How to Spend $20
By Joel Corcoran
October 26, 2005
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Harriet Miers was delighted to hear of her appointment to the bench
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 people who really aren't in Kansas anymore (literally or figuratively): Wizard of Oz (two-disc special edition) or Wizard of Oz (three-disc collector's edition).

I first saw Wizard of Oz when I was six-years-old, spending the Easter Break from school with my grandparents' in central Nebraska. I didn't sleep for almost a week after seeing the movie - the nightmares of the wicked witch and flying monkeys were paralyzingly dreadful. If you're like me, then the prospect of a newly restored Wizard of Oz (an "Ultra-Resolution restored" version with Dolby 5.1 audio) enflames a flicker of dread within your soul. But you should still get the movie. It's worth it. Trust me.

The Wizard of Oz is one of those staple classics that appears on broadcast television every year (along with Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments), so you might be wondering why you need to buy it on DVD. But not only is the DVD version lovingly restored and enhanced, the extras alone make either set worth the purchase. Hollywood released the movie just as World War II was starting in Europe, where it garnered decent reviews, a moderate audience, and a respectable box office on the big screen. The Wizard of Oz's zeitgeist-busting popularity didn't soar until its regular television broadcasts began years later (which firmly cemented "We're Not in Kansas Anymore" into the bumper-sticker wisdom that it is).

Both versions come chock full of special features and extras. The main feature is available with English, Spanish, or French subtitles and an alternative French audio track. John Fricke - who wrote and produced The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 50 Years of Magic - provides commentary with input from the cast. The two-disc set includes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Storybook, character biographies, theatrical trailers, a documentary on the restoration of the film, a 1990 "making of" television special, a 2001 documentary from Turner Classic Movies, outtakes and deleted scenes, a Lux Radio Broadcast from 1950, special effects sequences, some shorts and newsreels restored from MGM's vault (Another Romance of Celluloid: Electrical Power; Cavalcade of Academy Awards newsreel; and Texas Contest Winners 1939 trailer).

The three-disc edition comes with more than enough extras and exclusives to justify the additional cost. The third disc includes a short documentary about L. Frank Baum (who wrote The Wizard of Oz) and more special shorts than you'll find at Oktoberfest: The Wizard of Oz (1910); The Magic Cloak of Oz (1914); His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz (1914 feature); The Wizard of Oz (1925 feature); and The Wizard of Oz (1933 animated short). Additional goodies in the collector's edition include: a souvenir program from the Grauman's Chinese Theatre premiere on August 15, 1939; a copy of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio News edition celebrating the release of The Wizard of Oz; and reproductions of the original 1939 Kodachrome publicity art (nine portraits and on-set photographs).

For Firefly fans who think canceling that series was a tragic mistake: American Gothic (the complete series).

If you like Surface (on NBC), Supernatural (on the WB), Invasion (on ABC), or Threshold (on CBS), you're going to love American Gothic - the godfather of all disturbing, spooky, scary, extra-weird television series. Like Firefly, American Gothic was a fantastic series (calling it "high quality television" is not an oxymoron) canceled much too early.

Produced by Sam Raimi (he of Evil Dead, Spider-Man, and Xena fame), this TV show is sort of a cross between Needful Things by Stephen King and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. The setting is the small town of Trinity, South Carolina. Beneath the idyllic surface of white-washed picket fences, Southern charm, and clear blue skies, Sheriff Lucas Buck (Gary Cole) manipulates everyone around him through plots, counter-plots, dilemmas, machinations, set-ups, and just plain shenanigans - all for his own private aims and pleasures. Sheriff Buck is one of the quintessentially evil protagonists that has ever appeared on TV or in the movies. He is cruel and playful, mean and vindictive, yet guided by some eminently logical internal morality code...which makes him all that much more disturbing. This three-disc boxed set includes four episodes that were never aired on television.

To just play on "repeat" from now until the morning of November 1: Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Second Season.

Fifteen years ago, Tales from the Crypt broke ground as one of the first series that HBO produced on its own. Based on the classic E.C. Comics title, the series featured a different, devilishly twisted story in each episode, introduced by The Cryptkeeper (John Kassir). Don't look for high-minded morality tales or gritty historically accurate sagas or even great acting. But if you want some great fun, shellacked with the gruesome and macabre (as well as a wagonload of bad puns), then dive right in. Tales from the Crypt isn't as literary as The Twilight Zone or as sophisticated as The Outer Limits, but at its best, it is much, MUCH more fun. And it is at its best most of the time. Season two features stories starring Demi Moore, Bobcat Goldthwait, Harry Anderson, and Don Rickles.

For those who still believe that L.A. Confidential and Good Will Hunting were much better pictures: Titanic (Special Collector's Edition).

Yes, the 70th Academy Awards in 1997 were a travesty. Yes, James Cameron getting the Best Director award over Curtis Hanson was as much a head-scratching moment as Jethro Tull winning a Grammy for a "heavy metal" album. And yes, many people still think that Celine Dion being affiliated with any Oscar award was the first sign of the coming Apocalypse. But none of that should matter because Titanic was (and still is) a pretty good movie. Or really two pretty good movies - a nice little 90-minute romance tale grafted onto an epic 90-minute disaster flick. And remember, not only did Titanic garner 11 Oscars (undeserved or not, that's still a very impressive number), it grossed $600 million in the U.S. alone.

Titanic was originally released on DVD in 1999 as a skimpy, single-disc package with scant additional features. Now, six years later (and just in time for your mom to put it on her Christmas list), we have the collector's edition. And believe it or not, this new release is actually worth buying again. Not only does it contain a two-hour "making of" documentary featuring Cameron and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (as well as many other cast and crew members), the movie contains an optional branching feature that lets viewers delve into about an hour's worth of deleted scenes and footage at the particular points in the movie where they were cut out. That puts Titanic up into the realm of Peter Jackson's extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies. An alternative ending also is featured in the collector's edition. And one of the more interesting added features is a series of interviews with studio executives behind the movie, many of whom initially balked at the movie's $200 million production budget and $20 million advertising campaign. Finally, if you need to torture your little brother, niece, roommate, or any other fan of good music, there's a copy of the "My Heart Will Go On" music video, too.

Other titles worth noting ...

3rd Rock from the Sun: Season 2
Alias: The Complete Fourth Season
Alicia Keys: MTV Unplugged
AMC: John Wayne
Annie Duke's Advanced Texas Hold 'Em Secrets
The Avenger: Complete Collection
Baby Einstein on the Go: Riding, Sailing & Soaring
Betty Boop Cartoons Volume 2
Beverly Hillbillies & Petticoat Junction
Bewitched (2005 movie)
Bewitched: The Complete Second Season
The Charles Dickens Collection
Coney Island Baby
Cowboy Bebop: Remix Volume 2
Degrassi Junior High: The Complete Series
Dominion: A Prequel to The Exorcist
The Doris Day Show: Season Two
Dragons Metal Ages: The Movie
Duck's Breath Mystery Theatres 30th Anniversary
El Agujero
Evel Knievel: Spectacular Jumps
The Frank Sinatra Show with Bing Crosby & Dean Martin
Ghost in the Shell: SAC Official Log Volume 1
Hart to Hart: The Complete First Season
Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)
House of Wax (2005)
House of Wax (1953)
House of Wax / Gothika
In Living Color: Season Four
Inuyasha Volume 35: Band of Seven
King of the Corner
The L Word: The Complete Second Season
Last Days
Left Behind: World at War
Little House On The Prairie: Season Nine
Looney Tunes: Golden Collection 1-3
Looney Tunes: Golden Collection Volume 3
Looney Tunes: Movie Collection
Looney Tunes: Movie Collection 1-3
Masterpiece Theatre Collection: Romance
Motley Crue: Carnival of Sins Live
The Munsters: The Complete Second Season
Mysteries of the Ancient World
Origins of the Da Vinci Code: Hidden History
Peabo Bryson: Live in Concert
Pokemon Advanced Box Set 1
Popeye Cartoons Volume 2
Pro Wrestling's Ultimate Insiders Volumes 2 & 3
Rize
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stockings
Single White Female 2: The Psycho
Superman Cartoons Volume 2
Three's Company: Seasons 1-2
Tipping the Rift: Season 1
Tom & Jerry: Spotlight Collection 1-2
Tom & Jerry: Spotlight Collection 2
The Truth About Love
Upstairs, Downstairs: Collector's Edition
With God on our Side
WWII: 60th Anniversary Box Set