Rack Focus

Anxious Animation
(Other Cinema)
The latest release from the increasingly essential Other Cinema compiles experimental animated shorts from six contemporary artists: Lewis Klahr, whose collages incorporate old advertising imagery, comics, and other cultural ephemera; Janie Geiser, represented here by a pair of mysterious narratives told in layered, often abstracted imagery; Jim Trainor, creator of purposefully crude, hand-sketched pieces that go inside the minds of animals to disquieting effect; and the collective of Eric Henry, Syd Garon, and Rodney Ascher, whose digitized visions remix sources ranging from Bosch to the Bible.

Petulia
(Warner)
Best known today for A Hard Day's Night and a pair of Superman sequels, Richard Lester enjoyed a brief heyday as one of the hippest directors around and remains an auteurist hero in some quarters. Finally on disc, Petulia is the key film in the Lester oeuvre. George C. Scott stars as a recently divorced doctor who gets involved with socialite Julie Christie and husband Richard Chamberlain.