Latest DVDs, CDs, books: April 17
A look at some of the DVDs, CDs and books hitting stores this week.
DVDS
“Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” (PG-13): Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (including Jeremy Renner) go rogue when they’re implicated in a Kremlin bombing in the fourth “Mission: Impossible” movie, which finds “Incredibles” director Brad Bird making the jump to dizzying live action.
The week’s other big-screen release offers a total contrast. It’s “Shame” (NC-17), with an Oscar-caliber Michael Fassbender as a self-destructive New York sex addict.
Two dance masters lead the week’s golden-oldie DVD debuts (both unrated): Fred Astaire in 1943’s “The Sky’s the Limit” and Gene Kelly in 1947’s “Living in a Big Way.” Abbott & Costello, meanwhile, make the jump to Blu-ray Disc in 1941’s “Buck Privates” (not rated), as does Tom Selleck in 1983’s “High Road to China” (PG).
Today’s TV-to-DVD transfers (all unrated unless otherwise noted) include the BBC’s epic “Frozen Planet,” “Ernie Kovacs: The ABC Specials,” Anne Heche in the movie “Girl Fight,” “Eight Is Enough: The Complete First Season,” “Bob’s Burgers: The Complete First Season,” “Treme: The Complete Second Season,” “Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy, Vol. Two,” “Meet the Browns: Season Five,” “Ice Road Truckers: Season Five” (PG), “American Dad: Volume Seven (Uncensored)” and, for all you “Downton Abbey” fans, PBS’ “Secrets of the Manor House.”
CDS
Jason Mraz, “Love is a Four Letter Word”: Jason Mraz is like Nerf products and near beer, purring kittens and warm, fuzzy mittens.
The effervescent popster is just so gosh darned innocuous and adorable.
How can you not like this guy?
What, are you allergic to smiling?
Also in stores: DragonForce, “The Power Within”; Maps & Atlases, “Beware and Be Grateful”; Bob Marley & The Wailers, “Marley: The Original Soundtrack”; Neon Trees, “Picture Show”; Our Lady Peace, “Curve”; SWV, “I Missed Us”; Train, “California 37”; Dar Williams, “In the Time of Gods”; and Hank Williams III, “Long Gone Daddy.”
BOOKS
“The Innocent” by David Baldacci: Hitman Will Robie, on the run after refusing to kill a target, comes to the aid of a 14-year-old girl whose parents were murdered and who could be at the center of a huge cover-up.
In another thriller this week, Abigail Lowery’s secretive nature and elaborate self-defenses intrigue the police chief who thinks she may need protection in Nora Roberts’ “The Witness.”
Also hitting shelves: “An Accidental Affair” by Eric Jerome Dickey; “Control the Crazy: My Plan to Stop Stressing, Avoid Drama, and Maintain Inner Cool” by Vinny Guadagnino; “Grimalkin, the Witch Assassin” by Joseph Delaney; “I’m Awesome: One Man’s Triumphant Quest to Become the Sweetest Dude Ever” by Jason Ellis; “A Land More Kind Than Home” by Wiley Cash; “The Last Echo” by Kimberly Derting; “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)” by Jenny Lawson; “An Unexpected Guest” by Anne Korkeakivi; “Unnatural Acts” by Stuart Woods; “Waiting for Sunrise” by William Boyd; “What Doesn’t Kill You” by Iris Johansen; and “You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other)” by Vanessa Williams.