Jack Skellington and Richard Nixon -- two visionary leaders with similar dreams, undone by tragic flaws and misunderstandings. One was known as the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, the other began his ascent to the presidency with the discovery of a spy's microfilm in a pumpkin patch. Coincidence?

All that both men wanted was to bring some Christmas cheer into the gray lives of their fellow countrymen. Or, in Nixon's case, unite the world geopolitically. Surely it's no coincidence that Jack Skellington has returned now in a juicy new video incarnation on the very same week that the 37th President of the United States is getting a fresh comeback in his own epic-length biopic?

Conspiracy? You may be onto something. It turns out that both remastered new editions of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and Oliver Stone's "Nixon" are being released under different banners by Walt Disney's home video department.

Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" Collector's Edition comes in a two-disc package with a "Digital Copy" file from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (rated G, $32.99 suggested retail), while "Nixon" The Election Year Edition traces back to the operatives at Buena Vista Home Entertainment (rated R, $29.99). Both are also available on Blu-ray Disc at $39.99 and $34.99, respectively.

Skellington's story was first told in verse as a slightly macabre holiday poem by a novice Disney animator named Tim Burton. Eventually it was set to songs by composer Danny Elfman and then to stop-motion animated images by filmmaker Henry Selick and released to theaters in 1993.

All three men deliver a fresh commentary on the new DVD edition that covers the process in some detail. The second disc finds multi-part segments exploring the creation of Halloween Town, Christmas Town and the Real World, as well as deleted scenes, storyboards and fresh versions of Burton's delightfully frightful shorts, "Frankenweenie!" and "Vincent," narrated by the late Vincent Price. Burton's original poem of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is also on record for the first time as voiced by British actor Christopher Lee.

The "DisneyFile Digital Copy" comes on its own disc, allowing those with iTunes or Windows Media formats to download a copy of the film to enjoy on their home computer or on the go. This is one of the rare films that might actually play well on a hand-held device. The 3-D figures have never looked sharper nor the stylized backgrounds more colorful than in this remastered version.

'Nixon' is back for more

"Nixon" The Election Year Edition is a big improvement over its past video releases. There's still a trace of foggy grays in what should be black shadows, but that seems to be a legacy from the film stock used back in 1995. Most of the time, the colors are pure and the contrasts are quite pleasing.

A return visit to "Nixon" is long overdue. It seemed a pretty dynamic biopic when it premiered, even helping Anthony Hopkins secure an Oscar nomination for playing a figure that liberal Hollywood loathed. Richard Nixon, after all, had unseated one of the biggest New Deal congressional Democrats of the 1940s and became a poster boy for the push to drive out leftist subversives.

Central to the intriguing appeal of "Nixon" today is realizing that Oliver Stone didn't know who Nixon was either. He carried on as if he knew where the historical bodies were all buried -- the CIA did this, the mafia promised that, the Cubans and J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI all wanted something else -- but when pushed for answers, Stone had nothing but theories. Who was really behind the war in Vietnam? "The system," the script tells us at one point.

Still, give the man credit for trying. There's a wry and impish humor in much of what we see: a camera panning in on the White House through closed iron gates puts us in mind of the story's parallels to "Citizen Kane," and there's a marital spat at the dinner table later on that seriously cribs from the Welles classic.

As Pat Nixon, Joan Allen fully deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for projecting anger so forcefully that we never stop to question why she's mad. (Wouldn't you be, if you found yourself married to Dick Nixon?) Hopkins is so often hunched over with the weight of his own psychic tics and baggage that he seems less the consummate politician than an overgrown boy waiting for his mother to tie his shoelaces.

The director's cut on the new DVD contains an additional 28 minutes and weighs in at a whopping 213 minutes, but it never seems to be idling or repeating itself. Oliver Stone is heard on two separate commentary tracks. The first was recorded for the initial video release and has an air of self-satisfaction. The second is of more recent vintage and is more defensive, exposing new doubt over even such basic issues as the true reason for the Watergate break-in.

There's also a new documentary on the production loaded with mostly anti-Nixon testimonials, some deleted scenes and a 1995 Charlie Rose TV interview with the director. Stone's heavy five o'clock shadow and glistening upper lip remind us that auteurs are usually attracted to their subjects for a reason.

To quote Mao Tse-Tung's words to the visiting president in one crucial scene of Stone's film: "You're as evil as I am. We're both from poor families, and others pay to feed the hunger in us. The real war is within us. History is a symptom of our disease."

Also new on DVD

"Chicago 10" (Paramount Home Entertainment, rated R, $28.95). The defendants appear boyish and jocular while the judge and prosecutors scowl a lot and tend to look dopey and bewildered -- but what else would you expect from an animated docu-drama about the 1968 Democratic Convention conspiracy trial? This 2007 pick as the opening attraction at the Sundance Film Festival makes sure no one confuses the good guys with the bad guys. The cartoon figures are given voice by a stable of celebrities like Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo and the late Roy Scheider, all reading from the actual court transcripts. Those sections are intercut with real archive footage and news reports from the front on the police response to street anarchy. Contemporary music tracks by the likes of Eminem and Rage Against the Machine try to make a connection to today, but the issues and dynamics are far too different. It would have been great to have a supplement updating us on the fate of the defendants, but perhaps filmmaker Brett Morgen deemed that a tad too depressing.

"Redbelt" (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, rated R, DVD $27.96, and $38.96 on Blu-ray Disc). Seasoned playwright and filmmaker David Mamet wrote and directed this look at private honor and covert corruption in the competitive world of martial arts instruction. Unfortunately, the script bears the marks of a rushed delivery. What should have been explored dramatically is often presented as an improbable procession of melodramas. Chiwetel Ejiofor is very good as the owner of a Jiu-Jitsu studio who tries to impart by example a samurai's code of honor to his mostly adult students. A series of events lead him back toward an exhibition bout that amounts to a modern-day challenge of his old world ideals. Tim Allen makes a nice contribution as a vain Hollywood actor surrounded by faithless servants, but too little of anything else rings true.

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