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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: An old dude emulates Balloon Boy, Buster Keaton goes Blu-ray and Monsters, Inc. celebrates eight quick years with a 4-disc set.

Pick of the Week

For people who like watching old people succeed at things: Up (Deluxe Edition)

Up didn't turn out to be anything like I was expecting. Then again, I really don't know for sure what it was I was expecting, so a discussion about the movie meeting or even exceeding my expectations is a rather moot point. What's more important is this: Having relied on little more than the knowledge of this one starring a cute, old man who attaches an ungodly number of balloons to his home, causing it to break free from its foundations and get lost in the blue sky above – a precursor to Balloon Boy I'm sure – I left the theater feeling like I had seen one of the most creatively unique Pixar films to date, and that the nearly flawless animation studio had notched yet another win in its belt, bettering its perfect score card to an unprecedented 10-0.





Besides my lack of preparation for a truly emotional introduction that left many around me in tears, what I appreciated most about the movie was the unshakeable confidence represented in its makers as Up eventually dipped heavily into the surreal and then never looked back. What happens on land after Carl lands his house/balloon contraption is quite literally insane, but in the end just works remarkably well. (Then again, it's Pixar we're talking about here). Fans of WALL-E will even notice a similar framework at work here in Up, as the movie plays more or less steady-as-she-goes until a game changer disrupts the stable flow that we had grown accustomed to. (For WALL-E, it was all that business in space with characters that actually speak).

Disc includes: Partly Cloudy short, alternate scenes, Adventure is Out There featurette, digital copy

For people who think all actors should do their own stunts: The General [Blu-ray]

I can't say I've seen many silent films. I'm struggling to come up with even a handful of movies I've seen that predate the talkie. But thanks to a History of Cinema course I took only about a year or so ago, I can shamelessly get behind a Blu-ray version of The General, Buster Keaton's famed flick that bombed at the box office and was critically detested by naysayers at the time – but has since been immortalized as one of greatest American films of all time. Evidence of this is the fact that it was selected for preservation into the U.S. National Film Registry in the late '80s, and, interestingly enough, is the first American release of a silent feature film on the Blu-ray format. (Just don't be expecting featurettes!).

Taking place at the beginning of the Civil War, The General is about an engineer's (Johnnie Gray) determination to win back his two lost loves: 1) his train (named The General), which has been stolen by opposing Union forces and 2) Annabelle Lee, a woman Johnnie likes who was mistakenly kidnapped along with the stolen train.

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