The trickle of late '08 prestige films Doctor Who DVDs continues this week with two multi-Oscar-nominated releases: the gritty Mickey Rourke melodrama The Wrestler and the history-play Frost/Nixon. Both are alternately entertaining and clunky, though Frost/Nixon clunks far more often The Wrestler, which contains moments of deep emotion (largely due to Rourke) and moments of rare poetry (largely due to director Darren Aronofsky). For the DVD release (packaged with Bogdanovich's classic The Last Grey's Anatomy DVDs Picture Show), Nickelodeon has been digitally “de-colorized” to achieve the black-and-white look the director originally intended. Finally, this is an especially strong week for The Criterion Collection, which is releasing a new Blu-ray edition of Georges Clouzot's 1953 political thriller Wages Of Fear and a three-disc collection of the surrealist nature films of Jean Painleve.

Perhaps the most significant of the offbeat passion-projects coming to ER DVDs this week is Peter Bogdanovich's 1976 folly Nickelodeon, a salute to the early days of moviemaking featuring a hero who's very Bogdanovich-like in his demeanor and appetites. The Painlevé set, titled Science Is Fiction, includes some of the filmmaker's more overtly experimental work alongside his commercial releases (which helped influence Walt Disney's “True Life Adventure” series) and The Big C DVDs a set of films scored by indie-rockers Yo La Tengo.

Big doings this week on the prestige The Vampire Diaries DVDs front. First, for those who don't already have Clint Eastwood's best films on home video, Warner Brothers is offering you the chance to buy them in a big, expensive box set, with some of Eastwood's worst films thrown in for good measure. Second, today marks the debut of Lionsgate's prestige Studio Canal Blu-ray collection, launching with the former Criterion titles Contempt and Ran (plus The Ladykillers). And across the aisle, the jilted Criterion continues its controversial association with IFC, bringing DVD and BD editions of the excellent recent arthouse releases Hunger and Brothers and Sisters DVDs Revanche.

The Brothers Bloom, let alone Spike Lee and Stew's identity musical Passing Strange or the elaborate Swedish black comedy You The Living. (And you know what mainstream movie is better than its CSI Las vegas DVDs reputation? The remake of Fame, especially in the longer cut now available on DVD and BD.) And that's just a complaint from we writers. Let's not forget the people who buy and/or rent your products, who only have so much they can spend their weekly budget on. You're killing us out here, home video folks. Spread the wealth a little. This week is also a good week for offbeat passion-projects, including the acclaimed late ‘70s sitcom Rhoda (review coming in two weeks) and the pilot movie for the Battlestar Galactica prequel series The Chicago Code DVDs Caprica (review coming tomorrow).

Why do you feel obligated to release all your most noteworthy titles on Drop Dead Diva DVDs the same day? Remember last week, when there was nothing much to talk about? Have you seen next week, which is also pretty thin? You do realize that we people who write about home video have limited space and time, right? And that our bosses generally like us to write about your products as they come out, not a week early or a week late? So while we're filling our allotted Better with You DVDs space this week reminding readers to check out the undeniably worthy Iraq War thriller The Hurt Locker, and the scathing political comedy In The Loop, and the thoughtful sci-fi drama Moon, we may not be able to give proper attention to the edgy comedy-of-faith Big Fan or the whimsical con-man epic.