DVDs

This film has it all: intrigue, jealousy, European aristocracy, murder.  It’s also set in a seemingly idyllic utopia, a tiny piece-of-rock island off the coast of Ecuador that lends its Darwinian fame as the stage for this commendable documentary.  That would be the island of Floreana, a 67 square-mile desolate land in the southern region of the Galapagos archipelago, where Friedrich Ritter and his mistress Dore Strauch decide to relocate to escape modern civilization and build their own Eden. 

Movie lovers can count on writer-director Spike Jonze to tackle fascinating projects that live outside the mainstream, but his films often meander. These competing tendencies make him one of the most exciting – and frustrating – filmmakers working today, and he displays both his gifts and limitations in “Her.” The movie is, in many ways, a work of creative genius, delivering insights on topics ranging from romantic relationships to the failures of modern technology. 

How movies are made will affect the format of the home-video and video rentals. VHS had petered out by the mid-2000s with the introduction of the DVD. The DVD format had a higher resolution and better sound quality than VHS, but it was expensive to remaster films for the new format This issue has repeated itself with the existence of Blu-ray discs -- most classic films aren’t available on Blu-ray because of the digital and photochemical process it takes to change formats. But more and more companies are switching to streaming.