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	Updated May 21, 2013
	Police Story/Police Story 2 Shout! Factory, 222 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $19.98 Jackie Chan elevated himself to international superstar status and inaugurated a new brand of Hong Kong genre cinema in 1985 with Police Story, an urban action movie that combined Chan’s talents for spectacular martial arts fighting, gymnastic choreography, lighthearted comedy, and gasp-inducing stunts (which he always performed himself). Playing Chan Ka-Kui, a Hong Kong police inspector who is part of a sting operation to knock down local kingpin Chu Tao (Yuen Chor), our hero finds himself in the middle of a furious shootout, drives a passenger car through a hillside shanty town, and fights a gang of thugs while hanging from an umbrella outside a careening double-decker bus—all in the first sequence. Chan directs as well as stars, filling every moment with either high-octane action or goofy slapstick (much of it cringingly chauvinistic). Chan also gave Maggie Cheung her big break as his long-suffering girlfriend, May, with Brigitte Lin costarring as sophisticated mob crony Selina Fong, who is put under police protection after she agrees to testify against Chu. The runaway hit spawned the 1988 sequel Police Story 2, with Chan directing and starring once more, and Cheung returning as the hapless May. This time out, the inspector is demoted to the traffic division, which just happens to puts him in position to take on an extortion ring of bombers and a drug lord with revenge on his mind. The narrative and comic sequences are downright silly, but the stunts, set pieces, and martial arts choreography are amazing. Featuring both the original Cantonese and English-dubbed soundtracks with optional English subtitles on both films, extras include outtakes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
	H2O: Just Add Water, The Complete Season 1 New Video, 4 discs, 650 min., not rated, DVD: $24.95 Aimed at young adults, this lightweight 2006 first season of the half-hour TV series is set on Australia's Gold Coast, where it is seemingly eternal summer (or at least high school never appears to be in session). After teenage friends Emma (Claire Holt), Rikki (Cariba Heine), and Cleo (Phoebe Tonkin) bathe in a mysterious enchanted grotto/pool at myth-shrouded Mako Island, the trio find that they are transformed into mermaids whenever they are exposed to water for any sustained time period (they also develop comic-bookish superpowers of manipulating, heating, and freezing water). Lightweight comedy-adventure-eco antics ensue as the amphibious heroines save various sea creatures, learn more about their magical abilities (which grow unpredictable during full moons) and, most of all, struggle to keep their fishy qualities secret. An overarching background storyline has snotty rich boy Zane (Burgess Abernethy)—who glimpsed one of the mermaids—trying to uncover the truth (and gradually going from bad guy to a sympathetic romantic interest). Compiling all 13 episodes from the first season that aired on TeenNick, extras include a TV movie condensation of the first season. [Note: H2O: Just Add Water, The Complete Season 2 and Season 3 are also newly available.] (C. Cassady)
	Public Enemies BFS, 2 discs, 180 min., not rated, DVD: $29.98 This three-part BBC-aired 2012 drama focuses on parole and punishment in contemporary England. Probation officer Paula Radnor (Anna Friel) finds herself at the center of a public storm after one of the parolees under her supervision commits murder. Suspended for three months, Paula returns to duty with the assignment of supervising Eddie Mottram (Daniel Mays), a 28-year-old man who spent a decade in jail for killing his girlfriend. Eddie’s readjustment to the free world is anything but smooth, while Paula is under the extra pressure of ensuring that she is not responsible for another hostile ex-con going on a homicidal rampage. For the first two episodes, Tony Marchant’s trenchant screenplay offers a sense of emotional depth that’s often lacking in crime dramas, although the third chapter feels somewhat rushed. Benefiting from the wonderfully combustible interaction between Friel and Mays, as well as the crisply intelligent direction of Dearbhla Walsh, this invigorating and provocative study of guilt and innocence is recommended. (P. Hall)
	Weeds: Season Eight Lionsgate, 379 min., not rated, DVD: 3 discs, $39.98; Blu-ray: 2 discs, $39.98 After eight seasons of social satire steeped in black comedy and family dysfunction, Showtime’s hit comedy starring Mary-Louise Parker as a dope-dealing single mom ends by coming full circle to where it all began: the “little boxes” of suburbia (complete with a return to the theme song from the debut run). The Botwin clan winds its way back from the East Coast to Agrestic, CA, which has been renamed Regrestic, appropriately enough. Along the way we learn who was targeted by the sniper at the end of the seventh season (as well as the identity of the shooter); how the Botwins try to go legit with their drug business, with Nancy (Parker) becoming a pharmaceutical rep and green-thumb son Silas (Hunter Parrish) going into medical marijuana research and development; and how younger brother Shane (Alexander Gould) balances his career on the police force with the family enterprise. But with a 6-year-old still to raise, Nancy remains TV’s most screwed-up maternal role model. Mixing whimsical crime antics with death threats and murder (all played with gallows humor), this set compiles all 13 episodes from 2012, with extras including cast and crew audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel. Recommended for those collecting the series, this is optional elsewhere. (S. Axmaker)
	Updated May 7, 2013 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Acorn, 3 discs, 366 min., not rated, DVD: $49.99 Muriel Spark’s 1961 novel about an eccentric and charismatic teacher at an Edinburgh girls’ school during the 1930s had already been adapted for both stage and screen by Jay Presson Allen when it became the springboard for this seven-part series broadcast on Scottish television in 1978. Although inspired by the book, this version’s numerous departures include substantially altering some characters while adding others and inventing plot threads along the way (it also ends mid-narrative, as if more episodes were anticipated but never made). Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing complement to Ronald Neame’s beloved 1969 film starring Maggie Smith. Geraldine McEwan is a less demonstrative Brodie than Smith, but her more pinched, restrained performance serves as a nice contrast. Throughout, the girls who play Brodie’s favorites—the “crème de la crème,” as she calls them—are spirited and credible, while the adult supporting cast (including John Castle as the art master) is fine across the board. Visually, the production doesn’t wear its years well; despite a few outdoor scenes, it is mostly shot on drab studio sets that are often cramped, and the images look rather washed-out and sometimes murky. But this release will nevertheless be of interest to fans of Spark’s book. DVD extras include a brief featurette about the author’s receipt of a monetary award (of which she donates a portion to her old alma mater). Recommended, overall. (F. Swietek)
	Angry Boys HBO, 3 discs, 360 min., TV-MA, DVD: $29.98, Blu-ray: $39.98 Australian comedian/writer/producer Chris Lilley plays half a dozen roles in this mockumentary-style comedy miniseries—a co-production between Australian TV and HBO in the U.S.—featuring stories that straddle the two countries. His Down Under characters include teenage twins Daniel and Nathan Sims; the Sims’ grandmother, aka Officer Ruth Sims of the Juvenile Justice Center for Boys; and former surfing champ Blake Oakfield. Stateside, Lilley dons modern blackface to portray rapper S.mouse, a middle-class kid playing at urban toughness; and he adopts an Asian accent as Jen Okazaki, the manipulative mother of skateboard phenomenon Tim (Jordan Dang), promoting her heterosexual son as a gay icon. While the Aussie characters are grounded in a sense of personal identity, conveyed through the fraternal insults and pranks of the Sims brothers, the more outsized parodies embodied in S.mouse and Jen Okazaki devolve into broad stereotypes. This series may be of interest to fans of Lilley’s previous Summer Heights High, but it won’t be missed by most others. Presenting all 12 episodes from 2011, extras include deleted scenes, bloopers, and mock music videos. Not recommended. (S. Axmaker)
	The House That Dripped Blood Hen’s Tooth, 102 min., PG, DVD: $19.95 The horror anthology was a specialty of Amicus Productions, a British studio that came across like a poor cousin to the more famous house of Hammer. Written by the legendary Robert Bloch, this 1971 film (the titular dwelling is the same cursed manor at the center of Amicus’s later, most famous, production, Tales from the Crypt) features several Hammer stars, including Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. In “Sweets to the Sweet,” Lee plays widower John Reid, father of a young daughter whom he fears will follow in her mother’s footsteps and learn black magic. In “Waxworks,” Cushing portrays a man obsessed with a Salome figure in a wax museum. Bracketing these are the opening story, “Method for Murder,” with Denholm Elliott as horror writer Charles Hillyer, whose latest villain comes to life; and the final tale, “The Cloak,” a whimsical piece about hammy actor Paul Henderson (Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor Who), whose cape turns him into a real vampire. The lurid violence and sex that were staples of Hammer movies are absent here, but neither are these stories particularly gripping or scary. Director Peter Duffell manages to evoke a gloomy atmosphere on a small budget, but he’s not particularly adept at creating tension. Still, The House That Dripped Blood remains interesting for the cast and the involvement of Bloch, who adapted his own stories for the screen. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)
	Julius Caesar Olive, 117 min., G, DVD: $24.95, Blu-ray: $29.95 British director Stuart Burge was no stranger to loyal adaptations of Shakespeare, having previously directed a 1959 BBC-TV version of Julius Caesar and the 1965 big-screen Othello with Laurence Olivier in blackface in the title role. But that earlier expertise is only fitfully on display in this 1970 misfire, in which John Gielgud’s Caesar goes from triumphant emperor to victim of a multiple-stabbing, murdered (quite bloodily in this case) at the peak of his imperial power by jealous rivals in the Roman senate. Cassius (Richard Johnson) and a reluctant Brutus (Jason Robards) are among the conspirators, obliquely accused by Mark Antony (Charlton Heston) in his famous rhetorical oratory that leads to a declaration of war. Unfortunately, this is all played out with such lugubrious solemnity that this version almost qualifies as a cure for insomnia. To be fair, some of the performances are strong enough to hold interest, especially among the stellar supporting cast, which includes Robert Vaughn (Casca), Diana Rigg (Portia), Christopher Lee (Artemidorus) and a brief appearance by Richard Chamberlain as Octavius. The biggest drawback here is Robards’ dreary, droning performance, which stands in stark contrast to Heston’s typical bombast. On the plus side, this is the first home-video release that properly presents the film in its original 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio. So now the cheap-looking sets, badly mixed soundtrack, and soporific speechifying can be fully (ahem) appreciated—especially on the Blu-ray release. Most, however, would be better off with Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s livelier 1953 version starring Marlon Brando as Antony. Optional. (J. Shannon) New Video Movie Reviews • New Other Video Reviews To search the full video review database, click here. (You must be a Video Librarian Plus! subscriber. More info....)

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