DVDS
  “Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs” (PG): The third entry in the “Ice Age” franchise, featuring the further prehysteric adventures of computer-animated pals Manny, Ellie, Diego and Sid (alias the voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo).
  Writer-director Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works” (PG-13) details the unlikely romance between a misanthropic physicist (“Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” Larry David) and a Mississippi runaway (Evan Rachel Wood). Just in time for Halloween, “Orphan” (R) focuses on a couple (Peter Sarsgaard, Vera Farmiga) who adopt a creepy 9-year-old (Isabelle Fuhrman). And to warm you up for Christmas, there’s “Nothing Like the Holidays” (PG-13), where feuding Chicago spouses (Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña) welcome assorted offspring (John Leguizamo, Freddy Rodriguez), friends and lovers (Debra Messing, Luis Gonzalez, Jay Hernandez).
  Also arriving: the straight-to-DVD animated romp “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure” (G); the award-winning Italian political thriller “Il Divo” (not rated); the Criterion Collection edition of the classic 1969 political thriller “Z” (PG); the comedy retrospective “Monty Python: Almost the Truth” (not rated); the “Sam Fuller Film Collection” (not rated), which features such two-fisted tales as 1952’s “Scandal Sheet” and 1961’s “Underworld U.S.A.”; and the TV transfers (all unrated) “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan,” “On the Road with Charles Kuralt, Set One,” “The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Vol. One,” “The Guardian: The First Season,” “Tales from the Darkside: The Second Season,” “The Fugitive: Season Three, Vol. One,” “Mannix: The Third Season” and an acclaimed BBC production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” (PG).

CDS
  Creed, “Full Circle”: It’s their first album in eight years, and it sounds almost as big as the egos involved.
  Creed is back, following up a summer arena tour with more emotive, widescreen rock ’n’ roll with the masses in mind.
  Hey, you gotta flick your Bic to somethin’, right?
  Also in stores: Atreyu, “Congregation of the Damned”; Between the Buried and Me, “The Great Misdirect”; The Blind Boys of Alabama, “Duets”; Devendra Banhart, “What Will We Be”; Editors, “In This Light and On This Evening”; Rosie Flores, “Girl of the Country”; Gov’t Mule, “By a Thread”; Halford, “Halford III: Winter Songs”; Heavy Trash, “Midnight Soul Serenade”; Michael Jackson, “The Music That Inspired the Movie Michael Jackson’s This Is It (Film soundtrack)”; Jack Johnson, “En Concert”; Brian McKnight, “Evolution of a Man”; Pink Martini, “Splendor in the Grass”; Carly Simon, “Never Been Gone”; The Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Lost at Sea”; Rod Stewart, “Soulbook”; Sting, “If On a Winter’s Night ...”; Tegan and Sara, “Sainthood”; Train, “Save Me, San Francisco”; Trans-Siberian Orchestra, “Night Castle”; and Wolfmother, “Cosmic Egg.”

BOOKS
  “The Gathering Storm” by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson: “The Gathering Storm,” the latest in the “Wheel of Time” series, was unfinished at the time of Robert Jordan’s death in 2007. Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the book, which was so encompassing it was broken into three novels, this being the first that will begin the conclusion of the series in which Rand al’Thor and his allies prepare for the Last Battle against the Shadow.
   P.C. Cast also has a book coming out on the fantasy front. In “Tempted,” the latest installment in the “House of Night Series,” High Priestess in training Zoey Redbird receives warning that she is the one with the power to stop the evil immortal, and the dark allure of Kalona could put her and her friends at risk.
  Also hitting shelves this week: “Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim” by Anne Rice; “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” by Anne C. Heller; “The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy” by Bill Simmons; “Emeril Quick and Easy” by Emeril Lagasse; “Grave Secret (Harper Connelly Series No. 4)” by Charlaine Harris; “Invisible” by Paul Auster; “Last Night in Twisted River” by John Irving; “Makers” by Cory Doctorow; “Matchless: A Christmas Story” by Gregory Maguire; “My Life Outside the Ring” by Hulk Hogan; “Nigella Christmas” by Nigella Lawson; “Secrets of the Short Game” by Phil Mickelson; “True Blue” by David Baldacci; and “You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas” by Augusten Burroughs.