Although it came and went so quickly this summer most people haven't even heard of it, The Promotion (The Weinstein Co., $20) arrives on DVD with a nice assortment of extras. The directorial debut of former screenwriter Steven Conrad (The Weather Man, The Pursuit of Happyness), the movie, about two supermarket employees (Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly) competing for a manager's job, is laugh-out-loud funny.

But the humor is often melancholy, even painful, and some viewers will find the mix of tones a little bewildering. On a lively commentary track accompanying the film, Conrad and the film's two producers spend a lot of time discussing their attempts to make the movie's emotions -- and the characters' economic worries -- real. They were also careful to make sure neither of the two leads came off as unsympathetic, since they wanted the audience to feel torn as to who should get the job.

Other extras on the disc include a blooper reel consisting of about 20 takes of a particular scene in which the actors could not stop laughing, a making-of featurette and a handful of bizarre little segments, such as a telephone conversation between Conrad and Scott in which the actor insists on giving his character an accent, because Reilly is playing a Canadian and gets to talk in a funny voice.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

Released last fall as an HD DVD exclusive during the high-definition format wars, Transformers (Paramount, $40) finally comes to Blu-ray in a two-disc package crammed with enough extras to tide fans over while Michael Bay cranks out the sequel. The image is spectacular, but it's the Dolby TrueHD sound that is the real head turner. You've never heard bass this low on your home theater.

All the extras from the HD DVD have been carried over, including a picture-in-picture commentary track, several making-of featurettes (including one about the complex road the property took from the TV screen to the theater) and a collection of trailers. If you own a Blu-ray player, this is your new demo.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

A few critics carped about the hour-long episodes that kicked off the NBC sitcom's fourth season, but such complaints are merely gripes about getting too much of a good thing. See for yourself with The Office Season 4 (Universal, $49.98), a four-disc set that includes two hours of an element for which this DVD series has become famous: deleted scenes as funny as anything aired on the show.

Though the season was hampered by the writers' strike, The Office had no trouble continuing its excruciating observation of Scranton paper company Dundler Mifflin and its employees and ever-idiotic boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell). If the mockumentary conceit stretches a bit far at times -- season 4 sees the Scranton bunch wandering to places a camera team probably wouldn't follow -- The Office succeeds wonderfully at negotiating one of the trickiest pitfalls of a TV series: sustaining a romance (finally!) between Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) without losing nuance, laughs or the audience's interest.

The DVD set includes the usual commentaries, blooper reel and extras such as Michael's Dundler Mifflin ad, a feature on The Office convention held in Scranton and Rabies: The More You Know from the opening Fun Run episode. Also tucked into the set is the script of the painfully hilarious Dinner Party episode, during which Michael and an increasingly psychotic Jan (Melora Hardin) play hosts -- and melt down completely. Dinner Party perfectly encapsulates the show's squirmy brilliance and its surprising and unerring ability to make us feel sympathy for even the most clueless of people.

-- CONNIE OGLE

cogle@MiamiHerald.com

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