New on DVD 8/14/08

"Smart People"

Though smarter-than-your-average Hollywood comedy, this tale of academia and dysfunction still works only fitfully, despite a top-notch cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the title role in 2007's "Juno." Quaid plays a curmudgeonly college professor who sustains a head injury that throws him together with a former student turned doctor (Parker), while he copes with his shady brother (Church) and ultraconservative daughter (Page).

"The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season"

The street cred continues with this dense, authentic portrait of hard life in a hard city. The final season of this critical favorite expands from the realities of crime-fighting, corruption and politics in Baltimore to include the media as newspaper editors and reporters cope with the decline of their medium.

"Prison Break: Season Three"

How many prisons can one guy get tossed into? Wentworth Miller returns as a man who went to prison to help spring his brother, and now finds himself tossed back behind bars at a harsh Panamanian facility. Year three's 13 episodes come in a four-disc package with a couple of featurettes.