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The fun of ‘The Flash’s’ first season out on DVD, Blu-ray

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The Flash: The Complete First Season

Warner Bros., $59.98; Blu-ray, $60.10

While nearly every other superhero TV series and movie is working hard to be taken seriously, the CW’s “The Flash” runs fast in the other direction, celebrating the colorful costumes, mad science and psychic gorillas that made DC Comics’ “Silver Age” era so much fun. It helps that the show has such a game cast, led by Grant Gustin as geeky police scientist Barry Allen, plus infectiously wacky turns by Tom Cavanagh as not-what-he-seems genius Dr. Harrison Wells and Carlos Valdes as the helpful, over-eager Cisco Ramon. By smartly balancing villain-of-the-week stories with longer plotlines about the mysteries and ramifications of Barry’s super-speed powers, the first season of “The Flash” was more action-packed and entertaining than anything this genre has produced in years. Before Season 2 premieres, newcomers can catch up with a DVD or Blu-ray set that include commentary tracks, deleted scenes and featurettes.

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Results

Magnolia, $26.98; Blu-ray, $29.98

Transitioning from his usual cracked, dry indies to something more mainstream, writer-director Andrew Bujalski gathers ridiculously good-looking movie stars Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders for his romantic comedy “Results,” casting them as fanatical gym rats who take turns trying to help a rich, aimless slob played by Kevin Corrigan. Bujalski’s pacing is slack, and Pearce and Smulders’ polished acting doesn’t always fit with the filmmakers’ sensibility (or Corrigan’s, for that matter), but “Results” can be very funny, and it has its heart in the right place, which makes it easy to root for this bent love triangle to straighten itself out.

Saint Laurent

Sony Blu-ray, $34.99

Available on VOD Sept. 22

“House of Tolerance” director Bertrand Bonello applies his ornate, allusive style to the often hidebound biopic genre, digging into the story of influential French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Gaspard Ulliel plays the dashing young Saint Laurent, who during the psychedelic 1960s and hedonistic 1970s didn’t just help define what “style” meant but who also turned his aesthetic into a thriving business. The downside to Bonello’s unconventionality is that viewers won’t necessarily come out of “Saint Laurent” with facts and dates concerning its subject’s life, but they will have a sense of how his peak creative years looked and felt. The DVD, released earlier, and Blu-ray put the designer and the film into more of a context, via featurettes.

Breaker Morant

Criterion, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95

Mister Johnson

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Criterion, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95

Australian cinema was an uncommonly vital force in the 1970s and 1980s, with gritty “Ozploitation” B movies sharing international attention with the artier output of impressive young filmmakers like Bruce Beresford. The Criterion Collection gives Beresford his due with two handsome DVD and Blu-ray sets: one for his 1980 Boer War courtroom drama “Breaker Morant” (starring Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson as military men caught up in a war crimes trial), and one for 1990’s “Mister Johnson” (with Maynard Eziashi as a Nigerian currying favor with a British colonialist played by Pierce Brosnan). The “Mister Johnson” set contains interviews with Beresford, Eziashi and Brosnan; the “Breaker Morant” discs have interviews, a Beresford commentary and more information about the Boer War. Both make the case for the director as one of the leaders of the wing of Australian cinema grappling with the nation’s morally complex history.

And …

Chain of Command

Lionsgate, $19.98; Blu-ray, $19.99

In the Name of My Daughter

Cohen, $24.98; Blu-ray, $34.98

Pitch Perfect 2

Universal, $29.99; Blu-ray, $34.98

Available on VOD Sept. 22

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: 40th Anniversary Edition

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20th Century Fox Blu-ray, $34.99

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