Fun ‘21’ is fine where it counts

21

Sony, $28.96/$34.95; Blu-ray, $38.96

Based on Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction bestseller “Bringing Down the House,” director Robert Luketic’s “21” doesn’t make much of an effort to get the details right, but what the movie loses in authenticity, it recovers in kinetic dazzle. Jim Sturgess plays an MIT math whiz who leads a team of brainiacs in an elaborate takedown of Las Vegas’ blackjack tables. Fast-paced and lighthearted, “21” is like a 21st century “Risky Business.” The DVD adds a commentary track, cast interviews and featurettes on the mechanics of card-counting.

High and Low

Criterion, $39.95

Japanese master Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune shared one of the greatest director-actor collaborations in world cinema history, making films that ranged from samurai epics to contemporary urban tales. The 1963 crime melodrama “High and Low” is one of the latter. Adapted from an Ed McBain novel, the movie casts Mifune as a wealthy man who agrees to pay ransom for his kidnapped son, then learns that it’s actually his chauffeur’s son who was abducted. Criterion’s double-disc set includes new and archival interviews, plus a commentary by Kurosawa expert Stephen Prince.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

City Lights, $34.98; Blu-ray, $39.98

William Hurt won the 1985 Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of a gay Argentine who recounts the plot of a campy old melodrama to a political prisoner to pass the time in the cell they share. Hurt’s chemistry with costar Raul Julia helps balance the movie’s (mostly) platonic gay-straight love story with what director Hector Babenco, screenwriter Leonard Schrader and novelist Manuel Puig have to say about social justice and show-business illusion. The film is a classic, but it’s never had a decent DVD release. The new two-disc set includes the feature-length documentary “Tangled Web,” which recounts how such an odd, touching movie got made.

LA Ink: Season One

TLC, $24.95

Picking up where the second season of TLC’s “Miami Ink” left off, the reality series “L.A. Ink” follows fired tattooist Kat Von D as she moves cross-country to set up her own shop in her hometown of Los Angeles. The DVD contains interviews along with all 13 episodes’ worth of partying, beach-going and decorating the biceps of Hollywood’s C-list actors. The typical reality-TV contrivances keep “L.A. Ink” from being as grabby as it could be, but the show captures L.A. locations and people that other TV series often relegate to the background.

And...

“Big Dreams, Little Tokyo” (Echo Bridge, $14.99); “The Last Winter” (IFC, $19.95); “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” (Turner, $14.98)

-- Noel Murray