Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1 ($59.98 DVD) As "Duck Amuck" fans know, Warner Bros. has been known to be parsimonious with their classics, but the double-barreled blast of Top Hat and Swing Time in this five-disc set will make casual Fred and Ginger fans pause before shelling out for Volume 2. What more could you need? Lightness personified, at least on the dance floor, Astaire was the perfect antidote to Depression-era blues; rather than the virtual luxe of Busby Berkeley spectaculars, Astaire's humble hoofers offered the chance to dance your troubles away, or simply float above them. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again. Astaire's insistence on head-to-toe shots — "Either the camera's going to dance or I am" — gives the movies a certain stodginess, but nothing else worked. More than the blackface, what makes Swing Time's "Bojangles of Harlem" number a bust is George Stevens' attempt to out-Astaire Astaire, seating him behind an enormous pair of prosthetic legs when we'd rather see his. Watching the collection's movies (also: Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance, The Barkleys of Broadway), what's clearer than ever is how well Astaire and Rogers act as well as dance. More conscious than anyone of his limited range, Astaire played it close to the tux, while Rogers waited slyly for her moment to pounce, leading the scene off the dance floor as surely as he led her on it. The set comes embossed with the usual commentaries and featurettes, although sadly not much from Fred and Ginger themselves.

Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge: The Complete Series ($29.98 DVD) Pity the poor sod who knows Steve Coogan only from Coffee & Cigarettes and 24 Hour Party People, let alone Around the World in 80 Days or those Courtney Love rumors (shudder). Or rather envy him, for he has yet to discover the sweet cocktail of loathing and discomfort that is Alan Partridge. Partridge, the character who brought Coogan to prominence in his native Britain (where he's a major star), began as a malaprop-prone sportscaster on the news parody show The Day Today, where he would enhance soccer highlights with exclamations like, "Twat! That was liquid football!"

Improbably promoted, Partridge returned as the host of his own talk show, Knowing Me, Knowing You, complete with creaky recurring bits, ungainly catch phrases and third-tier guests (Patrick Marber turns up in several roles, and Minnie Driver and Sarah Wynter make one-shot appearances). The key to the character is Alan's utter lack of self-consciousness, coupled with his arrogance, short temper and general incompetence. A minor celebrity with a superstar's ego, his plastic joviality gives way to anger the instant he feels threatened (generally several times an episode). In short, he's a horrid, nasty twit, a walking advertisement for schadenfreude, a feeling Knowing Me, Knowing You satisfies in spades. Insulting, offending and eventually injuring guests, Alan ends his six-episode stint with an act that ought to end his TV career forever, although it takes the even more inept Christmas special that follows to seal the deal.

The Partridge character doesn't really come into his own until Knowing Me's mock-documentary follow-up, I'm Alan Partridge, which allows Coogan to abandon the fake talk-show format and concentrate on making the audience squirm. (If you think Alan's unbearable when he's on TV, just wait until you've seen him hosting local radio or writing his memoirs.) When he's still on television, you're safe at home, but once he enters the real world, the anguish knows no bounds.

The Glass Shield ($19.99 DVD) With the Miramax era nearing its end, Charles Burnett's subversive police thriller gets the prestige treatment it should have had in 1995. Who knows what Miramax was expecting when they hired Burnett, whose Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger are unique hybrids of magical realism and quotidian pungency, to direct a movie about racism in the LAPD? Not, for certain, a slickly photographed, covertly humanist tale in which the hero (Michael Boatman) is an African-American cop who is pressured into framing a civilian (Ice Cube) for the murder of a wealthy man's wife. Scathing as it is about corruption on the force (Burnett admits the movie is "anti-cop"), The Glass Shield is assiduous about condemning the system, not, or not only, the individuals who comprise it (although Michael Ironside's frigid killer is essentially one-note). Miramax marketed the movie to Ice Cube fans (who, judging by the Sameric screening I saw, were not pleased to find he wasn't the star), and Burnett was forced to shoot a new, (relatively) happy ending. Neither Burnett's commentary nor a supplementary interview mention reshoots, and Burnett says it was important to end the movie on a note of hope. But even as it stands, the ending is tinged with despair, an admission of defeat that only might pave the way for a better future.