Before I get to the capsules, I’m just wondering if all Gen-Xers have fond memories of watching “Footloose” when they were little, or if it’s just me and my friend Stacey. Because we were shocked, shocked, when our friend Scott told us he’d never seen the film; only time constraints prevented us from running out to a video store and renting “Footloose” right then and there. It had been years since I thought of “Footloose,” but when Stacey mentioned attending a Baptist wedding where no dancing was allowed, well, “Footloose” was the first thing that came to mind. “Footloose,” of course, made Kevin Bacon a star for his portrayal of Ren McCormick, the city kid who moves to a small town and leads the revolution that overthrows the community’s strict ban on dancing. The scene where the teens play a scary game of chicken while driving around in trucks is one of my favorites, but the scene where Ren rebels by intensely dancing around a vacant warehouse is pretty good, too. Stacey and I agreed that “Footloose” is an eighties teen classic, and encouraged Scott to see it at once. He's flying to Portugal this week and seems to think he might have better things to do, but I’m not so sure.

Anyway, here are some films I finally caught up with on DVD.

“Grindhouse” DVD is probably the best way to watch this 173-minute double feature, which pays homage to the cheap exploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s. (Perhaps in recognition of this, the film was released on two separate DVDs, despite playing in theaters in 2007 as a single movie.) Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi,” “Spy Kids”) directed one half of “Grindhouse,” a gory zombie film called “Planet Terror,” and Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) directed “Death Proof,” a revenge/car chase film. “Death Proof” and “Planet Terror” are deliberately cheesy and stupid, with gratuitous sex and over-the-top violence, as well as scratches and missing reels that recall the long forgotten B-movies that nobody except film geeks like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez ever watch anymore. Both movies are actually a lot of fun, if you’re in the mood for cinema that aims for nothing except a certain artful trashiness. For every plot twist or inane piece of dialogue that’s almost too dumb to take, there’s something equally brilliant and cool to look at, like Rose McGowan's prosthetic leg/machine gun, or Kurt Russell's sick and twisted but also very funny serial killer. Both Tarantino and Rodriguez have made far better films, but if you’re a fan of either director, you’ll want to see “Grindhouse.” Tarantino has always worn his influences on his sleeve — “Jackie Brown” paid tribute to blaxploitation star Pam Grier, “Kill Bill” to his love of samurai films such as “Shogun Assassin” — but “Death Proof” made me worry that he’s lost the ability to make films that feel new and vital. His next big project is a remake of the 1978 cult Italian film “Inglorious Bastards,” and although I’m sure it will contain eye-popping action scenes, sly references to popular culture and great dialogue, it’s not exactly the great new original work I was hoping for.

“The Lookout” This is a tight little film noir that features a great lead performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played a goofy alien on the goofy sitcom “Third Rock from the Sun” but has since become one of the more interesting young actors around. “The Lookout,” released in 2007, got some rave reviews, but in my mind it's a B-movie: entertaining, well-constructed, but hardly great or really all that memorable. Gordon-Levitt plays a star high school hockey player who pretty much has the world at his feet before getting into a car accident on prom night. He survives, but suffers a brain injury that makes it difficult for him to remember basic things or complete certain tasks. His unhappiness with how things have turned out make him an easy target for a band of criminals who want to rob the bank where he now works as a janitor, and need an inside man. As memory-loss thrillers go, “The Lookout” isn't as good as the 2000 film “Memento,” but it's worth a look on DVD.

"Everything Put Together" Director Marc Foster has made a number of acclaimed films — “Finding Neverland,” “Monster's Ball,” “The Kite Runner” and the underrated “Stranger Than Fiction” — and his first film, the low-budget “Everything Put Together,” released in 2001, provides an early glimpse of his talent. The film stars Radha Mitchell as a young mother whose baby dies suddenly of SIDS. Rather than responding with concern and sympathy, her friends — all new mothers themselves — ostracize her, and she begins to lose her grip on reality. “Everything Put Together” is a dark but compelling satire of suburban motherhood that is also reminiscent, at times, of “Rosemary’s Baby.” How often do you get to see a film like that? Well, here’s your chance.

“The Astronaut Farmer” I happen to know a small boy who dreams of building a rocket ship, and this 2006 movie was made for him: It’s about a farmer, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who builds a rocket ship so he can fulfill his dream of going into space. The small boy really enjoyed this film, and so I thought maybe I would, too. But I have to admit that I had some problems with “The Astronaut Farmer.” I don’t want to sound too shrill, but at some point I actually began to side with the government bureaucrats who want this guy to stop building his rocket ship, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what the filmmakers intended. “Maybe these bureaucrats have a point,” I thought, after the farmer’s first attempt to fly into space results in a disastrous crash that destroys part of the downtown and nearly kills a bunch of people. By the end of the film, I thought of the farmer as a dangerous menace, more interested in blasting into space than the health and welfare of his family. If anything, the film functions as a primer on why you don’t want your neighbor, or husband, or father, building a rocket ship in his barn.

“Paprika” This 2007 anime features great animation and a nonsensical plot about a device that can be misused to invade people’s dreams and turn them into nightmares, and the scientists who need to retrieve the device before it destroys the world, or something. I have to admit, I didn’t really understand this film, but it was beautiful to look at, and if you like anime you should check it out. The knock on anime, of course, is that the films are visually stunning but dramatically incoherent, and “Paprika” doesn’t do anything to change that perception. Still, it features one of the creepiest animated parades you’ll ever see.

Have you seen anything good on DVD? Let me know.