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New releases: Joss Whedon’s take on ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

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“Much Ado About Nothing”

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

The degree to which viewers connect with Joss Whedon’s modern-dress adaptation may depend on how familiar they are with Whedon’s TV shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Dollhouse” and “Firefly” — some of the stars of which play out Shakespeare’s tale of romantic confusion and deceit in Whedon’s own sunny Southern California home. By and large, these actors aren’t so great at reciting the Bard, with the notable exception of Amy Acker, who as the sharp-tongued anti-romantic Beatrice finds exactly the right balance between contemporary casualness and poetic classicism. But Whedon makes the “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show” aspect of this project work for him, playing off the goodwill that his regular stable of actors has built up over the years on TV. Shakespeare’s play is about a game of pretense that turns unexpectedly serious, and with this charmingly off-the-cuff staging, Whedon lures an audience with his agreeable actors and ebullient tone before yanking out the rug.

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“In the House”

Cohen Media Group, $24.98; Blu-ray, $34.98

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

Director François Ozon’s film — an adaptation of Juan Mayorga’s play “The Boy in the Last Row” — stars Fabrice Luchini as a creative-writing teacher who gets lulled from his usual jaded stupor when one of his lower-class students (Ernst Umhauer) starts submitting stories about his obsession with the seemingly perfect suburban family of a well-off classmate (Bastien Ughetto). The teacher treats these stories as fiction — which they may be — and suggests things that the “hero” could do to make them more interesting. Playfully meta-textual, “In the House” lets viewers work out which parts of its story and its story-inside-the-story actually happened, as Ozon uses storytelling itself as a metaphor for privilege, in a world where the person telling the tale has the power.

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“Iron Man 3”

Disney/Buena Vista, $29.99; Blu-ray, $44.99/$49.99

For Iron Man’s third big-screen adventure, the Marvel-Disney team turned to maverick writer-director Shane Black, who has delivered a fast-paced, funny and intermittently incisive action picture about the armored superhero’s fight against a cynical global terrorist who calls himself the Mandarin. Black feints at making a larger point about fear-mongering for profit but works against himself by delivering the kind of over-the-top on-screen destruction that desensitizes movie audiences. But that’s forgivable, because at least he cleverly finds ways to keep the always amusing leading man Robert Downey Jr. on the screen without always hiding him behind metal plates. The “Iron Man 3” DVD and Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, copious making-of material and a Black commentary track.

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“The Kings of Summer”

Sony, $30.99; Blu-ray, $35.99

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

At once overly quirky and genuinely profound, this indie comedy tells the story of three teens who decide to wrest control of their lives from their parents by building a house together out in the woods. Even given their youth, there’s an element of “oh, grow up” to the film’s protagonists that makes the movie hard to root for at times. But “Kings of Summer” has flashes of heart and smart humor, and something to say about how utopias go sour. The DVD and Blu-ray come with deleted scenes, featurettes and a commentary track by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta (joined by some of the cast).

And…

“Fill the Void”

Sony, $30.99

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

“Hannibal: Season One”

Lionsgate, $39.98; Blu-ray, $39.97

“Unfinished Song”

Starz/Anchor Bay, $24.98

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

“V/H/S/2”

Magnolia, $26.98; Blu-ray, $29.98/$39.98

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