What a bummer that despite the presence of the always marquee-friendly Julia Roberts, Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity tanked so badly at the box office? Here was a smart, funny and thoroughly entertaining thriller, with a big movie star in the lead (playing opposite Clive Owen, no less) and nobody wanted to see it.

Well, let’s just hope it was marketed poorly (the biggest push seemed to be a profile of Gilroy, also the writer of the Bourne movies, and the writer/director behind the well-received Michael Clayton, in the New Yorker, which wasn’t exactly going to attract the teeming masses) and that its failure doesn’t say anything about the smarts of the movie-going public. Then again, I’m still haunted by how well Transformers Deux did…

The point is, you can now make up for not seeing Duplicity in the theatre (unless you did) by checking out the DVD. Roberts and Owen play duelling corporate espionage experts who also happen to be lovers in this intricate and somehow utterly breezy heist picture. Much better than the Ocean’s movies, and despite sharing with it a lead male actor and global intrigue, also far superior to Tom Tykwer’s The International. The supporting performances by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, who play warring CEOs, are a real treat as well. So see it already!

Finally out on DVD is Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir, the animated documentary about war, memory, Israel and Lebanon, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar last year. The film’s surrealist imagery, combined with its intimate story of violence and regret (and a sucker-punch of an ending) make this a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable film that’s worth seeing regardless of which side of the street you happen to be on as far as Israel is concerned. The DVD features a commentary by Folman, a making-of focusing on the film’s rotoscopic animation, and a Q&A with the director.