The rippling, fetishized musculature of Olympic athletes is ultimately only the second most impressive thing on display in "Personal Best" (1982). What's even more striking about writer-director Robert Towne's drama is how matter-of-factly it depicts the romantic relationship between eventual track rivals Chris Cahill (Mariel Hemingway) and Tory Skinner (real-life Olympian Patrice Donnelly). There's nothing sensationalistic or prurient at play in the women's involvement with each other. no going on and on about "taboos." Even when their hard-case coach (Scott Glenn) comes between them, it's not about the story taking an easy out, but rather introducing a valid, squirmy bit of dramatic complication. The film also holds up well visually, with deftly edited shots of runners at the starting blocks building terrific anticipation. A scene in which Hemingway and Donnelly race up a giant dune in slow-motion, with only their breathing and the scattering sand audible, is a clinic in sound design.
Extras: Towne sits down for a commentary track with Glenn and castmate Kenny Moore, another Olympic vet. You're likely to ask, "Kenny who," given that his character is a minor player. But Towne explains that Moore was key to the production shooting at the Olympic trials. (The two would go on to co-write the Steve Prefontaine biopic "Without Limits.") Towne occasionally digresses when the material turns graphic, choosing Hemingway and Donnelly's big love scene to talk about how Hemingway was actually coached on the "Fosbury flop" by high jumper Dick Fosbury. Eventually, though, he gets around to noting that he took issue with a crew member's notion that the scene should have a cold design to reflect an inappropriateness about it. For Towne, the moment was all about innocence. (Warner, $19.97)
"SCENES OF A SEXUAL NATURE" (2006)
Director Ed Blum's British ensemble piece isn't quite as provocative as its title implies, but it is an engaging, occasionally moving, and frequently truthful look at how people connect - or don't - through love and lust. Peeking in on various couples and singles whiling away the day on London's Hampstead Heath, the film delivers a genteel little jolt here and there; witness Hugh Boneville suddenly making it clear why he's alone, never mind a promising blind date with Gina McKee ("Atonement"). Or monogamy-challenged Ewan McGregor coolly using faithfulness as a bargaining chip with longtime companion Douglas Hodge. In the film's most leisurely paced storyline, seniors Eileen Atkins and Benjamin Whitrow have a surprising encounter on a park bench. Much talk and metaphor-dropping about real life versus fantasy ensues - some of it obvious, but all of it as agreeable as a lazy day in the park.
Extras: Commentary by Blum and writer Aschlin Ditta; production featurette. (THINKFilm, $27.98)
"WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. . ." (1989)
Of course there's a point to revisiting this pinnacle in the careers of Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Rob Reiner, and Nora Ephron. It's not as if we've gotten any further in definitively settling that juicy debate about whether men and women can just be friends without sex getting in the way. Crystal, Reiner, and Ephron turn up in a breezy collection of production featurettes and a chummy new audio track, even drawing fresh laughs commenting on the classic diner scene. Ryan, says Reiner, "was nervous. There were strangers, and she [initially] did it very lackluster." Crystal: "I'm thinking, 'Is this the way she actually has them?' " No reply, alas, from the conspicuously absent Ryan. (MGM, $19.98)
"AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER" (1957)
And speaking of Ephron, the weepie that was her inspiration in "Sleepless in Seattle" is feted with a golden-anniversary reissue. Film historian Joseph McBride provides scholarly commentary, which is intercut with some interesting reminiscences from vocalist Marni Nixon, who dubbed Deboarh Kerr's singing both here and in "The King and I." A biographical segment spotlights director Leo McCarey, who also directed the 1939 original, "Love Affair." Additional featurettes get creative by speaking with Cary Grant's widow and Kerr's widower about their relationships. (Fox, $19.98)
Foreign DVD | Wesley Morris
Apichatpong's intoxicating 'Syndromes'
Like Michelangelo Antonioni before him, the 37-year-old Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is making non-narrative movies for serious movie lovers. Mind you, "serious" shouldn't be confused with "self-serious" - Apichatpong makes movies without the burden of solemnity. One of the most excitingly unburdened directors in the world, he'll be at the Harvard Film Archive Saturday for a retrospective of his films.
Apichatpong's fifth feature, "Syndromes and a Century," might be his most purely intoxicating. Apichatpong is a man of sly humor and great patience. There is play at the heart of his movies, yet they're contemplative to the point of being spiritual.
"Syndromes and a Century" is a story of unrequited affection between a country doctor (Nantarat Sawaddikul) and her irrationally lovesick suitor, Toa (Nu Nimsomboon). Between patients, she asks him to lunch, and he demurs (he's not hungry), but he has no problem proposing marriage during the same conversation. He says he adores her. She says she can't relate, eventually telling this sap the story of a prior relationship with a man who sells glow-in-the-dark orchids. This is a sort of screwball comedy with droll, unexpected spices.
Like Apichatpong's previous flights of lyricism, "Syndromes" is about the spell of attraction, but unlike those the spell dissipates and a kind of foreboding takes over. It happens not long after Arkanae Cherkam, as a dolorous singing dentist, tells a monk that he thinks his dead brother has come back as this holy man.
A few scenes later, the movie seems to repeat itself. If the dentist's brother hasn't been reincarnated, some scenes and dialogue certainly have. Apichatpong keeps the characters, but their lives are slightly different.
Nor is the temperature of the film's first hour the same. The soulless interiors of a city hospital replace the pastoral imagery. We've gone from hot to cold and, conversely, from a kind of tropical heaven to glacial urban hell.
The images of that hell are dispiritingly funny. They look like they could have come from Antonioni's environmental lament, "Red Desert"; and the climactic eclipse in "Syndromes" is a brilliant variation on the one from his "L'eclisse." If I didn't believe in reincarnation before Apichatpong's movie, I'm sure I do now.
Extras: Theatrical trailer (Strand Releasing, $27.99)
TV DVD | Mark Feeney
Getting clued in to detective's appeal
Why is it they make movies out of crummy '70s television series ("Starsky and Hutch," "Charlie's Angels,") but not good '70s television series? Yes, there were some - and not only sitcoms. Where, for example, is the movie version of "The Rockford Files"?
Jim Rockford very much belongs in the great, shaggy tradition of the LA detective. Philip Marlowe is only the most famous (James Garner, who played Rockford, took a swing at Raymond Chandler's creation in a 1969 film version of "The Little Sister"). There's also J.J. Gittes, Lew Archer, Joe Friday, Easy Rawlins. In fact, Easy Rockford might be a more suitable name for Garner's character. Rockford has a relaxed unflappability that's a major factor in the show's appeal. Rockford's personality also owes something to Elliott Gould's take on Marlowe, in Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" - though the Malibu where Rockford parks his trailer is a lot different from the one Gould's Marlowe contends with.
"The Rockford Files": Season Five consists of 20 episodes on five discs, with no extras. Well, Rockford always was a no-frills sort of guy - except for that answering machine which opened each episode. Even if he didn't get much respect on the air, he did offscreen. Season five saw the show win an Emmy for outstanding drama. It also looks ahead to another Emmy winner. "Sopranos" creator David Chase wrote the scripts for four episodes during the '78-'79 season, including a memorable two-parter, "Black Mirror."
How much you want to bet that if he was stuck inside on a Friday night the teenage Tony Soprano was watching "Rockford"? (Universal, $39.98)
ALSO THIS WEEK
"GOOD LUCK CHUCK" (2007)
Dane Cook is a ladies' man cursed to forever steer women toward true love without finding it himself - until he meets gawky Jessica Alba. Cook continues to struggle to find a movie that justifies the hype his stand-up has gotten. Alba's game attempt at lightness doesn't go any better.
Extras: Commentary by Cook and filmmakers. (Lionsgate, $29.95)
"THE TEN" (2007)
Paul Rudd hosts a collection of vignettes with a Ten Commandments theme for director David Wain ("Wet Hot American Summer"). Lots of familiar names here - Liev Schreiber, Winona Ryder, Adam Brody, etc. - so it's disappointing that the comedy feels as frantically inconsistent as a cable "SNL" wannabe.
Extras: Commentary by Wain and Rudd; an hour of deleted and alternate scenes; production featurette. (City Lights Home Entertainment, $26.98)
REISSUES
"SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT" (1986)
Women are from Venus and men have an off-putting tendency to act like, well, Mars Blackmon in Spike Lee's first feature, incredibly making its debut on disc only now. But please, baby, baby, baby, please - where are the extras? (MGM, $19.98)
"IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT" (1967)
Mississippi sheriff Rod Steiger and Philly detective Sidney Poitier have to dig past skin deep to solve a murder down South in director Norman Jewison's best picture winner, which also nabbed Steiger an Oscar.
Extras: New featurettes on the film and the social climate in which is was made, as well as on Quincy Jones's score; recycled commentary by Jewison, the late Steiger, and others. (MGM, $19.98)
"IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA" (1955) / "EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS" (1956)
Havoc reigns in this pair of B-movie classics from legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, each presented in its original black and white and (for the kids?) colorized versions.
Extras: Commentary by Harryhausen and proteges; Tim Burton sit-down with Harryhausen; numerous effects and production featurettes. (
"JOHNNY SUEDE" (1991)
Brad Pitt takes a bigger chance than you'd likely see him take anytime recently, starring in a quirky little indie in which the only thing bigger than his pompadour are his "American Idol"-y dreams. (Anchor Bay, $19.98)
FOREIGN
"ECLIPSE SERIES 7: POSTWAR KUROSAWA" (1946-55)
The Japanese master's early-career affinity for examining the state of his nation, both harshly and lightly, is charted in a five-film set. Includes "No Regrets for Our Youth," "One Wonderful Sunday," "Scandal," "The Idiot," and "I Live in Fear." (Criterion, $69.95)
Capsules are written by Globe correspondent Tom Russo and titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.
