After a pretty lackluster run in theaters last fall, here's hoping that "Running With Scissors" will be discovered on DVD. The film, based on the memoir of Augusten Burroughs, is most notable for the Oscar-caliber performance of Annette Benning who has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role as Burrough's narrcistic and bipolar mother who eventually gives her son to her unorthodox psychiatrist to raise.

Benning dominates the film because you are thinking about her even when she isn't on screen. She is so good and "Scissors" rates right up there with her work in "Being Julia" and "American Beauty." But there is other solid work here including that of Joseph Cross, who plays the teenaged Burroughs, and Joesph Fiennes who portrays his first lover. Brian Cox plays the manipulative doctor who takes Augusten into his eccentric and very unkept home where Valium is consumed like candy and the Christmas tree stays up all year-round. His wife (played wonderfully by Jill Clayburgh) literally snacks on dig kibble and his daughters (Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood) have developed into troubled and eccentric souls. Alec Baldwin is terrific as Augusten's neglectful and alcoholic father.

"Scissors" marks the feature film directorial debut for Ryan Murphy, creator of TV's "Nip/Tuck." It will be released on DVD (and Blu-0ray disc if you are one of those early adopter types) and comes with some bonus features that sound pretty cool: "Inside Outsiders" The cast discusses how they created their extreme characters; "A Story by Augusten Burroughs" has the author talking about how he wrote the book, why he selected Ryan Murphy to adapt it, and how he worked with the cast to help them step into this very specific world; and "Creating the Cuckoo's Nest" gives the film's production designer and director the chance to discuss how they created the crazy Finch home.

I'm looking forward to adding "Scissors" to my DVD collection. Benning gives that kind of performance that you want to watch again and again and them spout the lines with your friends. (You KNOW you do that!)