Notable new releases
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Alliance) If form = content, then No Country For Old Men is every inch the masterpiece its supporters (and there are a lot of them, from high-end critics to movie-poster blurb-meisters to those cutting-edge folks at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) claim. Scene for screw-tightening scene, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Cormac McCarthy adaptation — a sort of nesting-doll-chase-narrative in which Javier Bardem’s coin-flipping bounty hunter is both the pursuer and the pursued — is totally compelling. But the theme (“can’t stop what’s comin’”) is so (blood) simple as to be deadening. For all of its ruthless pacing and neatly timed shocks, this is an easy movie to get ahead of — and thus a hard sell as genuine canon fodder. EXTRAS: “Working with the Coens,” and “Diary of a Country Sheriff” featurettes, making-of.

SLEUTH (Sony) Rethinking Anthony Shaffer’s abundantly plum two-hander in a minimalist vein (with narrative reupholstering/thematic dead-horse flogging by Harold Pinter) was a bad idea; thinking that Jude Law could substitute for Michael Caine (or the great Alec Cawthorne, hint hint) was insane. Pretty much a total embarrassment for all involved, although Caine — stepping into the role originally played by Laurence Olivier — gets off a few good line readings (even if what he’s saying is drivel). EXTRAS: audio commentary by director Kenneth Branagh and Caine, audio commentary by Jude Law, “A Game of Cat and Mouse: Behind the Scenes of Sleuth,” “Inspector Doppler: Make-Up Secrets Revealed.”

Also out this week
AUGUST RUSH (Warner) Music is the universal language of the heart and it is all around us always, so just reach for your dreams, etc. With Robin Williams as an unholy hybrid of Bono and Fagin. EXTRAS: additional scenes.

BEE MOVIE (TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION) (Dreamworks) When Jerry Seinfeld’s buzzy alter ego showed up to present an award at the Oscars, it reminded us of two things — of the existence of Bee Movie, and of the fact that it sucked. (But that first trailer is still funny.) EXTRAS: featurettes, commentary, deleted scenes.

DAN IN REAL LIFE (Disney) Steve Carrell and Dane Cook are like matter and anti-matter. Is there enough room in one movie for the both of them? EXTRAS: audio commentary, deleted scenes, making of, outtakes, score featurette.

Out March 18
Battlestar Galactica: Season Three, Enchanted, I Am Legend, Revolver and, at long last, a chance to see one of the decade’s most critically divisive films: Richard (Donnie Darko) Kelly’s apocalyptic farce Southland Tales, starring The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Justin Timberlake. 

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