"LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE"-- One of the brightest little independent hits to roll along in years suitably arrives on DVD just before the holidays, so gatherings of dysfunctional kin can marvel over a family even more messed-up than their own. Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell lead the cast of lovable losers in a happy-sad road-trip tale about a family's bizarre misadventures as they race to get their little girl to her beauty pageant. DVD highlights include four alternate endings accompanied by commentary from husband-and-wife directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
One abandoned ending they found too sappy, another hilarious one they deemed too over-the-top, so in the end, they settled for one last scene of the family pushing their ailing Volkswagen van to get it started, then leaping inside. Dayton, Faris and screenwriter Michael Arndt also team up on two separate commentaries for the full film. DVD, $29.
98. "INVINCIBLE"--Mark Wahlberg stars in Hollywood's latest inspired-by-a-true-story sports tale about an underdog who makes good. Wahlberg plays bartender Vince Papale, a blue-collar 30-year-old who never played college ball but miraculously makes the team after new Philadelphia Eagles coach Dick Vermeil stages open tryouts to hunt up fresh talent.
The real Papale teams with producer Mark Ciardi and screenwriter Brad Gann for one commentary track, while director Ericson Core and his editor provide separate commentary. The DVD also has a featurette on Papale's story. DVD, 29.
99. (Disney) "STEP UP"-- Why do dancing fools fall in love? This romantic mini-hit stars Channing Tatum as a tough street kid doing community service at a school for performing arts, where a hot rich girl (Jenna Dewan) who's conveniently in need of a new dancing partner enlists the slick but inexperienced hunk to bust some moves with her.
Along with deleted scenes and bloopers, the DVD includes winning dance videos submitted to MySpace.com for a contest to promote the movie. Tatum and Dewan join director-choreographer Anne Fletcher for commentary, and the DVD has four music videos and a making-of featurette.
DVD, $29.99. (Disney) "LADY IN THE WATER"-- M.
Night Shyamalan, creator of "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," found himself dead in the water with this strange and unsatisfying fairy tale for adults. Adding to his repertoire of sad-sacks, Paul Giamatti plays a grief-stricken man hiding from the world as an apartment-complex manager, who ends up enlisting his tenants to help return a mythical water nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) to her own realm. The DVD has deleted scenes and audition reels for the cast, a behind-the-scenes documentary and a featurette on the movie's origins as an epic bedtime story Shyamalan made up for his children.
The movie is available on DVD or in high-definition formats with a Blu-ray release or a disc with both regular DVD and HD DVD versions. DVD, $28.98; Blu-ray disc, 34.
99; HD DVD and DVD disc, $39.99. (Warner Bros.
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