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Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 15:53

("MELISSA." 1974. NOT RATED. ACORN MEDIA. $29.99.)For much of the way, the old British mystery "Melissa" seems a good argument against the notion that everything ever filmed should be preserved on DVD. Yet, as idiotic as it is, the 1974 film, later broadcast in the third season of "Mystery!" in 1982, eventually throws so many unlikely plot twists at us that a few are bound to catch. With a good deal of "pip pip" and "what ho" dialogue, we meet Guy and Melissa (Peter Barkworth and Moira Redmond), a middle-aged married couple, on the night of a party. Guy, a jobless journalist, decides to stay home while his wife toddles off with their friends, Felix and Paula Hepburn (Ron Fraser and Joan Benham). But then Melissa is murdered, and Guy becomes the prime suspect. Among the red herrings flying home to unlikely roosts, to mangle metaphors, we get a supposed lover of Melissa's, who turns out to be a schoolboy; an oily doctor who claims to be treating Guy, even though Guy says he's never met the man; a hat box that disappears from Guy's house after Melissa dies; and the supposed father of another dead woman who turns out to be a con man. The dialogue is stagy, the set is missing a "fourth wall" and the play has no credibility at all, yet somehow we're caught up in how writer Francis Durbridge will untangle the web of incredulity. -- DAVID WIEGAND("THE SIMPSONS MOVIE." 2007. RATED PG-13. 20TH CENTURY FOX. $29.99.)Before "The Simpsons Movie" came out in theaters, there was a lot of talk, naturally, about whether the show could work on the big screen. Now that it's out on DVD, the point is moot: It's back to being a TV show, just one that clocks in at 87 minutes. The other big difference, of course, is that the movie cost a bit more to make than any one episode. Watching it is like seeing Springfield with a brand-new pair of glasses. There's a great depth of field to the images, and extra attention is lavished on the details. A grand orchestral score helps. The good news is that it's all still enjoyable when reduced to a TV screen. The movie centers on Homer falling out with the town and his family -- not exactly a first for the dimwitted paterfamilias. Homer's boneheadedness puts Springfield in quarantine, under a huge dome, but he gets to save the day in the end (again, no surprise there). It's a fun ride -- complete with an environmental message for the kiddies -- and there are the usual witty lines and sight gags (in one, Homer swings back and forth on a wrecking ball between a rock and a bar called A Hard Place). Despite all this, the movie still falls short of many of the show's most inspired episodes. The DVD includes commentaries and deleted scenes. -- JOHN MCMURTRIE("SLINGS & ARROWS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION." 2003-2006. ACORN MEDIA. $59.99. SEVEN DISCS.)"Slings & Arrows," about a Shakespearean theater company in Canada, is simply one of the finest TV series ever made. This DVD set offers all three seasons, filled with quick dialogue, clever plot lines and stage performances that make this comedic send-up an homage to theater. The first season sets the tone: Oliver Welles (Stephen Quimette), artistic director of the fictional New Burbage Theatre Festival, gets run down by a truck and turns up as a nitpicking ghost who is visible only to his replacement, Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross). Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Geoffrey has a love-hate relationship with Oliver as well as with the female star of the company, Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns). Geoffrey, along with scheming but hapless business manager Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall) and beleaguered assistant Anna Conroy (Susan Coyne), must find a way to save not only the company but also the integrity of the theater. In each season, the Shakespeare play that is being performed by the troupe mirrors the antics and dramas of the members of the company. Watch for some "ingenues" who in real life are established in the movies (Rachel McAdams in the first season, Sarah Polley in the third); the commercially crass director, Darren Nichols (Don McKellar); and my personal favorites, the refugee Bolivian musicians who show up in Season 3. There are only 18 episodes, but each one is a masterpiece. Although "Slings & Arrows" ended on the right note, the show is sorely missed. -- LEBA HERTZ("AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION." 1957. NOT RATED. FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT. $19.98.)Director Leo McCarey wanted to set the conclusion of "An Affair to Remember" in San Francisco, but Cary Grant put his foot down. Would they have subbed Coit Tower for the Empire State Building, where Deborah Kerr's Terry McKay and Grant's Nickie Ferrante were to reunite six months after their shipboard romance? "Affair" is a six-handkerchief masterpiece of '50s filmmaking. McCarey, who had teamed Laurel with Hardy, wasn't used to Cinemascope, which is why the actors are usually on the same level across the screen. It was all shot on a soundstage, with '50s-style hyper color and phony backgrounds, and if you call it all so much hokum, you're not human. The anniversary edition is packed with extras, including featurettes on McCarey, Grant and Kerr, a "Behind the Scenes" segment from AMC, with fascinating details, and much more. In many ways, the film is time-locked and completely unsophisticated, which makes the irresistibility of its symphonic sentimentality all the more praiseworthy. Grant and Kerr have real chemistry, in the old-fashioned Hollywood sense. Their performances are perfect, as is that of Cathleen Nesbitt as Nickie's sainted grandmother Janou. Of course, if playboy Nickie really went through with his plan to become an artist, he probably wouldn't have made much of a living. But, no matter: Like everything else in this timeless bubble, you believe in happy endings anyway. -- DAVID WIEGAND(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)