It's a generally low-key week for DVDs, but we have a couple of bright spots (or at least interesting ones), first with Todd Haynes' kaleidoscopic bio experiment, I'm Not There, and then with a collection of last year's Oscar-nominated short films, those tantalizing curiosities that most of us saw in 15-second clips during the Academy Awards. At the other end of the craptastic scale, this week hands us the Paris Hilton feature that's so infamously awful I hear a primitive South Sea island tribe makes sacrifices to it as their god of pestilence, famine, and soul-sucking vacuums.

Keep visiting us here at Film.com/DVD for more reporting and opinionating on titles you see here.

DVD Pick of the Week:

I'm Not There: Two Disc Collector's Edition (Weinstein Co.)
Film.com

Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Ben Whishaw, and Marcus Carl Franklin. I'm Not There is a film that dramatizes the life and music of Bob Dylan as a series of shifting personae, each performed by a different actor -- poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, rock and roll, martyr born-again Christian -- seven identities braided together, seven organs pumping through one life story, as dense and vibrant as the era it inspired. (The Weinstein Company)

"What's finally so moving about I'm Not There is that it's a story of loss. Dylan, as the film portrays him, is a revolutionary who loses his innocence, his idealism, his wife and family, his connection to his audience, his sanity, even his dog. He finds no direction home. Yet the ultimate thing that's lost is what his music is -- and Dylan, in the sublime final moments, is right to say that we always knew it wasn't 'folk.' It's something holy and unnameable and beautiful and pure. I'm Not There lets you hear it again, more majestically than ever." -- Entertainment Weekly

"A fascinating experiment that, if the viewer is willing to surrender to Haynes's sometimes hermetic meditations on Dylan's life, heartily rewards the investment." -- Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

"Haynes directs all of these people and places with great flair, helped immensely by cinematographer Edward Lachman and his mostly inspired cast. Whishaw, an intense young British stage actor, speaks directly to the camera, while Bale inhabits both the younger Dylan and the religious convert with typical concentration.... The star of the show is undoubtedly Blanchett, who has great fun playing Dylan as a showboat who quite knowingly goes about creating his reputation for rebellious independence." -- The Hollywood Reporter

"It doesn't work. It is just a mess -- though the sound track, full of Dylan songs is, of course, good to hear. But it is not better than the track on Martin Scorsese's 'No Direction Home' documentary of two years ago." -- Richard Schickel, Time

"If you're looking for a definitive DVD, a combination of movie and making-of material that redefines and expands on the overall experience, The Weinstein Company's new two disc version of I'm Not There is it. Over the course of a wonderful, informative, and in-depth commentary track, Haynes tells all." -- Pop Matters

2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films (Magnolia)
Film.com

Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International bring last year's batch of Oscar-nominated short films (live-action and animated) to DVD:

The nominated Live Action Shorts are:

"At Night" - Denmark, Oscar Nominees: Christian E. Christiansen & Louise Vesth. Three young women share their problems while spending the holidays in a hospital cancer ward.

"Il Supplente" (The Substitute) - Italy, Oscar Nominee: Andrea Jublin. The arrival of an unusual newcomer galvanizes the students in a high school classroom.

"Le Mozart des Pickpockets" ("The Mozart of Pickpockets")- France, Oscar Nominee: Philippe Pollet-Villard. A pair of unlucky thieves find their fortunes have changed when they take in a deaf homeless boy.

"Tanghi Argentini" - Belgium, Oscar Nominees: Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans. A man who must learn to dance the tango in two weeks asks an office colleague for help.

"The Tonto Woman" - United Kingdom, Oscar Nominees: Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown. A cattle rustler meets a woman who is living in isolation after being held prisoner for eleven years by the Mojave Indians.

The nominated Animated Shorts are:

"I Met the Walrus" - Canada, Oscar Nominee: Josh Raskin. In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview.

"Madame Tutli-Putli" - Canada, Oscar Nominees: Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. A timid woman boards a mysterious night train and has a series of frightening experiences.

"Meme les Pigeons Vont au Paradis"("Even Pigeons go to Heaven")- France, Oscar Nominees: Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse. A priest tries to sell an old man a machine that he promises will transport him to heaven.

"My Love" ("Moya Lyubov") - Russia, Oscar Nominee: Alexander Petrov. In 19th Century Russia, a teenage boy in search of love is drawn to two very different women.

"Peter & The Wolf" - United Kingdom & Poland, Oscar Nominees: Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman. A young boy and his animal friends face a hungry wolf in Prokofiev's classic musical piece.

Also out this week:

Bella (Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate)
Film.com

"Bella tells the story of two people who fall in love because of an unborn child. Winner of the People's Choice Award at Toronto 2006, it is a heart-tugger with the confidence not to tug too hard. It stars an actor named Eduardo Verastegui.... Tall, handsome, bearded, he plays Jose, the chef of his brother's Mexican restaurant in New York, until his life changes one day when his brother fires a waitress named Nina (Tammy Blanchard) for being late.... The movie is not profound, but it's not stupid. It's about lovable people having important conversations and is not pro-choice or pro-life but simply in favor of his feelings -- and hers, if she felt free to feel them. The movie is a little more lightweight than the usual People's Choice Award winner at Toronto, but why not? It was the best-liked film at the 2006 festival, and I can understand that." -- Roger Ebert

"May have more heart than head, but it's also just as interesting for what it leaves out of its romantic story as for what it retains." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

"Bella is, indeed, a beautiful film. The bustling, cab-crowded thoroughfares of New York City have rarely looked as inviting and the coastline as momentously beachy as they do in this film." -- Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

"Mexican-born helmer Alejandro Monteverde's debut will be remembered as a curious case of a mediocre film that wows crowds." -- Robert Koehler, Variety

"The melodrama and cheap theatrics of the story's off-center segments drag the whole thing down." -- Tasha Robinson, Chicago Tribune

"Certainly a sweet, life-affirming picture, but it's just not authentic or captivating enough to justify its wildly concocted scenario." -- Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

"What are you going to do when your lead actress offers a performance that's as unlikable as the woman she's portraying? Maybe it's the script (flimsy, formulaic), or filmmaker Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's conspicuous direction, but Tammy Blanchard's Nina, a waitress with a dour disposition and an unwanted pregnancy, pretty much sucks the life out of this well-meaning melodrama." -- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

"The emotions at play in Bella are no doubt heartfelt -- and must have resonated with a few hundred people, anyway -- but they're so cut-and-dried that the mawkish script virtually writes itself." -- Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club

"A Mexican movie in which the outcome is never in doubt, the scenes are endless -- sorry, we meant poetic-- and the false beard on the central character's face looks as though it could use a little extra gum." -- Desson Thomson, The Washington Post

The Hottie and the Nottie (Genius Products, Inc.)
Film.com

DVD extras include commentary by Paris Hilton, Christine Lakin, and Joel David Moore. Also a blooper reel. Will you be able to tell the blooper reel from the main feature? Film.com's own resident Parisologist, "The Evil Beet," will provide a Guest Critic DVD review later this week.

"The release of the Paris Hilton vehicle The Hottie and the Nottie has revived the debate as to which is the worst motion picture ever made. Because the film logged in with some of the worst receipts in history -- $250 per screen on opening weekend -- there is a temptation to accord it the mythical status of such universally ridiculed motion pictures as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or Plan 9 From Outer Space, to welcome it into the dark, Bizarro World pantheon inhabited by phantasmagoric disasters such as Showgirls, Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, Battlefield Earth, The Postman and, most recently, Gigli and Swept Away. That is not fair. It is not fair to Kevin Costner, it is not fair to Jennifer Lopez, and it is certainly not fair to Madonna." -- Joe Queenan, The Guardian

"The Farrelly brothers could burp out a movie funnier than The Hottie & the Nottie, a farce of corrupt stereotypes that's never more grotesque than when it pretends to be more than skin-deep." -- Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman

"Great actors make the craft look easy. In the Paris Hilton comedy The Hottie and the Nottie, acting looks very, very difficult." -- New York Post, Kyle Smith

"That generous half star rating I tacked onto this comedy abomination is all for Paris Hilton. Come on, it takes guts (or gross dim-wittedness) to appear on screen again after 'House of Wax.'" -- Rolling Stone, Peter Travers

"A cinematic excursion so horrific that it's an insult to bad movies to call it a bad movie." -- ReelViews, James Berardinelli

"Paris Hilton has already ushered a remarkable three features into the Internet Movie Database's 'Bottom 100.' The Hottie and the Nottie will make it an even four." -- Variety, Dennis Harvey

"How is Paris Hilton in her first starring role to receive a national release? Pretty bad, actually. She's limited to a single, all-too-familiar expression of smug self-satisfaction, and she delivers her lines in a tone somewhere between 'seductive' and 'dish-soap commercial.'" -- The Onion A.V. Club, Keith Phipps

"Crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash, half-assed, and very, very unfunny." -- Village Voice, Nathan Lee

"The most astounding thing about this abysmal comedy -- aside from the fact the studio actually allowed critics within a mile of it -- is that it's so ghastly it is beneath even the meager dignity of Paris Hilton." -- Miami, Herald Connie Ogle

"It's not like Paris Hilton to rise above her material, but The Hottie and the Nottie sinks so low that all she has to do is stand upright." -- Los Angeles Times, Sam Adams

P.S. I Love You (Warner Bros.)
Film.com

"It's an expensive star vehicle that also happens to be a teary, unabashedly sappy, romantic comedy with every element as purely calculated to appeal to a heterosexual woman's romantic fantasies as an episode of 'All My Children.'" -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, William Arnold

"On a week when many people just want a good reason to put down their packages and smile for a couple of hours, P.S. I Love You arrives -- signed, sealed and delivered just on time." -- Portland Oregonian, Stephen Whitty

"The film is not a beautiful object or a memorable cultural one, and yet it charms, however awkwardly. Ms. Swank's ardent sincerity and naked emotionalism dovetail nicely with Mr. LaGravenese's melodramatic excesses. "-- The New York Times, Manohla Dargis

"'B.S. I Love You' would be a more accurate title." -- Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum

First Sunday (Screen Gems)
Film.com

"Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan are the nominal stars of First Sunday, but it's Katt Williams who steals the show in this by turns trite and mildly amusing B-comedy." -- The Washington Post, Ann Hornaday

"The movie as a whole is pleasant, generally satisfying, and has a heart as big as its funny bone. For an early January movie, this is sometimes as good as it gets." -- ReelViews, James Berardinelli

"At first, the movie is over-anxious -- trying too hard to squeeze out the laughs, pump up the soundtrack, ingratiate itself with the audience -- and the straining is abrasive. But once Talbert gets distracted by keeping the plot clunking along, the comedy eases into relaxed sideline banter." -- The Village Voice, Nick Pinkerton

"The movie's total lack of focus and its unimpressive script should render it totally unwatchable. Weirdly, that doesn't quite happen. There's something endearing about these characters." -- The Chicago Tribune, Jessica Reaves

"First Sunday sometimes feels more like a script read-through than like an actual movie, but its warmth is likely to carry you through the stretches of cliché and tedium." -- The New York Times, A.O. Scott

"A corny yet unexpectedly moving scene in which Morgan is moved to tears by Loretta Devine's simple kindness helps make the film's shift into inspirational drama far more palatable than it really has any right to be." -- The Onion A.V. Club, Nathan Rabin

"Though Ice Cube and Morgan should make an ideal team, neither seems particularly comfortable grappling with Talbert's amateurish script. Most of the laughs, in fact, come from the strong supporting cast, led by a high-energy Williams and the unflappable Devine." -- New York Daily News, Elizabeth Weitzman

"The second half of the film is much funnier and warmer than the first, but the movie is still difficult to recommend." -- San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Hartlaub

If Tyler Perry ever wanted to turn 'Dog Day Afternoon' into a treacly after-school special, it would probably end up looking a lot like this." -- Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty

"First Sunday is simply a case of wasting gifted performers on material that feels slapped together and unshaped." -- Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek

"Tyler Perry has already been here and done that to such a degree that this particular cinematic field should now be plowed under and salted so that nothing might grow thereupon forevermore. Amen." -- Austin Chronicle, Marc Savlov

Hollywood Dreams (TLA Releasing)
Film.com

"Frederick is the key to the movie and she's definitely an impressive new talent, someone who can really hold the screen and who delivers something striking or memorable in every scene." -- Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington

"The movie buzzes with the quirky rhythms of Jaglom's patented improvisational shooting style, and those of Frederick herself, whose go-for-broke zaniness recalls that of a former Jaglom ingenue, Karen Black." -- Village Voice, Scott Foundas

"Jaglom's scruffy style doesn't carry it through. He puts enough toxic insincerity on screen to singe, though." -- Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman

"Once again brushing aside critical drubbings and public indifference, determined independent auteur Henry Jaglom follows up the abysmal Let's Go Shopping with something far better: an old-school Hollywood cautionary tale about -- what else? -- Hollywood." -- TV Guide, Ken Fox

"A must for Jaglom fans. For other viewers, it will depend upon how much they can take of Jaglom's improvisational style and Frederick's over-the-top, tear-filled acting." -- New York Post, V.A. Muset

"Knowing but never jaded, Hollywood Dreams is driven by Ms. Frederick's no-boundaries commitment to her broken character, a performance that's as startling as it is touching. In Mr. Jaglom's maverick hands, the appeal of illusion over reality is both fatal and irresistible." -- The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis

"It's unclear whether Frederick's an awful actress or a tremendous one pretending to be awful, but either way, it's hard to pity her nasal, pushy, babyish Iowa girl." -- The Onion A.V. Club, Tasha Robinson

"It's a very mixed bag. When it's good, Hollywood Dreams is corrosively funny and unexpectedly poignant. And when it's bad, it's over-the-top bad." -- Los Angeles Times, Lael Loewenstein

"Though it boasts slightly more narrative structure than his other work, Jaglom's script still serves as a catalyst for wild improvisation, suggesting the inside-jokey result was more fun to make than to watch." -- Variety, Peter Debruge

"It's not unusual for a Henry Jaglom film to fall into a black hole of narcissism, but he has outdone himself with his latest, a satire on Hollywood's unshakable self-absorption." -- New York Daily News, Elizabeth Weitzman

"Meant to be an insider's tale, but it feels like it comes from the cinema of hangers-on." -- Boston Globe, Ty Burr

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