DVD SCANS

DVD review | Hitchcock on Blu-ray's a thriller

No one can definitely say 1959's North By Northwest is Alfred Hitchcock's best movie -- how to choose? -- but from first frame to last, it may well be his most entertaining. The first of Hitchcock's pictures to appear on the Blu-ray format (Warner Home Video, $35), the film has been given a $1 million restoration, and to say it looks utterly fantastic on high-definition -- one of the most astounding Blu-ray transfers to date -- is probably an understatement.

MOVIES

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival schedule

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival: The 24th annual event moves into its final week of new features, documentaries and shorts from around the globe plus parties, seminars and films for kids. Filmmakers are featured at many of the events; through Nov. 11; Cinema Paradiso, 503 SE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale (unless otherwise noted); $10, $8 seniors and students, $6 FLIFF members (unless otherwise noted) A $25 donation is suggested at some of the screenings and is tax deductible. See website for details and to confirm schedule. 954-525-3456 or www.fliff.com:

'The Box' filmmaker Richard Kelly pushes his viewers' buttons

Filmmaker Richard Kelly's initial encounter with Richard Matheson's fiendish little short story Button, Button -- about a cash-strapped couple offered a million dollars to push a button on a box that will instantly cause someone they don't know to drop dead -- came not on the page, but on TV.

MOVIES

Review | The Men Who Stare at Goats (R) **

Super soldiers in Iraq have nothing to do

MOVIES

Review | Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG) ***

Classic Christmas tale retold with eye-popping effects

MOVIES

Review | The Fourth Kind (PG-13) **

Alien goings-on in Nome, Alaska

MOVIES

Review | The Baader-Meinhof Complex (R) ***½

The birth of modern terrorism as a thriller

MOVIES

Review | The Box (PG-13) ***

Eerie morality tale may well push your buttons

WEB HORROR SERIES

Corman, Netflix get interactive in 'Splatter'

When it came to making movies quickly and cheaply, it was hard to beat Roger Corman, who once joked that he could make a film about the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush. He directed 1960's The Little Shop of Horrors in two days.