DVD Releases: March 8, 2006

Walk the Line: 2-Disc Collector's Edition
Stagecoach
I Walk the Line
The Gospel Road

Normally, Reese Witherspoon's much-deserved Oscar, for her work in Walk the Line, would be reason enough to pick up this generous DVD package. But admirers of the movie and country music will find plenty of other treats to recommend it. June Carter and Johnny Cash led a far more complicated life than James Mangold's biopic would lead casual fans to believe, and their next 30 years together would supply more than enough material for a sequel … not that anyone's advocating such a thing. As biopics go, however, Walk the Line was better the most, and as faithful to the truth as was Ray. The material in the collector's edition expands both on the couple's personal story and Johnny's great influence on musicians, ranging from Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson, to Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock. Included, too, are "Folsom, Cash and the Comeback," "Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny and June" and a making-of doc. The standard single-disc package also comes with 10 deleted scenes and commentary by director.

Also newly available are two westerns in which the Man in Black and his music played pivotal roles. In the made-for-TV remake of the John Ford classic, Stagecoach, Cash and fellow Highwaymen Kristofferson, Nelson and Waylon Jennings filled roles originally played by George Bancroft, John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell and John Carradine (ex-Duke, John Schneider, filled the rather large boots of Andy Devine). Meanwhile, June played Mrs. Picket, a role originated by Marga Ann Deighton, and Jennings' wife, singer Jessi Colter, also was part of the cast. While hardly classic, the 1986 re-makes serves as an easy way to kill a couple of hours. You could say it puts the western back in country-western.

Original music by Cash music also informed John Frankenheimer's 1970 oater, I Walk the Line. Scripted by Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People, Julia), it starred Gregory Peck, as a sheriff infatuated with the beautiful blond daughter of a small-town hoodlum, half his age. Typically intoxicating, Tuesday Weld didn't star in many – if any – big-screen westerns, but this one is well worth checking out.

After Cash cleaned up his act, he and June often devoted their energy to spreading the word of God through song. In The Gospel Road, Cash told the story of Jesus Christ in song and in his narration of his savior's story. The disc features original music by Johnny, June and Kristofferson. -- Gary Dretzka

MCN Review by David Poland: Calling Walk The Line “John & June: A Love Story” would be terribly uncool. But that is what it is. It is a movie about a princess and a prince, both of whom were also frogs and who could only become King and Queen by kissing one another.

MCN Review by Ray Pride: I’d hope this beautiful movie about human love, hope and redemption (with hints of a more spiritual perspective) would have the same hold on others, from the opening scene’s percussion with gliding shots along empty corridors and exercise yards at Folsom prison, Cash’s band vamping so loudly, echoing so much that it might as well be the stamping feet of the excited inmate audience. Cash poises his finger over the teeth of the blade of a table saw, a life on a string, soon to draw taut.

Domino
Pride and Prejudice

Watching Pride & Prejudice and Domino back-to-back defines what it means to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. If it weren't for the sterling presence of Keira Knightley, the only thing the two movies would have in common is the country of birth of their directors (England). Knightley's precise portrayals of two completely different young women prove just how much she's grown in the years since she played the decoy to Natalie Portman's Queen Padme Amidala in Star Wars: Episode One. Knightley isn't the whole show in Joe Wright's splendid adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, but her Oscar-nominated performance alone is easily worth the cost of a rental. Flash forward a century or two, from Georgian England to post-Tarantino L.A., and you have Domino. The film expands on the legend of Domino Harvey, the privileged daughter of an iconic actor (Lawrence Harvey) who turned her back on Hollywood to pursue a career as a bounty hunter. In action-maestro Tony Scott's hands, Domino rather quickly discards the trappings of the biopic genre, and leaps headlong into the realm of gonzoid mythology. Domino teams up with a near-legendary skip-tracer, played with extreme gusto by Mickey Rourke, and their brassy exploits attract the attention of a producer of reality-based TV shows (Christopher Walken). It's at this point that viewers will wish their couches had seat belts. The movie's definitely nutso, but action freaks and meth heads will find it great fun. Strangely, too, Domino seems to make far more sense now, on DVD, than it did in its theatrical release, where you could get lost in all the thunder and lightning. Both DVDs arrive with excellent making-of featurettes and interesting background pieces. They include an interview with Domino Harvey, shortly before her death. -- Gary Dretzka

The Hot Button: Domino?I like half of it. I find what Tony Scott is trying to do with the camera and the titling, etc. to be pretty interesting. The story of Domino Harvey is compelling. And Keira Knightley, more a star than an actress, holds her own with style, sexiness, and humor.

And through the first act the somewhat hyperreal, stylized story of a young girl who gives up the laconic glamour of her life to become a bounty hunter rings true enough to keep you in it. And then, Scott jumps the R.V… literally. And what was compelling about the film becomes a lot less gripping because we just stop believing it. -- David Poland

Pride, Unprejudiced: Determined to prove she's not just another pretty set of hipbones, Keira Knightley is game and glittering at the center of Tony Scott's Domino, where the brother of Sir Ridley is again out to prove he's Papi Pendejo but also at least the Baron of ADD or Duke of Asperger's.

Jarhead: Collector's Edition

On television, the first Gulf War was an exciting thing to watch from afar. That war, however, was not the one described by Sam Mendes in Jarhead. Adapted from a book written by a marine stationed in Saudi Arabia after the invasion of Kuwait, Jarhead deftly illustrates what happened to one revved-up platoon of trained killers who were forced to twiddle their thumbs, while the flyboys pounded the Revolutionary Guard into mulch. Translating boredom and inactivity into entertainment isn't easy, and, as good as it is, Jarhead often is only slightly more diverting than standing in line at the DMV with a really good book. But, what Mendes accomplishes is worthwhile, nonetheless. Instead of Iraqi troops, the marines' greatest enemy became time itself. And, the longer they were forced to wait, the less comfortable they felt in their own khaki skins. The fact that Saddam Hussein threw in the towel before they were called into action made the situation even more surreal for them. The bonus features focus on the art of changing actors into marines, and the experiences of actual jarheads. The deleted scenes suggest that Mendes' could have made an even angrier movie if he had more closely followed the blueprint provided by the book. -- Gary Dretzka

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Of all the marvelous attractions San Francisco has to offer, its flocks of undomesticated parrots likely are the least appreciated by tourists and locals, alike. They feed in the shadow of Coit Tower, and like this endearing documentary have become a word-of-mouth sensation. Just as fascinating is Judy Irving's take on the birds' longtime friend and chronicler, Mark Bittner. A frustrated musician, Bittner became captivated by a flock of cherry-headed conures, which, it's believed, escaped from captivity on a ship, plane or pet shop, and took flight to the nearest clump of berry-filled trees. The unemployed and occasionally homeless Bittner freely admits to having much in common with the old souls whose only joy in life seems to derive from feeding pigeons in the park. But, even as Irving was able to capture all of his eccentricities, they also reveal Bittner to be an accomplished amateur ornithologist and staunch defender of the parrots' right to live as they please … just like everyone else in San Francisco. Through him, we learn the names and histories of the individual birds, and gain an appreciation of their day-to-day terrors and triumphs. Like last year's other birds-of-a-feather feature, March of the Penguins, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill neither condescends to its audience nor treats its stars as anything more than what they are … birds. Intended for viewing with family and friends, the DVD versions of both docs demand that audiences stick around for the encore features, which add even more personality to the birds and humans who made it. -- Gary Dretzka

Where the Truth Lies:
Unrated Theatrical Edition

After nearly 40 years of ratings controversies, the MPAA has yet to devise an adequate strategy for protecting filmmakers who choose not to cut their movies to fit the often-fickle demands of its ratings board. While it's true that the MPAA doesn't overtly censor or ban the distribution of unrated movies, it punishes disobedience by encouraging censorial forces in the marketplace do the dirty work for it. Without at least an R, movies tailored for an adult audience won't find venues outside those in big cities and college towns. Neither will they be granted space in mainstream newspapers and television for ads, nor accorded reasoned criticism that doesn't focus entirely on the naughty bits. Thus, at its commercial peak, Atom Egoyan's nourish show-biz mystery Where the Truth Lies -- which starred Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and Alison Lohman – never appeared on more than 45 screens simultaneously, and the bulk of those were in the U.K. Here, the $15-million production returned a scant $1 million to its backers, although it very likely will perform much better in video and DVD.

If it does, most of the credit will be attributed to a now-common compromise – a practice dictated by the large video chains -- that allows for a director or studio to re-edit, re-rate and distribute it in separate versions. In this way, movies that originally went out R, NC-17 or unrated suddenly morph into R and PG-13 titles. In a variation on that theme, teen-exploitation movies in the mold of American Wedding now are released theatrically at PG-13, but come out on DVD with R's attached to them.
In Where the Truth Lies, the scene that so offended the suburbanites on the ratings board involved a ménage-a-trois and group grope that wouldn't raise a blush on the face of any Cinemax subscriber. Not having screened the R version, I don't know exactly how much was trimmed from the original, but, typically, it involves only a few random thrusts and head bobs. The cuts won't detract much from the narrative, which involves a renowned pair of comedians – inspired by Martin & Lewis, but not carbon copies of them – whose rancorous split may have been precipitated by the discovery of a naked female corpse in their hotel suite. In a common noir device, Alison Lohman plays a hotshot reporter assigned to write a book on the comedians' public divorce, but not before she injects a bit of intrigue of her own into the story. OK, it's not The Maltese Falcon, but fans of such whodunits as Basic Instinct, Double Jeopardy and, to a much lesser degree, L.A. Confidential and The Big Sleep – probably will find something to like it. It certainly deserves a far better fate than the one accorded it during its theatrical release. -- Gary Dretzka

Lady and the Tramp: 50th Anniversary Edition

There are a lot of Boomer parents and grandparents out there who are going to get the shock of their life when they notice 50th Anniversary Edition, after the title of this beloved Disney romance. Besides telling a delightful and largely original story – a first for Disney animation – Lady and the Tramp carried an undercurrent of unrepressed sexuality unique for movies aimed at the kiddie market. In addition to the sultry contributions of cabaret diva Peggy Lee (He's a Tramp), there was the undeniably romantic interlude at Tony's restaurant when the vagabond mongrel, Tramp, and his blue-blooded girlfriend, Lady, slurped spaghetti to the strains of Bella Notte. Then, of course, there were the puppies. This was pretty heady stuff for Eisenhower-era children, and some parents, too. The first DVD release of Lady and the Tramp simply wasn't up to the task of delivering on the sumptuous promise of Disney's first animated release in CinemaScope. This anniversary edition rectifies that injustice in a wonderfully restored hi-def version, which offers both a wide-screen and pan-and-scan format (just as the original was conceived), and a brilliantly enhanced 5.1 sound transfer. A second disc adds deleted sequences, making-of featurettes, storyboards, interactive games; French and Spanish audio tracks; and a new Bella Notte music video. Like the pasta at Tony's, Lady and the Tramp is simply divine. -- Gary Dretzka

Network: Two-Disc Special Edition
Dog Day Afternoon: Two-Disc Special Edition

Last year, director Sidney Lumet was handed an honorary Oscar for his many contributions to the cinematic art. It's what the Motion Picture Academy does when its members continue to snub an artist who has long deserved the statuette, but managed to commit some heinous faux pas. In Lumet's case, apparently, it was choosing to live and work in New York, instead of Bel-Aire and Hollywood. Network and Dog Day Afternoon reference a nutty, scary, paranoid period in American history, when home-grown radicals were feared every bit as much as the Palestinian terrorists who filled their free time hijacking planes. At the same time, corporate America conspired on ways to convert the good vibes, groovy fashions and social concerns of the just-ended '60s into dollars and cents … lots of them.
Nowhere did this madness manifest itself most visibly than in the nation's media hierarchy, which, then as now, had one foot planted firmly in the past, the other on Wall Street, and its head buried in the sand. Network, which was written by the acutely observant Paddy Chayefsky, not only satirized the arrogance and greed of the three major television networks, but it also predicted the future of broadcasting for the next 30 years. In 1976, it seemed as if Chayefsky was wildly overstating the threat posed by the first major changing of the guard in network news divisions in decades. The still-powerful Murrow-era crowd was being asked to make concessions to the seismic changes occurring above them, in the corner offices of old-line media moguls and new-school financiers. Together, they plotted mergers that threatened the independence and integrity of network news divisions. No one could have anticipated, then, how quaint that notion would seem 30 years later, and how Chayefsky's craziest impulses would provide a blueprint for today's obsession with reality-TV and moronic celebrities.

A year earlier, in Dog Day Afternoon, Lumet and screenwriter Frank Pierson had used the occasion of a botched bank robbery – and the 14-hour standoff with police that followed -- to comment on how coverage by increasingly mobile TV reporters could turn a relatively routine crime into a three-ring media circus, and crooks into crusaders. Everybody remembers Al Pacino's bravura performance as the ringleader, Sonny, who sought the money to pay for his lover's sexual-reassignment surgery. But it's John Cazale's stunning portrayal of his droopy accomplice that forces viewers to consider all angles of the story, and not allow Pacino/Sonny's charisma to take them hostage, as well.

These special editions offer many treats, including commentary by Lumet; terrific multi-chapter behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a chat with Walter Cronkite on Network; documentary material; and an interview with Chayefsky, excerpted from Dinah Shore's talk show. Rent Network after seeing George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck -- and, then, re-screening All the President's Men, Broadcast News and The Insider -- and you'll weep openly over the disgraceful decline of journalism in America, today. -- Gary Dretzka

The Ice Harvest

There are many darkly hilarious moments in Harold Ramis' otherwise misguided adaptation of Scott Phillips' much-admired pulp thriller, The Ice Harvest, but fans of the novel probably will be too horrified by his alterations to see anything remotely funny in it. There's nothing new or unusual in this kind of disconnect, of course. Filmmakers have been taking indecent liberties with literature since the birth of the medium. That said, however, The Ice Harvest could very well appeal to the masses who haven't read the novel, which unfolds over the course of one chilly Christmas Eve in Wichita. John Cusack, Oliver Pratt and Billy Bob Thornton play a trio of boozy good ol' boys who get involved in a scheme to steal $2 million from the mobbed-up owner of a sleazy strip joint on the outskirts of town. Being Christmas Eve, they must accomplish this feat while also juggling visits to their respective wives, ex-wives, girlfriends, children and watering holes. Even as the glaze on the streets gets slicker and ever more dangerous to drive upon, the men continue to consume alcohol at a fearsome rate. Complicating matters even further are the gangsters who smell a rat, and the dames who figure in the various double- and triple-crosses. Pratt, especially, makes the most of the material, turning his silver-tongued lawyer into God's own drunk. One is free to suspect that somewhere along the way, a producer or studio head decided that audiences would be more likely to buy a dark comedy than a noir-ish thriller, and Ramis was given the assignment based on his success with such unexpected treats as Groundhog Day and Analyze This. Veteran screenwriter Robert Benton (Twilight) and novelist Richard Russo (Empire Falls) were brought in to add some backbone to the carousing, but they only seem to have added to the movie's split personality. The bonus featurettes, including a pair of alternate endings, will enhance the experience for those who enjoy The Ice Harvest, as will the film's dead-on set design, which accurately describes what a Midwestern biker bar might look like on the eve of the baby Jesus' birthday. -- Gary Dretzka

The Memory of a Killer

The only acceptable excuse for avoiding this taut and genuinely exciting policier, from Belgium, is a pathological fear of subtitles. The Memory of a Killer has everything anyone could expect from a detective thriller, including an assassin who fears his mind will give out on him before he's able to snuff out a cabal of traffickers in underage prostitutes. A highly placed financier had arranged for the Marseilles-based killer, Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir), to return to his Antwerp home to snuff out a politician who had threatened their business. Ledda had no qualms about that assignment, but he drew the line at murdering a child who was a potential witness in any court case. When the elderly killer's boss overrode him and carried out the hit himself, Ledda decided to exact his own justice. With his memory quickly eroding, however, he offers clandestine assistance to detectives investigating the girl's death, hoping they'll finish what he'd already started. Decleir's performance is mesmerizing, and director Erik Van Looy keeps viewers in suspense until the very end. If Memory is re-made by a Hollywood studio, it's likely that an actor 20 years younger than Decleir will be cast as the killer, and Angelina Jolie will be introduced as a love interest for the delusional gunman ... even if he can't remember what to do with her. So, see it now. -- Gary Dretzka

Prime

A better title for this tepid romantic comedy would have been Guess Who's Coming to the Seder, with a 37-year-old shiksa, Rafi (Uma Thurman), playing Sidney Poitier's Matt, to a 23-year-old Jewish slacker, David (Bryan Greenburg), in the role of Katharine Houghton's Joanna. The fly in the ecumenical ointment here is the lad's otherwise open-minded mother (Meryl Streep), who lives in horror at the thought of her only son, who's 23, marrying a non-Jew. Inconveniently, Mom also is Rafi's shrink. Instead of recusing herself from their therapy sessions, she allows the recent divorcee to think she's in her corner, which the psychiatrist is until she discovers with whom her patient is copulating. This conflict may be outlawed by the guidelines that govern psychiatry, but Mom's ethical breach is treated by writer-director Ben Younger (Boiler Room) strictly as the plot device it is. Apart from the forced slapstick and predictably awkward moments, religious prejudice played straight is no more amusing than racism and homophobia. And, yet, Prime does work as a vehicle for the acting talents of Thurman and Streep, who are always pleasant to watch. What Rafi sees in David, though, I'll never know. - Gary Dretzka

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
William Eggleston in the Real World

At a time when the nearest video outlet is as close as a home's mailbox, it's worth remembering that some of the best browsing opportunities occur not on the Internet or Blockbuster, but in the gift shops of museums, galleries, zoos and concert halls. What better place to market highbrow entertainment than at institutions catering to those whose concept of performance art isn't limited to American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. This is the audience targeted by Palm Pictures for titles in its new Arthouse DVD series, and that's where you're likely to find these illuminating documentary portraits of master photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and William Eggleston. Both films enjoyed a bit of a festival run, before short theatrical releases in New York and abroad, so most people's first exposure to them will be through these handsomely produced discs. The Impassioned Eye offers a nostalgic stroll back in time with Bresson, as he pores through his collection of photographs and discusses the circumstances of their creation. Besides those with the artist, himself, director Heinz Butler includes interviews with Isabelle Huppert, Arthur Miller and notable types whose paths crossed those walked by Cartier-Bresson, before his death in 2004. While that pioneer's story is told mostly in black-and-white, William Eggleston in the Real World is awash with hyper-colorful imagery. Michael Almereyda's cameras spent a great deal of time with the man many consider to be the father of modern color photography. The Memphis native is especially renowned for his unsentimental photographs of people, places and things native to the Deep South. At a time when anyone with a cellphone can call themselves a photographer, it's worth knowing what separates the wheat from the chaff.-- Gary Dretzka

The Russian Specialist

Swedish action star Dolph Lundgren may not be the poor man's Clint Eastwood just yet, but, as an actor who also can also write and direct, he ain't bad. His second adventure in auteur-ism, The Russian Specialist (a.k.a., The Mechanik), is a competently made thriller, which takes full advantage of such little-seen locations as St. Petersburg, Sofia and rural Bulgaria, and moves along at a lively pace, as well. Even by the lowered standards of most DVD original movies, however, it's worth knowing that The Russian Specialist is exceedingly gory and far too much in love with the sound of its own spent ordnance. This limits the audience pretty much to Oliver North wanna-bes and those viewers longing desperately for a Rambo surrogate. Lundgren, who could double for Howie Long in any biopic of the square-jawed NFL vet, plays a former Russian paratrooper who lost his family in the crossfire of a bungled drug deal. In exacting his vengeance, he allowed the leader of the bad guys to escape battered, but alive. Now living in L.A., his character is coaxed into returning to Russia to rescue a young woman kidnapped by … guess who. That's hardly a novel plot, but it's serviceable. And, the largely Eastern European cast is entirely believable as evil gangstas, as well. Color me, surprised. -- Gary Dretzka

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: Classic Mysteries Collection
Bleak House
Ballykissangel

As legend has it, Agatha Christie was so impressed by Joan Hickson's portrayal of Miss Pryce in a 1946 rendition of Appointment With Death that she personally asked the veteran British actor to someday consider playing the writer's beloved crime-fighting spinster, Miss Jane Marple. Forty years later, at 78, Hickson did just that. The Classic Mystery Edition offers 15 hours worth of Marple cozies, which originally aired on the BBC from 1984 to 1992. The DVD also features a complete index of Miss Marple stories and biographies of Christie and Hickson.

Also new are boxed sets of the BBC's 2005 adaptation of Bleak House -- Charles Dickens' sprawling tour of the Victorian-era legal and penal system -- which just was seen here on PBS' Masterpiece Theater. This version stars former alien hunter Gillian Anderson, as Lady Dedlock, and a host of familiar Brit stage and TV vets. It is considered the better of the two Bleak House adaptations to have aired on the BBC and PBS. The fourth season of another familiar BBC and BBC America mini-series, Ballykissangel, is also in stores. If for no other reason, this stanza would be notable for the addition of Colin Farrell to the cast. -- Gary Dretzka

The Gospel Live!/The Gospel: Special Edition

Hosted by the rotund comedian Anthony Anderson – who was so good in Hustle & Flow, as Terence Howard's unlikely musical sidekick – The Gospel Live! arrives as a companion piece to Sony's fictional drama, The Gospel. Among the old- and new-gospel performers on hand in Atlanta for the spirited concert were Mary Mary, Kelly Price, KiKi Sheard, Micah Stampley, Martha Munizzi, Deitrick Haddon and Hezekiah Walker. For the uninitiated, practitioners of contemporary gospel tend to be less exuberant than their forebears, throwing hints of R&B, hip-hop and Christian rock into the mix, ostensibly to appeal to a younger and more affluent audience of African-American faithful. It also includes some backstage stuff from the premiere of The Gospel. -- Gary Dretzka

Class of 1984

Although Mark Lester's hyper-violent cult favorite owes an obvious debt of gratitude to The Blackboard Jungle, A Clockwork Orange and Rock 'n' Roll High School, it probably will be best remembered as the last teen-exploitation movie in which a gang of white punks on dope regularly kicked the butts of their black and Latino classmates. It may also have been the last to rely on a traditional Hollywood score (by Lalo Schifrin), instead of one comprised exclusively of pop songs ready-made for a soundtrack album (it is, however, book-ended by one very lousy Alice Cooper tune). Banned in Iceland, Britain and Finland for its unrelenting and unabashedly gratuitous violence, it stars Perry King as the Good Teacher who goes to great lengths to connect to his students, but is stymied at every turn by a bunch of neo-Nazi goons. Finally, backed into a corner, he succumbs to his worst animal instincts, and morphs into Charles Bronson. Back in 1982, when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, Roger Ebert found enough to admire in Class of 1984 to give it three stars. Today, I'm guessing, he probably would find it unwatchable. And, for you fans of Trivial Pursuit, Timothy Van Patton played the gang leader in Class of 1984, while his half-nephew, Vince, was an insecure football player in Rock 'n' Roll High School. Tim would go on to become a writer and director on The Sopranos, while Vince emerged as a world-class tennis player and co-host of World Poker Tour. -- Gary Dretzka

First Descent

Watching the snowboarding events at the just-completed Turin Games, it was difficult to avoid the notion that legitimizing the activity was a temptation the organizers probably should have avoided. Snowboarders are exciting to watch -- in small doses, anyway – but, as a group, they lack the gravitas necessary to convince skeptics they're doing anything more than using their immense athleticism to gain access to the world's biggest lodge party. That might be overstating the case, but, as First Descent makes perfectly clear, it's a pastime that was only brought into the mainstream after manufacturers of ski equipment convinced resort owners that it was far more profitable to embrace the unruly youth than kick them off the slopes. Moreover, the TV networks that bankroll the Olympics salivated at the opportunity to bring fresh eyes to their games coverage, and it was they who encouraged tradition-bound officials to add as many death-defying events as possible. Documentation of the rise of snowboarding as a sport and commercial endeavor occupies way too much time in Kevin Harrison and Kemp Curley's film, which is at its best when it concentrates on the vertical drops and virgin powder of Alaska's Chugach Mountains. Otherwise, it never rises to the level of any of the recent skateboarding docs or Bruce Brown's surf epics. The OG's of the sport include veteran boarders Nick Perata, Shawn Farmer, Terje Haakonsen and newcomers Shaun White, Hannah Teter and Travis Rice. -- Gary Dretzka

Death Tunnel

Here's another forgettable addition to the sub-genre of horror films set in the haunted confines of abandoned sanitariums with sordid histories. The best of the bunch was Brad Anderson's Session 9, which was one of the first films shot entirely in HD. Death Tunnel is set in a Louisville hospital that became famous for treating victims of the white plague of tuberculosis, and is now suspected of being haunted. The most haunted part of the building, we're led to believe, is a tunnel purportedly used to transport the corpses, and it is here that five sorority girls have been forced to endure a few hours as an initiation stunt. There, now you don't have to see the movie, which wasn't scary enough to merit a theatrical release. - Gary Dretzka

Week-End in Havana
Daddy Long Legs
Pin-Up Girl

These new-to-DVD titles represent the first wave in Fox's new Marquee Musicals series. While they're not precisely among the cream of the crop, viewers old and young will discover in them moments that go beyond mere nostalgia-fulfillment. If nothing else, the musicals are representative of the Hollywood fantasy factory, which transported audiences to exotic locales without having to having to pay airfare and living expenses for its stars. For example, the only Fox employees required to travel to Cuba for Week-End in Havana were the second-unit director and his camera crew. Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, John Payne and Cesar Romero did all their singing and dancing on a soundstage back home. The closest Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron got to Paris, in Daddy Long Legs, was an exterior shot of the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan. And, Betty Grable actually was quite pregnant while playing a hoofer in Pin-Up Girl. Each of the Marquee Musicals are enhanced with commentary by respected film historians, period trailers, lobby cards, a stills gallery, newsreel footage and, on Pin-Up Girl, a deleted scene with the rarely seen musical number, This Is It. That film also co-stars the wonderful comic actors Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown, whose presence alone would make the film worth watching. And, composer Johnny Mercer adds his thoughts on Daddy Long Legs. - Gary Dretzka

Sex and the City: Essentials -- Romance/Breakups/Mr. Big/Lust
Welcome Back, Kotter: Television Favorites Compilation
The Drew Carey Show: Television Favorites Compilation
Night Court: Television Favorites Compilation
F Troop: Television Favorites Compilation
The Dukes of Hazzard: Television Favorites Compilation

Anyone who wants to teach their youngsters a lesson in consumer economics, and the hazards of ordering from the a la carte menu, could do a lot worse than using these DVDs as examples of trends to avoid. Now that consumers have become comfortable with the notion of purchasing boxed sets of entire seasons of their favorite shows, some companies have begun to deliver spoonfuls of the same entrée at prices that border on the obscene. It's as if the industry is reverting to practices employed in the early years of VHS, when any such compilation was limited by tape capacity and packaging restraints.

HBO has long made entire seasons of its breakout hit, Sex and the City, available at prices ranging from $28 to $50. Indeed, the entire series can be purchased as a single 19-disc unit for anywhere between $160 and $300, new and used. For those keeping score at home, this represents 94 episodes, at 30 minutes per episode, plus bonus features. At full retail, this breaks down to roughly $3 per episode; at $160, the unit price is closer to $1.50.
Now, we're being offered single-disc Essentials compilations containing three episodes a piece, sans features, at prices ranging from $9.50 to $15. You can do the math from here. Just as silly, the discs are labeled Romance, Breakups, Mr. Big and Lust, even though you could find examples of each in nearly every episode of the sexy sitcom. The mind boggles.

Although the same caveat applies to Warners' Television Favorites series, the discs represent a much better deal (I can't bring myself to use the word, bargain). For between about $6.50 and $10, you can get six hand-picked episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter, The Drew Carey Show, Night Court and F Troop, and three of the hour-long The Dukes of Hazzard. More unfortunate is the company's decision to introduce Welcome Back, Kotter, Drew Carey and F Troop to DVD in these a la carte editions, instead of full-season sets, as was the custom 20 years ago. Only the first season of Night Court has been compiled in a set that ranges from $27 to $30, and five seasons of Dukes can had for $20 to $40 each. Again, you can do the math.

It would be nice to think that this new pricing scheme was merely an experiment, and a consumer revolt could nip it in the bud. That, however, would be wishful thinking, and American consumers continue to prove that math isn't one of their specialties. It's why supermarkets now are required to break down a product's true value in easy-to-understand unit prices, and display them on the shelf in sight of the product.

Even so, purveyors of food products – from potato chips to steaks – continue to prosper from their costumers' willingness to pay more for less … bits, instead of bulk. Why the home-video business is turning back the clock on its own policy of asking a fair price for quality entertainment is a mystery.

Who's That Girl?
Deal of the Century
The Frisco Kid
Club Paradise
Quick Change

Question: What do such A-list celebrities as Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Madonna, Harrison Ford, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver have in common, within the context of this column?

Answer: Their careers continued to trend upward, even after starring in the high-profile disappointments listed above.

Question: What do such no-longer-A-list actors and directors as Chevy Chase, Gene Wilder, Geena Davis, Griffin Dunne, Peter O'Toole, William Friedkin and James Foley have in common, within the context of this column?

Answer: After working on too many such high-profile disappointments as the ones listed above, their careers went in the opposite direction.

Now, this isn't to say that there aren't some wonderful performances and precious moments in Who's That Girl?, Deal of the Century, The Frisco Kid, Club Paradise and Quick Change, all of which recently came available on DVD in bare-bones editions. There are … but, too few to create much of a buzz at the box office.

The casting decisions might have sounded good at the time of the deal, but, in hindsight, they border on the ludicrous: Chase as an international arms dealer, in Deal of the Century; Madonna as a spunky parolee out to clear her name in the Big Apple, in Who's That Girl?; a rabbi played by Wilder travels from Philadelphia to San Francisco, with a cowpoke bandit played by Ford, in The Frisco Kid; Williams, Levy and O'Toole meet at a Club Med-like resort, in Club Paradise; Murray wears a clown costume to rob a bank, with Davis and Randy Quaid, in Quick Change. (Actually, Murray was pretty funny, for about a half-hour. After that, he was defeated by the undernourished script.)

At a price ranging from $10-15 per disc, fans of the individual entertainers probably wouldn't mind taking a chance on these DVDs, especially if it means completing their collections or gaining perspective on an actor's career arc. - Gary Dretzka

Police Woman: The Complete First Season

At a time when every woman in TV law enforcement looks as if she could moonlight as a fashion model, let's pay homage to the first hottie to strap on a holster in her own show. With apologies to Peggy Lipton (the blond narc on Mod Squad), it was Angie Dickinson who made the squad rooms of Hollywood safe for suspiciously glam gals with guns. Because Sgt. Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson was assigned to work undercover for the LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Unit, her producers could dress her like a hooker or stripper whenever they felt horny. It looks pretty corny, right now. But, for pure camp value, Police Woman is hard to beat.

Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization

Typically, made-for-TV documentary series about sex are about as revealing as CBS' annual Victoria's Secret infomercial, which once garnered huge ratings but now is embraced mostly by pre-pubescent boys. Koch's six-part, 360-minute ‘Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization, which was broadcast first on Britain's Channel 4, is easily the most informed, interesting and entertaining mini-series on the subject I've yet seen, and this includes the titillating quasi-docs on HBO and Showtime. The credit obviously goes to the creative team of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who most recently gave us Inside Deep Throat. By electing to focus specifically on the relationship between technology and pornography – which, in ancient Rome, India and other civilizations was a concept without any negative connotation – Bailey and Barbato have correctly identified the common denominator that links porn to every new communications enabler from wall decorations found in the ruins of Pompeii, to the invention of the printing press, still camera, moving-picture projector, Polaroid camera, camcorder, VCR and the Internet. In doing so, the documentary also defines how pornographers profited from their art, if you will, and who else in the economic food chain benefited by providing a pipeline for the transference of the images and words. Academics and historians are presented alongside men and women who've worked in the multibillion-dollar industry and fought serious legal battles along the way. Moreover, the series treats its audience like adults, by rejecting the common censorial impulse to blur nipples, genitals and pubic hair. - Gary Dretzka

Howl's Moving Castle
My Neighbor Totoro
Whisper of the Heart

Japan's Hayao Miyazaki is among the world's most respected practitioners of the animator's art. Two of his recent masterpieces, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, played here to glowing reviews but disappointing box-office, in part because the maestro didn't speak English and it cut back on appearances on the late-night talk shows. Something tells me that both did significantly better in DVD, where the marketplace isn't as fickle. Howl's Moving Castle was one of three pictures nominated for this year's Oscar in the Best Animated Feature category. It involves an 18-year-old girl, Sofi, who's cursed by a witch to assume the physical characteristics of a 90-year-old woman, as well as her love of a magician, Hauru. He lives in a cobbled-together moving castle, with his indentured fire demon. Together, they conspire to lift each other's curse. The DVD set includes both the original Japanese soundtrack and one in English, featuring the voicing of Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal and Blythe Danner, along with footage from the dubbing sessions and Miyazaki's visit with Pixar director John Lasseter; an interview with Pixar's Pete Docter; complete storyboards set to the movie soundtrack; and original Japanese trailers.

Disney also has released a two-disc edition of My Neighbor Totoro, from 1988, which is set partially in an enchanted/haunted forest. This is familiar territory for Miyazaki's magic. The English soundtrack substitutes the voices of Dakota and Elle Fanning for those of the original actors. Miyazaki also wrote the screenplay and drew the storyboards for Whisper of the Heart, which was based on a manga by Aoi Hiiragi. - Gary Dretzka

The Shaggy Dog
The Shaggy D.A.

On the eve of the theatrical release of the Tim Allen version of The Shaggy Dog come fresh DVD editions of the original Tommy Kirk/Fred MacMurray classic and its 1974 sequel, The Shaggy D.A., with Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette. It's anyone's guess as to how well this re-imagining will do critically and at the box office, but it's nice to have the original back, if only to see certain members of Disney's stock company of actors. Besides Kirk, this one includes Tim Considine, Annette Funicello and Kevin Moochie Corcoran. Made in 1959, The Shaggy Dog was the studio's first live-action comedy feature, arriving a year after Old Yeller and a year before Pollyanna.

In The Shaggy D.A., Wilby Daniels has grown up, gotten married and is the father of a young son. He hopes to unseat a corrupt district attorney, but is forced to spend a great deal of time evading the local dog catcher. -- Gary Dretaka