This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

Monsters Inc.: Pixar seems to have lost a little bit of its soul when it started cranking out all these sequels (Toy Story doesn't count because all those are awesome), but my son loves the characters, he'll probably love this movie, and if you're against it, you're against my son. Do you really want to be against my son? No, I didn't think so.

R.I.P.D.: It hasn't been Ryan Reynolds' year, and this bomb is another reminder of that. Hey, though, maybe this one will be rediscovered and beloved on DVD and cable, just like that other box office disappointment in which he played...uh, the superhero guy. You know, the one with the color in his name. Yeah, this one could be just as beloved as that one!

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist: Dammit, NO. And I don't care if YOUR kid likes the characters and the other movies.

Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen and I: I sure hope this is a split-screen of the Boss "interviewing himself" for 90 minutes.

American Experience: War of the Worlds: PBS digs up this long forgotten classic episode--it aired yesterday--and finally gives it the home video release it so richly deserves.

Warner Archives brings us season 4 of the late 80s/early 90s syndicated Adventures of Superboy (how is it I have no memory of ever seeing that show?), Jeff Bridges in Fearless on Blu-Ray, and most interestingly (to me), 3 old Lee Tracy pictures: Half Naked Truth (with Lupe Velez!), The Nuisance (with Frank Morgan!), and Turn Back the Clock (with Clara Blandick!). "Truth" used to be on TCM regularly, but I don't recall the other two. Oh, and I meant to say Clock features in a small role The Three Stooges. Apologies to Clara Blandick fans out there, but they might be just a bit of a bigger draw.

And in Streaming...

Some interesting recent releases showed up on Netflix this week. It seems like mere weeks since I highlighted The Sapphires (Chris O'Dowd), Phantoms (Ed Harris/David Duchovny), and Redemption (Jason Statham). In fact, it is! All of these sound worth at least a try on Instant Watching. Also, the run of prominent documentary adds continues with We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks.

Here's your latest Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse on Hulu update: The number of available episodes has grown from a laughable 1 to a still-odd 2 to a respectable 13.

Warner Archive Instant added a new showcase category: Screen Sleuths. This area features two George Sanders Falcon movies, a Sanders Saint flick, James Garner in Marlowe, and the 4 Charlie Chan films (all with Sidney Toler or Roland Winters as Chan and, maybe more importantly, all with Mantan Moreland) that were featured in 2010's TCM Spotlight DVD set. I know the Chans are new to Instant--and a welcome addition they are, to be sure--and I believe the other 3 are as well.