New releases: Why the underrated ‘Free State of Jones’ should win over history buffs

New on Blu-ray

“Free State of Jones” (Universal DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; also available on VOD)

A fascinating, under-recognized piece of America’s past gets a coat of Hollywood gloss in “Free State of Jones,” an engaging Civil War drama that won’t win any major awards but could become a favorite of history buffs. Matthew McConaughey stars as Newton Knight, a Confederate soldier who abandons the Rebel cause, deserts the army and founds his own racially mixed homeland in Jones County, Mississippi. Writer-director Gary Ross gets too hung up on the social significance of his material to deliver a movie as exciting as it should be, but he does elicit strong performances from a cast that also includes Keri Russell as Knight’s first wife and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a slave he later marries. And there’s still a lot to learn from this story, which is ultimately about how working-class folks decide not to die anymore over rich men’s disputes.

Special features: A featurette about the real history of Jones County.

VOD

“Goat” (available Sept. 23)

The macho melodrama “Goat” should get a lot of attention for two reasons: It stars pop idol Nick Jonas, and it features enough drunken college debauchery to shock any Jonas Brothers fan. Based on Brad Land’s memoir of the same name, writer-director Andrew Neel’s film stars Ben Schnetzer as a bright, good-looking college freshman who pledges his brother’s fraternity then finds that the frat’s intense hazing rituals are triggering his PTSD from a recent mugging. Jonas plays the older brother, who begins to see that his best friends are sadistic jerks. There’s a “hazing is bad” PSA quality to “Goat” that feels forced, but whenever the movie drops the lectures and just shows what goes on during a typical Hell Week, Neel effectively re-creates the mayhem of bros on a bender, showing how morality gets fuzzier as the liquor flows.

TV set of the week

“Twin Peaks: The Original Series, Fire Walk With Me & the Missing Pieces” (Paramount Blu-ray, $72.99)

Showtime’s “Twin Peaks” revival won’t air until next year, but in the meantime, the entire original series is now available in a less expensive Blu-ray set than the 2014 special edition. The new collection carries over everything that matters from its predecessor, including the twisted prequel movie “Fire Walk With Me,” and enough outtakes from that film to comprise an entirely new feature, called “The Missing Pieces.” More importantly, the box set contains the 1990s’ most important TV drama: an eerie, surreal mystery that for a few months had the whole country obsessed with the curious visions of “Twin Peaks” co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost. The show’s small-town scandal, creeping nightmares and screwball humor remain beguiling.

Special features: Featurettes and deleted scenes

From the archives

“Salem’s Lot” / “Cat’s Eye” / “It” (Warner Bros. Blu-ray, $14.97 each)

Stephen King’s punchy prose and sprawling narratives are often hard to translate to the movies, even though he’s created dozens of memorable characters and monsters over the decades. This week, Warner is releasing three of the more successful King adaptations on Blu-ray. The prize of the trio is the vampire-infested “Salem’s Lot,” a spooky 1979 miniseries directed by horror master Tobe Hooper. The three-hour length allows for more of King’s regional flavor and rich subplots. The same can be said of 1990’s “It,” another extra-long TV mini, about how a demonic clown haunts a group of friends from childhood to adulthood. But don’t skip past the underrated 1985 anthology film “Cat’s Eye,” which turns the author’s short stories into terse, tense fun.

Special features: Commentary tracks on all three works

Three more to see

“Ma Ma” (Oscilloscope DVD, $34.99; Blu-ray, $39.99); “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” (Universal DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; also available on VOD); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” (Paramount DVD, $16.99; Blu-ray, $19.99; Blu-ray 3-D, $24.99; 4K, $29.99; also available on VOD)