I’m Not There, starring the late Heath Ledger, provides an arty look at several periods in Bob Dylan’s life.

the Weinstein company

Six actors — Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw — play Bob Dylan in I’m Not There (Genius, $28.95). Except they don’t. Rather, they portray, under different names, slices of Dylan’s kaleidoscopic life, evoking every significant era up to and including present day. Or something like that.

I’m Not There is thick with allegory, with stories mixing together portions of Dylan’s life and various characters and scenes from his music. The more you know about the man, the more fun you’ll have sifting through the trove of nudges and winks that were made especially for you. Everyone else, good luck. Shot both in color and in black and white, with stories not necessarily intertwining on any level but one steeped in fan service, There almost certainly will confuse and put off casual viewers who know more about the film’s award haul (Blanchett won the Golden Globe and was an Oscar nominee) than the man who inspired it. Anyone with a serious phobia of art films will find every last fear realized with this one.

Postscript

Hilary Swank plays a woman trying to come to terms with the death of her husband in P.S. I Love You (Warner, $28.98), but it’s not thanks to all those love notes that he wrote shortly before he died and entrusted someone close to her to deliver every couple of weeks. Each one ends with “P.S. I love you.”

They’re supposed to prod her on to new adventures and maybe relationships, while giving her a chance to rediscover herself. But they seem an awful burden that compounds her grief, especially since his suggestions — “Buy yourself a lava lamp,” reads one — seem bizarre.

Eventually a trip to Ireland and a meeting with a singer in a pub help her overcome her grief. But the film is too long and Swank does not exactly exude charisma. Still, besides the drama there are heartwarming moments in P.S. I Love You and more comedy than one would expect under the circumstances. There’s no mystery why the DVD release is timed to Mother’s Day.

Baby boomer bonanza

Anyone who grew up in the 1950s watching TV will be excited by the prospect of Hiya, Kids! (Shout! Factory, $34.99), a four-disc set with 21 episodes from the era’s best-loved children’s shows.

Howdy Doody is here, and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. So are Annie Oakley, Flash Gordon, The Roy Rogers Show, Winky Dink and You, Ding Dong School, Andy’s Gang, The Cisco Kid, Sky King, Lassie, The Rootie Kazootie Club and more.

It’s a tempting trip down Nostalgia Lane. But what passed as children’s entertainment in the infant years of television today seems hopelessly naïve and amateurish. “You mean we really watched this crap?” a friend asked after viewing a dull episode of Ding Dong School, billed as the forerunner of TV programs for preschoolers.

Kukla, Fran and Ollie, which mostly had hostess Fran Allison interacting with a hand puppet dragon (Ollie) and a clownlike figure (Kukla), seems dull and insipid. Worse, in the middle of this RCA-sponsored episode, the cast oohs and aahs over the latest RCA Victor console record player with a 45 rpm changer. It’s an early example of kiddie TV promoting consumerism to children.

Winky Dink and You, a favorite of mine, has cartoonish characters which are so ineptly drawn that only their mouths move. The cheerful human host urges kids to buy a Winky Dink kit, consisting of crayons and a tinted plastic sheet to be slapped on the TV screen. Kids at home then can follow the host’s moving finger on the screen with their crayons to create a picture, hopefully having placed the sheet of plastic across the set’s screen first.

The beloved Howdy Doody comes off slightly better than some of the others because there’s more interaction with the Peanut Gallery audience and, at one point, the camera travels outside the studio to look at a juggling act.

There’s more success with some of the story-based series — Flash Gordon (which was filmed in the postwar ruins of Berlin!), Annie Oakley, Sky King, Lassie — all mini dramas with kid-sized adventures, though some pretty awful acting.

Fenway memories

Red Sox Nation can revisit the past in Red Sox Memories: The Greatest Moments in Boston Red Sox History (Shout! Factory, $19.99) which tells the 107-year history of the team. Top players are profiled, including Ted Williams, Cy Young, Jimmy Piersall, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz and Carl Yastrzemski.

Also new this week

Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan are a pair of inept criminals who team up to rob the neighborhood church in First Sunday (Sony, $28.95); five waitresses in a second-rate London restaurant aspire to much more in I Really Hate My Job (Magnolia, $26.98); check out all the competitors in The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Shorts (Magnolia, $29.98); two brothers must deal with their recently incarcerated father in Steel City (Peace Arch Entertainment, $26.99); Paris Hilton is a “hottie” with a heart of gold in The Hottie and the Nottie (Liberation, $24.95); Steve Buscemi is a celebrity photographer who thinks a friend is depriving him of a shot at his one great picture in Delirious (Genius, $19.95); a girl develops choppers in the must unexpected place in Teeth (Genius, $24.95); a soccer star and a waitress are brought together and their lives turned upside down in Bella (Lionsgate, $27.98); a suicidal man is magically granted one more day with his departed mother in Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom’s For One More Day (Lionsgate, $19.98); a woman who hopes to become a doctor is thrown a curve ball by love in Love’s Unfolding Dream (Fox, $22.98); a policeman and his daughter attempt to clear the record of a K-9 dog in Ace of Hearts (Fox, $26.98); star-crossed lovers are taken to the brink of self destruction in the Bollywood musical Saawariya (Sony, $26.96); high schoolers who accidentally ran over a bear cub meet its revenge-seeking mama in Grizzly Rage (Genius, $14.95).

From TV

Back for another round on the home screen are: Bewitched: The Complete Sixth Season (Sony, $39.95); The 4400: The Final Season (CBS/Paramount, $42.99); The Grand: The Complete Collection (Acorn, $59.99); Irked and Miffed (Image, $14.98).

For children

The animated adventures continue just in time for the live-action feature in Speed Racer the Next Generation: The Beginning (Lionsgate, $19.98); Avatar: The Last Airbender — Book 3: Fire, Volume 3 (Nickelodeon/Paramount, $16.99); Doodlebops Live in Concert! (Lionsgate, $14.98); Barney: Hi! I’m Riff! (HIT Entertainment/Fox, $14.98); Madeline: Next Stop Amerca (Fox, $14.98); Thomas & Friends: Mud Glorious Mud (Anchor Bay, $14.98).

Documentaries

Go behind the scenes with a soccer star in David Beckham: Life of an Icon (Liberation, $19.97); African American Lives 2 (PBS/Paramount, $24.99); join Ricki Lake in childbirth in The Business of Being Born (New Line, $27.95).

Coming around again

Go inside a tornado with the bonus features on Twister Two-Disc Special Edition (Warner, $20.97).

Romance and revenge are the topics of two very different films from Warner, their only connection being that both have the word “county” in their tiles. Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood find love in The Bridges of Madison County Deluxe Edition ($19.97, with many bonus features). Max Baer Jr. (of The Beverly Hillbillies) wrote and directed Macon County Line ($12.97) in which he plays a vengeful Southern sheriff who mistakes a pair of brothers as the men responsible for his wife’s slaying and goes after them.

With Journal Wire Reports