DVD Spin Doctor

New DVD releases: Carter, Hitchcock and 'Them'

"Bonnie and Clyde" was the week's big release -- check out the DVD blog's review -- but a quartet of other offbeat titles helped make this one of the better video slates of the quarter.

"Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains" comes packaged in an environmentally friendly cardboard sleeve. No surprise there, the project coming from Carter and director Jonathan Demme, both with long records of caring about things that need caring for. Demme's documentary tracks the ex-president across the U.S. in late 1996 as he promotes his hotly contested book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

Carter is usually seen preaching and building houses for the poor these days, but here is a lively portrait of an international activist, intellectually super-sharp and ready for battle with his Israel-first accusers.

"God forbid he should rest on his laurels," Demme says in the DVD commentary. "He's all about bringing peace to the world."

"Jimmy Carter Man from Plains" is no one-man show. It also stars Carter's handler and friend Elizabeth Hayes, a lovely Simon & Schuster publicist who ran the book tour solo. And then there's Alan Dershowitz, the movie's bad guy, who goes after Carter's advocacy of Palestinian rights with a passion.

"I'm so proud of him," Demme says of Dershowitz, the activist lawyer from Harvard who appeared in the film without conditions -- even though it was a pro-Carter film. Many other critics of Carter refused to allow their images used.

Carter wouldn't debate the hostile Dershowitz on Israeli repression on the West Bank. Demme lets on that Dershowitz's attacks on Carter were even more severe than the docu indicated.

Demme makes no secret of his love for Carter: He's "the American Ghandi, the new Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. ... I feel he's right up there shoulder-to-shoulder with all of them.

"He's funny, he's tough, he's egotistical -- he's a tremendously complicated guy."

Demme makes beautiful movies. This one uses artfully quick-cut news clips and a world music score to keep things visually alert. The DVD's sound and audio are fine.

Demme is a big-time music lover -- one of his last efforts was the terrific "Neil Young Heart of Gold" -- and so there's a half-hour extra that looks at how the score came together.

Expat musicians from Egypt, Iraq and Palestine teamed up with the alt music stars Gillian Welch and Alejandro Escovedo. Fans of Escovedo should be delighted with the rare video of the brilliant Texan doing "Home by Eleven."

Some years ago, Demme also made a film devoted to the offbeat-cranky-cool British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose hits include ... nothing. Demme's "Storefront Hitchcock" was an ace concert film shot on the street, busker style.

Now comes "Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death....and Insects," a Sundance Channel special released by A&E Home Video. It's a snappy hourlong docu about Hitchcock (pictured, far right) and his new band, with plenty of satisfying concert footage that concludes in one of those "Let It Be" rooftop gigs.

The special benefits from name musicians such as R.E.M.'s Peter Buck (who tours as a sideman) as well as Nick Lowe, John Paul Jones and Gillian Welch (again).

"I love that all of the world seems available to Robyn (as a writer), Welch says. "There's no situation too mundane (to be song fodder).

Hitchcock ponders things such "how awful infinity is. There's no bottom below and no ceiling above. At least it's not claustrophobic." The band covers Hitchcock favorites such as "I Often Dream of Trains" and "Uncorrected Personality Traits," but most of the numbers come from the titular album.

Extras include Hitchcock in an extended acoustic performance of not-quite-finished songs and another rooftop number.

More U.K. oddness comes from "Suburban Shootout," another TV import from Acorn Media.

It's described repeatedly as "Desperate Housewives" meets "The Sopranos." Two rival gangs of soccer moms fight over turf in a London suburb, grinding the local punk youth under their heels while engaging in noisy shootouts that mostly claim gardens and glass windows as their victims. The ladies like their sex rough and their men clueless.

The series is seriously silly and a bit of a one-trick pony, but the performances are big fun. There are plenty of laughs in there with the flying bullets.

"Suburban Shootout" ran for a couple of seasons on Britain's Channel 5, then unspooled on the Oxygen Channel in the States. The DVD extras are routine.

From France comes the spooky movie "Them" (Ils), about a young couple from France who live in a big dark house in rural Romania. The movie takes place more or less in real time, with the couple's terror beginning as odd lights and sounds disturb their sleep. Soon they're dealing with strangers in the house, nearly invisible specialists at creating haunted house effects.

The young woman, Clementine (Olivia Bonamy), assumes alpha male duties after her lover is injured. The camera loves Bonamy, who ends up crawling, climbing, running throughout the film in horror-heroine mode.

"The Haunting" would be an influence for "Them," and Hitchcock. Sound, light and the viewers' imaginations provide much of the chills, not guys with bloody axes. The French-Romanian movie is a welcome break from genre torture and dismemberment.

The DVD's making-of looks at the laid-back style of young directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud, who had to calm and coax Bonamy as she battled real-life fears in the production's dark, dangerous and claustrophobic locations.

Another extra is "The Torture of Clementine," the title providing a hint that ultimately the horror in "Them" is no tease. The DVD comes from the reliable genre label Dark Sky Films.

Pick of the week: Jimmy Carter Man From Plains
Dog of the week: Pauly Shore: Natural Born Komics

New and notable:
Bonnie and Clyde (Warner)
Day Break (BCI Entertainment)
Frisky Dingo (Warner)
Jimmy Carter Man From Plains (Sony)
Kings of the Sun (MGM)
The Kite Runner (Paramount)
Los Angeles Dodgers 1988 World Series (A&E Home Video)
Lost Highway (Universal)
Mike Douglas Show: Moments and Memories (Kultur)
Party of Five season 3 (Sony)
Painkiller Jane (Anchor Bay)
Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death .... and Insects (A&E)
Solomon and Sheba (MGM)
Suburban Shootout (Acorn Media)
Taras Bulba (MGM)
Them (aka Ils) (Dark Sky)
Walk the Line Extended Cut (FOx)
Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection 3

Complete list of this week's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Top DVDs: 'Enchanted' sweet-talks buyers

Disney's "Enchanted" DVD proved to be a real beauty as it debuted in the No. 1 slot for sales. The movie, about an Snow White-like heroine who finds herself at the mercy of Times Square, made a star of Amy Adams.

"I Am Legend," a wildly different take on Manhattan, topped the DVD rental chart for the week ending March 23. Will Smith stars in this third movie version of Richard Matheson's novel about the last man on earth dealing with the evil undead.

"I Am Legend" ranked second in sales for Warner Home Video, while "Enchanted" settled for a third-place finish in rentals. Still can't get a copy? Try MGM's "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) with Vincent Price, every bit as good.

The honey pot is running low for "Bee Movie," down to No. 3 in DVD sales and No. 4 in rentals.

Sales (week ending March 23)
1. Enchanted
2. I Am Legend
3. Bee Movie
4. Atonement
5. No Country for Old Men

Rentals (week ending March 23)
1. I Am Legend
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Enchanted
4. Bee Movie
5. Atonement

DVD review: 'Bonnie and Clyde'

"Bonnie and Clyde" delivered a slap to moviegoers' sensibilities in 1968, a time when when most realistic violence was found on nightly newscasts, not in cinemas.

The film could have hit another row of hot buttons with its original script, in which Clyde, Bonnie and "dumb stud" C.W. engaged in a menage a trios, satisfying Barrow's bisexual passion. The filmmakers settled for impotence and a blow job from Bonnie.

In the extras for the new "Bonnie and Clyde" DVD, star-producer Warren Beatty says, "In truth, we didn't have trouble with the violence. There was killing and there it was. We didn't prettify killing.

"It was the juxtaposition of comedic stuff with violent stuff that was different."

Creative consultant Robert Towne ("Chinatown") says the movie's reputation for excessive violence came in part because of director Arthur Penn, who reluctantly took on the movie.

"He had a real understanding of what had not been done with the use of violence," Towne says of Penn. "And a desire to push the envelope."

Warner Home Video's rerelease of "Bonnie and Clyde" brings the counterculture-friendly gangster movie back in style. The images look fresh, with no tarting up. The stereo audio faithfully delivers the gunshots, squealing tires and banjo pickin'.

The "Bonnie and Clyde" Blu-ray is out this week and was used for this DVD review. The HD DVD version is scheduled for April 15 (in accordance with Warner's state policy of delaying remaining titles in the flat-lined format). On DVD, the movie comes in an "ultimate" edition and a standard version. All of the presentations have the same video extras.

Beatty does an intro to the three-part documentary on the film and participates enthusiastically. Perhaps we have him to thank for the lack of any promo materials marching in front of the film. Put in the disc; the movie starts. What a concept. This is a classy home video.

The content in the docu "Revolution! The Making of Bonnie and Clyde" doesn't quite fill out the promise of its title, as the movie in the final estimation was a big studio Warner Bros. production -- albeit one that had an indie spirit and a loose leash while on location.

Beatty tells of arguing with Jack Warner over the film, which the studio czar disliked. Warner pointed to the lot's famed water tower, reminding the young star that it had his name on it. Beatty shot back that it had his initials. "That was a good moment," the actor says.

Faye Dunaway, MIA as an interviewee on Paramount's recent DVD rerelease of "Chinatown," turns up here in good spirits and with plenty to say about her breakthrough film. Beatty didn't want her in the part at first, but knew that director Penn would. Her North Florida roots brought some southern credibility to the ensemble.

Part 2 of the docu focuses on the movie's fashion sense, which had a big impact here and overseas. Dunaway recalls going to Europe to promo the movie, and seeing "a sea of people all looking like me, with the beret on." Beatty allows that the real Bonnie and Clyde did make an attempt at dressing fashionably.

Michael J. Pollard, looking a bit like Popeye these days, notes that in reality, Bonnie's sister was the hottie.

Gene Hackman is another cheerleader for the film that made him famous. He calls working with Beatty, Dunaway, Pollard and Estelle Parsons "the ultimate actors experience." He tells of shooting in southern Texas, where a local informed him that Buck Barrow never would have worn the hat the actor had on. "He was his cousin." The movie was shot about three decades after the gang did its killing, so memories were still vivid there.

Beatty points out that one thing the actors and artists on the film had in common was they felt "a little insulted" by the movie industry. That feeling returned on Oscars night, with "everyone" nominated but only Parsons and cinematographer Burnett Guffey winning. (Guffey apparently was freaked out by the movie's low-light scheme, anathema to drive-in exhibitors.)

The docu's third part includes a study of the famed "ballet of death" scene, in which Bonnie and Clyde get theirs in a hail of bullets. Beatty's and Dunaway's bodies were packed with squibs. "You had to take all of the hits," Dunaway says of the little explosions. The scene was done twice, with an unusual amount of coverage from a quartet of cameras.

A so-so History Channel docu wanders through the real tale of the Depression-era punks, including a big prison breakout that didn't make it into the movie. Anyone interested in more about these killers might want to grab a copy of the exciting read "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34," which is going for cheap these days.

Don't miss Beatty's assured wardrobe tests, included as a separate extra. They're matched up with some great period music, another touch of class from this fine DVD.

Blu-ray review: '2001: A Space Odyssey'

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was erected in 1968 by a pair of geniuses, the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and the futuristic writer and thinker Arthur C. Clarke.

Kubrick, of course, died in 1999. Clarke passed this week. Both men left behind giant legacies of thought and creative works, none better-remembered than "2001." The black monolith that looms over this science fiction classic will long be their most visible monument.

Here's hoping that Arthur C. Clarke in his final months was able to see and appreciate Warner's Blu-ray release of "2001: A Space Odyssey," released late last fall.

Kubrick's films have a spotty video history -- several released only in cropped versions because of the director's fear of the visuals losing their power on small TV screens. Last year, his estate finally permitted release of his widescreen masterpieces in their original aspect ratios, and in high-definition. This DVD blog reviewed "Eyes Wide Shut" in October and now catches up with "2001" on the occasion of its storyteller's passing.

Visually, the early high-def hits "Planet Earth" and "Blue Planet" have nothing on "2001" (outside of factual accuracy).

The Blu-ray "2001" images are uniformly stunning -- crisp, color-correct and artifact-free. Contrasts are dramatic and artful. The fineness of detail allows for careful examination of Kubrick's sets. Flesh tones are incredible for a color film from 40 years ago. Watching the movie on a big screen in a properly lighted room proves to be a singular experience.

The audio remains mostly front-centered, thus being sonically friendly to the classical music pieces that Kubrick wisely chose, safeguarding "2001" from premature aging via an outdated score. (Imagine "2001" with the Jefferson Airplane.) What favors the music comes at the expense of the possibilities of the 5.1 audio, of course, but an essentially stereo soundstage would be true to the era.

Via the dynamic range of uncompressed PCM or Dolby, the silence that's so essential to the experience retains all of its drama. "2001" is partially a silent movie. The ambient sounds (breathing, the hum and clicks of machines) are more noticeable and enveloping than in past video releases (or on the new DVD). Almost certainly including the theatrical release, the "2001" audio has never been better.

The "2001" extras are the same on the Blu-ray, HD DVD and double-disc DVD releases. Clarke participated in the "2001" extras via interviews that appear to have been taped a few years back. Presumably he was too old for commentary chores, which were handled by the astronaut actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Effects wizard Douglas Trumbull also participates in the extras but doesn't do a commentary, a real shame.

Clarke says of "2001": "It is still amusing and interesting. Movies that continue to try to upgrade it are ridiculous."

He calls the film's villain, the world's most famous computer: "My late friend Hal."

Clarke is seen in clips from the mid-1960s discussing his theories about space travel and human evolution. He calculates the first alien responses from man's earliest radio signals would arrive in about 50 years, which would be any day now.

Of interplanetary travel he says: "Just as the first amphibians could not have imagined us, so we cannot imagine the ultimate results of space exploration." Just as Clarke could not have forseen mankind's drastic loss of interest in manned exploration.

The actors' commentary is dominated by Lockwood, who played a relatively small part in the film. He's also known for "Star Trek." Unfortunately, star Dullea's comments are sporadic. Lockwood's talk has its moments but is rather clumsy at times ("There goes the bone!") and not all that interesting in total. (The men are recorded separately.)

Lockwood says of directors who would be Kubricks: "Are they willing to pay the price? Stanley just devoted his life to research and cinema. He never really left his house much."

The making of the film is celebrated in the fine Channel 4 docu "2001: The Making of a Myth," which runs almost an hour.

"Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick" recruits George Lucas, Steven Speilberg and lesser lights to talk about the impact of "2001" on their lives.

Spielberg, who worked with Kubrick on "A.I.," recalls the master saying he wanted to make a movie that changed the form of film. "I said, 'Didn't you already do that with "2001"?' "

Lucas says: "I'm not sure I would have had the guts to do what Stanley did," noting that every effect that appears in "2001" is done physically or chemically, on film. "As far as special effects, it is the pinnacle. ... The whole idea is that space travel is exquisite."

There is also an hourlong audio interview with Kubrick from the 1960s, on which he's on good behavior.

A trio of shorts that clock in at 20 minutes are "The Prophecy of 2001," "A Look Behind the Future" (an archival puff piece with a visit to the set); and "What Is Out There?" about he search for E.T. and such.

Much of the talk in the extras is of the space age's lost momentum.

Trumball says, "We don't look at the stars anymore."

"We're well past 2001 and none of this has come to pass," the effects master says. "We haven't made alien contact, we haven't taken men anywhere beyond the moon. ... There's a kind of disappointment in the air that our imaginations got ahead of our ability to deliver."

Clarke adds: "I'm disappointed that space travel, unlike air travel, did not take off for the simple reason that there's nowhere to go to yet."

Another extra of interest shows the early visual concepts for "2001," many done by Kubrick and his wife. They are of their time -- images drawn from hippie consciousness with objects floating around in outer space, like rejects from a Yes album cover. Had these prevailed, the mighty "2001" might have just been a stepping stone on the way to "Star Wars."

New DVDs: 'Revolver,' 'Southland Tales'

Guy Ritchie and his editor James Herbert sound like a couple of sophomores under the spell of a physics-for-poets professor as they try to explain their movie "Revolver."

"This film is essentially about the transcendence of the conceptualized self," Ritchie says on Sony's new DVD version of his trippy gangster movie. (Beat.) "That probably sounds more complicated and pretentious than it needs to be."

Complicated and pretentious would be typical of the criticisms thrown up at Ritchie's film, but viewers in the right state of mind can have big fun with "Revolver." And with Ritchie and Herbert's attempts to explain the movie, which are pretty (unintentionally) hilarious.

"The weed smokers seem to get it," Ritchie says as he urges DVD viewers to watch the film multiple times. "It's slightly unfair if you think you'd absorb it all in one hit."

"Revolver" concerns gambler Jake Green (Jason Statham) who gets out of prison after seven years. Green sets about humiliating and bankrupting a screwy casino owner (Ray Liotta), who promptly puts out a hit on the ex-con.

Tormenting and guiding Green are a con man (Vincent Pastore) and a chessmaster (Andre Benjamin), both dedicated to some kind of ultimate scam. Looming over all the action is the mysterious Sam Gold, who could be mankind's collective Ego or simply the Devil.

"Revolver" spins off a riot of visual ideas -- a caper sequence morphs into cool high-end animation; a hit man's big sequence is propelled by spatially twisted editing tricks; a green-screen mashup creates a glowing world of uncertain time and place. All the while, the script is riffing off Freudian/Jungian philosophy, game theory and quantum mechanics.

Sony's single-DVD version of "Revolver" looks and sounds bold. It includes an above-average docu that works through the film's production and post-production sleights-of-hand. Ritchie likes to work with the same "band" of filmmakers, resulting in a clubhouse atmosphere on the set. A lot of time is spent playing chess and busting chops.

There's the feature-length commentary from Ritchie and Herbert, as well as a repetitive video followup on the film's concepts. Even after these briefings, things still seemed clear as mud. I don't know if I've overthought or underthought the film's constructs, possibly best described as coming from the world according to Einstein and Freud.

Ritchie ("Snap") has this to say about his post-"Swept Away" experimentation: "(Filmmaking) is a format that has become stagnant to a degree. ... A director's job is to keep challenging that format."

One filmmaker who burst through those barriers with similar concepts is Richard Kelly, the young creator of "Donnie Darko." That mix of sci-fi, physics and philosophy worked beautifully in both its versions.

Now, after five years or so, Kelly is back, this time with the acutely awful "Southland Tales."

Dwayne Johnson stars as the Everyman hero caught in the middle of a pre-apocalyptic L.A. that's populated by a swarm of actors along the lines of Jon Lovitz, Wallace Shawn and Amy Poehler. The movie feels like a bad 1960s revolutionary goof, with all of the current multimedia-age's visual cliches furiously pumping.

Sony's DVD includes a fun and thoughtful animated short about life without mankind. Watch that, skip the feature. Brother.

Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are the Oscar-friendly romantic tragedy "Atonement"; Criterion's rerelease of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm"; and Disney's wildly popular "Enchanted" with Amy Adams.

Pick of the week: Revolver
Dog of the week: Southland Tales

New and notable:
Alpha Male (ThinkFilm)
Antonio Gaudi (The Criterion Collection)
Atonement (Universal)
Bull Durham (MGM)
Eight Men Out (MGM)
Pride of the Yankees (MGM)
Enchanted (Disney)
I Am Legend (Warner)
The Ice Storm (The Criterion Collection)
Jack Ketchum's The Lost (Anchor Bay)
Love in the Time of Cholera (New Line)
Mafioso (The Criterion Collection)
Revolver (Sony)
Steep (Sony)
The Untouchables, season 2, Vol. 1
The Wild Wild West season 4

Complete list of this week's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

New DVDs: Fox Film Noir takes a hike

Film noir in Cinemascope? Yes and no, but what an oxymoron.

The mostly reliable Fox Film Noir series seems to be running low on shadows-and-light, based on the latest trio of releases. None fits the classic profile of films noir, but all three exhibit some of the genre's spirit and atmospherics.

"Black Widow," the best of the lot, is a murder mystery that sees our hero beat a retreat from the cops in order to solve a killing and save his skin. There's a femme fatale in the mix and a relentless cop. So far so good for noir status -- except for Cinemascope's color-saturated widescreen picture (2.55:1) and the elaborate upscale Manhattan sets.

I'm a big fan of the key art, with a blonde bombshell who looks nothing like any of the characters draped across the bottom of the image.

Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney and George Raft star -- an interesting foursome of actors whose criss-crossed fortunes are discussed in the docus and commentary.

Van Heflin stars in the 1954 film as a theater producer who befriends a bratty blonde writer (Peggy Ann Garner) while his wife is away. The girl turns up dead in his apartment, an apparent suicide. But the police investigator (Raft) has the producer pegged as a killer.

Rogers, no longer a hoofer, plays the mean-spirited celebrity upstairs, while troubled actress Tierney holds it together long enough to play the shell-shocked wife.

A "Rashomon" plot device keeps the solution in play until the last minute. Good stuff. Noir historian Alan Rode does the commentary, OK but too heavy on trivia and cast biographies. A docu on Tierney, "Final Curtain for a Noir Icon," tells some of that fine actresses' sad story.

The 1947 Joan Crawford starrer "Daisy Kenyon" is a women's melodrama with no apparent connection to noir other than its hard shadowy photography by Leon Shamroy. And Crawford's lone-wolf attitude. "It (just) seems like a noir universe," one of the DVD noir experts says.

Nonetheless, the tale of a gritty love triangle should satisfy mystery fans who don't mind being a bit of domestication. Noir regular Dana Andrews and a young Henry Fonda compete for the love of a mid-40s Crawford (a dynamic that should prove mystery enough for modern man).

Otto Preminger brings in some brave social elements for the era, such as child abuse, institutional racism and the psychological damages of warfare.

"In its own way, the film was fairly avant garde for its time and dealt with fairly scandalous material," the director's daughter Victoria Preminger notes. Noir writer Foster Hirsch makes it all sound pretty interesting in the commentary. The docus cover Preminger's tenure at Fox and the making of "Daisy."

"Dangerous Crossing" (1953), the leakiest of the three, was shot in 19 days on Fox sets that had seen action in the old "Titanic" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." The lovely Jeanne Crain stars as a newlywed whose husband vanishes at the start of an ocean voyage. Did she just imagine the husband or are evil shipmates doing away with the guy? It's the old Mrs. Froy plot, with Michael Rennie aboard ship to figure everything out.

All of these films look elegant with almost no wear. The extras get the job done, as they have throughout the Fox series. Let's just hope next time it's back to fall guys and deadly dames.

"No Country for Old Men" also surfaces this week. I raved about the Coen brothers film a few weeks back, leaving Spin Doctor somehow in total agreement with the Oscars. The movie is just as good the second time around. Sony's Blu-ray version is crisp and artful, a real treat.

Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are the fun, charming and romantic "Dan in Real Life," earning double bonus points for bringing Juliette Binoche to these shores; "Gattaca: Special Edition," which really has to be seen on Blu-ray (more to come); and the dumb-but-cool zombie action movie "Outpost," about some mercenaries who tangle with the Nazi undead.

Pick of the week: No Country for Old Men
Dog of the week: Bachelor Party 2

New and notable:

And Justice for All (Sony)
Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina (Warner)
Bee Movie (DreamWorks)
Black Widow (Fox Film Noir)
Dangerous Passage (Fox Film Noir)
Daisy Kenyon (Fox Film Noir)
Bobby Deerfield (Sony)
Dan in Real Life (Disney)
Five Days (HBO)
Gattaca: Special Edition (Sony)
Hitman (Fox)
Lil' Bush: Resident of the United States (Paramount)
Love American Style, first season, Vol. 2 (Paramount)
The Mod Squad, first season, Vol. 2 (Paramount)
No Country for Old Men (Miramax)
Outpost (Sony)
Sands of Oblivion (Anchor Bay)
Sleuth 2007 (Sony)
South Park: Imaginationland (Paramount)
Stargate: The Ark of Truth (MGM)

Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

DVD reviews: '101 Dalmatians,' 'Horton'

"101 Dalmatians" villainess Cruella De Vil would be welcome around my house these days. To deal with the incredibly big, impossibly loud dog next door.

The beast becomes mentally ill when anyone dares enter the neighborhood. Let's see Cruella pick on a pooch her own size.

Come to think of it, though, Cruella De Vil gets hers on the otherwise magnificent new "101 Dalmatians" DVD as teen star Selena Gomez butchers the character's theme song. (This pattern of Disney kid personalities doing "alternative" versions of classic Disney songs has really got to go.)

The restored images roll out confidently across a full screen (1.33:1). Just beautiful on an upscale machine. Audio choices are a new and fairly lively 5.1 mix and the restored theatrical 2.0.

"101 Dalmatians" proved a pivotal film in Disney animation's history for several reasons, primarily the contemporary setting, casual animation and the abandonment of the musicals format that had served and Walt and Co. for so long.

"Sleeping Beauty," in 1959, was the last of its kind. By 1961, singing princesses in old-style romantic animation were feeling creaky to most people over the age of 6. (The princesses would make a comeback; the animation would not.)

"The cool thing about (the movie) is that it's contemporary to this day," Pixar's Brad Bird says in the extras.

"Dalmatians" looked like no other Disney film. The city scenes of London felt European, reflecting the art movements of the post-war era. "It's Picasso coming to Disney," one animator says.

The characters were more realistic, felt more human than in the past. The new Xerox process inspired most of the animators, replacing the old lush ink and paint. (Walt Disney, who was off with his theme parks, didn't like the look of the film and held a grudge against the lead animator.)

Then there are all the visual puns with black-on-white sports. "Let's face it, if you're going to stylize a dog, what dog's more stylized than a dalmatian," Bird says. "It's practically a '60s magazine illustrator's magazine version of a dog."

The music felt more New Orleans than London, the jazz-tinged score coming six years ahead of "The Jungle Book." The big number "Cruella De Vil" came organically in the story, without the characters simply bursting into song. (Disc 2 has a half dozen songs, most not heard in the film.)

The story elements reflected new times as well: The newlyweds clearly had the hots for each other. Cruella smoked up a storm, emitting a foul mustard-gas smoke. Her minions were drunken homicidal types. The concept of playful puppies being skinned for their coats seemed a long ways from "Bambi." The movie was media savvy, with modernistic goofs on TV ads.

The "Platinum Edition" DVDs follow the Disney template. The FastPlay option pops up right after you select a language. This seems to suggest a direct path to the movie, but it unleashes the usual Disney marketing barrage. The advantage is moms can put on the disc and then walk away, knowing the movie starts automatically after the ads/trailers. The other option brings the wary directly to the DVD menu.

The extras for adults ("humans") and kids ("dogs") are segregated, as usual.

The extra not to miss is the making-of docu "Redefining the Line," on disc 2. Brad Bird and a swarm of Disney animators talk about the film and its influence on the Kingdom. "Cruella De Vil: Born to Be Bad" tells of the artists' duel that led to this infamous character. The runner-up Cruella looked a bit Picasso-crazy.

There's also a mostly audio dramatization of letters between Walt Disney and the British author Dodie Smith, who wrote the "101 Dalmatians" novel.

* * *

Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones first teamed up in 1966 for the animated classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

Classics by definition are not given to successful follow-ups, and that's the deal with their next effort, 1970's "Horton Hears a Who!" -- just rereleased by Warner as a movie tie-in. "Horton" debuted as a half-hour TV show.

Come to think of it, the idea of a CG "Horton" with Jim Carrey brings terror to the snowy little town hidden in this keyboard.

As with "Dalmatians, "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who" utilizes some updated animation, not necessarily for the best. The more precise faces and detail don't align with the spirit of the Seuss book illustrations or the "Grinch" legacy.

Of course, expecting another "Grinch" (he makes a camero) isn't entirely fair. "Horton" manages to be a bit of a mess all on its own. Too complicated for tykes; too annoying for adults unless they're grooving. The songs are clumsy with a serious surplus of words.

The DVD offers three other short films: Ralph Bakshi's out-there take on "Butter Battle Book"; "Daisy-Head Mayzie" and the 1940s version of "Horton Hatches the Egg!" by Bob Clampett.

The main DVD extra, the 1994 fantasy documentary "In Search of Dr. Seuss," has its moments. It's the anti-"American Masters," with a nod to "Pee-wee's Playhouse." Kathy Najimy stars as a reporter trying to get the straight poop on the doc. There are various skits and clips, rioting colors everywhere and a lot of random energy.

New Dirty Harry DVDs: We're in luck

Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" films return to duty June 3, retooled and reloaded for the DVD and Blu-ray formats.

Warner Home Video's special edition of "Dirty Harry" merits a separate Blu-ray release, but you'll have to spring for the box set to get the other four Harry films in high definition.

All of the action movies have been remastered and come with new commentaries, Warner said. An earlier version of this box set came out in 2001. Some of those extras are being ported over to the new discs.

"The Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector's Edition" set includes the five films -- from the seminal "Dirty Harry" (1971) to the godawful "The Dead Pool" (1988) -- as well as the feature-length docu "Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows." The DVD box set has seven discs; the Blu-ray five.

Collectors may or may not get excited about a 40-page book, a wallet with badge and I.D. card; some 5x7-inch lobby card repros; a map tracking Harry's hunt across San Francisco for the Scorpio killer; and "never before seen" production correspondence.

I like a couple of these movies, notably "Dirty Harry," even though most of the films are quite dated in that ghastly '70s way. Don't mind the clunky right-wing moralizing that freaks out some folks (even though I'm a Clinton Democrat). DVD Savant, however, had some major issues with the ugliness of "Dirty Harry" back in 2001.

Here's the rundown on the separate DVDs' commentaries and the new extras:

Dirty Harry: Commentary by (the ever-reliable) Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel. New featurette "The Long Shadow of Dirty Harry," about the movie's legacy. The respected docu "Dirty Harry: The Original" with Robert Urlich, repeats from the 2001 DVD.
Magnum Force: Commentary by writer and man of action John Milius. New featurette: "A Moral Right: The Politics of Dirty Harry."
The Enforcer: Commentary by director James Fargo. New featurette "The Business End: Violence in Cinema."
Sudden Impact: Commentary again by Schickel. New featurette: "The Evolution of Clint Eastwood," about the star's career as a director (he helmed this film).
The Dead Pool: Commentary by producer David Valdes and Cinematographer Jack N. Green. New featurette: "The Craft of Dirty Harry."

The standard DVD box set will street for $75; the Blu-ray box's bail is set at $130.

New DVDs: 'Into the Wild' too tame on disc

"Into the Wild" offers a good many pleasures, despite the ghastly fate of its real-life hero.

Paramount Home Entertainment's double-disc DVD, however, fails to pick up on the film's giddy sense of adventure, delivering a standard treatment for a special film.

Sean Penn directs the tale of Chris McCandless, a Georgia college grad who refused to remain a rich kid. McCandless makes his way to the west, ditching his parents, his car and his identity cards. For existential emphasis, he burns all of his cash and gives away his bankroll.

McCandless thus becomes Alexander Supertramp, an "aesthetic voyager" -- a backpacker with no money and only a vague agenda of settling in Alaska. He makes his way up and down the western states and into Mexico. He harvests wheat, runs among wild horses, takes on the white waters, hangs with California hippies, all under the spell of Jack London and Thoreau.

Later, in Los Angeles, he finds himself devolved into just another homeless guy, seeking food and bed in the downtown social-services mill. Horrified, he heads north to Alaska, where his new life in the frozen wilds becomes a downward-spiraling fight for survival.

The extras track Penn's cast and crew as they make their road movie in actual places from McCandless' journey -- 30-something locations. The cinematographer responsible for the awesome nature photography is Eric Gautier, who shot the film that inspired Penn, "The Motorcycle Diaries."

The movie is set in the early 1990s. Penn, appropriately, used the rock singer Eddie Vedder as a narrator-in-song. An appreciation for Vedder's work will add considerably to the movie's charm -- or will cut the other way. Vedder says he was out of his comfort zone while writing for a character. "It took away so many choices."

McCandless' real parents worked on the film as advisers. The extras show them on the set, interacting with Penn and the actors, but they don't participate in the extras. "It was a very selfless decision they made to let the story be told," the director says.

Penn, known for bravery under fire as an actor, says of star Emile Hirsch: "I've never seen anybody have as difficult a job as an actor." There are many fine supporting performances in the film -- from William Hurt, Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook, even Vince Vaughn -- but this is Hirsch's show, with the actor in practically every scene. Loaded with charm and a touch of hobo magic, Hirsch somehow never grates, even as the film tilts the character into some kind of Christ surrogate.

The extras are on a separate disc, presumably to keep the video and audio quality high for the theatrical DVD. The images (widescreen, enhanced) are indeed stunning. (Despite this treatment, the center-based dialogue sometimes sounds like mumbling.) Paramount also released an HD DVD version of
"Into the Wild."

The only bonus feature of note is a two-chapter making-of documentary by DVD regular Laurent Bouzereau that adds up to about 40 minutes. Unfortunately, there are no extras solely dedicated to McCandless' story or writings. Nor is there the "20/20" segment that brought this story to national attention. We'll give the DVD a pass on the last point, as ABC News last month released the "Into the Wild" segment to DVD.

Many DVD producers just don't seem to get it -- that people who watch a film like this are hungry for information about the real-life subject, not the costume designer.

The making-of is standard issue. It does the familiar round-robin of praisery for all involved, mixing the publicity-friendly interviews with general information about Chris McCandless. The interviews were done before the movie came out, and so the stars speak as if you know nothing about the film.

Penn reflects on his film numerous times in the making-of, but doesn't do a commentary. Anyone who enjoys the film should have a look, but don't expect much.

Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are the fine documentary "My Kid Could Paint That," Disney's sparkling revival of "101 Dalmations" and Warner's latest visit to "Forbidden Hollywood."

Pick of the week: My Kid Could Paint That
Dog of the week: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

New and notable:
Ben 10 season 3 (Warner)
The Billy Wilder Film Collection (MGM)
Blood +, Vol. 1 and Part 1 (Sony)
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (Warner)
Flight 29 Down season Two (Discovery Kids/Genius Products)
Human Giant (Paramount)
Into the Wild (Paramount)
The Love Boat (Universal)
Mrs. Doubtfire (Fox)
My Kid Could Paint That (Sony)
101 Dalmatians (Disney)
Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Warner)
Things We Lost in the Fire (Paramount)
12 Angry Men (MGM)

Complete list of today's DVD releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Indiana Jones DVDs discover new extras

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" opens the summer blockbuster season on Thursday, May 22. Old-guy action hero Harrison Ford cracks the whip and mumbles something about whipper-snappers. We'll all be there.

Update 5/14: Read the DVD review of "Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection."

The week before, on May 13, Paramount Home Entertainment rereleases the original three Indiana Jones films on DVD. No word about high-definition releases, but of course they won't be in the studio's former format, HD DVD. For now, Indy is a casualty of the high-def war.

The movies have not been remastered for this release. The selling point here is the titles are available individually; you don't have to buy the entire box set that came out in 2003. The films have individual bonus features, unlike on the box set, which had a fourth disc dedicated to extras.

Par promises "all-new bonus content that delves into the making of the legendary series as the filmmakers and cast look back and a new world of adventure opens up with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and others offering hints about what to expect in the newest installment."

Owners of "The Adventures of Indiana Jones: The Complete DVD Movie Collection" probably won't want to upgrade, unless fandom makes these features irresistible:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Introduction by Steven Spielberg & George Lucas; "Indiana Jones: An Appreciation": The cast and crew of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" pay tribute to the original trilogy. "The Melting Face": A re-creation of the showstopper effect from "Raiders," with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas commenting on the evolution of visual effects and CGI.

The Temple of Doom: Introduction by Spielberg and Lucas. "Creepy Crawlies": Spielberg, Lucas and producer Frank Marshall reminisce about snakes, bugs and rats. What appears to be a now-and-then locations feature.

The Last Crusade: Introduction by Spielberg and Lucas. "The Women": The American Film Institute Tribute with the three Indiana Jones women (Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw and Alison Doody) talking about their roles. "Friends and Enemies": Spielberg, Lucas and Indiana Jones writers discuss their iconic characters, including a look at new faces in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

All three discs have storyboards, galleries, effects, marketing and a Lego game demo.