When Michael Jackson died last year, he had been preparing to embark on an epic, sold-out 50-night-stand of concerts in London, a Vegas-style residency that was sure to be a truly spectacular spectacle. Though he didn’t live to perform them, the creation and preparation of the shows were captured extensively on video, and shortly after his death, Michael Jackson’s This Is It, a documentary portrait of that process, was released, and is now out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

If you haven’t seen it and are expecting the film to be some sort of freak show, with an addled or decrepit Jackson sleepwalking through rehearsals, prepare to have your expectations confounded. The only truly surprising revelation in This Is It is how in control and on the ball Jackson could be, even in the last months of his life. Alternating well-edited performances of Jackson classics like “Smooth Criminal” and “The Way You Make Me Feel” with footage of him working with the band, background dancers and choreographers, the film shows a man with a tight control of his craft and conscious of every element of stagecraft. His personal life may have been weirder and sadder than pretty much any other human being save for perhaps a couple of Roman emperors, but he was a consummate entertainer to the end.

About a month ago, I started to see Tilda Swinton’s name pop up on year-end “best performance” lists and critics’ award nominations for a film I’d never heard of. Julia—which, in addition to having a pretty boring title, had the misfortune of being released in the same year as Julie & Julia—features a truly ferocious performance by Swinton as a desperate alcoholic who gets caught up in a very misguided kidnapping. Directed by Erick Zonca (La Vie rêvée des anges), it’s an overstuffed and at-times hysterical movie, but fascinating as well, and Swinton is really something. It’s now out on DVD.