NEW ON THE SHELF 

“THE CALL,” starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin. Tight, effective thriller finds 911 operator Berry relying on wits over GPS when she receives a call from an abducted teen (Breslin) currently in the trunk of a psychopath (Michael Eklund, “The Divide”). While the plot holes become glaring the more thought you put into it, “The Call” manages to stir up more than its fair share of tension thanks to solid performances across the board. Special features include a commentary from Breslin. Rated R. Running time: 1:34 

Suggested retail price: $30.99; Blu-ray $40.99 

“THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE,” starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey. Vegas magicians receive a thorough, long overdue skewering in this highly entertaining comedy, which pits long-in-the-tooth illusionist Wonderstone (Carell) against a more modern, shock-value con artist (Carrey, back in full-on “Ace Ventura” mode). The expected laughs are there in abundance, but “Wonderstone” has a honest-to-goodness story to tell as well, delving a bit more into its characters than one might be led to expect. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1:40

Suggested retail price: $28.98; Blu-ray $35.99 

“UPSIDE DOWN,” starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess. Visually stunning sci-fi/romance is nothing if not ambitious, with would-be lovers Adam (Sturges) and Eden (Dunst) attempting to reconnect despite living on separate planets with gravities that happen to pull in opposite directions. Suddenly, your long-distance relationship doesn’t seem like that big a deal, does it? Writer-director Juan Solanas (“Northeast”) brings some truly astounding CGI imagery to his labor of love, which goes a long way toward one’s potential forgiveness of the occasionally cringe-worthy screenplay. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1:40 

Suggested retail price: $28.99; Blu-ray $29.99 

“A PLACE AT THE TABLE,” documentary. Eye-opening, angering and essential, this documentary from the people who brought you the equally enlightening “Food, Inc.” focuses on the everyday hunger experienced by millions of Americans, the majority of whom have full-time jobs yet still go without. Giving the problem a human face through extensive interviews and proposing a number of possible solutions, “Table” makes its case plainly and effectively. Rated PG. Running time: 1:24 

Suggested retail price: $26.99; Blu-ray $29.98 

“PUSHER,” starring Richard Coyle and Agyness Deyn. Hyper-kinetic remake of the 1996 thriller that jump-started the career of now in-demand director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Drive”), this update from Luis Prieto (“Condon Express”) relocates to London. But otherwise, its tale of a low-level drug pusher (an enjoyably seedy Coyle of “A Good Year”) scrambling to scrounge an owed debt to a terrifying Serbian crime lord (Zlatko Buric, reprising his role from the original). Not rated. Running time: 1:29 

Suggested retail price: $24.98; Blu-ray $29.99 

NEW TO BLU-RAY 

“HELP!”, starring The Beatles. The Fab Four’s second foray into filmdom lacks the cool class of “A Hard Day’s Night,” sticking mostly to slapstick antics as the ever-hapless Ringo is relentlessly pursued by an Eastern cult that is after a sacrificial ring he unknowingly possesses. Good silly fun for all ages, to say nothing of the peerless soundtrack, which includes such classics as “Ticket to Ride” and the title track. Special features include a making-of documentary and outtakes. Rated G. Running time: 1:32

Suggested retail price: $29.98 

“SHOAH,” documentary. One of the most acclaimed and important documentaries ever made, director Claude Lanzmann’s astounding nine-and-a-half-hour 1985 study of the Holocaust relies almost entirely on first-person interviews with survivors; vivid, crushing testimonies that no amount of dramatization could hope to embellish. An exemplary effort from the Criterion Collection, with extensive special features that include three additional films by Lanzmann and new interviews with the filmmakers. Not rated. Running time: 9:26

Suggested retail price: $99.95 

VIDEOPORT PICKS 

“NO,” starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Alfredo Castro. An Academy Award nominee for best Foreign Language Picture, director Pablo Larrain (“Post Mortem”) distinguishes “No” right off the bat by electing to shoot on videotape. By doing so, he immediately lends the film an appropriately dated and tired look that well suits its fact-based tale of an ad executive (the always excellent Bernal of “Y Tu Mama Tambien”) saddled with managing the political campaign against longstanding dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988 Chile. A challenging but stirring historical drama told with passion and humor. Rated R. Running time: 1:58

Suggested retail price: $30.99; Blu-ray $35.99

“THE RAMBLER,” starring Dermot Mulroney and Lindsay Pulsipher. Love or hate it, you’ve never seen anything like “The Rambler,” a seemingly straightforward saga of a lone-wolf cowboy (Mulroney, “The Grey”) who is released from prison but finds only the bleakest of prospects on the outside, finally counting on a trip to Oregon to visit his brother to hopefully set him on a suitable path. From there, writer-director Calvin Reeder (“The Oregonian”) utterly abandons all semblance of traditional storytelling approaches and throws one insane, disturbing event after another at his protagonist (and his audience). Polarizing to say the least, but exciting as well. Rated R. Running time: 1:39 

Suggested retail price: $22.98; Blu-ray $24.99

– Courtesy of Videoport

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