As we draw closer to Christmas and New Year's, social niceties like "release dates" and "available where DVDs are sold" begin to go out the window. Hence this week's DVD Release List, which covers two weeks' worth of product, some of which was actually released on Friday the 19th and Sunday the 21st instead of the usual Tuesday release day because… well, because Santa (or Amazon) demanded it.
And speaking of Amazon, that's the only place you're going to be able to find the DVD for the acclaimed (and quite wonderful) super-villain musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. For now, Dr. Horrible is an Amazon exclusive, so if you want to own this past summer's internet sensation–and its new content, including "Commentary! The Musical"–you'll have to order it on-line, at which point Amazon will burn you a DVD-R, as though this thriving corporate entity were some college buddy with a bunch of bootlegs and imports on his hard drive.
If you're rabidly pro-exclusive, you might also consider American Teen, the acclaimed documentary about high school life that's being released only to Target. (Though not Target on-line for some reason–more on this oddity in a blog post coming later today.) Or if you want to catch up with some of the other box-office disappointments that emerged from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, both Hamlet 2 and Savage Grace are now for sale (and non-exclusive!). Then again, if failure's your thing, you can do a lot worse than a handful of underperforming indies. You could subject yourself to Mamma Mia!, or The Women, two surprise box office successes designed to crush souls as they empty wallets.
But why torture yourself when there's so much goodness out there right now? For example: HBO's seven-part, eight-hour miniseries Generation Kill, which may be the most detailed, ambitious war movie ever made. Or the Coen brothers' way-underrated Burn After Reading, a hilarious, brilliantly constructed look at how arrogance breeds idiocy. A lot of people missed the boat on Burn After Reading the first time around, but isn't Christmas a time for second chances?
American Teen (Paramount Vantage, $29.99)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume Six (Turner, $29.98)
Artists Under The Big Top: Perplexed (Facets, $29.95)
Beethoven's Big Break (Universal, $29.98)
Beserk: Complete Collection (Anime Works, $44.99)