THE LIST: DVDs, CDs and books hitting stores week of Dec. 9

DVDS
  “The Dark Knight” (PG-13): The maniacal Joker (the late Heath Ledger, a sure-fire Oscar contender) wreaks havoc in Gotham City, prompting the interest of not only the Caped Crusader (Christian Bale) but crusading new D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Maggie Gyllenhaal (taking over from Katie Holmes) joins returnees Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman in director Christopher Nolan’s oh-so-serious sequel to 2005’s “Batman Begins,” 2008’s box-office champ. It’s available in two-disc special edition and Blu-Ray (both with digital copies included) and single-disc versions in both wide- and full-screen formats.
  Joining the Dark Knight on the theatrical-release landscape: “Horton Hears a Who” (G), a computer-animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic tale from the “Ice Age” folks, about a helpful elephant (voiced by “Grinch’s” Jim Carrey) trying mightily to protect a microscopic community from his judgmental jungle neighbors. And speaking of family treats, the animated short “Peter and the Wolf” (not rated) serves up an Oscar-winning stop-motion retelling of Sergei Prokofiev’s classic fable.
  On the documentary front, “Man on Wire” (PG-13) recounts French street performer Philippe Petit’s daring (and illegal) 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. The award-winning “Flow” (not rated) dives into the planet’s water woes. And to prepare you for the upcoming World War II thriller “Valkyrie,” there’s “Killing Hitler: The True Story of the Valkyrie Plot” (not rated).
  Turning to thrillers that never played local theaters, the late Roy Scheider’s final film casts him as a detective playing a cat-and-mouse game with a murder suspect (Bill Sage) in the thriller “Blue Blood” (not rated). In “Anamorph” (R),” Willem Dafoe also plays detective, haunted by the gruesome slayings he’s investigating — and his deadly past.
  Elsewhere on the unseen-and-unknown front, Armand Assante, Billy Zane, Sean Young and Eric Braeden saddle up for the dark Western “The Man Who Came Back” (R). A young car thief (Shane West) poses as the long-lost son of a Russian clarinetist (Rade Serbedzija) in “The Elder Son” (not rated). And the aftermath of a rape embroils Robin Tunney (TV’s “The Mentalist”), Joel Edgerton, Elliott Gould, Cybill Shepherd and Shirley Knight in “The Open Window” (not rated).
  From the vintage vault, director Frank Capra’s Oscar-winning ’30s comedies “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take It With You” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (all unrated) return to DVD in remastered form.
  Speaking of great directors, “Great Directors: Volume 1” salutes Akira Kurosawa (with 1975 G-rated Oscar-winner “Dersu Uzala”), Andrei Tarkovsky (1974’s unrated “The Mirror”), Claude Chabrol (1960’s unrated “Les Bonnes Femmes”), Michelangelo Antonioni (1957’s unrated“Il Grido”) and Volker Schlondorff (1981’s R-rated “Circle of Deceit”).
  And a 12-disc “Murnau, Borzage and Fox” box set (unrated) collects a dozen movies  —  two from Murnau, including his 1927 “Sunrise” (the only movie ever awarded an Oscar for “best artistic film”) and 10 from Borzage, including the 1928 Oscar-winner “Seventh Heaven,” 1929’s “They Had to See Paris” (Will Rogers’ first talkie) and the Oscar-winning 1931 “Bad Girl.”
  Today’s TV transfers also reflect a mix of old and new, with such current series as “Swingtown: The First Season” and “The Wire: The Complete Series” joining such golden-age favorites as “Gunsmoke: The Third Season, Vol. 1” (all unrated).
Also turning up on the DVD dial (and all unrated): “Deadwood: The Complete Series,” “Happy Days: The Fourth Season,” “Lost: The Complete Fourth Season,” “McLeod’s Daughters: The Complete Seventh Season,” “Rawhide: Season Three, Vol. 2” and “Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories,” featuring award-winning animated renditions of 26 favorite tales narrated by, among others, Steve Martin, Angela Lansbury, Billy Crystal and Ringo Starr.

CDS
  Common, “Universal Mind Control”: Pardon the bad pun — but then again, you’ve come to expect them from us, no? — but Lonnie Lynn Jr. has little in common with his stage name.
  The Chicago-born MC is anything but a run-of-the-mill rapper.
  Instead, he’s one of the few artists to have bridged the gap between hip-hop’s more socially conscious underground and the platinum-selling populism of the mainstream.   
  His latest disc, “Universal Mind Control,” is more of an electro-driven dance record than the equally heady and heart-rending hip-hop we’ve come to expect from the MC.    
  “I created this music for the summer time, it’s about feeling good,” Common told Billboard.com recently. “This is the type of music I felt was missing from my body of work.”  
  Also in stores: Avant, “Avant”; Brandy, “Human”; Marianne Faithfull, “Easy Come, Easy Go (CD/DVD)”; Musiq Soulchild, “OnMyRadio”; and Thrice, “Live at the House of Blues.”

BOOKS
  "No Limits: The Will to Succeed" by Michael Phelps: In his new memoir, swimmer Michael Phelps offers insights from the Beijing Olympic Games and his record-breaking performance. Phelps also shares stories about his family, his coach as well as lessons he’s learned from overcoming challenges.
  If that’s not uplifting enough for you, Rhonda Byrne, author of “The Secret,” offers more help on finding happiness through positive thinking with “The Secret Daily Teachings.” The book contains 365 insights, one for each day of the year, that build on the philosophy put forth in “The Secret.”
  Other books hitting shelves this week: “Treasure” by Iris Johansen; “Busted Flush (Wild Cards, Book 19)” an anthology of stories edited by George R.R. Martin; “The Suicide Collectors” by David Oppegaard; “Fathom” by Cherie Priest; “City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York” by Beverly Swerling; and “Boy Minus Girl” by Richard Uhlig.