New on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

“Antwone Fisher” Blu-ray
From Denzel Washington, a movie about a troubled sailor forced to face his demons with the help of a psychiatrist forced to face his own at home. While the film is predictable, it’s also a confident and well-acted, a movie about a man overcoming a dark life of murder, incest, abuse and abandonment. Derek Luke is Fisher, a young seaman whose blistering temper leads him to an appointment with Dr. Jerome Davenport (Washington), a Naval psychiatrist unprepared for the emotional connection that will form between them. Fisher is equally unprepared, particularly when he opens up to Davenport and shares his life, a horror story of the first order that began with his birth in prison to a mother who refused to care for him. With a terrific performance by Luke and fine supporting turns by Joy Bryant as his love interest and Viola Davis as his mother, "Antwone Fisher" wisely holds back on delivering its emotional wallop until its well-deserved ending, which lifts this powerful movie off the screen while transcending the race and color boundaries that unfortunately limited its commercial appeal. In the end, "Antwone Fisher" is about all of us. Rated PG-13. Grade: A-

“Election” Blu-ray
On the surface, Alexander Payne’s “Election” may appear to be just another high school film about high school students living high school lives, but Payne wanted more--much more--and he got it. “Election” is high among Reese Witherspoon’s best films. In it, greed and deceit, failure and sabotage, lust and hypocrisy come together in the wicked form of Tracy Flick (Witherspoon), a driven blonde bombshell whose willingness to do anything, absolutely anything, to win a high school election sets the tone for a film that brilliantly mirrors society. At once a satire and a tragedy, “Election” is too smart to fall victim to cliché, but the big news here is Matthew Broderick, whose winning role as Tracy’s nemesis schoolteacher is not to be missed. Rated R: Grade: A

Also on DVD and Blu-ray disc:

Rounding out the week are three recommended offerings, while two other films fail to make the cut. The three that do are the Showtime series “The Tudors: Second Season,” with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII. In this season, his relationship heats up with Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) and then suddenly cools in ways that pop culture recently has explored in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” The final episode in which Anne puts her “little neck” on the line is the show at its best, with Dormer nailing the emotions assailing her character.

Also good is the DVD and Blu-ray release of “The Express,” a conventional football drama based on the life Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), who played for Syracuse University and later died of leukemia at 23. Dennis Quaid co-stars. Another football movie just out on Blu-ray disc is “Friday Night Lights,” an against-the-odds high school sports movie that joins such films as “Million Dollar Baby” in that it’s about much more than just the sport. It’s about the game of life and relationships, with Billy Bob Thornton giving one of the best performances of his career.

Less successful offerings include the Mark Wahlberg action film “Max Payne” (DVD, Blu-ray), which is based on a popular video game--and feels just as wooden and as overblown. The movie is hollow, with Wahlberg onboard to pay the mortgage. Finally, also available is Kiefer Sutherland in “Mirrors” (DVD, Blu-ray), an initially promising but ultimately underwhelming horror movie based on the Korean original. Though the movie isn’t about vampires, it should have been. Stand in front of these “Mirrors” for a spell, and you realize you’re seeing nothing.