A busy weekend, so I barely have time to intro the two new reviews today. They're a day late but hopefully better-spelled than usual. Both are from Columbia TriStar, one a great disc of a little known gem, and the other a terrible disc of one of the studio's classics.

Desert Bloom is a fascinating portrait of Las Vegas in 1950, with the Atom tests providing a tense background to the unstable coming-of-age of a teenage girl played by Annabeth Gish. Jon Voight is her shell-shocked, psycho dad, and JoBeth Williams the perfect 1950s denial-based mother. Man-bait Ellen Barkin moves in to enliven things but turns out to be a problem herself. A very involving drama.

You Can't Take It with You is a 'classic', a Best Picture winner that is undeniably entertaining. Savant's finally reached his verdict on Frank Capra in general, and has a lot of negative analysis of the director's basic approach, and this picture in general. But it's nothing compared to the disappointment with the quality of the DVD. The back cover reads 'remastered in High Definition', but they didn't say that it must have been transferred using the scrappiest piece of film in the vault. Looking good, this picture can be a delight, but this DVD is pretty dismal.

Coming up, a bunch more Columbia, some Criterions and maybe some older titles that scheduling made me skip in the past weeks. And hopefully a rundown on those anticipated upcoming attractions, that keep this DVD Sap's sap running. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson