Evil Dead II, West Side Story among new home entertainment titles 

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The Blu-ray contains all manner of special features, although of particular interest is Road to Wadesboro, in which Charlotte filmmaker Tony Elwood, who worked on the movie ("special props"), takes us on a journey back to one of the original NC shooting locations. Other extras include audio commentary by Raimi, Campbell, co-writer Scott Spiegel and makeup effects artist Greg Nicotero; interviews with all the principal cast members; a piece on the film's original release and its eventual cult-classic status; featurettes on the makeup effects, stop-motion work, cinematography and production design; and still galleries.

Movie: ***

LARRY CROWNE (2011). Larry Crowne opens with Tom Hanks' title character taking so much grinning-idiot pleasure in his job at a retail box store (he's even cheerful when wiping a kid's vomit off the mechanical horse out front) that we momentarily suspect the actor has elected to revive Forrest Gump in an unauthorized sequel. But no, Larry Crowne is just that kind of guy — jovial, hardworking, uncomplaining — which makes it a shocker (at least to him) when he's downsized by a group of corporate caricatures (in a wretched scene played partly for nonexistent laughs) who state that his lack of education makes him expendable in modern-day America. After failing to land another job, Larry, only slightly less square than Napoleon Dynamite, decides to go back to school, only it was a helluva lot more fun when Rodney's Dangerfield's Thornton Melon chose this route 25 years ago. Larry's escapades at the local community college are, like practically everything else in this film, barely perfunctory as narrative and wholly lacking in any sort of dramatic conflict. Positioned as a picture about how it's possible to still succeed in a country that's been destroyed by rising unemployment rates and soaring gasoline prices, Larry Crowne, co-written by Hanks and My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos, actually has little basis in reality, with Hanks' "don't worry, be happy" protagonist sailing from one existential uptick after another. Julia Roberts appears as Larry's unhappy teacher, but like everyone else in Larry Crowne, her character is only on hand to lavish praise on a dull character who hardly deserves his own motion picture.

Blu-ray extras include deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.

Movie: *1/2

SARAH'S KEY (2011). Wartime complicity takes center stage in Sarah's Key, an involving drama about a woman who reawakens a nation's shame as she tries to piece together a mystery buried in the past. Based on Tatiana De Rosnay's novel, this stars Kristen Scott Thomas as Julia Jarmond, an American journalist who decides to research the Parisian apartment that's been in her husband's family since some time during World War II. She soon learns that the previous occupants were the Starzynskis, who like many other Jews were rounded up by French officials in collusion with Germany. As Julia tries to discover the fates of the Starzynski family members — particularly Sarah, who was a child at the time — flashbacks allow us to track the events that transpired during and after the war. It's almost a given that the flashback scenes involving Jewish persecution are more weighty — and thus more involving — than the contemporary sequences in which Julia primarily bickers with her husband (Frederic Pierrot) over her unexpected pregnancy. And I wish more time had been dedicated to the intriguing question of whether it's always best to keep history alive or whether it's desirable in some instances to allow it to lay dormant. Yet the movie offers a unique angle on a familiar tragedy, and the performances by Thomas and especially Melusine Mayance (as the young Sarah) are key to the picture's success.

The Blu-ray includes a making-of piece.

Movie: ***

SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (2011). A desperate attempt by writer-director Robert Rodriguez to resuscitate a franchise that was already running on fumes by its third entry back in 2003, this insufferable kid flick casts Jessica Alba as Marissa Wilson, a retired spy whose husband Wilbur (Joel McHale) and stepchildren Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook) don't know about her former profession (they think she's always been an interior decorator). But when her arch-nemesis, the dastardly Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven), reappears on the scene with a master plan to speed up time until it runs out and the world ends, Marissa is called back into action and subsequently forced to let her stepkids join her on the mission. During its theatrical run, this was presented in "Aroma-Scope," which means that patrons were handed scratch'n'sniff cards meant to be rubbed at designated times throughout the film. A couple of the spots were reserved for flatulence odors, which, of course, was right in line with the rest of the movie, which has an unhealthy obsession with all things stinky: A robotic dog (voiced by Ricky Gervais) deploys "butt bombs," Cecil hurls used barf bags at villainous henchmen, Marissa wallops other goons with dirty diapers, and so on. It's nice to see the original Spy Kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara), as young adults, although they wear out their welcome around the time that Carmen wipes snot on Juni's shirt.