Susan Granger’s DVD UPDATE FOR WEEK OF June 29:
Reviving and re-inventing the 1987 action-comedy franchise, “21 Jump Street” introduces Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as recent Police Academy grads assigned to go undercover in high school.
“Mirror, Mirror” is Tarsem Singh’s campy, revisionist take on the Snow White tale, featuring flamboyant Julia Roberts as the subversively Evil Queen and Lily Collins as the fabled heroine.
The demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington) faces his heroic destiny in the action-packed “Wrath of the Titans,” emerging as tediously bland and banal, lacking the excitement and suspense one would expect when the dangerous Titans rise up and threaten to overthrow the gods of Olympus.
Righteous Kathleen Turner vies for her parish’s Catholic Woman of the Year in the quirky, crackling dramedy “The Perfect Family,” as faith triumphs over religion.
Strange characters hide from 1930s gangsters and get lost in their own mania in Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin’s surreal “Keyhole” with Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini and Udo Kier.
In Eddie Murphy’s lame comedy “A Thousand Words,” he plays a self-absorbed literary agent who is spiritually cursed because of his shallow foibles.
For history buffs, “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded: Season Two” explores the hidden codes and symbols that surround us – from the Declaration of Independence to Mt. Rushmore to Fort Knox.
If you enjoy “Game of Thrones,” consider “Arn: The Complete Series,” an epic tale of war and intrigue, friendship and betrayal set in Sweden and the Middle East, filled with brave knights, powerful queens and treacherous kings.
An Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, “Bullhead” stars Matthias Schoenaerts as a bulked-up Belgian cattleman who gets involved with the underworld of chemically enhanced farming, combining meat with machismo. The lighthearted French comedy “Queen of Hearts” marks the directorial debut of actress Valerie Donzelli, who about a thirtysomething woman who is recovering from a painful romantic breakup.
PICK OF THE WEEK: This year’s Oscar-winning “The Artist” is Michel Hazanavicius’ imaginative, inventive fantasy about the advent of talking pictures (1927-1931), starring Jean Dujardin as a flamboyant silent-pictures matinee idol who falls in love with a fun-loving flapper (Berenice Bejo).