Mormon comedies among family-friendly fare

Two Mormon comedy discs lead off this collection of family-friendly DVD releases, most due in stores on Tuesday.

• "Mobsters and Mormons" (HaleStone, 2005, PG, $24.95). This LDS-centric farce is more story-driven and less like a collection of skits than most of HaleStorm's pictures ("The Singles Ward," "The Home Teachers"). It's still an uneven venture, both in terms of storytelling and performances but is nonetheless a genuine step up.

The film also has an ace-in-the-hole with Mark DeCarlo, a Hollywood actor who handily dominates the entire movie as Carmine "The Beans" Pasquale, a New Jersey mobster in the witness-protection program who finds himself and his family relocated to Provo, Utah. There, he is predictably embraced by his Mormon neighbors, and the culture clash begins.

DeCarlo's Carmine, and Jeanette Puhich as his wife, Gina, are a hoot, and there are some genuine laughs to be had, which make up for other bland, silly scenes that follow the HaleStorm formula of goofy broad Mormon stereotypes.

Extras: Widescreen, audio commentary, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, bloopers, trailers, subtitle options (English, Spanish), chapters.

• "Divine Comedy: Pro Tour, Volume 1" (Independent, 2005, not rated, $20). Divine Comedy, for the uninformed, is made up of students from Brigham Young University. It's a comedy group patterned after Second City, the Chicago-based troupe that has led many stars to "Saturday Night Live." (This video was taped at the SCERA Theatre in Orem.)

These blackout skits are not all Mormon-specific, though some are (the best being the right and wrong way to give a church talk), along with the occasional inside jokes about BYU and neighboring Utah Valley State College.

The rest is hit and miss (isn't everything today?), but among the funnier sketches are a parody of a modern-dance class, a man "courting" a woman in the math lab, a very Monty Pythonish cross between "Sense and Sensibility" and "The Terminator," and a spoof of "Saturday's Warrior" about a family of ninjas, which takes a few minutes to get into but has some genuine satirical rewards.

Peyton Buhler and Maren McCaleb stand out in an ensemble that proves to be quite talented.

Extras: Full frame, audio commentaries, chapters.