Latest DVDs, CDs, books: Feb. 7
A look at some of the DVDs, CDs and books hitting stores this week.
DVDS
“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1” (PG-13): It’s the beginning of the end for the girl-vamp-wolf love triangle series as Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart) marry, honeymoon and get pregnant.
“A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” (R) reunites the title stoners (John Cho, Kal Penn), six years after their Guantanamo Bay misadventure, to wreak holiday havoc . The historical pageant “Anonymous” (PG-13), meanwhile, contends that Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans ) secretly wrote William Shakespeare’s plays, in part to reflect — and influence — events at the tumultuous court of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I. And the documentary “Project Nim” (PG-13) focuses on a chimpanzee who was raised as a child — until his animal instincts became too overpowering.
Turning to movies that never made it to local theaters, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson and Julia Roberts headline the family-in-crisis drama “Fireflies in the Garden” (R). And in the romantic comedy “The Rebound” (R), a single mother (Catherine Zeta-Jones) captivates her younger neighbor (“The Hangover’s” Justin Bartha).
Topping today’s TV transfers (all unrated): Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones in “The Sunset Limited,” plus the unedited British version of “Downton Abbey” and Las Vegas’ own Jerry Lewis in a version of “The Jazz Singer” unseen since its original 1959 telecast.
CDS
Van Halen, “A Different Kind of Truth”: It’s a new Van Halen album! Or is it really?
One of hard rock’s most seminal acts is getting some flak for its first record with original singer David Lee Roth in 28 years.
Why? Because some of the songs have been proven to be reworked tracks that the band originally penned in the ’70s but were never fully finished and released.
Ah, well, these dudes’ leftovers are still better than anything Buckcherry or Hinder has ever done.
Also in stores: AIR, “Le Voyage Dans La Lune”; Dierks Bentley, “Home”; Roberta Flack, “Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flack Sings The Beatles”; The Fray, “Scars & Stories”; Ben Kweller, “Go Fly a Kite”; Mark Lanegan Band, “Blues Funeral”; Paul McCartney, “Kisses on the Bottom”; of Montreal, “Paralytic Stalks”; Psycroptic, “The Inherited Repression”; Shaggy, “Summer in Kingston”; and Silverstein, “Short Songs.”
BOOKS
“Kill Shot” by Vince Flynn: Mitch Rapp returns in the 12th series installment, which finds the counterterrorism agent on his own after he becomes a liability to the CIA amid an international crisis.
In another series installment, Lisa Gardner continues the story of Detective D.D. Warren with “Catch Me,” in which the Boston investigator is approached by a woman who believes she will be murdered in four days.
Also hitting shelves: “Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales” by Ali Wentworth; “Born Wicked” by Jessica Spotswood; “City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles” by Robin Hobb; “Hiding from Reality: My Story of Love, Loss, and Finding the Courage Within” by Taylor Armstrong; “Hilarity Ensues” by Tucker Max; “The Last Storyteller” by Frank Delaney; “Left for Dead” by J.A. Jance; “No Mark Upon Her” by Deborah Crombie; “Ragnarok: The End of the Gods” by A.S. Byatt; “Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life” by David Treuer; and “Two Truths and a Lie” by Sara Shepard.
