THIS WEEK ON DVD: SEPTEMBER 25

DVD PICK OF THE WEEK

MY NAME IS EARL SEASON 2
In its second season, My Name Is Earl has only grown deeper, richer and funnier as reformed low-life Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) continues his dance with karma by righting every wrong he’s ever committed in his life so he can cross his misdeeds off his lengthy list.
The full-season story arc begins in the first episode, in which Joy (Jaime Pressly), ticked off because a department store won’t let her return an item without a receipt, tries to get even by stealing a truck. And it ends in the season’s finale, with Earl taking the fall for his now-pregnant ex-wife
so she won’t have to go to prison. In between, the show welcomed an impressive array of guest stars, including Christian Slater as a pothead environmentalist, Marlee Matlin as Joy’s deaf lawyer, and Norm McDonald (doing his best gum-snapping Burt Reynolds impression) as Little Chubby, son of Reynolds’ strip-club-owner Big Chubby, who returns to town for his father’s funeral the victim of testicular damage that has limited his testosterone production and made him a nicer person. And let’s not forget John Leguizamo as a trapped-in-the-’80s bandito in the special one-hour episode in which Earl and Randy (Ethan Suplee) travel to Mexico to rescue Catalina (Nadine Velazquez) from deportation. Special features include deleted scenes, commentary on select episodes, a season-two blooper reel and a hilarious “Earl as a Telenovela” promo clip. (Fox)

MOVIES

ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE
Elvira transformed from host of a local monster-chiller-horror film on local L.A. television to a bona fide celeb, and Shout Factory has collected some of these original episodes, featuring the Mistress of the Dark’s patented combo of cleavage and corny one-liners as she mocks some truly awful movies. The latest are three double features: Blue Sunshine paired with Monstroid, Gamera, Super Monster and They Came From Beyond Space, and Maneater of Hyrda with The House That Screamed. (Shout Factory)

EVENING
A stellar cast (including Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close) still can’t rescue this overwrought three-hankie weeper about two sisters (Richardson and Collette) who reunite at their mother’s (Redgrave) deathed and hear the story of one night, 50 years earlier (which we see in flashback with Danes playing the younger version of Redgrave’s character) that changed her life forever. (Alliance Atlantis)

ISOLATION
In this Irish horror flick, the inhabitants of a remote farm find themselves dragged by a standard-issue mad scientist into a horrific experiment that goes horribly wrong while tapping into our fear of mad cow disease and may give you pause about biting into your next cheeseburger. (Peace Arch)

NEXT
Nicolas Cage stars in this by-the-book thriller about a low-rent Vegas magician who has the unique ability to see two minutes into the future, a gift that finds him recruited by the FBI to prevent a nuclear attack by terrorists before it can occur. Plenty of car chases and explosions, Next is an entertaining enough popcorn flick, and the DVD contains the kind of bonus features you’d expect. (Paramount)

THE TV SET
If you’ve ever wondered why so much of what we see on TV is utter crap, this wry comedy is a point-by-point dissection of what can go wrong — and usually does — as a TV show makes its way from brilliant script to miscast pilot to unwatchable weekly series, thanks to the ridiculous interference of clueless network exec. David Duchovny stars as the writer, who’s vision and integrity is little-by-little chipped away as the hyperbolic network head of programming (wonderfully played by Sigourney Weaver) insists on making changes to his heartfelt emotional drama that turns it into an embarrassing mess — that nonetheless becomes a big hit. Perhaps a little too “Inside Baseball” for the average viewer, but a treat for anyone curious about how the sausage is made in the weird world of television. (Fox)

BABEL: PARAMOUNT VANTAGE 2-DISC COLLECTOR’S EDITION
This intensely powerful Oscar-winner receives the deluxe rerelease treatment (although tough luck if you bought the original bonus-free release), and the harsh tale of how the lives of several disparate people throughout the world (including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are unknowingly connected to a gun that changes all their lives forever is bolstered by a second disc of never-before-released bonus features. (Paramount)

TV on DVD

WHAT ABOUT BRIAN: THE COMPLETE SERIES
Created by Lost’s J.J. Abrams, this short-lived series (just two seasons) tries to be a latter-day thirtysomething for twentysomethings, following the lives of several friends as they deal with careers, coupling and relationships come together and fall apart, focusing on Brian (Barry Watson), the single guy at the centre of this group of pals. A serviceable soap that’s not without its charms, but fans should — and did — expect more from Abrams than this so-so exercise in post-adolescent naval-gaving. Then again, I know plenty of people who loved this show, and this deluxe box set does right by the fans, offering up an unaired episode, a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the show, and a “What About 3” featurette, in which the producers reveal what they had in store for the characters if the show had survived for a third season. (Buena Vista Home Entertainment)

DRAWN TOGETHER SEASON 2
You’d think the novelty of an animated spoof of reality shows, in which characters are themselves spoofs of different cartoon genres would wear real thin, real fast. Yet in the second season of this not-for-kids cartoon, the reality genre proves to be a big enough cesspool to inspire even more examples of bad behaviour by the gang (including a superhero, Disneyesque princess, a SpongeBob wannabe and Pokemon-like Japanese creature) to wring out another batch of crude, rude and funny comedy that will strike a chord with anyone who’s spent far too much time watching reality TV. (Paramount)

NUMB3RS: THE THIRD SEASON
On CSI, they solve crimes with science. On Criminal Minds, they use psychology. On Bones, it’s anthropology. Here, it’s math, and if the concept seems laughable, then you haven’t been watching this stylish procedural exec-produced by feature director Tony Scott. And OK, the math-solving-crime shtick doesn’t always work as well as it should, but the show makes the most of its solid cast, with Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure) as the FBI agent who enlists his eccentric math-genius brother (David Krumholtz) to help him on cases, while TV vet Judd Hirsch (Taxi) provides comic relief as the pair’s meddling father. In addition to all 24 episodes, bonus features include cast/producer commentary on selected episodes plus a few behind-the-scenes featurettes. (Paramount)

THE UNTOUCHABLES SEASON 1, VOLUME 2
Although it may seem dated and more than a little corny for an audience used to stuff like The Shield, The Untouchables had the dubious distinction as the grittiest, most-violent TV series of its time — which meant it was a monster-gorilla smash hit for Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, whose Desilu Studios produced it. This box set collects the second half of the first season, in which G-Man extraordinare Elliott Ness (Robert Stack) and his crew continue to try to wrest Prohibition-era Chicago from the control of mob boss Al Capone. (Paramount)

STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO SEASON 1, VOLUME 2
Another split season, this set features the second half of Streets’ first season, a classic 1970s cop show that launched the career of young Michael Douglas and brought Oscar-winner Karl Malden to the small screen as a mismatched pair of generation-gap-bridging cops who never met a crook they couldn't catch. (Paramount)

MUSIC

ELTON JOHN: SOMEONE LIKE ME
This feature-length documentary goes for an in-depth look at how a chubby, sexually confused teenager named Reg Dwight with a knack for writing catchy tunes re-invented himself as the gender-bending king of 1970s glitter rock, featuring interviews from those who knew him when and plenty of rarely seen archival footage. (Eagle Rock)

KIDS

TOM AND JERRY SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION VOL. 3
The never-ending struggle between cat and mouse continues in the third and final volume of this series, collecting the final 35 Hanna-Barbera theatrical shorts, all remastered in their original CinemaScope Widescreen formats. Bonus features include “Cat and Mouse: The Tale of Tom and Jerry,” which looks at the enduring animated team, and The Karate Guard, a 2005 theatrical short that marked Joe Barbera’s first time back as writer, director and storyboard artist since he and partner Bill Hanna’s work on the original shorts, and was also the last Tom and Jerry short he worked on before his death. (Warner Home Video)