You now no longer have an excuse for not being able to find 2009’s most acclaimed film in a theatre near you. Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, which has appeared on hundreds of ten best lists and won more Best Picture awards than other film this year, has been released on DVD.

Although it takes place in Iraq, The Hurt Locker could be about any modern war in any country, which is what gives it its universality. It doesn’t take sides. It merely shows the activities of a small group of men whose job it is to diffuse bombs. Tension is there in every scene.

Jeremy Renner, whose best known role prior to this was in the title role as the cannibal serial killer in Dahmer, gives one of the year’s best performances, superbly supported by Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty.

Bigelow’s taut, skillful direction is likely to make her the first female to win the coveted Oscar as Best Director.

The Hurt Locker is available on both Blue-ray and standard DVD.

The funniest political satire since Dr. Strangelove, Armondo Iannucci’s In the Loop is a thinly disguised replay of the shenanigans in high places that led to the U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq. One can only hope that most of it is the writers’ imagination at work.

Peter Capaldi and Tom Hollander head the cast as a foul-mouthed British government lackey and a junior minister whose every word is scrutinized by the media. Add in James Gandolfini as a duplicitous U.S. general and throw in Anna Chumsky for good measure as a U.S. government aide and you have the makings of one of the year’s zaniest comedies. The plot twists come as fast and furious as the gags in what is the year’s funniest film by far.

In the Loop is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Zowie Bowie is all grown up and now known as Duncan Jones. David Bowie’s oddly named son is a serious filmmaker whose first full length film, Moon is a major accomplishment.

Made as a homage to such classic science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris, Moon is ostensibly about the mining of the dark side of the moon as an energy source for Earth. What it’s really about, though, is the nature of loneliness as explored by the character of Sam Bell played by Sam Rockwell in a remarkable performance. Bell is the only human on the moon coming to the end of his three year stint with only the robot Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) his only companion.

Eschewing the current trend for more and bigger special effects, the film relies primarily on character development and suspense to tell its story and succeeds admirably.

Moon is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Why, oh way, do they keep remaking old movies and making such messes of them? The latest case in point is Peter Hyams’ remake of Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

Lang was one of Hollywood’s great directors (M ; Scarlet Street; The Big Heat). Hyams is one of the worst (The Star Chamber; The Presidio).

Lang’s original 1956 film was a noir near-classic about a writer (Dana Andrews) who sets out, at the behest of his father-in-law (Sidney Blackmer) to prove a D.A. (Philip Bourneuf) uses manufactured evidence to convict suspected criminals. The film, which co-starred Joan Fontaine as Andrews’ wife, had a socially conscious subplot about the unfairness of the death penalty. The remake steers clear of anything socially relevant and updates the writer to a TV investigative reporter. TV’s Jesse Metcalfe and Amber Tamblyn have the leads with Michael Douglas in a dreadful performance as the D.A. Not since Billy Zane in Titanic have we seen such a leering, prancing villain on screen. The rest of the cast is no better. Metcalfe’s line readings are embarrassingly amateurish.

If you haven’t seen or simply forgotten the ending to the original you may be mildly surprised, but Tamblyn’s last line to one of the characters is something you may find yourself screaming at the film itself.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

New on Blu-ray, the tenth anniversary edition of Ten Things I Hat About You reminds us once again how good a teen comedy can be when all the elements click. Of course it helps that the source material is Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. It was directed by Gil Junger, most of whose work has been on TV, and provided early screen triumphs for Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gorden-Levitt and Andrew Keegan, all of whom are excellent.

The Blu-ray provides numerous bonus material including reminiscences of the writers and the director.

Also new to Blu-ray, is Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, the maestro’s 1963 masterpiece starring Marcello Mastroianni as the director going through a mid-life crisis as he tries to put together his latest film.

Fellini’s film was turned into the successful Broadway musical Nine, which in turn has been made into one of 2009’s most disappointing films. Skip it and watch the original in its pristine black-and-white glory instead.

The Blu-ray contains the usual plethora of Criterion bonus materials including an introduction by Terry Gilliam and a 28 page commemorative booklet.

It’s been a TV staple since 1997, but I only recently discovered the British mystery series, Midsomer Murders, which airs in the U.S. on A&E.

With an emphasis on character development, Midsomer Murders harkens back in style to the grand tradition of Agatha Christie, but with subject matter Dame Agatha never dreamt of, or if she did, didn’t dare put down on paper. Incest, in-breeding, rape, two-timing lesbians, licentious priests, geriatric nymphomaniacs, inter-generational sex, murderous children of both sexes – nothing is off limits.

The series is expanded from just seven novels by Caroline Graham, the first of which, The Killing at Badger’s Drift is considered one of the greatest mystery novels of all time. The TV version, which served as the pilot, guest-starring Emily Mortimer, Jonathan Firth, Renee Asherson, Julian Glover, Elizabeth Spriggs, Richard Cant and Rosalie Crutchley, is every bit as good.

Veteran British actor John Nettles stars as Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby who resolutely solves each case with one of three assistants played, in order, by Daniel Casey, John Hopkins and Jason Hughes. Jane Wymark as Barnaby’s wife and Laura Howard as his daughter figure into many of the intricate plots. A galaxy of veteran British stage stars, many of them in their 80s and 90s, are among the over 200 murder victims and more than 50 killers portrayed in the first fifty episodes alone.

By the time Nettles exits the show in 2011 he will have logged more than 80 episodes. The search is underway to find his replacement.

Midsomer Murders in available on standard DVD in numerous box sets including The Early Cases which encompasses all the episodes previously released in sets 1, 2, 3 and 5. Sets 4 and 6-13 have also been released, with Sets 14 and 15 coming soon. Each set contains 3 to 5 two hour episodes.