Lohengrin (Opus Arte) and Das Rheingold (Arthaus Musik) are two Wagner operas that, no matter what a director does to them, always have their ravishing soundworlds for audiences to revel in. And that's the dichotomy of these two releases from German opera houses: in Baden Baden, Nikolaus Lehnhoff stages Lohengrin as a hodgepodge of modern-dress and anything-goes surrealism, while in Weimar, Michael Schultz reduces Das Rheingold (the first part of The Ring) to a TV sitcom that insults Wagner's unerring if unwieldy dramatic instincts. Musically, both productions fare better, with Kent Nagano leading a lovely-sounding Lohengrin, bewitchingly sung by Klaus Florian Vogt, Solveig Kringelborn and Waltrud Meier; and Carl St. Clair whipping his Rheingold players into a voluptuous frenzy, especially the swirling opening notes and the majestic finale. Captured with hi-definition cameras, both works have an unedeniable visual luster, although I wish St. Clair's Rheingold weren't so cartoonish. The lone extra is on Lohengrin: an hour-long documentary about the opera featuring interviews with Lehnhoff, Nagano and singers. I would have liked to hear St. Clair discuss his more risible directorial choices with a straight face.

Taken (Fox) - This action-thriller starring Liam Neeson as a stoic former spy who goes to great lengths to track down his teenage daughter after she and a friend are kidnapped in Paris by foreign gangsters begins with a lot of tension that director Pierre Morel adroitly twists into several gripping scenes: the girl's abduction, her father's matter-of-fact tracking down her abductors through Parisian back alleys. After a terrific set-up, however, Taken degenerates into a mindless revenge picture as Neeson leaves a body count that would crown him winner in Death Race 2000: what begins as an intelligent exploration of a man utilizing his specific skill set to save his daughter's life becomes a generic Death Wish or Dirty Harry, albeit set in one of the most photogenic cities in the world. The city of Paris both shimmers and looks grittier than ever in the BluRay transfer, and the extras include an extended cut (with more dead bodies, probably), filmmakers' commentaries and Le Making-of featurette.

Three Days of the Condor (Paramount) - Sydney Pollack's paranoid CIA thriller is one of the most underrated political films of the mid 1970s, with Robert Redford as a reader for an agency offshoot who is the only survivor of a murderous attack that involves the agency's highest reaches. As usual with Pollack's best films, there's a combination of satisfying narrative twists and turns, superb Manhattan location shooting, and movie stars giving top-notch performances: the sexual chemistry between Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway sizzles! The downbeat ending is perfectly in keeping with the end of the Vietnam war era, and it still works in today's equally paranoid and depressed world. Too bad there are no extras; at least the BluRay transfer is topnotch, bringing an ancient New York City—grimier and dirtier, even more frightening—back to life.

The Uninvited (Dreamworks) - Without giving anything away, let me say that a device popularized by The Sixth Sense is used shamelessly in this thriller, and that the narrative twist leading to a final act of violence can be guessed pretty quickly. Such a second-rate horror movie can't be blamed on the actors, who do credible jobs under the circumstances: David Straithairn as the father, Elizabeth Banks as his young girlfriend, Arielle Kebbel as the sister and Emily Browning as our protagonist/victim/possible bad girl. Much of The Uninvited is shot at night, in shadows or dark rooms, and the BluRay image gives that blackness a deeper, scarier hue, so if you're a fan of trashy horror, then that's the way to watch it. Extras include interviews, deleted scenes and an alternate (and far weaker) ending.

Valkyrie (Fox) – Bryan Singer’s recreation of the German plot to kill Hitler obviously has a built-in defect (no, not Tom Cruise): since Hitler was not assassinated, there’s no suspense. But Singer craftily uses that to his advantage by painstakingly showing the conspiracy as it unfolds, so point by point and person to person we see how German military leaders decided to try and kill their leader. Singer was also ridiculed for casting Cruise as heroic Colonel Stauffenberg, but the actor gives a restrained but authoritative portrayal, backed by a who’s who of British character actors: Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp and Eddie Izzard. On BluRay brilliantly captures the picturesque visual luster of Valkyrie; the volumninous extras include a Singer and Cruise commentary and interview, several making-of featurettes and a two-hour documentary covering the assassination plot and its aftermath.

Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2 (Paramount) - Our favorite nerdy Chicago rock fans return in their smash hit movie and its less funny sequel based on the legendary Saturday Night Live skits. A little good will goes a long way throughout these movies, as Penelope Spheeris helms the original for characterizations first and laughter second, which works well—the highlights are the "Bohemian Rhapsody" sing-along and Tia Carrere’s delightful turn as Wayne's girlfriend. The sequel repeats the formula less successfully—appearances by Aerosmith are no match for Queen sing-alongs—as director Stephen Surjik allows Mike Myers and Dana Carvey to ham it up, dropping the humor down a notch. Still—with BluRay giving these early 1990s artificats their best look ever, along with surround sound—connoisseurs of SNL movies will find much to enjoy. Extras include directors’ commentaries and making-of featurettes.