Allow us to enact a scene played out in offices across the country this week: So didja see Iron Man? Wasn't it great? Who would've guessed that all they needed to do was fill the cast with Oscar-nominated actors and give them a fun script and good special effects? And how about that one scene? Wow!

You know, there was a time when Marvel movies were terrible, back when DC movies ruled the cineplexes. Those were the days of the Christopher Reeve Superman and the Tim Burton Batman, and I don't care if those two movies were technically 21 years apart, because I'm making a point here. There was a Captain America movie made in 1944, and then the next Marvel-based movie wasn't until 1990, and that one was another Captain America which was so bad it couldn't even get an America theatrical release. Even though Marvel had successful comic books, they just couldn't get the movie deals together.

I am always skeptical when a DVD is turned around so quickly after its theatrical release. To me it either says that they were super prepared and thought ahead about what extras they wanted to do while they were making the film, or (more likely) that they slapped some shit together in order to get it out on the shelves. The latter is clearly is the case with 27 Dresses, which was released in theaters on January 18th and has arrived on DVD just over three months later on April 29nd. Come to think of it releasing the film in the doldrums of January isn't much of a good sign either... so really shoddy DVD extras should come as no surprise.

Recently I found myself watching Godzilla (the craptastic Matthew Broderick version) late at night, 200 stations and this was the one I settled on. Anyway, it wasn't scary, it wasn't even entertaining in that so bad it is good way and the only thing that filled me with any kind of dread was the open-ended final scene that left room for a sequel. So with this fresh on my mind, I skeptically sat down to watch Cloverfield, a film which I had heard lots of excited buzz about from friends, but had skipped in the theaters. Let's just say, this has since pushed any bad residual Godzilla memories out of my mind.

If you haven't seen it, it is basically a monster movie that's cleverly told through a single-hand-held camera of a partygoing guy who captures the chaos of an attack on New York on a personal level. With only glimpses of the dinosaur-like creature, it has a real sense of terror of the unknown. Is the first rumble an earthquake, a terrorist attack, an explosion? Then one terrified and dusty Lizzy Caplan (who was just so awesome in Mean Girls), who got separated from the group, says she saw something horrible eating everyone. Then, well, then it really starts to get good.

Lars and the Real Girl wasn't the most successful quirky semi-indie released last year (that honor goes to Juno, of course). But, for my money, this was the better one by a landslide. One of the primary reasons this one outpaces Juno is its darling little script -- which is completely unexpected and impossible to describe. (Try telling someone who's never heard of it that one of your favorite recent movies is about a guy who falls in love with what is essentially a sex doll, and how his family and community supports him by accepting her. Trust me; most people will scoff or laugh, just like Lars's brother in the film is worried everyone will do at him. This movie is sort of a movie buff's own version of the Real Doll, then, no?)

The second big reason to love this film is Ryan Gosling. I can't imagine another actor of his generation making me feel so strongly about a big, plastic doll. He brings so much genuine human emotion to the role, and if you can watch some of his more intensely emotional scenes without shedding a tear or two, you must be heartless ... or at least a stronger person than I am.

Since the wonderful awesomeness that is Tina Fey has her second foray into the motion picture world in theaters this weekend, it seemed like a good time to reflect back on her first big-screen venture. Let's just hope that she's learned one or two things about making a DVD when it comes time for the Baby Mama special edition, because the extras on Mean Girls ain't so special. In fact, while Fey and the movie are pretty damn funny, the bonus stuff is downright boring. Such a shame. The only real laugh out loud moment that I had was about something that was unintentionally funny, and only amusing because of Lindsay's recent spiral into tabloid hell... but more on that later.

If you haven't seen the flick before, Lindsay Lohan (before the meltdown) plays a sweet teenager who has lived her whole life in Africa and been homeschooled, and now is entering the wild world of high school where she's introduced to cliques and the general awfulness that is the normal part of matriculating. Because Cady (Catie, but everyone calls her Caddy) is remotely attractive, she suddenly falls in with the most popular cult in school. The Plastics are hot chicks who know that it is better to keep the other hot chicks close in order to damage their self-esteem and make them less attractive. Cady tries to be all subversive with her cool art freak friends and take down the leader of The Plastics, the supreme being Regina George. Oh, and Cady discovers that boys are hot. She's a little emotionally stunted, but catches on really quick with the help of some lipgloss and stilettos. Then there's this burn book (a precursor to the Gossip Girl blog) that gets out and turns the school and chick cliques upside down. It's totally better than the She's All That knock-off that I'm making it out to be, but my bitterness from watching the extras is starting to taint my adoration of the movie.

It would be difficult to have made it to this point without having heard of Juno -- you know, that little movie that somehow made it big, ending up getting nominated for a whole bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture. And the writer -- former stripper-turned-blogger Diablo Cody -- even won one for best original screenplay (which, when competing against the much more original Lars and the Real Girl, was frankly undeserved; but I digress).

It's quirky, cute, lighthearted, and often trying too hard to be clever. And, really, the reason to watch it is for the performances -- and not just Oscar nominee Ellen Page's. Really, the ensemble of supporting characters here are what really makes it. There's Arrested Development and Superbad favorite Michael Cera, who'll make you smile every time he's on screen; Jennifer Garner, who sort of steals the movie with her earnest longing for a child; J.K. Simmons, who actually manages to erase the memory of Schillinger that's been seared into my brain for eternity with his loving father; and Allison Janney, who's typically magical. I would comment on Jason Bateman, but I feel that anything I say will give away the movie for those who haven't seen it yet.

With about three hours of extended and unrated footage, the special two-disc Knocked Up DVD is bound to impregnate you and everyone else who engages in this glorious batch of extra cursing and laughter. Since there are so many bonus features, I'm only discussing the ones loaded with enough hilarity to inseminate even a football team (and their cheerleaders, too).

After full-fledge slacker, Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) drunkenly meets and engages in sexual activity with career-driven Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl), the two wind up becoming hopeless parents-to-be without any inkling on what to do. Not wanting to bring the child into a broken family, the two decide to attempt at a relationship, which becomes more than a handful. With the trials and tribulations already intact, Ben's stoner roommates (Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and hippie Jesus-looking Martin Starr) and Allison's white-picket-fence-short-of-perfection sister (Leslie Mann) and brother-in-law (Paul Rudd) become the drive and enthusiasm that the two need to sustain any sort of success (or else the baby is pretty much screwed).

How you feel about There Will Be Blood is probably as complicated as the movie itself. You might be sucked in by the ambitious, elegant filmmaking of Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis's phenomenal acting. Or you might find yourself bored -- or possibly even driven mad -- by first the lack of dialogue, then the frequently overlapping dialogue, and always the sloooooow pacing of the thing. You'll find yourself alternately puzzled, amused and entranced by the film's score, which is part classical, part tribal, and almost nothing you'd expect.

But it's smart and weird in all of the right ways. Not that that justifies two DVD editions, but it seems more and more DVDs are being released this way these days. You can get the bare-bones single-disc set, which consists of absolutely nothing but the film in a standard DVD case. Or you can splurge (it's around $5 more) on the two-disc collector's edition, with the feature on one disc and a handful of extras on another. There was no reason for this to be broken up into two discs, but who's going to quibble with an edition that comes in this slim, sleek cardboard case? It's the perfect packaging for a P.T. Anderson period piece (if there is such a thing), and it even includes a page from what looks like an original edition of Upton Sinclair's Oil, on which the movie was based.

It is only inevitable that the most quoted movie of summer 2007 gets released on a DVD that is so jam-packed with funny that it will give you even more material to quote for months on end (along with stomach cramps and pee stains from laughing so hard). It's super-funny, it's super-awesome, it's Superbad...

The hit-comedy about three teenage friends, Evan (Michael Cera), Seth (Jonah Hill) and Fogell aka "McLovin" (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who -- for most of the movie -- are on a prowl to fetch liquor to an end-of-year High School house party in hopes of losing their virginity in result, has been by in large promoted as the movie "from the producers of 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up," but it is rarely pointed out that Superbad is also created and written by Seth Rogen and his best friend, Evan Goldberg (gee, I wonder where they came up with the names for the main characters of the movie...).

Rogen and Goldberg began their Superbad voyage when they were just 15-years-old (basing the main characters on themselves), and featured on the DVD is the original table read of the movie from 2002, where Seth Rogen reads for the character of Seth (naturally) while another Freaks and Geeks alum by the name of Jason Segel (you might have heard of him), reads for the role of Evan. It is an interesting load of footage that I think über film buffs will appreciate, but it gets tedious quite fast. Better to briefly skim through this to see how young and pre-pubescent Rogen and Segel look, but don't spend too much time on it, for there are tons of other material just waiting for you to laugh at (I just hope you're wearing adult diapers for this).

Sweeney Todd is a strange little film: a funereal musical in which our protagonist is a slicer and dicer, and we're not sure whom it is we're rooting for: Do we love Johnny Depp's Sweeney, despite his less-than-justice-seeking ways? Do we feel for the poor people Mr. Todd kills? Do we love Helena Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett, who seems to want nothing more than to help Sweeney--and make her meat pies, of course? Or are the only good people in this tale the children, solidifying Sweeney's tenet that everyone deserves to die, "Even you. Even I"?

Those questions are best left up to each viewer. This is a Tim Burton film, after all. That means that, even though the color palette of the film is mostly black and white, very little else is.