New on DVD

"Cloverfield"

New Yorkers go out of their heads (and the Statue of Liberty loses hers) as a 350-foot monster rampages through the city in this horror hit whose secretive marketing campaign was as much a part of the story as the movie itself. Using a cast of unknowns to accentuate authenticity, "Cloverfield" is told entirely from the perspective of a hand-held camera that had been recording a farewell party among friends, the lens turned on the chaos that results as the Godzilla wannabe tears up the town.

"Charlie Wilson's War"

A partying congressman, a Texas socialite and a slovenly CIA man secretly back Afghanistan against communist invaders, help bring down the Soviet empire and leave a legacy that still resounds in the war on terrorism today. Sounds like the stuff of a Hollywood laugh fest to us. Director Mike Nichols' sharp foreign-policy satire stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman (who earned a supporting-actor Academy Award nomination) as the three unlikely masterminds to the covert U.S. response over the Soviet action in the early 1980s.

"The Savages"

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are an ideal match in this hilarious and heartbreaking comic drama about a couple of emotionally stunted siblings forced to grow up and deal with each other and the little messes they've made of their lives. Hoffman and Linney play a brother and sister who have contentedly grown apart amid their self-absorbed lives but are forced back together to care for the ailing father (Philip Bosco) who never paid much mind to them. The film grabbed two Oscar nominations, best actress for Linney and original screenplay for writer-director Tamara Jenkins.