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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: John Malkovich spellbinds an audience, Tony Shalhoub proves he knows everything about OCD and Dakota Fanning gets animated.

Pick of the Week

For people who watch the Watchmen (Director's Cut)

Watchmen had a fantastic looking trailer – complemented beautifully with Smashing Pumpkins' "The Beginning of the End of the Beginning" – and an equally impressive opening weekend tally of $55 million and change. Then its numbers dipped 67% and that's all she wrote. The $125+ million epic ended with just $107 million in domestic dollars, and in many ways will be remembered as a box office disappointment.

Especially for its studio, Warner Bros., which had to fend off a pesky lawsuit from Fox, and eventually settle for a sizeable chunk of change, before it saw some greenery.

Zack Snyder's follow-up to 300 is based on the influential, believed-to-be-"unfilmable" comic book series that novices (much like myself) will recall as the one with the disturbing smiley face on its cover. It debuted in 1986 and ran for a year.

Disc includes: The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics featurette, Watchmen: Video Journals, My Chemical Romance Desolation Row featurette, digital copy of the film

For people who wonder what the hell Tony Shalhoub is going to do when Monk ends for good at the end of season eight: Monk: Season 7

Monk has been such an institution in television (and its corresponding award shows) that it's gonna be awfully weird a few years from now when self-serving specials like the Primetime Emmys roll around without a tip of the hat to Tony Shalhoub, et al. I mean, Jesus, Tony's been nominated for his work as the awkward, yet loveable Adrian Monk every year he's been Emmy eligible. He's also scored five nominations each at the Golden Globes (winning once) and the SAG Awards. At this point, the man could be blinded, have his ears torn out and be paralyzed from the waist down and still find a way to appear like he's suffering from a dangerous form of OCD.

It's, well, impressive.

The series' 16-episode seventh season, which concluded in mid-February, had the detective going up against magicians, chess geniuses and serial killers. The season also marks the time in which the series' episode count crossed the century mark. A bevy of guest stars turned out for the occasion, including John Turturro, Eric McCormack, Sarah Silverman, Andy Richter and Angela Kinsey.

Monk's eighth – and final! – season kicks off August 7th.

Disc includes: None

For people who can never have enough John Malkovich in their lives: The Great Buck Howard

Apparently audiences weren't as crazy about watching John Malkovich play a wacked out, nut job mentalist as much as I was back when this one debuted in theaters in March. Earning just three-quarters of a million dollars for Magnolia Pictures, the dramedy never bowed in more than 76 theaters in a single weekend anyway – so maybe this one'll fare better in the home video market.





The film stars Malkovich as a character inspired by the 1970s mentalist the Amazing Kreskin, whose extraordinary abilities to hypnotize an entire room of breathing bodies earned him in excess of 60 appearances on The Tonight Show (when Johnny Carson was in charge, of course). When Buck Howard's popularity starts to fade, he hires a personal assistant (Colin Hanks) and a publicist (Emily Blunt) who help bring the man back into the limelight. In an act of sheer genius, Tom Hanks plays the father of Colin's character.

Disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes, extended scenes, outtakes, Behind the Scenes featurette, HDNet: A Look at The Great Buck Howard featurette, The Amazing Kreskin featurette

For people who are scared of little, black buttons being sewn over their eyes: Coraline (Collector's Edition)

Based on a 2002 fantasy/horror novella of the same name, Coraline is an animated 3-D stop motion feature from the mind of director Henry Selick, who previously helmed The Night Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. Coraline is of a similar style, but with snazzier animation, given that Coraline was developed more than a decade after the release of those other ‘90s features.

Disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes, The Making of Coraline featurette, Voicing the Characters featurette, Creepy Coraline featurette, D-Box featurette

July 21, 2009

Blu-ray
300: Complete Experience
Coraline (Collector's Edition)
Echelon Conspiracy
The Great Buck Howard
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Midnight Express
Nova: The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies
Prison Break: The Final Break
Pushing Daisies: The Complete Second Season
Quincy Jones
Watchmen

DVD
300 (Complete Experience)
America's Test Kitchen: 1st Season
America's Test Kitchen: 2nd Season
America's Test Kitchen: 3rd Season
America's Test Kitchen: 4th Season
America's Test Kitchen: 5th Season
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer (Deluxe Edition)
Charlie's Angels: The Complete Fourth Season
Echelon Conspiracy
Global Metal (Special Edition)
Hotel: The First Season
Jon & Kate Plus Eight: Season 4, Volume 2
The Lucy Show: The Official First Season
Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (Widescreen)
Michael Jackson: Trial & Triumph of the King of Pop
Prison Break: The Final Break
Psych: The Complete Third Season
Pushing Daisies: The Complete Second Season
Raphael Saadiq: Live From The Artists Den
Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode II
Route 66: Season 3, Volume 1
Stargate SG-1: Children Of The Gods (Final Cut)
This American Life: Season Two
Two Or Three Things I Know About Her (Criterion Collection)
UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn 2