Also on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

“Monster” Blu-ray
Charlize Theron found herself the role of a lifetime--and an Academy Award for Best Actress--by portraying Aileen Wuornos, the real-life serial killer and Florida prostitute who killed seven men before being captured, convicted and sent to death row in 1992, where she was electrocuted 10 years later. At first a romance, the movie dissolves into a horror show as director Patty Jenkins chronicles Wuornos' dysfunctional relationship with her lover, Selby Wall (Christina Ricci). The film isn't an apologia for Wuornos' crimes, but Jenkins does attempt to understand them with a measure of empathy, particularly since they stem from an act of self-defense, when Wuornos was raped by one of her tricks. The movie is an uneasy roadmap of her violent undoing, a portrait of a woman with no moral center who chose murder as a way to steal money and thus, in her mind, to stay in love. Theron's performance is so powerful, calibrated and raw, it's difficult to shake the pain, vulnerability and ultimately the rage she expresses onscreen. She's fantastic here, never better, and her performance--wild, loose and unexpected, with the screen barely able to contain her--is something to behold. Rated R. Grade: A

“Snakes on a Plane” Blu-ray
A B-movie blast, with Samuel L. Jackson in the lead and the film itself coming through with what its title suggests--hundreds of venomous snakes on a plane. Their method of attack is grotesquely imaginative--men shouldn't stand too long at a urinal, for instance, and couples should resist joining the mile-high club. Jackson is perfectly cast. Equally good is Julianna Margulies as a take-charge flight attendant who could give Karen Black a run for her money when it comes to how to run a plane thrown into turmoil. Together with these snakes, the comic-book bloodshed, and the laughs amid the dire circumstances, "Snakes on a Plane" makes the ongoing, depressing state of air travel look downright civilized in comparison. Rated R. Grade: A-