New on DVD: Questioning Teens, Nude Prison Fights, plus Sarah & Nia

Ashley Springer, Zach Gilford

Cute high-schoolers play with the idea of love, a lifer gets naked and oiled up to beat up prison guards, and Nia Vardalos says what we're all thinking about an upcoming holiday.

Read on for more!

Dare focuses on an unlikely high-school love triangle — good-girl Alexa (Emmy Rossum) and nerdy Ben (Ashley Springer) both find themselves fixated on BMOC Johnny (Friday Night Lights' Zach Gilford) — and does a good job of nailing the awkwardness of high school, albeit in a shiny, attractive package.

As with the best teen flicks, none of the characters are who they immediately seem to be on the outside; the filmmakers get into messy personal territory and wisely avoid tying up things into too neat of a ribbon. Queer icons Sandra Bernhard and Alan Cumming pop up in memorable cameos.

One of the most homoerotic but not-actually-gay films of recent memory would have to be the British biopic Bronson, about a petty criminal (played by Tom Hardy, Rocknrolla's gay gangster) whose violent tendencies kept his prison sentences stretching out longer and longer.

The camera lingers over every inch of Hardy's bod — often while he's beating the crap out of someone — and Bronson winds up becoming pals with a very droll (and very flamboyant) gay man who becomes his fight manager. (In the latter role, Matt King steals every scene that isn't nailed down.)

Logo was cool enough to step up and help fund the new season of The Sarah Silverman Program, which features my two favorite gay characters on TV (and maybe in the history of pop culture), the schlubby bears-next-door played by Steve Agee and Brian Posehn. If you're needing to get caught up, don't miss The Sarah Silverman Program: Season Two, Vol. 2.

Speaking of catching up, another Oscar nominee for Best Picture comes out this week: A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers' seriocomic look at a harried college professor (the extraordinary Michael Stuhlbarg) trying to balance everything that his family, his job, and an uncaring universe can throw his way.

Whether you're single or in a relationship, February 14 can be a total pain in the ass, either reminding you that you're alone or forcing you to shell out for dinner and flowers because of a totally arbitrary holiday invented by the greeting card companies. So kudos to Nia Vardalos for saying I Hate Valentine's Day in her feature directorial debut. Vardalos stars as a commitment-phobic florist who finds herself rethinking her relationship strategies when she falls for a restauranteur (played by her My Big Fat Greek Wedding co-star John Corbett).