From the latest hit films to a favorite TV series to classic movies appearing for the first time in Blu-ray, DVDs remain excellent gift choices this holiday season. Rather than listing obvious choices such as the Pixar-animated "Up" or the second season of "Mad Men," we're concentrating here on more offbeat stuff boxed sets, anniversary editions and special releases from the past year. (List prices are included, but substantial discounts may be found at many stores and online outlets.)
ANNIVERSARY MOVIES
Two from 1939: Two of Hollywood's all-time favorite films celebrated their 70th anniversaries this year with lavish Ultimate Collector's Editions from Warner Home Video. "The Wizard of Oz"($69.92 DVD/$84.99 Blu-ray, rated G), in which the teenage Judy Garland discovers that she's "not in Kansas anymore," looks great in remastered Technicolor and is accompanied by 16 hours of extra features detailing the film's inception, production, marketing and legacy. "Gone With the Wind"($69.92 DVD/$84.99 Blu-ray, rated G), the historically dubious but masterfully produced epic about the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction, comes with more than eight hours of bonus material. Both films are packaged in handsome boxes, featuring hardcover books, reproductions of the original marketing guides or publicity programs and additional memorabilia.
Disney's "Pinocchio," though it premiered in February 1940, also received the 70th-anniversary treatment with its high-definition debut from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (two discs, $29.99 DVD/$35.99 Blu-ray, rated G), including never-before-widely-seen deleted scenes and an alternate ending. In addition, 1939's "Gulliver's Travels," another pioneering animated work from the rival studio of Max Fleischer, is also available (E1 Entertainment, $14.98/$19.98 Blu-ray, not rated).
Whether diving for cover beneath an attacking crop duster or escaping from bad guys on Mount Rushmore, Cary Grant never looked better than in the 50th-Anniversary edition of Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest," the masterful director's first film to be released in the Blu-ray format (Warner, $24.98 DVD/$34.99 Blu-ray). Both versions come with several documentaries about Hitchcock and his film; the Blu-ray edition also includes a 44-page book of photos and biographies.
The 45th anniversary of "Mary Poppins," the Disney live-action/animated musical starring Julie Andrews, resulted in a special edition (Disney, $29.99, rated G) featuring information about the Broadway version of the musical, a musical reunion with Andrews, co-star Dick Van Dyke and composer Richard Sherman, who with his brother Robert wrote the Oscar-winning score and song ("Chim Chim Cher-ee"), and more.
Also from 1964, Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb," a brilliant political satire about the scary subject of U.S. nuclear-warfare strategy, made its Blu-ray debut in a 45th-Anniversary Special Edition (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $38.96, rated PG). The black comedy, featuring Peter Sellers in three memorable roles, is packaged with a fine documentary on the making of the film, an interview with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and more.
One of the great modern political thrillers, Costa-Gavras' Oscar-winning "Z," from 1969, is available in a terrific new 40th-anniversary edition from the Criterion Collection ($39.95, not rated, spoken in French with English subtitles). The story, loosely based on the real-life assassination of a left-wing Greek politician in 1963, remains one of the most eloquent indictments ever made about the Greek military junta that ruled from 1967 through 1974.
Baby boomers will recall what a long, strange trip it's been when they watch "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music -- The Director's Cut 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition"(3 discs, Warner, $59.98 DVD/$69.99 Blu-ray, rated R). This edition adds two additional hours of performances (by The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others) to the four-hour Director's Cut, plus memorabilia and new interviews with director Michael Wadleigh and others.
Teens of a different vintage are the target audience, but certainly not the only audience, for the 20th-anniversary edition of "Say Anything"(20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, $19.98 DVD/$34.99 Blu-ray, rated PG-13), the sweet and funny romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Ione Skye. Writer/director Cameron Crowe contributed a new interview to this version, along with a retrospective documentary and a trivia quiz.
NOT ANNIVERSARY EDITIONS (BUT WHO CARES?)
Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies' excellent "Forbidden Hollywood Collection," a series of films from "Pre-Code Hollywood"(1929-1934), a period when censorious rules about the depiction of sexuality, morality and politics were not closely enforced, continued with "Volume Three: William Wellman at Warner Bros."($49.92, not rated). Among the six films from the early 1930s included here are two topical melodramas from the bleakest days of the Great Depression: "Heroes for Sale," about the plight of a World War I veteran, and "Wild Boys of the Road," about homeless teenagers.
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Disney's breakthrough animated feature film from 1937, made its Blu-ray debut (Disney, $29.99 DVD/$39.99 Blu-ray and DVD combo pack, rated G) with a bevy of bonus material.
One of the great holiday films, Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life"(from 1946), starring James Stewart, is available in both a new DVD gift set and a new Blu-ray edition (Paramount Home Entertainment, $29.99 DVD/$39.99 Blu-ray, not rated), each including both the original, fully restored black-and-white version and a colorized version of the movie.
"The Last Metro," French director Francois Truffaut's powerful 1980 dramatization of life in Paris during the German occupation during World War II, stars Catherine Deneuve as the actress-wife of a Jewish theater director. The Criterion Collection edition ($39.95, not rated, spoken in French with English subtitles) includes several audio commentaries and an interview with Truffaut, who died in 1984.
Director Mira Nair's lustrous "Monsoon Wedding," from 2001, about a large Punjabi family getting together for a wedding, appeared in a restored high-definition edition (Criterion, $39.95 DVD and Blu-ray, rated R, spoken in English and Hindi with English subtitles), packaged with a selection of Nair's short films and documentaries.
Three from Dalton Trumbo: The late, great screenwriter, a member of the Hollywood 10 who later helped break the Hollywood blacklist, is represented by "Lonely Are the Brave," a thoughtful 1962 drama starring Kirk Douglas as a cowboy who can't fit in with life in modern America, part of Universal Studios Home Entertainment's Universal Backlot Series ($19.98, not rated); "Johnny Got His Gun," based on Trumbo's anti-war novel and the only film he ever directed, from 1972 (Shout! Factory, $19.99, rated PG); and "Trumbo," an excellent documentary from 2002 about the Oscar-winning writer (Magnolia Home Entertainment, $26.98, rated PG-13).
TV SERIES
The comedy producer who changed the face and content of network television, beginning in the 1970s, is honored with "The Norman Lear Collection" (Sony, $159.95, not rated). This 19-disc boxed set includes the first seasons of seven Lear-produced shows -- "All in the Family," "Sanford & Son," "Maude," "Good Times," "The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" -- plus six hours of interviews and reminiscences by Lear and his stars.
British comic actor John Cleese left the BBC-TV series "Monty Python's Flying Circus" to make a sitcom, "Fawlty Towers," with his wife, actress Connie Booth, about an unbelievably rude and sarcastic English seaside hotel owner. Cleese's Basil Fawlty became one of television comedy's most hilarious characters, and all 12 episodes from the mid-to-late-1970s series are contained in "Fawlty Towers Remastered"(BBC Video, $49.98, not rated). The set also includes Cleese's knowledgeable and very funny commentaries on each episode. As for Cleese's many years as a member of the Python troupe, the six-part documentary, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)," which recently aired on the IFC network, is now available on home video (Vivendi Entertainment, $29.99 DVD/$39.99 Blu-ray, not rated).
Another comic actor from Britain, Steve Coogan, is not as well known in America as Cleese, despite his appearances in movies such as "Tropic Thunder," "Night at the Museum" and "Marie Antoinette." But in Britain, Coogan has been a major TV star for years, and his various series are presented in "The Steve Coogan Collection," a 14-disc boxed set (BBC Worldwide, $129.98, not rated). Particularly worth checking out are Coogan's two series as the inept TV and radio personality Alan Partridge, a path-breaking effort in the pseudo-documentary TV style popularized by Ricky Gervais in the British version of "The Office."
Two other British TV series we love are now available in complete boxed sets from the Acorn Media Group: "Foyle's War: From Dunkirk to VE Day" presents 19 episodes (Sets 1-5) on 19 discs of this excellent World War II drama about a police detective (Michael Kitchen) at work on the home front ($149.99, not rated); while "Life on Mars -- Series 1 and 2"contains the original British version of a police drama about a modern-day police inspector (John Simm) in Manchester, England, who gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973 ($59.99 apiece, not rated).
From this side of the Atlantic, here are some recently released boxed sets of hit American TV series: "Dawson's Creek: The Complete Series"(24 discs, Sony, $119.95) includes all 127 episodes from Kevin Williamson's late-1990s/early-2000s coming-of-age drama that propelled the careers of James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams; "Ally McBeal: The Complete Series"(32 discs, Fox, $199.98, not rated) stars Calista Flockhart as a young and insecure attorney in a series that ran for five seasons, also from the late '90s through the early '00s; "The Shield: The Complete Series Collection"(28 discs, Sony, $159.95, not rated) packages all 88 episodes, plus a collectible book, of this crime drama starring Emmy-winner Michael Chiklis as a morally ambiguous police detective in Los Angeles.
Back in the 1950s, when television was still a live medium for dramatic presentations, programs such as "Playhouse 90" and "The United States Steel Hour" offered first-rate dramas from writers like Rod Serling, emerging directors such as John Frankenheimer and actors like Paul Newman, Andy Griffith, Rod Steiger and Julie Harris. "The Golden Age of Television"(3 discs, Criterion, $49.95, not rated) presents kinescopes of the original live TV broadcasts of "Marty," "No Time for Sergeants," "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and five other dramas.
Finally, a shout-out to "Rome," the outstanding HBO series that, unfortunately, lasted only two seasons but managed to include such memorable events as Julius Caesar's assassination, the dalliance between Marc Antony and Cleopatra and the rise to supreme power of Octavian (Augustus), as well as a fictional tale of two ordinary soldiers in the Roman army. All 22 episodes are included in "Rome: The Complete Series"(HBO Home Entertainment, $99.98 DVD/$139.99 Blu-ray, rated TV-MA), along with some invaluable material on the history of the Roman Empire.
(Contact Bruce Dancis at brucedancis(at)comcast.net.)
VIDEO PATROLEditors: First of two parts; the second installment will move next week
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