DVD Releases: November 26, 2004

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi | The Frank Sinatra Show with Ella Fitzgerald |
Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban | The L-Word | Seinfeld | A Slipping Down Life | Strayed | Zhou Yu's Train

Trailer \| News & Preview	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban US/Canada Gross: $249.4 million (Four Stars) With the early-summer release of The Prisoner of Azkaban, Warner’s delightful Harry Potter series finally was able to escape from the shadow of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, to which it invariably was compared over the last four years. For the third installment, the gifted Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama, Tambien, A Little Princess) was engaged to chronicle the enchanting goings-on at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft. He gave Azkaban a darker edge than its predecessors, and it perfectly fit the tone of the far more ominous source material. The extras in the two-disc set include interviews with author J.K. Rowling, the filmmakers and cast; three challenge games; two behind-the-scenes featurettes; self-guided iPIX tours into Honeydukes and Professor Lupin's classroom choir practice; a Hogwarts portrait gallery and timeline; and trading cards. -- Gary Dretzka THB Review: So why am I so taken with Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban? There is one central reason… Alfonso Cuaron. He makes this episode of the ongoing series into an actual movie, not just another children's toy in shiny cellophane. Pride, Unprejudiced: Someone wholly unaware of Rowling’s intricate Potter mythology could tumble into Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and suffer only the slightest disorientation. From the start of this lush and scary treat, Cuaron is himself—how can you not say it?—a wizard. Even dew has a heavy-water gleam-and-slosh, looking as viscous as honey yet also suggesting chill to the bone. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

	Seinfeld Gift Set (Five Stars) Although it’s possible to purchase separate DVDs containing all 41 episodes from the first three seasons of Seinfeld, true diehard fans naturally will gravitate toward the snazzy “Gift Set” edition. In addition to the many commentaries from cast, crew and creative team, the deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, trivia tracks, backgrounders, comedy routines and promotional material included in the basic packages, the boxed set comes complete with a limited-edition original script, with handwritten notes from Larry David; exclusive "Monk's Diner" salt & pepper shakers; and collectible playing cards. Whew! All that’s missing are a Pez dispenser, fold-out coffee-table book, poofy shirt and contraceptive sponges. While the episodes themselves remain marvelously funny and observant about America’s self-centered yuppie culture in the ’90s, the commentaries reveal a comedic genius that is likely to go unrepeated in network sitcom history. Learning that most of the storylines were inspired by actual people and events, only adds to the enjoyment. Seinfeld was unique not in that it was a “show about nothing” -- a patently false conceit -- but in its refusal to leave audiences with easy morality lessons and group hugs. Each of the primary characters was unlikable in his or her own way, and, yet, every week, we forgave our friends every quirky flaw and fell in love all over again. Just like in real life. Besides the re-coronation of Seinfeld, the parade of other noteworthy TV-to-DVD products continues unabated. This week’s batch of boxed sets includes the first seasons of The Golden Girls, Home Improvement and The Lizzie McGuire Show, as well as the final season of Frasier. As repellent as Joan and Melissa Rivers can be while dishing dirt on the red carpet, their fashion commentary for The Golden Girls adds quite a bit of value to the package. -- Gary Dretzka

	The L-Word Then, too, there’s the five-disc package containing Season One of “The L Word.” If this sexy adult soaper had debuted on ABC, instead of Showtime, it might have been titled “Desperate Lesbians.” The series was, after all, conceived using the same fail-safe formula as that hit network dramedy: create a half-dozen hot and horny characters, who prefer strutting around in their underwear to actually wearing clothes, and provide them with enough cheeky dialogue and nasty personality traits to keep viewers interested until the naughty boys and girls once again strip down to their skivvies. In the case of The L Word, full-blown nudity not only was permissible -- and encouraged -- it actually was used intelligently and with humor. Despite the once-taboo subject matter, the series proved popular, and worthy of a second season. One wonders, though, what the response might have been if the actresses were slightly less attractive and fashionable, and a lot more butch. Plenty of extras for those who care about those things.. -- Gary Dretzka

	The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi Pride, Unprejudiced: Takeshi Kitano, maker of the great gangster artpics Fireworks (Hani-be) (1997) and Sonatine (1993), may be an acquired taste, but he's one of the most important directors working today. Still, his tonal shifts, alternating the bumpkin comedy that he trained in onstage as well as over the years on Japanese television, with bursts of outrageous yet spatially secular acts of violence, leave some audiences befuddled or bemused at best. Which is sad, considering that in a movie like his latest has some of the most furiously inventive moments in any movie this year. Kitano's Zatoichi, retitled The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (*** ½) for U.S. release, is a riff on the long-running Japanese movie series, with twenty-six installments over the years.

	The Frank Sinatra Show with Ella Fitzgerald (Four Stars) Variety shows are the dinosaurs of broadcast television … gone but not forgotten by anyone old enough to have watched a single episode of “The Ed Sullivan Show.” No one understands precisely what killed the estimable genre, but it has nothing to do with meteors or sudden climate changes. Remastered tapes of “The Frank Sinatra Show” are finally emerging from the dusty vaults of TV history, and, primitive as they remain in quality, the performances are something to be cherished. Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald are in top form here, and the mutual respect is palpable in every song. Music Video Distributors also has just released “The Incomparable Lena Horne,” “Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of Lady Day” and “The Legendary Nat King Cole,” as part of its valuable Jazz Memories series. Great stuff. “Ike & Tina Turner: Live in ’71” captures the great R&B duo -- as well as their dynamic band and lucious Ikettes -- at a point in their long careers when both were starting to be noticed by white America. Tina, of course, would become a huge crossover star, while Ike’s terrific musicianship would be obscured by Tina’s accusations of spousal and substance abuse. The songs here reflect both their past R&B triumphs (“Ooo Poo Pah Doo”) and short future together as a rock icons (“Proud Mary,” “Honky Tonk Women”). Also included are renditions of songs from the Phil Specter-produced album, “River Deep, Mountain High,” one of the great musical documents of the last 50 years. -- Gary Dretzka

	A Slipping Down Life US/Canada Gross: $.095 million (ThreeStars) Boiling down Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow's sprawling novel of turn-of-the-century America, into even a 2½-hour movie was no easy task. Its many intertwined characters and stories defied normal cinematic structure, and any dilution of the book’s content would have brought down the wrath of the novel’s many admirers. Instead, Milos Forman elected to focus on the saga of pianist-turned-revolutionary Coalhouse Walker Jr., and sublimate the contributions of Doctorow’s other compelling characters, without ignoring their links to the impending clash of wills between the radical and police. The creators of the Broadway musical approached the source material in similar fashion. Foreman’s Ragtime is marked by a wonderfully authentic period feel, as well as some dynamic performances, including those of Howard Rollins Jr., Brad Dourif, James Cagney (who came out of retirement to play the New York police commissioner) and Pat O’Brien. Randy Newman supplied the music, which had nothing to do with that heard in the musical. Definitely worth another look. -- Gary Dretzka

	Zhou Yu's Train Pride, Unprejudiced: Probably one of the more delicious movies of utter incoherence I can recall, Sun Zhou's Zhou Yu's Train is equal parts Wong Kar-wai moodismo and Krzysztof Kieslowski's parallel-fate parables, and if you want to make pretty pictures to tempt the eye, those aren't the worst templates to work from.

	Strayed Pride, Unprejudiced: With Strayed (*) (originally Les egares, or The Lost Ones) French master director André Téchiné returns to the sort of precise yet ambiguous exploration of the heart that he made his own in 1990s movies like Wild Reeds and Ma saison preferee (My Favorite Season). A shallow comparison could be made to The Pianist, another World War II-set story about refugees in hiding who cannot see, only hear, the violence exploding around them. Rather than being confined to an urban area, however, widowed schoolteacher Odile (Emmanuelle Beart**) and her 12-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter are escaping Paris as the Germans invade.