New on Disc: 'Stagecoach' and more …

Stagecoach

Street 5/25
Criterion, Western, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell.
1939. John Ford’s landmark Western is about as bedrock as you can get when it comes to American cinema. The print here — struck from best-existing 1942 materials, which tells you everything you have to know — is the best of the movie I’ve ever seen, though with more scratches than anyone is used to seeing in a Criterion Hollywood release. That’s the way it is: We all know the horror stories about the what-me-worry attitude the industry took toward preservation way back when.
Extras: Criterion has gone all out on the extras here, starting with a rather rigidly delivered but undeniably organized no-fat commentary by top movie Western historian Jim Kitses. You get the sense that Criterion, knowing the inevitable shortcomings of the utilized print, did everything else possible to succeed in making this one of the DVD/Blu-ray releases of the year.
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Doctor Zhivago: 45th Anniversary Edition

Warner, Drama, $24.98 two-DVD set, $35.99 Blu-ray, ‘PG-13’ for mature themes.
Stars Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Tom Courtenay.
1965. David Lean’s blockbuster adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s novel became the No. 1 date movie of its era, and Warner’s gorgeous new Blu-ray almost makes it seem like a first-time viewing.
Extras: Extensive carryovers from previous releases, though a new 40-minute featurette has several filmmakers rhapsodizing on what Zhivago meant to them.
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Rogues of Sherwood Forest

Sony Pictures, Adventure, $14.94 DVD, NR.
Stars John Derek, George Macready, Diana Lynn, Alan Hale Sr.
1950. Cashing in on the new Robin Hood is a DVD quartet of ‘B’ movies that along with Rogues includes The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Prince of Thieves (1948) and Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960). This movie about Robin Hood’s son is minor, yet looks as if it cost four times more than it must have, so splendid is the Technicolor that hits us in the face with its reds.
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Roads to Memphis (American Experience)

PBS, Documentary, $24.99 DVD, NR.
2010. Perhaps not as classy as other “Experience” presentations, this documentary at least provides context for the fateful (and fatal) convergence of Martin Luther King Jr. and his assassin, James Earl Ray, in 1968.
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Cookie

Available now via WBShop.com’s Warner Archive.
Warner, Comedy, $19.95 DVD, ‘R.’
Stars Peter Falk, Emily Lloyd, Dianne Wiest, Jerry Lewis.
1989. No more — or less — than keenly cast goombah fluff that barely got a national release at the time, this reasonably cute trifle didn’t just predate “The Sopranos” by a full decade in its portrayal of hoods at home. It also opened before Warner, almost exactly a year later, unveiled Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas to instant classic status. Cookie may be one of Warner’s DVD-R titles geared to on-demand requests, but there’s nothing wrong with its 1.85:1 presentation.
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New on Disc: 'The Messenger,' 'Walkabout' and more …

The Messenger

Street 5/18
Oscilloscope, Drama, B.O. $1.1 million, $29.99 DVD, $34.99 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for language and some sexual content/nudity.
Stars Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi, Jena Malone.
2009. To my knowledge, here’s the first time that a movie has focused its full intensity on those soldiers whose duty it is to report the deaths of other soldiers to their families and loved ones. This is among last year’s best films.
Extras: The DVD/Blu-ray extras include a commentary and an interview of key filmmaking personnel; reflections from the set; and a documentary on the U.S. Army Casualty Notification Officers.
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Walkabout

Street 5/18
Criterion, Drama, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, David Gumpilil.
1971. A prominent example of a movie beloved by many within cult parameters yet not particularly known to the masses. The story focuses on two siblings (played by Jenny Agutter and director Nicolas Roeg’s son, Luc) who are stranded in the Australian Outback after their father flips out, and meet a young aborigine (David Gumpilil) on a ritual quest to claim his manhood.
Extras: The print here is the longer European cut. Criterion’s extras are superb, highlighted by an hour-long documentary about Gumpilil — who has spent his life going back and forth between movie appearances and living the most primitive kind of life.
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Carlito’s Way (Blu-ray)

Street 5/18
Universal, Drama, $26.98 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for strong violence, drug content, sexuality and language.
Stars Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman.
1993. In terms of movies about former outlaws trying to go straight but getting foiled by bad luck and bad punks, Brian De Palma’s kinetic adaptation of the Edwin Torres novel is way up there on my list of applicable favorites. The photographic interiors make this movie an enticing Blu-ray candidate, even though a fresh remastering wouldn’t have hurt.
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Matinee

Universal, Comedy, $19.98 DVD, ‘PG’ for language, and for mild violence and sensuality.
Stars John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton.
1993. You’d really have to be a pop-culture zero not to realize that the comic sleeper of its year was made by a pair of savvy movie lovers (writer Charlie Haas and director Joe Dante) who grew up paying attention to what theatrical exhibition in the early 1960s was really like.
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Toys in the Attic

Available now via Amazon.com CreateSpace
MGM, Drama, $19.98 DVD, NR.
Stars Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, Wendy Hiller, Yvette Mimiuex.
1963. An oddball adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play about repressed incest and other hothouse excesses in New Orleans. After a career directing live TV, George Roy Hill made Attic his second feature (of only 14 total) before he really got rolling several years later with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and Slap Shot.
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New on disc: 'Leap Year,' 'No Time for Sergeants' and more …

Perry Mason: Season Five Vol. One

Paramount/CBS, Drama, $54.99 four-DVD set, NR.
Stars Raymond Burr.
1961. I love hopping through vintage TV series to see which ones were employing character actors on their way up, down (usually) or simply sustaining themselves via steady employment. Perry Mason: Season 5 Vol. 1 offers a fair tally, starting with dishy Leslie Parrish in a pair of episodes following her Broadway and screen appearances as Daisy Mae in Li’l Abner — but before she appeared memorably in The Manchurian Candidate as Laurence Harvey’s tragic wife.

In “The Case of the Impatient Partner,” she’s a receptionist the boss honcho is always chewing out whenever she tells him the bad news that Mrs. Honcho is calling. (There’s also a prototypically “Mason” hysterical courtroom breakdown by Ben Cooper, who was previously the one green member of the Dancing Kid’s gang in Nicholas Ray’s classic Johnny Guitar). In "The Case of the Left-Handed Liar," Parrish runs an exercise class (she’d easily fill the bill today as well) but has a really snotty personality.

Robert Armstrong, renowned as the crusty promoter in the original King Kong, plays a crusty seaman in “The Case of the Malicious Mariner” — and working phones in the shipping office is former cowgirl Penny Edwards, who often took over as Roy Rogers’ leading lady when Dale Evans got pregnant in real life. Skip Homier had the kind of facial features that suited his frequent casting as villains, a la the Nazi youth in Tomorrow the World and the punk who shoots Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter. In "The Case of the Pathetic Patient," he’s a good guy doctor getting sued by Frank Cady (previously the neighbor who sleeps on the fire escape in Rear Window and later Sam Drucker on “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres”). And look: here’s “Star Trek’s” DeForest Kelley — in a white tux, no less — fairly miserably married to the boss’s daughter in “The Case of the Unwelcome Bride.” There are all kinds of familiar faces in this one: The Crimson Pirate’s Torin Thatcher; frequent underworld smoothie Gerald Mohr; Shane’s string-pulling villain Emile Meyer as a cop; and on the witness stand, Alan Hale Jr. pre-“Gilligan’s Island.”

Leap Year

Universal, Romance, B.O. $25.9 million, $29.98 DVD, $36.98 Blu-ray, ‘PG’ for sensuality and language.
Stars Amy Adams, Adam Scott, Matthew Goode.
2010. When it played in theaters in January, neither critics nor the public got too excited about the admittedly modest Leap Year. But if you have a crush on lead Amy Adams — and I will plead guilty to any of Perry Mason’s judges — this predominantly Ireland-based romance does more for her as a star vehicle than, say, January’s Edge of Darkness did for Mel Gibson. Though, yes, its basic framework has been employed again and again and again (if perhaps not lately) since It Happened One Night.

No Time for Sergeants

Warner, Comedy, $14.97 DVD, NR.
Stars Andy Griffith, Myron McCormick, Nick Adams, Murray Hamilton, Don Knotts.
1958. Watching Sergeants today, you have to think that it must have in some ways influenced “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” in that its rural innocent is drafted into the Air Force, whereby he turns his superiors into basket cases. This screen version’s first hour is much funnier than I remembered.
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The Honeymooners Valentine Special

MPI, Comedy, $14.98 DVD, NR.
Stars Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, Jane Kean.
1978. This late-1970s special and a new companion volume (1976’s Second Honeymoon) are funnier than expected, though they must have seemed beyond retro at the time, when “Saturday Night Live” was still a fresh rage.
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The Barbara Stanwyck Collection

Universal, Drama, $49.98 three-DVD set, NR.
1937-56. Two movies I treasure are the hallmarks of a six-title set devoted to my favorite actress of her generation, one who could be vulnerable or charming — but if the script called for it, also capable of taking your head off. Those are Douglas Sirk’s There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) and All I Desire (1953). The other four selections have enough individual ammo to make them worth seeing — Internes Can’t Take Money (1937), The Great Man’s Lady (1942), The Lady Gambles (1949) and The Bride Wore Boots (1946), which features a 7-year-old Natalie Wood.
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Art & Copy

PBS, Documentary, $24.99 DVD, NR.
2009. There are no specific allusions to “Mad Men” in Doug Pray’s documentary about 1960s ad men and women, but you feel its presence everywhere in this story of how a once stale business and “old boys club” got creative just as the country was changing and getting out of its own cultural doldrums.
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The Gallant Hours

Available now via Amazon.com CreateSpace.
MGM, Drama, $19.98 DVD, NR.
1960. The Gallant Hours was James Cagney’s next-to-last movie before retiring, not counting the late twilight comebacks he made in Milos Forman’s Ragtime and TV’s “Terrible Joe Moran” two decades later. His performance as World War II’s famed Adm. William Fredrick “Bull” Halsey Jr. — think Paul McCartney & Wings’ Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey — effectively submerges the more familiar Cagney flamboyance and is instructive in gauging his acting range, which was underrated. Compare this film, which came out a year after Halsey’s death, with Cagney’s mile-a-second comic monologues in Billy Wilder’s One Two Three, where breathlessly staccato pacing facilitated the exhausted actor’s retirement as retiring to a more placid farming environment suddenly looked attractive.  
 

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New on disc: 'Rock n Roll High School' 30th anniversary and more …

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School: 30th Anniversary Special Edition

Street 5/4 DVD, 5/11 Blu-ray
Shout! Factory, Comedy, $19.93 DVD, $26.97 Blu-ray, ‘PG.’
Stars P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten, Dey Young, The Ramones.
1979. Other than perhaps as a figment of director Allan Arkush’s self-admitted wishes, maybe the ragged but raucous Rock ‘n’ Roll High School isn’t The Ramones’ equivalent of A Hard Day’s Night. But in some ways, maybe it is. Blu-ray is only going to help a production this humble so much, but I don’t recall it looking this good in 1979.
Extras: The new and recycled DVD extras are a ball.
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Ride With the Devil: Director’s Cut

Criterion, Drama, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Tobey Maguire, Jeffrey Wright, Skeet Ulrich, Jewel.
1999. Director Ang Lee’s adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s Civil War novel Woe to Live On led to the one time in his career where he didn’t control the editing process. Already leisurely and contemplative at an uncommonly long 138 minutes, this was not a movie its distributor wished to see run 160, which was Lee’s preferred cut and the one that’s presented here. Chronologically for the filmmaker, Devil comes between The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Even at the time, Lee was amassing one of the most eclectic filmographies around.
Extras: Two commentaries, a new interview with Jeffrey Wright, and a booklet of essays by Southern-bred film critic Godfrey Cheshire, who calls the 1863 Lawrence (Kansas) Massacre the worst act of domestic terrorism until the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the attacks of 9/11.
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Fox 75th Anniversary Studio Classics: An Affair to Remember/Leave Her to Heaven/A Letter to Three Wives/Peyton Place

Fox, Romance, $19.98 four-DVD set, NR.
1949-57. All four selections in this Fox set are movies for which I’ve had decades of affection — and for differing reasons. In order of preference, the set contains: A Letter to Three Wives (1949), directed by Oscar-winner Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Jeffrey Lynn, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Ann Sothern and Linda Darnell; Peyton Place (1957), which led to the 1960s TV show; An Affair to Remember (1957), the romantic classic with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr; and Leave Her to Heaven (1945), featuring Gene Tierney portraying a first-class sociopath.
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Mammy

Available now via WBshop.com’s Warner Archive.
Warner, Musical, $19.95 DVD, NR.
Stars Al Jolson, Lois Moran, Lowell Sherman.
1930. If one were asked to name the No. 1 entertainer from the first half of the 20th century, the answer would have to be Bing Crosby. But judging from accounts of the day, No. 2 would likely be Al Jolson. Time has not been kind to Jolson, whose film career was spotty at best, and the blackface albatross that was a substantial part of his career is never going to go away. Michael Curtiz’s Mammy celebrates a onetime blackface tradition that wasn’t even questioned during what now seem like the prehistoric days of minstrel shows. A specialized DVD venue such as this makes sense: It tends to attract more historically knowledgeable viewers, who know what they’re getting — and Warner doesn’t have to spend a lot of promotion money to call more attention to the offensive content.
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The Tiger Next Door

First Run, Documentary, $24.95 DVD, Not rated.
2009. Not a whole lot of grass grows in this remarkably even-keeled documentary before the words “Siegfried and Roy” get mentioned. This figures, because the subject at hand is people who keep dangerous wild animals in their residential backyards. Which is, of course, risky business strictly from the POV of the owners themselves — long before the gang from PETA expresses its own opinions.

Then the story gets complicated, at least in terms regarding the motivation of its central, Indiana-based protagonist Dennis Hill. He has that same scruffy (some would say mangy) white beard right out of Central Casting that brings to mind one of those used bookstore owners who always seem to have 20 housecats on the premises.

Hill has his share of adversaries, including the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, who’ve cited him for unsecure cages, sub-hygienic conditions and a general disinclination to rectify infractions that go somewhat beyond a condo association telling you to get a new storm door. With one or two key exceptions, the adversaries don’t really make it personal in their attempts to end, or at least limit, Hill’s operation. In fact, we’re shown a hearing or town meeting scene where longtime friends and reluctant foes have decent things to say about him. We also see that his mother supports and loves him – feelings that are reciprocated.

But … the guy just doesn’t seem strung together too well, and then there’s the fact that he previously served time for manufacturing meth. Someone at the hearing claims this is a bogus side issue — that Hill has paid his debt to society and that this incarceration history has nothing to do with the current issue at hand. Still, I ask you: If you’re already feeling uneasy about the guy next door raising tigers in the back yard, is this last bit of news going to ease your nerves.

Horror stories get told here about others who raise exotic animals — stories of abject filth, severe malnutrition and the fact that individual body parts — that is, if you cut the animal up — can bring a lot more money than an entire creature. Though what one does exactly with a tiger liver is for someone else to explain.

There is no evidence that Hill is anywhere near this craven — and plenty of evidence that he loves animals, going way back to childhood. But this kind of love, as someone points out, can be destructive as well, and Hill’s tirades about the government interfering with him shows him to be as oblivious to the bigger picture as the ultimately eaten subject of Werner Herzog’s unforgettable Grizzly Man, who at least mingled with the beasts on their own turf.

But again, filmmaker Camilla Calamandrei plays it cool in terms of personal soap-boxing and lets us make our own decision. Though at a time when PETA is talking on an institution like Ringling Brothers, some dude with flimsy cages, limited roaming space and icky drinking water needs isn’t likely to win many PR wars.
 

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New on Disc: 'It's Complicated' and more …

It’s Complicated

Street 4/27
Universal, Comedy, B.O. $112.7 million, $29.98 DVD, $36.98 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for some drug content and sexuality.
Stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, Rita Wilson, Alexandra Wentworth.
2009. The stars largely bail out the material, and Nancy Meyers’ film boasts a contender for last year’s single funniest movie scene.
Extras: Includes one of those no doubt sincere but nonetheless irritating featurettes where the co-stars praise their fellow actors. The non-actor personnel who accompany Meyers on the commentary include cinematographer John Toll.
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William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe

Street 4/27
New Video, Documentary, B.O. $0.05 million, $29.95 DVD, NR.
2009. This documentary about prominent 1960s and ’70s attorney William Kunstler (of Chicago 8 fame) was co-directed by his daughters.
Extras: Superb stuff, such as gritty footage from Attica, home movies, a college commencement speech in Buffalo Kunstler made just four months before his 1995 death, and a funny comedy club appearance he made less than a month before he died.
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The Fugitive Kind

Street 4/27
Criterion, Drama, $39.95 DVD, NR.
Stars Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton.
1959. Certain things in life are basically a slam-dunk to elicit a risible reaction. One of them is seeing Marlon Brando in snakeskin, slinging a guitar and going by the name of “Valentine Xavier.”
Extras: A fine recent interview with director Sidney Lumet, an essay, a filmed portrait of playwright Tennessee Williams and a kinescope of 1958’s Lumet-directed Three Plays by Tennessee Williams, which aired on NBC’s “Kraft Television Theatre.”
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Andy Kaufman: World Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion

Street 4/27
Infinity, Comedy, $19.98 DVD, NR.
Stars Andy Kaufman.
2010. When Andy Kaufman challenged the women of the world to pin him in the wrestling ring, the most original comic of his day proved beyond a doubt that there were no limits to his imagination.
Extras: On-screen Kaufman bio text, an “Andy Wrestles the Ladies!” featurette and home movies of Andy wrestling women at an L.A. comedy club.
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The Landlord

Available now via Amazon.com CreateSpace
MGM, Comedy, $19.98 DVD, ‘PG’ for.
Stars Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey.
1970. Hal Ashby’s directorial debut gave Beau Bridges perhaps his best big-screen showcase, as a rich kid who spruces up a run-down tenement to befriend its tenants.
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New on disc: 'Crazy Heart,' 'Tales From the Script' and more …

Crazy Heart

Street 4/20
Fox, Drama, B.O. $38.8 million, $29.98 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for language and brief sexuality.
Stars Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell.
2009. As broken-down singer “Bad” Blake, Oscar winner Jeff Bridges looks as if his halitosis has halitosis — though the moniker he carries in writer-director Scott Cooper’s script (adapted from Thomas Cobb’s novel) is effective in its hard-consonant directness and simplicity.
Extras: The actors talk about their attraction to the project on the Blu-ray, which also has a couple alternate cuts of tunes that the regular DVD doesn’t have. Both versions contain deleted scenes.
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Minority Report (Blu-ray)

Street 4/20
Paramount, Sci-Fi, $29.99 Blu-ray, ‘PG-13’ for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content.
Stars Tom Cruise, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow, Colin Farrell, Neal McDonough, Steve Harris.
2002. Director Steven Spielberg’s kinetic, futuristic take on the police procedural is still a dandy that shows how good an actor Tom Cruise can be.
Extras: Includes a newly edited mix of vintage and fresher material, plus an interview with Spielberg shot just as the movie was opening theatrically.
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Tales From the Script

Street 4/20
First Run, Documentary, B.O. $0.008 million, $24.95 DVD, NR.
2010. “Talking heads documentary” can be a pejorative term, but when the subject is screenwriters discussing their craft and, too often, their heartbreak, the talk is likely to be on a very high level. Tales is the most telling screen portrait on its subject that we’re likely to have.
Extras: Whatever you do, don’t skip the DVD’s bonus section. The supplemental interviews have some of the juiciest anecdotes.
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Vivre sa vie

Street 4/20
Criterion, Drama, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot.
1962. The movie is constructed as a dozen tableaux scenes chronicling a woman’s descent from a record store employee who can’t pay her rent into a prostitute. Like a lot of Jean-Luc Godard films, it eschews narrative fat for the so-called high points.
Extras: The DVD/Blu-ray transfers jump off the screen, and one of the many Criterion supplements is a vintage article describing how the natural sound recording here was very advanced for its time.
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Arizona Dream

Available now via WBshop.com’s Warner Archive
Warner, Drama, $19.95 DVD, ‘R.’
Stars Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Lili Taylor.
1993. Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis play car salesmen. For collectors of the peculiar, this may be your day.
Read the Full Review
 

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New on Disc: 'Pirate Radio' and more …

Pirate Radio

Street 4/13
Universal, Comedy, B.O. $8 million, $29.98 DVD; $36.98 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity.
Stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh.
2009. Writer-director Richard Curtis’ fictional extrapolation of British pop history never quite mines potential that could have been the foundation for a classic. And yet, if you love rock and roll, there’s no way you should fail to check out this rendering of how official BBC blue-noses tried to pretend the Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who didn’t exist. There are at least three reasons to give it a look:  Philip Seymour Hoffman as an imported American DJ; Kenneth Branagh, the film’s biggest laugh-getter, as a pasty BBC prig; and a brief appearance by “Mad Men” lovely January Jones.
Extras: Commentary and deleted scenes, and the Blu-ray adds six featurettes to the mix.
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The Natural (Blu-ray)

Sony Pictures, Drama, $24.95 Blu-ray, ‘PG.’
Stars Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey.
1984. With the passage of time, one appreciates even more the bang-up cast director Barry Levinson assembled and how much of an iconographic role that aging slugger Roy Hobbs now seems in the career of lead Robert Redford. But why in the world would Sony not release the superior 2007 director’s cut?
Extras: Several featurettes from the 2007 DVD. But missing is the wonderful 44-minute featurette from the very first DVD of The Natural (it wasn’t on the two-disc 2007 edition, either) in which Cal Ripken Jr. discussed his affection for the film.
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The Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers

A&E, Sports, $29.95 four-DVD set, NR.
1968-2006. Game 5 of the 1968 World Series is the jewel that kicks off this set, which also contains the 1984 World Series Game 5 clincher in which Kirk Gibson hit two home runs, the 1999 final game at old Tiger Stadium, and Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS.
Extras: Per always with these A&E baseball boxed sets, extras are bountiful.
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The Bombing of Germany (American Experience)

PBS, Documentary, $24.99 DVD, NR.
Narrated by Joe Morton.
2010. Historians debate the bombing or at least present it in skeptical grays. But what’s missing is a real sense of the devastation’s horror and scope. 
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The Best Man

Available via Amazon.com CreateSpace.
MGM, Drama, $19.98 DVD, NR.
Stars Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Lee Tracy, Edie Adams.
1964. The movie of Gore Vidal’s Tony-nominated play is too smart and un-dated in certain regards to be called a museum piece, but for those used to seeing elections determined by the primary process, here is perhaps a revelatory window into how the political game was once played.
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New on Disc: 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,' 'The Abbott and Costello Show: The Complete Series' and More …

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Street 4/6
First Look, Drama, B.O. $1.7 million, $28.98 DVD, $29.98 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for drug use and language throughout, some violence and sexuality.
Stars Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Xzibit, Jennifer Coolidge.
2009. Director Werner Herzog’s loose remake of 1992’s Bad Lieutenant had me from the get-go. What makes the movie increasingly funny (and intentionally so, make no mistake) is that the further we go, the more we see we’re on the way to a tidy and even happy resolution.
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The Abbott and Costello Show: The Complete Series — Collector’s Edition

Street 4/6
E1, Comedy, $59.98 nine-DVD set, NR.
Stars Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Sid Fields, Hillary Brooke, Gordon Jones.
1951-53. The 52 syndicated episodes of the famed comedy duo’s half-hour television series — which Jerry Seinfeld has cited as an inspiration for his own show — have been remastered and restored from 35mm materials to look and sound outstanding for their day.
Extras: The set comes with a 44-page book, a 1978 TV documentary on the team, interviews with daughters Chris and Paddy Costello, a restored 1948 short on Lou’s philanthropic work, rare home movies and more. 
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Jesse James’ Hidden Treasure

A&E, Documentary, $19.95 DVD, NR.
2009. Now, here’s a wild one that sometimes plays like the product of an overactive imagination, as controversial historian Ron Pastore treks through strange caves in Kansas in search of a rumored $1.5 million of buried J.J. booty. As a story of personal obsession, it separated my upper jaw from my lower for at least some of its length.
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Masters of American Music: Count Basie — Swingin’ the Blues

Euroarts, Music, $19.99 DVD, NR.
1992. Buoyed by archival footage and then fresh interviews with the likes of Joe Williams, Jay McShann and Harry “Sweets” Edison, this portrait makes the points that even though Count Basie always swung, he was always doing some variation on the blues; that he went for a relaxed atmosphere and was just about the only big band leader who didn’t change with success; and that he got more music out of the sparest piano playing than anyone else. 
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Too Much, Too Soon

Available now via WBshop.com’s Warner Archive
Warner, Drama, $19.95 DVD, NR.
Stars Dorothy Malone, Errol Flynn, Ray Danton, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
1958. Alcohol figures prominently in this biopic about Diana Barrymore (John’s daughter and half-sister of actor John Drew Barrymore — Drew’s dad) and her famous family, which is what makes this very spotty film worth a look. It’s based on Diana’s tell-all book released in 1957. She died in 1960.
Read the Full Review


 

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New on Disc: 'An Education,' 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel' and more …

An Education

Street 3/30
Sony Pictures, Drama, B.O. $12.5 million, $28.96 DVD, $38.96 Blu-ray, ‘PG-13’ for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking.
Stars Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Emma Thompson, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike.
2009. The core story is a good one, about  a 16-year-old (most deserving Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan) being swept off her feet by a thirtysomething man of mystery (Peter Sarsgaard), who is not what he seems.
Extras: The bonus featurettes are the usual back-patting boilerplate, though I liked getting the chance to see screenwriter Nick Hornby. The deleted scenes, which include what appears to be an alternate ending, are well above average.
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Mad Men: Season Three

Lionsgate, Drama, $49.98 four-DVD set, $49.99 three-disc Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery.
2009. Along with “The Colgate Comedy Hour” in the 1950s and “Later With Bob Costas” in the 1980s, “Mad Men” is my favorite TV show of all time. This season of the 1960s ad agency drama puts into motion plot points that were subtly seeded in previous years.
Extras: In addition to some period documentaries (including one on civil rights figure Medgar Evers and another on cigarette advertising), every episode offers group commentary by cast or crew members.
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Collateral (Blu-ray)

Street 3/30
Paramount, Thriller, $29.99 Blu-ray, ‘R’ for violence and language.
Stars Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo.
2004. It now seems this underrated drama of a professional hit man and a hostage L.A. cabbie trekking him to nocturnal “appointments” represents some kind of recent peak for both Tom Cruise and director Michael Mann. Collateral was shot in high-def video, then kind of a novelty, and its rough, occasionally grainy look transfers effectively to Blu-ray as one of the best movies I know to convey “night.”
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Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Street 3/30
Fox, Comedy, B.O. $218.7 million, $29.98 DVD, $34.98 two-DVD set, $39.99 Blu-ray, ‘PG’ for some mild rude humor.
Stars Jason Lee, David Cross, Zachary Levi, Wendie Malick. Voices of Justin Long, Christina Applegate, Jesse McCartney, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris.
2009. This isn’t exactly a conventional “pick,” but it does provide an opportunity to reflect on just how amazingly long the Chipmunks have been with us.
Extras: The costlier DVD/Blu-ray Squeak-Along editions predictably milk it some with added featurettes.
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Wyatt Earp (American Experience)

PBS, Documentary, $24.99 DVD, NR.
2009. At 60 minutes, it’s short for an “American Experience,” but a lot is packed in. You can’t make this kind of stuff up, even though a lot of Hollywood movies based on the Old West lawman concocted material that wasn’t this interesting.
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New on Disc: 'The African Queen,' 'The T.A.M.I. Show' and more …

The African Queen

Street 3/23
Paramount, Adventure, $25.99 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray, $50.99 DVD Boxed Set, $57.99 Blu-ray Boxed set, NR.
Stars Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley.
1951. The easy verdict is that director John Huston’s adaptation of C.S. Forester’s novel has never looked anything close to as great as it looks now (especially on Blu-ray).
Extras: The hour-long documentary is outstanding. The pricier boxed sets include a reprint of Hepburn’s popular memoir The Making of the African Queen, as well as a 1951 Lux Radio
Theatre broadcast of Forester’s yarn.
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The T.A.M.I. Show: Collector’s Edition

Street 3/23
Shout! Factory, Music, $19.93 DVD, NR.
Featuring The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, James Brown.
1964. Serving up two hours of sheer exuberance, The T.A.M.I. Show is among my favorite movies ever. It captures so many performers at their peak and certainly in their youth.
Extras: The commentary by director Steve Binder and music historian Don Waller is packed with info. Filmmaker John Landis, in an enthusiastic voiceover with the movie’s original trailer, informs us that he was at the actual concert as a teenager.
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Days of Heaven

Street 3/23
Criterion, Drama, $39.95 Blu-ray, ‘PG.’
Stars Richard Gere, Sam Shepard, Brooke Adams.
1978. Seeing director Terrence Malick’s pastoral masterpiece on Blu-ray is the same kind of event it’ll presumably be when the recent restoration of The Red Shoes makes it to home release.
Extras: The Blu-ray basically replicates Criterion’s 2007 standard DVD, though adds a DTS-HD master audio soundtrack to make it even more visceral — the word cast member Sam Shepard uses to describe the movie in the first place on one of several outstanding extras.
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Bigger Than Life

Street 3/23
Criterion, Drama, $39.95 DVD or Blu-ray, NR.
Stars James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau.
1956. The first movie I know to deal with a prescription drug nightmare in the suburbs.
Extras:  Typically savvy for Criterion, with commentary by critic Geoff Andrew, a 1977 interview with director Nicholas Ray, a new interview with the director’s widow and more retrospectives.
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Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints

Warner, Sports, $24.98 DVD, $34.99 Blu-ray, NR.
2010. These overviews are generally as interesting as the season was. Novelist Anne Rice even appears early on.
Extras: The Super Bowl halftime show featuring The Who.
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