With the release of the Harry Potter finale taking much of the oxygen out of the home entertainment alcove this week, there wasn’t much likelihood of other major releases, but we do have an excellent collection of the three Mr. Magoo animated TV series, a couple of prime Doctor Who discs, and a long-awaited collection of the best comedy team of the 1930s (and no it’s not the Marx Brothers, as funny as they were, we’re talking film here, not vaudeville).
 
Theatrical Movies
 
This week’s bestselling release will undoubtedly be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Warner Bros. “PG-13,” $28.98, BD $29.98, BD/Combo $35.99), the finale of the long-running and hyper-successful series of films based on the novels of J.K. Rowling.  All 8 films in the Potter series were incredibly consistent in their worldwide box office drawing power, a testament to the excellent job in adapting and mounting the sprawling novels, and the final film, which earned a astounding 96% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, doesn’t disappoint.  The complete series is also available now on Blu-ray--Harry Potter: The Complete Collection,Years 1-7 (Warner Bros., “PG-13,” BD $139.99)—an excellent way to acquire all 8 films at a reasonable price.
 
For those who like their cinema a little more hardboiled there is a Blu-ray version of Korean director Son Hae-seong’s remake of John Woo’s classic Hong Kong gangster film, A Better Tomorrow (Well Go, “R,” $29.98). 
 
There are also a couple of theatrical misfires due this week including another of this year’s numerous R-rated comedies, The Change-Up (Universal, “R,” $29.98, BD $34.98), which largely wastes the talents of Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds with a predictable, formulaic plot and loads of crude humor. 
 
The Change-Up could only manage a 24% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but at least the film does have some funny scenes that were intended to be humorous.  The same can’t be said for the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Part I (Fox, “PG-13,” $22.98, BD $29.99).  All the humor in this turkey is purely unintentional. Whatever one thinks of Ms. Rand’s philosophy, her brand of hyper-individualism did produce at least one watchable film, King Vidor’s operatic interpretation of The FountainheadAtlas Shrugged, Part I is just lame with a forgettable cast prattling on endlessly in the walnut-paneled homes and offices of the super rich.  If this is what the 1% is like, give me the other 99 all the time.
 
TV on DVD
 
This week’s top U.S. offerings are either animated collections or top-end gift sets for the holidays.  The prime animated offering is Mr. Magoo: The Television Collection,1960-1977 (Shout Factory, 1920 min., $79.95), which includes all three of the TV cartoon series featuring the maddeningly nearsighted geezer who was voiced so brilliantly by Jim Backus—The Mr. Magoo Show, The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, and What’s New Mr. Magoo?  This excellent collection contains over 180 cartoons including the made-for-TV animated feature, Uncle Sam Magoo (though not the Christmas Special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol).  While this set does not include the groundbreaking UPA Mr. Magoo theatrical cartoons (Shout Factory is preparing them for a separate release), the Mr. Magoo TV series were extremely well-produced (the great Mel Blanc provided many of the other voices), and the minimalist UPA style of animation was fairly easy to adapt to the financial limitations of TV animation in the 1960s and 1970s.  Overall this set is a great value that anyone interested in animation should seriously consider acquiring.
 
Other TV offerings include the holiday-themed Babar and Father Christmas (E1 Entertainment, 70 min., $14.98), and the Nickelodeon hit, The Wild Thornberrys: Season 2, Part 1 (Shout Factory, 300 min., $19.93).
 
High-end gift sets include Law & Order: The Complete Series (Universal, $699.99), a mammoth 104-disc set that includes all 496 episodes of the “ripped-from-the-headlines” police procedural series, and even better, at least for those who enjoy World War II historical dramas, the Band of Brothers & The Pacific: Special Edition Gift Set (HBO, 1235 min., $159.99, BD $199.99), which includes both of the ten-episode, critically-acclaimed combat series produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, along with the new documentary feature “He Has Seen War” featuring surviving members of Easy Company and the First Marine Division.
 
There are some excellent U.K. offerings this week as well including the vintage Doctor Who-Story 058: Colony in Space (Warner Bros., 145 min., $24.98), a six-part saga from 1971 featuring the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), as well as the latest collection of the revived Doctor Who show, Doctor Who: The Sixth Series, Part 2 (Warner Bros, 655 min., $24.98, BD $29.98), which includes the final six episodes of the most recent Doctor Who series that were broadcast from August to October and star Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. (Note: the Complete Sixth Series of Doctor Who will be released on DVD and BD on November 22nd).
 
Even better in some ways is Case Histories (Acorn Media, 347 min., $39.99), an excellent adaptation of the first three of Kate Atkinson’s award-winning novels about Jackson Brodie, a military vet (and police officer) turned private investigator.  Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucious Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is superb as the taciturn Brodie, who is constantly fighting his inner demons at the same time that he is attempting to help a disparate group of clients.  The series, which was shot in Edinburgh and manages to convey a great sense of the city and its environs, was shown on PBS in the U.S. in October.
 
Anime
 
This week’s new anime offerings include Darker Than Black Season 2 & OVAs (Funimation, “17+,” 400 min., $59.98), which contains all 12 episodes of the fast-paced superpowered adventure series as well as four OVA episodes, and Professor Layton Movie #1: Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva (Viz Media, 95 min., $19.97), a fascinating 2009 anime movie based on the Professor Layton series of puzzle adventure video games for the Nintendo DS.  This intriguing mystery features an elaborate one-man orchestra machine known in the movie as the Detragan.
 
There are also a number of bargain-priced re-releases this week including the first hi-def Blu-ray edition of the original Dragon Ball Z series.  The streamlined re-edited DBZ Kai version has been releasing in Blu-ray for some time, but now the original DBZ (with all the non-Toriyama side stories) is available on Blu-ray starting with Dragon Ball Z Blu-ray Level 1.1 (Funimation, “13+,” 425 min., $34.95), which includes the first 17 episodes of the mammoth 291-episode series.
 
Other re-priced releases include Initial D: Stage 2 & 3 Complete Collection (Funimation, “14+,” 425 min., $29.98), which includes all 13 episodes of Stage 2 plus Stage 3 (the movie) and OVAs Extra Stage 1 and Extra Stage 2 of the classic street racing anime, the intriguing and strangely compelling Mushi-shi Complete Series (Funimation, “14+,” 425 min., $29.98), the Gonzo-produced Romeo X Juliet Complete Series (Funimation, “13+,” 580 min., $29.98), the Clannad Blu-ray Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “13+,” 600 min., $89.98), which includes all 24-episodes of the Kyoto Animation series that was previously released in two parts, and the action-packed classic series Fist of the North Star: The Complete TV Series Collection 4 (Funimation, “16+,” $64.95), which includes episodes 110 through 152.
 
Classics on DVD
 
It should be noted that RHI has released Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection (RHI, 1941 min., $99.98), a superb 10-disc collection of the comedy duo’s comic masterpieces from the sound era that is available in the U.S. for the first time.  The really good news is that the films in this collection have all been remastered and look great, far better than the earlier releases of Laurel & Hardy’s Hal Roach films.  The set even includes 7 multi-lingual versions created in the early 1930s.  The set also contains two hours of extras that highlight the achievements of this highly underrated comedy team.  Given the care in restoration and the high quality of the films themselves (especially the shorts and non-operatic features, which demonstrate the ingenious comic mind of Stan Laurel and the expressive acting abilities of Oliver Hardy), this set is a definite “must have” item for fans of classic comedy.  Now if RHI can just put out a collection the duo’s silent comedy masterpieces.
 
Documentaries
 
We live in a golden age of documentaries, but few of the major documentary genres have actually established themselves commercially.  The exception is the sports documentary, most notably the surfing and skiing/snowboarding films that combine exotic locales, all sorts of superb camerawork involving everything from helicopters to mini hi-def cameras mounted on the participants, and truly daredevil exploits to create loads of entertainment value.  One of the leading lights of this genre is Warren Miller, and his latest film Wintervention (Shout Factory, 98 min., $19.93 BD $24.97) features balls-to-the-walls skiing action from expert skiers Lindsey Vonn, Chris Davenport, Hugo Harrison, Andre Mahre, and Zack Black filmed on five continents.  Wintervention features the kind of spectacular visuals means that the Blu-ray is well worth the extra $5.