There isn't a moment in What Happens in Vegas (20th Century Fox, $35 DVD, $40 Blu-ray) when you forget you're watching Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz -- instead of characters, they're playing concepts, which is why the movie just sits there. Any successful romantic comedy must make the viewer want the would-be lovers to get together. But in Vegas, you don't care because all you see is a pair of actors trying their hardest to be wacky.

The movie, about strangers who marry during a drunken tear in Vegas and are ordered by a judge to spend the next six months trying to make their marriage work, has been released to home video in an ''Extended Jackpot Edition'' that's two minutes longer than the version that hit theaters in May. On a commentary track accompanying the film, director Tom Vaughan and editor Matt Friedman reveal the many small changes they've made to the film, reinstituting a few words they were forced to take out to secure a PG-13 rating, and talk about how the preview screening process shaped the final cut of the film.

Kutcher and Diaz appear in an eight-minute sit-down session in which they essentially interview each other and fail to come up with one witty thing to say between them. The disc includes a collection of brief deleted scenes and a gag reel. The Blu-ray disc includes a rather pointless drinking game to be played while watching the movie. Whatever helps.

`SALO'

One of the most galvanizing films made, Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 provocation Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Criterion Collection, $40) is genuinely unforgettable -- no matter how hard you try to get it out of your mind. Transplanting the Marquis de Sade's most notorious book to 1944 Italy, Pasolini intended the movie to be a cautionary tale about the Fascist undercurrent he saw beneath the growing consumerist culture of the time. It is a testament to the depth of his anger that his film -- in which four government officials imprison a group of young people inside a mansion and subject them to unthinkable kinds of torture, humiliation and violence -- is impossible for many people to sit through.

The Criterion Collection originally issued Salo on DVD in 1998, but soon withdrew it from the market over licensing issues. The discs that did get out became collectors' items fetching hundreds of dollars on eBay in the ensuing years. That edition is rendered obsolete by the new two-disc set, which presents the film in a startlingly crisp, clear transfer (which may be a mixed blessing) and your choice of Italian or English-language tracks.

The second disc includes several supplements designed to help place Salo into some much-needed context. Among the extras is the half-hour documentary Salo: Yesterday and Today, which contains rare footage of Pasolini directing the film's harrowing final sequence, an extended interview with him and his collaborators.

Another 40-minute documentary, The End of Salo, centers on the film's production and includes a recent interview with actress Helene Surgere, who appeared in the film and claims the mood on the set was always jovial and playful. ``When I saw the film, I wondered how we had made something so awful without realizing it.''

The extras, which also recount the film's banning in Italy and Pasolini's murder soon after he had finished the shoot, don't make Salo any easier to watch. But they give you the courage to give it another try.

`HEROES'

Rarely has a show gone downhill in quality as rapidly as Heroes did from its first season to its second. But the images and sound on the Heroes Season Two Blu-ray disc (Universal, $70; also on DVD, $40) are so astoundingly good that you can't help but watch it anyway. Besides, things pick up over the last four of the 11 episodes (the season was truncated due to the writers' strike), setting the stage promisingly for the upcoming third chapter.

Spread out over four discs, the episodes are accompanied by all kinds of extras, including an audio/video commentary for each one pairing a member of the show's cast with a writer, director or producer. Composers Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin (formerly part of Prince and the Revolution in the Purple Rain era) talk at length about the unusual score they created for the show, and their conversation is fascinating, since their music is an integral element of the program's feel.

Each episode is accompanied by a selection of deleted scenes (some are alternate versions of existing scenes that would have taken the story in a different direction). Another supplement consists of 12 minutes of clips that show where the writers would have taken the season if the strike had not shortened it. Best of all is an 18-minute alternate ending to the season finale, which is the way the second year was originally scheduled to conclude -- a much different finale than the one ultimately used.

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@