MCN DVD Reviews: April 28, 2009

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	..The MCN Reviews Vault
	..The MCN Critics Roundup

Nothing But the Truth

Although it’s impossible not to compare what happens in Nothing But the Truth to the prosecution of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, the differences between the two cases are, at once, significant and irrelevant.

Like Miller, the reporter played by Kate Beckinsale in Rod Lurie’s Washington-set legal thriller was punished for refusing to name the person who blew the cover of a female CIA agent (Vera Farmiga) whose husband had pissed off the President and his henchmen. Both women argued that the 1st Amendment guaranteed their right to shield their sources, and both were jailed for their perceived contempt of the court by refusing to name them.

If neither woman was given a parade for their courage upon her release, it’s because both had misread the public’s willingness to go to bat for someone who challenged the government during a period of crisis. Miller's stance was significantly weakened by revelations that she had been duped into writing articles that served to justify President Bush’s false claim about Saddam Hussein stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. It’s made clear exactly why the fictional reporter and her editors felt it necessary to protect the source, but it has something to do with a covert action against a Venezuelan leader.

No matter, whatever the Valerie Plame look-alike did or didn’t do is beside the real point being made by Lurie: democracy ain’t pretty. As if Miller’s case weren’t sufficiently dramatic already, the critic-turned-filmmaker decided to embellish his crusader’s ordeal by adding personal misery to her professional agony. Not only is Beckinsale’s reporter saddled with an egomaniacal lawyer (Alan Alda), who underestimates his younger courtroom opponent, (Matt Dillon), but she is denied access to the media and most visitors, while also living among a few dozen more dangerous inmates.

While her stay was no picnic, Miller enjoyed far greater privileges; Plame and her diplomat husband are alive, well and living in Santa Fe; and leaker I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby had his own jail sentence (perjury, obstruction of justice) commuted by President Bush. Meanwhile, in Nothing But the Truth, Beckinsale and Farmiga’s characters would suffer far greater consequences. Lurie admits to being inspired by Miller’s case, but it served more as a jumping off point for a high-brow, woman-in-jeopardy thriller. As such, the film has much in common with Lurie’s Deterrence and The Contender, both of which were simultaneously entertaining and preposterous.

The real fun here comes from watching the sparks fly when Beckinsale’s dogged reporter confronts Farmiga’s no-longer-anonymous spook. Incredibly, when not standing on opposite sides of the 1st Amendment, both women lived in the same Washington suburb, drove their kids to the same soccer games and were invited to the same backyard barbecues and school events. While Beckinsale doesn’t look as if she could last a day in stir, let alone years, the reliably terrific Farmiga convinced me of her character’s ability to kill, maim and talk trash to enemies of our flawed democracy. The bonus package adds quite a few deleted scenes, commentary and a making-of featurette.- Gary Dretzka

Empire of Passion: Criterion Collection
The Uninvited: Blu-ray
Ecoute Le Temps (Fissures)

There’s absolutely no way to describe what happens in the first half-hour of Nagisa Oshima’s elegant period ghost story, Empire of Passion, without making it sound as if the film were a finalist for Best Picture at the AVN awards. Celebrated at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, but deemed too hot by American distributors, it blended generous dollops of eroticism and horror in the service of a 19th Century morality play.

Seki and Gisaburo comprise a hard-working married couple, living in a remote Japanese village, circa 1885. Early in the story, a veteran of the first Sino-Japanese War makes brazen advances on the much older Seki, who, still quite pretty, appreciates the compliments. Sensing an opening, Toyoji pays an unexpected visit to Seki’s modest home, while her husband is busy working. Instead of biding his time, Toyoji’s sexual intoxication causes him to ravage the much smaller woman, while her infant son bawls his eyes out a few feet away from them. In a twist to the usual lay-back-and-enjoy-it rape fantasy, Toyoji uses his tongue to turn Seki’s agony to orgasmic ecstasy.

Having partaken of the forbidden fruit once, she’s unable to resist another tongue lashing. Smitten, Seki agrees to shave her pubic hair as a token of her devotion to Toyoji. A century later, she could have explained to her husband that a new swimsuit required the sudden defoliation, and he would have bought it. In 1885, however, the discovery would have caused great shame and dishonor to both parties. The lovers agreed that the only sure way to keep Giasburo from discovering her indiscretion was to kill him, throw his body down a well and tell friends that the rickshaw driver had taken a more lucrative job in Tokyo.

The scheme remains unquestioned for three years, at which point Giasburo’s ghost begins making appearances around the village and in the dreams of his children. The recurring apparitions triggered suspicion about Giasburo’s disappearance, which, in turn, prompted inquiries by the local policeman and much guilt and recrimination by the guilty lovers. The rest of the story need not be revealed here. Japanese censors aren’t keen on pubic hair, shaved or otherwise, so Oshima had to film his kaidan (ghost story) in France, just as he had done previously with the even more shocking In the Realm of the Senses. As ghost stories go, Empire of Passion isn’t all that scary. Oshima’s command of the medium, though, raised the level of fear and foreboding through lighting, sound and special visual effects. The Criterion edition provides all the background necessary to fully appreciate Oshima’s achievement and his films’ place in the national cinema.

Empire of Passion, with its ringing endorsement of oral sex, wasn’t a likely candidate for adaptation by Hollywood genre specialists. Otherwise, it’s the rare Asian horror film not to be considered, at least, for re-interpretation. The Uninvited was inspired by the 2003 South Korean horror hit, Changhwa, Hongryon (a.k.a., Rose Flower, Red Lotus or A Tale of Two Sisters). Despite the broad appeal of the original, the American adaptation was targeted specifically at American teens … not the most discerning of audiences, even for genre pictures.

Here, Anna (Emily Browning) returns to her lakeside home after spending time in a psychiatric facility to recover from her mother's death. Upon her arrival, Anna is shocked to learn that her father (David Straithairn) had become engaged to her mother's nurse, Rachel (the ubiquitous Elizabeth Banks). Not about to take this insult lying down, the ghost of Anna’s mother returns to her Earthly home to inform her daughter of Rachel’s complicity in the death. Admirers of The Ring, The Echo, The Grudge and other re-imaginings of Asian fare are the most likely candidates for The Uninvited. The Blu-ray edition includes a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and an alternate ending.

It’s also been reported that Joe Dante and Elizabeth Stanley were interested in adapting Alanta Kavaite's nifty debut film, Ecoute le Temps (Fissures) for American audiences. In it, the daughter of a slain French clairvoyant uses her skills as a sound technician to investigate a case that local villagers would prefer to remain a mystery. Upon her return home, the young woman, Charlotte (rising French star Emilie Dequenne), begins to hear bits and pieces of conversations that occurred months earlier within the fissured walls of her mom’s rural bungalow.

Much in the same way as Gene Hackman’s P.I. eavesdropped on people suspected of murder in The Conversation, and as John Travolta unraveled a conspiracy in Blow-Out, Charlotte uses clues sent from beyond the grave to discover her mother’s killer. Kavaite’s deliberate pacing would probably have presented too great a challenge to American multiplex audiences. Those who give the DVD a shot, however, will be pleasantly reminded of Claude Chabrol’s approach to similarly unsettling material. It’s far from perfect, but Ecoute le Temps suggests Kaivaite is a filmmaker with something worthwhile to add to the genre. - Gary Dretzka

What Doesn't Kill You
While She Was Out

Although Boston has yet to spawn a Mean Streets to call its own, the Irish-Catholic hoodlums we’ve met in such films as Boondock Saints, Southie, Mystic River and, now, What Doesn’t Kill You share many characteristics with the aspiring Italian-Catholic gangsters we met in Little Italy. Compare the music Martin Scorsese chose for the soundtracks to The Departed and Mean Streets – "Comfortably Numb” and “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” to “Be My Baby” and “Marinariello,” if you will – and it’s easy to see how Red Sox and Yankee fans might as well be from opposite sides of the moon. (If State of Grace had been set in Boston, instead of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, it might have defined the experience of growing up hard in Southie.)

In What Doesn’t Kill You, Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke are very convincing as a pair of goons in the employ of a gang boss (Brian Goodman), who, while less flamboyant that Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello, was cut from the same unforgiving cloth. Not content to serve merely as errand boys, the two lads risk their protected status by shaking down drug dealers. Naturally, their hubris eventually is rewarded with an unscheduled vacation in prison. Upon his release, Ruffalo’s character promises his wife (Amanda Peet) that he will remain clean, sober and out of harm’s way. His greatest challenge comes after the release of his partner, who’s completely unrehabilitated and anxious to prove his mettle by hijacking an armored truck.

Even though Ruffalo’s character fully understands what the consequences of failure could be, he’s torn between the loyalty he feels toward his reckless friend and the promise he made to his wife and son. Goodman, who also co-wrote and directed the film, is on familiar ground here. The dialogue is taut and the pacing deliberate. Moreover, he effectively keeps his audience guessing as to which direction he’ll steer the more likable of his grown-up bad boys. What Doesn’t Kill You didn’t enjoy much of a theatrical run, but, in its DVD incarnation, some solid buzz ought to give it a well-deserved second chance.

Finding Kim Basinger in such an unpleasant little picture as While She Is Out is the motion-picture equivalent of watching a down-on-his-luck Formula 1 driver compete in a demolition derby. It just ain’t right. In Susan Montford’s debut as a writer/director, Basinger portrays a suburban mom so cowed by the abuse she takes from her husband that she can barely function outside her home. One night, after purchasing some last-minute Christmas items at the local mall, Basinger’s Della is surrounded by a pack of feral youths intent on stealing her SUV, along with her dignity.

A Good Samaritan comes to her rescue, but is unceremoniously gunned down by the group’s alpha male (Lukas Haas). The interruption allows Della sufficient time to get in her car and escape to a nearby housing development, which is surrounded by woods. The ensuing chase requires Della to make like John Rambo and get medieval on her pursuers, using smarts and strength she didn’t know she had. The twist at the end of While She Was Out, while predictable, is the best thing in the picture. – Gary Dretzka

The She-Beast
The Centerfold Girls

Grindhouse fare doesn’t come much cheesier or less technically proficient than the new-to-DVD The She-Beast and The Centerfold Girls. But, hey, isn’t that why we loved trashy movies that played as well in Times Square as at a mosquito-infested drive-in in the boonies. The point wasn’t to win awards or impress critics. It was to sell tickets and popcorn to folks who wouldn’t be paying attention after the first reel, anyway. Unintended irony wouldn’t be considered an asset until much later. That said, however, genre practitioners probably had as secure a handle on auteur theory as any critic at Cahiers du cinéma.

The late, lamented writer-director-producer Michael Reeves was just such an artist. In addition to the truly schlocky, if occasionally hilarious, The She Beast, Reeves’ credits included Castle of the Living Dead, The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General. No sooner had he been assigned to direct Vincent Price and Christopher Lee in The Oblong Box, however, than he died of an accidental drug overdose. The She-Beast may legitimately be described as a true piece of crap, but much of the hip, self-aware dialogue could have been lifted from Mad magazine. It existed on another plane from the story of a beautiful English tourist (genre icon Barbara Steele), who, presumed drowned in a Transylvanian lake, is reborn as a grotesquely deformed, 200-year-old witch. Moreover, the owner of the local inn is a Stalinist pervert and the great-grandson of Professor Van Helsing jumps at the chance to restore his family’s reputation after the botched exorcism two centuries earlier. Reeves’ film benefits from a new transfer in its original Scope aspect ratio. Also added to the disc is new commentary with producer Paul Maslansky and actors Ian Ogilvy and Steele.

The Centerfold Girls is every bit as stupid and poorly made as The She-Beast, but it offers something that film didn’t: lots of gratuitous nudity. When the centerfolds aren’t disrobing, they’re mostly required to scream and provide easy targets for a razor-toting, Bible-banging, Zoot-shoe-wearing serial killer (Andrew Prine). The script allows the murderer, who picks out his victims from nudie-cutie magazine pictorials, the luxury of knowing the girl’s telephone numbers and addresses without having to waste time paging through a telephone directory. These women aren’t skanks or prostitutes, just career gals looking to augment their meager salaries with the odd modeling job. The police, of course, are useless. If the presence of one killer weren’t enough trouble, the models also were forced to fend off freelance rapists, including one played by onetime leading man, Aldo Ray. The DVD was transferred and restored from original 16mm camera negatives. It also adds a new interview with producer Arthur Marks, and actors Prine, Francine York and Jennifer Ashley. - Gary Dretzka

The Hairdresser’s Husband

Based on writer-director Patrice Leconte’s own youthful obsessions, The Hairdresser’s Husband endures as the ultimate fetish film for arthouse audiences. Although prominent women critics lambasted Leconte’s conceit, many of their male counterparts related to the lead character’s lifelong love affair with women barbers.

It didn’t require a Freudian psychiatrist to locate the inspiration for such sublimated passion in Jean Rochefort’s likable character, Antoine. It began for him as wee lad when a bosomy hairdresser none too discreetly brushed her breasts against his arm while he was getting a haircut. Antoine’s lust reached a fever pitch when he committed his coiffure to the nurturing care of the graceful beauty, Mathilde (Anna Galiena). Smitten, he couldn’t imagine a place he’d rather be than in Mathilde’s salon, whether or not he was in her chair being pampered. Instead of losing her to another shop owner when her boss retired, Antoine bought the salon in which Mathilde worked and gave it to her to run. Eventually, they would marry.

That’s it, really. Something dramatic happens at the end of the movie, but, by then, it doesn’t matter. Like Antoine, male viewers will have a hard time shaking the the memory of Mathilde. It’s in our nature. It’s entirely possible that the same women critics who panned Hairdresser actually harbored a secret obsession with Warren Beatty, in Shampoo. If so, they were loathe to admit it. The DVD package adds the featurettes, Leconte on Leconte and The Hairdresser's Recollections, with Galiena.- Gary Dretzka

The Caller

After watching Richard Ledes’ exceedingly convoluted drama, The Caller, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “I hope everybody got paid up front.” Like Ledes’ unfortunately titled freshman effort, A Hole in One– yes, folks, it’s about lobotomy – there was no possible way this film was going to make a dime. I don’t care if Marlon Brando returned from the grave to perform alongside Frank Langella and Elliott Gould, Caller was doomed from Jump Street.
(Indeed, if Langella hadn’t been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar this year, it probably wouldn’t have merited a limited New York release in February, either.)

It’s not that there wasn’t a good story buried in there somewhere, either. Langella plays a world-weary corporate executive who’s decided he can’t live happily ever after, knowing that his company has become the Darth Vader of multinationals. In addition to cooking the books to draw attention to the company and its poisoning of local water supplies, he hires a woebegone P.I. (Gould) to observe his own movements and report back to him on what he sees. Why, exactly, isn’t made clear.

Gould’s shamus displays many of the same mannerisms and ticks as his Philip Marlowe, in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. It may be an interesting conceit, but, again, his presence begs more questions than it answers. What is made abundantly clear, however, is that the energy company isn’t about to allow the executive to ruin its business, without repercussions. If this untidiness weren’t sufficiently confusing, Ledes has given the P.I. flashbacks of an ugly incident in World War II and a photographer’s eye for Manhattan’s growing population of peregrine falcons. There’s also a very hot jazz-singing girlfriend, but enough already. Langella’s fans probably won’t mind the slog, and it’s nice to see Gould in a role that isn’t borderline cartoonish. This is one movie, though, that should have been taken away from its “auteur” and handed to someone who knew what he was doing. - Gary Dretzka

Pete Seeger: Live in Australia 1963
Bob Dylan: Never Ending Tour Diaries: Drummer Winston Watson's Incredible Journey

By 1963, when Pete Seeger: Live in Australia was captured on film, Bob Dylan was on the verge of re-defining what it meant to be an American folk singer. Woody Guthrie was confined to a hospital bed, gravely ill, and Seeger willingly carried the baton as an outspoken artist, activist and humanitarian. The civil-rights movement had already left its mark on the nation’s collective conscience, but there was still much more to be accomplished. Presidents Kennedy and Johnsons had committed the U.S. to an unnecessary war in Southeast Asia, and folk singers were among the first Americans to condemn the ill-advised adventure.

A committed pacifist, Seeger was no less patriotic than John Philip Sousa, but it didn’t prevent the FBI from encouraging media interests to add him to their expanding blacklist. Instead of wallowing in his economic misery, the Harvard-educated singer-songwriter embarked on a 10-month world tour. Live in Australia 1963 shows Seeger at a point in his career when his music was as powerful as his commitment to human rights and world peace. In addition to the Melbourne concert, the DVD adds 55 minutes of bonus footage from television appearances in several other cities.

Dylan, of course, would soon leave the acoustic folk scene behind, alternately embracing rock, blues, R&B, country, gospel and reggae music. After practically disappearing from the concert scene, he would embark on a “Never Ending Tour” that began in 1992 and has yet to end. Drummer Winston Watson served as Dylan’s drummer for 400 of those shows, over the course of a five-year period. Like any veteran tourist, Watson remembered to bring along a Video 8 camera to document his adventures. Dylan has rarely made himself available for other people’s projects, but Watson had no trouble showcasing the artists with whom he performed along the way. They included Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, Santana and The Grateful Dead. While a few other home-movie recollections have popped up from time to time, Watson’s benefits from the long tenure he enjoyed with the Great One. - Gary Dretzka

Other End of the Line

I put this globe-trotting rom-com on the DVD platter, not expecting to watch more than a half-hour of what promised to be 90 minutes of the same old tired recipe, blending mixed signals, little white lies, cold feet and a kissy-kissy finale. Although Other End of the Line won’t make anyone forget Sleepless in Seattle, its concept is reasonably original and the stars are very easy on the eyes.

Like any other American consumer who’s been required to conduct business with a phone operator in India or the Philippines lately, advertising exec Granger Woodruff (the far-too-cute-for-a-boy Jesse Metcalfe) is frustrated and angry by the breakdown in modern communication. For no good reason, though, the Indian operator is attracted to the voice of the angry American, and she works overtime to make sure his problem is solved. In doing so, Priya Sethi (the impossibly beautiful Shriya Saran) convinces Granger that they ought to meet in a San Francisco hotel represented by his firm.

Lacking self-confidence, Priya leads him to think she’s not Indian, but white, and lives in the Bay Area. Her deceit is petty, but she feared he wouldn’t be interested in dating a mere complaint handler. Men will take looks over meaningful employment any day of the week, of course, and there’s no planet in the universe where a young guy wouldn’t leap at the chance to get next to a woman who looks, speaks and is as personable as Priya.

Unaware of this fact, she chickens out at the last minute, preferring to work another ruse on him, instead. By the time she comes to her senses, Priya’s family from arrives in San Francisco to rescue her from roving packs of rapists and kidnapers. This confection would simply melt if it weren’t for the goofy supporting cast, which also includes Larry Miller as Granger’s creepy boss. Even though it’s great to see a multicultural romance in a Hollywood film, it’s legitimate to wonder if any studio would have given the green light to a movie in which the phone bank was in Nairobi and Priya was black. - Gary Dretzka

The Last Templar
Decoding the Past: The Templar Code
Seven Signs of the Apocalypse
Seven Deadly Sins
Gangland: The Complete Season Three

Someday, and it can’t happen a moment too soon, an antique dealer actually will discover the Ark of the Covenant, sitting in a shady corner of a recluse’s home in Cairo, Mumbai or Buenos Aires. Presumably, the treasure would be one of many artifacts a previous owner had been too distracted to catalogue the item, or even recall how it came into his possession. Even if the ark revealed nothing more interesting than what Geraldo Rivera found in Al Capone’s vault, the claims filed by religious and political leaders for its ownership could result in a new world order or apocalyptic war.

Either way, all the speculation about a Templar code and Vatican goon squads would end and Hollywood screenwriters could focus on some other mystery for a while … the Billy Goat curse on the Cubs, for example. With the release of Angels & Demons imminent, moviegoers around the world soon will find themselves awash in bogus Templar lore. NBC’s four-hour TV mini-series The Last Templar has been re-packaged for DVD, allowing viewers to judge for themselves whether Mira Sorvino’s Tess Chaykin is a ballsier archeologist than Indiana Jones.

Meanwhile, the History Channel has added to its ever-expanding inventory of Templar/Crusades/Freemasons/Ark-related DVDs, with Decoding the Past: The Templar Code. Not being a student of Templar exploits, I can’t say how much of the information/speculation contained in the package is new. For a refresher course on the subject, though, it’s as good a source as any.

The busy beavers at History and A&E have also released packages comprised of other recent documentary series. Seven Signs of the Apocalypse and Seven Deadly Sins took easily exploitable quasi-religious concepts and turned them into informative and occasionally enlightening entertainments. Seven Signs took time-honored religious prophesies, learned predictions and folklore and compared them to all sorts of modern plagues and disasters. Meanwhile, Seven Sins explored the history behind the sins deemed most ugly in the eyes of God. For those who’ve forgotten, or have yet to watch the Brad Pitt thriller Se7en, the deadliest among them are gluttony, lust, greed, anger, sloth, envy, and pride. There was another one, but seven had a clearer ring to it.

While the broadcast networks struggle to find hit shows, the folks at History, A&E and other reality-heavy cable channels simply look in their own backyards and reveal the things that frighten them most. Nothing is scarier to middle-class American TV viewers than street gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs. We have now entered a fourth season of Gangland, a series that has documented the bad behavior of more gangs than most of us could imagine existed. The series, whose third stanza has been newly compiled on DVD, probably would be even scarier if the gang members weren’t so intent on killing their rivals and children who get caught in the crossfire. - Gary Dretzka

TV to DVD

With the 2008-09 television coming to its natural post-sweeps end, there might be no better time for a reminder that quality television doesn’t begin and end in America. This may have been true in the distant past, but a case now can be made that the Brits are turning out shows that can compete with the best of our network fare and are thoroughly accessible to Yank tastes. If nothing else, the sitcoms don’t look as if they all were filmed in the same Hollywood soundstage. Even the old series look fresh.

Hallelujah! The Complete Collection is comprised of three years’ worth of comedies set among a group of Salvation Army volunteers in Yorkshire. Thora Hird, a fixture in the British comedy scene, plays an elderly captain assigned to a particularly unruly section of the working-city city. Like so many other older British comedy series, the situations are allowed to develop slowly and the laughs aren’t telegraphed three minutes ahead of time. A backgrounder of the Salvation Army also is included.

The single women in Pulling: The Complete First Season look and act as if they’ve never watched an episode, and, if they had, purposefully dressed and behaved in the opposite way. They drink beer and whiskey to excess, and occasionally wake up with men they wouldn’t normally have looked at twice. It’s funnier and more realistic than 90 percent of all American sitcoms.

In the 2007 mini-series Fallen Angel looks deeply into the eyes of a beautiful serial killer and discovers a monster looking back at us. Emilia Fox plays the psychopath, while Charles Dance portrays her father, an emotionally distant vicar. The mini-series was adapted from crime writer Andrew Taylor’s Roth Trilogy, which documented how such an unassuming woman could be so evil. Murder Most English takes a more familiar approach to crime-fighting, in that the hero is a tweedy, pipe-smoking police detective. Flaxborough may look like a peaceful British town, but there’s plenty to keep inspector Purbright (Anton Rodgers) and his fellow peacekeepers busy. It was based on the detective novels of Colin Watson.

Sex & Lies in Sin City explores the events that led to murder of Las Vegas casino owner, Ted Binion (Matthew Modine), and the trial that riveted everyone’s attention. Mena Suvari plays the stripper, who, along with a boyfriend, devised a scheme that would make it look as if Binion had overdosed on drugs. With a small fortune at stake, Binion's sister, Becky (Marcia Gay Harden), was relentless in her effort to discover the truth, no matter how scandalous.

The CBS mini-series, Sidney Sheldon’s Master of the Game, was one of those sprawling, warts-and-all family histories that allowed ordinary viewers to feel as if being born poor wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. Here, the saga describes the Blackwell family’s rise to power and accumulation of great wealth, starting in 1890s South Africa. Dyan Cannon played the heir to a diamond business, as she looked backwards and forward along the branches of the family tree.

Not to be confused with a scripted series of the same title, A&E’s Rookies: The Complete Season One was a reality series that documented the first year on the job for cops in Louisiana's Jefferson Parish and Tampa. Their first assignment was to ride along with a veteran field-training officer for 12 weeks, as they learned the ropes and became accustomed to the types of crime that might experience on their own.

Also available are Star Trek: The Original Series: Season 1, on Blu-ray and DVD, and The Best of Star: The Next Generation. The sixth-season compilation of “Mission: Impossible” episodes is also newly available. – Gary Dretzka