THE LIST: DVDs, CDs and books hitting stores the week of April 28
DVDS
Meanwhile, two melancholy foster kids (“Nancy Drew’s” Emma Roberts, Disney Channel’s Jake T. Austin) secretly take in strays at an abandoned house in “Hotel for Dogs” (PG), a family-friendly romp co-starring Don Cheadle, Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon.
Elsewhere on the recent-release front, “The Uninvited” (PG-13), based on a South Korean chiller, focuses on a girl (Emily Browning), recently released from a mental hospital, who returns home to find her aloof father (David Strathairn) engaged to her late mother’s nurse (Elizabeth Banks) — and her mother’s ghost warning of danger.
And in “JCVD” (R), the title character, Jean-Claude Van Damme, plays himself in a satirical, art-imitates-life mockumentary in which he’s back in Brussels, where he walks in on a bank robbery in progress and becomes embroiled in a tense hostage situation.
Two acclaimed limited releases, meanwhile, top today’s “Welcome to Las Vegas” lineup.
In “Nothing But the Truth” (R), a reporter (Kate Beckinsale) opts to go to jail rather than reveal a source for a story — one that blows the cover of a CIA operative (Vera Farmiga). Matt Dillon and Alan Alda co-star for “Contender” writer-director Rod Lurie. (Any resemblance to real-life events is hardly coincidental.) And two childhood friends (Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke) turn to crime in “What Doesn’t Kill You” (R).
Elsewhere on the unseen-and-unknown front, a Nazi soldier (Jonathan Scarfe) and a rabbi’s daughter (Nina Dobrev) pursue a forbidden romance at the dawn of World War II in “Hearts of War” (R), featuring Daryl Hannah and the late Roy Scheider. And a suburban housewife (Kim Basinger) runs for her life in “While She Was Out” (R).
In our foreign-language file, “The Perfume of Yvonne” (not rated), from Oscar-nominated French filmmaker Patrice Leconte (“The Girl on the Bridge,” “The Hairdresser’s Husband”) focuses on the summer affair between an enigmatic young Frenchman (Hippolyte Girardot) and a 1950s starlet. And a psychiatric patient’s girlfriend begins an affair with his best friend in “The Night Buffalo” (R).
A fact-based Vegas tale, meanwhile, leads off today’s TV-to-DVD transfers: “Sex and Lies in Sin City” (not rated), a made-for-cable account of the Ted Binion scandal, with Matthew Modine as the troubled casino heir and Mena Suvari as Sandy Murphy, his girlfriend — and accused murderer. Marcia Gay Harden (as Binion’s sister Becky) and Johnathon Schaech (as Rick Tabish) co-star for director Peter Medak, who’s a long way from his 1972 classic “The Ruling Class.”
Charles Dickens’ “Little Dorrit” (not rated) inspires a splendid five-part adaptation (recently seen on PBS’ “Masterpiece”) exploring rags-to-riches life in 1820s Britain. Tom Courtenay, newcomer Claire Foy and “Frost/Nixon’s” Matthew Macfadyen lead the cast. Another British miniseries, “Fallen Angel” (not rated), explores the motivations of a psychopath (Emilia Fox), moving backward in time to explain what turned a clergyman’s daughter into a serial killer; Charles Dance, Clare Holman, Emma Fielding and Niamh Cusack co-star. And in “Storm Cell” (PG-13), a storm-tracking scientist (Mimi Rogers) battles to save her daughter from a killer twister.
TV series hitting DVD today include “Spin City: The Complete Second Season” (G), “American Dad, Vol. 4” (not rated), “Mission Impossible: The Sixth TV Season” (not rated), “The Waltons: The Complete Ninth Season” (not rated) and “Rookies: The Complete Season One” (not rated).
CDS
He’s a small dude with a big voice and a penchant for wizards and warlocks lyrics straight from the “Dungeons and Dragons” playbook, and, man, is it a treat to hear him jam with his former Black Sabbath bandmates Tommy Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice once again, now under the Heaven & Hell moniker.
The reformed lineup has toured for a couple of years now, and currently, they’re back with a cinder-block heavy new album.
All steamroller riffs, bulldozer bass lines and Dio’s powerful and peerless vocal acrobatics, this is heavy metal Heaven.
Also in stores: A Camp, “Colonia”; Bob Dylan, “Together Through Life”; Ben Folds, “Ben Folds Presents: University a Cappella!”; Ben Lee, “The Rebirth of Venus”; Paper Route, “Absence”; Collin Raye, “Never Going Back”; and Spyro Gyra, “Down the Wire.”
BOOKS
As the Women’s Murder Club stays busy with the two cases, a connection develops between Cindy and Detective Rich Conklin, and love threatens all that the friends have created.
Also expected out this week is Nora Roberts’ “Vision in White,” the first in the “Wedding Quartet Series,” which features wedding photographer Mackensie “Mac" Elliot and her three best friends, who are also her business partners.
Also hitting shelves: “Belly Off! Diet: Real Men, Real Food, Real Workouts — That Will Really Work for You!” by Jeff Csatari; “Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood Series No. 7)” by J.R. Ward; “Mr. and Miss Anonymous” by Fern Michaels; “Nobody Move” by Denis Johnson; “Rogue Forces” by Dale Brown; “Sag Harbor” by Colson Whitehead; “Straw: Finding My Way” by Darryl Strawberry; “Summer On Blossom Street” by Debbie Macomber; “No Such Creature” by Giles Blunt; “Fifty Grand” by Adrian McKinty; “Crows & Cards” by Joseph Helgerson; “Home Safe” by Elizabeth Berg; “Walking Dead” by Greg Rucka; “Blood Groove” by Alex Bledsoe; “The Frightened Man” by Kenneth Cameron; “In the Shadow of Gotham” by Stefanie Pintoff; “Water, Stone, Heart” by Will North; and “Dope Thief” by Dennis Tafoya.
