Clint Eastwood’s most popular film ever leads this week’s list of home entertainment releases that also includes an offbeat zombie saga starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, a compelling indie western that lives up to both its name and the visual heritage of the genre, as well as the latest season of the compelling adventures of the conniving politician Frank Underwood, the Machiavellian center of Netflix’s House of Cards.

Theatrical Movies

There is a very interesting mix of movie releases this week led by Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (Warner Bros., “R,” 134 min., $28.98, BD $44.98), the actor/director’s highest-grossing film, which is based on a memoir by Navy Seal Chris Kyle, and certainly stands (along with The Hurt Locker) as one of the best contemporary examples of the “war” film genre.  Eastwood (with the aid of a brilliant performance by Bradley Cooper) manages to humanize Kyle and depict the chaos and inherent evil of war, something that acquires extra poignancy here given the unnecessary nature of the conflict in Iraq (though the lack of WMDs or a credible threat from Iraq does not in any way diminish the service of those like Kyle who fought there). 

This week’s only other genre release is the rather interesting zombie saga Maggie (Lionsgate, “PG-13,” 94 min., $19.99, BD $19.99), a modest little film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a father trying desperately to save his daughter (well played by Abigail Breslin) in the wake of a zombie apocalypse.  Character-driven zombie movies are few and far between, and even if Maggie, with its murky photography, is far from a perfect film, it is, at least for devotees of the genre, an interesting one.

Though there aren’t many genre films out on Tuesday, art movie lovers will have plenty of choices including The Woman in Gold (Anchor Bay, “PG-13,” 108 min., $28.98, BD $34.98), an art movie that is actually about “art,” in this case the true story of a Gustave Klimt masterpiece stolen by the Nazis that was returned to its rightful owner, an indomitable elderly Jewish woman (played by Helen Mirren), who is aided by a plucky young lawyer (played by Ryan Reynolds).  Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) directs this all-too-perfect underdog saga with some flair, but there are no surprises here.

There is even an art movie western, John Maclean’s Slow West (Lionsgate, “R,” 84 min., $19.98, BD $24.99), a sort of “road movie” of the old West with Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender as an unlikely duo of traveling companions making their way across the harsh frontier in the waning years of the 19th Century in a saga that reflects modern attitudes, but also recalls the visual beauty of the classic westerns.

Merchants of Doubt (Sony, “PG-13,” 90 min., $38.99) is a documentary by Robert Kenner based on the book Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway that examines the way in which the tobacco industry used “scientists” to sow doubt about the accumulating data that linked cigarette smoking and lung cancer, how furniture makers used similar tactics to attack those who warned about toxic fire retardant chemicals, and most importantly how the fossil fuel industry has managed to convince almost half the people in the U.S. that the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change is some sort of a hoax, whereas in the rest of the world only a small percentage of cranks hold such absurdly unscientific views.

TV on DVD

It’s not a great week for geek viewers in this category, though there are some excellent releases including House of Cards: The Complete Third Season (Sony, 520 min., $55.99, BD $65.99), which collects the 13-episode third season of the highly popular Netflix series starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood, the unscrupulous South Carolina Congressman, who in Season 3, which began streaming from Netflix in February, has become President and is already scheming to make sure he can be re-elected in 2016 in this over-the-top, but still enjoyable saga of political intrigue and corruption at the nexus of power and money that is Washington D.C.

Also due on Tuesday is the swashbuckling miniseries Poldark (PBS, 480 min.,$44.99, BD $49.99), which is a remake of the original 1970s Masterpiece Theater series about a British army officer who returns to Cornwall after battling Washington’s army in the American Revolution only to find that his days of conflict are far from over.  This remake, which started airing on PBS stations in June, keeps the narrative of the original (adapted from a series of novels by Winston Graham) and ups the production values.

Other contemporary series include Bitten: The Complete Second Season (eOne, 440 min., $34.99), the Canadian series about a female werewolf, the USA Network half-hour sitcom Playing House (Universal, 217 min., $44.98), and the final season of the now-cancelled Lifetime fantasy comedy/drama Witches of East End: The Complete 2nd Season (Fox, 585 min., DVD-R, $29.95).

Mystery fans will want to check out The Brokenwood Mysteries: Series 1 (Acorn Media, 376 min., $59.99), which contains four feature-length sagas set in picturesque rural New Zealand and featuring a mismatched team of detectives, a displaced urban cop with multiple ex-wives and his new, by-the-book female partner.

Vintage TV offerings (in declining order of importance) include the cop sitcom Barney Miller: The 8th & Final Season (Warner Bros., 440 min., $24.97), the Fox sitcom Married… With Children: Season 11 (Mill Creek, $9.98), the 2013 sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show: The Complete First Season (Sony, DVD-R, $45.99), which includes episodes that never aired on NBC, and the All in the Family sequel, Archie Bunker’s Place: Season 1 (Mill Creek, 591 min., $9.98).

Anime

This week’s top release is the Noragami Season 1 Collection (Funimation, 300 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98, Ltd. Ed. $69.98), which collects the 12-episode first season of the anime series created by Bones and based on the popular supernatural manga by Adachitoka (published here by Kodansha USA).  The teenage girl protagonist of Noragami saves a boy from a traffic accident only to find out that he is the “stray” god of the series’ title, and that her life will never be the same.

Two other 2014 series are due out on Tuesday, the game-based fantasy Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., Subtitles Only, $49.98, BD $59.98) was produced by Studio Gokumi and directed by Yoshiaki Iwasaki, and the One Week Friends Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., Subtitles Only, $49.98, BD $59.98), which collects a better-than-average Brain’s Base series based on the romantic comedy/drama manga by Matcha Hazuki about a girl loses all memories about her friends every week.

Also due on Tuesday is Yakitate!! Japan, Part 3 (Right Stuf, 425 min., Subtitles Only, $44.99), which collects the final 17 episodes of the 69-episode 2004-2006 anime series from Sunrise based on the culinary comedy manga by Takashi Hashiguchi.

This week’s two dub-only releases are the 11th Pokemon movie, Pokemon the Movie: Giratina and the Sky Warrior (Viz Media, 96 min., Dub, $19.97) from 2008, and the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Season 2 Collection (Cinedigm, $59.99).

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.