Ah, a better week again for DVD releases.

Picks of the Week

Iron Man
After a few years of subpar superhero movies (Fantastic Four and sequel, X-Men 3, SpiderMan 3, etc.), the summer of 2008 got two superb ones: Iron Man and The Dark Knight. While Batman may be darker and have the better villain and be the one more likely to be remembered in fifty years, I have to give Iron Man the nod for pure enjoyment. It blends a well-plotted story, solid action, strong characterization, biting wit, a not overly anvilly message, and a wonderful performance by Robert Downey Jr. into a concoction that’s sure to please virtually anyone. This is blockbuster moviemaking done right. (Also available: 2-disc Special Edition; Blu-ray)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
My dislike for Judd Apatow films is not a secret. Yet I keep being convinced to watch them by one thing or another. This time it’s Kristen Bell, as well as Jason Segal in a lead role for a change. (I like Segal from How I Met Your Mother, not his appearances in other Apatow films – although he is in Apatow’s short-lived TV series Freaks and Geeks, which is the only Apatow project I like.) So I’ll probably watch it. And I’ll probably dislike it. We’ll see. (Also available: 3-disc Special Edition; Blu-ray)

Taxi to the Dark Side
This documentary about an Afghani captured by American soldiers won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary last year; I haven’t seen it yet, but it got terrific reviews. It also has one of my favorite posters of the year, but that’s by the by.

Also Releasing

Bigger, Stronger, Faster* A documentary on the big bad world of steroid use. Not particularly interesting to me, since I don’t care about sports, but it’s a pretty high-profile doc if you’re into that sort of thing.	Lou Reed Berlin The only reason I’m interested in this concert film (of The Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed) is that Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Basquiat) directed it. Other than that, concert films, not really my bag.	CSNY: Deja Vu Crosby Stills Nash and Young, that would be. I’m not a particular fan of their music or their apparent political positions, but if you are…

TV on DVD

Numb3rs Season 4 This one of my comfort shows, somehow. It’s not one that I’m really invested in, but when I sit down after a long day of working/studying/whatever and I choose which show off my DVR to watch, I’ll often go, oooh, Numb3rs, I’ll watch that. I like theoretical math (though I don’t like doing math, you see the difference), which I think makes the show stand out from the dozens of other procedurals.

My Name is Earl Season 3 I’ve actually never watched My Name is Earl. It never looked like my kind of humor, but then a lot of people with the same sense of humor as me started raving about it. But I still never watched it. Sometime I may snag me some DVDs and see what all I missed.

Also releasing: My Three Sons Season 1, Vol. 1; Adam-12 Season 2; Laredo Season 2, Vol. 1