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LITTLE ROCK — Recent DVD releases:

Acceptance (Not rated, 87 minutes) - Sly, dark high school comedy (a kinder, gentler Heathers) about privileged upper-middle-class kids stressing over whether or not they’ll get into the Ivy League colleges of their choice. Joan Cusack shows up as a pushy, alcoholic mom.

Grade: 84

The Art of the Steal (Not Rated, 101 minutes) - A highly partisan, energetic and fascinating documentary by Don Argott (Rock School) about the so far successful efforts of the city of Philadelphia - especially former Mayor John F. Street - to move a fabulously rich, privately held art collection from the nearby suburb of Merion to downtown Philadelphia.

Grade: 87

Artois the Goat (Not Rated, 110 minutes)- Sweet and artful indie romantic comedy about a nebbishy labtechnician (Mark Scheibmeir) seeking to create a goat cheese good enough to free him from the corporate world of artificial flavorings and convince his girlfriend to stay with him rather than accept a lucrative but soulcrushing job back East. Kind of like a hippie version of Mike Judge’s Extract, though without the bitterness.

Grade: 85

Clash of the Titans (PG-13, 118 minutes) - A winking remake of the campy 1981 film about the efforts of Perseus (Sam Worthington) to save Argos. While it’s a completely unnecessary film, it’s got some sly moments and director Louis Leterrier is, I believe, a genuine talent who has never had access to better than B grade material. That doesn’t mean you should run out and rent this one, just remember you heard it herefirst.

Grade: 83

Don’t Look Up (Not Rated, 98 minutes) - J-horror master Hideo Nakata (The Ring, Dark Water) provided the story for this otherwise unremarkable supernatural thriller about a film crew that goes insane when they encounter the ghosts of celluloid while shooting in Transylvania. The better-than-it-had-to-be cast includes Henry Thomas (The Last Ride), Eli Roth (Inglourious Basterds) and the ubiquitous Kevin Corrigan.

Grade: 78

Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter (Not Rated, 58 minutes) - Mainly an interview with the famously prickly painter who refused to intellectualize or comment upon her at times startling work. (“Just look!” is a common imperative.) While Mitchell was overshadowed by other, maler members of the New York Abstract Expressionist scene - artists like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline - this documentary wisely follows the artist’s directive, allowing us some great long looks at Mitchell’s colorful, landscape-derived canvases.

Grade: 87

The Job (R, 98 minutes) - A con man trying to go straight and settle down with his girlfriend (Taryn Manning) is presented with an offer he can’t refuse by a drifter (Ron Perlman).Based on the director Shem Bitterman’s play, which won the LA Times Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play of 1998.

Grade: 82

Neighbor (Not Rated, 90 minutes) - There’s a new girl in town. And she’s a bad one. By-the-numbers suburban horror.

Grade: 76

Repo Men (R, 111 minutes) High concept sci-fi film about a ruthless organ repossesser (Jude Law) who falls behind on his own heart payments. With Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber.

Grade: 81

The Uninvited (Not Rated, 98 minutes) - Psychological horror film riffs on Rosemary’s Baby; Lee (Marguerite Moreau) and her documentarian husband Nick (Colin Hay of the Aussie pop band Men at Work!) look to start a fresh life in an isolated country house. But they’re not, you know, alone.

Grade: 81

Vincere (Not Rated, 122 minutes) - Marco Bellocchio’s intoxicating film about Benito Mussolini’s relationship with Ida Dalser, the mother of his son and probably his first wife, is an operatic sendup of the strongman as monument, a tongue-incheek indictment of absolute power that at times comes dangerously close to deification. Bellocchio, an old Italian master with radical politics, gives us something other than the jaw-jutting cartoonish Il Duce we’ve come to expect - when we first meet this Mussolini (Filippo Timi), he’s a fiery young radical daring God to strike him down. His rhetoric is brutal and vivid - “With the guts of the last pope we will strangle the last king!” - and if he seems sexually incorrigible, he also projectsan air of incorruptibility. It’s no mystery what the beautiful Ida (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) sees in him; he’s a strong man in insecure times. It’s not long before he’s standing naked on her balcony, with history at his feet.

Grade: 88