Tyler Perry's The Marriage Counselor - Buy from Amazon
The latest Tyler Perry play made its debut last January and it is about a marriage counselor and her list of clients, all of whom have problems in their marriage. However, the marriage that is in the most trouble could be her own.

I like watching plays on DVD. I own several and would buy quite a few more if they were ever released (Avenue Q, for instance). Not everyone feels this way, because this format is very different than movies or TV shows. The number of sets is very limited, you can't use camera angles or special effects to enhance the story telling, and it has to be very dialogue driven. All of this limits the style and the types of stories to the point where not all work on DVD as well as they do live. But I accept these limitations and judge each individual play on its own merits. I say this so you will know that when I say this is not a play I enjoyed watching, you know it's due to the merits. The writing it ham-fisted, the characters feel like one-dimensional stereotypes instead of real people. There is a 100% lack of subtlety in this movie that is infuriating. The swings from drama to humor are jarring and show an inability to write smooth transitions, or the inability to find the true voice for the story.

Extras on the DVD start and end with a 36-minute long interview featurette.

Tyler Perry is content to preach to the choir and if you are not in that choir, he's not interested in connecting with you. This is true with his movies, and it is true with his latest play. The Marriage Counselor will appeal to his fans, the rest need not apply.

Wizards of Waverly Place - Supernaturally Stylin' - Buy from Amazon
Volume 2 of Wizards of Waverly Place hits the home market on the 10th. The series tells the story of a wizard named Alex Russo (Selena Gomez) who lives in New York city and has to deal with the usual problems growing up, as well as trying to keep her magic a secret. She is helped by her father, Jerry, a wizard who gave up his magic to marry her mother, Theresa, who is a little overprotective. She has the typical sibling rivalry with Justin, her older brother, while Max, the youngest, is there mostly for comic relief.

This single disc DVD includes four episodes starting with...

• Credit Crunch - Alex is hired as an intern at a fashion magazine, but when her co-workers start stealing her ideas, she plans revenge. Meanwhile, because she is off working somewhere else, her family has to hire a replacement, Sara Paxton, and the boys immediately have a crush on her.
  On a side note, the spell they are taught this episode is the Freeze Frame spell, which you cast by saying, "Gielsjay-Timesday". I wonder how many of the show's target audience will get that joke. My guess is not a lot.
• Smarty Pants - The wizard lesson involves wizard wear, items of magical clothing, including the speed shirt (super speed); night cap (instantly falls asleep); and smarty pants (makes you super smart). Of course Alex decides to wear the smarty pants to help her cheat at Quiz Bowl to beat her brother, but when she wears them too long, she has to deal with the side effects.
  The first episode of season two, and it introduces the character of Dean, who is Alex's crush this season.
• Beware Wolf - Justin falls in love with a woman he meets over the internet, but she doesn't tell him she's a werewolf. She also doesn't tell him that if he kisses her, he'll become a werewolf as well.
  One of the few episodes that doesn't have Alex at the center of it, as she's mostly a supporting character there to make bad dog puns at Justin's expense.
• Graphic Novel - Gigi steals Alex's diary, and plans to use it to embarrass her. However, Alex accidentally casts Literarium Terrarium and Gigi is sucked into Alex's fairytale land of knights on motorbikes.
  Ummm.... I know they wanted a look for the fairytale land that looks sort of like drawings, but they should can chosen a style that wasn't so difficult to watch. It truly is a major distraction on what was otherwise a good episode for the show.

Fans of Wizards of Waverly Place should enjoy the four episodes on Supernaturally Stylin' while the featurette on the fashion is on par with most single-disc DVD releases for Disney TV shows. I would prefer full season sets, but if you bought and enjoyed Wizard School, there's no reason to not get this one as well.

Zodiac - Director's Cut - Blu-ray - Buy from Amazon
I have already reviewed the DVD and HD DVD when they came out, so I feel little need to go over the quality of the movie, other than to say it is fantastic and it absolutely deserved to be seen by more people, and it would not have been outrageous if the film earned more nominations during Awards Season. (However, it came out too early in the year for that to have happened.)

I called the HD DVD potentially the best looking HD DVD I had ever reviewed, which is not a surprise since it was filmed with High Definition digital cameras so the transfer comes straight from a digital source. So I'm not at all upset that the Blu-ray has the exact same transfer. It looks amazing, and this is a movie that is very visual for a dramatic movie and the visuals are part of what draws you in. Additionally, the sound has been upgraded to a loseless codec, which will be enough to convince those with high end home theater equipment to upgrade to this format. As for extras, there are none that are new, but the 2-disc set has plenty to choose from (2 audio commentary tracks and three-and-a-half hours of featurettes on the movie and the real life events that inspired it).

Is Zodiac - Director's Cut worth the upgrade to Blu-ray? Yes, especially if you have the DVD already and can get the $10 mail-in rebate. If you don't have the movie yet, get it. You will be glad you did.