Combustible Celluloid's 2004 DVD Gift Guide

Living in a Box

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

With the DVD industry growing in leaps and bounds, everyone will want the shiny little discs for Christmas presents this year. Hopefully my humble little holiday guide will help point shoppers in the right direction. Every single item on this page is a two-disc set or more, which helps gift-givers appear extra-benevolent and thoughtful, and each is personally recommended by me.

Starring with the year's Special Events, only one disc will top everyone's list, and that's the new "Extended Version" of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Line), which hits stores on December 14. This version adds nearly an hour to the theatrical release. Running against LOTR at last year's Oscars was Mystic River, now available in a massive three-disc set, which includes the CD soundtrack. (Unfortunately, it lacks a Clint Eastwood commentary track.) Earlier this year Universal released the definitive DVD of Schindler's List, which comes with several heart-rending featurettes. And finally, one of the year's best films as well as one of its biggest hits,

Spider-Man 2 (Columbia/TriStar) will be released on November 30 in several different editions, including a deluxe "gift pack."

Everyone loves to laugh, and this year has seen the release of many great comedy DVDs. Warner Brothers -- which now owns most of the old MGM library -- will release on December 7 a triple feature of Buster Keaton films (The Cameraman, Spite Marriage and Free and Easy) in the Buster Keaton Collection. Likewise, the second volume of Chaplin films is still available in a massive box set that includes The Kid, The Chaplin Revue, The Circus, City Lights, Monsieur Verdoux, A Woman of Paris and A King in New York. Paramount has unleashed a giant package of Jerry Lewis titles, notably The Ladies Man, The Bellboy and a Special Edition of The Nutty Professor. Each comes with lots of great extras. And Universal has matched that with their extraordinary five-film Marx Brothers: The Silver Screen Collection (Universal), which includes the great Duck Soup. Peter Sellers' talents are on display in The Pink Panther Collection (MGM/UA), which comes in an ultra-cool patent leather box and includes some of the original cartoons.

Modern audiences will probably enjoy Kevin Smith's brutally funny Clerks X: 10th Anniversary Edition (Miramax), while Universal has teamed Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused and Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High for a double-disc Party Pack. Paramount presents the first two seasons of their sick and twisted cartoon series Ren & Stimpy, and Universal has repackaged two Adam Sandler films (Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison) in a Special Edition double feature two-pack.

For younger viewers, we have the new Looney Tunes: The Golden Collection, Vol. 2 from Warner Home Video and Popeye the Sailor Man: 75th Anniversary Collection from VCI Entertainment. And Warner Home Video has re-released the great, underrated animated feature The Iron Giant in a new Special Edition. Not to mention Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Home Video), which may be a bit dark for the youngest viewers, but is still the best Harry Potter so far. New Line's Elf comes in a double-disc Infinifilm edition with tons of extras; this Will Ferrell Christmas comedy is good enough for multiple holiday viewings.

Film buffs should enjoy Warner's Film Noir Collection (with The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, Murder My Sweet, Out of the Past and The Set-Up), as well as their new double-disc set with two versions of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Warner has also scored with a new box set of MGM's old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films as well as a new double-disc set of George Lucas's remastered THX-1138, which features a commentary track from the elusive filmmaker. Finally, Martin Scorsese takes a four-hour exploration of his favorite Italian films in My Voyage to Italy (Miramax).

Some of the best movies for film buffs were made before the advent of sound. One of this year's most exciting releases is More Treasures from American Film Archives (National Film Preservation Foundation), which contains fifty shorts and features from the early days of cinema, notably a great Rin-Tin-Tin movie and Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan. In addition, the Douglas Fairbanks Collection (Kino) contains unending excitement with six early films from the swashbuckling star: The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers, The Thief of Bagdad; Don Q, Son of Zorro and The Black Pirate. Even better is the Fritz Lang Epic Collection (Kino), which comes with the already available Metropolis and Die Nibelungen as well as the recently restored Woman in the Moon and Spies. And no film buff should miss the exciting early serial Judex (Flicker Alley) from master filmmaker Louis Feuillade.

Fans of overseas cinema who don't mind subtitles will find a wealth of new films, notably Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, finally available on video in a restored, three-disc set. From France, we could start with the classic Marius/Caesar/Fanny trilogy (Kino) and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (The Criterion Collection) and move up to the 1990s with Jacques Rivette's exquisite La Belle Noiseuse (New Yorker). From Germany, we have Fritz Lang's masterful spy film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Criterion). From Sweden comes Ingmar Bergman's extraordinary Fanny and Alexander, presented in a 5-disc set from Criterion Collection that includes the theatrical version and the complete Swedish TV miniseries. From Hong Kong, there is the Wong Kar-wai Collection (Kino), featuring five of the master filmmaker's works, including two new to video (As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild). Finally, Japan offers two classics, a double bill of Yasujiro Ozu's silent A Story of Floating Weeds and his modern remake Floating Weeds (Criterion) and a double-bill of Takeshi Kitano's masterpiece Sonatine with his newest film The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (Miramax).

Men are pretty easy to buy for, and 2004 provided a high-quality list of guy films. Clint Eastwood came in to dub newly restored footage for the most complete version of Sergio Leone's spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (MGM/UA), and Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas, which was previously available in a truly horrible disc, has finally been spruced up and released in a package worthy of the film. Both halves of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill ( Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) are now available, and Peter Weir's Oscar-nominated Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Fox) comes with enough extras to keep nautical nuts busy for days. The ultimate guy moviemaker Sam Peckinpah's neglected final film The Osterman Weekend (Anchor Bay) finally saw the light of day and includes Big Sam's original cut. And what guy could resist the ultra-violent, ultra-cool Robocop Trilogy (MGM/UA)?

Halloween is over, but some people are horror film nuts the whole year around. If you know such a person, then don't pass up the chance to pick up George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead: Ultimate Edition (Anchor Bay) on four discs. It features three different cuts of the film, plus tons of extras. (Don't confuse it with the 2004 remake -- real fans will know the difference.) Hellboy (Columbia/TriStar) is one of the year's best-looking discs, and comes with a bonus set of cartoons including the classic Gerald McBoing Boing. The Universal monsters made a comeback in a big way with The Legacy Collection. Each monster gets his own special double-disc edition: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. And David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome (Criterion) gets the deluxe treatment on a spiffy new disc.

Now it's time to warm the heart with some wonderful musicals. One of the year's best DVD achievements is Meet Me in St. Louis (Warner Home Video), which restores Vincente Minnelli's dazzling Technicolor to full glory. Francis Ford Coppola's misunderstood One from the Heart (Fantoma) gets a second chance in a newly refurbished edition, and Prince's Purple Rain: 20^th Anniversary Edition (Warner Brothers) has now become a cult classic. Warner Home Video releases another collection of MGM gems with the That's Entertainment! Trilogy Giftset, featuring hours of delightful clips and musical numbers from days gone by.

This year has seen mountains of old television shows making their DVD debuts, but very few hold up to repeated or extended viewing. These do. Columbo: The Complete First Season (Universal) features an early episode directed by Steven Spielberg, and viewed in its original order Star Trek: The Original Series - Season One (Paramount) is much better than you might think. Prematurely cancelled cult shows make the best DVDs, such as the hilarious Greg the Bunny: The Complete Series (Fox), Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series (Sony/Shout!) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (Image). Finally, we have the greatest show of all time in its prime: The Simpsons: The Complete Fourth Season (Fox).

Finally, Warner Home Video has released the ultimate home video edition of Gone with the Wind, presented on four discs with the clearest, brightest picture and sound yet seen.

Happy Holidays!

November 24, 2004