Selected home-video releases:
“Shrek 2” – Any cartoon that can squeeze in songs from such dark souls as Tom Waits and Nick Cave is all right by us. In case you’ve been living in a swamp the past year, 2004’s top-grossing hit reunites the vocal talents of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz as newlywed ogres and Eddie Murphy as their donkey pal in a not-so-happily-ever-after animated follow-up.
DVD featurettes have some lighthearted cast interviews (“They decided to do it animated again, which I thought was smart,” wisecracks Myers about the sequel), along with the directors and their technical crew discussing such matters as “global illumination” and “subsurface scattering,” techniques used to bring more lifelike qualities to the computer-generated characters.
The behind-the-scenes materials include a portrait of Antonio Banderas’ new character, Puss-in-Boots, and a glimpse of voice co-stars Julie Andrews and John Cleese at work in the recording booth. DVD, $29.99. (DreamWorks)
TV on DVD:
“The West Wing: The Complete Third Season” – Martin Sheen campaigns for re-election and battles terrorism in year three. Highlights include the fallout over the president’s concealment of his illness and an episode created after the Sept. 11 attacks and broadcast only weeks later, with the administration in crisis mode over a terrorist threat. The four-disc set has 22 episodes, with commentary on three, and a documentary featuring interviews with ex-presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. DVD set, $59.98. (Warner Bros.)
“Star Trek: The Original Series – The Complete Second Season” – The 26 episodes of year two set Kirk and Spock against the Greek god Apollo, a planet-killing machine and each other in a fight to the death brought on by less-than-logical Vulcan mating rituals. DVD set, $129.99. (Paramount)
“The Simple Life 2: Road Trip” – Minus money, credit cards and cell phones, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie hit the highway on a cross-country tour in year two of their rich-girls-out-of-Beverly-Hills series. DVD, $19.98. (20th Century Fox)
Other new releases:
“Philadelphia” – Tom Hanks won the first of his back-to-back best-actor Academy Awards for his daring turn as a lawyer dying of AIDS who sues his former firm claiming he was fired because of the disease’s stigma. The two-disc DVD update of the 1993 drama includes six deleted scenes, commentary by director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, a retrospective documentary looking back on the production, and a faux TV commercial for Denzel Washington’s ambulance-chasing attorney, who takes on Hanks’ case. The set also includes Bruce Springsteen’s music video for his Oscar-winning theme song, “Streets of Philadelphia.” DVD, $24.96. (Columbia TriStar)
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Dazed and Confused” – A party pack for stoners. Amy Heckerling’s 1982 flick “Fast Times,” based on Cameron Crowe’s book about his undercover observations of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll at a San Diego high school, helped put Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh on the map. “Dazed and Confused,” the 1993 cult hit from writer-director Richard Linklater (“School of Rock”), features Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich and Parker Posey among its cast of 1970s teens on the last day of school. The movies are available separately or in a two-pack and come in wide-screen or full-screen. DVD set, $27.98; single DVDs, $19.98. (Universal)
“Around the World in 80 Days” – A big, noisy flop with Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan taking on Jules Verne’s global trek. The movie does offer Arnold Schwarzenegger’s farewell to Hollywood with a mildly amusing cameo as a Turkish royal.DVD, $29.99. (Disney)
“Festival Express” – Rock fans, rejoice. After 34 years in deep storage, this chronicle of a 1970 concert tour by Janis Joplin, The Band and the Grateful Dead has finally arrived. Theset features a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the documentary and extra concert footage from the bands’ Canadian road trip. $24.98. (New Line)
“A Home at the End of the World” – Colin Farrell, Robin Wright Penn and Dallas Roberts lead the cast in a fitfully engaging but generally unsatisfying portrait of misfits struggling to build and maintain an unconventional family unit. The DVD includes a making-of featurette. DVD, $27.95. (Warner Bros.)
Shrek hugs Puss-in-Boots in “Shrek 2,” out today on DVD and video.
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