Failing at that old college try

Mona Lisa Smile

Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst

Columbia TriStar, $29

Wasn’t this melodrama just in theaters? Sony’s big Christmas movie hits the home entertainment market only three months after its theatrical release. And perhaps that short window explains why the DVD is threadbare.

The predictable drama finds Julia Roberts playing a nonconformist art teacher fresh out of college who is hired to teach at a strict girls’ college in the East. Faster than you can say “Dead Poets Society,” she is liberating her students, much to the rigid college executives’ chagrin.

The DVD includes no commentary from director Mike Newell, only three meager “documentaries” -- one on the meaning of art, another on what life was like for women in 1953, and a comparison between college life then and now for women.

*

The Best of Abbott & Costello

Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Universal, $25

Abbott & Costello, the legendary comedy team from the late ‘30s through mid-1950s, is best known for their classic “Who’s on First?” routine. This three-disc, eight-film set featuring their earliest films made at Universal proves to be rib-tickling fun.

Tall, slender and generally sporting a pencil-thin mustache, Bud Abbott was the slick member of the duo; the short, rotund and high-strung Lou Costello was always getting the team in trouble.

The discs feature their film debut in 1940’s “One Night in the Tropics,” in which they perform “Who’s on First?”; 1941’s “Buck Privates,” their best vehicle, which also features the Andrews Sisters performing the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy From Company B”; 1941’s “In the Navy,” “Hold That Ghost,” and “Keep ‘Em Flying”; and 1942’s “Ride ‘Em Cowboy,” with Ella Fitzgerald performing “A Tisket a Tasket.” “Pardon My Sarong” and “Who Done It?” are also included. Each film comes with a trailer and production notes.

*

Hamilton Mattress

Animated

MGM, $15

This sweet little stop-motion short from England has a message for young and old alike. Hamilton Mattress -- an animated clay aardvark -- not only wants to be handsome but also successful enough to acquire a terrific pair of trousers. As fate would have it, Hamilton is a drummer of extraordinary talents. And when he hooks up with Feldwick, a caterpillar talent agent, Hamilton finds himself in Beak City, a metropolis populated by birds who believe that beaks are beautiful. While the aardvark and the caterpillar struggle to overcome prejudice from the birds who rule the roost, they discover the true meaning of the word friendship.

The digital edition features two “making of” documentaries, a look at the voice talent and commentary from producer Christopher Moll and others.

*

Myra Breckinridge

Raquel Welch, Mae West

Fox, $15

Raquel Welch offers a very witty, self-effacing commentary track to her 1970 bomb that has become a guilty pleasure for connoisseurs of truly bad cinema. In her commentary, Welch admits she hadn’t seen the then-X-rated version of Gore Vidal’s comic novel about a man who undergoes a sex change operation in quite a while.

The 63-year-old sex symbol discusses how the movie kept changing course during production, how much she enjoyed working with costar John Huston, and her problems with the legendary Mae West, who, Welch says, wrote all of her own dialogue. The film also features a young Farrah Fawcett and Tom Selleck in supporting roles.

The disc also features commentary from director Michael Sarne and a retrospective documentary.

Fox also is releasing several other early Welch films on DVD, including “One Million Years B.C.” (1967) and “Bandolero!” (1968).