Castoff canines are barking up the right tree

Hotel for Dogs

Paramount, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99

In real life, the concept of a hotel just for dogs is decidedly improbable, but in the big-screen adaptation of Lois Duncan’s juvenile novel “Hotel for Dogs,” it’s only mildly off-the-wall. Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin play children who look after lost canines in an abandoned urban hotel while fending off social workers and their own self-absorbed foster parents. It’s standard-issue feel-good family fare, improved considerably by Roberts’ and Austin’s performances -- and by the impressive amount of thought that went into the hotel’s automated dog services. (Austin’s character invents a car-window simulator, a feeding treadmill and other clever gadgets.) The DVD and Blu-ray editions add a few featurettes, 10 minutes of superfluous deleted scenes and a commentary track by director Thor Freudenthal and his young cast.

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Bride Wars

20th Century Fox, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99

Comedies are supposed to exaggerate human behavior, but the depiction of all womankind as merciless, wedding-crazy harpies in “Bride Wars” ranges way beyond the pale. Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play lifelong friends who are accidentally booked for the same wedding date, and respond to this non-crisis by launching an escalating contest of wills. Given that neither character has any dimension beyond juvenile marital fantasies, who really cares whether either of them gets what she wants? The extras on the “Bride Wars” DVD and Blu-ray don’t provide much reason to care either; the discs contain only three minutes of deleted/alternate scenes and a five-minute featurette/infomercial about Vera Wang wedding dresses.

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JCVD

Peace Arch, $19.99; Blu-ray, $34.99

“JCVD” stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as “himself”: a has-been action star whose stressful private life spins even further out of control when he’s mistakenly accused of taking hostages in a bank robbery. Some might be surprised to see Van Damme spoofing himself so openly, but he’s actually made plenty of tongue-in-cheek movies in the past -- just never one so meta. The problem with “JCVD” is that it’s never as clever as writer-director Mabrouk El Mechri thinks it is. Aside from a few big scenes -- a stunning opening action sequence, one heartfelt monologue and a funny twist ending -- this is a routine, overlong heist picture. The DVD and Blu-ray extras are limited to a handful of deleted and extended scenes.

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Nothing But the Truth

Sony, $24.96

The Valerie Plame scandal gets lightly fictionalized by writer-director Rod Lurie in “Nothing but the Truth,” a smart political drama starring Kate Beckinsale as a reporter who outs a covert CIA agent and refuses to tell the court the name of her source. Anyone who followed the real-life saga won’t find much revelatory here, but Lurie takes an evenhanded approach to the story and delivers a movie that should keep well in the pop culture time capsule. Lurie provides a commentary track for the DVD, which also includes deleted scenes and a featurette.

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What Doesn’t Kill You

Sony, $24.96; Blu-ray, $34.95

Brian Goodman’s South Boston crime drama “What Doesn’t Kill You” suffers some for coming on the heels of “The Departed” and “Gone Baby Gone,” but he still manages to maintain a distinctly personal take on the material. Mark Ruffalo plays a drug-addicted family man and Ethan Hawke a hard-bitten schemer, who together spend their days and nights lying to their families about the nature of their work and lying to their bosses about how much money they’re taking in. But it’s when their lives start to diverge and they begin lying to each other that the trouble really starts. The DVD and Blu-ray add a reasonably in-depth behind-the-scenes featurette and a commentary track.

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Also

The Da Vinci Code

Sony Blu-ray, $38.96

Johnny Got His Gun

Shout! Factory, $19.99

The Uninvited

DreamWorks, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99

While She Was Out

Starz/Anchor Bay, $27.97

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All releases available Tuesday.