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Calling all Muggles! Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has just launched a home-study course.
For those who need a translation, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (Warner) makes its video debut today in versions that provide five minutes of additional footage (on the $24.99 VHS edition) and hours of interactive extras (on the $26.99 two-disc DVD release). The owlishly endearing Daniel Radcliffe stars as J.K. Rowling's title character, an 11-year-old orphan who discovers his wizardly powers and pursues them at a magical boarding school. Maggie Smith, Richard Harris, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman join the fun.
And now for something completely different: the campus comedy "Slackers" (Columbia/TriStar), about an ambitious nerd ("Rushmore's" Jason Schwartzman) who blackmails three party-hearty classmates (Devon Sawa, Jason Segel, Michael C. Maronna) into helping him win the affections of a brainy campus babe ("Pearl Harbor's" James King).
On the art-house front, two Czech pilots (Ondrej Vetchy, Krystof Hadek) who escape their Nazi-occupied homeland and join Britain's Royal Air Force fall for the same woman (Tara Fitzgerald) in the World War II drama "Dark Blue World" (Columbia/TriStar, postponed from an earlier date). Charles Dance co-stars in this drama from Oscar-winning "Kolya" director Jan Sverak.
From there, it's time for...