The Wrap Up ...
Elvis! Elvis: The Hollywood Collection The Lights! Action! Elvis! Collection Deluxe Editions: Jailhouse Rock, Viva Las Vegas Special Editions: Elvis: That's the Way It Is, This Is Elvis	Today, August 16, our Earth will stop rotating on its axis long enough for tens of millions of Elvis Presley fans to say a little prayer for the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, who‘s been dead or in hiding for, lo, the last 30 years. If your hands get shaky and your knees grow weak, try not to get all shook up. Gravity will kick back in, and, soon enough, you’ll be back standing firmly on terra firma. Paramount and Warner Home Video have jumped the gun on this momentous event by a week by simultaneously releasing 24 new and/or improved Elvis movies titles. It’s no secret that most of the musicals made after Elvis left the military were cookie-cutter affairs, produced on the cheap solely to fill the coffers of Colonel Tom Parker and uber-producer Hal Wallace. His characters were all cut from the same cloth, with names like Chad Gates, Rusty Wells or Rick Richards; they were mildly rebellious, but generally polite; could kick ass when necessary; were equally adept at race driving, surfing and water-skiing; and could melt any girl’s heart with a cheeseball song. These pictures were extremely popular with the drive-in crowd -- myself included -- and inspired sales of soundtrack albums disproportionate to their musical value. Even if no more than one or two songs emerged from a movie as a bona fide hit, no one held it against Elvis. WHV is bringing out Deluxe editions of Viva Las Vegas and Jailhouse Rock, two of the King’s most fondly remembered pictures: the former for its incredible title song, and smoking duets with Ann-Margret; the latter for Elvis actually being allowed to play a multidimensional character, who looked and acted like a real mid-’50s rocker and sang the heck out some great Leiber & Stoller songs. A pair of very good documentaries arrive in Special editions: Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, which, in 1970, transported audiences to the International Hotel showroom, before taking them backstage and to his penthouse suite; and the new-to-DVD, This Is Elvis, a compilation of interviews, home movies and dramatizations. Also from WHV comes Elvis: The Hollywood Collection, which is comprised of  new-to-DVD editions of Charro, Girl Happy, Kissin’ Cousins, Stay Away, Joe, Tickle Me and Live a Little, Love a Little. They’re available individually, as well.   Paramount’s blue-suede boxed  set, The Lights! Action! Elvis! Collection, is comprised of movies that span Presley’s movie career. They include the excellent King Creole, based on a Harold Robbins novel and directed by Michael Curtiz; G.I. Blues, made after Sgt. Presley returned from Germany; Blue Hawaii, Paradise, Hawaiian Style and Girls! Girls! Girls!, all set in Hawaii; Fun In Acapulco, opposite a sizzling Ursala Andress ; Roustabout, with Barbara Stanwyck; and Easy Come, Easy Go, co-starring Elsa Lanchester. Movies referencing specific cities, states or events served both as popular entertainments and Chamber of Commerce wet dreams. Hawaii, Acapulco, Las Vegas and the World’s Fair city of Seattle all enjoyed tourism booms in the wake of hit movies.  he Deluxe and Special editions come with plenty of extras, including commentary, interviews and such featurette material as Kingdom: Elvis in Vegas, The Scene That Stole ‘Jailhouse Rock’, Behind the Gates of Graceland and Patch It Up: The Restoration of ‘Elvis: That’s the Way It Is’. Most of the single discs have been fully restored and arrive in the wide-screen aspect.  -- Gary Dretzka
The Lookout	Last year, Ryan Gosling emerged from the indie wilderness to be nominated by the Motion Picture Academy in the Best Actor category for his sterling performance as a crack-addicted teacher in Half Nelson. If lightning were to strike twice in the same place next year, another young sitcom refugee -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who you might remember from Third Rock From the Sun, if not Brick -- would be similarly honored for his fine work in The Lookout. Gordon-Levitt probably wouldn’t win, in any case, but, as they say in Hollywood, an Oscar nomination is a rich enough reward in and of itself. In writer-director Scott Frank’s thoroughly engrossing and highly intelligent thriller, Gordon-Levitt played a former prep hockey hero whose reckless driving left two friends dead, another an amputee and his ability to function as an adult forever in doubt. Four years later, Chris "Slapshot" Pratt works as a night janitor in a Kansas City bank, but harbors ambitions of someday becoming a teller or co-owner of a diner with his outgoing blind friend, Lewis (Jeff Daniels, in another amazing performance). While enjoying a post-work bottle of sparkling water, Pratt runs into a guy who followed his hockey exploits in high school and introduces him to  a new circle of bottom-feeding friends. Soon enough, the aspiring felon (Gary Spargo, Match Point) asks Pratt to stand guard while his crew robs the bank in which he works. Pratt isn’t so far removed from normal thought that he can’t recognize a crisis of conscience when it presents itself, and he also understands that the notes he keeps to back up his short-term memory won‘t shield him from harm. Frank, who wrote the screenplays for Out Of Sight and Get Shorty, hit the bulls-eye in his taut, no-frills directorial debut. The acting is spectacular, and, even though The Lookout was shot in Manitoba, it managed to capture the frozen soul of American’s Midwest in winter. In this way, it joins the crime novels of Scott Phillips (The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway) and such kindred films as Badlands, In Cold Blood and Fargo. The extra features are fine, but nothing out of the ordinary. If you happen to know any Academy voters, please pass your copy of The Lookout on to them. -- Gary Dretzka
Vacancy Mustang Sally's Horror House	Movies that open with a couple driving aimlessly across a vast desert or through a thunderous rain storm at night tend to end badly for almost everyone involved. The potential for danger lurks around every bend in the road, and, like gas stations, well-lit chain motels are few and far between. The ones that are open for business -- against all economic odds -- tend not to be managed by Indian immigrants named Patel, but direct descendents of Norman Bates. And, yet, otherwise practical human beings willingly set out on long road trips every day, without so much as a first-aid kit or spare tire. In this way, Vacancy resembles dozens of other thrillers released in the wake of Psycho. While the vast majority are intermittently distressful, at best, there occasionally appears one that goes the distance. In Vacancy, Nimród Antal combines various genre conceits -- claustrophobia, hidden cameras, creepy locals, rats -- into one satisfying whole. It helps that Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale play the stranded couple, who not only are greeted at the motel by screams emanating from a back office, but also a true creepazoid manager, portrayed by Frank Whaley. No sooner do the squabbling spouses close the door behind them than things start going bump in the night, roaches begin scrambling for cover and sperm stains reveal themselves on bed sheets. Worse, the video cassettes left for the amusement of guests appear to have been shot in their room, and all show people getting snuffed. No need to reveal anything more of the plot, but it’s safe to say the rest of Vacancy resembles a game of cat-and-mouse between the manager and his guests. Director Nimrod Antal, an American whose career blossomed in Hungary, mined similar territory in Kontroll, which took place entirely in Budapest’s labyrinthine and often pitch-black subway system. Moreover, former Tangerine Dreamer Phil Haslinger was enlisted to add just the right amount of portentous background music. Vacancy isn’t perfect, by any means. It simply is better than it needs to be to satisfy fans of such movies, and that’s saying a lot these days. On the other hand, Mustang Sally's Horror House provides a textbook example of how to squander every opportunity to turn a cliché into something fresh and scary. Iren Koster, a violinist who played Carnegie Hall at 5 years old, not only wrote and directed Mustang Sally’s, he also produced it, composed the music, played a bit character and took still photographs on the set. Here, a half-dozen high school buddies are thrilled to discover that a brothel has just opened on the road outside of town. The boys, like the hookers, reflect specific genre stereotypes (although the building itself bears no resemblance to the one on the DVD‘s jacket). The only character who stands out from the crowd is a sultry madam played by veteran voice actor E.G. Daily. Instead of creating a reasonable facsimile of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians -- which could easily work in a whorehouse setting -- Koster elected to kill lots of people in the service of mindless revenge. The murders are clumsy, the motive transparent and the sex only a nipple or two removed from a PG-13. One hopes Koster hasn’t pawned his fiddle to finance his next film. -- Gary Dretzka
Fracture	In the very decent courtroom thriller Fracture, Anthony Hopkins plays a murderously jealous husband as if he were Hannibal Lector’s slightly-less-evil twin brother. The similarly arrogant and cunning Ted Crawford believes that in killing his unfaithful wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz), he has committed the perfect crime and can’t wait to test his genius in court against a tough and cocky district attorney, played by Ryan Gosling. Not surprisingly, the wily Crawford survives the first legal assault on his character. It’s when the killer assumes he’s being protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause that things really get interesting. To his credit, director Gregory Hoblit allows the smart and fat-free screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers to carry most of the load. Fans of Presumed Innocent and the novels of Scott Turow should rejoice when they find Fracture at the local video store. Once a Hollywood staple, courtroom dramas now are done best on television. For once, too, the deleted scenes offer quite a bit of new information to the narrative. Is it just me, or does Hopkins shift between an Irish and English accent during various points in the narrative? -- Gary Dretzka
Psychological Disturbia Last Seen at Angkor Premonition	For all its resemblance to Rear Window, D.J. Caruso's nifty Disturbia can easy stand on its own as a thriller for teens and young adults who have never been exposed to Alfred Hitchcock or his voyeuristic classic. Seventeen-year-old Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is a bit more ambulatory than Jimmy Stewart's wheelchair-bound photojournalist, as was the claustrophobic house-sitter in Brian De Palma's similarly suspenseful Body Double. After throwing a punch at a teacher, Kale is put under house arrest and forced to wear an ankle monitor. On either side of his two-story suburban home reside a family whose sexy teenage daughter enjoys sunbathing in her itsy-bitsy bikini, and a single gentleman who Kale comes to believe is a notorious serial killer. Inevitably, two things happen: one, the beautiful exhibitionist discovers Kale's surreptitious attention but sort of digs it, and, two, the guy next-door actually is a murderer … not that anyone believes him. Worse, Kale's recently widowed mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) is responding to the advances of the new neighbor (David Morse). Caruso contemporizes the Rear Window conceit by arming his protagonist with an array of digital communications and observational gadgets. In an effort to prevent his mom from being hacked to death by her new boyfriend, Kale and his buddies decide to break into his house and gather evidence for police. From this point onward, Disturbia becomes a race against time and the beeper on his monitor. It's a lot of fun, and more than reasonably thrilling. If nothing else it could inspire teens to check out Rear Window and other Hitchcock flicks. Michael Morris' Last Seen at Angkor is a messy and occasionally unfathomable psychological thriller that benefits mightily from being filmed on location in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Singapore. During his last trip to Southeast Asia, four years before we meet him, Jeremy Oden not only managed to lose his girlfriend -- literally -- at the ruins of Angkor Archeological Park, but, also, several large chucks of his memory. After returning home, he hired a private detective from Singapore to find the missing-and-presumed-kidnapped Katie, who we get to know through flashbacks. Lo Jin convinces Jeremy to return to the region, so they can get answers by working outside the system … a.k.a., spreading lots of money around neighborhoods known to harbor criminals and prostitutes. We're led to believe that older Western women, who look like school teachers, as does Katie, are valued as high-end prostitutes. True or not, it gives Morris an excuse to spend lots of time in red-light districts. Beyond the mystery involving Katie's disappearance, Jeremy and Lo Jin begin to distrust each other, as well as some questionable ex-pats who work as shills for local pimps. Hard to imagine how Last Seen in Angkor might have turned out given a larger budget and slightly more recognizable stars. The ruins provide a terrific backdrop for the sort of mystery, paranoia and intrigue that plays out here … ditto, the teeming urban street scenes. The film's biggest problem comes in a script that distances its characters from viewers, instead of luring them into the drama. Still, it offers sights rarely seen in American movies, indie or studio-backed. The easiest place to find Last Seen in Angkor is thru such Internet sites as Netflix, Amazon and Blockbuster. For a brief moment there, it appeared as if Sandra Bullock might have re-discovered the joys of performing meaningful roles in pictures of substance. She was quite good as the defensively racist politician's wife in Crash, and excellent as Harper Lee, in Infamous. Sadly, for everyone except her accountant, the perpetually perky 43-year-old keeps returning to roles with almost zero emotional depth. Certainly, this has something to do with the fact she still looks young enough to play characters that otherwise would limit her options, and, hell, like Barbra Streisand, she's her own producer. Like Lake House, before it, Premonition bends time in ways better suited to science fiction than mid-budget psychological thrillers. Here, instead of living two years removed from the love of her life, Linda Hanson finds herself stranded in a time warp that requires her to anticipate and mourn the death of her husband, Jim (Julian McMahon), almost simultaneously. Plots driven by precognition and other supernatural conceits no longer are within Hollywood's strike zone. Psycho-thrillers from Japan and South Korea do it scarier, cheaper and absent a soundtrack that telegraphs every tingly moment. Still, even though Premonition was throttled by critics, it managed to do decent business in the multiplexes, and Bullock's older fans won't mind taking a chance on it on DVD. The bonus features include deleted scenes and an alternate ending; commentary; a gag reel; making-of featurette; and discussion of actual premonitions. -- Gary Dretzka
Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection Brigitte Bardot Collection	Today, Myrna Loy and William Powell are remembered primarily for their timeless collaborations on the six Thin Man films, which recently were combined by Warner Home Video for its The Complete Thin Man Collection. They also scored big box-office numbers, however, in such screwball comedies, courtroom dramas and wacky romances as those boxed together here, Manhattan Melodrama, Evelyn Prentice, Double Wedding, I Love You Again and Love Crazy. Of the five, Manhattan Melodrama is easily the most famous, but for reasons unrelated to the talents of a cast that included Clark Gable, Leo Carillo and Mickey Rooney, or the skills of directors W.S. Van Dyke and an uncredited George Cukor. No, the bulk of the credit must go to Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger, who, after leaving a showing at Chicago's Biograph Theater in the company of two women, was ambushed and killed by FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis. Whether Dillinger chose Manhattan Melodrama because it was a gangster picture and he had a crush on Loy, or the Biograph promised an air-conditioned escape from the heat and humidity, remains a mystery. Fact is, though, the film can stand on its own as a vehicle for escapist fun. The courtroom pot-boiler Evelyn Prentice represented Loy and Powell's third teaming in 1934, alone, while Double Wedding, I Love You Again and Love Crazy are still good for a few laughs. In addition to the movies, themselves, the set contains vintage comedy and musical shorts, cartoons and radio interviews. None of the movies that comprise Lionsgate's Brigitte Bardot Collection -- Naughty Girl, Love on a Pillow, The Vixen, Come Dance with Me, Two Weeks in September -- are on a par with Contempt, And God Created Woman, Spirits of the Dead or Viva Maria! Nevertheless, any excuse to re-discover the world's pre-eminent, if long-retired sex kitten can be considered legitimate. Back in the day, Bardot rarely received the credit she was due as an actor. This was especially true in Eisenhower-era America, where viewers found it difficult to get beyond how she looked in -- and out -- of a bikini. Most of the movies in this collection required Bardot to play a sexy dish who played on the passions or arrogance of an older man. The collection adds the featurette, Larger Than Life: Brigitte Bardot and the Mythology of the Sex Symbol. -- Gary Dretzka
TV to DVD The Fugitive: Season One, Vol. 1 Dynasty: Seasons 1 & 2 The House of Eliott: Complete Collection Space 1999: 30th Anniversary Edition Megaset Savage Seas On the Waterways Lesbian Sex and Sexuality	It's taken a while, but episodes of one the most popular series in the history of television, The Fugitive, finally have begun trickling out of the vaults of Quinn Martin Productions. Volume 1 is comprised of the first 15 black-and-white episodes -- 760 minutes in DVD time -- in Dr. Richard Kimble's four-year, cross-country mission to clear his name in the murder of his wife. (A jury didn't buy Kimble's story about seeing a one-armed man leave their home immediately after her death, and he was sentenced to death.) Not only did the show make David Janssen an international star, but it also turned veteran Brit actor Barry Morse's relentless Lt. Philip Gerard into the most hated man in America. Each week, Kimble would arrive in a new town or meet people whose own problems made those of the fugitive doctor seem manageable. Series creator Roy Huggins denied Kimble was patterned after Sam Sheppard, a real-life doctor who, in 1954, claimed to be innocent in the murder of his wife. Instead, Huggins said he intended the character to be seen as a modern version of the mythic cowboy. How popular was the show? The grand finale, One Armed Man, held the distinction of being the highest-rated episode in the history of television for more than a decade, before being dethroned by the Who Shot J.R.? episode of Dallas. The first two seasons of Dynasty, which followed in the enormous wake of Dallas, have been packaged together for collectors and fans. Like the Ewings, Denver's Carrington family also was in the oil business. Patriarch Blake Carrington wasn't as rough around the edges as J.R., but the women played by Joan Collins, Linda Evans and Heather Locklear could hold their own with any cowboy poseur. The series ran from 1981-89, so there's plenty left in the bank. Tough dames also inhabited the BBC series, The House of Eliott. Beatrice and Evangeline Eliott are two free-spirited daughters of privilege, who, upon the death of their father, discover they are broke and in desperate need of a vocation. They are smart enough to tackle an industry -- fashion -- with which they already are familiar, but, being 1920s England, business is dominated by men and governed by tradition. Like most BBC dramas, House of Eliott is as fun to watch for the period touches as for the acting and story. The series was created by actors Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh, who also collaborated on Upstairs, Downstairs. In 1975, Space 1999 became the first British sci-fi series to pour as much money into production values as anything else in the budget. It didn't try to match the long-canceled Star Trek in the fantasy aspects of the story, preferring to stick with a more science-based approach. It was set in a then-distant 1999, on Moonbase Alpha, a research colony and storage base for atomic waste on the far side of our Moon. (Now, that's something NASA ought to be working toward, instead of finding ways to make its website cooler). After a series of unforeseen occurrences, the Moon is blown out of its orbit and a chunk holding the base is hurled into deep space. The 30th Anniversary Mega Set contains all 48 episodes from the show's two seasons, on 17 DVDs, as well as interviews, production stills, commercials and some material new to U.S. fans. All four segments of Savage Seas, a 1999 co-production of Thirteen/WNET and Granada Television, have been collected into a single boxed set. Narrated by Stacy Keach, the titles of each episode -- Rescue, Killer Waves, Killer Storms, The Deep -- are pretty much self-explanatory. The producers have a long history in the nature documentary game, and Savage Seas is among their best. MPI Home Video also is bringing out On the Waterways, a four-disc set that chronicles the three-year, 25,000-mile journey of the Driftwood as it navigated America's fresh-water network of lakes, rivers and intercostals, and some salt-water passages, as well. It explains the many diverse uses of the waterways over time, and their place in our natural, political and social history. Narrated by Jason Robards, On the Waterways was shown on television here in 1991. The title of Here!'s six-part mini-series Lesbian Sex and Sexuality sounds far more scholarly than it actually is, but not nearly as scandalous as the cover blurb suggests. That's OK, though. Some sexual proclivities -- gay and straight -- should only be shared by consenting adults behind tightly closed doors. The often stimulating series is closer in spirit to HBO's Real Sex, whose producers understand that sex can be fun and exhilarating, even if the naked bodies on screen look more like Rosie O'Donnell in Exit to Eden, than Jenna Jameson or Lexington Steele. The usual array of talking heads have been invited to comment on images taken from the media and world of indie film. -- Gary Dretzka
Unaccompanied Minors Are We Done Yet? TMNT The Dark Crystal: 25th Anniversary Edition The Muppet Show: Season Two Although Unaccompanied Minors wasn't playing in the same league as the similarly Christmas-themed Home Alone, its heart was stuck pretty much in the same place. Here, a group of pre-teen children -- all separated from both parents by divorce -- find themselves stranded in an airport during a crippling snowstorm. The delays not only threaten their reunions with fathers and mothers on opposite sides of the marital divide, they also are being supervised by airport personnel already pissed off at having to work the holiday. Foremost among the grinches is Passenger Relations Manager Oliver Porter, who comedian Lewis Black infuses with the same venom he usually reserves for George Bush. Naturally, the kids are determined not to let Porter and his minions spoil their holiday fun, and combine their resources to keep Christmas merry. All's well that ends well, but, in the meantime, they turn the airport into their own personal theme park. Pre-teens are the audience segment most likely to embrace Unaccompanied Minors, even if they didn't turn out in great numbers before Christmas. Parents, though, will find a several things to enjoy, as well, including the importance of real or extended families. The DVD includes the usual collection of extras. As difficult as it still may be to accept the idea of Ice Cube playing a harried suburban dad, the once-notorious rapper does it very well. Are We Done Yet? extends the franchise launched in 2005 by Sony with Are We There Yet? Here, Nick Persons and his new wife, Suzanne (Nia Long), attempt to escape the craziness of big-city life by purchasing a suburban house, which they'll share with kids Lindsey and Kevin. They quickly discover that suburban gangstas come in all shapes and colors, too. Just as in Richard Benjamin's The Money Pit (1986), an unscrupulous contractor (John C. McGinley) turns Nick's suburban idyll into a textbook case of buyer's remorse. In Las Vegas, one sure sign of superstardom comes in seeing your first name in lights on a giant marquee: Frank, Sammy, Dino etc. The distributors of TMNT presumably had the same thing in mind when they shortened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to fit the much smaller marquees attached to multiplexes in suburban malls. In this, their fourth feature film, our heros in the half-shell were brought back to life in digital form, instead of the familiar live-action format. Youngsters accustomed to digitally generated crime-fighters won't miss the human factor, as the CGI adds a sparkling new dimension to the festivities and humans are pretty much passé, anyway. Unfortunately, the series' creators have skimped on the story, lowering the hip-ness quotient to a level only the youngest fans will appreciate. Others will find more value in the alternate ending, commentary by writer and director Kevin Munroe, deleted scenes and interviews with voice actors, Patrick Stewart, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Laurence Fishburne. Sadly, Mako, the voice of rat sensei Splinter, died just before the completion of the film. Jim Henson's time-travel fantasy, The Dark Crystal, is no stranger to the DVD marketplace. The new 25th Anniversary Edition is noteworthy in that Sony has added fresh commentary from conceptual designer Brian Froud; an original documentary, The World of the Dark Crystal; deleted and work-print scenes; featurettes Light on the Path of Creation and Shard of Illusion; and rediscovered footage from the Henson archives. Also from the Henson puppet factory comes the 24-episode second-season of The Muppet Show. Being 1976, the roster of guest performers will be more familiar to Boomer parents than their Boomlet offspring, who will delight mostly in the timelessness of the puppets. Each week, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and a menagerie of other Muppet regulars competed for laughs and stage time against the likes of Don Knotts, Bernadette Peters, Dom Deluise, George Burns, John Cleese, Bob Hope, Steve Martin, Julie Andrews and Elton John. It was also the season Kermit introduced his trademark ballad, It's Not Easy Being Green. The four-disc set also contains Muppets Valentine Special, from 1974, the music video of Keep Fishin' and interview segment, The Muppets on the Muppets. -- Gary Dretzka
Afghan Knights Judging from the jacket art, alone, it would be easy to assume Afghan Knights was your standard-issue Rambo-knockoff, with Michael Madsen standing in for Sylvester Stallone. The small print suggests there's more here than meets the eye, but it's difficult to tell what exactly that would be. The first half of Afghan Knights, during which we learn the details of a mission accepted by a group of American mercenaries, is little different than your average episode of The Unit. A sleaze-ball CIA operative (Madsen) offers the former U.S. Special Forces types a bunch of money to extract an Afghan warlord, and hand him over to spooks based in Pakistan. On their way out of Afghanistan, however, the team, the warlord and his wife are required to take shelter in a large cave. An earthquake closes the entrance to their hideout, which also is inhabited by ghosts of Mongul conquerors and a soldier left behind on a mission and presumed dead. It is at this point that Afghan Knights turns into a claustrophobic. supernaturally informed escape film, on the order of The Cave and The Descent. There really isn't much to recommend Afghan Knights to anyone who isn't obsessed with movies about haunted caves and shape-shifting boogeymen. There's plenty of violence, and a bit of gratuitous nudity -- as befit the vast majority of straight-to-DVD flicks -- but the biggest and most obvious groaners come when an Afghan rebel cracks wise about getting into a firefight with the Beatles, because the mercs are led by a Sgt. Pepper. -- Gary Dretzka
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Small Town Gay Bar The Dresden Files: The Complete First Season Angels Fall/Montana Sky Rome: The Complete Second Season The Hills: The Complete Second Season It didn't take long for HBO to add its powerful documentary on the lasting effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the DVD marketplace. The video windows for such made-for-cable productions has shrunk to days, instead of years and months. On first glance, the practice seems self-defeating. Considering the large number of people who still don't subscribe to premium cable networks, however, it's nice to know that topical material is being released while it is still fresh. Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain tells stories long hidden from the general public -- here and in Japan -- in the horrific wake of the decision to drop atomic bombs on large numbers of civilians. The documentary features interviews with 14 atomic bomb survivors and several Americans who were involved in the bombings. With Iran now threatening to wave its nuclear sword, Okazaki's film couldn't be more timely. Although Small Town Gay Bar was a hit on the festival circuit, it didn't find a substantial audience until it was shown recently on the Logo cable channel. Now out on DVD, Malcolm Ingram's documentary describes some of the ramifications of being gay and socially active in rural America … Mississippi, to be precise. That uptight rednecks and Christian hypocrites would still heap abuse on the patrons of a couple of out-of-the-way bars is hardly surprising. What is worth observing is how members of the gay community and the bar owners found strength in the number of people, however meager, who would continue to party in the face of such bad vibes. A pair of movies produced for Lifetime Television take viewers to Wyoming and Montana, where women overcome dilemmas imposed upon them by men. In Angels Falls, Heather Locklear's character is a Boston chef who heads west after surviving a massacre in her restaurant. She's further tested in her new Wyoming hometown after witnessing a murder that may or not have actually occurred. While not quite a cowboy version of Blowup, it's possible to wonder if the screenwriters rented the enigmatic Antonioni film before turning in their final draft. In Montana Sky, a rich cattleman bequeaths his vast ranch to the three women who shared him as a father, but had no knowledge of each other. A twist in the will requires them to live together at the ranch for a full year, or lose their rights to claim it as their own. Besides coming to grips with their sudden half-sisterhood, the women also are forced to deal with a mysterious outsider who wants them to fail. Cable's SciFi Channel took a chance on extending the television life of The Dresden Files, by stretching a two-hour movie into a weekly series. Adapted from Jim Butcher's best-selling novels, it followed private detective Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne) as he solved paranormal crimes and strove to prevent other supernatural mischief. Today, the broadcast networks can't seem to get enough of these types of characters and situations. Even with Julius Caesar out of the picture, HBO's second season of Rome provided many hours of powerful period drama to its subscribers. Season 2 describes the intense struggle for control that followed in the wake of his assassination and the ascendancy of Mark Anthony and Caesar's sole heir, Octavian. The friendship between Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) naturally remains front and center throughout the second season. Extra spice is added by rivalries among the various mistresses and wives left behind in Rome, while their men are conquering, escaping or being cuckolded by Egyptian queens. The extras include commentary by cast and crew, an interactive on-screen guide and several behind-the-scenes featurettes. MTV's The Hills followed the personal arcs of several young women from the jungles of Orange County, as they tried to find meaningful work in and around the mean streets of Hollywood. In the second season, the ladies experienced even more trouble with young men, who, if it weren't for their parents' money, would be working at McDonald's. It may dopey, but The Hills easily qualifies as a guilty pleasure for those young women who actually have a legitimate reason for existing on this planet.-- Gary Dretzka