HBO’s "Lackawanna Blues," starring Marcus Carl Franklin, left, and Jeffrey Wright, comes to DVD on Tuesday.

Edward Furlong gives a vulnerable performance in "The Crow: Wicked Prayer."

If you’re like me and missed "Lackawanna Blues" because you’re a non-HBO subscriber, here’s good news: Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s acclaimed memoir will be available Tuesday on video (HBO Video, $26.98).

The highly entertaining movie is a rich adaptation of the award-winning off-Broadway show the Lackawanna native wrote about Rachel Crosby, the woman who raised him. It is also heartwarming, heartbreaking and very, very real.

The gifted all-star cast embraces myriad characters who surrounded the young Ruben while he was growing up in "Nanny’s" Wasson Avenue boarding house. Louis Gosset Jr., Mos Def, Terrence Howard, Ernie Hudson, Delroy Lindo, Liev Schreiber, Jimmy Smits, Patricia Wettig and a hilarious Macy Gray are just a few of the actors. S. Epatha Merkerson beautifully breaks out of the staunch confines of her "Law & Order" role to give an Emmy-nominated performance as Nanny.

The disc includes a too-short (31/2-minute) behind-the-scenes featurette and an audio commentary with Santiago-Hudson and director George C. Wolfe. What’s wonderful about having the author of a memoir give a commentary is that the viewer can learn just how much truth there is in the "true" story.

Take, for instance, a scene where social workers visit to learn if young Ruben should be removed from Nanny’s home. "I was really afraid the social workers would take me away," Santiago-Hudson says in the commentary. "And I told Nanny, "I’ll run away, I’ll run away.’ "

A powerful scene where a battered wife and her children arrive in the middle of the night was, he says, "vivid in my mind." (The children in that sequence are his real children, by the way. He says he wanted his family to be a part of the movie that was his life.)

In one scene set in an upper-class white family’s home, young Ruben asks for a "cold Pepsi Cola." It’s cute, but you might wonder if it really happened. Indeed it did. "I’ll never forget the way Nanny looked at me when I said that," Santiago-Hudson recalls.

Another big release for the week is the wildly inventive "Sin City," directed by Robert Rodriguez and based upon comic books by Frank Miller.

This was the movie that literally looked like a comic book brought to life on the big screen, so it screams for all sorts of DVD extras to let us in on how it was made. Yet, all this disc includes is an 81/2-minute behind the scenes featurette. The message that sends to the wise consumer is wait before you buy - a collector’s edition ripe with extras is on its way.

That featurette, short as it is, is great. The enthusiasm and creativity of Rodriquez, Miller and guest director Quentin Tarantino just rolls off the screen. "People showed up and looked like my drawings," an astounded Miller says. We’ll wait to hear more on the when the expanded DVD arrives.

Hearing the term "direct-to-video" is enough to give movie fans a case of the heebee-jeebees, especially when it comes to horror films. The direct-to-video market is a breeding ground for dreadful horror sequels that were bad ideas from the start. Here are two recent direct-to-video titles made with varying degrees of success.

"Dracula III: Legacy" (Buena Vista Home Entertainment, $29.99) supposedly concludes horror-master Wes Craven’s modern Dracula trilogy. (We’ll see.) Jason Scott Lee ("Dragon") stars as vampire slayer and priest, Father Uffizi. His vampire-hunting partner is Luke (Jason London), a lovestruck lad trying to find his girlfriend who was kidnapped by Dracula.

They set off to an Eastern European country torn by civil war where rebels demand that cabinet members make at least one appearance during daylight (you know what that means). The local warlords are called procurers because they gather victims to serve Dracula (played by the awesome Rutger Hauer) and his gals.

It’s a surprisingly entertaining film for vampire buffs and has decent effects, a story steeped in vampire lore and a sly sense of humor. For instance, Luke calls Father Uffizi "DG" for "damaged goods."

"It was either that," Luke explains, "or Buffy."

The DVD has a featurette on "The Mythology of Vampires" with writer/director Patrick Lussier; a conversation with effects artist Gary Tunnicliffe; and audio commentaries.

A two-word warning about "The Crow: Wicked Prayer" (BVHE, $29.99) - Tara Reid.

Now that that’s out of the way, I wasn’t happy to hear a fourth "Crow" film was made. The haunting and tragic Brandon Lee original, based on the comic book by James O’Barr, is in a class by itself. Its sequel, "The Crow: City of Angels," starring Vincent Perez, was difficult to watch because it dealt with the deaths of a father and son. A later TV series served the spirit of "The Crow" well.

The direct-to-video "The Crow: Salvation," in 2000, should never have been made. Now comes "Wicked Prayer." It has all the earmarks of a bad, silly movie. There are characters named Pestilence, Famine, War and Death ("Angel’s" David Boreanaz), after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. A bad guy played by Dennis Hopper calls himself El Nino and spouts lines like, "Do you want to be Satan, or what?"

Yet I kept watching it as a "Crow" fan because it captured some of the spirit of O’Barr’s original story. Credit producer Jeff Most, who has been with "The Crow" movies since the beginning, including adapting the first film for screen. Some of Most’s creations, like the crow’s ability to see flashbacks through a touch, are featured here and still have a chilling effect.

Another surprise is the vulnerable performance by Edward Furlong ("The Terminator 2: Judgment Day"), an actor who is not known for, well, his acting. He plays Jimmy Cuervo, a young man murdered along with his girlfriend in a satanic ritual. The rest, as I said earlier, is a lot silliness.

Most and director Lance Mungia are featured in many of the extras, including behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, storyboards and deleted scenes.