“Breaking and Entering”: Anthony Minghella’s dreary film follows Will (Jude Law), an unhappy man seeking to reclaim passion in his life, and the emotionally damaged Bosnian refugee Amira (Juliette Binoche), who acquiesces to his advances, though she knows she shouldn’t. How they come together is as contrived as it is passionless, with Amira’s wayward son, Miro (Rafi Gavron), joining others in burglarizing Will’s London-based architectural firm. The movie easily could have been titled “Glum Rooms with Long Faces,” particularly thanks to a weirdly expressionless performance by Robin Wright Penn as Will’s longtime girlfriend, Liv. Though there are no tags on her toes, her character looks and behaves as if they just wheeled her out of the morgue. The film’s main story of Will and Liv’s damaged relationship is sucked free of interest – they’re rich, they’re dull, they’re restless, and you sense there’s a small part of them that rather likes it that way. The relationship between Amira and Miro, however, is indeed interesting. It focuses on the dynamics between a single, working-class mother who fled her country during the Bosnian war and who now is on the cusp of losing her son to the mean streets of London. It’s this that should have been the movie’s center, but instead, it’s merely the subplot. Grade: C-

“Catch and Release” DVD and Blu-ray: Jennifer Garner – her light dimmed. Here, she’s Gray, whose fiancee, Grady, dies in a boating accident on the eve of their wedding. Now, instead of attending her own wedding, she’s organizing his wake, with the movie eventually nudging her toward personal insight via Grady’s best friends – Dennis (Sam Jaeger), Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) and Sam (Kevin Smith) – as well as Grady’s mysterious other woman (Juliette Lewis), with whom he secretly fathered a child. The film’s slight, quirky characters are driven by a soundtrack designed to tell us exactly how to feel. And perhaps that’s not such a bad thing – in this case, something had to. Rated PG-13. Grade: C

“The Dead Girl”: Five stories comprise the heart of “The Dead Girl,” Karen Moncreiff’s disturbing drama designed to leave you in an unqualified funk. Brittany Murphy is the dead girl in question, with the movie beginning with her character’s mutilated corpse being found in a field by Arden (Toni Collette) before wending backward in time to explore who murdered her and how. Piper Laurie, Giovanni Ribisi, Kerry Washington, Mary Steenburgen, Mary Beth Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are among the large cast. Each is excellent, but it’s Murphy’s Krista who truly grabs. Rated R. Grade: A-

“Essential Classics – Family Films”: From Warner, a repackaged set of three films – “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Goonies” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” – with each putting its share of children through the ringer. While “Oz” not surprisingly is the best of the lot, a very close second is “Wonka.” There remains delight in watching Gene Wilder’s Wonka tempting his share of selfish, sour children within his toxic, sugar-coated world of doom. Wonka is a trick and a treat, systematically allowing these little brats to ruin themselves while the only child in the bunch with a measure of hope – poor, polite Charlie Bucket – nearly belches himself into oblivion. As for “The Goonies,” it’s likable filling, but hardly in the same league. Grade: A-.

“Everybody Loves Raymond: Eighth Season”: Love? How about strife, bickering and more misunderstandings – with sports writer Ray (Ray Romano) trying to balance the lot, usually with mixed results. The eighth season of this reliably funny show focuses in large part on the marriage between Robert and Amy, with Marie meddling as only Marie can. Includes deleted scenes and bloopers, but really, it’s all about Romano, Patricia Heaton, Peter Boyle, Doris Roberts and Brad Garrett, who once again spar convincingly and entertainingly amid the heated comedy. Grade: A-

“Night at the Museum” DVD and Blu-ray: The idea is ingenious. The execution? Not so much. Ben Stiller is Larry Daley, a night watchman at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, who is faced with the somewhat unusual situation of dealing with the museum’s exhibits when they come to terrorizing (and comedic) life. There’s Robin Williams’ Teddy Roosevelt, the cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson), and Patrick Gallagher as Attila the Hun, along with many others, including several prehistoric beasts, such as one boney T-Rex. The special effects are good, though the script struggles to match them, particularly after the long-winded start and when the story derails into Larry’s maudlin life. Rated PG-13. Grade: C+

“Smokin’ Aces” DVD and HD DVD: A bruising, bloody film filled with a bevy of unseemly types, all out to kill Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven), a sketchy man who has agreed to provide information that will sink an influential mob boss. Trouble is, when the mob boss finds out, Aces is pretty much smoked. Or is he? Writer-director Joe Carnahan comes off his fine movie “Narc” to generate an uneven, overly stylized mess that wants to recall Tarantino, but which only mines the glitz, not the depth or the sharpness of Tarantino’s dialogue. Ray Liotta, Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia and Ryan Reynolds star, with the film also featuring the acting debut of Alicia Keys, whose performance joins the rest of the movie in hitting a C-flat throughout. Rated R. Grade: C-

“The Waltons: The Complete Fifth Season”: An antiseptic balm of family highs and woes. Set in Depression-era Virginia, this genial drama follows John Boy and the rest of the Waltons through another year of hardships, with this season focusing on Grandma’s health issues (not so good), Grandpa generating some hospital drama (he brings it), and Mary Ellen getting hitched (good for her). This also is the season in which John-Boy witnesses the Hindenburg disaster and, in another episode, publishes parts of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in The Blue Ridge Chronicle. So, it remains an acquired taste. Grade: C