New on DVD

This is the lightest week of the year when it comes to new DVD releases.

LOOPER, GRADE B-MINUS: Time travel is like meth to many writers. The plot gimmick has a powerful addictive draw despite, more often than not, it resulting in a slow, painful death.

Rian Johnson gave into the attraction and uses time travel in Looper. The story is about a future where murders are so hard to commit that victims are sent 30 years into the past where hit men kill them and dispose of the bodies. It's a profitable life for Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) until he has to kill his future self.

Also new on DVD this week:

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: Keira Knightley stars in this adaptation of the Boris Pasternak's novel that aired on Masterpiece Theatre in 2003.

COSMOPOLIS: Robert Pattinson stars in the David Cronenberg film based on the Don Delillo novel.

THE TROUBLE WITH BLISS: A 35-year-old man (Michael C. Hall) has reached a dead end with his life.