By Bruce Dancis
Scripps Howard News

DVDs remain excellent gift choices this holiday season. We’re concentrating on more offbeat stuff, boxed sets, anniversary editions and special releases.

SPORTS
Towering above, and outweighing, all other sports DVDs is “The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection” (Major League Baseball Productions/A&E Home Entertainment, $229.95, not rated), a 20-disc boxed set that brings together 65 official World Series films, from 1943 to 2008, plus a 58-page commemorative book about the annual Fall Classic, beginning in 1903.

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES
“Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days” (two discs, Genius Products, $29.93, not rated) brings together six hours of highlights from the crown jewel of children’s television programming, including such songs as “Rubber Duckie” and other memorable moments.
The “Walt Disney Treasures” series, Wave IX, presents “Zorro: The Complete First Season” and “Zorro: The Complete Second Season,” fully restored versions of all 78 late-1950s episodes of the adventure series (six discs each, Disney, $59.99 apiece, not rated).
Fans of “Harry the Dirty Dog” and other pet tales will enjoy the “Treasury of 50 Storybook Classics: Animal Antics … and More” (seven discs, Scholastic Storybook Treasures, $49.95, not rated).

GREAT DIRECTORS AND ACTORS
Paul Newman, who passed away last year after a 50-year acting career that included 65 movies, is honored in “The Paul Newman Tribute Collection” (17 discs, Fox, $89.98, various ratings). Thirteen of Newman’s films are presented, including Special Collector’s Editions of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Hustler,” “The Verdict” and “The Towering Inferno.”
For films of an entirely different sensibility — or nonsensibility — check out “The Mel Brooks Collection” (Fox, $99.98 DVD/$139.99 Blu-ray, available Dec. 15), an assortment of eight comedies including “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” Fans of Brooksian humor will also enjoy “The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History,” a three-CD/one-DVD boxed set (Shout! Factory, $59.98, not rated).
The legendary career of Japan’s most renowned film director is celebrated in “AK 100: 25 Films By Akira Kurosawa” (Criterion, $399, not rated, spoken in Japanese with English subtitles, available Dec. 8), a commemorative collection released just before the centennial of the director’s birth in Tokyo.
Another influential international director, Roberto Rossellini, is represented by new releases of the historical films that occupied the latter stages of his career. From 1966, “The Taking of Power By Louis XIV” (Criterion, $29.95, not rated, spoken in French with English subtitles) offers a nuanced portrait of the rise of France’s most illustrious monarch. Also available from Criterion, released under its Eclipse label, is “Rossellini’s History Films — Renaissance and Enlightenment” (four discs, $59.95, not rated, spoken in French with English subtitles), a set of films from the early 1970s including “Blaise Pascal,” “The Age of Medici” and “Cartesius.”
The gritty work of American director Samuel Fuller is showcased in the third release in Sony Pictures and The Film Foundation’s “Collector’s Choice” series, “The Samuel Fuller Film Collection” (seven discs, $79.95, not rated). The set includes five movies written by Fuller (“It Happened in Hollywood,” “Adventure in Sahara,” “Power of the Press,” “Shockproof” and “Scandal Sheet”), two films written and directed by Fuller (“The Crimson Kimono” and “Underworld U.S.A.”) and appreciations of Fuller’s work by Martin Scorsese, Curtis Hanson, Tim Robbins and others.
Although Claudette Colbert is best known for such 1930s and ‘40s films as “It Happened One Night,” “Cleopatra” and “The Palm Beach Story,” it’s a treat to be able to watch the rarely seen movies packaged in “The Claudette Colbert Collection,” the latest offering from the Universal Backlot Series (Universal, $49.98, not rated). Included here are “Three-Cornered Moon,” “The Maid of Salem,” “I Met Him in Paris,” “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,” “No Time for Love” and “The Egg and I.”
For the budget-conscious film fan, a new DVD series from MGM Home Entertainment, “MGM 85 Years of Stars Celebrity Gift Sets,” presents 13 collections of four-film sets, for $24.98 apiece, starring actors ranging from Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood to Reese Witherspoon and Robert Downey Jr. The selections are occasionally odd — “The Frank Sinatra Collection,” for instance, includes one great film (“The Manchurian Candidate”), one decent musical (“Guys and Dolls”) and two so-so titles (“A Hole in the Head” and “Sergeants 3”) — but you can’t beat the price.