Since DVDs really are the "gifts that keep on giving" -- through multiple viewings, and you don't even have to rewind -- they make excellent holiday choices. But you don't need me to tell you that such recent hit movies as "WALL-E," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "The Dark Knight" (coming Dec. 9) are available for gifting. Instead, here are some more offbeat recommendations for viewers of various persuasions, ages and tastes. (List prices are included, but substantial discounts are often available.)
MONTY PYTHON
In these perilous economic times, you've got to maintain a sense of humor, and that's where "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Collector's Edition" (21 discs, A&E Home Video, $159.95, not rated) fits in. From dead parrots to the Spanish Inquisition, every sketch from every episode of the '70s TV series starring the loony Brits Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin and their American artist pal Terry Gilliam are included, plus additional discs featuring live performances, documentaries and more.
And for fans of the troupe's movies, "Monty Python's Holy Trinity" (six discs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $39.95, not rated) combines "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life" in one package.
AWARD-WINNING MOVIES
The "Columbia Best Pictures Collection" (14 discs, Sony, $135.95) brings together 11 Oscar-winning movies from Columbia Pictures, including "It Happened One Night" (1934) starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, "On the Waterfront" (1954) starring Marlon Brando, "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) with Peter O'Toole and "Gandhi" (1982) starring Ben Kingsley.
The "Hollywood Musicals Collection" (61 discs, Fox/MGM Home Entertainment, $499.98, not rated) raids the movie-studio vaults to package 50 movie musicals, including plenty of Rodgers and Hammerstein ("Oklahoma!," "Carousel," "The King and I," et al.) and Elvis Presley ("Follow That Dream," "Kid Galahad," etc.) films, plus such Oscar winners as "West Side Story" and "All That Jazz." (The great Gene Kelly-Arthur Freed MGM musicals from the 1940s and '50s, such as "Singin' in the Rain," are not included, as their DVD rights are now owned by Warner Home Video.)
Excellent new DVD editions of memorable Hollywood movies spanning almost the entire history of motion pictures have been released this year. Our decade-by-decade choices:
1910s: "Houdini: The Movie Star" (three discs, Kino International, $39.95, not rated) showcases the world-famous escape artist in fictional films, serials and newsreels from the late 1910s and '20s.
1920s: "The General: The Ultimate Edition" (two discs, Kino International, $29.95, not rated) presents silent-screen star Buster Keaton in an immortal Civil War action-comedy from 1926.
1930s: Five fascinatingly risque films from the early 1930s -- an era known as "Pre-Code Hollywood" -- are included in "Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume Two" (two discs, Warner, $49.92, not rated). Among the selections are "A Free Soul" with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable, and "Three on a Match" with Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak.
1940s: "Casablanca" (1942), the great dramatic love story set during World War II and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is out in several special editions, including Blu-Ray, with an assortment of bonus features (commentaries, memorabilia, etc.) from Warner Home Video (two discs, $26.99/$59.98/$64.99, not rated).
1950s: Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) offers a jaundiced inside view of Hollywood, with William Holden starring as a struggling screenwriter who gets hired by a former silent-screen star (Gloria Swanson) attempting a comeback (two discs, Paramount Home Video, $24.99, not rated).
1960s: "Bonnie and Clyde." Arthur Penn directed this romantic and rebellious tale from 1967 about Depression-era bank robbers Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty, who also served as the film's producer) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), out in a variety of bonus-filled DVD editions (two discs, Warner, $20.97/ $34.99/$39.92, rated R).
1970s: "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration" (four discs, Paramount, $69.99/$124.99 Blu-ray, rated R) presents terrific-looking digitally restored versions of Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy (from 1972, 1974 and 1990) about the Corleone family, with Parts One and Two remaining among the great achievements of American film.
1980s: Based on Jean Shepherd's memorable holiday tale about a boy named Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and his pursuit of a Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-Shot Air Rifle, "A Christmas Story" (1983) is out in an Ultimate Collector's Edition (Warner, $39.99, rated PG) packaged in a holiday-cookie tin featuring cookie cutters, a 48-page cookbook and much more.
1990s: "L.A. Confidential," Curtis Hanson's powerful 1997 drama set in 1950s Los Angeles and starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger, comes in a digitally remastered special edition (Warner, $20.97, rated R).
FOREIGN FILMS
The Criterion Collection, which distributes state-of-the-art DVDs of major works in international cinema, has two fine collections representing some of the world's finest directors and films. "Essential Art House, Vol. 1" (six discs, $99.95, not rated) features Janus Films releases of Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast," Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion," Roman Polanski's "Knife in the Water, " Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" and Peter Brooks' "Lord of the Flies." Another Criterion box set, "10 Years of Rialto Pictures" (10 discs, $149.95, not rated), includes Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows," Luis Bunuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and eight other films.
Kino International, another accomplished distributor of international films on DVD, presents "Great Directors, Vol. 1" (five discs, $79.95, not rated), to be released Dec. 9. The box set includes Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala," Andrei Tarkovsky's "The Mirror," Claude Chabrol's "Les Bonnes Femmes," Michelangelo Antonioni's "Il Grido" and Volker Schlondorff's "Circle of Deceit."
NATURAL HISTORY
British documentarian David Attenborough has given us some of the most spectacular views we've ever seen of our planet and its living inhabitants, and "The BBC Natural History Collection Featuring Planet Earth" (17 discs, BBC Video, $199.98, not rated) packages his most widely scene documentary series of recent years. These include the amazing "Planet Earth" (2006, five discs), "The Life of Mammals" (2002, four discs), "Blue Planet: Seas of Life" (2001, five discs) and "The Life of Birds" (1998, three discs).
FOUNDING FATHER
The beautifully produced and brilliantly acted HBO miniseries "John Adams" (three discs, HBO Video, $59.99, rated PG) tells the story of one of America's leading revolutionaries and the second president of the United States. Winner of 13 Emmy Awards, the seven-part miniseries stars Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as his remarkable wife, Abigail.
More than 30 years earlier, another award-winning television miniseries, "The Adams Chronicles" (4 discs, Acorn Media, $59.99, not rated), used the prism of John Adams and his heirs to dramatically explore more than 150 years of American history. This box set marks the miniseries' DVD debut.
KID STUFF
As an alternative to the usual Disney kid fare, check out the "Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics" (16 discs, Scholastic, $99.95, not rated), an animated collection of 100 classic children's stories adapted from the original artwork. Celebrity narrators such as Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker, Sarah Jessica Parker and James Earl Jones provide the voices for Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," stories featuring Corduroy and Curious George, and much more. There's also a read-along option for all the stories.
THE BEST OF HBO
During the past decade, cable television's Home Box Office has presented some of the most original and compelling TV series ever made. And three of those recently concluded series are now out in box sets from HBO Video featuring every episode plus bonus features.
"The Sopranos: The Complete Series" (28 discs, $399.99, rated TV-MA) tells the story of New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his two families -- nuclear and criminal -- over six seasons and 86 episodes. "The Wire: The Complete Series" (23 discs, $249.99, rated TV-MA) is creator David Simon's unforgettable five-season examination of the decimation of urban America, set among the cops, criminals, politicians, dockworkers and students of Baltimore. "Deadwood: The Complete Series" (19 discs, $179.97, rated TV-MA) includes all three seasons of David Milch's compellingly profane take on a post-Civil War American frontier town, plus a discussion by Milch of what would have taken place had "Deadwood" continued on the air.
VINTAGE TV
From the early days of television, consider these box sets for grownups and kids:
Back in the late 1940s and '50s, when serious drama found a home on network television, the series "Studio One" presented top-notch teleplays featuring actors such as Jack Lemmon, Eva Marie Saint, Sal Mineo, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Charlton Heston, and writers like Gore Vidal, Reginald Rose and Rod Serling. The "Studio One Anthology" (six discs, Koch Vision, $99.98, not rated) collects 17 of these dramas, including the original version of "Twelve Angry Men."
Another fine collection, "Hiya, Kids!! A '50s Saturday Morning" (four discs, Shout! Factory, $34.99, not rated), highlights popular children's TV shows of the era. It includes 22 full episodes of such shows as "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," "Lassie," "Winky Dink and You," "Sky King" and "The Pinky Lee Show."
(brucedancis(at)comcast.net.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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