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Taking a look ahead at the week's DVD releases is always dicey for your wallet. Nearly every week, there's a disc that would fit nicely into any size collection. When it comes time to decide what to buy, there are really two determining factors: how much you love the content and the quality of the extra features on the disc. The unreleased studio (film and television) back-catalogue means that every week there's likely something for you.

For nearly ruining a classic television show: The West Wing: The Complete Fifth Season (6-DVD Set) (2003)

The West Wing's first four seasons rank among the most thought-provoking, compelling television in history. The show won the Best Drama Emmy each of the first four years and an array of writing, directing and acting awards. As a result, Warner Bros decided it was best that series creator and primary writer Aaron Sorkin leave the show. Sure, his scripts were regularly late, but look at the record of success...tough to beat. In a turn of events that shocked literally no one, the following season was a critical disaster, with ER show-runner John Wells brought in to, well, ER-up the show.

There's one episode of the fifth season that I can remember enjoying (The Supremes), but the rest exhibited a shocking lack of humor, something that sucked the life of a show that until that point had been able to deftly balance serious storylines, wonky policy debates and a healthy dose of the humor that real life office situations exhibit. Last season (six) and this season (seven), while curiously speeding up the show's timeline by a year to get to an election cycle, have managed to put a little bit of the fun and quality back into the show, but there's still something lacking from the Sorkin days. I can't help but wonder what someone of Sorkin's genius would have done with this election storyline. Also, I can't wait for his new show, which apparently is a look at the making of a Saturday Night Live-type show.

Included on the DVD set are commentary tracks by John Wells and Alex Graves on 7A WF 83429, by Wells and Christopher Misiano on The Dogs of War and by Alex Graves, Jessica Yu, and Debora Cahn on The Supremes; a "presidential profile" on both President Bartlet and Martin Sheen; a featurette on the episode Gaza, titled "Anatomy of an Episode" and deleted scenes on three of the season's episodes. It's a decent enough package, but really not worth buying unless you really want to see the fifth season and can't rent it anywhere.

Say what? A funny script actually matters?: The Dukes of Hazzard (Unrated Widescreen) (2005)

As a fan of the film Super Troopers, I had high hopes for The Dukes of Hazzard. After all, it was directed by Broken Lizard's Jay Chandrasekhar and features the entire Broken Lizard troupe in various roles. In addition, the cast was, at a minimum, inspired...Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville as Luke and Bo? Jessica Simpson as Daisy? Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse? Sounds great. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten the unwritten rule that 95% of remakes have to suck. Apparently, any adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard was determined to require a nearly complete lack of creative and intelligent writing, giving a cast that has a lot of potential very little to work with.

It's to Chandrasekhar and the cast's credit that they make pieces of the movie work. At a bare minimum, the cast looks like it's having a ton of fun, but when the most effective joke in the movie is lifted directly from Super Troopers, you know you're in trouble. All that said, the studio is doing all they can to find The Dukes of Hazzard a home on video, starting with the obvious draw: boobies! The disc is being release with an "unrated" edition, so you know they just added in some gratuitous boobs, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Along with the new boobs, the DVD features other footage "never shown in theaters"; two sets of deleted scenes (unrated and "PG-13"); featurettes on how to make short shorts short, The General Lee Lives, how to make a car fly; two gag reels (unrated and "PG-13"); the soul-crushing yet impossible to turn off video for Jessica Simpson's version of "These Boots are Made for Walking"; and a behind the scene featurette. Not a bad set for a pretty bad movie.

You know, all that really matters is Jessica Alba in a skin-tight suit: Fantastic Four (Widescreen) (2005)

Speaking of bad movies that should have been better...it's the Fantastic Four! A truly bad movie made remotely watchable by the performances of Chris Evans (The Human Torch) and Michael Chiklis (The Thing), the Fantastic Four is the latest adaptation of a Marvel Comic book. It's more Daredevil than Spider-Man or X-Men, unfortunately. How a story with literally 40 years of history and depth can somehow get screwed up is mind-boggling.

Clearly weighted down by a script that seems to be a hodgepodge of 15 years of draft screenplays by different writers, Fantastic Four also suffers from amateur direction by Tim "Barbershop" Story and acting from Ioan Gruffudd and Julian McMahon that belongs in a community theater. It's a real shame that a real script wasn't written, a decent director wasn't brought in, and a bank vault wasn't opened to get George Clooney to play Mr. Fantastic. The only really good news in the recent sequel announcement is that McMahon won't be back as Dr. Doom.

For those devoted to either the film or Jessica Alba, the DVD features a cast audio commentary; deleted scenes; a behind-the-scenes video hosted by the cast; a making-of featurette; featurettes on casting, creating a scene and music videos. Most interesting is the exclusive inside look at X-Men 3, which is reason enough to rent Fantastic Four on DVD given the recent teaser.

For realizing that sometimes you can do as much damage with a phone as with a fist: Cinderella Man (Collector's Edition) (2005)

When I hear the words "A Ron Howard Film", I immediately know to expect extremely capable, high-quality filmmaking. I also know to expect nothing that would remotely challenge the viewer, nothing that might offend, and nothing that might interest anyone not looking for a film through the eyes of either Richie Cunningham or Opie. That's not to say that Ron Howard movies aren't worth watching, just that they seem to always leave me wanting for more.

On this, Howard's second collaboration with the mercurial phone-thrower Russell Crowe, there has been more attention paid to the fact that the film received decent reviews and still had to resort to gimmicks (money-back guarantees) and late-year re-releases to try to garner any interest from Awards voters and the general public. To me, that's a sign of a movie that doesn't quite capture the collective imagination quite the way it was intended. But that's surprising given Russell Crowe and co-star Paul Giamatti's consistent genius, the presence of too-cute children dressed as street urchins and, most importantly, Renee Zellweger's increasingly pinched face (seriously, does she have a lemon IV?). Even the uplifting story of boxer James J. Braddock's meteoric rise to fame at the height of the depression didn't excite audiences. For a review of the film by BOP's Kim
Hollis, click here.

The film didn't get the treatment it probably deserves in theaters (though I doubt there's a huge gulf there), but those who give it a look on DVD will find that luckily, extra features abound. There are three separate audio commentaries (Ron Howard; writer Akiva Goldsman; writer Cliff Hollingsworth); extensive deleted scenes with optional commentary by Ron Howard; featurettes on casting, the filmmaking process, the boxing history related in the film, Braddock's friends and family; a Russell Crowe video diary; a featurette on preparations for the boxing sequences, another on the planning for the fight sequences; actual Braddock fight footage and another featurette on the film's music. All box office success (or lack thereof) aside, it's a terrific set and the DVD Pick of the Week.

December 6, 2005

24: Season Four (7-DVD Set) (2005)
American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1991)
Arizona (1940)
Boss'n Up (2005)
Cinderella Man (Full Frame) (2005)
Cinderella Man (Widescreen) (2005)
Cinderella Man (Collector's Edition) (2005)
The Dark Corner (1946)
Delta Force 3: The Killing Game (1991)
Dias de Santiago (2004)
Dirty Love (Rated R) (2005)
Dirty Love (Unrated) (2005)
Don't Touch If You Ain't Prayed (2005)
The Dukes of Hazzard (R-Rated Full Frame) (2005)
The Dukes of Hazzard (Unrated Full Frame) (2005)
The Dukes of Hazzard (Unrated Widescreen) (2005)
Fantastic Four (Full Frame) (2005)
Fantastic Four (Widescreen) (2005)
Felicity: An American Girl Adventure (2005)
Fifty/Fifty (1993)
Forbidden Games (Criterion Collection) (1952)
Garfield and Friends: Volume Five (3-DVD Set) (1992)
Heebie Jeebies (2005)
Kiss of Death (1947)
Konga (1961)
Ladies in Lavender (2004)
M*A*S*H: Season Nine (3-DVD Set) (1980)
MacGyver: The Complete Fourth Season (5-DVD Set) (1988)
Murder, She Wrote: The Complete Second Season (3-DVD Set) (1985)
The Ninth Day (2004)
Puddle Cruiser (1996)
Rockford Files: Season One (3-DVD Set) (1974)
Scarred (2005)
Shoot the Piano Player (Criterion Collection) (1960)
Star Wars: Clone Wars (Volume Two) (2005)
Two Hands (1999)
The West Wing: The Complete Fifth Season (6-DVD Set) (2003)
Witch's Sabbath (2005)