New on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

“The Ninth Gate” Blu-ray
Satanic librarians unite! In the Blu-ray release of “The Ninth Gage,” Hollywood finally serves that long-overlooked niche market with a film that gives devil-worshipping bibliophiles real reason to fall from grace. The film stars Johnny Depp as a scurrilous rare book dealer who hooks up with billionaire Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a cool piece of work who’s interested in authenticating his copy of “The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows,” a 17th-century satanic text whose engravings allegedly hold the power of hauling the devil straight out of the pits of hell. Issuing Depp a check, Balkan sends the man overseas to Europe, where he not only hunts down and studies the text’s two remaining copies, but where he also comes upon a flying nude Euromodel (Emmanuelle Seigner), the fiery death of a wheelchair-bound baroness, and a swanky hooded orgy ripped straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.” In fact, it’s at this orgy that Polanski has his most fun in a film without much fun: He blatantly stages the scene to look like Kubrick’s--rows of burning candles, naked people milling about in shimmering cowls, the location a posh mansion--and then snubs his nose at it in a way that’s so funny, and so surprising, it won’t be revealed here. “The Ninth Gate” has none of the same depth and energy of Polanski’s best films, it has nothing new or interesting to say about the occult Polanski has courted for years, and it features an ending that’s the anti-Christ of all anti-climaxes, but it nevertheless moves in its own groove. There are moments here when Polanski reveals his greatness--the way a room is lit, a scene is cut, the stage is stacked--but those moments are fleeting, and they leave the viewer with only with a mildly satisfying whole. Rated R. Grade: C+

“Best Actor Collection”
A varied mix of five excellent performances in five Academy Award-winning films. Included are 1928’s “In Old Arizona,” with Warner Baxter as The Cisco Kid; 1956’s “The King and I,” in which Yul Brynner took a shine to Deborah Kerr, danced her off her feet--and won an Oscar for his trouble; and 1970’s “Patton,” which finds George C. Scott becoming the infamous general so seamlessly, he never shook his association with the role. Also in the set is 1973’s “Harry and Tonto,” with Art Carney winning the Oscar for portraying the retired teacher Harry Coombes, and quite a different movie is found in “Wall Street,” which teaches us other lessons about life. Through the vehicle of Michael Douglas' cold, Oscar-winning performance, we recall that greed might have had a good time of it in the late ‘80s, but just look where it’s gotten us now. Grade: A-

“Best Actress Collection”
Fox is hoping you'll really like it. The set, after all, features Sally Field in her Academy Award-winning turn in 1979’s “Norma Rae,” Joanne Woodward splitting into three different personalities in “The Three Faces of Eve,” and Hilary Swank altering her body and falling for a girl (Chloe Sevigny) in the moving “Boys Don’t Cry." In the musical biopic “Walk the Line,” which is based on the life of Johnny Cash, Reese Witherspoon takes on the difficult role of portraying June Carter Cash (and does her own singing), while in 1956's "Anastasia," Ingrid Bergman is paired opposite a devious Yul Brynner in an entertaining movie that's nevertheless riddled with inaccuracies. Grade: B+


“Best Picture Collection”
Out of all of these collections from Fox, this is the one to own. In it are some of our best movies, starting with 1941’s timely “How Green Was My Valley,” with Donald Crisp and Sara Allgood struggling to keep their family together in the face of great hardship; 1947’s “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which found Gregory Peck as a journalist posing as a Jew--and getting hit hard by prejudice in the process; and Bette Davis in William Wyler’s 1950 masterpiece “All About Eve,” which isn't just one of the finest films in Davis' storied career, but also one of our finest films, period. On a lighter note, Julie Andrews twirls and twitters and deals with those von Trapps in 1965’s “The Sound of Music,” while on the far end of the spectrum is 1971’s “The French Connection," a great action movie about a drug bust gone wrong that stars Gene Hackman and Roy Schreider, not to mention that unforgettable car chase through the streets of New York. Grade: A

"Cult Camp Classics Vol. 2: Women in Peril"
What the “Cult Camp” series continues to understand is that sometimes horror isn't a boogeyman wielding a knife or a monster munching on a co-ed's throat, but something never intended to be scary, such as a botched performance gone awry, the fiery end of a career or a movie so bad, you couldn't beat it down with a wire hanger. All can give you the willies. Take Joan Crawford, for instance. In 1970, Crawford, having hit rock bottom at age 66, decided to throw back her shoulders and take the lead as anthropologist Dr. Brockton in "Trog," a movie in which a troglodyte is discovered, feared, misunderstood and who then goes berserk. Crawford's great misfortune wasn't just playing nursemaid to a man in an ape suit, but selling this sort of dialogue: "You've got Durando on the brain!" Crawford has been paying for those words for 37 years. Other films in the collection include the 1950 crime thriller "Caged," in which a young woman (Eleanor Parker) is sent down to the big house and corrupted by a female prison tough. Finally, there's "The Big Cube," in which Lana Turner gets addicted to LCD and becomes a hot mess. Poor Lana, sure--but in this tawdry movie, lucky us. Grade: A-

“The Lucille Ball Film Collection”
Includes five films, none of which are Ball’s best--missing is “Stage Door” and “Without Love,” and especially “Room Service” with the Marx brothers. Still, we do get a mix of those movies that helped to make Ball a screen star--“Dance, Girl, Dance,” in which Ball leaves ballet for burlesque (and goes on to stardom as Bubbles), and “The Big Street,” which is about as far removed as one can get from the Lucy audiences know from “I Love Lucy.” Here, she’s a bitter ex-chanteuse in a wheelchair, with Henry Fonda starring opposite her. The collection also includes the slight "Du Barry Was a Lady," with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly, and the 1963 comedy "Critic's Choice," with Bob Hope. Perhaps most interesting is Ball as Auntie Mame in "Mame,” in which she sings (sort of), dances (she tries), and goes for the jugular with cutting asides (she succeeds). Ball has nothing on Rosalind Russell’s Mame, but with a bulldozing Bea Arthur joining her, the proceedings do become nicely unhinged. Grade: B-

Also on DVD and Blu-ray disc

Several new titles are available on DVD and Blu-ray disc this week, the best of which is the romance comedy “I Love You, Man” (DVD, Blu-ray), with Paul Rudd and Jason Segal featured as two budding friends who bring out the best and worst in each other among the film’s ongoing set of pratfalls. The movie is about male bonding--the necessity of it, the apparent dangers inherent in it--and the result is charming, smart and likeable. Echoes of “The Odd Couple” abound, with a shot of Judd Apatow’s earlier influence tossed in to spark the tomfoolery.

Less successful is the Blu-ray release of the risible romantic comedy “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey struggling through a cliché-heavy script and losing their audience in 10 minutes, as well as the thriller “Obsessed” (DVD, Blu-ray), a direct rip-off of “Fatal Attraction” that stars Idris Elba in the Michael Douglas role, Beyonce Knowles in the Anne Archer role, and Ali Larter in the Glenn Close role. Sex it up, throw in a catfight between Knowles and Larter that admittedly is fun to watch, and you have in spirit a near carbon copy of “Fatal Attraction,” but also a movie that lacks a shape and an edge of its own.

A modest improvement over that film is “Dragonball: Evolution” (DVD, Blu-ray), which is based on the popular comic books. Not surprisingly, the movie will appeal best to fans of those books, but for the casual viewer unfamiliar with them (like me), the plot is a maze of confusion, the action is chaos, the special effects are cheap, and the storyline and characters have all the substance of a video game. You know, like Pong.

Dragging the week further into the basement is the sci-fi movie “Mutant Chronicles” (DVD, Blu-ray), with Thomas Jane, John Malkovich and Ron Perlman slumming grandly through the gory stupidity. But saving the week are the Blu-ray releases of the timeless rock band spoof “This is Spinal Tap,” as well as Irwin Allen’s Academy Award-winning “The Towering Inferno,” which finds Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway and O.J. Simpson, of all people, scrambling amid a tornado of high-rise embers while managing all the larger-than-life melodramas exploding at its core.