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Video
This
year, studios have gone deeper into the vaults or added amazing
special features to lure DVD consumers
When it comes to video releases this Christmas, the 300-pound
gorilla in the room really is a gorilla—or an ape. Either
way, he’s pretty big. After years of meticulous restoration,
and timed, not so mysteriously, to coincide with Peter Jackson’s
big-budget remake, Warner Home Video has unleashed King
Kong: Special Edition. This two-disc set includes
the original 1933 film, looking better than it has since,
well, 1933; a typically excellent Kevin Brownlow documentary
on King Kong’s “daddy,” filmmaker-adventurer Merian C. Cooper;
and a two-hour, 30-minute documentary on the making of the
film.
You can buy King Kong as a stand-alone DVD package.
Or, for a few dollars more, you can get it in a collectable
tin box that includes a replica of the original premiere program
and other goodies. Or, you can buy it as part of a box set
with the sequel Son of Kong and similarly themed
Mighty Joe Young. You get your Kong on any way
you want.
 The
vaults have opened and, after literally decades of unavailability,
there is The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection (New Line).
Silent comedian Lloyd was more popular than Charlie Chaplin
or Buster Keaton, possibly because it was easier to identify
with an ambitious all-American boy than a homeless tramp (like
Chaplin) or an otherworldly oddity (like Keaton). Mainly,
however, Lloyd was hugely popular because he made very funny
movies. This tremendous box set includes Safety Last,
in which he hangs from the clock; Girl Shy, which ends
with a race to stop a wedding that’s meaner and better than
the one in The Graduate; and half a dozen more feature-length
films. Plus selected shorts, examples of his 1950s 3-D photography
(Bettie Page, hubba-hubba) and, as they say, even more.
This one ain’t designed for the kiddies: Looney Tunes:
Golden Collection, Vol. 3 (Warner) comes with a disclaimer
that the four-disc set is intended for “the Adult Collector”
and “May Not Be Suitable for Children.” That’s nonsense, of
course. For example, neither An Itch in Time, which
ends with a cat shooting its brains out, nor Video Wabbit,
in which Bugs impersonates Liberace and hands Elmer a dynamite
candelabra, had a bad effect on me when I saw them repeatedly
as a child. (I don’t think so, at least.) Anyway, the
set is almost as good as last year’s Looney Tunes:
Golden Collection, Vol. 2, and that’s the gold standard.
Buy ’em both: What better way to blow a hundred bucks?
He defined a certain kind of cool. On screen, Steve McQueen
was remote, self-contained and as inscrutable as a sphinx.
Maybe that’s why he’s still popular two decades after his
death, as evidenced by two recent box sets. The Steve McQueen
Collection (MGM) includes a pair of all-star ensemble
films (The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape),
but distinguishes itself with the low-key family portrait
Junior Bonner and the gimmicky-but-stylish caper The
Thomas Crown Affair. More elaborate is The Essential
Steve McQueen Collection (Warner). This has six films,
including the iconic cop thriller Bullitt, in a two-disc
special edition; the colorful and engaging gambling drama
The Cincinnati Kid, costarring the great Edward G.
Robinson, Tuesday Weld and Rip Torn; and Sam Peckinpah’s bloody,
lurid The Getaway. This also includes a real oddity,
the World War II drama Never So Few, in which a second-
or third-billed McQueen steals the picture from star Frank
Sinatra.
Of the scenes written but not included in Quentin Tarantino’s
Pulp Fiction, the bit with Travolta’s character talking
about the women he’d like to have his ass kicked by was the
most weirdly revealing. Top of this list, naturally, was Diana
Rigg as the British secret agent Emma Peel in the 1960s show
The Avengers. If you know someone with the same jones
for Mrs. Peel, there’s The Avengers: The Complete Emma
Peel Mega-Set (A&E). This is all 51 episodes,
a total of 40 hours of jumpsuits, karate chops and Champagne
on ice. (Nice.) And for the ultimate in campy secret-agent
action, there’s aging hipster Dean Martin as Matt Helm in
the four-film collection, The Matt Helm Lounge (Sony).
Two sitcoms that actually became funnier and more interesting
with every passing season were Green Acres and The
Bob Newhart Show (the one in which he’s a shrink). That’s
reason enough to want Bob Newhart: The Complete Second
Season (Fox) and Green Acres: The Complete Third
Season (MGM). Don’t forget the drinking games that
go with each show. For the former, you take a drink every
time someone says “Hi Bob.” For the latter, take a drink every
time Eva Gabor says “Oliver,” or Arnold Ziffle oinks.
For TV as fresh as yesterday, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim
offers up Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Vol. 4 (Warner)
just in time for Christmas. Look for the cheerful green face
of Mooninite Err on the cover; inside are the usual grotesque,
crazy-as-hell animated exploits of Master Shake, Frylock and
Meatwad in the lower-rent Jersey suburbs. For something even
dumber and crazier, there’s Jackass: The Box Set
(Paramount). This deluxe package comes with a 48-page book.
That’s right . . . a book. The kind with words, that you have
to read. Apparently, Paramount has misunderstood the
hobbies and interests of the average Jackass fan.
For the foreign/art/cult film fan on your list, three DVDs
stand out. Black Girl (New Yorker) was legendary
Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene’s breakthrough film about
the despair of an African girl working in France; the disc
also includes the short Borom Sarret. Some think—OK,
I think—that Shoot the Piano Player (Criterion)
is François Truffaut’s best film. It’s one of his more genuinely
affecting, anyway, mashing up French fatalism with American
gangster film conventions. Finally, there’s Audition:
Uncut Special Edition (Lion’s Gate). Takashi Miike’s
controversial film about a lonely man looking for a sweet,
submissive girlfriend and ending up with a psychotic is not
for the squeamish.
Finally, Kino has rescued and lovingly released two classic
film noirs from director Fritz Lang, Scarlet Street
and House by the River. Murder, obsession
and the inevitability of doom never seemed so charming.
—Shawn
Stone
2005
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