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Recommend New to Home Video: 'Wall-E,' 'Tropic Thunder,' Pants that Travel Again (Email)

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There are some real heavy hitters on DVD this week, a sign that holiday shopping is just around the corner. You know, usually, you'll get one big DVD, and then a AAA player or two and then down into the lower rungs of the minor league system. But this week, there are two $100 million flicks, one of them a $200 million movie, and it comes just two or three weeks too late to save Circuit City. Damn.

this position now is quite a feat. The studio has done a masterful job creating a niche and a need with Twilight, and gobbling up the sequels (which will have their own high-selling soundtracks) is an easy way to keep the money train on its tracks.

Wall-E

DVD sales will be muy importante to Wall-E, which cost Disney and Pixar $180 million. Though the year's best reviewed film is certainly profitable, the margins aren't where they usually are for a Pixar movie. To help make up that difference, we have a three-disc DVD chock full o' stuff.

You'll get the animated short Burn-E, a kind of spin-off of the film, plus the animated short Presto that preceded Wall-E in theaters. There are some great features and mini-docs for fans of Pixar's particular brand of filmmaking, focusing on the sound design, plus making of featurettes and The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks. That's worth a look. The third disc is the digital copy of the film, so you can watch the flick on your favorite portable device. We're going to see a lot of that from now on.

(Check out our review of Wall-E)

Tropic Thunder

Arguably the best comedy of the year and certainly the most successful, Tropic Thunder accomplished at least three things: It helped stabilize Ben Stiller's career after The Heartbreak Kid, it showed Tom Cruise could laugh at himself, and it continued the Robert Downey Lovefest, which began in May with Iron Man.

For your money, you'll get tons of bonus footage, including the tongue-in-cheek making of the film within the film documentary, Rain of Madness. On top of that are a few smaller featurettes like Designing the Thunder, The Hot LZ and Blowing S#!+ Up.

Watch it again, especially if you don't think a case could be made for Robert Downey Jr. getting an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

(Here's our review)

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