Home Video and DVD Releases for December 2000
Compiled by Eddie Cockrell,  1 December 2000
Written by Eddie Cockrell, Gregory Avery

Nitrate Online explores a sampling of the most noteworthy, provocative and satisfying video and/or DVD releases for the month of December 2000 (give or take a few weeks). Titles are followed by original country and year of release, as well as release date (if known). All reviewed DVD's are Region 1 coded unless otherwise indicated; Region 1 means they're playable on machines sold in the United States only. Street dates change constantly and often differ from format to format, so check with your favorite click or brick supplier for up-to-date information.

In many ways the most difficult of films to pull of properly, the mainstream romantic sex comedy often ends up looking forced and perfunctory, the exact opposite of the light, breezy, mildly erotic tone filmmakers have in mind. Virtually ignored during it's admittedly low-profile stateside release, the engaging Bossa Nova announces a return to his native Brazil and comic form for director Bruno Barreto, whose Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands was an art house hit in the states some 22 years ago, eventually garnering a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film. The plot, at once leisurely and defiantly complex, involves widowed language instructor Mary Ann (Amy Irving, Barreto's real-life wife), her growing relationship with distinguished yet distracted lawyer Pedro Paulo (Antonio Fagundes), and the merry-go-round of assignations and coincidences that ripple from their seemingly innocent tryst. In a roundabout career with his share of triumphs (Carried Away) and stumbles (One Tough Cop), Bossa Nova pulls off a deft comic coup and is a fine kind of homecoming. The video has been out since early October, and the new Columbia TriStar DVD supplements the film with Irving's commentary, a deleted scene, a making-of featurette, isolated music score track and talent files.

In one of the few truly vile films of 2000. Jennifer Lopez plays a psychiatric researcher who agrees to use a new method, by which she can enter people's minds, in order to make contact with a comatose lunatic (Vincent d'Onofrio) and find out where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim, who will be killed unless the authorities can find her in time. Exactly how Lopez is to extract this information is never explained, and she comes off as so fragile and damaged during her introductory scenes that one wonders how she's going to stand up to a man who, literally, tortures himself in between crimes. Tarsem, who has previously directed music videos, directed this picture, and he's still making music videos: the film never engages the audience on anything other than a surface level, but the mounting, extravagantly phantasmagorical scenes, which combine equal amounts of glitz and the grotesque, become so off-putting that they end up inspiring only true disgust by the time the film reaches its conclusion. Vince Vaughn also appears as a police detective, also a member of the walking wounded, and he winds up in the criminal's head, as well; Marianne Jean-Baptiste, previously seen in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies, provides occasional oases of sanity as a research colleague. The New Line Platinum Series DVD edition includes a director's commentary, deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes look at the film's visual trappings and something called a "brain map and empathy test." 

"You've gotta grow up," ambitious record company executive Chuck (Chris Weitz) tells his former childhood friend and current stalker Buck (Mike White), but the emotionally arrested young man uses the occasion of his mother's funeral to first pester Chuck, then follow him to Los Angeles under the guise of directing a self-penned theatrical production with autobiographical overtones, and finally force a showdown over a traumatic sexual incident from their childhood. At once profoundly disturbing and monstrously funny, Chuck & Buck succeeds largely on the strength of White, who inhabits the genuinely creepy Buck with a sinister innocence reminiscent of Billy Bob Thornton's tragic protagonist in Sling Blade (tellingly, like Thornton, White also wrote the screenplay). Although the visual strategy of director Miguel Arteta is garishly lit and kind of fuzzy -- handheld video strikes again -- Chuck & Buck is among the year's most memorable and unsettling movie experiences. The cast includes vet Lupe Ontiveros as an aspiring theater director, Weitz' brother Paul (who directed the 1999 hit American Pie, which was produced by Chris) as a slow-witted fledgling thespian, and legendary theater director and sometimes actor Paul Sand (The Hot Rock) as, well, a theater director. The music includes the infectious theme song "Freedom of the Heart," the Penguin Café Orchestra and "Astral Plane" by professional man-child Jonathan Richman and his Modern Lovers. Artisan Entertainment's bare-bones DVD edition is recommended over the fullframe video.

The Big G emerges from the ocean depths once more to do battle with a humongous extraterrestrial visitor. Made in response to Roland Emmerich's disastrous 1998 Godzilla remake, the picture is a return to the "kaigu" adventures which held some of us in thrall during our youths (although this film has a better English dubbing job...and it's in digital stereo!), and the alien creature, once it fully emerges, bears so much resemblance to the ones in Alien and Predator that one could also see it in terms of Godzilla battling to regain his primacy over other, more recent upstarts. The special effects are also on a par with those provided by the late, great Japanese FX master Eiji Tsuburaya. Contains two of the most endearing bits seen in any picture this year: a "Godzilla Prediction Center," a home-run operation which also has steep membership dues; and the moment when one of the characters exclaims, "Did you see that flying rock go by?" Columbia TriStar's DVD edition includes both fullframe and widescreen presentations, the option of running the original Japanese version with English subtitles and behind-the-scenes footage.

In 1974, a flashy, car-obsessed regional filmmaker named H.B. "Toby" Halicki self-financed a crudely made yet astonishingly visceral action film called Gone in 60 Seconds. In it, the long-haired Halicki (who is obviously enjoying himself), plays a professional car thief whose pursuit of a bright yellow 1973 Mustang fastback he's nicknamed Eleanor results in the high-speed destruction of just about every automobile in Long Beach, California. In 2000, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and heavy-handed video vet Dominic Sena remade the movie as a Nicolas Cage, ah, vehicle that misses all of the cocky swagger and conspicuous consumption of the original. In its place is a weird, sullen and muddy mixture of greed and loyalty that epitomizes the have-it-both ways agenda of the modern mainstream action picture. Cage is monosyllabic, Angelina Jolie is just plain bizarre, and Robert Duvall pops up in another one of those weather-beaten veteran roles we know now he uses to finance his own personal movies (remember The Apostle?). Well, at least Halicki's widow made some money out of it, and Duvall's about due for another film. Interested viewers are urged to hunt down the original (that's 60, not Sixty), which is available with some effort via used video stores or online auction sites.

Literally the opposite of Shakespeare wunderkind Kenneth Branagh's complete filmed version of "Hamlet," the twist to this truncated telling of one of the Bard's lesser works is almost immediately obvious: this version of "Love's Labour's Lost," a play which has never before been filmed, is set on the eve of World War II and strung together with 10 vintage musical dance numbers. Thus the king of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) and his three nose-to-the-grindstone chums (Branagh, Adrian Lester and Matthew Lillard) are tuxedoed charmers who work their magic -- or is it the other ‘way ‘round? -- on the princess of France (Alicia Silverstone) and her pals Natasha McElhone (a long way from Ronin), Carmen Ejogo and Emily Mortimer. Peter Bogdanovich tried this kind of vintage musical revival 25 years ago with At Long Last Love, and the results here are similar: familiar faces not known for their song-and-dance chops give it the old college try, with the spell of the movie dependent entirely on the audience's ability to find that effort charming instead of maddening. Showstopping solo turns include Timothy Spall's rendition of "I Get a Kick Out of You" and Nathan Lane's gleeful stroll through "There's No Business Like Show Business." If ever a movie cried out for the letterboxed treatment, Love's Labour's Lost is it: the DVD is highly recommended over the full-frame video version, with the former also sporting deleted footage, outtakes, and a "making-of" featurette.

While leading a tour of the University of Ithaca, professional student Barry (Tom Green) tells the prospective students and their parents the cautionary tale of a quartet of students who drove from upstate New York to Austin, Texas to intercept a racy amateur video inadvertently mailed to their leader's long-time girlfriend, and their adventures along the way. Hijinks ensue. Neither the gross-out revue promised by its trailers or the wretchedly clichéd demographic-filler that seemed to dominate the live-action youth-oriented market during 2000 (Loser, anyone?), Road Trip is something akin to both but completely different: a low-brow frat-boy comedy with an unexpectedly sweet center and a surprisingly clever collegiate spoof hiding under the guise of a stupid teen comedy. An unusual combination to be sure and a mix that might not appeal to those looking for either one or the other but not both, Road Trip succeeds on the strength of the decision to downplay Green's role (although he's dominant in the trailers) and the fearlessly geeky performance of one DJ Qualls as the frail Kyle, the guy with the car and credit card of his father (Fred Ward) who gets into the trip on those twin strengths but becomes a suave man-about-town when he improbably beds an imposing black fraternity hanger-on along the way (according to one online source, the actor is a cancer survivor). That's Andy Dick as an obnoxious motel clerk; the DVD sports a "making-of" featurette hosted by Green and a handful of cut scenes that should've been kept in. 

An attempt at a modern-day Passport to Pimlico, Saving Grace stars Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies, Little Voice) as a woman who, trying to deal with the debts left by her late husband, finds that her green thumb with plants also goes towards growing excellent pot. "The Drew Carey Show's" Mr. Wick, Craig Ferguson, who also wrote the film's original script, plays the young handyman who helps get her new enterprise going. The picture's less about cannabis, more about the great British tradition of the rural counties proudly flying in the face of authority. Worth seeing for Blethyn's performance, her best in years, and for one scene where Paul Brook, playing the local pub-keeper, muses on how Kafka's "Metamorphosis" might have turned out had it been written by Jackie Collins. The DVD edition features a choice of widescreen or fullframe presentations as well as a commentary track from Blethyn, Ferguson and director Nigel Cole.

A year after accidentally killing a man, a group of teenagers is stalked by an inept and strangely affable masked killer. "Your starting point is where the last guy left off," explains director Keenen Ivory Wayans (who also plays the killer) about his approach to Scary Movie (which was variously known as Last Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell on Friday the 13^th and Scream if You Know What I Did Last Halloween during production) in the "making-of" featurette on the DVD. Doing for the contemporary teen-oriented horror film what Airplane! did for the disaster movie craze of the 1970s, the film defiantly stakes out the lowest-common-denominator territory, turn-of-the-millennium style, and sticks to it. Thus the humor is puerile (the imperiled kids go to "B.A. Corpse" high school) and sex-obsessed (take your pick), but no less funny for it. The secret may be the no-holds-barred approach, as the writers lampoon, in no particular order (and not including the titles embedded in the movie's original names), The Sixth Sense, American Pie, Pulp Fiction, The Matrix, "Dawson's Creek," Blazing Saddles, The Usual Suspects, Amistad and those "wassuuuup?" beer commercials. That last reference is important, since Wayans' satire of black Americans and their distinct brand of consumerism is not only his directorial trademark but probably the key to the film's wild financial success as well (a standout sequence has actress Regina Hall disrupting a showing of Shakespeare in Love). "Saturday Nigh Live" vet Cheri Oteri is very funny as hungry TV reporter Gail Hailstorm (a spoof of Courteney Cox's role in the Scream franchise), and her outtakes are the highlights of a standout (and quite blue) collection of deleted scenes on the generously appointed DVD edition. A snapshot of its time, Scary Movie is far more effective than most of the tired, post-Scream movies it spoofs (final irony: during its production, Scream was called… Scary Movie). 

Samuel L. Jackson holds his own as the successor to Richard Roundtree's original, legendary character in John Singleton's updating of the 1971 action film. The film starts out well but somehow ends up turning into a succession of gunfights and chases that feel like gunfights and chases you've already seen before (although Singleton, a talented film director, stages them very well). But see it for Jeffrey Wright's amazingly good performance as a Puerto Rican gangster who definitely does not like getting messed-around with: it's not just powerful, but Wright's energy in the part seems to blow right off the screen. Also, keep an eye peeled for the scene where Jackson shares some (brief) on-screen time with Richard Roundtree and the great photographer and film director Gordon Parks, who directed the 1971 picture -- one of the few times where you'll get to see three generations of very iconic men in one spot. The VHS tape is priced to rent, while the DVD includes exclusive cast and crew interviews, a production featurette and music videos by Isaac Hayes and R. Kelly.

Woody Allen in a minor key, Small Time Crooks tells the wildly improbable and sporadically funny rags-to-riches story of Ray (Allen), a temporarily reformed thief and ex-con whose scheme to tunnel into a bank from an adjoining cookie shop fronted by his wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullmann), backfires when the treats make them rich and they grow apart while wallowing in the bad taste wealth brings. A vague sequel to Allen's debut feature, Take the Money and Run (1969), Crooks benefits from numerous plot twists but suffers from the predictability of Allen's perpetual kvetchiness as Ray ("I'm gonna slam your head off," he warns Frenchy in one of many Ralph Kramden-ish asides), which wears thin pretty fast. Elaine May, the legendary comedian (alongside Mike Nichols), script doctor (Tootsie) and filmmaker (The Heartbreak Kid) makes a rare return to the footlights as May, Ray's dim but loyal supporter, and the terrific supporting cast includes Michael Rapaport, Jon Lovitz (as an ex-con who put his kids through college torching buildings), Hugh Grant and Tony Darrow. Sure it's no Sweet and Lowdown, or Celebrity, or even Everyone Says I Love You, but Small Time Crooks does have its modest charms. As is usual for a Woody Allen film, the DVD edition has no extras.

At three o'clock in the afternoon on November 19, 1999, the lives of numerous entertainment industry players and hangers-on intersect on Sunset Boulevard in Southern California over a tumultuous 90 minutes punctuated by various interpersonal conflicts, earthquakes, and even a shooting. With Time Code, Oscar-winning director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) has triumphantly pulled off a daring and altogether successful experiment in film form: the interlocking and carefully choreographed stories were shot in real time by four videographers, and the finished product (the 15^th complete take of the film) is projected simultaneously, one storyline in each of the four quadrants of the screen. Many critics have called this a confusing stunt, information overload. But don't be deterred: Time Code is a crucial step in the development of video as a creative tool in what remains of the Hollywood studio factory, and its influences on storytelling and structure are sure to extend far beyond the modest commercial performance of the film (pioneers are often misunderstood, even ignored). Columbia TriStar's handsome DVD edition is by necessity fullframe (naturally looking its best on a large TV), with the exciting interactive elements of the disc allowing viewers to increase or decrease the volume in each plot thread, reference Figgis' video diary on the production, log on to a dedicated website and even watch the very first complete take (both versions have a commentary track from the director). "He's really conducting," explains one of the actors during a behind-the-scenes interview, and that's a simple and accurate description of this pioneering visual symphony.

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, a fledgling private investigator, Trixie Zurbo (Emily Watson), with a penchant for malapropisms ("C'est la vie," someone tells her, to which she replies "La vie") lands a job in casino security, only to spend most of her time fending off the advances of local lothario Dex (Dermot Mulroney) while unraveling a case of political corruption that begins with local con artist Red Rafferty (Will Patton) but quickly grows to include glad-handing Senator Avery (Nick Nolte). The latest outing from Robert Altman disciple and critics' darling Alan Rudolph (Choose Me, Afterglow), Trixie is one odd little film. The enchanting Watson once again plays a determinedly off-kilter underdog, while Mulroney continues to be a black hole of a leading man (see Where the Money Is, below) and the fine and proud Nolte should never, ever be allowed anywhere near a script that calls for comedic skill (he was this bad in Rudolph's misbegotten adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions too). As he did in Love's Labour's Lost (see above), Nathan Lane provides some weary show business banter as local lounge act Kirk Stans, while Lesley Ann Warren (who has appeared in numerous Rudolph pictures, to best effect in Choose Me) seems ageless as a merry vamp. Still, still… Some of the wildly mangled language is quite funny, and Rudolph shows an obvious affection for the gumshoe genre. If only Watson had been less spastic in her line readings, and if only a more magnetic love interest had been signed… "You have to wear your unpopularity as a badge of honor," Nolte brays at one point, and Trixie plays as if Rudolph had adopted this as his professional motto. The DVD features a commentary track from the director, which may or may not clear things up.

"Those girls have a bright future. The other was going to end up a cook." Director Sofia Coppola's adaptation of the Jeffrey Eugenides novel captures the exact, rapt, dreamy mood of adolescence as it tells its story of the five Lisbon sisters, all blond, living in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Grosse Pointe in the 1970s, and how things go all wrong when one of them suddenly, and inexplicably, takes her own life. Told from the point-of-view of a group of essentially well-meaning boys who have become enthralled by the girls, the picture evokes aspects of the adolescent experience -- how girls use their newfound femininity, and the querulous responses it evokes from growing boys -- like no other film in recent years. Kathleen Turner and James Woods are both excellent as the girls' parents, indefinably troubled while desperately trying to keep up a front, as is Kirsten Dunst as Lux, the older of the sisters, who casually breaks hearts without half-trying. The DVD edition includes a production featurette and Air's music video for "Playground Love."

Paul Newman has said that Where the Money Is might be his last film, unless something comes along that particularly piques his interest. Hopefully it will, as this is not the kind of picture anybody would like to go out on. Newman plays a bank robber who fakes a disability so that he can get transferred from prison to a hospital, where he can engineer one last heist, but don't let that entice you into expecting anything remotely entertaining. The direction of Marek Kanievska (who directed Less Than Zero 13 years ago) is bungled, the pacing is lax, and the film is technically atrocious a lot of the time (shots in many sequences don't even match). Dermot Mulroney (see Trixie, above) and Linda Fiorentino play two younger characters who get involved in the robbery, and their most energetic scene occurs at the very beginning of the film. The DVD is a bare bones affair, with no enticing extras save the letterboxed format.

Beyond the A List

From the moment the dignified Criterion Collection logo dissolves in a sonic sound wave, you'll know this isn't your average high-end DVD release. Call this the sights and sounds of science: eighteen Beastie Boys videos on two DVD's, the catch here is that each song is presented not only in it's broadcast version but with supplemental alternate angles, remixes, storyboards, still photos and miscellaneous material as well (where available; none of the videos have all this material and a few have only the broadcast version). Thus, from 1981's "Holy Snappers" to 1999's "Alive" and "Three MCs and One DJ," the set presents the best of the visual work done by the band in collaboration with directors Nathanial Hornblowér (who helmed 10 of the 18 clips), David Perez, Ari Marcopoulos, Spike Jonze (who went on to direct Being John Malkovich and co-star in Three Kings), Adam Bernstein, Evan Bernard and Tamra Davis. For the record, the videos in the order of presentation are "Intergalactic," "Shake Your Rump," "Gratitude," "Something's Got to Give," "Sure Shot," "Hey Ladies," "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," "Body Movin'," "So Whatcha Want," "Sabotage," "Shadrach," "Three MCs and One DJ," "Ricky's Theme," "Pass the Mic," "Holy Snappers," "Root Down," "Netty's Girl" and "Alive." The sturdy eight-page "Operations Manual" (read: booklet) is supplemented by a two-side, folded poster of the cover artwork. At once silly and incisive -- much like the long-running band itself -- this anthology is among the best DVD showcases of a group yet released, as well as a strong argument for the deceptively ephemeral pleasures of video music clips.

Known today for his reputation as one of the most prolific cult directors of the 1970s and 1980s, Larry Cohen built a prolific apprenticeship as screenwriter into a directorial career that has included such genre staples to date as Black Caesar (1973), It's Alive! (1974), God Told Me To (aka Demon, 1976, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1978), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) and The Stuff (1985). Subtitled "A Bad Day in Beverly Hills," Bone is his little-seen directorial debut, a no-holds-barred social satire starring Yaphet Kotto (who would later gain fame in the original Alien and on TV's "Homicide: Life on the Streets) as a mysterious drifter who turns the lives of upscale Southern California couple Andrew Duggan and Joyce Van Patten upside down when he arrives unannounced at their backyard pool. Kino on Video's video release announces the imprint's acquisition and sell-through pricing ($19.95) of the VHS-only Interama catalogue, an eclectic and far-reaching collection of international titles that includes Patrice Chereau's Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train and Milton Moses Ginsberg's Coming Apart, both of which have been reviewed elsewhere on this site. In the coming months Kino promises additional Interama titles at drastically reduced prices, offering the serious collector access to previously unaffordable titles.

Lead by the swashbuckling and stubbornly uncompromising title officer (Philippe Torreton), a band of French soldiers continue fighting in the Bulgarian border region of the Balkans long after the Armistice that brought World War I to an end was implemented. Shot on location in Romania, Bertrand Tavernier's grand adventure is adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1939 novel by Roger Vercel. Although it received only a limited theatrical release in the United States, the film was reviewed favorably and has a clutch of festival awards to its credit (including César Awards -- France's version of the Oscar -- for veteran director Bertrand Tavernier and Torreton). Kino on Video's fine DVD transfer includes the 54-minute documentary on Tavernier, Un Film Sur Bertrand Tavernier, in which the difficult production history is traced.

Slowly but surely seduced by the subjects he's observing and their mysterious predicament, reclusive professional surveillance man Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) comes closer and closer to solving the violent crime while sinking deeper and deeper into paranoia and confusion. Eclipsed by writer-director Francis Ford Coppola's "other" 1974 release -- a little picture about organized crime called The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation has become a touchstone of personal filmmaking in the 1970s -- a theme amplified and probed by the professorial Coppola throughout his extraordinarily intimate and clear-eyed commentary track (there's a separate track featuring the great sound designer and editor Walter Murch). Although Paramount has scrimped shockingly on the paltry, single-sheet insert (when will the studios learn that info-laden booklets are the way to go?), the DVD makes one of the best films of the 1970s available in a fine transfer. Fans of more contemporary action thrillers are steered towards Enemy of the State, which borrows freely from Hackman's Harry Caul character (there's even a passport photo-type portrait from the film that flashes by) to extend the shadowy sense of foreboding and dread summed up by one of Harry's colleagues: "the bugger got bugged."

Lead by the ambassador from Miranda (Fernando Rey), an ever-larger gaggle of middle class wanderers attempt to dine together, only to be thwarted by everything from a wake to military maneuvers to a gangland rubout. Luis Buñuel's second-to-last feature in a peripatetic career that began in the 1920s is also one of his best, a mischievous and deceptively complicated lampooning of cultural mores, rituals and class that yields new information with each viewing. What makes this so is the natural flow of the surrealistic approach, in which garish lighting and artificial-looking sets are juxtaposed with sequences filmed on location and the constant aural bustle of machinery (some characters' dialogue is drowned out -- usually at key dramatic moments). So to the narrative ebbs and flows from "reality" to dreams, creating a dramatic tension as involving as any genre thriller. The new transfer from The Criterion Collection is spotless, and the extras on this two-disc set include a refurbished copy of the 1970 24-minute documentary on Buñuel, The Castaway on the Street of Providence, by his long-time friends Rafael Castanedo and Arturo Ripstein (who, incidentally, may be Mexico's greatest living filmmaker at the moment). Disc two is a treat in itself, featuring the new feature-length documentary on the filmmaker and his work, Speaking of Buñuel, by Jose Luis Lòpez-Linares and Javier Rioyo. "His films were anything but arbitrary," somebody says, and while Buñuel himself, who liked to provoke by claiming "Thank God I'm an Atheist," denied this, there's something inarguably divine about the "Protestant surrealism" in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie -- among the handful of great movies in a career brimming with landmark works.

In between making Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, Peter Jackson and co-director Costa Botes made this short (just under an hour) film, shown on New Zealand television in October, 1995, about pioneering New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie, who built his own camera equipment (one was run using a bicycle chain and pedal) and made his own film stock (the emulsion was brewed using egg whites); filmed a first-ever manned airplane flight, made before the Wright brothers (the plane had to swerve out of the way to avoid McKenzie's camera); made the first sound film (the Chinese characters, though, spoke in their native language); and created the first color film stock (made using rare wild berries) -- all between 1900 and 1910. To make his epic film drama Salome, McKenzie spent three years in the wilds building a replica of a Biblical city. He financed the production by filming comic shorts starring the cretinous Stan Wilson, a.k.a. "Stan the Man," whose specialty was to sneak up on unsuspecting people and pelt them in the face with pies. Later, McKenzie had to resort to finishing Salome with money from both Italian gangsters and Joseph Stalin's government -- a move that forced him to secret away the cans containing the footage for Salome, where they lay undiscovered for decades. Forgotten Silver includes commentary from Leonard Maltin, Sam Neill, and Miramax Films executive Harvey Weinstein, as well as from McKenzie's wife Hannah; follows Peter Jackson and his colleagues as they try to locate the remains of the city built by McKenzie for Salome; and shows the belated premiere presentation of McKenzie's magnum opus in 1995 by the New Zealand Film Commission (the audience gives it a standing ovation). The new DVD release also includes an invaluable "making of" featurette on Jackson and Botes' film, as well as interviews and further commentary. If Colin McKenzie hadn't existed, he would've had to have been invented.

In the Algerian desert, disillusioned socialite Domini Enfilden (Marlene Dietrich) falls head over heels for renegade monk (!!!) Boris Androvsky (Charles Boyer), only to find their union threatened by his dark secret. "Dangerous love in a desert paradise" screamed the ads of the day for producer David O. Selznick's then-steamy romance, which united two of the screen's quintessential lovers. Anchor Bay Entertainment's fullframe DVD release is luminous, although nowhere on the case or in the accompanying single-sheet insert are the names of W. Howard Greene or Harold Rosson mentioned; the two shared a special Oscar at the ninth annual Oscar ceremony for their stunning and groundbreaking Technicolor photography. As simple as the milieu in which it is set, The Garden of Allah is a DVD for the true collector.

Among the most revered and fast-paced of vintage Hollywood screwball comedies, Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday is adapted from the Broadway smash "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur about ruthless newspaper editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant at his frantic best) and his efforts to prevent star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) from giving up the frenetic and cutthroat journalism business to marry and settle down with gentlemanly doofus Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) on the eve of an execution at the hands of crooked politicians. The chief difference from the play is that Hawks had the bright idea to instruct screenwriter Charles Lederer (who worked with an uncredited Hecht) to make the male Hildy a woman -- thus adding a palpable dose of sexual tension to the glib games of one-upmanship between reporter and editor. Variety's Todd McCarthy provides an illuminating and laid-back commentary track on the DVD, and the transfer by Columbia Pictures' Columbia Classics imprint is impeccable: the fullscreen presentation was restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archives from an original 35mm nitrate negative stored at the Library of Congress, yielding a clarity of image that clearly surpasses previous tapes and prints. This edition also includes a choice of six different subtitle tracks, four exclusive featurettes on the film and those who made it, vintage advertising and trailers, talent files and production notes. Sadly, few theaters are presenting classic fare like this any more, but the next best thing for newcomers and fans alike is this edition of His Girl Friday, which is an essential part of any comedy collection.

"We had an easy game there," one German naval office says smugly, describing the easy pickings against America in the North Atlantic during the early days of World War II, and the rousing documentary "Hitler's Lost Sub" is at once a provocative companion piece to Jonathan Mostow's U-571 and a contemporary mystery as well: on Labor Day 1991, diver John Chatterton stumbled across a World War II-vintage German U-Boat lying undetected and unidentified on the ocean bottom -- only 60 miles from the coast of New Jersey. How did the ship reach its watery grave? And which German U-Boat is it? Over the next six years Chatterton and his team struggle to find the answers, and their quest is balanced with the riveting saga of how U.S. forces solved the problem of German superiority on the high seas and turned the tide of the war. "Hitler's Lost Sub" is among a number of war and nature documentaries released in early December from WGBH Boston under the NOVA imprint. Others in the series include "Lincoln's Secret Weapon" (about the 1861 battle between the submarines Monitor and Merrimac) and, in a trilogy of nature-themed documentaries, "Runaway Universe," "Japan's Secret Garden" (shot on HDTV) and "Garden of Eden."

"Kadosh" means "sacred" in Yiddish, and Amos Gitai's thoughtful, deliberate 1999 production explores the struggles of two sisters against the repression resulting from the strict, ultra-Orthodox practices of their husbands in the Mea Sharim quarter of contemporary Jerusalem. Featuring a standout performance by Yaël Abecassis as the wife driven out of her home for failing after 10 years of marriage to provide a male heir to her husband's rabbi father, Kadosh casts a clear yet non-judgmental eye on a life dictated by Talmud rituals, giving the tragedy an inevitable dignity that is quite moving. No wonder, then, that the film played at numerous high-profile international festivals and has been called by more than one critic the best Israeli film ever. Kino on Video's DVD release includes a 24-minute "making of" featurette, and the roll-out is timed to coincide with the debuts of the distributor's VHS-only editions of Ali Nassar's 1997 Palestinian-themed drama The Milky Way, the lauded post-modern fable Santa Clara (directed by Ari Folman and Ori Siran) and Ferid Boughedir's gorgeous 1995 Tunisian production Halfaouine -- all of which are recommended.

In a snowbound mid-1930s Manhattan, struggling artist Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) finds his muse in the form of the mysterious Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones), who seems to grow up before his eyes and leads the painter on a roller coaster ride of conflicting emotions. Less about the fixation of an artist than the obsession of a producer, Portrait of Jennie was David O. Selznick's troubled follow-up to the massively successful Gone With the Wind. It was during this period that he divorced his wife and fell in love with Jones, adding a palpably personal dimension to a shoot that proved to be protracted and difficult. The film's storied and troubled history is nicely summarized by historian Bruce Eder in the brochure accompanying Anchor Bay Entertainment's fine fullframe DVD transfer (which restores the tinted and color sequence to Joseph August's atmospheric black and white cinematography). Among the most cherished of romantic fantasies, Portrait of Jennie is now poised to cast its spell over a new generation of admirers.

The life story of self-destructive boxer Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) is told by Martin Scorsese in a raw yet tender biography that consistently ranks among the very best films of the 1980s. It's common knowledge that DVD's released in other regions often contain material that differs greatly from extras found on region 1 (USA) discs: the Canadian pressings of Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction are prime examples (and are also region 1 to boot), while the Asian pressing of Eyes Wide Shut is said to be superior to discs from other regions (and doesn't have the naughty bits blacked out, either). Such is the case with this stylish two-disc 20^th anniversary edition of Scorsese's masterpiece, caught recently in London. While disc one's transfer of the film itself if comparable to the version generally available in the United States, the second disc features Robert Leggatt and David Gibson's "The Bronx Bull: An Introduction to Raging Bull," featuring interviews with La Motta, editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who demonstrates Scorsese's visual strategies in the cutting room) and a handful of British critics (chief among them articulate Guardian critic Derek Malcolm). There's also a section called "Jake's Jokes," featuring material from the boxer's cabaret act. Disc two also features two hidden extras: clicking on the "G"'s in "Raging Bull" reveals a still photo gallery of La Motta today as well as a vintage Movietone newsreel on the boxer's success. The stylish slipcase itself is also noteworthy, as it includes a fact-packed 16-page brochure (titled "The Film That Became a Legend") and three souvenir lobby card-type photos of De Niro in the ring. NOTE: This pressing of Raging Bull will not play on commercially available DVD players in the United States; a player set for region 2 is required.

In an overcast, wet metropolis, a serial killer re-enacts the seven deadly sins with a random sampling of the populace as weary, about-to-retire detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and nervous, newly-transferred Mills (Brad Pitt) attempt to apprehend him. There are those who worship Se7en and call it the best serial killer thriller since The Silence of the Lambs. Conversely, there are those who find the movie compromised and convenient (particularly the "flagged book" plot device), a fetishistic nightmare with more style than substance. Both camps have their legitimate arguments, but there's no denying that in the five brief years since it was released Se7en has gained mightily in stature and influence. Joining director David Fincher's own more recent Fight Club as among the most lavishly appointed DVD box sets currently available, the 2-disc New Line Platinum Series DVD of Se7en sets the standard for well-appointed editions. The fold-out sleeve (designed to look like one of the killer's ghastly diaries) features the movie itself on disc one, supplemented by no less than four separate commentaries covering all major facets of the production and a choice of three different sound mixes (two of which were created specifically for this DVD). Of particular interest to collectors will be the cornucopia of extras on disc two, which include the development of the then-groundbreaking opening credit sequence (since imitated beyond all impact); deleted scenes and extended takes; the alternate endings and Fincher's musings on them; a section on the production design, full motion videos of the killer's notebooks; promotional materials; filmographies; a comparison of the theatrical and home video mixes; and DVD-ROM content. This is a set that the fan could -- and will -- spend days exploring; this edition of Se7en is why DVD is developing the reputation as "film school in a box."

The reassuring rhythms of a rundown Shangai bathhouse are disrupted by the arrival of Da Ming (Pu Cun Xin), the successful son of owner Master Liu (Zhu Xu, star of the fine 1996 Chinese drama The King of Masks) and brother of mentally challenged Er Ming (Jiang Wu), who helps the old man run the place. At first disdainful of their life, the prodigal grows to appreciate the good-natured bickering of the men who pit crickets against each other for entertainment and the guy who sings "O Sole Mio" in the shower. As progress and technology encroach on the business, the trio learn to adjust to each other and pull together as a family. "It's so nice and warm here, and so much laughter," someone says of the business during the leisurely course of this well-acted and dignified comedy-drama, and that sentiment does double duty to sum up the film's mood. The Columbia TriStar DVD adds only a theatrical trailer to the letterboxed edition of the film, yet Shower is highly recommended for those who despair of dignity and warmth in contemporary American cinema and are willing to read subtitles to get that feeling back.

Santosh Sivan, who photographed prominent Indian filmmaker Mani Ratnam's Bombay and The Duo, makes a striking and noteworthy directorial debut with the claustrophobic and emotionally draining drama The Terrorist, in which ravishing young freedom fighter Melli (Ayesha Dharkar) wrestles with the value of life vs. the satisfaction of commitment as she waits on a rural farm in the weeks leading up to her newest assignment -- to kill an unnamed political figure. Inspired (if that's the word) by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the film is cannily stripped of all political references save motivating rhetoric in a stunningly successful gambit to focus the film on Melli's tortured loneliness and a visual motif employing a fierce, unending rain that cannot cleanse this tortured soul. One of the few recent films from India to receive distribution in the United States (under the endorsement of actor John Malkovich), The Terrorist is cryptic, kinetic and engrossing.

Movies today are saturated with rock tunes, but that wasn't always the case. One of the earliest and most elusive films to feature non-stop vintage music is That'll Be the Day, in which minor British rock star David Essex plays a working-class Brit in the late 1950s who dreams of being a rock star but manages only to take a series of dead-end tourist industry jobs before returning home and getting married. The location photography in the Isle of Wight is grittier and more evocative than such similar-themed films as BackBeat, and the veracity extends to the casting of Billy Fury, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr as Essex's Teddy Boy pal (to see him waiting tables at a seaside resort only three years after the moptops' breakup must've been a hoot at the time) and legendary Who drummer Keith Moon as (what else) an energetic drummer. Hopefully, Anchor Bay Entertainment, who are to be commended for bringing this splendid example of British "kitchen sink" realism back into circulation via a finely-textured transfer, is working on the film's flashier sequel Stardust, in which Essex actually ascends to the glitter-drenched 1970s British pop throne.

"Made Loud to Be Played Loud: Crank It Up," advises a title card near the beginning of Jim Jarmusch's terrific documentary on 30 years of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and they're not kidding: "their music just seems to get better and better," says Neil's dad Scott shortly into the proceedings. That's the truth, as the band rips through a dozen or so tunes in concert as Jarmusch intersperses not only contemporary interview footage with the band but lovingly textured (read: grainy) archival clips from past tours as well. Although not everything Young says is what you might call cogent ("the consciousness of the camera is averse to the music," he muses at one point), the grungy eloquence of the music speaks for itself, giving the film a dignity at once surprising and affecting. Year of the Horse joins a handful of other Jarmusch films making their belated DVD debuts, including the Johnny Depp starrer Dead Man (which features a Neil Young score and was the motivating force behind Year of the Horse). The DVD features 48 minutes of unused footage ("awesome B-Roll interviews," it's called), a choice of 2.0 Stereo, 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS Digital Surround mixes and a theatrical website for DVD ROM drives. "If you believe your own myth, your history," Young says, and it's clear from the longevity of his music and the blistering sonic attack of the Crazy Horse quartet that the guitarist, songwriter and bandleader maintains a healthy dose of skepticism about his own legacy mercifully not shared by his legions of fans.

Box Set Corner:
An occasional exploration of DVD's higher end

In suburban New Jersey, angst-ridden mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) grapples with the cutthroat demands of his profession (waste management consultant?) while navigating the treacherous waters of his family life, all under the apprehensively watchful eye of new therapist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). "I was told by someone I knew," is how series creator David Chase offhandedly explains the veracity of his characters and their suburban underworld existence, and it is this very authenticity combined with the sinner/saint appeal of virtually everyone in the large cast that has made "The Sopranos" such a huge hit (the show won five Emmys). The question here is if the average consumer will be motivated to spend around $100 on something they may still have lying around on tape; hey, that's a lot of ziti for the working stiff. The answer is a resounding yes: unlike a lot of lowest-common-denominator network fare, the HBO series sings on this 4-DVD box set, with the letterboxed episodes looking every bit as crisp as a big-screen feature and the plot complexities shown to their greatest advantage with the ability to watch the episodes in a single sitting (which it's a sure bet many are doing). Although only the pilot episode has a commentary track, it's a keeper, with Chase in conversation with Peter Bogdanovich (an accomplished filmmaker in his own right who spent the early years of his career interviewing such influential directors as John Ford) tossing off illuminating one-liners on the order of "GoodFellas was the Koran for me." The package also includes a nearly feature-length Bogdanovich interview with Chase shot in the Soprano kitchen, two behind-the-scenes featurettes, an episode index for the newbie and production notes. Now that's ziti.

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