New on DVD: Singing teens, dead girls, snarky atheists and gay novelists

The well-scrubbed teens of High School Musical 3 sing and dance their way to the small screen as the movie debuts on DVD, alongside a sardonic documentary, a ghoulishly droll cable fave and two new adaptations of books by queer authors. Read on for more!

The juggernaut that is High School Musical continues its rampage through pop culture as High School Musical 3: Senior Year makes it to DVD today. This time out, the Wildcats have to face life after high school, balancing their dreams and fears about the future while putting on a big end-of-semester show.

The DVD provides another opportunity for gay viewers to parse what the heck is going on with the Ryan Evans character (played by Milk's Lucas Grabeel), who's showered in gay signifiers but never allowed to actually discuss or act upon his sexuality, lest the sacrosanct G rating and Disney seal of approval somehow become besmirched. While Senior Year's songs aren't up to the level of the numbers from the first two High School Musicals (which were no classics themselves), there are at least a few moments where you feel like the filmmakers took advantage of the bigger screen for some splashy song-and-dance bits.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum is Bill Maher's snarky Religulous, a movie that attempts to give some pinpricks to religious fundamentalism in the post-9/11 world. Among Maher's many interviewees are some Gay Muslims, whose perspicacity the comedian admires.

Dead Like Me: The Complete Series also comes out today, in conjunction with the direct-to-DVD movie Dead Like Me: Life After Death. If you're like me, however, the show sort of lost its oomph after openly gay creator Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) parted ways with the production. (Whose idea the parting was depends on whom you ask.) Still, even if Fuller didn't get to exert control over the show, you can see the seeds of his future triumphs in this tale of a sassy teenager who dies and gets an afterlife gig accompanying souls into the great beyond.

Finally, two gay novelists slip into the DVD section, but neither for the first time. Chuck Palahniuk's fame as a writer skyrocketed with the 1999 release of the cult classic Fight Club, based on his book, and it's that notoriety that the makers of Choke hoped to capitalize upon in adapting another one of his works. It's kind of a disappointment, but Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston are always a hoot to watch.

Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train traveled a hard road—its distributor dumped it on a handful of screens before it disappeared from theaters entirely—but now that it's on DVD, it has a chance to actually find an audience. The provocatively-titled film—starring He's Just Not That Into You's Bradley Cooper as a photographer who discovers a mysterious, cleaver-wielding killer (Vinnie Jones) stalking the subways—has its defenders among horror buffs and Barker fans, so if you count yourself as either, check it out.