DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Set in and around a half-built rubble-strewn suburb of nowhere Vienna, pounded by summer sunstroke, and featuring brutal scenes of rape and battery, Dog Days is a bracing blast of arthouse nihilism from Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl. And like a bleak psychotropic Short Cuts, the success of this multi-character piece depends on how the viewer responds to Seidl's remarkable yet savagely pessimistic world view.

Sandra Bullock got little credit for branching out as a gum-chewing, neurotic hardcase in this clever Barbet Schroeder cop thriller. Two Dostoyevsky students commit the perfect murder as an intellectual challenge; it's up to boozy Bullock and sidekick Ben Chaplin to rattle their smugness. Schroeder ensures it has a dark heart.

Oliver Stone's typically overwrought biopic of Jim Morrison has been much-mocked down the years, perhaps unfairly. It's full of Stone's signature bombast and is characteristically laden with all manner of wild and windy symbolism, but it has rather more going for it than popular reputation usually allows—not least, a surprisingly good performance from Val Kilmer as The Lizard King himself, fantastic duplication of vintage concert footage, especially the re-staging of the infamous Miami bust, and the patently deranged Crispin Glover as Andy Warhol to fucking boot!

Comedy terrorist Chris Morris writes and directs this extended riff on what could have been one of his more unsettling TV sketches—think Kafka remixed by Chris Cunningham. Paddy Considine, a talking dog, a demonic baby and a nerve-jangling soundtrack blur the line between black humour and abstract art. More please. DVD EXTRAS: Runner's commentary, alternative 5.1 mix, original radio monologue, dog animation, remix of the film by Cartel. (SD)

Initially promising black comedy, acidly penned by Dan (Dead Man's Curve) Rosen, which follows a group of student types as their campaign for political correctness moves from right-on moaning to casually poisoning anyone whose views don't dovetail with their own. Even an early Cameron Diaz performance can't stop it losing momentum late on. DVD EXTRAS: None. (CR)

Savage Hollywood satire from 1950 retains its bleak, sardonic edge

Pulp's early-'90s videos for "Babies" and "Lipgloss" perfectly capture that periods new optimism, while the promos for "Common People" and "Disco 2000" were Britpop's peak visual moments. But it's the extras on this three-hour DVD that provide evidence of Jarvis Cocker's surreal ubiquity back then: impersonations courtesy of Harry Hill, Chris Morris and Mr Blobby, appearances on This Morning With Richard & Judy and Da Ali G Show, and a take-off on Stars In Their Eyes.

Abel Ferrara's 1979 directorial debut achieved notoriety as a video nasty, but those seeking gore will be largely disappointed. It's an exceedingly bleak portrait of an artist (Ferrara) cracking up and relieving the stress by offing homeless bums with a hand drill. Doom-laden angst that's almost unbearable on any level.

A highly entertaining non-making of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote

The first gig since Castlemorton to make front-page news, Fatboy Slim's massively over-attended 2002 beach-front hoedown was greeted as armaggedon by the Daily Mail but, as this film shows in fact consisted of a bald man in a Hawaiian shirt playing 19 records very loud. Watch 200,000 ecstatic bodies moving in unison to "Born Slippy", though, and you'll realise the Mail had a point. Goosebump-inducing. DVD EXTRAS: Interview with and full commentary by Norman Cook, choice of playing the tracks in your own order.