‘Hail, Caesar’ tops this week’s new home video releases

New on Blu-ray

Hail, Caesar!

Universal, DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; also available on VOD

With “Hail, Caesar!,” Joel and Ethan Coen bring their skewed sensibility back to the world of Old Hollywood for the first time since their cult classic “Barton Fink,” and while the brothers come away with a shaggy comedy that their fans should dig, ordinary moviegoers may find the picture baffling. Josh Brolin stars as a studio “fixer” who spends his days straightening out troubled biblical epics and costume dramas while also squelching scandals involving communists, libertines and his biggest star (played by George Clooney). The plot meanders more than usual for the Coens, though “Hail, Caesar!” does nail a few big, boisterous set pieces (including a musical number featuring Channing Tatum), and the film as a whole expresses a heartening faith in human usefulness that makes its overall laxness more forgivable. Just don’t expect the story to come to a satisfying point.

Special features: Four breezy featurettes.

VOD

Lenny Cooke

available June 7

Joshua and Ben Safdie are best known for writing and directing edgy, arty indie dramas like “Daddy Longlegs” and “Heaven Knows What,” but they’re also responsible for the heartrending documentary “Lenny Cooke,” about a former Brooklyn high school basketball phenom who came out for the NBA draft too early and never made it to the big time. Balancing footage of Cooke today with old clips of him at his peak, the Safdie brothers set out to capture the very specific American dream of becoming a rich professional athlete, with a fancy crib and an entourage — and what happens to the dreamer when things don’t work out as he’d planned.

TV set of the week

Vinyl: The Complete First Season

HBO, DVD, $49.99; Blu-ray, $59.98

HBO and 1970s rock ’n’ roll fans alike expected much more than they got from the first season of “Vinyl,” a drama about the New York record industry in the era of disco, punk and prog. Star Bobby Cannavale gives his all, but “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter — in conjunction with producers Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger — often takes the wrong way into this material, reducing a fascinating period in pop history into just another overwrought premium cable show about a powerful man going through a midlife crisis. “Vinyl” is still worth watching, though, both for how vividly it re-creates the excitement of its times and for some electrifying music.

Special features: Commentary tracks; featurettes.

From the archives

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Director’s Cut

Paramount, Blu-ray, $22.99

After 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” proved to be an expensive disappointment, Paramount green-lit a sequel at a fraction of its predecessor’s budget, and the result was a film with more of the scrappiness and personality of the original TV series. Director Nicholas Meyer and a team of screenwriters relied less on fancy special effects, and instead delivered a rollicking science-fiction adventure story that leans heavily on the history and the relationships of the “Star Trek” characters — with a classic villain in the form of Ricardo Montalbán’s ruthless, megalomaniacal Khan. By catering more to fans, “The Wrath of Khan” made “Star Trek” viable for the big screen and for a new generation. It’s the best film of the series in terms of its memorable scenes, lines and ideas, and it’s now available on Blu-ray in a special edition director’s cut that adds a few extra minutes of scenes and moments.

Special features: Two Meyer commentary tracks; vintage interviews; new half-hour making-of documentary.

And …

Anomalisa

Paramount, DVD, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99; also available on VOD

A War

Magnolia, DVD, $26.97; Blu-ray, $29.97

Zootopia

Disney/Buena Vista, DVD, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99; 3-D, $39.99; also available on VOD