DVD: Shiver your timbers
"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" feels as fresh and bracingly exhilarating as the day Jack Sparrow first swashed his buckle. Anchored by a playfully androgynous Johnny Depp as the ever-cheeky Captain Jack, the film marks the return of stock "Pirates" players Geoffrey Rush as Sparrow's beloved nemesis Hector Barbossa and Kevin R. McNally as friend and confederate Joshamee Gibbs. Two new characters slip into its fanciful world with uncanny ease: Ian McShane as the notorious Blackbeard and Penélope Cruz as a mysterious pirate named Angelica. Depp, Cruz, director Rob Marshall -- and at least one wittily apt cameo performer -- deliver the winning recipe with precision and brio. The DVD (Disney, $30) includes commentary by Marshall and bloopers. The Blu-ray ($40) adds Disney second screen. A five-disc version ($50) includes a 3-D copy, and a 15-disc version ($170), packaged in a pirate's chest, includes all four movies, digital copies, a 3-D "Stranger Tides" and a bonus disc.
- WASHINGTON POST
Out Tuesday on DVD
- "Bad Teacher"
- "Batman: Year One"
- "A Better Life"
- "The Captains"
- "It Takes a Thief" (full series)
- "Monte Carlo"
- "Page One: Inside the New York Times"
- "Red State"
- "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (Season 3)
- "V" (Season 2)
Out on Blu-ray
- "Cape Fear"
- "The Crow"
- "The Goonies"
- "The Guns of Navarone"
- "Kuroneko"
- "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971)
- "Zombie"
APP: This Lemon is sweet
Keeping track of receipts can be a pain, but Lemon (www.lemon.com) simplifies the process by allowing you to scan in receipts and track your purchases from your phone or online. It works like Shoeboxed and Expensify but with a simplified interface geared more toward personal tracking of finances and expenses on the go. You can scan in any receipts from your Android or iOS phone and review detailed information about your purchases directly from the app or online. You can also link multiple phones to one account if you're tracking receipts for more than one person. The service breaks down your receipts by the purchase price, tax rate and expense type. You can view a simple graph of your purchases by month from the web app or your phone. If you're looking for an app to keep track of receipts and nothing else, Lemon works well and it's free.
- LIFEHACKER
GAME: Glob to the rescue
To get a quick picture of "Mercury Hg" ($5 download for Xbox 360, PS3; rated Everyone) imagine the classic Labyrinth board game in which you rotate the game board to move a ball around and keep it from peril while guiding it to the exit. Now replace the ball with a temperamental glob of mercury that's prone to wobbling, shape-shifting, spilling and splitting into multiple smaller globs you must manage simultaneously. Then replace the square board with bizarrely shaped boards teeming with gadgets that alter the glob or place it in peril, and set that board to bounce to the beat of the game's music or a custom soundtrack. At long last, you have "Mercury Hg," a reboot of the awesome PSP and Wii puzzle series that feels right at home on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.
- MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE
