DVD Report
New Releases | Tom Russo
Masterpieces from the master of suspense
And here we thought that Warner had delivered the Alfred Hitchcock DVD event of the year with its January release of a nine-disc set anchored by ''Suspicion" and ''North by Northwest." But now comes the release of Universal's ''Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection" (2005), a 15-disc treasure-trove that, while not geared toward DVD debuts, does handsomely collect ''Rear Window," ''Vertigo," ''Psycho," and ''The Birds," among numerous others.
A Hitchcock 201 course offering that drew our attention just as immediately was 1943's ''Shadow of a Doubt," starring Teresa Wright as a small-town girl who's got visiting uncle Joseph Cotten pegged as a killer. Of course, Universal pretty transparently tries to pique such interest in the movie with a retrospective featurette titled ''Beyond Doubt: Hitchcock's Favorite Film." The director's daughter is on hand to attest that the picture's look at good old-fashioned Americana was something that greatly appealed to the British-born Hitchcock, who enlisted Thornton Wilder to work on the story. Ultimately, it's all overstatement -- one guesses that if this were truly at the top of Hitchcock's list, the film's remastering would be sharper -- but the stars do have some fun vitriolic moments.
Also due this week is ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents": Season One (1955), a three-disc, 39-episode set that's a kick to revisit in large part because of how drolly self-deprecating Hitchcock was about the whole enterprise, using his on-camera segments to goof on his signature twists, not to mention the program's sponsors. What a far cry from the hyperbole of Must-See TV.
Extras: Various production featurettes; alternate endings; Hitchcock storyboards; and a bonus disc featuring vintage interview footage and an American Film Institute salute. (Universal; ''Masterpiece Collection," $119.98; ''Hitchcock Presents," $39.98)
''CINDERELLA" (1950)
Watching Disney's animated classics reissued on DVD is a little like making that adulthood visit to Disneyland: You marvel at how instantly enchanted you are strolling down Main Street USA and basking in Walt's original rosy vision, only to feel a twinge of disappointment when you spot the glut of shops trying to sell you something. While we've welcomed the arrival of ''The Lion King" and other 'toon hits on disc, this is one we've really, really been waiting for, and the film's digital restoration looks terrific. Featurettes on the film's production and scuttled scenes are highly worthwhile, enough so that you'll forgive kid-targeted segments pushing the Disney Princess line and ''Cinderella III." But Joe Namath hosting a look back at sports ''Cinderella stories" as a strained plug for Disney-owned ESPN Classic? The thought of it gives us a pain worse than Cinderella's stepsisters must have felt trying to squeeze their oversize dogs into that glass slipper. (Disney, $29.99)
''THE INTERPRETER" (2005)
This disc's bonus materials find the filmmakers making much ado about the unprecedented access they were granted to the United Nations headquarters in New York in drawing their suspense-steeped portrait of Nicole Kidman's title character. But while there are intriguing bits of detail, this is largely standard fare from director Sydney Pollack, elevated by a solid performance by Kidman, as well as by Sean Penn as the federal agent investigating her claim that an assassination plot is brewing.
Extras: Alternate ending; a segment with Pollack discussing, go figure, the widescreen format versus ''pan and scan." (Universal, $29.98)
''THE WARRIORS" (1979)
This ''ultimate director's cut" of the cult gang flick offers some neat if unnecessary editing tweaks to make scene changes look literally like the comic book filmmaker Walter Hill says he was trying to deliver. You make the call as to whether it's all trying a little too hard to lend after-the-fact legitimacy to this dish's extra-cheesy toppings. Still, this weekend in particular, we definitely can dig Hill's funky vision of the Baseball Furies, a posse of pinstripe-clad punks dogging the mission of the righteous.
Extras: A collection of production featurettes offer some fun glimpses of these dubious gangbangers 26 years on. (Paramount, $19.99)
Foreign DVD | Ty Burr
In 'Tunnel,' panic beneath the Berlin Wall
Spending two hours and 40 minutes in a hole under the Berlin Wall may not sound like anyone's idea of a good time, but ''The Tunnel" (2001) is a grabber from beginning to end. Based on the true story of a group of Berliners who in 1962 dug their relatives out of East Germany, it's a ripping great-escape yarn of the sort we don't see much anymore.
When we meet the film's hero, Harry Melchior (Heino Ferch), it's August 1961 and he has just become Germany's swimming champion. While treated as a conquering communist sports god, he wants no part of state glory. Within weeks he has defected to West Berlin and is urging his best friend, an engineer named Matthis (Sebastian Koch), to start thinking big. Both men have reasons for wanting to dig back to East Berlin. Harry's beloved sister Lotte (Alexandra Maria Lara) and her family are there, and so are Matthis's wife, Carola (Claudia Michelsen), and newborn son. The crew they assemble in the basement of an abandoned factory on the west side of the wall has relatives and friends to get out, too, 32 in all, and only 148 meters to dig. That's about a 10th of a mile; not much, but you try it with tanks over your head and your family's lives at stake.
Directed by Roland Suso Richter, ''The Tunnel" plays out as a muscular genre film given real-world urgency by the characters' yearning for freedom; you feel the escalating panic of this particular time and place. Richter and screenwriter Johannes Betz dive into the juicy nuts and bolts of the feat, while on the other side of the wall, there's a whole lot of informing going on. The whole thing sounds too melodramatic for words, and occasionally it is -- including a sex scene that makes emotional sense but still seems dropped in from another movie. That follows a scene of violence, however, that's wrenching in the most harrowingly human way. Time and again, dramatic tidiness in this movie is trumped by immediacy and good old-fashioned suspense.
Extras: Making-of featurette (Home Vision, $29.95)
Foreign DVD | Scott Heller
'Voyages' travels a humanistic road
The three old women lovingly depicted in Emmanuel Finkiel's ''Voyages" (1999) share a sense of displacement. The Holocaust has wrenched them from the lives they should have led; Finkiel's wise and complicated film brings them together but doesn't close the circle in a false display of uplift.
Rivka, a 65-year-old Frenchwoman living in Israel, sits alone during a bus trip to Auschwitz. Overwhelmed by sadness, she won't participate in the chatter and kvetching of her fellow survivors; she won't even talk to her husband. In the second story, the lonely life of a widow named Regine is magically transformed when an old gentleman announces he's her father, who was believed to have died in the concentration camps. The promised land of Israel is the setting for the third story, about Vera, a Russian octogenarian with no family of her own. On a whim, she immigrates to Tel Aviv. Trying to find connection, she seems almost swallowed up in the hubbub of a bustling and brusque new country.
First-time director Finkiel served as an assistant to Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski on the ''Three Colors" trilogy, and ''Voyages" reflects his brand of mystical humanism. But the movie is a quiet marvel of its own. Watch with patience, and be rewarded.
Extras: A 27-minute verite portrait of 85-year-old first-time actress Esther Gorintin, who plays Vera. Her manner as plain as her white hair, Gorintin is unforgettable on- and off-screen, and ''Voyages" launched a brilliant late career. She's made nine movies since, including 2003's ''Since Otar Left."
ALSO THIS WEEK
''MY SUMMER OF LOVE" (2005)
Director Pawel Pawlikowski (''Last Resort") directs newcomers Natalie Press and Emily Blunt in a deft, dramatic tale of social opposites whose mutual interest-turned-attraction might just be a case of cool manipulation by Blunt. Or is it? (Universal, $29.99)
''JIMINY GLICK IN LA LA WOOD" (2005)
Martin Short's clueless, plus-size celebrity interviewer never ranked up there with, say, Ed Grimley -- way too reliant on the fat jokes, for one thing -- but he did give us a few snickers. So it mystifies that this trifle, which dispatches him to the Toronto Film Festival, falls so utterly flat. A Comedy Central-spawned movie trading in David Lynch spoofs? That's weird any way you slice it.
Extras: Commentary by Short and the filmmakers. (
''HOUSE OF D" (2005)
''X-Files" vet David Duchovny disappointed many with his feature directing debut, an alternately overdone and underdone memoir of life in 1970s Greenwich Village in which a sharp 13-year-old (Anton Yelchin) laughs plenty but hurts more, and eventually turns expatriate. With Robin Williams (in overearnest mode as a mentally challenged janitor) and Duchovny's wife, Tea Leoni. (Lions Gate, $27.98)
''NOT ONLY BUT ALWAYS" (2004)
Rhys Ifans (''Notting Hill") and Aidan McArdle (''Ella Enchanted") re-create the comedy stylings of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and their ''Beyond the Fringe" revue in this modest but intriguing British biopic.
Extras: Filmmaker commentary (Acorn Media, $24.99; ''Beyond the Fringe" also available, $24.99)
''THE AMITYVILLE HORROR" (2005)
Career cut-up Ryan Reynolds had better luck playing action hero in ''Blade: Trinity" than he does playing scared and scary in the ill-advised remake of the '70s not-quite-classic.
Extras: Commentary by Reynolds and the producers; production featurettes. (Sony, $28.95)
REISSUES''THE FLY" (1986)
David Cronenberg ingeniously mines '50s schlock horror for his creepy-crawly portrait of scientist Jeff Goldblum's physical and psychological degeneration into the hideous. The movie has such moments of poignancy, we've always wished Cronenberg had tempered the gross-outs a bit to make us watch more closely rather than look away.
Extras: Commentary by Cronenberg; production featurettes. (Fox, $19.98)
TELEVISION
''KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER" (1974-75)
The adventures of Darren McGavin's newshound with a nose for the supernatural were, semi-famously, one of the inspirations for ''The X-Files" -- albeit more in concept than execution. Now that Kolchak is being revived, the original series likewise gets exhumed. (Universal, $39.98)
Capsules are written by Globe correspondent Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.
