‘Samurai’ interviews a battle to endure

The Last Samurai

Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe

Warner Home Video, $30

The two-DVD set of the action-drama set in Japan in 1876 takes itself way too seriously. “Tom Cruise: A Warrior’s Journey” features pompous, lugubrious interviews with the superstar, director Edward Zwick, producer Paula Wagner and others who talk about this movie as if it were the Second Coming. Ditto the documentary “Making an Epic: A Conversation With Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise.” Skip those and check out the far more entertaining and informative documentaries profiling production designer Lilly Kilvert and costume designer Ngila Dickson, as well as featurettes on the film’s military boot camp and the weapons utilized in the action and battle sequences.

Rounding out the digital edition is commentary from Zwick.

*

The Triplets of Belleville

Animated

Columbia TriStar, $25

This delightful, enchanting animated feature won numerous critical awards last year and gave “Finding Nemo” a run for its money at Oscar time. Directed with great imagination and heart by France’s Sylvain Chomet, “Triplets” is the story of a young cyclist who is kidnapped by gangsters during a race and brought to the huge metropolis of Belleville. His club-footed grandmother and the hefty family hound set out to Belleville to retrieve him. She gets unsuspecting help from three elderly singers, the Belleville Triplets. There is barely a word spoken in the piece -- it is like an animated Jacques Tati film -- but the soundtrack is filled with music and various sound effects.

The DVD includes two short production featurettes and select scene commentary with Chomet, spoken in French with English subtitles.

*

Desk Set

Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn

Fox, $15

Though not on par with their great MGM comedies such as “Woman of the Year” and “Adam’s Rib,” this 1957 farce is still rollicking good fun. Based on the hit Broadway play, “Desk Set” finds Hepburn playing the head of the research department at a big TV network; Tracy is the expert brought in by the network president to introduce computers to the department. Sparks soon fly between the two. Joan Blondell and Dina Merrill play two of Hepburn’s co-workers. Gig Young is Hepburn’s handsome boss and boyfriend.

The DVD features a digitally enhanced and restored transfer, a photo gallery, a funny newsreel about the film’s fashions and commentary with Merrill, who made her movie debut in “Desk Set,” and film historian John Lee.

*

Calendar Girls

Helen Mirren, Julie Walters

Touchstone, $30

Inspired by a true story, this British import is entertaining in the first hour but drags during the last half when the narrative turns sentimental and predictable. Mirren and Walters sparkle as friends living in a small English village who are members of the country’s service organization, the Women’s Institute. When Walters’ husband dies of leukemia, they persuade other members of the group and do a tasteful nude calendar to raise money for leukemia research. (The real women have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for that cause through the calendar and other appearances and events.)

The disc includes a few deleted scenes, an amusing featurette on re-creating the calendar for the movie, plus a documentary on the real “calendar girls,” who come across as gutsy, colorful ladies.