DVD corner

“Desperate Housewives: Season Three”: Desperate? You could say that. But if it were just desperation that drove the women of Wisteria Lane, “Desperate Housewives” would have been just another soap opera and not the hit ABC television show it became. In this third season of the show, Wisteria Lane and the “ladies” who lunch there remains a place where friendship and neighborly love don’t exactly go down like spoonfuls of sugar. Saccharine, yes – but rarely sugar, and don’t expect much of it to be sweet when so much of it is laced with bitters. Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman and Nicollette Sheridan work hard to mix it up this season (they had to, if only to recapture the heat lost in the disappointing second season), and so they are more salacious than ever. This boxed set, after all, is called “The Dirty Laundry Edition,” and it comes through with all that implies. Grade: B+

“Dr. T and the Women: Special Edition”: Not so special. From Robert Altman, this 2000 film stars Richard Gere as the most popular OB/GYN in Dallas history, with a gaggle of bitchy, wealthy Texas women in a rush to experience the surprisingly warm touch of his cold speculum. Trouble is, the movie isn’t at all interested in the women it flamboyantly parades across the screen; they’re just an excuse for the director to present another ensemble piece, one that isn’t lifted by its cast, but positively burdened by it. It’s curious. Altman has gathered together a talented group of actors – Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson, Liv Tyler, Lee Grant, Janine Turner, Robert Hays, Matt Malloy and Andy Richter – but this time, he isn’t able to make even one of them take shape as an individual character. For 122 minutes, his screen is clogged with uninteresting people, all of whom misbehave in awkward attempts to stand out from the crowd. The film, which is about what becomes of Dr. T’s glorious life when his wife, Kate (Fawcett), suffers a breakdown, his daughter, Dee Dee (Hudson), prepares for her wedding, and a hot golf pro (Hunt) turns on the romantic charm, does feature the chaos Altman is famous for choreographing, but Anne Rapp’s hackneyed script and Altman’s unusually lax direction make it unwatchable. Rated R. Grade: D

“The Office: Season Three”: Find out what happens when your boss isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the office. This third season of “The Office” mocks and skewers authority with the same verve of the previous two seasons, with Steve Carell once again pitch perfect as the geeky moron whom nobody respects. The supporting cast – including Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski – are excellent, and while the show never has bested its BBC counterpart (it’s tough not to miss Ricky Gervais), it can be beautifully cutting in its observations. Grade: B+

“Georgia Rule”: Stars everyone’s favorite enfant terrible and bonne vivante Lindsay Lohan as Rachel, a misguided train wreck of a 17-year-old brat who sports the sort of foul mouth that crosses the line so often, some might want to wash it out with soap. In fact, in a pivotal scene, that actually happens, with Jane Fonda’s Georgia literally applying the soap and the scrubbing. Not that it does much good. You could dip this film in bleach and still you’d come away with a story that makes you itch. The film begins on a shrill note and sustains it, with Rachel and her alcoholic mother, Lilly (Felicity Huffman), having at each other’s throats in a road trip from hell. Determined to straighten her daughter out, selfish, unlikable Lilly has yanked selfish, unlikable Rachel out of San Francisco and shuffled her off to Idaho, where Lilly’s mother lives a cleaner life marked by the sort of strident rules that drove Lilly away years ago. With Rachel also railing against those rules, the stage is set for loads of soapy confrontations between granddaughter and grandmother, which makes for an exhausting movie that plunges into an almost limitless well of bad taste, a good deal of which is awkwardly masked as humor. Fonda and Huffman have a go of it here, trying to do their best with a bum script, but as for Lohan? She’s the lost soul you expect her to be. Grade: D+

“Nip/Tuck: Complete Fourth Season:” On DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. A savage little television show about two South Beach plastic surgeons. Fittingly, nothing appears tired here, particularly the writing – in this fourth season, it remains fresh and inventive. How inventive? Consider the organ harvesting ring that involves Christian (Julian McMahon) and his wife (Sanaa Lathan), the 50-year-old phone sex worker who wants her sultry voice back, or the woman who wants her dead husband’s ashes implanted in her implants because, you know, he’ll be closer to her heart that way. Charming. Co-star Dylan Walsh as surgeon Sean McNamara welcomes a new child this season while his older son turns to Scientology. Appearances by Jacqueline Bisset, Mo’Nique, Rosie O’Donnell, Alanis Morisette and, of all people, Larry Hagman, help to smooth away the occasional wrinkle. Grade: B+

“30 Rock: Season 1”: From Tina Fey, longtime writer and cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” comes this Emmy Award-winning series about a sketch comedy show in which pretty much everything goes wrong. The first season of “30 Rock” underscores Fey’s ear for dialogue, which she showcased to great effect in her popular movie “Mean Girls,” and which now has been honed to an even deadlier point. Beyond the writing, what makes the series work as well as it does is the obvious insight Fey brings to each script she either co-writes or oversees – this woman knows network television. In each episode, you can smell the authenticity in the behind-the-scene dramas, even if they are heightened beyond reason. Here, Fey is Liz Lemon, head-writer of “The Girlie Show,” who is startled when her new boss Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin, excellent) brings in the borderline insane Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to beef up the show’s male demographic. Disaster ensues, as do the laughs – this “Rock” never sinks. Grade: B+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.