ShareThis"THESE AMAZING SHADOWS" (2011. NOT RATED. PBS HOME VIDEO. DVD: $24.99; BLU-RAY: $29.99)
When this project began, it was going to be a short film about the National Film Registry -- the Library of Congress' list of "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" American films -- but it grew into a full-length feature that enjoyed success at Sundance and had a limited theatrical run.
The gorgeous Blu-ray contains outtakes, alternate and deleted scenes, footage from the Sundance premiere and a documentary about the process of restoration. But wait, it gets better. I'm in it. And I'm in the outtakes. And I'm in the deleted scenes. At least, I think it's me. I'm filmed in such extreme close-up that at first I thought I was looking at the lunar surface, but then it started talking. (For the record, I wasn't paid and share in no profits.)
"These Amazing Shadows" is, obviously, a movie for film lovers. But it also can serve a function that people immersed in movies and movie history tend not to realize. Not everybody is an expert on classic cinema. But a lot of people would like to know about it and are looking for a place to start. This movie can serve that function, even better than the AFI list. It has the information but also the poetry of the subject, and the Blu-ray image is impeccable.
(Email Mick LaSalle at mlasalle(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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