‘Last Jedi’ is a first-rate sequel
New on Blu-ray Star Wars: The Last Jedi Disney/Buena Vista DVD, $19.96; Blu-ray, $24.96; 4K, $29.96; also available on VOD
The “Star Wars” franchise is so monolithic and means so many different things to so many different people that it’s hard to make a movie that’ll please every fan. Kudos then to Rian Johnson for taking so many chances with this surprisingly twisty, visually dazzling, emotionally stirring chapter in this epic saga. While advancing the stories of the new characters introduced in “The Force Awakens” (the superpowered Rey, the disturbed Kylo Ren, the plucky Finn and the cocky Poe Dameron), “The Last Jedi” also considers the legacy of legends like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa and riffs on the way that compelling myths can inspire real change. Even if it hadn’t recharged the meaning of so many major American pop-culture figures, this would be one heck of a movie: a full-bodied blockbuster, with panache and wit. Special features: A Johnson commentary track, deleted scenes, and extensive featurettes
VOD The China Hustle Available Friday
Director Jed Rothstein’s documentary performs a public service, examining how the global economy recovered from the 2008 crash in part thanks to Chinese companies that allegedly lied about their production and earnings. Anchored by interviews with socially conscious investors who’ve dedicated themselves to investigating and exposing fraud, the film is at once an inspiring portrait of civic-minded capitalists and a strong warning against investing in markets devoid of strong government oversight.
TV set of the week Legion: Season One 20th Century Fox DVD, $39.98; Blu-ray, $49.99
Having crushed the challenge of adapting the Coen brothers to TV with his Emmy-winning “Fargo,” writer-producer-director Noah Hawley proceeded to reinvent the superhero show with a trippy take on one of Marvel Comics’ strangest characters. Dan Stevens plays David Haller, a spookily powerful telekinetic mutant who can’t always tell when he’s reading minds and manipulating matter or when he’s suffering from mental illness. With a great supporting cast (including the phenomenal Aubrey Plaza as a mysterious, compelling chaos-agent) and a style equally informed by Stanley Kubrick and Pink Floyd, “Legion” has all the special-effects and eye-popping action sequences that a series like this demands, put into the context of a story that’s mostly about how it feels to be different. Special features: Deleted scenes and featurettes
From the archives King of Jazz Criterion DVD, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95
One of the earliest Hollywood musicals — and one of the first in Technicolor — this 1930 Universal feature is a showcase for Paul Whiteman, the bandleader who helped introduced white audiences to musical innovations that originated in the African American community. A plotless revue (as was common at the time), the movie is a remarkable cultural artifact, which has been preserved in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry because of its relevance to film and music as a technical and historical achievement. It looks and sounds amazing even now, featuring both the first Bing Crosby screen performance and Whiteman’s famed arrangement of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”