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Treme

[Editor's Note: Tuesday Video Alert is a weekly column announcing "notable" titles fresh to DVD and/or Blu-ray, sometimes as reissues, and in every region under the sun.]

Essential:

Treme: The Complete First Season [HBO Home Video, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "What may surprise viewers, especially those who tune in expecting the easy exhilaration of a familiar crime narrative, is that Treme has the opportunity to dig even deeper than the critical darling The Wire." Aaron Riccio

Mad Men: Season Four [Lionsgate Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Mad Men behaves like nothing else on television, a distinction that, after the impressive ratings boost during the bleak, sinewy, and leisurely paced third season, is beginning to beam with triumph—insofar as a lyrically cynical, ethically convoluted portrait of early-'60s corporate marketing can be said to 'beam.'" Joseph Jon Lanthier

Dogtooth [Kino International, Blu-ray, Region A]: "Though Yorgos Lanthimos has said that Dogtooth originally was created as a sci-fi story of sorts about how far a family will go to preserve its usefulness as a social unit, I maintain that the film's main thrust is about the process of assimilating information about the world and subsequently forming one's own identity." Simon Abrams

Early Kurosawa [BFI Video, DVD, Region 2].

Limelight [Park Circus, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 2].

Topsy-Turvy [The Criterion Collection, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1].

I Vinti [Raro Video, DVD, Region 1].

Upstairs, Downstairs: The Complete Collection [Acorn Media, DVD, Region 1].

The Civil War: Commemorative Edition [PBS, DVD, Region 1].

Netflix It:

Inferno [Blue Undergrond, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Without a heart-pumping Goblin score, the relatively plot-senseless Inferno—even after multiple viewings—feels like the sub-par version of Suspiria." Ed Gonzalez

Black Swan [20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Black Swan is Showgirls stripped bare of its camp affections, Suspiria with a pretense to realism, Repulsion for our J-horror-addled times." EG

Tangled [Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Even if Tangled is not one of Disney's greatest achievements, it's at least a heartfelt rendering of a classic fairy tale, a deliberate rejection of the sarcastic, pop-culture-referencing smirkfests that constitute much of animation today. Take that, Shrek." Christian Blauvelt

Fair Game [Summit Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Fair Game is less manic, goofy, and memorable than an Oliver Stone spin on the Wilson-Plame affair would likely have turned out." Bill Weber

The Father of My Children [MPI Home Video, DVD, Region 1]: "Less an abrupt tonal shift than a logical continuation, the jolting narrative switch that occurs halfway through The Father of My Children nonetheless marks an essential split between a director confidently in charge of her material and a director in constant danger of losing direction." Andrew Schenker

All Good Things [Magnolia Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "In All Good Things, Andrew Jarecki's decade-spanning chronicle of a series of unsolved crimes, all we get is an unproductive ambiguity accompanied by a pounding, thought-neutralizing soundtrack." AS

Cool It [Lionsgate Home Entertainment, DVD, Region 1]: "Cool It spends excessive time on tantalizing future-tech (like Cloud-Brightening) that's unlikely to ever alter our climate change troubles, and its rat-a-tat-tat pacing lends the film a certain measure of glibness." Nick Schager

The Mikado [The Criterion Collection, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "As far as Blu-ray releases of adaptations of The Mikado go, the Criterion Collection's is sufficiently decayed." JJL

The Ten Commandments [Paramount Home Entertainment, Blu-ray, Region A]: "The Ten Commandments is a film that's ripped out of the Old Testament, but (final Mt. Sinai bacchanal sequence aside) feels like the grandest archetypal mid-American Sunday School pageant ever produced (which for all intents and purposes is to say it's a product of the post-Resurrection take on the events surrounding the creation of Moses's oppressive law)." Eric Henderson

Soylent Green [Warner Home Video, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Soylent Green champions film's transcendent power not only to replicate the real world, but also to enhance one's appreciation of life's boundless wonders." NS

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie [Paramount Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Unlike the more recent Rugrats and Wild Thornberrys movies, the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie doesn't feel overcrowded, and as such no character runs the risk of being shortchanged." EG

The Spiderwick Chronicles [Paramount Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "An evil ogre seeks an encyclopedia that contains the vast secrets of an enchanted realm in The Spiderwick Chronicles, a pursuit that would seem more consequential if Mark Waters's film didn't reveal said realm to contain little more than a few strange creatures governed by spells involving tomato sauce, salt, and honey." NS

Evangelion: 2.22 You Can [Not] Advance [FUNimation, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "I'm very happy to find that, with Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, the "Rebuild" films have gone from just being a mildly intriguing concept to a new full-tilt noodle-scratching entity unto themselves." Simon Abrams

The Rookie [Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "The Rookie: rated G for "we move as a family." EG

Miracle [Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Kurt Russell is the true miracle of Miracle." Keith Uhlich

Dementia 13 [HD Cinema Classics, Blu-ray, Region 1].

The King of Kings [Warner Home Video, Blu-ray, Region 1].

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection [MPI Home Video, Blu-ray, Region A].

Teen Wolf [MGM Home Entertainment, Blu-ray, Region 1].

A Day In The Life: Four Portraits Of Post-war Britain By John Krish [BFI Video, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 2].

The Terror [HD Cinema Classics, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1].

Future Coasters:

Made in Dagenham [Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "Made in Dagenham makes for a dispiritingly bloodless drama, which is likely why screenwriter William Ivory stuffs the movie with as many parallel narratives as he can think up." AS

Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 [Music Box Films, DVD/Blu-ray, Region 1]: "According to this lofty mandate, Mesrine: Public Enemy # 1 shouldn't be judged as a historically meretricious account." SA

Beneath the Dark [MPI Home Video, DVD, Region 1]: "Beneath the Dark eventually reveals itself to be—spoiler!—yet another purgatory fantasy." Chuck Bowen

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TAGS: all good things, beneath the dark, black swan, cool it, dementia 13, dogtooth, early kurosawa, fair game, i vinti, inferno, mad men, made in dagenham, mesrine: public enemy #1, miracle, tangled, the civil war, the father of my children, the king of kings, the mikado, the rookie, the ten commandments, the terror, topsy-turvy, treme, upstairs downstairs






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