Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic, released in a respectful, extended two-disc edition. R; $19.95.
Stray Dog
An elaborate Criterion edition of Akira Kurosawa’s smart, stylish 1949 thriller about a young, conflicted detective. NR; $39.95.
Weather Underground
Sam Green’s sharp documentary gathers former activists to talk about their radical roots. NR; $24.95.
Welcome to Mooseport
In this comedy about a small-town mayoral race, contenders Gene Hackman and Ray Romano are too persuasive: They’re about as funny as real politicians. PG-13; $27.98.
Bubba Ho-Tep
Horror icon Bruce Campbell plays Elvis opposite Ossie Davis in this oddity about a retirement home haunted by an Egyptian mummy. R; $27.98.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Six
This set collects all 22 episodes of Buffy’s junior year in college, plus the obsessive sorts of extras most fans demand, including creator Joss Whedon’s commentary on the musical episode “Once More With Feeling.” Six discs; NR; $59.98.
A Man Escaped
Robert Bresson’s taut 1956 drama about a Resistance fighter’s escape from the Nazis. NR; $29.95.
OUR PICK
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King set fills one disc with the 200-minute film and another with more than two hours of promotional material. Peppered with repetitive reels of recycled junket sound bites, the set offers plenty of extras, no original content, and no voice-over commentary. It’s probably intentional, since the whole trilogy will likely be rereleased eventually with the grandeur it deserves. Of course, the film’s still so stunning it’s irresistible anyway—and even the promos don’t reek of rote idiocy the way the Star Wars and Matrix marketing does. Perhaps that’s because this odd, lovable cast of onetime nobodies, led by Hollywood’s hairiest director, is just so goofball-likable. We especially love the scrawny Scottish actor Billy Boyd, who confesses in one promo that an on-set poll of “six or seven women” determined that of all the hobbits, “I looked the handsomest—and also the sexiest.” Two discs; PG-13; $29.95.