..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

The Best of 2005
	The Harold Lloyd Collection Of all the gods in the Pantheon of American cinema, Harold Lloyd may be the least known and underappreciated by todays audiences. At the height of his popularity, in the waning years of Hollywoods Silent Era, the famously bespectacled Third Genius was as much a box-office draw as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Indeed, the unassuming kid from Nebraska is reputed to have been the most highly compensated actor of his time - not that Mary Pickford or Gloria Swanson had to take in wash to make ends meet. Had he lived to see the DVD release of The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection, Lloyd probably could have climbed up the sides of the same buildings he scaled in Safety Last, 82 years earlier, and no one in downtown Los Angeles would remember his name. But, his wasn't the story of a once-famous actor who slipped into despair and poverty after the introduction of talkies. More >>
	Chappelle's Show: Season Two With Dave Chappell laying low in South Africa, instead of taping fresh material for Season Three, Chappelle's Show: Season Two might be the closest we come to anything new from comic for a good, long while. Fortunately, there's enough extended, unblurred and newly uncensored material in this generous set to sate the appetites of fans who have tired of watching the same old reruns on Comedy Central. Anyone without a clue as to the media's fascination with Chappell -- and, of course, his $50 million contract -- will want to check out this generous multi-disc package, which also includes extra stand-up comedy, bloopers and deleted scenes, two unaired Charlie Murphy stories, commentary from Chappelle and series co-creator Neal Brennan, and an extended version of the insanely funny Rick James sketch. Chappelle's gift was being able to take a scalpel not only to thorny race relations and bad behavior among people of all colors and income groups, but also to lampoon the media, politicians and pop-culturists who continue to deny that some racial stereotypes have a basis in fact. Sensitive liberals, for example, might find much of the material extremely offensive, where more street-level viewers would howl in recognition of the craziness that surrounds them. Racists of all stripe emerge from the parodies and sketches as the morons and simpletons they are. The first season's DVD collection was a huge hit -- which explains why $50 million isn't such an absurd number -- and this package should prove every bit as popular. Like almost every other comedian under 50 years of age, Chappelle has been influenced greatly by Richard Pryor. For the uninitiated, Columbia has repackaged Richard Pryor: Here and Now and Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip, into a single package, Richard Pryor: Stand-Up Comedy Double Feature. Both are hilarious, and surprisingly moving. Sunset Strip is the most revelatory, in that it offers a showcase for his musings on his abuse of the N-word, cocaine and his recent near-death experience. Shot about a year later, Here and Now offered the comedian a bit more time to reflect on his chaotic life and times.
	Frank Miller's Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated Seems like only yesterday that we brought you news of the arrival of Robert Rodriguez‘ dark and edgy digital mystery, Sin City. Hot on its heels comes Recut, Extended, Unrated, which makes it sound a lot like a sequel to South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. It’s not, of course. Those fans of the movie who weren’t suckered into buying the first DVD edition will relish the treasure chest of bonus material provided by the director, who started preparing this generous two-disc package before the movie had entered theaters. Among the extras are commentaries from Rodriguez, creator Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino; an extended and re-cut version of the theatrical release (as well as the original); an audio track, featuring a recording of the Austin premiere audience reaction; a film-school seminar and cooking lesson with Rodriguez; 17 uninterrupted minutes of Tarantino's contribution to the film; the Sin-Chroni-City interactive game; the graphic novel, “The Hard Goodbye”; and all sorts of making-of material. As with the “uncut” versions of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Dukes of Hazzard and American Wedding, none of the added material warrants anything harder than a R-rating.
	Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness Peter Jackson's remake of Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack's classic fantasy-adventure, King Kong, doesn't open in theaters around the world until mid-December, but the parade of DVDs related to the big event has already begun. Two wonderful new titles from Milestone films remind us that Cooper and Schoedsack didn't just emerge out of nowhere, in 1934, to produce one of the greatest movies of all time. They not only had teamed four years earlier on The Four Feathers - which co-starred future monkey-bait Fay Wray -- but also on a pair of documentaries that rivaled Nanook of the North and Moana, and put to shame Hollywood's most imaginative screenwriters. Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) and Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) both proved that Hollywood was no match for Mother Nature, for stories that had to be seen to be believed. Grass followed the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran), on its arduous migrations to find fresh pastures for a half-million animals. It required the filmmakers to march alongside 50,000 lightly equipped men, women and children, as struggled to surmount the obstacles posed by the snow-capped Zardeh Kuh mountains and raging, half-mile wide Karun River. The trek would be difficult by any of today's standards for extreme adventure, but the Bakhtiaris did it without down parkas, feather-light tents and rafts. This restored version adds a lively score of traditional music from the region. Two years later, the men would team up once again on Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, which was shot in the remote northern jungles of Siam (now Thailand). It chronicled the day-to-day life of a farming family trying to scratch out an existence among the tigers, leopards, snakes, monitor lizards, bears and elephants that conspired against sharing their leafy habitat with humans. Much of the material was staged to approximate the family's harsh struggle, but, as the commentary makes clear, the filmmakers' constant proximity to danger couldn't be faked. The elephant stampede that caps Chang is especially spectacular. Again, the new musical soundtrack adds mightily to the fun.
	Heimat: Chronicle of Germany Edgar Reitz's epic mini-series chronicled life in Germany from 1919 to 1982, through the prism of the Simon family of Schabbach, a small village in the northwestern Hunsruck region. Not only does this 63-year period include World War II, but also the post-World War I economic tumult that led directly to the rise of Hitler and the scapegoating of Jews for those woes. Then, Heimat goes on to document the economic miracle of the '60s. Less soapy than even the best of the mini-series that emerged from Hollywood in the wake of Roots and Rich Man, Poor Man, the 15-plus-hour serial drama remains consistently compelling and terrifically entertaining. It will remind movie buffs of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 15-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog, which was made for Polish television. If you aren't familiar with those two filmmakers, imagine Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese packing a 10-part mini-series on anything, for HBO or PBS, where they would be given the budget and freedom to explore their subjects at length.
	Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection Distributors often resort to hyperbole in an effort to differentiate their newly released titles from previous editions of DVDs and retrospective collections. But, because there’s so little difference between silver, gold and platinum versions of a DVD, these adjectives have practically lost all meaning, and the same holds true with such abused superlatives as special, classic, collectible and ultimate. Universal probably didn't have to add the word Masterpiece to the title of its hefty new Hitchcock set -- his profile alone would have been sufficient -- but in this case, at least, the word correctly describes the box's contents. The same holds true for the tag, legendary, on Warners collection of thrillers produced by Val Lewton. Even without the benefit of CGI animation, motion-capture and multi-channel digital sound, Hitchcock and Lewton tingled more spines in their days than a battalion of computer-generated zombies. The Hitchcock set boasts a 36-page book, 14 documentaries and 9 featurettes, in addition to newly re-mastered editions of Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot. On separate bonus discs are, AFI Salute to Alfred Hitchcock, Masters of Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock,  All About ‘The Birds,’ The Making of ‘Psycho’ and new documentary that showcases Hitchcock's films, career and legacy. The studio has also released a three-disc set of the maestro’s wonderful TV anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One ($39.98). The stories, 39 from 1955-56, were based on short pieces by such writers such as John Cheever, John Collier, John Wyndham, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Roald Dahl, Alexander Woollcott and Ambrose Bierce. Some of these titles have been included in four-episode sets, but not in full-season packages. Both supplement the Signature Collection of mid-career titles, released in January by Warners.
	The Val Lewton Horror Collection The Russian-born, American-educated Lewton was responsible for shepherding a string of highly stylized noir-horror flicks through RKO’s B-movie mill in the ’40s. Although he never directed, as producer, his stamp is on practically every frame of Cat People, The Curse of the Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam, The Leopard Man, The Ghost Ship,  The Seventh Victim and Shadows in the Dark. Considering that he was limited to a budget of around $200,000 per picture (and the titles dreamed up by RKO brass), the quality of his signature films was amazing, and his influence among future generations of filmmakers has never waned. Watch Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People alongside Paul Schrader’s not-bad 1982 adaptation, and the artistic principle, less is more, will make perfect sense. Commentary is provided by historian Greg Mank, Simone Simon, Kim Newman, Steve Jones, Steve Haberman, Robert Wise and Tom Weaver. The set also includes Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr’s documentary, Shadows In The Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy.
	Garbo: The Signature Collection If only today's crop of young celebrities were as committed to their privacy as Greta Garbo, the enigmatic Swedish actress who once said she just wanted to be left alone, and actually meant it. To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, Warners is releasing Garbo: The Signature Collection, which includes Anna Christie, Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, Anna Karenina, Camille and Ninotchka, along with two discs of silent features and a documentary on her life. The titles are among the most enjoyable and enduring in the history of the cinema, and Garbo proves emphatically what all the fuss was about. Typically, the restorations are superb, and extras are well worth watching. Among them are a 9-minute excerpt from the lost 1928 silent, The Divine Woman; an alternate ending on The Temptress; and commentary by historians Barry Paris, Mark A. Vieira, Tony Maietta and Jeffrey Vance. Even at $100, it's a bargain.
	The Warner Gangsters Collection The studio that practically invented the genre has taken its time re-issuing its library of classic gangster movies on DVD. A valuable addition to any library, The Warner Gangsters Collection includes The Public Enemy, White Heat, Angels With Dirty Faces, Little Caesar, The Petrified Forest and The Roaring Twenties. Among the legendary actors featured are Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow and, yes, the Dead End Kids, as well as directors Mervyn LeRoy, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz and William Wellman. The films remain historically relevant, and terrifically entertaining. Moreover, for the first time in many years, they’re also in tip-top shape. There also are plenty of informative extras
	The Wages of Fear: Restored Edition Criterion Collection deserves a pat on the back for re-releasing its own edition Henri-Georges Clouzot's influential 1953 thriller, The Wages of Fear, only, this time, at its original length and with a second disc full of fascinating background material. The premise is simplicity itself: an American oil company offers four desperate men a relative fortune, if they successfully navigate a truck loaded nitroglycerine across 300 miles of South American jungle. This means driving over bumpy dirt roads, past steep cliffs and wading through a river of oil gushing from a broken pipeline. As in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which it resembles, the drama in Wages of Fear extends to the relationship between the men, who are as reckless as they are brave. Much of the restored footage here is from the material originally trimmed to satisfy the demands of distributors uncomfortable with what they interpreted as anti-American propaganda. Even so, the story was so compelling to the white-hot director William Friedkin, he chose to re-make it as Sorcerer, immediately following his successes with The Exorcist and The French Connection. It wasn't bad, but it nearly killed his career. In addition to the restored high-definition transfer, Criterion is offering new interviews with assistant director Michel Romanoff and Clouzot biographer Marc Godin, an archival interview with Yves Montand, and essay by novelist Dennis Lehane.
Special mention Millions (deleted scenes make it even better) Pirates (epic adult adventure in hi-def) The Wizard of Oz: Collectors Edition (just because) Pickpocket: Criterion Collection (a inspiration to countless directors) The Bela Lugosi Collection (the master) The King Kong Collection (this monkey's on my back) Piccadilly (Gilda Gray a go-go).

 

January 1, 2006
- Gary Dretzka

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