Charlie Banks (Jessie Eisenberg) finds himself in a dilemma when an ugly piece of his past comes into his life in The Education of Charlie Banks.

Anchor Bay Entertainment / K.C. Bailey

The crew of the coming-of-age drama The Education of Charlie Banks (Anchor Bay, $29.97) spent a month in June 2006 filming on Rhode Island locations with Fred Durst, formerly the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, making his feature movie debut and a cast that included Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Ritter and Eva Amurri, who is Susan Sarandon’s daughter.

Set largely on a college campus, many exteriors were shot on the Brown Quad and inside the Athenaeum in Providence, which played the college library. After a 2007 screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, where it won the “Made in New York” award although only early scenes were shot in Greenwich Village, Charlie Banks disappeared. It finally resurfaced in early April for a one-week run at the Avon Cinema. Now it’s on DVD.

Charlie Banks turns out to be a well-acted drama that sensitively portrays the complicated choices young people are often forced to make to remain true to themselves. Eisenberg plays the title character, a college kid trying to forget the ugly night a few years earlier when he witnessed tough kid Mick Leary (Ritter) pummeling a pair of boys to within an inch of their lives. Although Charlie had fingered Mick to the cops at the time, he later got scared and retracted his statement, allowing Mick to go free. But when Mick unexpectedly turns up on campus, Charlie has an anxiety attack, at least at first. However, Mick seems to have calmed down since the old days. He charms Charlie’s friends, audits some of Charlie’s classes successfully and even makes a play for Charlie’s girl. Although he seems an all-around guy, Mick is really on the run from the police and this discovery creates Charlie’s dilemma in a film that keeps taking unexpected turns.

Which path to take?

Joaquin Phoenix plays a reclusive young man who is just out of therapy following his suicide attempt and uncertain of which path to take when he falls for two women in the offbeat Two Lovers (Magnolia, $29.98). Phoenix plays Leonard, a man who would rather be a photographer than join the family dry cleaning business that his father hopes to merge with a larger operation. Papa sees the lovely daughter, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), of his new business partner as the perfect match that would merge both the businesses and the families. Leonard likes Sandra, but is also drawn to Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), a new neighbor who seems flighty and carefree, but later turns out to be in an even more fragile state than Leonard.

Two Lovers, an unlikely romantic triangle with a surprise twist, fascinates because of the fine acting and a Romeo-Juliet setup that comes with more than a few curves. Happily, despite some heartbreaking moments for Leonard, he’s a character who won’t give up on life. Phoenix, who swore upon the film’s release that it would be his final film, comes across as a character worth betting on, someone who finds a solution in the bleakest of situations

Tokyo times three

Three directors — Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-Ho –– each contributed a third of the very different stories that make up the wildly unexpected Tokyo! (Liberation, $24.95), a film set in the Japanese metropolis that’s certainly original though it may not be to everyone’s taste.

The oddest tale is Carax’s Merde, about a mysterious and scary Frenchman who lives in the city’s sewers.

Bong’s Shaking Tokyo revolves around a man who has lived as a recluse for 10 years in his apartment, his only relationship with the outside world being daily deliveries of pizza whose cartons are piled up in a room. But he rethinks his future when a pizza delivery girl faints during an earthquake, unexpected love blooms and he must then decide whether he has the courage to leave his apartment to find her.

Gondry’s Interior Design is more melancholy. A young couple comes to Tokyo in a car loaded with his filmmaking equipment. A big part of the plot revolves around finding a safe, secure parking place. Like the rest of Tokyo!, Interior Design will make audiences either think they have seen something unique or wish they hadn’t seen it at all.

Also this week

A prison escapee goes after the cop who accidentally killed his girlfriend in 12 Rounds (Fox, $29.98); Jada Pinkett Smith wrote and directed The Human Contract (Sony, $24.96), about a repressed businessman who becomes entangled with a seductive stranger; a 1930s nightclub owner tries to solve his father’s murder while caught up in a deadly love triangle with the club’s star singer in Dark Streets (Sony, $24.96); a video game gets the live-action treatment in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fox, $29.98); a kidnapped woman is told by her captors that if she ever wants to see her little boy again, she must kill her husband in The Betrayed (Fox, $26.98); a special U.S. combat unit finds itself enmeshed in hand-to-hand fighting in the network of tunnels dug beneath the jungles of Vietnam in Tunnel Rats (Vivendi, $26.98); Angelina Jolie made her screen debut at age 7 alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin’ to Get Out (Warner, $19.97), director Hal Ashby’s film about two gamblers who head to Las Vegas in hopes of turning their luck around, now available in an Extended Cut; a monster tires of eating fish and comes out of the ocean for a human snack in Sea Beast (Genius, $14.95); a prison escapee on the run fears someone is killing those closest to him in Hide (MTI, $24.95).

From TV

Looking for another shot on your home TV screen are: Entourage: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO, $39.98); Stargate Atlantis: Season 5 (MGM, $49.98); Jockeys (Genius, $19.95); Eastbound & Down (HBO, $29.98); The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky & Three for Two (MPI, $19.98), co-starring Dean Martin and Jackie Gleason; The It Crowd: The Complete Season Two (MPI, $24.98); Monsterquest: Season 3, Set 1 (The History Channel, $24.95).

For children

A teenage princess (Demi Lovato) is rescued from a military takeover in her country by an agent for an international group and hides out with his family in Princess Protection Program (Disney, $22.99).

Documentaries

Relive the first lunar landing on its 40th anniversary with rare archival footage from the BBC in Apollo 11: A Night to Remember (Acorn, $24.99).

Back to Brooklyn

Spike Lee’s groundbreaking 1989 hit Do the Right Thing returns in a 20th Anniversary Edition (Universal, $29.98 two-disc DVD; $39.98 Blu-ray) with more than four hours of bonus material, including new feature commentary by Lee, a new retrospective documentary with the cast and crew and newly discovered deleted and extended scenes. The film centers on a pizza parlor in a racially divided neighborhood during a scorching summer heat wave.

mjanuson@projo.com