This week we start with some comedy legends:

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment continues to recognize and release some of the nuggets tucked away in its Columbia Pictures library. These two collections not only include rarely seen comedies, but they also offer examples of the work of four actresses considered most representative of the genre.

Jean Arthur may best exemplify the feisty, newly independent women seen in many films of the late-1930s and early-to-mid-1940s era, including Volume 1’s If You Could Only Cook (75 minutes) and Too Many Husbands (84 minutes), two farces about, respectively, posing as a butler with Herbert Marshall and facing a dilemma when her husband (Fred McMurray) shows up after being declared legally dead. Incomparable Rosalind Russell brings her distinct verve to My Sister Eileen (96 minutes) and She Wouldn’t Say Yes (87 minutes).

Volume 2 highlights the comedic stylings of popular 1930s actress Irene Dunne in Theodora Goes Wild (94 minutes), about a small-town girl’s contrived trip to New York, and Together Again (93 minutes), about a woman who falls in love with a sculptor hired to memorialize her dead husband. Loretta Young graces A Night to Remember (91 minutes) and The Doctor Takes a Wife (88 minutes).

Both collections also hold a comedy short and the original trailers.

*

Race To Witch Mountain (**1/2) In this loose remake of two 1970s Disney hits, Dwayne Johnson plays a Las Vegas cabbie hired by two mysterious teens (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) to drive them to Witch Mountain. There, the government runs a restricted UFO-related program designed to play on the teens’ secret supernatural abilities. An entertaining blend of engaging leads and Disney family entertainment. With Cheech Marin, Billy Brown and Carla Gugino.

Rated PG, 98 minutes.

Disney offers several DVD options, coming in one-, two- and three-disc varieties, including a Blu-ray combo that also contains the film in DVD format. The two-disc DVD and Blu-ray sets offer deleted scenes, bloopers, several featurettes and more.

*

Shadowheart (**1/2) Justin Ament supplies the story, produces and stars as James Conners in this old-fashioned western. Growing up in Legend, N.M., Conners saw his father murdered by the town drunk, Will Tunney (Angus Macfadyen). Years later, Conners returns to town as a bounty hunter and the rich Tunney serves as mayor. To further complicate matters, Tunney has his eye on Mary Cooper (Marnie Alton), Conners’ childhood sweetheart. Director Dean Alioto stretches out every possible confrontation from his and Peter Vanderwall’s script. Ament proves bland as the conquering hero, and Macfadyen shamelessly mugs it up.

Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.

The DVD offers commentary from Alioto and an eight-minute behind-the-scenes featurette.

*

Obsessed (**1/2) Beyonce Knowles teams with Idris Elba in this thriller about Derek Charles (Elba), a successful financial whiz who finds himself stalked by his co-worker Lisa (Ali Larter). Lisa misunderstands Derek at a party, causing her to assume more than warranted. Meanwhile, Charles’ wife, Sharon (Knowles), struggles to avoid panic and keep the family together. First-time feature director Steve Shill, who earned a deserved reputation for his TV work (Big Love, Dexter), never hesitates to pile on the cliché while taking every chance to go for the obvious.

Rated PG-13, 108 minutes.

The DVD, also on Blu-ray, offers three featurettes, with the most engaging being “Girl Fight,” in which the face-off between Lisa and Sharon is dissected. Also included are segments on casting and costume design.

*

Nature’s Grave Jim Caviezel stars in what essentially is a remake of the 1978 Australian mystery-thriller Long Weekend, so look for it under either title. This latest version, directed by Jamie Blanks (Storm Warning), also details a weekend spent by a feuding couple (Caviezel and Claudia Karvan) on a secluded beach, where they are isolated from everything except nature’s creatures in the form of snakes and pesky insects. And, as benign as it sounds, nature can turn ugly.

Rated R.

*

Miss March Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, two of the Whitest Kids U’Know, wrote, directed and star in this lame story about searching for a former girlfriend who becomes a Playboy centerfold. The standard youth comedy has its requisite gross moments, crotch jokes and various displays of clashing body parts. Cregger plays comatose Eugene, the stereotypical virgin, and Moore is Tucker, much more volatile and sexually aware than his friend. The inevitable road trip ends up at the Playboy mansion with a guest appearance by Hugh Hefner.

Rated R, 89 minutes.

*

Delgo In this animated feature, a host of talented voices depict the story of the peaceful land of Jhamora, where a feud brews between the land-dwelling Lockni and the flying Nohrin. Freddie Prinze Jr. voices Delgo, a Lockni teen who yearns for Nohrin Princess Kyla (Jennifer Love Hewitt), while a lost empress seeks to reclaim her throne. In her last film role, Anne Bancroft voices The Empress. With Val Kilmer, Kelly Ripa, Lou Gossett Jr. and Burt Reynolds.

Rated PG, 94 minutes.

The DVD offers plenty of supplements, including commentary from the directors, 14 minutes of deleted scenes and featurettes on the film’s sounds and individual characters. Also included is the award-winning animated short Chroma Chameleon.

*

The Tigger Movie — 10th Anniversary Edition Disney reprises this 2000 theatrical hit that went on to become the best-selling preschool DVD ever. Tigger and his buddies (Roo, Rabbit, Piglet, et al.) set off on a musical odyssey to find members of Tigger’s family.

Rated G, 77 minutes.

The two-disc DVD set offers more than a half dozen new featurettes, including a music video, a sing-a-long feature and several games.

*

Also this week: The Love Boat — Season Two, Volume Two.

BOO ALLEN is an award-winning film critic for the Denton Record-Chronicle.