New to DVD and Blu-ray Disc

"I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" Blu-ray
So, here’s the joke. Two firemen--Chuck (Adam Sandler) and Larry (Kevin James)--decide to get married when Larry, a widower, learns that his children won't be covered by his life insurance policy should he die on the job. Apparently, the only way to right that wrong is to get married, with the film hooking its comedic bandwagon onto one wobbly caboose. Since Larry loves his dead wife too much to consider marriage to another woman, he decides to go for playboy Chuck, a loudmouth creep who reluctantly agrees to become Larry's domestic partner so they can trick the system. What will they serve at their wedding? How about a big slice of homophobia? Beyond the fact that the movie has critical issues with stereotypes--the Asian community, for instance, also should be thrilled by this mess--the real sin here is that the film isn't funny, it's stuck in a time warp, and its forced ending of tolerance and acceptance is so disingenuous, it's enough to make you want to bend over, pick up the soap the movie drops and hurl it at all involved. Rated PG-13. Grade: D

“Pushing Daisies: Season Two” DVD, Blu-ray
Death literally is popping up everywhere in the second season of “Pushing Daisies,” a highlight now available on DVD and Blu-ray disc. The show offers an ingenious twist on the crime-solving/romantic comedy genre, with a pie-maker named Ned (Lee Pace) able to bring the dead back to life with a mere touch. This proves invaluable in finding out who might have killed certain people and why, but it also complicates matters significantly since just one more touch from Ned will leave them dead for eternity. This second season continues to handle all the romantic dilemmas surrounding Nick’s relationship with Chuck (Anne Friel), who was murdered once and who Ned brought back to life. They love each other, sure, but since he can never touch her again (doing so would mean instant death to Chuck), their relationship hovers in a kind of romantic purgatory, one treated here with wit, longing and finesse. Grade: B

“300: The Complete Experience” Blu-ray
Do we really need the “complete experience”? Isn’t this sort of like putting lipstick on a pig? In spite of its many extras (hours of exclusive content; featurettes; documentaries; BD-Live; and “The Complete 300: A Comprehensive Immersion,” which allows you to view the movie from three different perspectives at once), this new set still is sandbagged by beefcake gone berserk. Set in 5th Century B.C., the film follows the three-day Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 bellowing, muscle-bound Spartans got pumped up to rumble against a million Persians. It's something of an understatement to say that they were outnumbered, but as the movie sees it, they nevertheless were gifted soldiers aided considerably (or screwed considerably--you decide) by Sparta's King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), who led the fight and, as history tells us, lost it in a crimson rush of valor. For a film filled with so many characters, there isn't one fully realized character in the mix--not Leonidas, who bellows from his bowels as if he just sat on the Hot Gates themselves; not the Persian emperor Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), who is one wig shy from becoming RuPaul; and not Leonidas' enemy Theron (Dominic West), whose evil fails to spark a half-cooked subplot involving Leonidas' wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey). Adapted from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel. Rated R. Grade: C-