THE RUNAWAYS - Based on NEON ANGEL, the memoirs of Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie. Dakota Fanning plays Currie and Kristen Stewart plays guitarist and songwriter Joan Jett, in this ode to 1970s teenage ambition, tight leather bell-bottoms, and all-girl rock n' roll mayhem. "This ain't women's lib, kiddies - this is women's libido!" (Kim Fowler, as played by Michael Shannon).

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA - One of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Documentary, this is the story of Daniel Ellsberg, the high-level Pentagon official who concluded in 1971 that the war was based on decades of lies. So, he leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times (popularly known as "The Pentagon Papers.")

THE LOSERS - The latest comic book adapted into an action-comedy film concerns an elite Special Forces unit who are sent into the Bolivian jungles, only to be double-crossed and left for dead. With the help of mysterious Zoe Saldana (AVATAR), in non-cgi form, they set out to defeat their antagonist, a dastardly villain by the name of Max.

COP OUT - Kevin Smith (CLERKS) tackles the buddy-cop-comedy genre, with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as the bickering Brooklyn duo chasing after a stolen baseball card and finding themselves in wacky situations with a deadly drug ring.

THE JAPANESE WIFE - In this touching drama, Snehomoy, a West Bengali teacher, marries his Japanese pen pal by exchanging rings and vows through the mail. For 15 years they send each other gifts and letters (often hilariously mistranslated), until a Bengali widow comes to live with Snehomoy and his aunt, and he forms a bond with the woman and her son...

PRODIGAL SONS - Kimberly Reed's acclaimed documentary at first set out to capture the reactions of her former high school classmates to her sex-change operation, but it ended up being more about her adopted brother Marc. As confused about his own identity growing up, Marc, who suffered a brain injury in his 20s, finds out that he is the grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, among other things...

ENTRE NOS - When Mariana and her two children leave Colombia to meet up with her husband, who immigrated to New York City years earlier, they are not together long before he announces he's moving to Miami, and will send for them when he's settled. He never does send for them, and Mariana turns to collecting cans to survive, fiercely determined to work her way up the ladder to the "American dream."

NOLLYWOOD BABYLON - Fascinating documentary about the world's OTHER fastest growing film culture, Nigerian cinema: "where Jesus and voodoo vie for screen time." Examining the homegrown film movement from its bootleg VHS roots to its present state, the film is fast-paced, with outrageous, magical clips, and interviews with influential filmmakers like Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, aka "Da Governor." -

DESPERATE ROMANTICS - Sumptuous, spicy BBC series about 19th-century England's famed Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists who could be called the punk rockers of the era. John Millais, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and William Holman Hunt are the main focus of the series, brothel-hopping and dueling their way through the London art world, with critic John Ruskin and even disapproving Charles Dickens making an appearance. Art history buffs and BBC fans take note!

A TOWN CALLED PANIC - This critically acclaimed, absurdist stop-motion comedy from Belgium features a town populated by plastic toys including the responsible, serious Horse, and his somewhat less intelligent housemates, Cowboy and Indian. When Cowboy and Indian accidentally order 50 million bricks for Horse's birthday gift, it sets off a chain of bizarre events involving giant robot penguins, snowballs thrown between universes, and fish people who steal walls. We know this sounds like a Nickelodeon show, but really it's more like if Michel Gondry had created one, which is pretty cool.

PAULA-PAULA - The latest cult film from uber-prolific Spanish director Jess Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS). Franco has been churning out stylish, bizarre euro-thrillers since 1959 (see our Jess Franco shelf in the Cult section). In his latest he goes no-budget, with the story of a female cop investigating a murder linked to two dancers named Paula, shot entirely in one apartment. An experimental work released in very limited print, it's subtitled "A JESS FRANCO AUDIO-VISUAL EXPERIENCE."

And here's just a few highlights from our "JUST ADDED" section

of rare and new-to-dvd delights:

BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE - This debut dark comedy from Korea's Spielberg, Bong Joon-Ho (THE HOST), is about a hapless college lecturer who is driven to distraction by a yapping dog somewhere in his apartment complex. First he captures and locks the wrong dog in the basement, then an aspiring news-story-heroine witnesses his attempt to get rid of another dog...

GALAXY OF TERROR - Roger Corman's 1981 sci-fi classic finally makes its DVD debut! Starring Robert Englund and Ray Walston, and featuring a young James Cameron as production designer, the story concerns a rescue mission on a planet where trespassers are made to face their darkest personal fears.

FORBIDDEN WORLD - Another new-to-dvd Roger Corman sci-fi flick, this one from 1982. During a food shortage, scientists create an experimental lifeform known as Subject 20, to sustain the populace. But the organism becomes a man-eater with a constantly changing genetic structure. When a bounty hunter is called in to track it down, he realizes the scientists are hiding something from him...

THE PROFESSIONAL - In this 1981 French spy thriller, suave French New Wave veteran Jean-Paul Belmondo is a secret agent assigned to kill an African dictator. When this plan is suddenly revoked, his superiors turn him in to the African authorities, but he escapes and vows to carry out his original assignment, as revenge against his former employers.

WARNER BROS. FILM NOIR CLASSICS VOL. 5

Warner's latest film noir box set of movies never-before-seen on DVD contains DESPERATE (1947) by Anthony Mann, CORNERED (1945) by Edward Dmytryk, THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955) by Phil Karlson, DIAL 1119 (1950) by Gerald Mayer, ARMED CAR ROBBERY (1950) by Richard Fleischer, CRIME IN THE STREETS (1956) by Don Siegel, DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946) by Harold Clurman, and BACKFIRE (1950) by Vincent Sherman. Stars include Dick Powell, Virginia Mayo, Raymond Burr, John Cassavetes, William Conrad, Bill Williams, and Susan Hayward.