New on DVD: Holmes, Watson, Dusty, Truman and Naked Rugby Players

The world's greatest detective and his sidekick are more than just friends in a new screen adaptation, new on DVD this week, alongside fashion giants, '60s icons and naked rugby players.

Read on for more!

Guy Ritchie's take on Sherlock Holmes gave us a Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and a Dr. Watson (Jude Law) who appeared to be more than just friends or roommates. (Honestly, was there a more thankless role in the movies last year than Watson's fiancée?) This approach was hardly unprecedented—check out Billy Wilder's 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes sometime—but Ritchie's version of the Baker Street shenanigans wound being a fun series of scenes that never quite added up to, oh, a movie. But maybe those flaws will seem less obvious on the small screen.

Some folks are poo-pooing the significance of Ricky Martin's recent announcement to the world that he's gay, but let's not forget how many artists live their entire lives without making that brave and important statement. Case in point: the great Dusty Springfield, whose lesbianism didn't become public knowledge until after her death. Fans will definitely want to pick up British Invasion: Dusty Springfield - Once Upon a Time, 1964-1969, which compiles performance footage alongside interviews with the likes of Burt Bacharach.

The terrific French miniseries Signé Chanel follows designer Karl Lagerfeld through the creation of one Chanel collection, and this riveting inside look sadly never got a U.S. DVD release after it aired here on Sundance Channel. In the meantime, though, we can make do with The Story of Fashion with Karl Lagerfeld, a three-part series that explores the last century of haute couture, from its beginnings to its contemporary flourishing. Along the way, we meet such leading figures as Elsa Schiaparelli, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior and Mary Quant, with new interviews with Pierre Cardin, Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani and Carrie Donovan, among others.

I always feel a little weird promoting items like Dieux du State: The Making of the Calendar 2010, since the people behind these DVDs and calendars, which feature hot naked French rugby stars, know full well that their U.S. audience is almost entirely gay men yet they go out of their way to avoid promoting their products among that demographic, to the point where gay magazines aren't allowed to put images from the calendars on their covers. (They were originally designed to make French women less turned-off by rugby, but American women didn't take the bait. Gay men, on the other hand...) Anyway, this new DVD is out. Make of it what you will.

Most double-feature DVDs often feature two barely-related movies thrown together by virtue of the fact that the studio owns both titles, but I was impressed to see Capote and In Cold Blood offered together on a single disc, since the former follows gay writer Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in an Oscar-winning performance) as he writes the book that would become the basis for the latter film. They're both terrific, although both in one sitting might be kind of a downer. (For any boxing fans out there, Sony is also offering The Greatest, starring Muhammad Ali as himself, alongside Michael Mann's Ali.)