Win Win Paul Giamatti is Mike, a lawyer who can't pay his bills and coaches a losing high school wrestling team. When a teen runaway who happens to also be a wrestling champ comes to town, it looks like Mike finally might be a winner...only it turns out the kid is the grandson of a client he has ostensibly been ripping off. As the teen's life intertwines with Mike and his family's, let the bonding begin.
Yeah, it's a little too neatly tied, but this dramedy's well worth a look for the superb performances by all (especially Alex Shaffer as Kyle, a real-life wrestler making his acting debut). Extras: Two deleted scenes, director commentary, Sundance 2011 interviews, music video (DVD/BD).
The Beaver Quit giggling like a five-year-old at the title and the premise of long-suffering Mel Gibson as a bummed-out corporate exec whose therapy consists of communicating via a beaver puppet on one had long enough, and you might find out Jodie Foster's movie is quite good. Gibson plays Walter Black, a toy company CEO whose crippling depression has alienated his family and kids (Foster as his wife, Anton Yelchin as his pissed off older son). Given Gibson's public outbursts and general weirdness of the last few years, a movie in which he plays a mentally ill man seems like a badly timed joke--and some scenes are indeed played for laughs--but this performance is one of his best. Extras: Foster's audio commentary, deleted scenes, a making-of featurette (DVD/BD).
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold Good-natured documentarian (huckster?) Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) presents this meta-examination of product placement in movies that in fact chronicles its own financing by product placement (POM Wonderful having underwritten the majority of Spurlock's budget). The film follows the director as he learns how it all works, and goes to pitch companies for financing, interviews other filmmakers on the subject and advertisers. It's slick and entertaining, but informative and controversial? Enh, not so much. Extras: Director commentary, behind-the-scenes featurette, five deleted scenes, five commercials (DVD/BD).
Troll Hunter The latest in Scandinavian horror follows some film students into the woods on the hunt for documentation to prove trolls really exist--and they get it. Extras: Making-of, deleted scenes, HDNet special (DVD/BD).
Also new: Jason Statham as a tough cop in the straight-to-video Blitz; BD releases of Swingers, Rounders, Hostage and Good Will Hunting.
Announced: Warner Bros. tells us today that The Green Lantern arrives on DVD, BD, BD 3D combo pack, digital download on October 14. DVD extras include two comics previews. The BD and 3D BD packs will offer that plus an extended cut of the movie and the theatrical release, picture-in-picture mode, featurettes on Ryan Reynolds' transformation and the Green Lantern universe, deleted scenes. All formats will have something called an "ultraviolet digital copy," which will let you stream the movie on your computer, smartphone or other device if you're so inclined.