The one movie I wish would make it to DVD from Criterion is The Leopard from 1963 starring Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale. A Visconti production begs for the Criterion treatment. I saw it at the theater in San Francisco in 1963 and have never forgotten it!

— John

The odds of Visconti's The Leopard arriving on DVD under the Criterion folio are slim, but we do think a DVD release is possible, if not in the near future. It's not a film that necessarily will make a huge financial impact on the DVD market nowadays (being foreign, subtitled, and long), and that's a bit of a shame. For us, DVD has always been a home-video format best used for preserving classic films, but such is happening less and less with a consumer-base that has broadened substantially since 1997. Let's face it — while some great DVDs are still being produced, many others have the nutritional content of a Happy Meal.

Released in 1963, Il Gattopardo ("The Leopard") has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces from director Luchino Visconti, who — along with Roberto Rosellini (Open City) and Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief) — was one of the founding directors of the Italian neorealist movement, which utilized non-professional actors, location shooting, and low budgets to create powerful dramas in the wake of World War II. A liberally minded anti-fascist, many of Visconti's films are directly concerned with issues of class and social order. Set in the 1860s, The Leopard concerns Prince Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster), who struggles with the rise of the bourgeoisie in Sicily, and how events threaten his social position as he tenuously supports his nephew Tancredi's (Alain Delon) marriage to the daughter of a local mayor who earned his fortune in land speculation, not inherited wealth.

Many fans of The Leopard note that it features one of Burt Lancaster's finest performances (reportedly his casting helped secure financing for the picture), but it offers several other delights as well, including a score by Nino Rota (The Godfather), marvelous cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno, and a tour de force final banquet scene by Visconti that occupies the film's final hour. Originally produced by both Italian and French film studios, Fox picked up the distribution rights in 1963, and apparently they continue to have some rights — but how much is not apparent. The Leopard was restored in 1985 to the 195-minute cut shown in the UK rather than the 165-minute U.S. version (but apparently not the 205-minute version shown in Italy), and while the film has popped up on TV from time to time, particularly in Europe, Fox has never delivered a home-video release in any format. There never was a Laserdisc (amazingly), and what appears to be an unofficial NTSC VHS edition (see inset) can be found on eBay, where it trades as high as $70. Fox may have the home-video rights in the U.S., but if so it's hard to know why they have never released a pan-and-scan videotape (at the very least) in the past 20 years.

But a DVD is available in Region 2, recently released by Italian distributor Medusa, which is a two-disc affair that should please folks who have code-free, PAL-compliant hardware. In addition to a 180-minute cut, Dolby Digital 1.0 audio, and both English and Italian subtitles, the anamorphic transfer is in 2.35:1, which is acceptable (shot in Super Technirama 70, The Leopard's most-accurate ratio would be 2.20:1, but many 35mm prints were produced with 2.35:1 framing). Extra features appear generous, including an interview with producer Goffredo Lombardo, a restoration documentary with cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, several stills galleries, and newsreels. However, it's not clear if these items have English subtitles.

At this time, it appears that Fox still has both the theatrical distribution and television rights to The Leopard. Whether they actually have the home-video rights is another question altogether. Which prompts a further question: If Fox doesn't have the DVD rights, who does?

And how can we get them to call our friends at Criterion?

— Eric

We've received several letters from readers regarding Warner's wonderful announcement to release 18 restored Charlie Chaplin classics on DVD (see Tuesday's update), and while the full details of the new discs — due to start arriving in 2003 — are far from pinned down, we are very optimistic about the announcement. The new titles are bound to be the most definitive versions of the films yet made, as the Chaplin family has given French production company MK2 the worldwide rights to the Chaplin Collection, and Chaplin's daughter Geraldine Chaplin noted that the new series is designed to present the films "as my father intended." MK2 is overseeing all of the digital restorations (to be done at the Bologna Cinematheque), and they also are producing all of the new DVD supplements. It appears that Warner Home Video joined the venture primarily because of their enormous distribution clout, as they can publicize the series on a wide scale and get the DVDs into most retail locations. Warner head honcho Warren Lieberfarb noted the new series "reinforces (Warner's) objectives to restore and preserve great cinematic works and aids in the education and understanding of cinema." (Is it us, or does this sound like a slight pang of guilt from a man who's about to unleash a gazillion game-packed Harry Potter DVDs on the world?)

As for replacing the out-of-print Chaplin discs from Image Entertainment, the four in their "Charlie Chaplin Boxed Set" — City Lights, The Great Dictator, Modern Times, and The Gold Rush — are pleasant enough, and folks who want to save a few bucks probably can hang on to them. Really, the only determining factors will be clear when we see just how much of a scrub-and-polish has been done by the Bologna Cinematheque, and then what new archival material will be added. Those who just want to have a few Chaplin films on DVD to see on the odd blue moon may find the Image titles more than acceptable, and could even get a few good used-price bargains in a year or so.

But seriously — for folks who are nuts about Charlie Chaplin, the upcoming Chaplin Collection likely will be the only way to go.

Top of the Pops: You picked 'em — here's the most-accessed reviews on The DVD Journal over the past week. And remember, there are no pop-up ads anywhere on The DVD Journal thanks to our readers who use our links to buy new DVDs at Ken Crane's DVDPlanet.com. We intend to keep things that way.

1. Memento: Limited Edition
2. From Hell
3. The Others: Collector's Edition
4. Vanilla Sky
5. The X-Files: The Complete Fifth Season
6. Niagara
7. General Idi Amin Dada (A Self Portrait): The Criterion Collection
8. Don't Bother to Knock
9. Ocean's Eleven (2001)
10. Waking Life

Later.

— Ed.

Tuesday, 21 May 2002

In the Works: Here's some new disc announcements, courtesy of Image Entertainment and DVDPlanet.com, and additional staff reports:

• Warner Home Video delighted the DVD world late last week with one of the most significant product announcements in recent memory — no less than 18 Charlie Chaplin films are slated for release in a new Charlie Chaplin Collection series, and all in newly restored versions, including The Great Dictator, The Gold Rush, and others. Produced in partnership with the French-based distributor MK2, each title will include a new half-hour retrospective documentary and other features. Chaplin's daughter Geraldine Chaplin was on hand for the announcement at the Cannes Film Festival, noting "By having access to these films on the latest DVD format, the public will be able to experience, at first hand, never-before-seen archive materials, as well as enjoying the films themselves in pristine condition, as my father intended." Watch for the new transfers to start arriving in the spring of 2003.

• The surprise box-office hit The Rookie starring Dennis Quaid is due to arrive from Buena Vista on Aug. 27 in both widescreen and pan-and-scan releases. Features will be identical on both and include a commentary from Quaid and director John Lee Hancock, deleted scenes with introductions by Hancock, the featurette "The Inspirational Story of Jim Morris," and more.

• Columbia TriStar is on the board with this year's sci-fi thriller Resident Evil starring Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez, which will offer a commentary from the stars and filmmakers, five featurettes, and a Slipknot music video (July 30). Meanwhile, catalog titles include 1956's The Eddy Duchin Story starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak (July 16), Richard Lester's 1976 Robin and Marian with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn (July 16), Xiaoshuai Wang's Beijing Bicycle (July 9), and the safecracker comedy Harry and Walter Go to New York starring Elliott Gould, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and Michael Caine (July 9).

• Paramount has Jonathan Frakes' recent sci-fi fantasy Clockstoppers in prep, which will offer a "making-of" featurette, two music videos, and promo spots (Aug. 13), while two John Hughes films are getting dusted off for the digital treatment, 1986's Pretty in Pink and 1987's Some Kind of Wonderful (both Aug. 20).

• Getting separate widescreen and pan-and-scan releases from Universal is the supernatural Dragonfly: Collector's Edition starring Kevin Costner, and we can expect a yack-track from director Tom Shadyac, deleted scenes, and a featurette. It's here on July 30.

• It's all comedy from Fox today — Super Troopers: Special Edition will include a commentary, featurette, and an alternate ending (Aug. 6), while Kung Pow: Enter The Fist gets a track from director Steve Oedeker, alternate audio, a featurette, and foreign-language clips (July 23). Coming out from the vault are a pair from Jim Abrahams, as Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux arrive on Aug. 6. And the three-disc M*A*S*H: The Complete Second Season now has a July 23 street date.

• Fans of classic British drama can look for the 1982 miniseries Brideshead Revisited, which will get a DVD release from Acorn, and in addition to the great cast (including Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Claire Bloom, Sir John Gielgud, and Sir Laurence Olivier), the set will include production notes, location photos, cast/crew notes, a "Companion Guide," and plenty more (June 25).

• Home Vision has added a third Ron Mann documentary to its July lineup with 1982's Poetry in Motion, a look at more than 75 poets including Ginsberg, Burroughs, Bukowski, and others. Extras include an interview with the director and extra footage not included in the film. It arrives on July 23, where it joins Mann's Twist and Comic Book Confidential.

• Finally, Fox's two-disc release of The Sound of Music is going out of print, to be replaced by a one-disc version on Aug. 13 that will only retain the Robert Wise commentary, and it appears the two-disc Rocky Horror Picture Show is also about to become scarce, although we don't have an announcement for a new release at this time.

• And just one more note — Miramax's A Hard Day's Night is now on the calendar for a Sept. 24 release. We'll let ya know when we hear more details.

On the Street: Another Tuesday brings another round of new DVDs, and sometimes too many to pick from. Columbia TriStar has released their much-anticipated Memento: Limited Edition, which offers a few new supplements that aren't always easy to find, while "Deluxe Edition" releases of Men in Black and Stuart Little have arrived to promote this summer's sequels. Universal has some sci-fi on the shelves with Silent Running and It Came from Outer Space, and were sure many folks will be snapping up the long-delayed Legend: Ultimate Edition. Fox has launched another wave of war films, this time with such titles as To The Shores of Tripoli, The Desert Rats, and A Yank in the RAF, and it appears that The Boondock Saints has finally arrived after a long postponement. Fans of Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise will want to look for Vanilla Sky, out from Paramount, and new catalog items from Buena Vista include Chungking Express and Country Life. Here's this morning's notable street discs, courtesy of DVDPlanet.com and Image Entertainment:

• 84 Charing Cross Road (full-frame)
• Agnes of God
• And Soon The Darkness: Special Edition
• Between Heaven and Hell
• Billboard Dad
• The Biscuit Eater
• Brewster's Millions (1985)
• Born Romantic
• The Boondock Saints
• La Buche
• Cheetah
• Chungking Express
• Country Life
• D-Day the 6th of June
• Date with an Angel
• The Desert Rats
• Eyewitness
• Fiend of Dope Island/ Pagan Island: Special Edition
• Fright
• How High: Special Edition
• It Came From Outer Space: Special Edition
• The Journey of Natty Gann
• The Kid (1997)
• King of the Grizzlies
• King of the Jungle: Special Edition
• Lantana: Special Edition
• Legend: Ultimate Edition (2-disc set)
• The Man Who Haunted Himself: Special Edition
• Memento: Limited Edition
• Men in Black: Deluxe Edition
• Mick Jagger: Being Mick
• Monkeys, Go Home!
• National Geographic: Vietnam's Unseen War: Pictures from the Other Side
• On the Edge
• Out Cold: Special Edition
• Rapid Fire
• Rascal
• Sex and the City: Season #3
• Sidewalks of New York
• Silent Running
• Stiletto Dance
• Stuart Little: Deluxe Edition
• Summer Holiday
• Swamp Girl/ Swamp Country: Special Edition
• Switching Goals
• To The Shores of Tripoli
• Vanilla Sky
• The Villain
• Walking and Talking
• War Letters
• War Stories
• West Point: The First 200 Years
• Which Way Is Up?
• A Yank in the RAF
• The Young Ones: Special Edition

— Ed.

Monday, 20 May 2002

Disc of the Week: In the world of cinema, all roads eventually lead to Ed Wood, the artist behind Glen or Glenda and Plan Nine From Outer Space. Dubbed the worst director of all time so often that the expression "Ed Wood bad" has become as overused as "Hitchcockian suspense," there's something special about Wood's place in Hollywood history. Not because he's awful — although there's no denying he wasn't classically talented — but because he represents the sordid underbelly to the American dream: the truths about our culture we dare not face. What was Wood if not the plucky underdog who made films in the face of adversity, who tried and tried — like the little engine that could — to break into the big leagues, to be respected and successful? And yet Wood, the anti-Horatio Alger, proved that determination will not get you as far as talent; that some things cannot be learned; that money is more important than spirit; and that (sadly enough) size does matter. Ed Wood is the man who tried his damnedest and failed — again, and again, and again.

Yet because of his numerous films, Ed Wood has achieved a posthumous canonization through the numerous mentions of the badness of his efforts (from the Medved Brothers' famous book Golden Turkey to Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood), ironically achieving his place in the pantheon of cineastes. His name-familiarity has eclipsed many of his contemporaries — filmmakers like Delmer Daves, Jack Arnold, Anthony Mann, and Douglas Sirk simply haven't been as reevaluated as publicly as Wood. It's hard to be sure whether this tribute is due to spite or love (even with hardcore fans), but somehow Wood films are easier to find on DVD than those of French master Jean Renoir. Brett Thompson's 1995 documentary The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. acknowledges this fame by giving many of his collaborators a chance to talk about the man who made them infamous. Serving as a biography, the film offers an in-depth look at the filmmaker and some of his more famous pictures, although like Burton's biopic it spends little time addressing the last years of Wood's life (which were spent churning out dime-store novels, smut screenplays, and drinking until his death of a heart attack in 1978 at the age of 54). What the documentary does offer is a compelling portrait of a transvestite filmmaker who had a severe lack of talent and more than a few demons, and still was a warm and fascinating human being.

Made up of anecdotes, found footage and interviews, The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. visits most of the major living players, as well as Wood's ex-wives and girlfriends. Though the documentary opens with a homage by badly presenting a monologue from one of Wood's oldest friends and one-time collaborator Crawford John Thomas, Thompson's essay is awash in many great details and disputes about the director's life. For those who know Bride of the Monster star Loretta King only from the freaked-out version presented in the Tim Burton film, King discounts the rumors about her not drinking water (she says she didn't drink alcohol, which may have rubbed the alcoholic Wood the wrong way). Most pleasant of all the interviewees is Maila Nurmi, a.k.a. "Vampira," who tells some fabulous stories about Orson Welles, Mae West, and (of course) Wood, and the movie they made together — she says she asked to be mute because she couldn't get his awful dialogue out of her mouth. The fun of it is seeing interviews with people like Wood regulars Paul Marco (best known for his reoccurring character Kelton the Cop), Dolores Fuller, and Conrad Brooks get their say, while others like Plan 9 star Gregory Walcott acknowledge that many associated with the films knew just how bad they were. Anyone who's interested in this DVD should supplement the film with Rudolph Grey's definitive study of Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy, and though not as insightful as Terry Zwigof's documentary Crumb was into the mind of a oddball, The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. should satiate the curious, and inform those who want to know more about Wood and the people he worked with.

Image Entertainment's new DVD of The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. is a pleasant special-edition release. The film is presented in full frame (1.33:1) with monaural DD 2.0 audio. The source print looks a bit grainy, but still in fine shape. And the documentary is accompanied by a feature-length round-robin commentary with director Brett Thompson, interviewee Bela Lugosi Jr., and author Charles Phoenix, among others. This commentary continues on to the presentation of Ed Wood's first film Crossroads of Laredo (1948), which is introduced by Dolores Fuller and producer Crawford Thomas. Also included is an interview for the A&E Channel with director Thompson and Mike Gabriel, the Sci-Fi Channel's coverage of the film's premiere, home-movie footage of the "Ed Wood Reunion" at the Palm Springs Film Festival, behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the documentary, and generous still galleries covering both Ed Wood's life and the making of this film. And for fun, some of the clips are introduced by a Vampira impersonator. The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. is on the street now.

Box Office: It was no secret that the long-awaited Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones would be at the top of the weekend's box-office chart — the only real question was if it would surpass Spider-Man's record-breaking $114 million opening. And while it appears The Force is still with George Lucas, Attack of the Clones fell short of Spidey, posting $86.1 million over the past three days and $116.2 million since its Thursday debut. But it was good enough to give Clones the third-highest three-day opening in history (just behind Spider-Man and Harry Potter). However, your friendly neighborhood webslinger is still doing boffo business, as Sam Raimi's superhero epic notched down to second place with $46 million over its third weekend and $286 million in just 17 days. The only film that had the guts to do battle with both Spidey and Yoda was About a Boy starring Hugh Grant, which landed in fourth place with $8.4 million. About a Boy received near-unanimous praise, and while many critics gushed over Attack of the Clones, it seemed more than a few gave it a pretty severe lashing.

Spider-Man and Star Wars combined for $132 million worth of tickets over the weekend, which meant that most films in continuing release were on the decline. Fox's Unfaithful starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane maintained a foothold in its second weekend, adding $10.3 million to its $29.8 million gross, while Sony's comedy The New Guy slipped to fifth place with a modest $17.3 million cume. Universal's The Scorpion King is still on the charts with $85 million, and Buena Vista's The Rookie has shown remarkable legs over the past two months, remaining in the top ten with $70.8 million. But off the list and hoping for second life on DVD is United Artists' gang drama Deuces Wild, which opened opposite Spider-Man and got clobbered, grossing just $5 million before its rapid demise.

Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, and Robin Williams star in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia, which opens this weekend, along with Michael Apted's thriller Enough with Jennifer Lopez, and DreamWorks' latest animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Here's the top-grossing films at North American theaters from last weekend:

1. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (Fox)
   $86,150,000 ($116,291,417 through 1 week)
2. Spider-Man (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $46,000,000 ($286,500,000 through 3 weeks)
3. Unfaithful (Fox)
   $10,325,000 ($29,847,000 through 2 weeks)
4. About a Boy (Universal)
   $8,400,000 ($8,400,000 through 1 week)
5. The New Guy (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $6,500,000 ($17,300,000 through 2 weeks)
6. Changing Lanes (Paramount)
   $3,100,000 ($61,557,000 through 6 weeks)
7. The Scorpion King (Universal)
   $2,700,000 ($85,000,000 through 5 weeks)
8. The Rookie (Buena Vista)
   $2,000,000 ($70,800,000 through 8 weeks)
9. Murder By Numbers (Warner Bros.)
   $1,715,000 ($29,954,000 through 5 weeks)
10. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (IFC Films)
    $1,152,877 ($5,687,376 through 5 weeks)
11. Ice Age (Fox)
    $1,050,000 ($172,361,279 through 10 weeks)
12. Panic Room (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
    $900,000 ($93,700,000 through 8 weeks)

On the Board: D.K. Holm has posted a sneak-preview of Columbia TriStar's Memento: Limited Edition, while Greg Dorr recently look at Buena Vista's The Others: Collector's Edition. New reviews from the rest of the gang this week include Vanilla Sky, Sidewalks of New York, The X-Files: The Complete Fifth Season, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, I Want to Live!, The Day After Trinity, Cowboy, Plenty, Night of the Ghouls, The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr., and Zatoichi: The Tale of Zatoichi Continues. It's all fresh under the New Reviews menu here on the front page, or use our search engine to scan our entire DVD reviews database.

Back tomorrow with the street discs.

— Ed.

Thursday, 16 May 2002
Weekend Dispatch

Coming Attractions: It's time to dig into another stack of new DVDs, and reviews on the way include Memento: Limited Edition, Vanilla Sky, The Others, and more. In the meantime, if you haven't entered our totally free DVD contest for a copy of The Last Waltz: Special Edition, be sure to visit our contest page if you get the chance, and don't forget to take our monthly DVD poll while you're there. See ya Monday.

Quotable: "I never said that. It's all bullshit. Marilyn and I were lovers in 1950. We were on for a few months. We were in our 20s. There was nothing special or unique about it."

— Tony Curtis, revealing in Vanity Fair that he and
Marilyn Monroe had a brief romance, and denying
the oft-quoted line that kissing the actress was like
"kissing Hitler."

"It looks like I had some kind of religious conversion and I'm suddenly out of the house but no, I'll be back in the house in a few hours and you won't have to put up with me again."

— Woody Allen, appearing at the Cannes Film
Festival weeks after taking the stage at the
Academy Awards (both for the first time).

"I think the rules are going to have to change for me to ever run for public office. My chequered past will always keep me out of politics. If I ever did run I would run on the platform that I did all these bad things, but I no longer do them, and during the four years of being president or whatever office it might be, I would be good and serve my country. I want to serve my country."

— Hollywood A-lister and noted Republican
Bruce Willis

"(Digital video) is an animal that everyone is still trying to figure out.... It used to be that your parents mortgaged their houses so that you could make your first film. Now all you need is one of those digital cameras, and a lot of crap gets made. I know because it gets sent to me."

— Film producer Christine Vachon, speaking in
a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival.

"I do not do horse races. I'm interested in making movies and telling stories and giving audiences the best possible presentation."

— George Lucas, downplaying the notion that
Episode II: Attack of the Clones will shatter
box-office records. The latest Star Wars
installment opens everywhere today.

— Ed.

Wednesday, 15 May 2002

Mailbag: It's time to clean out some of the reader mail here at The DVD Journal:

— Greg

You can't find a copy of Freaks on DVD anywhere Greg — at least, not yet. And until it arrives, fans of old horror classics are bound to keep demanding this title be removed from MIA status, as it's easily one of the most unusual pictures ever produced by a major studio.

Freaks, as its name implies, concerns a traveling circus and the human oddities who work as sideshow attractions, including a bearded lady, Siamese twins, midgets, and even a man with no arms or legs. The circus also employs "normal" people of course, including trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), who is having an affair with strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). But when dwarf Hans (Harry Earles) suddenly comes into a large inheritance, Cleopatra conspires to marry him, murder him, and run off with Hercules and the money. However, the sideshow folks tend to look out for each other — they have to, after all, in a world that offers them little but cruelty — and after learning of Cleopatra's plot, they craft a horrific revenge, giving Freaks a particularly grotesque finale.

The merits of Freaks have been debated since the movie's cult resurgence several decades ago, and it's a discussion that will not end soon. Certainly director Tod Browning wanted to create a film that expressed sympathy for "abnormal" people, and the film's lengthy prologue makes the point unmistakable. Browning also was a circus veteran, having been a performer before entering Hollywood's film industry in the silent era, and he was friendly with sideshow artists. However, despite the fact that Freaks wants to be something of an anti-exploitation movie, it can't help be anything but with its very real human deformities on center stage. And MGM executives certainly never tried to market the film as anything other than a moviehouse stunt with taglines such as "Can a full grown woman truly love a midget?" and "The Story of the Love Life of the Sideshow."

But if Browning and MGM were at odds over how the film should be received by the public, it made very little difference. Early test screenings went badly, and the original 90-minute cut was chopped down to a brief 64 minutes — all of this excised footage is now lost. Freaks was a box-office disaster that cost the studio quite a bit of money. It wound up being banned in Britain for 30 years. And it helped bring Browning's career to an early close — despite being the director of several Lon Chaney silent classics and the 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, he would only oversee four more pictures after Freaks, retiring in 1939 and passing away 23 years later.

As for the status of Freaks on home video, getting a copy is not that hard. MGM released a VHS version in 1990, and while an early Laserdisc release was something of a disappointment, a "remastered" laser arrived in 1993, which most fans consider to be the best item available. The rights to Freaks went from MGM to Warner in 1999, but that hasn't stopped some recent confusion. Last year a small DVD producer announced that they would release a Freaks disc, only to withdraw the announcement shortly thereafter (presumably they thought it was a public domain item). Fans in the UK had it a bit worse when a Region 2 Freaks DVD was actually sold on a few websites — the boxcover was enticing, but the DVD was nothing more than a home-theater test disc, with music by Mannheim Steamroller. Oops.

The good news is that Warner knows Freaks will generate a lot of interest on DVD. A bit of summary info has been added to Warner's press-only website (noting "it has taken on cult status for it's campy plot and the real circus entertainers who appear in the film"), and we have heard it could be placed on the production schedule at any time.

— P.N.

We're afraid the best we can do at the moment is light a match. Sean Penn's 1991 The Indian Runner was placed on MGM's release schedule last year as a no-frills entry into their "Avant Garde" DVD series, but it was removed from the schedule just a few weeks before the Nov. 20 street date. Why? We have not heard anything specific, but it certainly was a last-minute thing. After all, the DVDs that currently are found on eBay (closing anywhere between $30 – $40) are actual MGM discs that were produced before the change of plans, but never sold to the public.

Our first guess as to why The Indian Runner has been delayed is to accommodate features to be created at a later time, such as a commentary track. But our second guess may be better — Columbia TriStar released an Indian Runner DVD in Region 2 last March (see inset), and Columbia Pictures was the film's producing studio. In the meantime, MGM's VHS version of The Indian Runner has gone out of print, which means the rights may have transferred (and as a 1991 film, 2001 would mark the end of any 10-year distribution deal).

However, one thing we do know is that The Indian Runner is not being withheld in order to arrive with The Two Towers. If Tower Records is listing the title with a Dec. 29 street-date, that's just a place-holder to indicate that no firm date has been announced. And after all, Dec. 29, 2002 is a Sunday.

Top of the Pops: You picked 'em — here's the most-accessed reviews on The DVD Journal over the past week. Click the links to read our reviews of these discs:

1. From Hell
2. Waking Life
3. Ocean's Eleven (2001)
4. Atlantic City
5. The Last Waltz: Special Edition
6. Niagara
7. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Two
8. Requiem for a Heavyweight
9. Macbeth (1971)
10. General Idi Amin Dada (A Self Portrait): The Criterion Collection

Bye for now.

— Ed.

Tuesday, 14 May 2002

In the Works: Here's some new disc announcements, courtesy of Image Entertainment and DVDPlanet.com, and additional staff reports:

• Attention all Trekkies — Paramount has finally nailed down the specs for their long-awaited Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Director's Edition, and the two-disc set will include the longer cut of the film, a commentary from director Nicholas Meyer, a "text commentary" by Star Trek Encyclopedia author Michael Okuda, new interviews with Meyer, scenarist/producer Harve Bennett, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Ricardo Montalban, a batch of original 1982 interviews, two featurettes, storyboards, and more. Get "buried alive" this Aug. 6.

• Buena Vista has also nailed down some new specs with the frequently demanded Pulp Fiction: Special Edition, a two-disc set that will offer DTS and Dolby Digital audio, five deleted scenes, a new documentary ("Tarantino Fiction"), a featurette, director Quentin Tarantino on the "Charlie Rose Show," another Tarantino interview by Michael Moore, stills, and the screenplay as DVD-ROM content. And getting fitted out for the first time on DVD is Tarantino's 1997 Jackie Brown, which also will offer DTS and Dolby Digital audio, and the goods include a documentary ("How It Went Down"), six deleted scenes, a Tarantino interview, stills, the screenplay, and an introduction from Q.T. Both items arrives on Aug. 20.

• Before there was Austin Powers there was international man of danger Derek Flint, and Fox will be unleashing 1965's Our Man Flint and 1967's In Like Flint, both starring James Coburn, on July 16 with new anamorphic transfers. And joining the fun will be 1966's female superspy spoof Modesty Blaise starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp.

• On deck from Columbia TriStar is a "Director's Cut" release of Peter H. Hunt's 1972 musical 1776 starring William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, and Ken Howard, while additional titles include 1989's Old Gringo with Gregory Peck, Jane Fonda, and Jimmy Smits, and the recent sci-fi flick Teenage Caveman from director Larry Clark (all July 2).

• Warner is prepping the recent World War II drama Charlotte Gray starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, and Michael Gambon, which will include a commentary from director Gillian Armstrong, two behind-the-scenes shorts, and a trailer (July 9). Also look for the Sundance indie The Laramie Project: Special Edition about the murder of Mathew Shepard, which will have a commentary from director Moises Kaufman and executive producer Ross Katz (July 25), and the comedy Happy Campers from director Daniel Waters (July 18).

• Elvis Presley's final Hollywood movie, 1969's Change of Habit co-starring Mary Tyler Moore, will go digital from Universal on July 30, where it will be joined by the new documentary Elvis: His Best Friend Remembers featuring longtime Presley pal "Diamond Joe" Esposito.

• Finally, we have news on three MGM items: West Side Story and Fargo reportedly are in prep for new special editions, which means the current items may soon become scarce. Meanwhile, Wes Craven's Swamp Thing (released in the unrated version in July 2001, despite the PG on the package), has been deleted and is fast becoming a collectable item on eBay. And according to Peter Bracke at DVDFile.com, it's also getting pulled from Blockbuster Video shelves everywhere after a customer complaint. (Since when was Adrienne Barbeau topless a bad thing?)

On the Street: May is always a busy month for new DVDs, and there's enough good stuff out today to do real damage to your credit cards. Fox leads the way with their second wave of Marilyn Monroe "Diamond Collection" titles, including such favorites as Niagara, Monkey Business, River of No Return, and Don't Bother to Knock, while suspense fans will enjoy the new two-disc From Hell. Buena Vista has a pair of big titles on the board as well, with a two-disc release of the thriller The Others starring Nicole Kidman, along with the surprise hit Snow Dogs starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and his canine companions. Catalog titles from Paramount today include Atlantic City, The Gambler, and The Brotherhood, while new from Columbia's vault is Requiem for a Heavyweight and Cowboy. Documentary fans will enjoy Criterion's new General Idi Amin Dada (A Self Portrait), while samurai film buffs can look for the first two Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman titles from Home Vision. And Image has a pair for Ed Wood fans this week with 1960's Night of the Ghouls and the documentary The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr.. Here's this morning's notable street discs, courtesy of DVDPlanet.com and Image Entertainment:

• Atlantic City
• The Brotherhood
• Corky Romano
• Cowboy
• The Day After Trinity
• David Blaine: Fearless
• Don't Bother to Knock
• Emily Hubley: Pigeon (and More) Within
• From Hell
• The Gambler
• General Idi Amin Dada: Self Portrait: The Criterion Collection
• The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr.
• Hobbs End
• Keep Your Right Up!
• Let's Make Love
• Marilyn Monroe: The Diamond Collection Volume II
• Monkey Business
• Niagara
• Night of the Ghouls
• Oliver & Company
• The Others
• Outta Time: Special Edition
• Requiem for a Heavyweight
• River of No Return
• Snow Dogs
• Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters and Marvels
• Star Warp'd: Special Edition
• Stephen King's Rose Red: Special Edition
• The X-Files: The Complete Fifth Season
• Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman 1: The Tale of Zatoichi
• Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman 2: The Tale of Zatoichi

— Ed.

Monday, 13 May 2002

Disc of the Week: For a director as prolific and successful as Howard Hawks, it may seem unusual that he never achieved the mainstream celebrity of his fellow auteurs John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles, or even the same public stature as directors from a later generation, such as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. But Hawks was never an easy director to categorize — he did not have a deep sense of cinematic stylization, preferring to focus on his actors and scripts, and he refused to stay within one or two genres (as Hitchcock and Ford did, for example). A former World War I aviator, Hawks started his directing career before movies had sound, and he found early successes with such hard-boiled pictures as The Dawn Patrol (1930) with its story of Air Force pilots, and Scarface (1932), loosely based on Chicago mobster Al Capone. Other aviation films followed (Only Angels Have Wings [1939], Air Force [1943]), and he also directed Humphrey Bogart in two of his most famous pictures, To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946). Actually, while Hawks often is associated with the western, thanks to 1959's enduring Rio Bravo, he did not even direct his first western until 1948 with Red River (both starring John Wayne). And while all of these films indicate an American auteur of the first order, none point to a simple fact — Howard Hawks practically invented the screwball comedy, starting with 1934's Twentieth Century starring Carole Lombard and moving through such Cary Grant classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). During Hollywood's golden age, Hawks was not only one of the industry's best action directors, he also was its most sublime comedian — a combination that seems unthinkable today.

Monkey Business (1952) was Hawks' last stab at screwball comedy, and while the genre was in decline by the 1950s, it is a fitting finale to a bygone matinee staple. Cary Grant stars as Barnaby Fulton, an absent-minded chemist who is working on a "fountain of youth" formula (dubbed "B-4" by his employers) that, if successful, will secure his career for life. But each experiment has resulted in failure, until Barnaby decides the formula requires heating. And after a mix-up in the laboratory (thanks to an overactive chimpanzee), Barnaby has a swig and suddenly buys a sportscar, which he speeds through the city with sexy secretary Lois (Marilyn Monroe), going roller-skating and swimming with his young date. The effect wears off before the day is done, but Barnaby's wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) is intrigued, and thus tries the formula herself, causing her to drag her studious, note-taking husband on an impromptu second honeymoon. In the meantime, Barnaby's aging boss Oliver Oxley (Charles Coburn) is impatient to try some of the "B-4" himself, but he experiences no results while a further mix-up reduces both Barnaby and Edwina to a pair of bickering children.

One need not apologize for comedy — when it's done right, it's the most impressive of all film genres. And in the case of screwball comedies, doing it right means holding very little back. Monkey Business is a perfect lark for its two leads, as Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers initially appear as a reasonable married couple (both playing the parts a bit older than their actual ages), and then have great fun dismantling the carefully staged premise with increasingly juvenile behavior. Grant — a leading man who always enjoyed playing against his smoldering good looks with comic turns — dons Coke-bottle glasses as the dignified Barnaby, only to get completely unhinged in a top-down roadster (with Marilyn Monroe along for the ride — yowza), and all it takes is a trendy crew-cut and a pair of swimming trunks before he swan-dives (er, belly-flops) into the local pool. Rogers holds her own against the estimable Cary, and her transformation not only makes her eager to run her husband ragged on the dance floor, but also an hysterical emotional mess who suddenly finds flaws in every part of her marriage. Throw in some more potion, and Grant's urge to play cowboys and Indians with some local kids has him tromping about the neighborhood in war paint, planning to ensnare his own lawyer for a good old-fashioned scalping — which isn't just funny because of that, but because it's Cary Grant doing that. Meanwhile, the splendid Charles Coburn gets in some funny asides as Barnaby's boss Oxley, and in a supporting part Marilyn Monroe plays the airless blonde receptionist to perfection (after asking the shapely secretary to find somebody to type a document, Oxley dryly explains to a puzzled Barnaby "Anybody can type.")

Fox's new DVD release of Monkey Business features a strong transfer of a restored black-and-white source print in the original full-frame ratio (1.33:1), with audio in monaural Dolby 2.0. Features include a restoration demonstration, stills, and trailers for films in the second wave of Fox's "Diamond Collection" of Marilyn Monroe films. Monkey Business and the entire Marilyn Monroe: The Diamond Collection, Vol. II, with restored prints, are on the street tomorrow.

Box Office: The question on everybody's mind as the Mother's Day weekend approached wasn't what to get dear old Mom — it was how well Sony's Spider-Man would perform in its second frame after shattering all debut records. Our Spidey-senses indicated another solid weekend, and sure enough the mega-blockbuster grossed $72 million over the past three days, and its current ten-day total is a blistering $223.6 million, which means Spider-Man holds even more box-office records (highest second-week gross, fastest film to break $200 million). Two films dared to debut in the narrow space between Spider-Man and Episode II — Fox's Unfaithful starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, which counter-programmed a respectable $14.2 million, and Sony's comedy The New Guy, which was good for $9.5 million. Unfaithful earned mixed reviews, while The New Guy was zinged by most critics.

In continuing release, Universal's The Scorpion King is still enjoying the benefits of its early season debut with $80.3 million after one month, while Paramount's Changing Lanes also has done well, now with $57 million after five weeks. And while those Spider-Man numbers may be impressive, Fox's Ice Age has shown remarkable legs over the past several weeks, staying on the chart and racking up $170.8 million. But on the way to DVD prep after a spin on the second-run circuit is Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending, which likely will finish under $5 million for DreamWorks.

Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones arrives in cineplexes this Thursday, while Friday debuts include About a Boy with Hugh Grant and Rachel Weisz, and the thriller The Salton Sea starring Val Kilmer. Here's the top-grossing films at North American theaters from last weekend:

1. Spider-Man (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $72,000,000 ($223,600,000 through 2 weeks)
2. Unfaithful (Fox)
   $14,225,000 ($14,278,000 through 1 week)
3. The New Guy (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $9,500,000 ($9,500,000 through 1 week)
4. The Scorpion King (Universal)
   $4,362,000 ($80,371,000 through 4 weeks)
5. Changing Lanes (Paramount)
   $3,500,000 ($56,993,000 through 5 weeks)
6. Murder By Numbers (Warner Bros.)
   $2,275,000 ($27,310,000 through 4 weeks)
7. The Rookie (Buena Vista)
   $2,100,000 ($67,700,000 through 7 weeks)
8. Panic Room (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $1,500,000 ($93,100,000 through 7 weeks)
9. Ice Age (Fox)
   $1,400,000 ($170,845,000 through 9 weeks)
10. Life or Something Like It (Fox)
    $1,300,000 ($13,092,000 through 3 weeks)
11. Deuces Wild (United Artists)
    $1,150,000 ($4,754,000 through 2 weeks)
12. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (IFC Films)
    $1,101,503 ($3,951,354 through 4 weeks)

On the Board: D.K. Holm has posted a sneak preview of Fox's two-disc From Hell, while new reviews from the rest of the team this week include Atlantic City, Requiem for a Heavyweight, General Idi Amin Dada (A Self Portrait): The Criterion Collection, Tender Mercies, The Gambler, Zatoichi: The Tale of Zatoichi, Sweet Hearts Dance, The Brotherhood, and all five films in Fox's second wave of Marilyn Monroe "Diamond Collection" titles — Niagara, Monkey Business, Don't Bother to Knock, River of No Return, and Let's Make Love. Everything's been added to the New Reviews menu here on the front page — you can find even more DVD reviews with our handy search engine right above it.

We'll be back tomorrow with the rundown on this week's street discs.

— Ed.

Thursday, 9 May 2002
Weekend Dispatch

Coming Attractions: Another fresh stack of DVDs awaits us in the screening room, and new reviews on the way include From Hell, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and a few more Fox classics starring Marilyn Monroe. Have a great weekend gang — back on Monday.

Commentary Clip: "This is a very hard scene (where Jake tackles two rapists) because we're in an alleyway — the whole movie takes place in one day — and it was raining one day, it stopped raining, the sun was moving, clouds kept coming over, we had crackheads in the alleyway. And this was under-scheduled — we actually had this scheduled for one day, which is ridiculous. And we wind up shooting it over the course of two and a half days. That was one of the hardest things about this movie, that it was supposed to take place in one day, and we couldn't control the weather obviously, and I had to work around that quite a bit. It seems like a simple scene but it's actually really complicated because the clouds kept covering it up, and it would rain when I'm on one angle and then stop when I'm the other angle. It was frustrating. Of course you have all the crackheads and everyone else screaming out of windows and doing all kinds of other things. But the actors stayed focused, these guys are great.... There was no other way to make this movie, as far as I was concerned. We had to shoot this in real locations. There's so much so much tension, there's so many incredible faces, there's a certain amount of danger in these places naturally, there's a texture you can't get anywhere else. Also for the actors, and for myself, it made them understand a little more of the world that they were portraying. It gave them a clear idea.... They needed to see children who have what we call 'the snake,' with a line running up the belly from Martin Luther King Hospital, where they've been sewed up from stray bullets, which Denzel and Ethan both saw. And they sat on the porch and had dinner with people and talked with people. They had to see gangbangers with scars, with half their arm burned up or ripped up. They had to see police constantly around. They had to see gangbangers on the street and crackheads and old ladies and children, and they had to be in it. And that's what we did. It was complicated, but it actually was an amazing experience for everybody because the texture of those locations you can't get anywhere else, and you can't cast those people — you can't have the Beverly Hills gangbanger come in with a scarf on his head, so far away from the truth it's ridiculous."

— Director Antoine Fuqua,
Training Day

Quotable: "In the heart of hearts, at least for me, I was looking at Harry Potter thinking that was as big as one can get. How could you get in that neighborhood? But your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man came to the neighborhood and took it over."

— Marvel Studios executive Avi Arad, on the
record-smashing $114 million opening of
Spider-Man.

"I think the Lord will provide.... People have come up to me and given me their condolences. They said, 'Boy, talk about timing. Who wants to see a story about a good priest?' Well, who wants to see a story about a punch-drunk boxer?"

— Sylvester Stallone, who will turn to the small
screen in the upcoming TV series "Father Lefty"

"It's hilarious. I'm not gay. It's amazing how much people will speculate if they haven't actual information to draw from, they just make up whatever they feel is appropriate. That's cool. As long as the people I know and care about know the truth then everyone else's opinion doesn't really matter."

— Episode II star Hayden Christensen, insisting
that he is straight (not that there's anything
wrong with that).

"This is a silly thing to do. There is an extremity to it that defies understanding. But it's not meant to be understood, just accepted."

— Seattle resident John Guth, who has been standing
in line to see Episode II since Jan. 1.

"There was recently a tabloid story that I had stabbed Billy and had to be sent to a nut-house or something. We thought that was pretty funny. I mean, if I wanted to kill him, I'd kill him."

— Angelina Jolie, who is still very much married to
Billy Bob.

— Ed.

Wednesday, 8 May 2002

Mailbag: Wednesday is the day we get to our reader mail here at The DVD Journal, and while we aren't able to personally respond to all of your letters, we'd like to let you know that we read everything we get. Here's a couple of reader comments from this week:

— Jon

The DVD format has been somewhat kind to F.W. Murnau over the past couple of years. One of the three most influential directors of the German Expressionist school that dominated and defined the artistic development of cinema in the 1920s (the other two being Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch), Murnau's first masterpiece arrived in the form of Nosferatu (1922), and subsequent German productions such as The Last Laugh (1924) and Faust (1926) got Hollywood's attention — in particular William Fox, who brought Murnau to his fledgling Fox studios to commence a career in the American film industry.

The good news for DVD fans is that — while many of Murnau's early silent films are considered lost — his three best-known German ones have gone digital: Nosferatu in a definitive edition from Image Entertainment, and both The Last Laugh and Faust from Kino. But the director's American output has not been so fortunate. Sunrise (1927), Four Devils (1928), City Girl (1930), and his final work Tabu (1931) are all MIA on DVD. And of these, the most significant is Sunrise, which is simply one of the most important, innovative, and influential films in movie history.

Granted a substantial budget by Fox in the hopes of creating a film like no other, Sunrise was the most expensive art film ever made in its day. The story itself is simple — a husband and wife (who are unnamed) live happily in the country, but the husband is tempted by a vampish woman who is visiting from the city, and before long they plot to murder the wife and run off together. The husband plans to stage a boating accident, but while he terrifies his wife, he finds that he is unable to kill her. She flees with him in pursuit, and a further journey leads to their eventual reconciliation. Certainly the plot is threadbare, but the film's entire title, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, clearly indicates that Murnau considered it to be a poem as much as a movie. Just as Citizen Kane really isn't about a reporter writing an obituary, Sunrise is less about domestic discord and entirely about the language of cinema. Utilizing a sweeping, fluid camera, dynamic compositions, and numerous process shots, Murnau stretched the boundaries of cinema's accepted capacities at the time, and every moment of the 95-minute experience is a visual delight that remains impressive to this day.

However, Sunrise did not meet expectations at the box office. Sound was in its earliest stages in 1927, and while Fox had developed their Movietone system to match music to film prints (and won early successes with newsreels), Warner caught lightning in a bottle that same year with their Vitaphone system by including a few impromptu spoken words from Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer and creating a sensation that had moviegoers lined up for blocks. But Sunrise was duly rewarded at the first Academy Awards ceremony, where it won prizes for Best Actress (Janet Gaynor), Best Cinematography (Charles Rosher and Karl Struss), and the unusual distinction of "Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production," an award that has not been handed out since. It was one of the first 25 films inducted into the National Film Registry in 1989.

F.W. Murnau died in 1931 in a car accident at the young age of 42, and while some critics believe his work had started to decline after Sunrise, it's hard to believe that he would not have created more masterpieces had he lived into Hollywood's golden age, with advanced technologies in color and sound. And with a handful of significant films to his credit, it is crucial that they be preserved both in print form and as home-video items that can be enjoyed by subsequent generations. In the case of Sunrise, this burden falls upon Fox, who have held the rights to the film from 1927 to this very day. Unfortunately, it is believed that no original elements survive, having been destroyed in a 1937 vault fire, which rules out a restoration of the original negative. There has never been a Fox VHS release of the title, although an out-of-print licensed version from Critic's Choice Video can be found on eBay, along with a few (ahem) unofficial releases. Sunrise intermittently has turned up on the Fox Movie Channel and American Movie Classics in recent years, which has caused numerous silent-film fans to set their VCRs on SP mode for the event. Is all hope lost for a definitive DVD?

Far from it.

Noted film restorationist David Shepard actually restored a print of Sunrise a few years ago, which was then licensed by Fox to Image Entertainment for a Laserdisc release in February 1998. And by all accounts this item offers the best version of Sunrise yet seen on home video, being far superior to anything on videotape. In addition to the correct Movietone aspect ratio of 1.2:1, included is the original Movietone score by Hugo Riesenfeld (recorded in 1927), as well as a brand-new orchestral arrangement by composer Timothy Brock on a digital track. The laser also includes approximately 10 minutes of deleted scenes saved by editor Harold Schuster and a portion of the script by Carl Mayer (which has names for the characters). Unfortunately, 1998 saw the beginning of the end of the Laserdisc format, as DVD began to gain a market-share that the expensive platters could never achieve, and the Sunrise LD was only available for a brief period before it was withdrawn.

Thus a special-edition Sunrise DVD already exists — in theory — as Fox should have no problem porting the Laserdisc elements to the smaller format. Of course, Fox isn't going to make Die Hard-sized numbers from a 1927 art film. But if that's the case, we're certain Image Entertainment would be happy to re-release the title under their banner.

In the meantime, a few scenes of Sunrise can be seen on DVD right now — on A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies, where the director praises the Murnau aesthetic. That's on disc from Miramax.

— Stephen

Thanks Stephen — we've no doubt that Martin Scorsese plans to revisit most of his major films over the new few years for special-edition DVD releases, and we've been suspecting Goodfellas is high on his list. Pass the Cuervo!

Top of the Pops: You picked 'em — here's the most-accessed reviews on The DVD Journal over the past week. Click the links to read our reviews of these discs:

1. Ocean's Eleven (2001)
2. The Man Who Wasn't There
3. Waking Life
4. The Last Waltz: Special Edition
5. Ali
6. Not Another Teen Movie: Special Edition
7. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Two
8. Jerry Maguire: Special Edition
9. Behind Enemy Lines
10. Macbeth (1971)

Bye for now.

— Ed.

Tuesday, 7 May 2002

In the Works: Here's a few new disc announcements, courtesy of Image Entertainment and DVDPlanet.com, and additional staff reports:

• Fans of Wes Anderson are about to get another DVD treat, as the upcoming Buena Vista release of The Royal Tenebaums on July 9 has been shipped to Criterion for a two-disc treatment. There will be no corresponding Buena Vista single-disc release, and the Criterion title will include both DTS and Dolby Digital audio, a commentary from director Anderson, cast interviews, deleted scenes, a featurette, trailers, and various other goodies. Can a Criterion announcement for Bottle Rocket be far behind?

• In the meantime, Criterion has announced three new titles of their own. Akira Kurosawa's 1965 Red Beard ("Akahige") starring Toshiro Mifune will offer a commentary from film historian Stephen Prince and a trailer. And also in prep is a pair from French director René Clair — 1930's Under the Roofs of Paris ("Sous les toits de Paris") will also include his 1925 film "Paris qui dort" and an interview, while the 1931 A Nous la Liberté ("Freedom for Us") will offer Clair's short film "Entr'acte" and another interview as well. All three items are set to arrive on July 23.

• Getting ready for the SE treatment is DreamWorks' recent sci-fi spectacle The Time Machine starring Guy Pearce and Jeremy Irons, and on board will be a commentary from director Simon Wells and editor Wayne Wahram, a second track by producer David Valdes, production designer Oliver Scholl, and visual effects supervisor James E. Price, a behind-the-scenes short featuring effects-master Stan Winston, a new animated sequence with original storyboards, a peek at the visual effects, a look at the film's "Time Machine" prop, and a deleted scene. It's here July 23.

• Of course, some things are just inevitable — including the DVD release of Crossroads starring Britney Spears. And don't say we didn't warn you, because we knew there was no way Paramount's DVD would be as skimpy as one of the starlet's outfits — count on a commentary track from director Tamra Davis, writer Shonda Rhimes, and producer Ann Carli, deleted scenes, a featurette, two music videos, a video-editing workshop, some karaoke, stills, trailers, an introduction from Spears, and "on-the-fly" nuggets of wisdom from Britney herself that will accessible during the movie. You can watch her dance in her underwear as much as you like on July 23.

• Expect something a little more highbrow from Kino, who will release 1929's The Iron Mask starring Douglas Fairbanks in a restored edition with the original introduction, deleted scenes, stills, and a look at the 1952 re-release. Also set is a double-feature of 1920's The Mark of Zorro and 1925's Don Q, Son of Zorro, with rare home movies from Fairbanks, a newsreel, and an introduction by Orson Welles. Both are here June 18.

• Those who enjoy documentaries can look forward to the upcoming Elizabeth, a two-disc set from A&E that looks at the life and monarchy of England's most famous Tudor queen, and a historical timeline will be on board. Get it on May 28.

• And finally, it now appears Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown and a new two-disc Pulp Fiction will arrive before much longer — Buena Vista has put both items on their calendar for August. We'll keep ya posted.

On the Street: There's no lack of new DVDs to pick from this morning, although we're sure most folks will be snagging a copy of Steven Soderbergh's popular Ocean's Eleven, out now from Warner. However, we recently enjoyed looking at MGM's special-edition release of Martin Scorsese's 1976 The Last Waltz, and catalog titles on the shelves today from MGM include The Hound of the Baskervilles, Khartoum, The Vikings, and The Charge of the Light Brigade. Buena Vista's no slouch with the catalog fare this week either, delivering new editions of such family classics as Old Yeller, The Parent Trap, Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna. Fans of Richard Linklater will want to check out Fox's Waking Life disc, while fans of William Shakespeare will enjoy Roman Polanski's 1971 Macbeth. And fans of Star Trek can get out their wallets — The Next Generation: Season Two is here in a big six-disc box. Here's this morning's notable street discs, courtesy of DVDPlanet.com and Image Entertainment:

• Any Which Way You Can
• The Beach Girls and the Monster
• Blue Planet: Seas of Life #3
• Blue Planet: Seas of Life #4
• The Charge of the Light Brigade
• The Devil's Brigade
• Earth vs. The Spider
• Every Which Way But Loose
• Flight to Mars
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way
• I Want to Live!
• In the Time of Butterflies
• Invasion U.S.A.: Special Edition
• Khartoum
• The Last Waltz: Special Edition
• Macbeth
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Ocean's Eleven (widescreen) (2001)
• Ocean's Eleven (pan-and-scan) (2001)
• Old Yeller
• The Parent Trap
• Pollyanna
• The Pride and the Passion
• The Ripping Friends
• Slapstick Encyclopedia (5-disc set)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Two
• Sweet Hearts Dance
• Swiss Family Robinson
• To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday
• Under The Covers: Rock and Roll in L.A. in the '60s-'70s
• Waking Life
• The Vikings

— Ed.

Monday, 6 May 2002

And the winner is: Jeffrey Marculescu of San Francisco, Calif., wins the free Bandits: Special Edition DVD from our April contest. Congrats, Jeff!

Our totally free DVD contest for the month of May is up and running, and we have a copy of MGM's The Last Waltz: Special Edition up for grabs. Be sure to drop by our contest page to send us your entry, and don't forget to take our monthly DVD poll while you're there.

Disc of the Week: No literary characters have appeared on screen more often than Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula. So in one of life's happy little synchronicities, one of the best screen Holmes teamed up with arguably the best screen Dracula in 1959, and did so in an adaptation of the most-filmed Holmes story produced by the company that revivified Dracula for the movies. Britain's Hammer Films had already made a name for itself as a maker of lurid-yet-appealing adaptations of horror and suspense classics, so its colorful The Hound of the Baskervilles was a welcome inevitability. It's the seventh cinematic version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's best novel and the 121st Holmes film. It also was the first Holmes mystery to be shot in color. Director Terence Fisher had already teamed stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in two films that jolted Hammer to the domination of the British horror film scene: The Horror of Dracula (1958), still widely regarded as the best Dracula film ever, and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Cushing was evangelical in his quest to do right by Doyle, and his Holmes is one of the greats, up there with the inestimable Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett for screen portrayals.

Doyle's original story began serialization in The Strand magazine in 1901 and concluded in 1902, the year in which the whole novel was published for the first time. So, by accident or design, MGM's DVD release of The Hound of the Baskervilles is something of a centenary celebration. Most of the plot's floorboards and furnishings are intact — Back in the 1600s, an abandoned abbey on the property of Baskerville Hall near the Devonshire moors was the site where evil Sir Hugo Baskerville murdered a girl who refused his favors, and in turn he was killed by a gigantic spectral hound. Ever since, the Baskerville family has been cursed with the monstrous beast. Holmes (Cushing) and Watson (André Morell) are brought up to date on the legend by Dr. Mortimer (Francis DeWolff), the friend and physician of Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles was the most recent resident of the hall, until he was found dead of fright at the remains of the abbey — and a horrific howling has been heard in the surrounding moors. Newly arrived from South Africa to take his place in the ancestral estate is Sir Henry Baskerville (Lee). Holmes, of course, is not convinced by legends of ghostly canines, but he senses evil afoot and immediately after he warns Sir Henry against venturing to Baskerville Hall alone, his lordship is almost bitten by a tarantula deliberately placed to attack the new head of the manor. Holmes sends Watson to Devonshire with Sir Henry. From there Watson, Sir Henry, and later Holmes encounter an escaped convict, the scatterbrained local bishop (Miles Malleson) whose tarantula is missing, and Baskerville's neighbors: Stapleton (Ewen Solon) and his alluring daughter, Cecile (Marla Landi). Will Holmes solve the mystery and discover who or what is behind the murders? Well, of course, but not before someone else perishes at the hound's jaws, the blood-stained dagger used by Sir Hugo is back again, and Sir Henry discovers that a local girl beneath his station has plenty to offer his lordship.

This version of the classic tale works better as a "Hammer film" than as a Baskervilles adaptation. Holmes purists and pedants may gnash their teeth over add-ons that augment the Hammer house style — a menacing tarantula, an unexplained sacrificial rite, Sir Henry's sudden love interest (although we must say that the movie is distinguished by letting Christopher Lee, of all people, kiss the girl), among other divergences and alterations. Baskervilles has always been a little over-populated with red herring characters, and this one makes no effort to be an exception. The pacing could use a boost at times, and the "hound of hell" itself is something of a letdown. Nonetheless, Peter Cushing nails the energy, arrogance, and mannerisms of the literary Holmes, and he bears a remarkable likeness to the original Strand magazine illustrations. With a Meershaum pipe in his teeth, he sports the deerstalker cap and Inverness cape that are as associated with their owner as Superman's red cape and "S" logo. Twice the film all but winks at the audience when Cushing exclaims, "Elementary, my dear Watson," a line never uttered in Doyle's stories yet which has barnacled itself onto the popular image of the Great Detective. No matter. Cushing delivers a sterling performance, and a Holmes film made strictly for Holmes purists certainly wouldn't be a Hammer production. André Morell's no-guff, dependable Dr. Watson isn't given enough to do, yet he's miles more authentic than the wuffling comic sidekick Nigel Bruce's version imprinted on the popular imagination. The cinematography is quite good but nothing flashy, and that distinctive Hammer gothic look — plenty of antique tones, dark wood sets, and shadow-strewn exteriors — is well used, and the set designer obviously did fastidious research into the canonical details of 221B Baker Street. Alterations aside, the Hammer Baskervilles rates well on lists of favorite Doyle adaptations, though it's usually ranked below the 1938 Hound of the Baskervilles, which initiated the long-running Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce series, and the BBC's 1968 version that again featured Peter Cushing as the Master. (In 1984 Cushing played Holmes yet again, in the telefilm The Masks of Death, and wrote about Holmes for a number of books. Lee also had his turn playing Holmes in '62.)

MGM's new DVD release of The Hound of the Baskervilles offers a solid transfer of a good print in its original 1.66:1 widescreen image. It looks fine with strong color, definition, and contrast. Some print wear is evident, but nothing to grumble about. The monaural Dolby 2.0 audio is hearty but thin, so the musical score by Hammer's court composer, James Bernard, suffers a bit without more bottom end. A pair of brand-new supplements are almost worth the sticker price by themselves. The first is a new interview with Christopher Lee (13 min.), showing him at his most gracious and warm-hearted, especially when it becomes a loving eulogy to the late Peter Cushing. Lee reveals that he and Cushing would often punctuate their friendship by making cartoon voices to one another (with Lee specializing in Yosemite Sam and Sylvester the Cat!) Pity he doesn't indulge in a demonstration after dropping that image-defying bombshell. The other extra is a two-part reading by Lee from Doyle's novel. For about 20 minutes, Lee's gorgeous resonant baritone voice delivers portions of the first and last chapters, accompanied by the original Sidney Paget illustrations. (And another synchronicity note: Peter Cushing played an almost Hammeresque villain in the original Star Wars. Twenty-five years later, in the same month of this disc's release, Christopher Lee appears as a villain in the latest addition to George Lucas' space saga, Episode II: Attack of the Clones.) The Hound of the Baskervilles is on the street tomorrow.

Box Office: This week's box-office chart may have 12 films on it, but only one movie over the weekend mattered — Sony's Spider-Man, which shattered all box-office records with a mammoth $114 million three-day weekend, and among the records to fall were best single day ($43.7 million on Saturday), best three-day debut, best per-theater gross ever ($31,535), and fastest movie to reach $100 million. Only two films dared to counter-program Spider-Man — United Artists' gang drama Deuces Wild, which opened in seventh place with just $2.7 million, and Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending, opening in tenth with $2.2 million (which actually is par shooting for the small-budget director). Reviews were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about Spider-Man, while Hollywood Ending received mixed notices and Deuces Wild was almost unanimously blitzed by critics.

Spider-Man accounted for three-fourths of all ticket sales over the weekend, which found a lot of films in continuing release on the decline. Universal's The Scorpion King, which was dethroned from the top spot, held on to second place, adding $9.6 million to its $74.8 million total. Paramount's Changing Lanes is still in the top five as well after one month, with $5.6 million over the weekend and a $52.3 million cume. However, the Angelina Jolie romance Life or Something Like It will not wind up with Tomb Raider-sized numbers, holding an $11.2 million gross after two weeks. And off the charts is The Sweetest Thing starring Cameron Diaz, which will finish north of $20 million for Sony.

With Spider-Man on a juggernaut and Episode II arriving in just two weeks, the intrepid films arriving in theaters this Friday include Adrian Lyne's thriller Unfaithful starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, as well as the teen comedy The New Guy. Here's the top-grossing films at North American theaters from last weekend:

1. Spider-Man (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
   $114,000,000 ($114,000,000 through 1 week)
2. The Scorpion King (Universal)
   $9,601,000 ($74,813,000 through 3 weeks)
3. Changing Lanes (Paramount)
   $5,600,000 ($52,344,000 through 4 weeks)
4. Murder By Numbers (Warner Bros.)
   $3,780,000 ($24,049,000 through 3 weeks)
5. The Rookie (Buena Vista)
   $3,300,000 ($65,100,000 through 6 weeks)
6. Life or Something Like It (Fox)
   $3,280,000 ($11,020,000 through 2 weeks)
7. Deuces Wild (United Artists)
   $2,700,000 ($2,700,000 through 1 week)
8. Ice Age (Fox)
   $2,505,000 ($169,166,000 through 8 weeks)
9. Jason X (New Line)
   $2,400,000 ($10,347,000 through 2 weeks)
10. Hollywood Ending (DreamWorks SKG)
    $2,200,000 ($2,200,000 through 1 week)
10. Panic Room (Sony/Columbia TriStar)
    $2,200,000 ($91,100,000 through 6 weeks)
12. High Crimes (Fox)
    $1,715,000 ($37,687,000 through 5 weeks)

On the Board: Dawn Taylor has posted a sneak preview of MGM's The Last Waltz: Special Edition, while Greg Dorr recently looked at Fox's Waking Life, and Betsy Bozdech gave Warner's Ocean's Eleven a spin. New reviews from the rest of the team this week include Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Two, Earth vs. The Spider (2001), The Vikings, Khartoum, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Roman Polanski's 1971 rendition of Macbeth. It's all under our New Reviews menu here on the front page — or use our search engine to rewind into some DVD reviews from weeks past.

Back tomorrow with those street discs.

— Ed.

Thursday, 2 May 2002
Weekend Dispatch

On the Block: Our latest round of DVD auction rankings at eBay is in, and we may have a new record for the ultra-rare Salo: The Criterion Collection, as a sealed copy cleared $700.00 in a quick "Buy it Now" auction (and for what it's worth, we think that's downright nuts). Other Criterion titles continue to stay atop the chart as well, with The Killer drawing a $329.00 asking-price, and both This Is Spinal Tap and The 400 Blows clearing $200 with ease. New to the list this time around is HBO's out-of-print 1939 version of Wuthering Heights starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, which drew $122.50 after a heated 24-bid auction, while David Lynch: Short Films (available via Lynch's members-only website) took $100.99, and Anchor Bay's Dawn of the Dead: The Director's Cut was good for an even $100.00. Those nifty TV sets from overseas are common high-traders as well, with Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Three earning $114.00 for the six-disc box. And Beatlemania is far from over in DVD-land — we're still waiting for Miramax's digital release of A Hard Day's Night, while serious fans jacked up a recent auction of the out-of-print MPI disc to $149.00 after 14 bids.

Here's the highest recent closing prices of rare and out-of-print DVDs from online auctions at eBay:

1. Salo: The Criterion Collection
   $700.00 (1 bid)
2. The Killer: The Criterion Collection
   $329.00 (1 bid)
3. This Is Spinal Tap: The Criterion Collection
   $255.00 (11 bids)
4. The 400 Blows: The Criterion Collection
   $226.00 (1 bid)
5. Army of Darkness: Limited Edition
   $200.00 (2 bids)
6. A Hard Day's Night (MPI edition)
   $149.00 (14 bids)
7. Wuthering Heights (1939)
   $122.50 (24 bids)
8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Three (Region 2)
   $114.00 (1 bid)
9. Little Shop of Horrors (first edition)
   $102.50 (7 bids)
10. David Lynch: Short Films
    $100.99 (15 bids)
11. Dawn of the Dead: The Director's Cut
    $100.00 (1 bid)
11. Hard Boiled: The Criterion Collection
    $100.00 (2 bids)
13. Angel: Season One (Region 2)
    $94.99 (1 bid)
14. Live at Knebworth
    $91.00 (6 bids)
14. John Carpenter's They Live
    $91.00 (27 bids)

Quotable: "Michael said he wanted to direct, that he liked my style and that we would complement each other as co-directors. He was the one who brought this book to me. It deals with orphans, and Michael always felt that he grew up as an orphan because, in a way, he missed out on his childhood. The boy in the book had a tough time, and Michael related a lot to that. Michael and I have similar sensibilities. We're both big kids, and we feel that when it comes to their emotions, we'd be able to draw that out for the big screen."

— Director Bryan Michael Stoller, telling The Hollywood
Reporter that he will co-direct the film They Cage
the Animals at Night with Michael Jackson for
Mel Gibson's Icon Productions.

"I was misquoted and misunderstood. I don't want anyone to think I am predicting the demise of The Simpsons. They will live on with new adventures for years to come. As long as there are things to make fun of we will be around.... I am always asked how much longer can this go on. I just said that given the fact the we just finished our 300th episode, I would guess we are closer to the end of our life than the beginning. At the end of our 100th episode (one of our writers) said we were halfway home. Now we think the show will last, our ratings are better than ever."

— Matt Groening, denying published reports that
the end of Fox-TV's The Simpsons is near.

"It's a conflicted place. God and the devil, good and evil, existing side by side. You take somebody like Elvis, a good old Southern boy who loves his mother and is deeply religious, but he likes to watch 12-year-olds wrestling in their panties. That's how bad that stuff can mess a person up. Luckily I was brought up Methodist, so it wasn't too hardcore, but it was there, underlying everything."

— Billy Bob Thornton, on growing up in the South.

"Crawl-Man? Nah, that didn't have it. Insect-Man? I ran down the list. Mosquito-Man, Beetle-Man, Fly-Man. Then I hit on Spider-Man.... I was told in chapter and verse by my publisher that it was the worst idea he'd ever heard. 'People hate spiders,' he said. 'Teen-agers can only be sidekicks.' Then when I told him that I wanted Peter Parker to have lots of problems and worries and be unsure of himself, he said, 'It's obvious you have no conception of what a hero really is.'"

— Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, whose legendary
comic-book hero hits the big screen this weekend.

'Re-Animator' DVD event: For our readers in the L.A. area, director Stuart Gordon and actor Jeffrey Combs will be signing the DVD release of Re-Animator: The Millennium Edition this Saturday, May 4th, between 1 and 3 p.m. at Dave's Video, 12144 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, Calif. (tel: 818-760-3472). You'll have to buy a copy from Dave's, but a percentage of every sale will be donated to charity.

Coming Attractions: We have lots of new DVD reviews on the way, including Ocean's Eleven, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Two, and more. This also will be the last weekend to enter this month's totally free DVD contest for a copy of Bandits: Special Edition, so be sure to visit our contest page if you haven't yet, and don't forget to take our monthly DVD poll while you're there. We'll be back Monday to announce the winner, and we'll have a new contest up and running as well.

Have a great weekend.

— Ed.

Wednesday, 1 May 2002

Mailbag: It's time to clean out some of the reader mail here at The DVD Journal:

— Eric

Awfully good question. While Beatty's 1981 Reds has had its share of detractors over the years, it is a late example of the Hollywood historical epic, a genre that has lost its prominence since the summer "event movie" overtook the industry in the 1980s and effectively dispensed with lengthy narratives of historical events. Reds — like David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago — illustrates a moment of time by following one man, American journalist John Reed, as he witnesses Russia's 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The project was Beatty's most ambitious as a director, and likely remains his most personal — the actor-turned-filmmaker has never been shy about his left-leaning politics, and the character of John Reed is representative of Beatty's favorite archetype — the ambitious iconoclast who rattles the status quo (cf. Jay Bulworth, Bugsy Siegel, Clyde Barrow).

But a DVD release of Reds — however welcome it may be — remains very much an open question. As you note, Paramount owns the rights, and they have been the sole owner for the past 20 years. The film is not subject to any catalog trades or legal disputes. Paramount's two-tape VHS release is a common-stock item, while their out-of-print Laserdisc version (full-frame 1.33:1) is not a big trader on eBay, often closing for less than $20.

So why the holdup? For starters, Reds has a 3 hr. 15 min. running-time, which means it possibly could require a two-disc set if the audio is remastered and there is a commentary track (Paramount split The Godfather, Part II across two discs with such specs, and it's only five minutes longer than Reds). And as most digital die-hards know, Paramount isn't exactly ga-ga about two-disc sets, and they tend to choose them carefully. This may be an issue.

However, it has been reported that part of the delay may be due to Beatty as well, as he would likely approve any new DVD transfer of Reds, but at this point he has not done it (and the director does not have a reputation for expeditious productions of anything). We also suspect that Paramount would like Beatty to record a commentary — he won a Best Director Oscar for his efforts, and it would only be fitting to get him on the record. However, we've wracked our brains and we cannot think of a single Warren Beatty commentary anywhere on DVD. Have we missed something? Such recent titles as Bugsy, Bulworth, and Love Affair have materialized without Beatty's presence, and he is not slated to appear on Warner's upcoming McCabe & Mrs. Miller release, which will sport a track from director Robert Altman and producer David Foster. Perhaps we should not be surprised to know that there is no Beatty commentary on the dreadful Town & Country, although we do find it interesting that director Peter Chelsom reportedly did record a track that was never used. Hm.

Despite our hopes to the contrary, a Reds DVD release could be a bare-bones item, whenever it arrives.

— Brendan

It's a bit surprising to us too, Brendan — Neil Jordan is no stranger to DVD, and all of his major films currently have gone digital, including The End of the Affair, In Dreams, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire, High Spirits, and even Mona Lisa under the Criterion folio. (The Crying Game is available too, but the early transfer begs for a remaster.) When it comes to the Jordan oeuvre, only some of his earlier, obscure films are not on DVD, in particular The Company of Wolves (a former Vestron VHS release and likely now in the hands of MGM), The Miracle, and his 1982 Angel (titled Danny Boy in North America).

And, of course, 1997's The Butcher Boy, Jordan's tale of a disturbed youth at a boarding school who doesn't always have a firm grip on reality. The film was a Geffen/Warner co-production, and Warner currently has the home-video rights. The VHS is readily available anywhere, but that DVD never materialized. Why? In part, The Butcher Boy was a bit of an art-house film that never gained wide release in the U.S., debuting on just nine screens and grossing less than $2 million. Very few people are aware of the movie, and less have seen it. Moreover, 1997 and 1998 represented the inception of the DVD format. A small art-house film normally will get a standard DVD release nowadays, but back in '97 Warner was concentrating on early catalog titles to jump-start the format, with '98 being an important year to concentrate on market growth with such special editions as Contact and L.A. Confidential. A $2 million grosser just wasn't going to get on the schedule.

But all hope is not lost — The Butcher Boy will arrive on DVD eventually, and it's possible that Jordan will want to add a few items to make it a pleasant release. And while were on the topic, we ourselves would like to ask what's the holdup with 1989's Were No Angels? Paramount has it, and while it is not Jordan's best film, it was written by David Mamet and stars Robert De Niro and Sean Penn. That one can't be far off either.

1984 is not an easy movie to sit through, but it does perfectly capture the spirit of Orwell's novel. All of the performances are excellent, especially Richard Burton's, who sadly died just days after the movie was completed. The remastered Image disc is an absolutely beautiful transfer and is one of the best-looking lasers I have ever seen (despite the low-rent cover art). The sound is mono but it does include the Eurythmics soundtrack, which I feel is essential to conveying the bleak world of 1984. Director Radford reportedly hated the soundtrack and substituted Dominic Muldowney's soundtrack in an undistinguished alternate version that I feel is best avoided.

— Dave

Thanks Dave — hopefully our recent discussion of 1984 will light a match under somebody at MGM. As for us, we'll be happy with both the original and alternate soundtracks when the disc eventually appears.

Top of the Pops: You picked 'em — here's the most-accessed reviews on The DVD Journal over the past week. Click the links to read our reviews of these discs— and remember, there are no pop-up ads anywhere on The DVD Journal thanks to our readers who use our links to buy new DVDs at Ken Crane's DVDPlanet.com. We intend to keep things that way.

1. The Man Who Wasn't There
2. Jerry Maguire: Special Edition
3. Behind Enemy Lines
4. Ali
5. Husbands and Wives
6. Not Another Teen Movie: Special Edition
7. Metropolis (2002)
8. The Cranes Are Flying: The Criterion Collection
9. Mulholland Dr.
10. Serendipity

See ya.

— Ed.

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