This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

Normally I like to lead off this column with the most notable recent theatricals that are hitting DVD, but I think you'll forgive me if I break precedent and talk about a movie that barely got the proverbial cup of coffee late last year:

This Must be the Place looks horrible. A former rock star is hunting down a Nazi Criminal? And it's Sean Penn in Goth makeup? Unfortunately, according to Video ETA (whom I thank for the poster art), this is supposed to be a comedy, which makes this less bad-good and more bad-bad. Yet the cast includes Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch (who I suspect may be Penn's father in the film, and the idea of those two yelling at each other makes me smile, Bono's daughter (U2 Bono, not former QB Steve Bono), Harry Dean Stanton, and Liron Levo (OK, you got me; I don't know who that is, but the rest of the cast is so compelling, I just kind of figure).

Hitchcock: Now, this is a high-profile 2012 movie. I saw tons of ads for it, and I don't watch a lot of ads nor go to a lot of movies. As opposed to the recent HBO movie that portrayed a much darker side of the director in the production of "The Birds," this version turns the making of "Psycho" into what looks a romantic situation comedy. Well, at least it's not the lighter side of "Triumph of the Will" or "Birth of a Nation."

The Life of Pi: Ang Lee won an Academy Award for Best Director for crafting this visually stunning adaptation of a novel thought unfilmable. Fortunately virtually all of us now have giant-screen HD 3-D TVs so we can fully appreciate this achievement on a home video format. Wait, we don't? Aw, crap.

Rise of the Guardians: Animated adventure featuring versions of famous, mostly holiday-related icons banding together to SAVE THE WORLD! Alec Baldwin as the Santa equivalent is either inspired or a sick joke, but I think I do want to see this.

Sound City: Say what you will about Dave Grohl, and I hear nothing but raves for this documentary about a legendary recording studio and its console, but the dude is willing to get out there and promote. He was on "Ellen" last week, of all things. I think he's been on about a hundred different podcasts in the last few months. Dave, if you're reading this and would like to write a piece for the blog, let's get in touch. Or if you want to just hang out and watch "This Must Be the Place," that's cool, too.

The Devil's in the Details: If you count direct to video, I bet Ray Liotta has been in more movies than Michael Caine, Kevin Bacon, and Jude Law put together.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit 25th Anniversary Edition: This week's "OK, I feel old now," release.

Casablanca/African Queen Double Feature: OK, there are a ton of combo DVDs/Blu-Rays out this week pairing classic or at least notable movies, and they may well offer good value to people that don't already own the movies, but somehow I can't help but feel insulted that two all-time classics like this are lumped together.

The Mob Doctor: The Complete First Season: Awww, they called it the first season instead of "The Complete Series." Their optimism is so cute!

Ripper Street: Yet this one has no "season" designation of any kind. I guess working on a Victorian London show brings you down a bit.

In streaming news, it was another slow week for Instant Watch adds, but we did get season 1 of Call the Midwife, which is like Downton Abbey, only with...with...uh, sorry, I haven't actually seen "Call the Midwife." In fact, I haven't even seen "Downton Abbey." I'm just gonna end this now.