DVDs In Brief: August 12, 2009

The strength of male bonds has been a running theme in the Apatow Age, but I Love You, Man (Paramount) goes that next step by attaching the unctuous term “bromance” and sending its sensitive hero on “man-dates” to find himself a best man for his wedding. But the immensely likeable Paul Rudd and Jason Segal make a winning team, and their genuine chemistry together goes a long way toward bucking the film’s gimmicky conceit…

The deserving winner of the Palme D’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Sony) uses a sophisticated mix of documentary and improvisation techniques to bring a modern-day, racially mixed French classroom to vivid life. Co-writer and star François Bégaudeau draws on his personal experiences as a teacher to expose the painful limitations and obstacles facing instructors and their volatile students…

Making the transition from the squeaky-clean teen idol of High School Musical to a viable young movie star won’t be easy for Zac Efron, but the genial body-switching comedy 17 Again (Warner Bros.) at least makes it seem plausible. As a high-schooler who grows up to be a failed business and family man, then gets a chance to try a second time, Efron proves himself a serious talent, equally agile in dance and slapstick, while bringing a theatrical zip to every scene… 

A parody of the science-fiction films of yore, Alien Trespass (Image) gets a lot of the details right without wringing any laughs out of them. Eric McCormack stars as a straitlaced type possessed by an alien, but once the film establishes all the high-’50s touches and brings out the dated, cheesy effects, it doesn't have anywhere else to go.