By Peter Covino

Entertainment Editor

Since it has been 35 years (yes, it really has been 35 years) since the release of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it calls for something other than the standard DVD reissue and Warner Bros. has obliged with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 35th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition in DVD and Blu-ray.

Cuckoo’s Nest is one of the greatest film’s ever made (American Film Institute ranked it 20th overall and Nurse Ratched played by Louise Fletcher is No. 5 in the top 100 heroes and villains.

Five Easy Pieces was Jack Nicholson’s breakout role, and The Last Detail showed him for the first time as the hell-raiser we have grown to love through the years, but it was Cuckoo’s Nest that really put him on the map.

Nicholson received his first Oscar for playing Randle Patrick McMurphy, a criminal who thought he had found the easy way by getting transferred to a mental institution in 1963. He had no idea that behind those walls was Nurse Ratched, possibly the worst mental health nurse on the planet.

Cloyingly sweet, and doubly evil, the role of Ratched also won an Oscar for newcomer Fletcher.

The film became only the second movie in history to win Oscar’s big four: bests for picture, director, actor and actress.

There are so many delights and memorable moments highlighted by a cast that includes Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito and Brad Dourif as mental patients. Few films include as many great scenes as Cuckoo’s Nest (Randall’s one-man broadcast of the World Series when they aren’t allowed to watch TV; taking the group on an unauthorized fishing trip and the Chief’s uttering of his first words — “ahhh...Juicy Fruit,” and much more).

The ultimate collector’s edition is a necessary addition to anyone who takes film’s seriously.

The fun collecting stuff includes a deck of playing cards (Nurse Ratched is the Queen of Spades appropriately enough); character posters and cards, and an informative book.

The DVD special features include Completely Cuckoo, an in depth look at the making of the film with director Milos Forman, producer Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas and author Ken Kesey; deleted scenes and full-length commentary with Forman and producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz.

The Ultimate Collector’s Edition comes to Blu-ray ($49.99) and DVD ($39.92) suggested retail prices, Tuesday.

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You can break on through to the other side with Fringe: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray and DVD, also coming out Tuesday from Warner Home Video.

This sci-fi series of alternate worlds and unexplained murders, pretty much eluded me when it debuted on Fox a few years ago, but became compelling viewing on the HD screen last year via DVD.

It looks even better in Blu-ray in season two.

Another great project by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the latest version of Star Trek) Fringe season two continues the adventures of the FBI’s Fringe Division (Special Agent Olivia Dunham, crazed “fringe” scientist Walter Bishop and his son Peter. The trio are most ably played by Anna Torv (The Pacific); John Noble (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) and Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek).

At the end of season one, the existence of Earth’s parallel world is more fully revealed (a place where the World Trade Center still stands). Season two focuses on a sinister plan from that parallel world that could destroy our own world.

One of the great things about Fringe is even though it is a series in every sense of it being a show with a continuing storyline, most episodes do stand on their own. Things get really complicated in season two — there is an alternate Walter and Peter is revealed to be from that alternate universe, but there are still plenty of bodies that pile up as the team investigates bizarre murders that are linked to weird science. Such as the episode that involves a genetically altered baby who has been feeding on people in an underground tunnel or the secret military experiment that is turning people into human bombs.

Special features in both the DVD and Blu-ray versions include features on The Mythology of Fringe; Fringe Analyzing the Scene Sidebars on 6 key episodes (fans will understand); In the Lab with John Noble and Prop Master Rob Smith (again, fans will understand); commentary on four episodes by the series stars; a gag reel and unaired scenes.

Season three of Fringe begins Sept. 23.

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Best actor winners Forest Whitaker and Adrien Brody are adversaries in The Experiment (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), a remake of a superior German film (2002) Das Experiment, but the acting of both men make this psychological thriller worth a look.

Brody and Whitaker play a couple of guys in need of money who agree to participate in a scientific experiment. They will get paid $1,000 a day for agreeing to participate. Later, they find the experiment involves some members of the all-male volunteers will be be prison guards (Whitaker) and the majority prisoners (Brody) in an almost anything goes kind of environment. Of course, as the two-week experiment continues, the guards, become more power mad, with some of them showing a definite sadistic side and things begin to spin horribly out of control.

Things get pretty harrowing, but the German language version is a lot more convincing.

The Experiment will be released Sept. 21 and it is rated R for violence, language and some sexual content and nudity. It also is available in Blu-ray.

Note: both films are based on a real-life American experiment conducted in 1971, which had some similar increasingly violent, sadistic results.