X-Men: First Class
This summer's best comic-book movie (in our opinion anyway) evolves into an extras-laden high-def Blu-ray disc. Turning back the clock on the original X-Men trilogy, First Class introduces us to younger versions of Charles "Professor X" Xavier, Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr and Raven a.k.a. Mystique (played by James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence respectively). Against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the trio recruits a team of other fresh-faced mutants to thwart bad guy Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and his plans to help the U.S. and Russia along the path towards mutually assured destruction. Co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn keeps the proceedings chugging along smoothly, although the pacing would be much improved by dropping a few extraneous mutants (Zoë Kravitz's Angel would be our first pick to go). Overall though, this is the strongest X-Men outing since 2003's X2 and proves that prequels don't have to suck.
Extras: Two hours of behind-the-scenes featurettes (including several glimpses of Lawrence getting her Mystique body paint applied, which fanboys will no doubt be studying very closely), extended and deleted scenes, an interactive mutant database complete with videos and ten digital comics.

Hanna
A coming-of-age story lightly disguised as a fleet-footed action movie, Hanna can be viewed as an effective exploration of the pluses and minuses of home-schooling. On the one hand, by raising his daughter Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) in the remote Finnish wilderness, former CIA spook Erik Heller (Eric Bana) is able to ensure that she has all the necessary mental and physical skills to survive in the big bad world. At the same time though, he's left her completely unprepared for how to deal with other people, like the rogue agent (Cate Blanchett) that's determined to hunt her and her dad down. Director Joe Wright could have reigned in some of the film's more affected stylistic flourishes, as well as the overwrought fairy tale imagery, but he and Ronan do a nice job tracking Hanna's gradual transformation from sheltered innocent to world-weary, battle-hardened soul. It's like watching a girl age twenty years in less than two hours.
Extras: A commentary track, a handful of featurettes (the best of which focuses on the Chemical Brothers' throbbing score) and deleted scenes, including an alternate ending that the filmmakers were wise not to use.

Scarface
A flop at the time of its initial release, Brian De Palma's Scarface has since emerged as one of most influential movies of the '80s, referenced in almost every form of media, from rap songs to video games to Simpsons memorabilia. Is the movie itself really worthy of all the adoration? Well... yes and no. For starters, the '80s cheese is difficult to cut through at times and Al Pacino's histrionics are harbingers of his later self-parodying work in crap like Scent of a Woman and Two for the Money. Still, those histrionics are also one of the chief pleasures of a movie that's gloriously, ridiculously over the top. Scarface doesn't really need to be three hours long, but not one of its 170 minutes are boring. As others have astutely pointed out, through the rise and fall of Tony Montana, De Palma captures the era's hedonistic excess followed by its inevitable plunge back down to earth.
Extras: This fancy limited edition Blu-ray comes in a SteelBook box that holds both De Palma's movie and the 1932 black-and-white crime classic it's based on. You've also got deleted scenes, five featurettes (including a look at the Scarface video game and a very funny clip montage comparing the movie's theatrical and sanitized TV versions) and a new documentary that tackles the rarefied place that Scarface holds in contemporary pop culture.

Everything Must Go
Will Ferrell puts on his serious face for this darkly comic drama about a guy that's experiencing a seriously bad day. After getting fired from his job, he returns home to discover that his estranged wife has left him, but not before putting all of his possessions on the front lawn and changing the locks on the house. Unable to get inside and with no other place to go, Ferrell plops himself down in an easy chair and tries to figure out his next move in between getting marathon drinking sessions. A skilled dramatic actor (watch Stranger Than Fiction if you don't believe me) Ferrell seems willing to go to some dark places here, but the movie itself keeps pulling him back. What begins as a bracingly honest film about an emotionally troubled guy ends up as a maudlin, sappy "I'm okay, you're okay" self-help session.
Extras: A commentary track with the director, two featurettes and deleted scenes.

Also on DVD:
Remember when Josh Hartnett was supposed to be the next big thing? Movies like 40 Days and 40 Nights are the reason that career path didn't work out. We can't deny that the movie's soundtrack and fashion choices makes us nostalgic for the early aughts though. If you're looking for a hearty dose of '90s nostalgia Scream: Five Film Set will do the trick. Look back on Neve Campbell's face in the 1996 original and weep for her (and your) lost youth. Revisit Wes Craven's pre-Scream career with the new-to-Blu 1977 horror flick The Hills Have Eyes, a parable about the ease with which modern man can resort to savagery and a pretty good scary movie to boot. After you've gotten through the epic meal that is Scarface, De Palma's 1980 thriller Dressed to Kill makes a tasty chaser, especially the virtuoso opening sequence starring Angie Dickinson. Sam Peckinpah's controversial (and seriously intense) 1971 home invasion movie Straw Dogs gets a high-def release two weeks before its remake is scheduled to hit theaters. Finally, with one week to go before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Universal releases a Blu-ray edition of Paul Greengrass' docu-drama United 93, one of the first movies to confront the events of that day head on.