THE LIST: DVDs, CDs and books being released week of Feb. 17

DVDS
  “Changeling” (R): Director Clint Eastwood’s fact-based 1920s melodrama focuses on a single mother (Oscar nominee Angelina Jolie) whose son vanishes — and takes on Los Angeles’ corrupt police department when they try to convince her that the little boy they’ve found isn’t really her son.
  Greg Kinnear headlines another fact-based drama, “Flash of Genius” (PG-13), playing a college professor who comes up with a design for intermittent windshield wipers and wages a quixotic legal battle against the Detroit automakers he claims stole his idea.
Russell Crowe, meanwhile, reunites with “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott — and “Quick and the Dead” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio — for the topical thriller “Body of Lies” (R), about a CIA operative, on the trail of a terrorist leader, who forms an uneasy alliance with Jordan’s covert operations chief (Mark Strong).
  For kids of all ages, the Disney Channel’s smash song-and-dance franchise continues in “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” (G), as East High Wildcats Troy (Zac Efron), Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale), Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) and Chad (Corbin Bleu) face the big finale of high school life — and explore their conflicting emotions by (what else?) putting on a show.
  Shifting to the offbeat side of the street, the black comedy “Choke” (R), which played last year’s CineVegas film festival, adapts “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a sex-addicted con artist (Sam Rockwell) who finances the care of his deranged mother (Anjelica Huston) by pretending to choke to death — and playing on the sympathies of his rescuers. “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” (R), meanwhile, focuses on a Brit-wit celebrity journalist (Simon Pegg), recruited by a high-profile New York editor (Jeff Bridges), struggling to fit in at a snooty Vanity Fair-style magazine.
  Comedian Bill Maher headlines “Religulous” (R), a political quasi-documentary, traveling from the Vatican to Jerusalem — and points in between — to take on world religions, and the people who believe in them.
  Topping today’s foreign-language file: “I Served the King of England” (R), from legendary Czech director Jiri Menzel (“Closely Watched Trains”), follows a clownlike Prague waiter (Ivan Barnev) with an uncanny knack for survival, even when the Nazis (or the Communists) take over.
  And, on the horror front, “Quarantine” (R) finds a TV reporter (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) at an apartment building where the residents seem to be turning into rabid, homicidal zombies.
  Turning to titles that never played local theaters, “Hounddog” (R), postponed from an earlier date, casts Dakota Fanning as a ’50s Southern teen saddled with a brutal father (David Morse) and puritanical grandmother (Piper Laurie). “Midnight Meat Train” (not rated) stars Brooke Shields and Vinnie Jones in a horror tale, based on a Clive Barker story from Japanese cult prodigy Ryuhei Kitamura.
  In the vintage vault, late great Paul Newman shows off his directorial prowess with the poignant Oscar-nominated 1968 drama “Rachel, Rachel” (PG), starring Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, as a small-town teacher trying to break free of her circumscribed life. It’s the highlight of a “Paul Newman Film Series” that also features such underwhelming Newman vehicles as his 1954 big-screen debut “The Silver Chalice” (not rated), 1957’s “The Helen Morgan Story” (not rated), 1964’s “The Outrage” (not rated) and 1980’s “When Time Ran Out” (PG).
  Another Oscar-winning legend, Charles Laughton, headlines a Criterion Collection edition of director David Lean’s 1953 classic “Hobson’s Choice” (not rated), about a prosperous 19th-century British shoe merchant whose eldest daughter (Brenda De Banzie) escapes — with one of her father’s most unprepossessing employees (John Mills).
  And the documentary “The Outsider: A Film About James Toback” (not rated), profiles the wild filmmaking (and gambling) life of the “Bugsy” screenwriter (and “Two Girls and Guy” director), with comments from (among others) Woody Allen, Robert Downey Jr., Mike Tyson, Harvey Keitel, Norman Mailer and Brooke Shields.
  Today’s TV transfers (all unrated) range from “Dead Like Me: The Complete Collection” to “Murder, She Wrote: The Complete Ninth Season.” Also arriving on DVD: “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — The Eighth Year,” “The Beverly Hillbillies: The Official Third Season” and “Wycliffe: Series 1.”

CDS
  ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, “The Century of Self”: How can a critical darling be underrated?
  Well, if you’re forward-thinking indie rockers ...And You Will Know us By the Trail of Dead, it’s happened in recent years, as the band has engendered something of a backlash from once laudatory rock scribes who took umbrage with the prog-rock leanings and epic scope of the band’s last two discs.
  Excellent and unfairly dismissed as they were, the albums didn’t sell well and the band was dropped from major label Interscope records.
  Now, Trail of Dead have returned to the independent ranks for their latest album.
  A slightly more stripped down, immediately bracing record than its most recent predecessors, “Century of Self” is an ambitious record nonetheless, full of topsy-turvy art rock that contains both some of the band’s most explosive and contemplative moments.
In other words, they aren’t Dead just yet.   
  Also in stores: Architecture in Helsinki, “That Beep”; Fake Problems, “It’s Great to Be Alive”; Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3, “Goodnight Oslo”; Living Things, “Habeas Corpus”; Morrissey, “Years of Refusal”; Obscura, “Cosmogenesis”; Sam Roberts, “Love at the End of the World”; Christopher Titus, “Love Is Evol”; M. Ward, “Hold Time”; William Elliott Whitmore, “Animals in the Dark”; and Charlie Wilson, “Uncle Charlie.”

BOOKS
  “Heart and Soul” by Maeve Binchy: Best-selling author Maeve Binchy’s latest novel, “Heart and Soul,” is a story of family and friendship as Dr. Clara Casey takes on the job of establishing an underfunded heart clinic in Ireland.
  Along with her own personal problems, including an ex-husband and two difficult daughters, Clara has to deal with the clinic’s demanding patients. She puts together a talented staff and, before long, the clinic becomes a success.
  Now, since she agreed to take on the clinic for only a year, Clara must decide whether to leave or stay at the place of hope she helped create.
  Another book to hit shelves this week is “The Sweet By and By” by Todd Johnson. This debut novel with Southern flare centers around five women connected by a nursing home.
  The women give different gifts to each other. They offer friendship and comfort, dignity and respect, advice and wisdom as their relationships grow.
  Look for a review of this book to come to The Book Nook soon, www.reviewjournal.com/blogs/booknook.
  More books hitting shelves this week: “Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise” by Tavis Smiley; “A Mad Desire to Dance” by Elie Wiesel; “All the Colors of Darkness (Inspector Alan Banks Series No. 18)” by Peter Robinson; “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy” by Peter Canellos; “While My Sister Sleeps” by Barbara Delinsky; “Precious” by Sandra Novack; “Doghead” by Morten Ramsland; “The Second Opinion” by Michael Palmer; “Hater” by David Moody; “Critical Mass” by Whitley Strieber; and “Everyone Is Beautiful” by Katherine Center.