THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
First Works - A Revealing Look at Today's Greatest Directors sounds like something film lovers should be scooping up by the armful. Offering up peeks at student films by such notables as Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Robert Zemeckis, Spike Lee and John Carpenter, this 300 minute presentation should be one two-disc set with something for nearly everyone. What the title doesn't tell you, however, is that the disc doesn't simply present these films but rather hides them in interminable "documentaries" on each filmmaker. Consisting of little more than video footage of each director staring directly into the camera rattling on and on about their films, each segment is a poorly constructed look at interesting individuals.

Regular readers of my reviews might be wondering how I could find fault with this. Don't I regularly shower some of these very same directors with endless compliments and praise? Yes, but just because I think Scorsese is a lot of fun to listen to (I've attended several lectures he's given) or that Stone's combat perspective on the Vietnam war gives his opinions added weight doesn't mean that randomly edited, thematically unstructured and virtually endless video clips of these same people can keep the attention. I mean, Scorsese is so uncomfortable in this setting that he constantly fidgets with a pencil like he's at his first job interview. I almost felt sorry for him.

Narrated with the personality of an infommercial for the Salad Shooter, First Works is no better than public access programming. Most of the clips are a decade old, so the filmmakers speak mostly about their latest films from that time and nothing more current. There is value in this material and certainly fans of the individual filmmakers might want to see it for itself, but the format is a mess.

The student films themselves (once you locate them) are far better. From Scorsese's wonderful It's Not Just You, Murray to John Milius' surprisingly colorful and experimental animated Marcello, I Am Bored, these are pieces that alternately display these artists already developing their signature styles and working in ways that seem in opposition to their later works. Susan Seidelman's short takes the perspective of an unsatisfied wife, an early indication of the strong female perspective of her features. Stone's NYU film is rough in form, but it has the haunted imagery of a veteran having trouble adjusting back into society (and it includes super-8 footage he shot during the war.)

Even with the shorts, however, there are disappointments. Scorsese's What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing In a Place Like This? is only shown for a few seconds and Spike Lee's Joe's Bed-Stuy Barber Shop: We Cut Heads is only excerpted. Carpenter's contribution is a clip from Dark Star, a student project that he expanded into a feature, available in its entirety elsewhere.

Includes: Richard Benjamin, John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Richard Donner, Taylor Hackford, Ron Howard, Spike Lee, Paul Mazursky, John Milius, Martin Scorsese, Susan Seidelman, Oliver Stone, and Robert Zemeckis

VIDEO:
The video is pretty poor. The presentation is full-screen and most of the interview segments are blurry and indistinct. The student films vary in quality, mostly due to the source material. Still, it could surely have been given a better treatment.

AUDIO:
The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is nothing spectacular. Talking heads are the order of the day and the sound is equally simple.

EXTRAS:
Just some filmographies for the featured directors.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
First Works is a title with a lot of promise. It doesn't entirely deliver thanks to a lackluster production style but for fans of the featured filmmakers it could still prove indispensable.