Latest DVDs, CDs, books: March 29, 2011

DVDS

“Black Swan”: Natalie Portman captured a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of a young ballerina who dances dangerously close to the edge, as her on- and off-stage lives converge, in director Darren Aronofsky’s dark melodrama.

Memorable female characters also dominate two fact-based tales: “Fair Game” (PG-13), with Naomi Watts as outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as her ex-diplomat husband Joe Wilson, and “Made in Dagenham” (R), about a plucky British Ford factory worker (Sally Hawkins) who leads her female co-workers in an equal pay strike.

Rounding out the recent-release lineup: Disney’s latest animated princess, Rapunzel, explores the world beyond her tower in “Tangled” (PG); “Black Swan’s” Vincent Cassel stars as a notorious French gangster in “Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One” (R); “Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D,” which follows the country star on tour; dazzling images from outer space in the documentary “Imax: Hubble” (G); and “Cool It” (PG), about Danish economist and global-warming skeptic Bjorn Lomborg.

Local favorite “Vega$: The Second Season, Volume Two” tops today’s TV transfers, which also include Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange and Diane Lane in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman in “Anything Goes,” “Treme: The Complete First Season,” “Dennis the Menace: Season One,” “Mad Men: Season Four,” “Here’s Lucy: Season Four” and “Upstairs, Downstairs: 40th Anniversary Collection.”

CDS

Britney Spears, “Femme Fatale”: She’s grown older without really growing up. And this is a good thing.

Britney Spears’ latest disc just may be her best: a full-on dance party sweat bath that never lets up.

“Femme Fatale” just doesn’t stop — nor do you want it to.

Also in stores: Cavalera Conspiracy, “Blunt Force Trauma”; E-40, “Revenue Retrievin’: Graveyard Shift”; Emery, “We Do What We Want”; Boney James, “Contact”; Wiz Khalifa, “Rolling Papers”; Los Lonely Boys, “Rockpango”; Mary Mary, “Something Big”; The Mountain Goats, “All Eternals Deck”; Obscura, “Omnivium”; Peter Bjorn and John, “Gimme Some”; Royal Bangs, “Flux Outside”; The Sounds, “Something to Die For”; Sum 41, “Screaming Bloody Murder”; Unwritten Law, “Swan”; and Whitesnake, “Forevermore.”

BOOKS

“The Land of Painted Caves” by Jean M. Auel: The sixth and final installment in the Earth’s Children series continues the story of Cro-Magnon Ayla and her Ice Age mate Jondalar, which began more than 30 years ago with “The Clan of the Cave Bear.”

J.R. Ward also has a series installment coming out with “Lover Unleashed.” Worlds collide in the latest Black Dagger Brotherhood novel when a human surgeon and a vampire warrior discover a passion for each other.

Also in stores: “All My Life: A Memoir” by Susan Lucci; “The Alpine Vengeance” by Mary Daheim; “Anthem for Doomed Youth: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery” by Carola Dunn; “The Bone House” by Brian Freeman; “Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement” by Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page; “Dead by Midnight” by Carolyn G. Hart; “Devious” by Lisa Jackson; “The Free World” by David Bezmozgis; “The Goodbye Quilt” by Susan Wiggs; “Mystery” by Jonathan Kellerman; “Phantom Evil” by Heather Graham; “Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later” by Francine Pascal; and “The Troubled Man” by Henning Mankell.