Blu Ray

Attention consumers: It is now safe to enter the high-definition DVD aisle. A series of stunning moves over the last week by DVD retailers suggests the war over the next generation of at-home movie players has ended. Yesterday, Toshiba Corp., which had strenuously promoted its favored HD DVD format against fierce competition from Sony Corp.'s preferred Blu-ray format, was said to be reevaluating its strategy. Toshiba's apparent retreat followed announcements last week by Netflix Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that they were dropping HD DVD from their product lines in favor of Blu-ray - the only other competitor in the fledgling high-definition DVD market.

Attention consumers: It is now safe to enter the high-definition DVD aisle. A series of stunning moves over the last week by DVD retailers suggests the war over the next generation of at-home movie players has ended. Yesterday, Toshiba Corp., which had strenuously promoted its favored HD DVD format against fierce competition from Sony Corp.'s preferred Blu-ray format, was said to be reevaluating its strategy. Toshiba's apparent retreat followed announcements last week by Netflix Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that they were dropping HD DVD from their product lines in favor of Blu-ray - the only other competitor in the fledgling high-definition DVD market.

GETTING the hardware and software synchronized for a high-tech product introduction isn't always easy. In the case of 3D TV, the complaint "there's nothing to watch" may have held some weight. But this holiday season, there are wonders galore to explore on 3D Blu-ray video discs. And some pay TV customers can have it really good if they've invested in a 3D-ready television and increasingly comfortable companion glasses. Major figures like Martin Scorsese ("Hugo"), Wim Wenders ("Pina")

Jamaican-born writer-director Tanya Hamilton caused quite a sensation last year at the Sundance Film Festival with her feature debut Night Catches Us , an intense political-and-romantic drama set in Philadelphia. Anthony Mackie stars as Marcus, a former member of the Black Panther Movement who returns to his working-class neighborhood in 1976, many years after he left town as a very young man. Marcus is branded as a traitor by his former comrades. He's offered comfort by his best friend's widow, Patricia (an incandescent Kerry Washington)

The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston's 1992 film debut, crystallized the late pop sensation's success as a woman for all media. Commemorating both the 20th anniversary of the movie that nearly wasn't and the life of the talent that is no more, Warner Home Video releases a Blu-ray video of this film Tuesday that had a longer gestation than an elephant. On Wednesday, The Bodyguard will have a one-night-only revival on a big screen near you, the ideal context for fans to sing along with Houston's renditions of "Queen of the Night" and "I Will Always Love You," songs that made the film's soundtrack one of the best sellers in history.

ONE OF THE bigger events on TV this spring will be the second season of HBO's "Game of Thrones," starting April 1. You can see why that is cause for celebration today, when the first season appears in detailed DVD and Blu-ray sets from HBO Home Entertainment. The first TV season proved largely up to the demands of George R.R. Martin's text over 10 episodes, both in maintaining his tone and the sense of mystery pervading the novel, and in letting the characters be as flawed as Martin wanted.

The French haven't exactly been famous for their horror films, having entered the game only in the past two decades with a crop of directors including Eric Valette ( Maléfique ), Alexandre Aja ( High Tension ), and Pascal Laugier ( House of Voices ). That is, unless you count the prolific visionary (or charlatan, depending on your point of view) Jean Rollin (1938-2010), a master of the peculiarly Gallic genre, the fantastique, and who released 52 features between 1968 and 2009.

The endearing romance between troubled teen Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and perpetually young blood-drinker Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) takes a decidedly grown-up turn in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 , which Summit Entertainment is to release at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The fourth installment in the mega-popular teen vampire romance has Bella and Edward procreate. Their baby, it seems, poses a danger to the Wolf Pack, introducing more hair-raising, tingly conflict.

Martin Scorsese's Hugo scooped up five well-earned Oscars on Sunday though none were among the top awards, which went to Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist in the best picture and best director categories. A poetic, magical-mystical paen to all things cinema, Hugo features Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moretz as two wide-eyed preadolescents in 1930s Paris who reexperience the birth of cinema through the eyes of film pioneer Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). Filled with loving tributes to dozens of films, Hugo , released on DVD this week by Paramount Studios, ranks with the lush, exotic masterpieces of Scorsese's heroes, Michael Powell, and Emeric Pressburger, including The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus . ( www.paramount.com/dvd ; $29.99 DVD; $44.99; Blu-ray/DVD combo; rated PG.)

New York writer-director Spike Lee captured - with arresting wit and stylistic aplomb - a neighborhood and a city's attitude toward race, sex, and the American family in his 1989 breakthrough hit Do the Right Thing , about a series of conflicts that break out during a long, hot summer day on a block in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Released three years later, Malcolm X , which featured an electric, charismatic Denzel Washington in the lead, saw Lee further explore his reigning preoccupations - the role of racism in modern American culture, and the power of sexuality to make and unmake communities.

The French haven't exactly been famous for their horror films, having entered the game only in the past two decades with a crop of directors including Eric Valette ( Maléfique ), Alexandre Aja ( High Tension ), and Pascal Laugier ( House of Voices ). That is, unless you count the prolific visionary (or charlatan, depending on your point of view) Jean Rollin (1938-2010), a master of the peculiarly Gallic genre, the fantastique, and who released 52 features between 1968 and 2009.

DVD releases that sing big, walk tall, and go deep hit stores this week. Camelot, Grade A: The 45th anniversary of the film version of the Tony Award-winning stage production from Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe is being marked with the release of a special Blu-ray that includes 36 pages of photos, trivia, and more. The wonderful musical, directed by Joshua Logan, based on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, looks at the lives and loves of those during the reign of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

For half a century, David Attenborough has taken viewers on extraordinary, well-informed, thought-provoking, and moving tours of the rich flora and fauna of virtually every corner of our planet. The 85-year-old British naturalist provides energetic and stimulating narration on the BBC's Frozen Planet , a stunning, six-hour exploration that takes us, quite literally, to the ends of the Earth: the Arctic and Antarctic. Produced by Alastair Fothergill and Vanessa Berlowitz, the team responsible for the equally glorious The Blue Planet and Planet Earth series, Frozen Planet opens with a general introduction to the topography and the history of the two polar regions, with stunning views of giant glaciers and the creatures that live in their shadows, including polar bears, Adélie and emperor penguins, albatross, narwhals, even wolves.

The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston's 1992 film debut, crystallized the late pop sensation's success as a woman for all media. Commemorating both the 20th anniversary of the movie that nearly wasn't and the life of the talent that is no more, Warner Home Video releases a Blu-ray video of this film Tuesday that had a longer gestation than an elephant. On Wednesday, The Bodyguard will have a one-night-only revival on a big screen near you, the ideal context for fans to sing along with Houston's renditions of "Queen of the Night" and "I Will Always Love You," songs that made the film's soundtrack one of the best sellers in history.

ONE OF THE bigger events on TV this spring will be the second season of HBO's "Game of Thrones," starting April 1. You can see why that is cause for celebration today, when the first season appears in detailed DVD and Blu-ray sets from HBO Home Entertainment. The first TV season proved largely up to the demands of George R.R. Martin's text over 10 episodes, both in maintaining his tone and the sense of mystery pervading the novel, and in letting the characters be as flawed as Martin wanted.

Martin Scorsese's Hugo scooped up five well-earned Oscars on Sunday though none were among the top awards, which went to Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist in the best picture and best director categories. A poetic, magical-mystical paen to all things cinema, Hugo features Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moretz as two wide-eyed preadolescents in 1930s Paris who reexperience the birth of cinema through the eyes of film pioneer Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). Filled with loving tributes to dozens of films, Hugo , released on DVD this week by Paramount Studios, ranks with the lush, exotic masterpieces of Scorsese's heroes, Michael Powell, and Emeric Pressburger, including The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus . ( www.paramount.com/dvd ; $29.99 DVD; $44.99; Blu-ray/DVD combo; rated PG.)

She did the red carpet as Little Red Riding Hood (in a blood-red Atelier Versace nun-inspired satin robe) with a pope-alike in full faux-Vatican regalia on her arm. Nicki Minaj at the Grammys. So scandalous! Minaj, 29, later performed "Roman Reloaded," with a stage show out of The Exorcist : She was strapped to a leather table, levitated, surrounded by roaring flames, and did a mock self-exorcism. The spectacle disgusted The View' s Sherri Shepherd . "I didn't know whether to dance or pull out my Bible and lay hands on the tv," she tweeted.

A mind-twisting cable film and a mind-blowing movie top this week's new DVD releases. The Sunset Limited, Grade B-plus: The film, which originally aired on HBO, is based on the play by Cormac McCarthy. It's an example of how a production can be sparse in setting and action and still be powerful and moving. After a suicide attempt by White (Tommy Lee Jones) is thwarted by Black (Samuel L. Jackson), the two men go to Black's sparse apartment to talk. The entire film is their discussion of life, death, and the existence of God. Their opinions are as much a contrast as their names.

The endearing romance between troubled teen Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and perpetually young blood-drinker Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) takes a decidedly grown-up turn in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 , which Summit Entertainment is to release at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The fourth installment in the mega-popular teen vampire romance has Bella and Edward procreate. Their baby, it seems, poses a danger to the Wolf Pack, introducing more hair-raising, tingly conflict.

New York writer-director Spike Lee captured - with arresting wit and stylistic aplomb - a neighborhood and a city's attitude toward race, sex, and the American family in his 1989 breakthrough hit Do the Right Thing , about a series of conflicts that break out during a long, hot summer day on a block in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Released three years later, Malcolm X , which featured an electric, charismatic Denzel Washington in the lead, saw Lee further explore his reigning preoccupations - the role of racism in modern American culture, and the power of sexuality to make and unmake communities.