One of the small experimental films (like Bubble and Full Frontal) director Steven Soderbergh often makes in between larger, big-budget projects, The Girlfriend Experience (Magnolia Home Entertainment, $27 DVD, $35 Blu-ray) was shot on the Red One digital camera filmmakers have been raving about and looks absolutely sensational on Blu-ray.

Soderbergh, who also works as cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews, has produced incredibly luxurious colors and dynamic images with the gadget. That the film was shot in a scant 16 days for about $1 million is difficult to believe (there are big-budget movies at the multiplex that look a lot worse).

Imagery and style are key to the enjoyment of this fractured, largely plotless study of a high-priced Manhattan escort (played by adult-film star Sasha Grey) who specializes in giving her clients the full experience of a relationship -- conversation, dinner, a movie and companionship, not just a tumble in the sheets (although that is often part of the package, too).

On an excellent commentary track, Soderbergh and Grey discuss the making of the film, although Soderbergh seizes the opportunity to interview Grey at length about her experiences in the hardcore porn industry and how she adapted to working on a movie in which, despite its premise, there is no onscreen sex and barely any nudity. Grey comes across as bright, personable and in complete control of her career. She is preparing to make her directorial debut with an adult film that she promises will be more ambitious than most.

Soderbergh also talks about how he constantly tries to find new ways to tell a story via film and about his search for a new kind of grammar, although he's also starting to feel as if he may have hit his limits in terms of achievement. He also reveals that he has been contemplating a midnight movie that would only be shown in theaters, and only at midnight.

The DVD and Blu-ray include an ``unrated'' cut of The Girlfriend Experience that is essentially the same movie but with alternate takes and slightly different editing patterns, resulting in the neat sensation of having seen this movie before but not quite like this.

`AWAY WE GO'

The laidback nature of Sam Mendes' Away We Go (Focus Features, $30 DVD, $40 Blu-ray), about a couple (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) looking for the perfect place to settle down and raise their soon-to-arrive first child, is perfectly suited to the more relaxed ambience of your living room, where the leisurely pace won't seem so much of a problem as it might have in theaters.

The film is accompanied by an outstanding commentary track by Mendes and screenwriters Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who are obviously fond of each other. Eggers and Vida, who wrote the screenplay while awaiting the birth of their first child, say they basically entrusted the project to Mendes and had little to do with it once filming began, so watching the finished movie was a revelation to them, because Mendes had taken all their ideas and fleshed them out in new ways.

Mendes, who had worked with Krasinski on Jarhead, also comments that he had advised the actor not to take a role in NBC's remake of the British TV hit The Office, because Mendes was sure the U.S. version would flop. Fortunately, the actor ignored his director's advice.

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