Susan’s DVD Update for week of Friday, Feb. 11:
In the droll British farce “Wild Target,” Bill Nighy plays a hit-man whose fastidious aplomb is rattled when he’s dispatched to kill a mischievous grafter (Emily Blunt) who is so blithely charming and deceitfully dishonest that he becomes smitten.
“Life As We Know It” is a romantic dramedy which begins with a tragedy when new parents die in a car accident, bequeathing their beloved baby girl to her unsuspecting, single god-parents (Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel) who loathe each other.
Josh Duhamel also stars in “The Romantics” about an eclectic group of Ivy League friends (Katie Holmes, Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood, Malin Akerman) who must come to terms with the melodrama inherent in their promiscuous affairs.
Three generations of women (Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Betty White) in one family must, unexpectedly, confront their high-school nemesis in “You Again,” a fluffy chick-flick with fangs.
Searching for humor in mental illness, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” is a coming-of-age story set in a psychiatric hospital, like a suicidal teen version of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” based on a quasi-autobiographical novel by Ned Vizzini.
Tyler Perry adapted Ntozake Shange’s 1975 “For Colored Girls” about the black female experience with Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Phylicia Rashad, among others.
For horror fans, “Paranormal Activity 2” is a rare sequel that’s more frightening than the original, as hidden cameras reveal a family’s confrontation with a demon. “I Spit on Your Grave” is a remake of the 1978 cult film about a young woman in a lakeside cabin in the woods. And seven teenagers are the prey of a long-dead psycho killer in Wes Craven’s “My Soul To Take.”
PICKS OF THE WEEK: For Valentine’s Day, there are three new-to-Blu-ray classic romances: Meg Ryan’s “You’ve Got Mail,” Reese Witherspoon’s “Pleasantville” and Bo Derek’s “10.” Plus there’s a bouquet of original, top-rated Lifetime movies: “Confessions of an American Bride,” “How I Married My High School Crush,” “I Do (But I Don’t),” “I Me Wed,” and “Making Mr. Right.”