Earth, Sky & Outerspace

By Brian Truitt

“Live Animals”
(Echo Bridge Entertainment, $24.98)

Produced by 16th Section Pictures, a film company partly based in Washington, “Live Animals” premiered in Arlington in September and is already trying to carve out its place as the new “Hostel.” The horror is in full effect as a crazy guy grabs groups of young people and tortures them in a variety of ways in a rundown barn in the country, and the current crop tries to break out before too many die. There are deleted scenes and making-of feature to be had, but really, the scares are the highlights here.

“Up”
(Walt Disney Home Entertainment; $29.99 DVD, $45.99 Blu-ray)

Animation giant Pixar scores yet again with the fantastic “Up,” the heartfelt tale of a lonely, crotchety old widower (voiced by Ed Asner) who finds the adventure of a lifetime with a young Boy Scout and a dog via balloon-powered flying house. Special features are stacked in the hi-def deck. The standard DVD edition includes a couple of animated shorts, while the four-disc Blu-ray offers a digital copy as well as several documentaries, character studies, alternate scenes and a BD-Live geography game.

“Star Trek”
(Paramount Home Entertainment; $29.99 DVD, $34.98 two-disc special edition, $39.99 Blu-ray)

It may irk the “Trek” faithful, but J.J. Abrams’ awesome reboot of the sci-fi franchise is what George Lucas’ “Star Wars” sequels should have been: great character backstories, a neat-o plot and wow-worthy special effects. The jam-packed discs are full of cool features such as deleted scenes, commentaries, a look at designing new planets and aliens, and how they paid tribute to the original 1960s series.

(November 2009)