered thriller that had audiences yawning. Berry plays an investigative reporter who goes undercover on a personal mission: Trying to prove a businessman (Willis) having an affair with her friend is responsible for the woman's murder. DVD, $28.95; Blu-ray, $38.96.
"The Lives of Others"
From last year's remarkably strong lineup for the foreign-language Academy Award came this triumph by a first-time filmmaker, whose debut wound up winning the Oscar. German writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck delivers a rich, potent, even profound portrait of oppressors and victims living amid the last years of communism in East Berlin. DVD, $26.96; Blu-ray, $38.96.
"Serenity: Collector's Edition"
The big-screen continuation of the short-lived sci-fi TV series "Firefly" gets a DVD upgrade with this two-disc set. Joss Whedon, creator of "Firefly" and such TV hits as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," writes and directs the saga of Serenity, a rickety interplanetary cargo ship whose captain (Nathan Fillion) and crew scrape by taking on dubious passengers and carrying out felonious missions. DVD set, $26.98.
"RoboCop"
For its 20th anniversary, director Paul Verhoeven's blend of sci-fi and police thriller returns to DVD in a two-disc package loaded with extras. Peter Weller stars as the title character, a slain cop fitted with armor and machine components in an experiment to create a crime fighter capable of taking on bad guys in an ultraviolent future. DVD set, $22.98.
"House of Games," and "The Milky Way"
Playwright David Mamet made his film-directing debut with 1987's "House of Games," featuring his wife at the time, Lindsay Crouse, as a psychiatrist drawn into the sleight-of-hand world of a card shark and con man (Joe Mantegna). "The Milky Way," is a surreal tale of two beggars on a road trip that was the opening chapter of a wickedly blasphemous trilogy ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie" and "The Phantom of Liberty" followed). DVD, $39.95; "Milky Way" DVD, $29.95.
"The Films of Michael Haneke"
The Austrian director, whose films include the acclaimed domestic thriller "Cache," gets fine boxed-set treatment with a seven-disc set covering the bulk of his feature-film career through 2001. The seven films include his big-screen debut with 1989's "The Seventh Continent," a drama examining the blandness of middle-class life through the story of a young woman who seeks attention by feigning blindness. DVD set, $99.95.
TV on DVD:
"Ugly Betty: The Complete First Season" - DVD set, $59.99.
"'Til Death: The Complete First Season" - DVD set, $39.95.
"Dexter: The First Season" - DVD set, $42.99.
"House: Season Three" - DVD set, $59.98.
"South Park: The Complete Tenth Season" - DVD set, $49.99.
"JAG: The Fourth Season" - DVD set, $64.99.
