New on DVD: Dec. 9

Released in the U.S. as Zentropa, Lars von Trier's hypnotic 1991 film diverts a well-traveled genre--the train-bound international thriller--off the rails of convention into highly stylized mayhem. Jean-Marc Barr plays the naive conductor drawn into intrigue involving a femme fatale (Barbara Sukowa), a shady American operative (Alphaville's Eddie Constantine) and shadowy industrialists in a European noirscape awaking from its moral sleepwalk through the Holocaust. Visually, it's a dazzling hodgepodge of rear-projection screens, black-and-white with emphatic splashes (and slashes) of color and dreamlike double exposures--hardly the warm-up you'd expect for the maker of the ascetic Breaking the Waves and Dogville. Criterion's lavish two-disc set includes multiple documentaries, a Von Trier interview and a Howard Hampton essay. Also new in stores: the arrival of The Dark Knight; the World Trade Center tightrope-walk documentary Man on Wire (produced by former Nashvillian Maureen Ryan); the "Essential Edition" of Olivier Assayas' delightful 1996 moviemaking satire Irma Vep, a glorious occasion to ogle Hong Kong diva Maggie Cheung; and Buckwild Booty Bash.
Mondays-Sundays. Starts: Dec. 9. Continues through Dec. 15, 2008