Dennis Quaid plays a college professor who accidentally meets up with a former student, Sarah Jessica Parker, in Smart People.

AP / Bruce Birmelin

Although Smart People (Disney, $29.99) is smarter-than-your-average Hollywood comedy, this tale of academia and dysfunction still works only fitfully, despite a top-notch cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the title role in 2007’s Juno.

Quaid plays a curmudgeonly college professor who sustains a head injury that throws him together with a former student turned doctor (Parker), while he copes with his shady brother (Church) and ultraconservative daughter (Page).

The disc features nine deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews and commentary with director Noam Murro and screenwriter Mark Jude Poirier. There’s also a segment on the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Snubbed but not forgotten

Over the years, the HBO series The Wire never got much love from Emmy voters. Season five (the series finale) wasn’t any different. Snubbed again. But critics loved it, and it had its share of hard-core fans.

Created, produced and primarily written by David Simon, a former police reporter, the crime series turned its attention in season five to Simon’s former place of employment — the Baltimore Sun. In the 10 episodes of The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO, $39.99), he took aim at which stories got covered and which didn’t because of budgetary problems. Meanwhile, the city has its own crime and budget problems. In this case, city officials try to solve it by taking money from the police to fund education.

Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) — who’s been in the series since the beginning — has returned to the homicide unit. Angry and frustrated, he tries to divert resources back to the police department by faking evidence to make it appear that a serial killer is targeting homeless men. If you’re looking for a gritty, down and dirty (even depressing) crime series, The Wire is your show.

Also this week

A woman’s spirit returns after her death to inhabit the body of her daughter in The Secret (Image, $27.98); Lucy Liu brings adventure into the life of a bored man in Watching the Detectives (Genius, $19.95); a mathematical equation holds clues to a string of double murders in The Killing Gene ($19.97); a royal heir uses martial arts to reclaim his throne in China in the year 927 in The Legend of the Shadowless Sword (Warner, $19.97); Wesley Snipes finds himself set up in an assassination plot against several senators in The Art of War II: Betrayal (Sony, $24.96); a boy who was awake during heart surgery is the suspect years later in a string of murders in Wide Awake (Genius, $24.95); a family man sent to prison for involuntary manslaughter finds he must become a tough guy to survive in Felon (Sony, $24.96).

From TV

Back for more on your home screen are: Caroline in the City: The First Season (CBS/Paramount, $42.99); South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season — Uncensored (Comedy Central, $49.99); Dave’s World (CBS/Paramount, $24); Wall Street Warriors: Season 3 (Infinity, $24.98); The Love Boat: Season One, Volume Two (CBS/Paramount, $39.99); The Dick Francis Thriller: The Racing Game (Acorn, $39.99); Blue Murder, Set 3 (Acorn, $39.99); Comedy Central’s Kenny Vs. Spenny Volume One: Uncensored (Comedy Central, $26.99); Wire in the Blood (Koch Vision, $19.98); Soundstage: Heart — Live (Koch Vision, $19.98); Soundstage: REO Speedwagon — Live (Koch Vision, $19.98).

For children

A misfit boy at a new school astonishes his classmates with a bizarre pet that has extraordinary powers in CJ7 (Sony, $28.96); a girl’s singer-songwriter dreams are threatened by a spoiled girl in American Mall (MTV/Paramount, $19.99); a boy gets an iron fist in Eon Kid (Anchor Bay, $16.98); get all dolled up with Holly Hobbie and Friends: Fabulous Fashion Show (Sony, $12.99); The Flash, Hawkman and Wonder Girl are some of the characters in 18 cartoons on DC Superheroes: The Filmation Adventures (Warner, $24.98); kids can learn to speak Mandarin in Ni Hao, Kai-lan: Super Special Days! (Nick Jr./Paramount, $16.99); Grover, Frazzle Monster and Bert have an interactive playdate in Play With Me Sesame: Furry, Fun and Healthy Too (Genius/Sesame Street, $14.93); take a trip into Bear Country in The Berenstain Bears: Family and Friendship (Sony, $12.99); dance along with Strawberry Shortcake: Rockaberry Roll (Fox, $14.98); play cat and mouse with Tom and Jerry Tales: Vol. 5 (Warner, $14.97); a big, drooling, lovable mutt brings a family on vacation closer in Frank (First Look, $19.98); George Washington is one of the characters in Adventures from the Book of Virtues: Adventures in Honesty (PorchLight, $12.98); William Tell, Ulysses and the Cyclops are among the characters in Adventures from the Book of Virtues: Adventures in Courage (PorchLight, $12.98); the Good Samaritan and Harriet Tubman are some of the characters portrayed in Adventures from the Book of Virtues: Adventures in Faith (PorchLight, $12.98); pre-schoolers learn more than 45 common words that cannot be identified by picture cues in the animated series Meet the Sight Words 1, 2 and 3 (Preschool Prep, $14.95 each) which can be ordered by calling (866) 451-5600 or at preschoolprepco.com.

Documentaries

See how the world’s favorite girl group came to be in Raw Spice: The Unofficial Story of the Making of the Spice Girls (Shout! Factory, $19.98); explore the early years of a young boxer named Cassius Clay in Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami (PBS/Paramount, $19.99); view television as broadcast in Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1944 in Television Under the Swastika (First Run Features, $24.95), available at firstrunfeatures.com or (800) 229-8575; a Chinese classroom is turned upside down when the students are given a chance to vote for class monitor in Please Vote for Me (First Run Features, $24.95); explore the communication between humans and animals in Jane Goodall’s When Animals Talk (Genius/Animal Planet, $14.95).

Collections

Both animated adventures about the plucky Chinese heroine, Mulan, have been packaged together as The Ultimate Mulan Two Movie Collection (Disney, $34.99); Chekhov masterpieces such as The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya are joined by a group of one-act plays in The Anton Chekhov Collection (BBC, $59.98).

With Journal Wire Reports