NEW ON DVD

Look for these new DVD releases, now on store shelves.

"Confessions of a Shopaholic": Is Rebecca Bloomwood the embodiment of irresponsible consumership? Absolutely, which makes the timing of the film either genius or fatal, but two things weigh in its favor. One is Isla Fisher. The other is that the film is oblivious to its own gravitas. Rebecca is the Lucy Ricardo of profligate spending. She desperately wants to work for the fashion rag Alette magazine, run by the semi-satanic Alette Naylor (Kristin Scott Thomas). An opening has arisen at a sister mag, a personal-finance journal edited by the dashing and secretly wealthy Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy), and Rebecca lands the job. The film touches all the romantic-comedy bases: the romance between Luke and Rebecca, and Rebecca's friendship with her roommate, Suze (the wonderful Krysten Ritter). And there's the comedy filler, including the digressions involving Rebecca's parents (Joan Cusack and John Goodman). And 12-step shopaholic meetings. Rebecca may owe everybody for everything, but Fisher owns the movie. 1:52. Rated PG (vulgarity, adult themes).

"The Pink Panther 2": Maybe one could expect a little more from a film that co-stars Jeremy Irons, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina and Lily Tomlin. Each of those blue-chip performers is criminally wasted in this sequel to the 2006 update of the old Peter Sellers comedies. It plays like a series of disconnected skits in a cut-rate "Saturday Night Live" episode. Even Steve Martin's talents as a physical comedian are underused, except for a wonderful set piece early in the film where his character, Jacques Clouseau, gets to juggle a cascade of bottles as they fall from a teetering wine rack. 1:30. Rated PG (slapstick violence, brief suggestive humor).

"Waltz With Bashir": Directed by Ari Folman, the film tells the story of the September 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. Twenty years after the massacres, Folman has blocked the war from his memory. Only when his friend Boaz tells him about a recurring dream does Folman start to ask himself questions. Was he at Sabra and Shatila? Why can't he remember? What is meant by the memories he does have? And are they his? Craftily, the details of Sabra and Shatila unfold, via interviews Folman does with his old army buddies, who are rendered, like Folman, animated, via the process known as rotoscoping, which transforms photographic footage into cartoon and reduces us to something basic and primal. 1:30. Rated R (disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity, a scene of graphic sexual content).

-- The Washington Post