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Crank 2: High Voltage

Lionsgate

$30

2-Disc: $35

Blu-ray: $40

Plot: After surviving a mile-high free-fall from a helicopter, hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is literally scrapped off the pavement by Chinese gangsters, who remove his heart and replace it with an artificial ticker that needs a steady stream of electricity to keep pumping.

Opinion: Complaining that the Crank films are over-the-top and stupid is like accusing reality shows of being exploitative and contrived.  Of course they are-that’s the whole point.  Both the original Crank and its even more insane sequel, Crank 2: High Voltage, are filled with gratuitous violence and nudity, as well as deliberately offensive stereotypes of just about every ethnic group out there.  If there was any hint that directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor intended for viewers to take this stuff seriously, they would instantly be locked up in jail for cinematic crimes against humanity.  But as the opening credits of both movies make clear, the Crank movies are first and foremost intended to be live-action video games, with the hero running through various levels before coming face-to-face with the final boss.  Chev even comes with his own built-in energy bar that has to be fed by regular power-ups throughout the “game.”  In the first movie, of course, he had to keep his adrenaline up in order to counteract a deadly toxin that was circulating through his bloodstream.  High Voltage has him jolting his body with electric shocks in order to keep his fake heart ticking.  Improbable?  Sure, but so are the plots of most video games or, for that matter, action movies.  If I’m being honest, the second Crank may be wilder than the first installment, but it’s a weaker movie overall, spending too much time on annoying secondary characters-like Bai Ling’s Asian hooker with an impenetrable accent-and indulging in flights of fancy (like a brief Godzilla parody) that seem like better ideas in theory than execution.  Nevertheless, both movies provide a major jolt to the system that definitely isn’t for the faint-hearted.

Bonus Features: A terrific two-part making-of documentary reveals the creative-some might say crazy-way the filmmakers made this movie.  (Think lots of little handheld cameras and one of the directors skating around on rollerblades filming the action.)  Neveldine and Taylor also contribute a commentary track and introduce a short reel of bloopers.

Verdict: Buy It

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Parks and Recreation: Season One

Universal

$30

Plot: The misadventures of public servant Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and her eccentric co-workers in the Parks & Recreation department of Pawnee, Illionis.

Opinion: Considering how strongly NBC hyped the new Amy Poehler show Parks and Recreation in the weeks leading up to its debut, people might have tuned in expecting to see the funniest show ever made.  It wasn’t, of course, but Parks proved that it had a lot of promise during its sex-episode first season.  Right now, the best thing about the series is Poehler, whose malapropisms and pratfalls provided the bulk of the series’ laughs.  The rest of the cast-with the exception of scene-stealers Aziz Ansari and Chris Pratt-are clearly still finding their groove, particularly Rashida Jones, who is primarily tasked with playing the straight woman.  Parks and Recreation was being watched particularly closely because it was the sophomore effort from the guys responsible for The Office, arguably the most popular comedy on the air right now.  What folks often forget though, is that the first season of The Office was wildly uneven too and the series didn’t really take off until its sophomore year when the cast got into a consistent rhythm.  Based on the first season at least, Parks and Recreation feels like it could follow a similar path.  So stick with it-the best is likely still to come.

Bonus Features: 20-minutes worth of deleted scenes, which do contain more than a few cutting-room gems, an extended version of the season finale and entertaining cast and crew commentary tracks on every episode

Verdict: Buy It

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Valentino: The Last Emperor

Phase 4 Films

$30

Blu-ray: $35

Plot: A portrait of the legendary Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani as he enters the twilight of his iconic career.

Opinion: Were it simply an E! Channel mash note to Valentino, Matt Tynauer’s fly-on-the-wall documentary would be insufferable to sit through.  Fortunately, the director-a longtime contributor to Vanity Fair magazine-centers his film around the relationship between the designer and his longtime lover and business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti.  Seeing the affection these two men have for each other gives the movie an emotional core that balances its fantastical parade of glam parties and star-studded (Gwyneth!  Madonna!  Elton!) fashion shows.

Bonus Features: A 30-minute documentary about Valentino’s lavish homes in Paris and Manhattan and two short featurettes covering his last show and the making of one of the dresses seen in the film.

Verdict: Rent It

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Also in Theaters:

With the fall season about to kick off, a number of television-themed box sets arrives on shelves this week, beginning with The Office: Season 5 (Universal, $60), which collects the entire fifth season of Parks and Recreation’s sister series along with the usual cornucopia of deleted scenes and mock-featurettes.  Fox’s sci-fi procedural Fringe got off to a shaky start, but morphed into must-see TV halfway through, building to a season finale that literally changed the world.  Catch up on what you missed-plus learn everything that you wanted to know about the making of the series-with Fringe: The Complete First Season (Warner, $60).  CBS’s 13-episode murder mystery Harper’s Island: The DVD Edition (CBS, $43) was an attempt to make a short-form BBC-style series on American television.  Too bad the scripts weren’t up to BBC level-quality or, for that matter, Friday the 13th-level quality.  After he first made a name for himself as a guest commentator on The Daily Show but before he headlined Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, comedian Demetri Martin starred in his own Comedy Central show, Important Things with Demetri Martin (Paramount, $20), a series consisting of his signature deadpan sketch comedy.  In non-TV releases, Darren Aronofksy’s freaky anti-drug drama Requiem for a Dream (Lionsgate, $30) gets a Blu-ray release and the low-budget horror flick Rise of the Gargoyles (RHI, $15) pits D-list actors like Eric Balfour and Tanya Clark against stone statues come to life.

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