New DVDs are released every Tuesday, which leads us to the eternal question: What should you buy? Our critic Charles Bottomley weighs in on every week’s must-haves and please-forgets.

Into the Wild
Sean Penn adapts Jon Krakauer’s best-selling true tale about a Harvard-bound kid who goes off the grid and vanishes in the Alaskan wasteland. Penn never makes his mind up whether Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is a genuine free spirit or a self-absorbed twit, but his American odyssey is a sincere tribute to purple mountains’ majesty and all that stuff. Great Eddie Vedder songs, too.
Extras: The two making-of featurettes include interviews with the major players and good stories about the on-location shoot, but are not quite substantial enough to merit the “two-disc” treatment.
Rating: Buy!

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
Natalie Portman and Jason Bateman have to save their magical toy shop after their wizard boss Dustin Hoffman decides to retire. This is a rare thing: a kids’ flick with a genuine sense of delight and, uh, wonder that that taps into everyone’s inner seven-year-old. Credit Stranger Than Fiction screenwriter-turned-director Zach Helm, who conjures up tickling whimsy, but leaves the stomach unruffled.
Extras: The featurettes are brief, but offer unique insight into what a zebra wrangler does and how to build a statue of Abraham Lincoln with Lincoln Logs.
Rating: Buy!

Things We Lost in the Fire
It’s a recipe for sheer ponderousness: Housewife Halle Berry lets junkie Benicio del Toro move in after her husband (and his best friend) is killed. Bring a pillow, right? Wrong. This is a searching, even exhilarating, movie whose wounded characters have a human roundness missing from more heavy-handed dramas. And del Toro’s elemental performance could stand right alongside Daniel Day-Lewis‘ Oscar-winning turn.
Extras: The cast and crew take part in a 20-minute discussion on the movie which enhances the themes and includes useful production tidbits. Ten minutes of inessential deleted scenes.
Rating: Buy!

101 Dalmatians (Platinum Edition)
Unbelievably, this is the first time the 1961 Disney animation has been on DVD. Pongo and Perdita are the Dalmatians playing matchmakers to their owners and keeping their litter from Cruella de Vil’s ermined hands. Although derided at the time for Disney’s use of a labor-saving Xerox machine, the crisp transfer is a visual treat; and — ghastly Glenn Close remake aside — its appeal has not dimmed.
Extras: Amusing pop-up factoids geared at family and fan; behind the scenes featurettes, including one on the songs cut from the soundtrack.
Rating: Buy!

– Charles Bottomley

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