Enlarge By Craig Blankenhorn, HBO A sit-down: Steven Van Zandt, left, and James Gandolfini of The Sopranos. TOP RENTED DVDS
1. Get Smart
2. Journey to the Center of the Earth
3. The Incredible Hulk
4. Kung Fu Panda
5. The Strangers
6. The Happening
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
8. Iron Man
9. You Don’t Mess With The Zohan
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Source: Home Video Essentials, Rentrak Corp.
By Mike Clark, USA TODAY Waste management never looked so good. A comprehensive 33-disc collection of the entire run of HBO’s landmark series The Sopranos is this week’s top DVD release.The Sopranos: The Complete Series
* * * * out of four, 1999-2007, HBO, unrated, $400
Goombah in a box. A big chest.
Back story: Until some future Blu-ray version tries lifting your wallet one more time, what’s not to love (artistically speaking, amid a recession) about 33 discs containing every episode plus extras and annotation?
Extras, extras: Printed episode guide; soundtrack CDs; Alec Baldwin interviewing series creator David Chase; key personnel at the Paley Center for Media (when’s the last time you saw Steve Buscemi on a panel?); two cast/crew roundtable dinner-and-yak-fests, with wine flowing, that address viewer reaction to the final episode; “lost” scenes; Sopranos-themed spoofs from The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live and (the funniest, which satirizes the series’ profanity) MADtv; tasteful packaging on a level with that of 2007’s complete set devoted to Seinfeld.
Warner Bros. and the Homefront Collection
* * *, 1943-44, Warner, unrated, $40
Rescuing it from what is widely called “public domain hell” (that is, wretched prints not sanctioned by the producing studio), Warners has vastly spiffed up 1943’s No. 1 box office hit This Is the Army. But it’s not the crest of this trio.
Back story: Future U.S. Sen. George Murphy, R-Calif., plays Ronald Reagan’s venerable man in Technicolor Army, though he was only nine years older. Meanwhile, 1944’s all-star Hollywood Canteen offers Roy Rogers singing Cole Porter (Don’t Fence Me In). Tops here is 1943’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, best of the ubiquitous all-star genre with Bette Davis unforgettably singing They’re Either Too Young or Too Old.
Extras, extras: Best is Army’s documentary (narrated by Steven Spielberg) lauding Warners as the first studio to take on Nazi oppression.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
* * *, 2008, Universal, PG-13, $30 and $35 editions; Blu-ray, $40
When Frank Sinatra sang The Brooklyn Bridge in 1947’s It Happened in Brooklyn, he likely didn’t know there was a Troll Market underneath the structure.
Back story: Maybe this was kind of a lark for director Guillermo del Toro directly after 2006’s splendid Pan’s Labyrinth, or maybe it was exactly the right breather. Either way, it was a refreshingly jokey complement to the artful angst of The Dark Knight (out Dec. 9) at multiplexes. As Hellboy, Ron Perlman looks as if he’s applied Sunscreen “Minus 50.” And his verbal sparring with Selma Blair tickles.
Extras, extras: Many, including del Toro’s Troll Market tour; commentaries; some snobbish extras to the $35 and Blu-ray versions.
Also new on DVD this week:
Quo Vadis
* * 1/2, 1951, Warner, unrated, $21
Until Ben-Hur clapped its thunder in November 1959, MGM’s biggest box-office hit from the ’50s was this leaden three-hour Roman epic distinguished by Miklos Rozsa’s durably illustrious score and a trio of “flames”: a spectacular sequence of Rome burning, Deborah Kerr’s fiery red hair in Technicolor, and Peter Ustinov’s flamboyant consummation as Nero, that got him a deserved Oscar nomination. As Roman legion chieftain Marcus Vinicius, Robert Taylor’s woodenness engenders scant chemistry with Kerr. Significantly less fun than Cecil B. DeMille’s thematically similar The Sign of the Cross (1932), available on Universal’s DeMille box of ’30s Paramount titles.
The Boys in the Band
* *, 1970, Paramount, R, $27
A museum piece with a mean streak, here’s director William Friedkin’s infrequently shown screen version of Mart Crowley’s play about a gay guy’s birthday clique gone verbally vile. One of the first mainstream movies to deal more than peripherally with homosexuality, it seems designed to show most of its characters — played by Cliff Gorman, Leonard Frey and others from the degree cast — in the worst possible light. (Compare this with Gus Van Sant’s upcoming Milk for stark contrast.) And yet, that Band’s showy release was nearly concurrent with Patton’s shows you how incomparably less interesting greater studios have gotten in 38 years.
Vintage TV boxes
•The Lone Ranger; 75th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (1949-51, Entertainment Rights, $120): Beloved leads Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels grace the show’s pristine two seasons (78 episodes) via gorgeous prints — plus a glossy backgrounding booklet; bonus broadcast material; and related knickknacks so plentiful they need their own plastic bag. Plus: familiar cowboy faces similar as Gene Evans; a pre-Annie Oakley Gail Davis; John Doucette; a pre-Star Trek DeForest Kelley; House Peters Jr. (later TV’s first “Mr. Clean”); and an actor named Keith Richards.
•M Squad (1957-60, available exclusively at msquadtv.com, $120): Lee Marvin had scads of big-screen supporting roles in the ’50s before becoming a star in the mid-’60s. The build a bridge over was NBC’s Chicago-based cult cop series notable for its jazz music (which inspired a Music From M Squad LP I used to have), Marvin’s sometimes cheeky interrogations of women and Windy City winter slush that oftentimes disfigured his Ford. Over 117 episodes, you’ll see Angie Dickinson, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson and some lesser-knowns who graced Dragnet as healthy.
Due Tuesday: Pixar/Disney’s stupendous WALL·E; Alex Gibney’s Hunter S. Thompson jewel Gonzo; boys will be boys in Tropic Thunder
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