TRANSFORMERS
Dreamworks SKG / $36.99
Hidden somewhere in the morass of Transformers is a fun ride. Too bad it's been pimped out and junked up beyond repair.
CRAZY LOVE
Magnolia Pictures / $26.98
The Shakespearean line "The course of true love never did run smooth" seems like an understatement when applied to the bizarre case of Burt and Linda Pugach.
In the late '50s, Burt Pugach became a fixture of the New York tabloids after he hired thugs to disfigure and blind his ex-girlfriend, Linda Riss. She opened her door one day expecting a delivery and got a face full of acid instead.
The case already had all the trappings of a lurid true-crime story, but by the mid-'70s things really got weird. Riss got married -- to Pugach.
The engrossing documentary Crazy Love wrings unflinching honesty from all of its participants. Presenting a complex and unfailingly real portrait of two damaged people, the film is as sad as it is funny -- something a film can rarely achieve.
tim.swift@baltsun.com