New on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” and “High School Musical: Remix” DVD, Blu-ray
Milking the franchise--and with success. In “High School Musical 3: Senior Year,” the gang is back (Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale among them), they’re teeming with energy, and the song-and-dance numbers (on a basketball court?) are enough to send any fan of the series into a tween tizzy, which is the point. Reality, on the other hand, isn’t. Given that this is their senior year, college is on the cusp for many, which leaves the franchise in a kind of flux as it steamrolls toward the already announced fourth film in the franchise. DVD and Blu-ray extras include an extended version of the movie, cast goodbyes and deleted scenes and bloopers. As for “Remix” edition, it’s essentially the original movie with 34 minutes of new bonus materials, such as the featurette “Bringing It All Together: The Making of High School Musical,” the cast teaching the choreography for “Get’cha Head in the Game,” and several music videos, including “I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You,” “We're All In This Together” and “Breaking Free Remix,” which is what some parents might want to do when this disc is played and replayed for the umpteenth time. Grades: “High School Musical 3”--B+; “Remix”--C+

“How to Lose Friends & Alienate People” DVD
A misfire based on Toby Young’s scathing 2001 book about his ruinous career at Vanity Fair magazine, which in this movie is called “Sharps.” That angle, of course, recalls last year’s “The Devil Wears Prada,” which successfully used Meryl Streep to take on Vogue and Anna Wintour. But here, even though the normally caustic Simon Pegg portrays Toby as Sidney, a British tabloid writer who comes to the States believing he’s going to write biting copy for Sharps, Pegg is lost amid a stale run of dim slapstick humor. Jeff Bridges sports a silver blowout to become a version of Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, but he isn’t thoroughly skewered--or very interesting. As Toby’s fellow writer-cum-love interest, Kirsten Dunst is a wet rag of no value--you want to scrub the screen with her and start anew. And as the young starlet Sydney wants to get into bed, Megan Fox is shallow to the point of being hollow. The only bright spot is Gillian Anderson as a celebrity publicist out to ruthlessly protect her clients. She gives the movie such menace and energy, you sit there wishing they’d focused more on her. Rated R. Grade: C-

"Capote/In Cold Blood" Blu-ray
Truman Capote--a hive of contradictions and complications. Before booze got the best of him, he was a gifted, weird little genius, complex beyond reason, smart enough to use his quirks to his benefit, and then careless and human enough to fall prey to them all. Both sides are examined in Bennett Miller's smashing film, "Capote," in which Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Academy Award for his mesmerizing portrayal. This is the film's first appearance on Blu-ray disc, and it looks and sounds just as good as you'd hope. The master stroke of this special two-pack is that it also includes a high-def rendering of the 1967 original film, "In Cold Blood," which was based on Capote's book. Each is tough to shake. In "Capote," Miller weaves through the debris of what Capote wrought when inspiration struck thanks to a New York Times article he read about a clutch of murdered Clutters in the Kansas hamlet of Holcomb. It was 1959, the deaths were brutal, the details intriguing. Fresh from the success of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and looking for a new triumph in a new work, Capote found both in this felled Midwestern family, whose heads were blown off in cold blood by Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino). With the financial blessing of his New Yorker editor William Shawn (Bob Balaban), Capote decided to leave New York City and his lover, Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood), to get the story with the help of his childhood friend, Harper Lee (Catherine Keener). It would take him almost six years to do so. What the movie nails is the savagery of an artist such as Capote; Miller understands that writing sometimes isn't the white-gloved profession some perceive it to be. The reason his movie is so good, is that he sees that writing can be just as cutthroat as committing murder. There's passion involved in each, and where's there's passion, there can be blood. As for "In Cold Blood," the focus is on Perry (Robert Blake) and Hickock (Scott Wilson), and the troubling investigation into their crimes. Blake, in particular, is superb--you won't soon forget him. It's a magnificent set, one of the best yet in the Blu-ray format. Rated R. Grade: A

"The Passion of the Christ" Blu-ray
From director Mel Gibson, a disturbing, unrelenting bloodbath that, for those who somehow don't know about the movie, follows the last 12 hours of Christ's life. Now on Blu-ray, the film is a deeply personal experience, with its success or its failure coming down to one's religious beliefs. There are those who will be appalled by the film, some who will feel vindicated by it, others who will feel both. It's such a divining rod, few will see it the same way. What's true is this: Screenwriters Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald based their story on the biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which were written decades after Christ's Crucifixion and thus for centuries have been open to interpretation. Those familiar with the New Testament will find little insight here, with one crucial exception: Gibson's intensely graphic interpretation of the violence Christ endured at the hands of the Romans by way of the Sanhedrin Jews. Fueled by the director's Roman Catholic faith, the movie must be viewed solely as Gibson's interpretation of that violence, which was mentioned only fleetingly in the Gospels, but which, in Gibson's hands, takes up the bulk of his 130-minute film. Told in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles, the film begins with the capture of Christ (Jim Caviezel) at the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is betrayed by Judas (Luca Lionello), tried by the Jewish high priest Caiaphas (Mattia Sbragia) and then sent to the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate (Hristo Shopov), who tries yet fails to save Christ from the Crucifixion that becomes the core of the movie. With searing detail, Gibson shows us all of it--every bloody step, every brutal whip and lashing by the Romans, the breaking of bones as nails pierce flesh, the screams of a man hung to die on a cross. As such, his movie--and remember, this is a movie, with all that implies--is among the most intensely violent films Hollywood has ever made. How this works cinematically is just as powerful as you expect--how could it not be given the subject and the sheer amount of bloodshed involved? This isn't a perfect movie and it's not entirely historically accurate, but that's not unusual. It is, in fact, in keeping with other biblical interpretations, from "King of Kings" to "The Greatest Story Ever Told" to "Demetrius and the Gladiator" to its sequel, "The Robe.” Technically, the performances are excellent, particularly Caviezel as Christ and Maia Morgenstern as Mary, who are the only characters allowed to share a bond onscreen. Otherwise, Gibson's heavy-handed approach is more interested in Christ's torture, his dying and his death. Rated R. Grade: B+