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New DVDs: ‘Music and Lyrics,’ ‘Painted Veil’

Also new: ‘Because I Said So,’ ‘Catch and Release,’ ‘Breaking and Entering’
/ Source: The Associated Press

“Music and Lyrics”It’s been a while since Hollywood churned out an old-fashioned romance about a washed-up pop singer and a professional plant tender who make music together. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore star in this comedy about unlikely lovers and artistic collaborators. Grant’s a has-been from the big-hair days of the 1980s music scene who gets a second chance when a young pop diva asks him to write her a love song. Barrymore’s his dizzy plant lady, who’s not so handy at caring for vegetation but turns out to have a way with lyrics. The DVD has deleted scenes and a gag reel, plus a behind-the-scenes featurette and the full music video of Grant’s make-believe ’80s hit, an amusing send-up of the era’s bad fashion and cheesy production values. DVD, $28.98. (Warner Bros.) Read the review

“Because I Said So”

Daphne Wilder (DIANE KEATON) gives unsolicited love advice to her daughter, Milly (MANDY MOORE)
Daphne Wilder (DIANE KEATON) gives unsolicited love advice to her daughter, Milly (MANDY MOORE)

In the real world, when your daughter looks like Mandy Moore, mom should never have to play matchmaker. In Hollywood, when your daughter looks like Mandy Moore, of course mom has to step in and find the poor thing a man to keep her from being an old maid. Diane Keaton stars as a well-meaning but overbearing mother with two newly married daughters (Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo) and a third (Moore) who just seems destined to become a runner-up in love. So mom meddles, secretly orchestrating her daughter’s love life, with two utterly opposite suitors emerging. The DVD comes with a making-of featurette and a segment on the movie’s set and costume design. DVD, 29.98. (Universal) Read the review

“The Painted Veil”

Naomi Watts and Edward Norton star in this gloomy but gorgeous period drama based on W. Somerset Maugham’s classic novel. Watts plays a spirited society woman in 1920s London who’s on the cusp of spinsterhood but longs to break away from family expectations and stifling British convention. So she marries an earnest doctor (Norton), joining him at his work in Shanghai, where boredom with her passionless marriage leads to a fling with another man (Liev Schreiber) and an eventual trip to purgatory — a cholera-ravaged town in remote China. The barebones DVD could have used some background from director John Curran and collaborators on the lavish production values and the difficulties of shooting in China. DVD, $27.95. (Warner Bros.) Read the review

“Catch and Release”

Timothy Olyphant and Jennifer Garner in Columbia Pictures' Catch and Release - 2007
Timothy Olyphant and Jennifer Garner in Columbia Pictures' Catch and Release - 2007Columbia Pictures

It’s an old story, girl meets boy, boy dies, girl moves in with boy’s best buddies. Jennifer Garner stars in this strange concoction of weepy melodrama, romance and comedy, playing a woman whose fiance dies on the eve of their wedding, forcing all manner of plot contrivances, starting with the financial troubles that force her to shack up with her man’s pals (Kevin Smith and Sam Jaeger). Meanwhile, secrets emerge about her fiance, including another woman (Juliette Lewis), while Garner falls for another of her guy’s friends (Timothy Olyphant). Writer-director Susannah Grant provides two commentaries, one with ever-gabby filmmaker Smith, the other with her cinematographer. DVD, $28.95; Blu-ray disc, $38.96. (Sony) Read the review

“Breaking and Entering”

Writer-director Anthony Minghella reteams with two of his past stars, Jude Law (“Cold Mountain”) and Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”), who join Robin Wright Penn in a sober tale of infidelity and culture clash in London. Law’s a landscape architect who has a solid but cold relationship with Wright Penn, their lives intersecting in strange ways with an immigrant mother (Binoche) and her teenage son, who participates in burglaries that set the action in motion. The DVD includes six deleted scenes with commentary from Minghella, who also provides commentary for the full film. The disc also has a making-of featurette. DVD, $28.95. (Genius) Read the review

TV on DVD:

“Cagney & Lacey” — This four-disc set is subtitled “The True Beginning,” as it picks up in the series’ second season, when Sharon Gless joined Tyne Daly in the cop drama, replacing Meg Foster, who had played Cagney in the show’s short initial run. A four-disc set packs 22 episodes, plus a featurette on how the 1980s series broke ground by pairing two tough women as detective partners. DVD set, $39.98. (MGM)

“The 4400: The Third Season” — New earthly adventures continue for 4,400 people who mysteriously disappeared and just as mysteriously returned to their home world, with no memories of where they went. Year three’s 12 episodes come in a four-disc set. DVD set, $42.99. (Paramount)

“The Waltons: The Complete Fifth Season” — Happier times arrive for the dirt-poor Depression-era family as John-Boy (Richard Thomas) begins his publishing career and his oldest sister gets hitched. A five-disc set has the fifth season’s 24 episodes. DVD set, $39.98. (Warner Bros.)

“That ’70s Show: Season Six” — Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher and their families and friends keep stumbling their way through the decade of bad fashion. Season six’s 25 episodes are packed in a four-disc set. DVD set, $49.98. (20th Century Fox)

“Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Eighth Season” — Ray Romano and his goofy family are back in the sit-com about a sportswriter’s chaotic home life. The second-to-last season comes in a five-disc set with 23 episodes. DVD set, $44.98. (HBO)

“McLeod’s Daughters: The Complete Second Season” — Australian women fend for themselves as two half-sisters oversee the cattle ranch they inherited with a group of all-female cow hands. The six-disc set has season two’s 22 episodes. DVD set, $59.98. (Koch)

“Little Britain Live” — The gang behind the British sketch comedy series took their act on the road after three seasons with a live tour, including this 2006 performance. The show is accompanied by commentary, deleted scenes and a making-of segment. DVD set, $24.98. (BBC)

Other new releases:

“Deliver Us From Evil” — The Academy Award-nominated documentary presents a gut-wrenching portrait of a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who admitted to sexually abusing dozens of children over the course of decades. Interviews with victims and their families are agonizing, and the film is accompanied by commentary by director Amy Berg and 25 minutes of deleted scenes. DVD, $27.98. (Lionsgate) Read the review

“The Tiger and the Snow” — Director and star Roberto Benigni captures a whimsical mix of fantasy, comedy and drama in this tale of a man who goes to extremes to save the woman of his dreams (played by Benigni’s wife Nicolleta Braschi) after she’s injured in a bomb blast in Iraq. DVD, $24.98. (Hart Sharp)

“The Secret Life of Words” — Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley star in a stirring drama about a hearing-impaired nurse who travels to a nearly empty oil rig to tend to a worker who’s been burned and blinded in an accident. DVD, $29.98. (Universal)

“Big,” “That Thing You Do” — Extended cuts of two Tom Hanks flicks debut in a pair of two-disc editions. “Big,” which runs 25 minutes longer in this new version, stars Hanks as a boy in a man’s body after his wish to be big comes true. Hanks directed and co-starred in “That Thing You Do,” whose tale of a one-hit-wonder pop band is padded by half an hour of new footage. The theatrical cuts of both movies are included. DVD sets, $19.98 each. (20th Century Fox)