First season of 'The River' highlights new DVDs

Israeli American film director Oren Peli took theaters by storm with

Paranormal Activity

in 2009, a micro-budget, do-it-yourself haunted-house story that became an international phenomenon.

He puts his screen smarts to good use as creator of the ABC horror/fantasy television show The River, an engaging, exciting supernatural adventure about a scientist and Steve Irwin-esque TV show host, Dr. Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood), who goes missing while searching in the Amazon for magic. Yep, we are talking real bona fide walk-on-water and shooting-flames-from-your-hands magic.

The River follows the naturalist's wife (Leslie Hope) and son (Joe Anderson), who persuade producers of Cole's TV show to make a reality show about their attempt to find and rescue the doc. Paul Blackthorne costars as the TV producer and Thomas Kretschmann as a scary, gun-toting mercenary along on the ride for mysterious reasons.

ABC has released The River: The Complete First Season, a two-disc collection of the show's freshman season. At only eight episodes, the season left fans hungry for more.

(http://abc.go.com/shows/the-river; $29.99; not rated)

Playwright Noël Coward, best known for the witty, cheeky, and risqué comedies he penned in the 1920s and 1930s, embarked during World War II on a fascinating four-film partnership with a young, aspiring director named David Lean, who would go on to make some of cinema's landmark works, including

Lawrence of Arabia

and

Doctor Zhivago

.

This four-disc box set from the Criterion collection includes all four films: the rousing patriotic naval adventure In Which We Serve; This Happy Breed, a brilliantly shot Technicolor drama that follows two decades in the daily lives of a working-class London family; Blithe Spirit, a breezy ghost comedy adapted from Coward's play; and their masterpiece, Brief Encounter, an adaptation of Coward's 1936 one-act play Still Life, a moving story about a housewife (Celia Johnson) whose dull life is shattered when she falls in love with another man (Trevor Howard).

(www.criterion.com/; $79.95 DVD; $99.95 Blu-ray; not rated)

Falling Skies: The Complete First Season. Steven Spielberg, who serves as an executive producer on The River, also helped launch this impressive sci-fi thriller on TNT. Starring Noah Wylie, Moon Bloodgood, and Will Patton, it's about a mysterious race of aliens who attack Earth, wipe out the adult population, and enslave the children. The story is about a ragtag group of survivors organizing a resistance movement. The series seamlessly incorporates dazzling computer-generated special effects, yet manages to remain understated and avoids the empty bomb-a-minute bravado of Independence Day and the Transformers films. (http://shop.tntdrama.com/; $39.98 DVD; $49.99 Blu-ray; not rated)

Red Tails. George Lucas uses his big-budget bag of tricks to breathe life into the story of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots who served with distinction in World War II. The 20th Century Fox film stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Nate Parker, and David Oyelowo. (www.foxhome.com/; $29.98 DVD; $39.99 Blu-ray; rated PG-13)

Sherlock: Season 2. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman return as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, respectively, in three more feature-length mysteries from the brilliant writers of Doctor Who. This BBC production is one of the best Holmes adaptations ever put on the screen. (www.bbcamericashop.com/; $29.98 DVD; $39.98 Blu-ray)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Nowhere as brilliant as the BBC adaptation, Guy Ritchie's second Holmes pic, which stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as the dynamic Victorian duo, does contain some enjoyable sequences. It's due June 12 from Warner Home Video. (www.wbshop.com/; $28.98 DVD; $35.99 Blu-ray; rated PG-13)

Sade: Bring Me Home - Live 2011. Sade, who ruled the charts in the 1980s with a mix of R&B and soul, made a comeback in 2010 with Soldier of Love, her first album in a decade. This disc from Epic Records follows Sade Adu and her band on their 2011 tour. (http://www.epicrecords.com/; $19.98 DVD; $24.98 Blu-ray; not rated)