DVD Releases: October 20, 2005


	Mad Hot Ballroom How difficult would it be to program a retrospective of theatrical films and documentaries, in which groups of spunky kids overcome their humble roots by coming together in pursuit of a single artistic goal? No problem, but it could easily last a week or more. The makers of Mad Hot Ballroom followed several dozen New York 4th- and 5th- graders in their annual pursuit of a citywide dancing championship. The teachers are typically dedicated and inspirational; the kids, of course, are charming and articulate; and the competition is as thrilling as any that could be scripted by members of the Writers Guild. It's the anachronistic appeal of ballroom dancing, though, that turns Marilyn Agrelo's film into such a winner. -- Gary Dretzka The Hot Button: What is it? It's a movie about kids who live with the potential of going wrong going right. It's a movie about the passions of competition. It's about the conflict of today's tuned out world and the classic idea of polite social intercourse... a form of socializing that can also be great fun and sexy.


	The Big Lebowski: Achiever's Edition Despite a lukewarm reception from critics and audiences, upon its release in 1998, The Big Lebowski has emerged as the Citizen Kane of slacker movies, and Jeffrey Lebowski as a role model for at least one generation of voluntarily un-ambitious American males. These include, of course, those whose idea of a productive day means getting stoned, drinking black Russians and going bowling, usually while wearing nothing more formal than a robe or aloha shirt. The Coen brothers used Raymond Chandler's classic noir novel, The Big Sleep, as a template for the mistaken-identity mystery at the center of The Big Lebowski, and Elliot Gould's rumpled portrayal of Philip Marlowe, in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, as the model for Jeff Bridges' Dude. Like Chandler's novels, and the best of the adaptations, The Big Lebowski presents Los Angeles as a vast melting pot for dreamers, schemers, grifters, drifters, tycoons, tyrants, tarts and toadies. It also is a hilarious send-up of Hollywood genre pictures. In short, The Big Lebowski is a hoot, and the Achiever's Edition comes with a bowling shammy, collectible coasters and photo cards from Bridges' collection. The less-expensive Collector's Edition includes the same bonus material, minus the tchotckes. -- Gary Dretzka

	The Jazz Singer: 25th Anniversary Edition When he agreed to star in Richard Fleischer's contemporary re-make of The Jazz Singer -- in the role made famous by Al Jolson, in the first talkie -- Neil Diamond probably anticipated finding as much fame in Hollywood, as he had on the concert trail. After all, crossing over worked pretty well for his high-school choir-mate, Barbra Streisand. How hard could it be? Not difficult at all. Turns out, Diamond so impressed Razzie voters that they honored his debut performance with their inaugural Worst Actor award. (To be fair, though, co-star Laurence Olivier was named co-winner of the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor.) Once bitten by the acting bug, Diamond was twice shy … which was all for the better. It would be his last attempt at movie stardom, apart from providing music. Diamond's many devotees will welcome this new DVD edition of The Jazz Singer, especially hearing the hit songs, again, every bit as much as his detractors will enjoy making fun of all the campy '80s artifacts on display. -- Gary Dretzka

OT: Our Town An even more extreme example of the challenges faced by inner-city students could be found in OT: Our Town, which documented Catherine Borek's similarly difficult attempt to mount Thornton Wilder's Our Town in an impoverished L.A. high school. At Compton's Dominguez High School, the arts carry far less sway than basketball, gang activity and trying to make ends meet at home. Our Town required only a bare-bone production budget, though, so much of Borek's challenge simply involved keeping her cast intact and motivated.-- Gary Dretzka

Bomb the System There are few nichier niches than movies about graffiti artists … or are they vandals? Adam Bhala Lough's Bomb the System, which translates loosely as Spraypaint New York, describes one young man's efforts to express his inner dreams, desires and demons, while everyone from the cops to his mom are busting his chops. I wonder if angry rural youths, in places like Wisconsin and Kansas, work out their frustrations by randomly bombing silos or tagging cows? -- Gary Dretzka

Tarzan: Special Edition Disney's bringing back its popular animated version of the Tarzan legend, this time with some new music, new interactive games, a featurette, DisneyPedia: Living In The Jungle, deleted scenes and an alternate opening sequence. A Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track is being offered, in addition to the original 5.0 theatrical soundtrack. It's still an entertaining movie, and the native black Africans are still missing in action. -- Gary Dretzka
Festival! If there was anything missing from Martin Scorsese's epic documentary No Direction Home, it was concrete evidence of the true magnitude of the folk-music community outside New York and London, in the years before Bob Dylan went electric. Murray Lerner's archival footage, in Festival!, fills the void nicely, with images from the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963, '64 and '65. It also offers interviews with musicians, fans and organizers, as well as coverage of music workshops and crowd snapshots. At the height of its popularity, the annual festival attracted as many as 45,000 lovers of traditional music and, by extension, the progressive politics they favored. The early '60s also was a period when college students, especially, were about to turn on, tune in and drop out of mainstream society. Dylan's stunning electro-shock treatment at Newport helped facilitate the transition. Festival! not only succeeds as an essay on the niche culture, but also as a reminder of the immense talents of other influential folks musicians, many of whom would be lost in the pop-cultural flood that followed. The performers on view include such re-discovered blues giants as Son House and Mississippi John Hurt; soon-to-break-through stars Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Donovan and Johnny Cash; and traditional acts, like the Georgia Sea Island Singers and the Ed Young Fife and Drum Corps. The DVD's sound and visual quality are remarkably good, as well. . -- Gary Dretzka

TV to DVD C.S.I.: New York: The Complete First Season Peter Jennings Collection Unscripted The concept behind Jerry Bruckheimer's trio of Crime Scene Investigation series is so elastic -- and the variations between them so skillfully articulated -- it's a bit surprising that other producers of hit shows haven't attempted exactly the same thing. Instead of Joey, we could have had Friends: Seattle and Friends: Chicago; instead of a chain of tavern franchises, Cheers could have been re-set in such beer capitals as Milwaukee and St. Louis; emergency rooms in Oakland and Baghdad could have served as settings for extensions of the ER brand. But, then, those shows would have to retain executive producers as skillful and demanding as Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf, whose Law & Order spinoffs have carried NBC on their back for years (even the failures are good). It helps, of course, if you can afford to film your series on location, as well, and anchor them with actors as grounded in their art as William Petersen, David Caruso and, in CSI: New York, Gary Sinise. Along with Melina Kanakaredes, as his Crime Lab partner, Sinise lends an air of dedication and seriousness that is palpable. The recent death of ABC newsman Peter Jennings inspired more than the usual number of tears and testimonials among peers and viewers. This can't be explained merely by his role as longtime standard-bearer for ABC News -- after all, on most evenings, anchors are required to do little more than look good reading the news -- but by a steadiness and conviction that perfectly complemented his leading-man persona. Jennings simply fit the part, as well or better than anyone who's held the job, at least since Walter Cronkite was prematurely dumped by CBS. By all accounts, he loved to get out in the field and report. This is evidenced in the six special reports included in The Peter Jennings Collection. In hindsight, the most symbolically moving of these reports is, From the Tobacco Files, which asked serious questions of the legislators who have given cigarette manufacturers a pass, even knowing exactly how poisonous their products continue to be. Oh, yeah. Jennings' death can be directly attributed to his own cigarette habit. The HBO series Unscripted is especially recommended for aspiring actors and those who are under the mistaken impression that rank-and-file actors have got it made in the shade. Executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, the mostly improvised half-hour dramedy used an actors workshop as a setting for examining the culture and struggles of actors who never know where the next job is coming. Frank Langella played Goddard Fulton, a semi-famous actor who guides a group of real-life thespians -- who pretty much played themselves -- through the paces of being a professional, instead of merely a pretty face. (He also was capable of acting his way into their pants.) The cinema-verite style could be confusing to watch, and it often was difficult to split the difference between fact and fiction. Still, the characters/actors were easy on the eyes, and their individual stories were compelling. -- Gary Dretzka

Land of the Dead: Unrated Director's Cut There's Always Vanilla/Season of the Witch Day of the Dead 2: Contagium Season of the Witch/Demon Seed/Dracula A.D. 1972 The parade of mostly dead-on-arrival zombie/horror movies continues unabated this week, with George A. Romero's return to the genre, Land of the Dead. Released this past summer, the high-profile gorefest not only represented the fourth installment in Romero's epochal zombie cycle, but also his first portrait of the undead since 1985's Day of the Dead, and a light year away from the release of the ground-breaking Night of the Living Dead, in 1968. So, what's changed? Well, 40 years worth of technological upgrades in the production end, and an amazing evolution in the capabilities of makeup artists. Here, Romero was able to recruit such talents as Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Asia Argento. Beyond that, it's a zombie movie … better than most, but no scarier than his early work. Some of that early work is represented by Anchor Bay's There's Always Vanilla and Season of the Witch, which Romero made immediately after the surprising success of The Night of the Living Dead. Neither qualifies as a horror film, per se, but are quirky enough to be enjoyed for their mostly historical value. The company also has released, James Dudelson and Ana Clavell's straight-to-video Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, which won't make anyone forget any zombie movie. Far more entertaining are genre semi-classics, Night of the Lepus and Demon Seed. The former imagined a plan to rid a farmer's land of pesky bunnies, but, instead, he initiated an assault by 25-foot-tall mutant rabbits, all of whose eyes glowed in the dark. Demon Seed suggests what might have happened, in 1977, if a HAL-like computer decided it wanted what tens of millions of humans have wanted for more than 30 years, sex with Julie Christie … or, at least, a baby from her gene pool. In this way, it's a techno version of Rosemary's Baby. Released the same year as Lepus, Hammer Studios introduced the Prince of Darkness to Swinging London's Carnaby Street. in Dracula A.D. 1972. Christopher Lee reprises the role of Dracula, who continues to be tracked by Peter Cushing. All three movies provide oodles of cheap thrills.-- Gary Dretzka

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Ray Pride's Five Best DVDs And Five Best Boxed Sets