Short circuits

A dream come true In the highly anticipated science-fiction thriller "Inception," by writer/director Christopher Nolan, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) makes his living navigating the minds of other people, sharing their dreams and stealing ideas in an elaborate psychological gambit known as "extraction." Cobb has worked mostly with businesses engaged in complicated corporate espionage. But rather than steal an idea, a client named Saito (Ken Watanabe) hires Cobb to plant one in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the would-be heir to an energy conglomerate, in a process called "inception." It's a tough job, and Cobb proceeds to assemble a crack team of dream-weavers to help him pull it off, including a wily forger (Tom Hardy), a chemist (Dileep Rao) and a young architect (Ellen Page). The DVD and Blu-ray (Warner, $29-$36) include four making-of documentaries.

WASHINGTON POST

A fractured fairy tale The Shrek we meet at the start of "Shrek Forever After" is a shell of an ogre. In an attempt to get back some of his mojo, Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) for 24 hours in his old life. In return, Rumpelstiltskin gets to take a day from Shrek's life. Rumpelstiltskin picks the day Shrek was born, which places Shrek in a world in which all the good he's done has had no effect. He didn't rescue his wife, Fiona (Cameron Diaz). Rumpelstiltskin is now king of a police state, and Fiona is the leader of the ogre resistance movement. But there's an escape clause: To get his life back, Shrek has to make Fiona fall in love with him -- all over again. The DVD and Blu-ray (DreamWorks, $30-$50) include deleted scenes and featurettes.

WASHINGTON POST

Also out Tuesday: "Boy Meets World" (Season 4), "Dragnet 1969" (Season 3), "Law & Order" (Season 8), "Lennon NYC," "Restrepo," and Blu-rays of "Cronos," "Lost in Translation," "Shrek: The Whole Story," "Videodrome."

A great sports outing Q What's the best sports video game on the market now?

A The best game this year was "MLB 10: The Show" for the PlayStation 3. If you don't have a PS3 and hate baseball, look at "NHL 11" or "NBA 2K11," which both mark high points for the hockey and basketball franchises. Hockey and soccer arguably make the best translation from real life to video games, and "FIFA Soccer 11" is a solid game, as well. (This is the part where you ignore all of the above and buy "Madden NFL 11" anyway.)

A funnier way to RSVP While the holidays are supposed to be about gathering with your family and friends, honestly, there are some events you want to avoid with every fiber of your being. But how? Try a funny, tongue-in-cheek website that "helps" you weasel out of engagements. Just answer a few simple questions, and the Holiday Party Excuse Generator (holiday.enlighten.com) will do all the work for you. The site leads you step-by-step in creating a MadLib-style letter to send to the unwitting party host. A link to the letter can then be e-mailed to your victim, er, recipient, who is then invited to create an excuse of his or her own. It's a lighthearted holiday treat. Just be sure your recipient has a sense of humor.

MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE

Finding better apps "Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders" (O'Reilly, $20) is one of those books you say you don't need, but once you look at it, you can't put it down. Written by New York Times technology columnist J.D. Biersdorfer, it gives you advice on choosing the best from more than 250,000 apps available in the Apple iTunes Store. Biersdorfer breaks everything down in categories ranging from the best for kids, health, gaming and apps for home and planning a vacation.