Like a curse of death for the guys, the "chick flick" phrase has been invoked for The Lake House, a Hollywood romance co-starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

It is an unfair label because it ghettoizes female tastes, and seems to exclude males when love is in the air, as if we are all brutes.

Alejandro Agresti's movie, while it does indulge in the warm-and-fuzzies, also has a lot of other things going on. It dances through a sci-fi plot involving a warp in the time-space continuum, and challenges viewers. It is graced with a melancholy tone not usually found in the genre.

The Lake House debuted on DVD this week. There are separate full and widescreen editions. As usual, I opted for widescreen, still the smartest way to build a collection for the future.

Unfortunately, these Lake House DVDs are poor on the extras. There is a collection of deleted scenes, along with outtakes, plus a trailer. The Lake House is complicated enough -- the protagonists live alone in the same house at the same "time" but they are separated by two years in real time -- that it warrants a little explanation.

Perhaps this could come from Reeves and Bullock, but especially from the Argentinian Agresti, who is making his American directorial debut and who invokes an interesting element of magic realism.

On the personal celebrity level, I would like to see Reeves and Bullock chat. There is a genuine affection there. The Lake House was their first movie together since Speed. And, once re-united, Bullock skewered her pal for letting her do the dreadful Speed 2, which he wisely avoided. It would be fun to hear them talk about it.

VROOOOOM! As the Sun's Steve Tilley said when originally reviewing this movie, "the cars are the stars" in The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Directed by Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow) in what has to be called "slumming" for this emerging talent, the third Fast/Furious flick has none of the original actors in major roles, although one of them makes a "surprise" cameo appearance at the end. Otherwise, this is all about the fast cars, babes and the adrenaline rush of watching stunt drivers fishtail around hairpin turns using the "Tokyo drift" style of extreme driving.

The DVD arrived this week in separate full and widescreen editions. Ditto on the widescreen again, especially if you want to see all the action in its full glory -- Toyko Drift is about action, not plot, character, or dialogue. There are strong extras, including Lin's commentary, deleted scenes, visits on set in Japan and, of course, a featurettes on how 230 cars were tricked out to set them up for the shoot.

SEX GAMES: For a movie about a "pin-up sensation that shocked the nation," Mary Harron's biopic, The Notorious Bettie Page, is surprisingly tame, surprisingly sexless despite the nudity and a parade of fetish fear.

But, of course, that is part of what the backstory is all about. With a splendidly real and fetching Gretchen Mol as the 1950s model Bettie Page, the film shows how dismally repressed, angry and myopic that era really was about sex and the female form, and how naive women like Page got caught up in the drama.

Harron also puts us on the cusp of the sexual liberation that would make Page's pictures and movies, even the bondage stuff, look so innocent today. Nevertheless, with its sombre tone, the glimpses of Page's traumas (incest, gang-rape, an abusive husband) and the moody B&W photography, Notorious is so serious that it fails to perk up and play. So, while it is about an era, it never seems that real on screen.

The DVD arrived this week in widescreen-only. The extras are excellent, with Mol, Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner collaborating on the commentary. A featurette and a Bettie Page movie show what the real deal was all about, as Harron also does briefly in her film's end credits.

DOWN AND OUT: David Jacobson's gritty, sweaty drama Down In The Valley -- a contemporary western with Edward Norton as a cocky cowboy wooing the rebellious teen played by Evan Rachel Wood -- is disturbing. The stakes are high. Danger is rife. But the film has a spellbinding quality, in both story and performance.

The DVD came out this week in separate full and widescreen editions with limited extras, including deleted scenes and a worthwhile Q&A that peels away some of the layers of mystery -- which is, after all, the purpose.