DVDs released this week | Monster takes on New York

Selected DVDs released today:

"Cloverfield" (PG-13). A 350-foot monster rampages through New York in this horror hit. It is told entirely from the perspective of a hand-held camera that had been recording a farewell party among friends, the lens turned on the chaos that results as the Godzilla wannabe tears up the town.

"Charlie Wilson's War" (R). Director Mike Nichols' sharp foreign-policy satire stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman (who earned a supporting-actor Academy Award nomination) as the three unlikely masterminds to the covert U.S. response over the Soviet action in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

"The Savages" (R). Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are an ideal match in this hilarious and heartbreaking comic drama about a couple of emotionally stunted siblings who are forced back together to care for their ailing father.

"Starting Out in the Evening" (PG-13). Frank Langella offers a towering performance as an aging, forgotten writer toiling to finish one last novel while dealing with a brilliant young admirer (Lauren Ambrose) whose attentions prove a disturbing distraction.

TV on DVD

"Friday Night Lights: The Second Season"

"Laverne & Shirley: The Fourth Season"