So here’s the double dilemma for folks such as yours truly who want a DVD library, even if it’s just to know it’s there and let us can pick and choose what we want when we want _ or merely be reminded of the good memories associated with the picture.

As you may have realized, distributors - not always but more often than not - release DVD versions of their movies in two stages: The first lacks extras; the second comes jammed with extras, and often comes labeled “Director’s Cut.”

That’s one reason why, for instance, with “Little Children” coming out Tuesday with no extras, no may want to wait for the next generation (not a sure thing but likely) before buying.

Or, if you have the discipline (I usually don’t but I”m working on it), put all your buying on hold until either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD becomes the standard (think of VHS vs. Beta in the early videotape days; it’s the same thing, with each vying to become the standard).

Both companies have begun churning out visions of films, many timed to first regular-DVD releases.

The advantages, short version: Much better picture, as in richer and more detailed, and sound (although like today, it all depends on your system).

The ability to hold more material also allows room for more cool gimmicks. (That’s for another blog item.)

The problem is to play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD discs, you need the appropriate player.

Currently, there isn’t one player that plays both standards, although rumors have them in the works.

I recently saw and HD-DVD-only player in the $400-$500 range; it used to be about a grand. You can also spend a few hundred for an X-Box attachment that will let you play the discs.

The $600-plus-or-minus Sony PlayStation 3 will play Blu-Ray discs. Or you can buy a Blu-Ray-only player for too much money.

Prices will drop once there’s a standard, or a machine that plays both. More companies will manufacture them, aiding the drop.

And you will want one: The image is terrific, and compared to what you have now, even though it’s hard to believe, it’s a big improvement. (Check one out at your neighborhood tech store.)

Disc prices will drop, too.

One more tiny detail: You will need an HD-TV to play them on.

Bottom line: Unless you’re rolling in dough, practice patience: The earliest rumors had a combo Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player coming out this summer.

My hunch: Fat chance. Maybe by Christmas.

So save your nickels, dimes and $100 bills: Rent the DVD now, buy it later. You will want to.

The ads should say, “No `Vacancy.’ ”

Luke Wilson and Kate Winslet bicker and cold-shoulder each other as a soon-to-be-divorced couple whose car breaks down at night on a lonely country road he chose because it looked like a shortcut.

They find an isolated - and empty - hotel run by Frank Whaley trying to channel Tony Perkins in “Psycho 3000.”

Their “special” room has dirty sheets, brown water, a giant cockroach and cameras that watch their every move.

Someone keeps knocking loudly at their doors (front and connecting). Stupidly, he keeps opening it - against her pleas - and he keeps finding that no one’s there.

The videotapes with the TV that can’t pull in any stations show people being brutalized in their room.

Men with gray face paint try to break in and do something heinous to them.

The men try every way they can think of to break into the room - except smashing in the large glass window by the front door.

The couple cringe, block doors, wait, try to escape, wait, block doors, try to escape.

Looking for something to use as a weapon would be too logical.

The couple are so unlikable and uninteresting you really don’t care what happens to them.

At times they grate so much you want the bad guys to succeed.

“Vacancy,” which opens today at your favorite multiplex, comes packed with graphic violence, most director toward women.

The slasher film delivers two good rushes and a lot of noise.

There has to be some reason women enjoy small, claustrophobic dramas layered with nuance, repressed emotion and gossipy discussions - all of which make me feel migraine-y.

I’m referring to films such as “Notes on Scandal,” out this week on DVD.

Fine acting from Judi Dench and Kate Winslet.

Great female dynamic, I’m told by women friends.

A wonderful film, they say.

Then they ask, why don’t you like it?

Answer: I watch it and I feel like I feel like someone’s smothering me with a musty pillow. I get bored. I’m not interested in the women and their conflict, nor in the envy, betrayal, morally reprehensible behavior (imagine if it were a male teacher with a female student) of Blanchett’s character’s relationship.

Short version: It’s not fun for me, not entertaining to me.

I can handle drama; I can handle claustrophobic drama: Nothing fits the latter as well as “Affliction,” a shockingly intense saga about the pattern of abuse that exists from generation to generation.

Nick Nolte starred. James Coburn won a supporting-actor Oscar for his co-starring role.

The story is as ugly, insightful, trainwreck-fascinating and as bleak a drama as ever I’ve seen.

It’s about fathers and sons, not mothers and daughters, women friends or rivals.

I’ve enjoyed movies about women’s relationships: “In Her Shoes” comes most immediately to mind, but there are others.

So it’s not a blind-spot-about-women’s-issues kind of thing.

It’s more a manner of pacing, situation, unpleasantness - and content - and, I suppose, mood.

I know two men who appreciated it. For the acting, they said.

Neither sounded crazy about it; they were more like, it was fine.

I don’t know if the difference is genetics. I know men prefer action and women prefer conversation. (Yes, I know I’m generalizing. So?)

Probably always been that way.

To hook a male audience (not always necessary, of course), the key is to finding a common ground, or a movie that provides it. “Notes on a Scandal” does not.

The best - meaning scariest - horror films leave the deepest chills to the imagination.

“The Uninvited” (1944) comes to mind.

So, too, do “Poltergeist,” “The Exorcist,” “Don’t Look Now” and “Carrie,” before it’s final fright got rehashed in so many other films it became a cliche.

All of those movies were heavy on atmosphere, light on special effects and CGI.

Most contemporary frighteners (Michael J. Fox’s “The Frighteners” is a good mix of humor and scares) opt for flash and noise, accompanied by an appropriate orchestral soundtrack that telegraphs every wisp of spookiness.

Each also comes with a paint-by-numbers story line.

“The Reapng,” a new supernatural thriller that gives Hilary Swank a break between challenging roles, does the atmosphere right and provides one clever twist.

Otherwise it’s: been there, done that.

In modern-day Louisiana, Swank plays a former minister who gave up on God after her husband and daughter were killed on a mission.

Now an investigator who disproves miracles and writes about it, she’s asked to come to the tiny Bible Belt town of Haven, where a river’s turned red and a spooky little girl with blond hair and big round eyes is accused of causing it - and of killing her brother, whose body shows no signs of foul play.

The townspeople, all white, clean and devout, fear the river has been turned to blood, signaling the first of the Biblical 10 plagues (frogs, locusts, death of first born, increased taxes).

They want Hilary to prove them right - or wrong.

And so the story goes from there, with eerie swampland settings, familiar dreamlike hallucinations, escalating unexplained phenomena - and a saga that proceeds exactly as you would imagine - except in the homestretch.

Swank ranges from skeptical to anxious; no middle ground.

The primary problem: Nothing’s left to the imagination except for the aforementioned plot twist.

Not that the special effects aren’t cool; it’s just that they’re all spelled out in front of you, and nothing’s left to the imagination.

“The Reaping” is not awful; if you like supernatural movies with strong religious undertones, or in this case overtones, you will probably have an OK ride.

But take it at matinee prices. Or, better yet, wait to rent it on video.

Even better, rent one of the classics mentioned above.

And watch it late at night, alone, in the dark. Ooooooooo, very scary.