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 The Incredible Hulk, Seasons 3 and 4 (Universal)
Smartly, Universal is timing its third and fourth season releases of the 1970's series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno to the opening of the new -- and, from early reports, troubled -- Hulk film starring Ed Norton as the mild-mannered hero with thyroid and skin color problems. The original series sidestepped camp by taking itself just seriously enough: Bixby’s everyman persona worked best in this role, and Ferrigno only had to show off his rippling muscles in shades of green. EXTRAS: Episode commentary; retrospective featurettes; preview of new Hulk movie.
 Indiana Jones Trilogy (Paramount)
With the new Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Crystal Skull breaking box-office records, Paramount has repackaged the first three Steven Spielberg-directed, Harrison Ford-starring vehicles with mixed results. Thanks to improved transfers, all three films look better, and the extras include new features, although some bonus material from the previous boxed set is missing. EXTRAS: Spielberg and Lucas introductions and interviews; 12 new and vintage featurettes.
 The Last Supper (New Yorker)
Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s allegorical drama about an episode in 18th century Cuban history–a rich landowner gives an elaborate dinner for 12 of his slaves which re-enacts the biblical last supper –raised eyebrows upon its release in 1976 for what it said about the country’s historical racism. Even if The Last Supper doesn’t have the depth of Alea’s earlier masterpiece, 1968's Memories of Underdevelopment, it’s still a thought-provoking slice of Latin American history.
 Lohengrin (Deutsche Grammophon)
Werner Herzog’s staging of Wagner’s opera of love and redemption is curiously muted. Perhaps it’s because the German film director was an operatic novice at the time, but there’s very little originality to his concept or visual sense. Not that he does anything egregiously wrong; it’s just that, considering the memorable images he’s put onscreen over the past four decades, I expected more but rarely got it -- except for the opera’s haunting final tableau. This is also a musically undistinguished Lohengrin, conducted by Peter Schneider and starring a wobbly Cheryl Studer as Elsa and a vocally stiff Paul Frey as the hero.
 Mandingo (Paramount)
Richard Fleischer’s brazenly politically incorrect potboiler about slavery has been savaged by critics for over 30 years, and it’s admittedly difficult to defend. Is it a satire? A serious exploration? Exploitation? My best guess is: All of the above. The performances of James Mason and Perry King as the plantation’s overseer and son are entertainingly over the top, but Susan George creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a wronged wife, and her climactic seduction of the stud slave -- stolidly played by Ken Norton – is persuasively erotic. Director Fleischer is unafraid to get down and dirty, showing lynchings and other vicious violence. Too bad this disc doesn’t have a restored transfer.
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