Master P is pushing 35, an age when an individual is supposed to have accumulated some wisdom – and sure enough, it appears he's set to bring a little this time around. This two-CD (Good Side and Bad Side), one-DVD (Good Side Bad Side) package doesn't wander far from familiar turf, which makes sense. P made a fortune marketing gangsta to the masses; he's not about to shoot himself in the ass.

But if P's first couple of cinematic efforts (including I'm 'bout It) were amateurish, he's learned a few things about making movies over the years, without sacrificing the essential down-to-earth quality that made him famous. Good Side Bad Side, filmed in South Central Los Angeles, starts with a brilliant ghetto collage over a driving Master P beat: a drive through the projects (past a mural of Che Guevara pointing like Uncle Sam at the camera from a housing project mural over the words "We are not a minority"), a possible convenience store holdup, an argument between a process server and a deadbeat dad who won't pay up because he'll lose his SUV, a trio of teens strolling through a back alley looking for trouble. It's a kind of ghetto day in the life – some comedy, some tragedy, some sitting around.

The sitting around stems from the fact that Petey (Master P) is under house arrest, which means he spends much of the film on the front porch dispensing advice to his brother Jamal (Lil' Romeo) such as "Life ain't fair, but you can make it easy on yourself if you make the right decisions." P has been falsely convicted of robbery, but he admits his priors made him a target for the cops.

Good Side Bad Side doesn't really have a plot; it's a series of episodes, none of which stray too far from P's front porch. A comic duo led by Ray Ray (Spencer) run a low-rent tow-truck hustle and spend a lot of time cracking each other up, P's mother has a creep for a lover, P's cranky girlfriend calls him while sitting on the toilet, Jamal stays out of trouble, and P talks about going straight while waiting out the cops who hope he'll try to deactivate the gadget on his leg that keeps him grounded and sneak out for the night.

Nothing gets resolved, really – and at the end P gets to drive around to a cemetery, where he raps "Why They Wanna Wish Death," an ode to the ghetto dead. P isn't a great rapper or a great actor (or director, a job he shares with Tim Alexander). And this film isn't going to wind up in the art houses. But P is a compelling figure, and the movie never drifts far from the world his fans have come up in; that's all that's ever mattered to him. (J.H. Tompkins)

Luthor Vandross
From Luther with Love: The Videos (Legacy)

I knew something was up when I put in From Luther with Love: The Videos and found out the original one for "Here and Now" had been replaced – the one I saw on Soul Beat a long time ago, in which Vandross sings the song at someone's wedding and it looks like the budget was $25. In its place was a silly montage using still photos of a light-skinned couple and still photos of Vandross, both floating in and out of view. If the original was kind of silly, it was at least soulful and heartfelt; this one is simply terrible – a terrific song accompanied by the visual equivalent of elevator music.

It pisses me off that even in the wake of a possibly career-ending stroke, Vandross can't buy a break from his label. In fact, it's tempting to say the story of that video is the story of his career. Vandross – a terrific songwriter, with the best voice in soul music, a huge audience, and production credits that include Aretha Franklin – is still the most important little-known figure in American popular music. The fact that he could never cross over from the R&B marketplace to the pop charts is a sign – to me anyway – that somebody wasn't trying. The blackout on Vandross even extends to his condition today: Is he still near death? Recovering? Will he ever sing again? It's hard to tell because no one is saying anything.

From Luther has three good cuts – "Always and Forever," "Superstar," and "A House Is Not a Home" – all of them recorded live. These three, and some nice words from bassist Marcus Miller, bandleader Nat Adderly Jr., and Ray Bardini, are all this DVD has to offer. If Vandross doesn't recover, well, pick this up because it's doubtful there's a lot of great unreleased material. But if he does recover, he's going to want to yank this one from the shelves.