The proof isn’t in the pudding

New in Town

Lionsgate, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99

The “harried businessperson has heart melted by small-town simplicity” plot has been a staple of the cinema since the ‘30s screwball era, but the shtick works only if the small town has a winning character. In “New in Town,” Renee Zellweger plays a Miami executive who gets sent to Minnesota to supervise the downsizing of a food-manufacturing plant; there she finds romance (in the form of Harry Connick Jr.) and a new product to sell (in the form of her secretary’s tapioca pudding). Zellweger’s fine -- if not all that believable as a hard-case -- and the comic supporting turns by J.K. Simmons and Siobhan Fallon are suitably lively. But “New in Town’s” version of “Minnesota nice” is strictly cliche, based more on other movies than on firsthand experience. The DVD and Blu-ray editions include a commentary track and tedious, overlong featurettes about pudding, scrapbooking and how the cast and crew dealt with the cold.

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Designing Women

The Complete First Season

Shout! Factory, $44.99

Although CBS began airing the sitcom “Designing Women” in 1986, the show feels like a product of the Clinton era. The way the proudly liberal Southern heroines grappled with controversial subjects like sexual harassment, racism and AIDS set “Designing Women” apart in its own time and make the show relevant -- and bracingly funny -- even now. Also of enduring value: the rapid-fire give-and-take among Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Jean Smart, and the way creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason staged their epic squabbles on an elaborate set that was part living room, part office. Shout! Factory’s four-disc first-season DVD set adds a recent round-table discussion at the Paley Center with Bloodworth-Thomason and the cast.

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The Sky Crawlers

Sony, $27.96; Blu-ray, $34.95

Cult animator Mamoru Oshii -- best known in the U.S. for his “Ghost in the Shell” films -- adapts a series of novels by Hiroshi Mori into “The Sky Crawlers,” a futuristic martial arts adventure about squadrons of genetically engineered, eternally young fighter pilots who engage in corporate-backed dogfights for the amusement of the masses. Oshii renders the aerial battles in hyper-realistic CG animation, but the scenes in between are far more muted and traditional in look -- and slow-paced. “The Sky Crawlers” is equal parts fantastical and philosophical and not recommended for casual sci-fi/fantasy fans. It’s for people who like intense alternate history stories invested with more thematic rigor than entertainment value. “The Sky Crawlers” DVD and Blu-ray editions cater to those kinds of viewers as well, with a trio of featurettes about the research and effects-work that went into creating the movie’s odd, almost-familiar world.

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All titles available Tuesday.