New on DVD 8/7/08

"Nim's Island"

Past child star Jodie Foster and Hollywood's current go-to girl Abigail Breslin team up for this sturdy family adventure adapted from Wendy Orr's novel. Breslin stars as the title character, a fearless young girl left alone on an island after her scientist dad (Gerard Butler) vanishes. In need of a father figure, she strikes up an e-mail correspondence with what she thinks is her literary hero (also played by Butler in fantasy sequences), but her pen pal actually is a neurotic author (Foster) who hasn't left her apartment in ages.

"The Counterfeiters"

The 2007 Academy Award winner for foreign-language films spins an unusual twist on the idea of collaborating with the enemy. Based on a true story from World War II, the Austrian film follows the convoluted path of a master counterfeiter (Karl Markovics) who is thrown into a Nazi concentration camp but gets preferential treatment by leading a team that prints phony Allied currency to weaken the economies of Germany's adversaries.

"Lonesome Dove"

One of Hollywood's best Westerns turned up on the small-screen with this adaptation of Larry McMurtry's tale of two ex-Texas Rangers (Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones) leading a cattle drive to Montana. A DVD gift set includes the miniseries, a branded flask and a deck of cards packaged in a wooden box.