With
on-demand and digital options threatening to make physical discs obsolete and
the extremely impressive Blu-Ray format currently doing little but reissuing
favorites from studios' increasingly picked-over vaults, the golden age of DVDs
might be over. But we still easily found 10 items that make the format seem far
from dead.
1. The Films Of Budd Boetticher
(Columbia)
Practically since
the invention of the DVD, fans of classic westerns have been clamoring for the
release of the seven films director Budd Boetticher made with star Randolph
Scott between 1956 and 1960. In 2006, Paramount released a nice edition of the
first film in the series, 7 Men From Now, and this year Columbia followed suit with the five in their
vaults: Buchanan Rides Alone, Comanche Station, Decision
At Sundown, and the two
masterpieces Ride Lonesome
and The Tall T. The set
adds a superb feature-length documentary about Boetticher, plus appreciations
and commentary tracks by the likes of Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese. But
what makes The Films Of Budd Boetticher essential is the high replay value of the movies
themselves—each a concisely told story about men living with their
mistakes and being forced by the changing times to make even more.
2. Murnau, Borzage And Fox (Fox)
Last
year, Fox released a box set containing 24 of the films John Ford made for the
studio from the early '20s to the early '50s. This year, Fox dedicated a box to
lesser-known auteur Frank Borzage, a stellar storyteller fascinated by faces
and redemption; and Fox sweetened the deal by adding Sunrise and City Girl, two movies that German
master F.W. Murnau made for Fox before he died in a car crash at age 42.
William Fox himself invited Murnau to Hollywood and asked him to mentor his
stable of directors (including Borzage), which makes Murnau, Borzage And Fox a notable piece of film scholarship,
detailing through archival material and excellent movies exactly how Murnau's
vision of a more mature cinema impacted the waning years of the silent era.
3. Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (Mutant Enemy)
Joss
Whedon has always done some of the best commentary tracks in the business; his
energetic sessions on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly discs are packed not only
with funny anecdotes and production details, but with broader insights into his
vision for the shows themselves. Even by his standards, though, Whedon has
outdone himself with "Commentary: The Musical," a mostly all-singing
accompaniment to his brilliant 42-minute, strike-inspired DIY musical Dr.
Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Whedon, his cast (Nathan Fillion, Neal Patrick Harris, and
Felicia Day), and other key collaborators belt out an infectious
meta-commentary that's nearly as catchy as the songs that make it into the
feature itself. Also a must: A series of amateur audition tapes for "The Evil
League Of Evil," featuring such diabolical would-be villains as "Tur-Mohel,"
who plans to circumcise the Washington Monument.
4. The Godfather Collection (Blu-Ray) (Paramount)
A
couple of years from now, we might not even be referencing DVDs when we write
about home entertainment, given the ever-increasing ease of other options. If
anything seems likely to keep the little discs alive, it's Blu-Ray, the
high-def format that found its killer app when it presented the meticulously
restored versions of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather movies in versions that
looked as beautifully chiaroscuro as the days they first hit theaters, film
grain and all. (The movies aren't too bad, either.)
5. Spaced: The Complete Series (BBC Warner)
The
number of truly great why-isn't-this-on-DVD? items has shrunk over the years,
but the release of the British TV series Spaced proved there were still some
treasures to be unearthed. Created by writer/actors Simon Pegg and Jessica
Stevenson and directed with movie ambition on a TV budget by Edgar Wright, Spaced captured the usually
aimless lives of a pair of twentysomething Londoners trying to find if love and
ambition can fit into the parts of their lives not crowded with pop culture
references. It's a canny blend of frenetic humor and unmistakable poignancy,
given a well-deserved belated U.S. showcase by DVD (and outfitted with cool
features to boot).
6. Mishima (Criterion)
In tormented
bisexual superstar novelist/poet/actor/director/militia-leader Yukio Mishima,
Paul Schrader found his ultimate obsessive, a perennial Nobel Prize contender
obsessed with the seldom-explored intersection of beauty and death. Mishima's
life and death were the ultimate manifestations of his singular, wildly
contradictory aesthetic. There were no boundaries between Mishima's life and
work, and the controversial writer's ritualistic public suicide was designed as
his final, ultimate masterpiece. Accordingly, Shrader's hypnotic 1985 biopic Mishima:
A Life In Four Chapters combines
heartbreakingly gorgeous adaptations of several Mishima short stories with
scenes from his life to create a devastating portrait of a man who lived to die
and died to attain artistic immortality.
7. Eclipse Series 9: The Delirious
Fictions Of William Klein (Criterion)
Taken
separately, The Model Couple, Mr. Freedom and Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?—the three freewheeling
features by modernist painter/designer/photographer/journalist William Klein
contained in Eclipse's budget-priced box set—don't really satisfy either
as cinema or as notes from the underground. But combined, these pop-art
assaults on media fatuousness, excessive consumerism, and governmental abuse of
power make for a fascinating, fitfully thrilling journey through the radical
politics and aesthetics of the late '60s and early '70s. Even today, Klein's
puckish provocations represent image-making at its most sublime.
8. The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour: The Best Of
Season Three (Time-Life)
Though
it only contains 11 episodes from The Smothers Brothers' controversial final
season on CBS, this set puts the Smothers' battles with network censors in
context, revealing the show as a mostly benign variety hour that strived to
make dissent as much a part of prime-time entertainment as sketch comedy and
musical numbers. The tone of the special features—which includes a passel
of recent interviews and a hilarious 2000 US Comedy Arts Festival
panel—is a little too self-congratulatory, but then, all concerned do have reason to be proud.
Forty years ago, they produced a funny, inventive program that let millions of
disaffected young people know they had champions inside the showbiz
establishment.
9. The Thief Of Bagdad (Criterion)
There's
no shortage of visual splendors on display in Alexander Korda's lavish 1940
fantasy The Thief Of Bagdad: A mechanical flying horse, a magic carpet, a genie
in a bottle, and a giant spider, just to name a few. At the time, the special
effects were astonishing, but effects make a poor barometer for a fantasy film,
since advancements in technology are doomed to leave them behind. Beyond the
spectacle, what endures about Korda's production is its childlike energy and
wonder, reflected in the face of crafty young thief Sabu. The Thief Of
Bagdad was
the standard-bearer for a generation, confirmed by the tag-team commentary by
Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, and a wealth of other DVD features
detailing the elephantine scale of Korda's vision.
10. A Colbert
Christmas (Comedy
Central)
Why shell out
hard-earned dollars for a copy of something that was aired free on television
and will probably be re-run on Comedy Central until Bill O'Reilly is roasting
on an open fire somewhere deep in the bowels of hell? That's a question no
self-respecting member of the Colbert Nation would ask themselves this grimmest
of holiday seasons in regards to A Colbert Christmas, Colbert's
tuneful, deliciously ironic homage/send-up of the corny Yuletide specials of
yesteryear. It's advanced irony you can sing and dance to and the video advent
calendar special bonus feature is surprisingly nifty as well.