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DVD SAVANT

picks
The
Most Impressive DVDs of 2006

Happy holidays once again! 2005 was the year that the DVD market supposedly hit a profitability ceiling. That really means that the corporate profit meter is momentarily stuck at Fabulous and refuses to rise to the Obscenely Fabulous mark. Perhaps the public at large has lost the thrill of buying everything they see (and the number of releases is so high!) but I have to think also that Hollywood is making fewer new movies that anybody gives a damn about. Most of the big action thrillers of the past few years have already collapsed into memory mush. Quick! Name the last five years' Best-Picture Oscar winners! How many have you watched on DVD lately? Going to a sequel or remake these days is like checking into McDonalds for more of the same. That gives all the marbles to three or four gigantic hits per year, while the rest starve.

The big story this year has been the launch of two competing HD systems. The only people I know who have gotten into HD are wealthy & curious or are reviewers with machines provided by their employers. Savant hasn't the discretionary funds to want to make the plunge, although I might buy an HD disc or two without having a player, as I once did back in 1987 with a laserdisc of The Wild Bunch. I certainly appreciate the quality difference. I've seen HD on a good home video projector at a friend's house, and it's basically watching a movie in a theater. I attended 'premiere' screenings of the new Forbidden Planet and Superman II discs that filled even the screen at the Egyptian with a good-quality image. But I'm still in this racket for the content of the films; DVD quality will suffice for home use until there's only one system. Savant was never an early adopter, and although I sidestepped the VHS versus Beta skirmish, I've still got 400 'collectable' laserdiscs. For rich folks or those with PlayStation HD capability, I say go for it!

This year's Savant 'best of' list is once again simply my personal taste, the discs that meant the most to me or that come to mind when I want to unwind and review something I really liked. This time I've enlarged the 'also ran' list to encompass every disc I saw last year that I'd recommend as a blind check-it-out: But let the buyer beware! If you already hate Sci-Fi, I'm not claiming that my picks in that genre will appeal!

With the disclaimers, excuses and 5th-Amendment pleas out of the way, here then are

Savant's picks for 2006:

1.  

The top slot goes this year to Criterion's Pandora's Box. It's a silent movie, but Louise Brooks as Lulu is timeless: She's the girl that turned your head in college, the one in your dreams or the one just around the corner. G. W. Pabst transformed a cautionary tale about a man-killing vamp into a universal story of attraction and seduction, innocence and culpability. Every man Lulu meets will compromise his life to possess her, and yet none of them really do. The final sequence in London is perhaps the most complete movie statement about sex, life and death that there is. Presented at an appropriate frame rate, Criterion's transfer restores many small connective pieces, including some listed as missing in the old Simon & Schuster published film script. Disc producer Issa Clubb gives the show four musical choices and adds two documentaries that comprise the best prime-source research on Ms. Brooks and her wild life.


2.  

Savant doesn't normally review Region 2 discs but this Czechoslovakian import was too personally important to ignore. Filmexport's Ikarie XB 1 is a superb futuristic space odyssey. The space pioneers attend to their jobs, celebrate birthdays, hold dances, and look forward to a completely unknown future. But the threat of the past returns when they investigate a 200 year-old piece of space junk that still has live nuclear bombs on board. The technically advanced, unusually mature film culminates in an optimistic, inspiring sense of wonder. A.I.P. released it here in a cut and dubbed version as Voyage to the End of the Universe.


3.  

Sam Peckinpah's The Legendary Westerns Collection started 2006 off with a bang -- and a spurt or two of blood -- giving us beautiful new transfers of Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The transfer of The Wild Bunch is greatly improved over the 9 year-old flipper disc and the problematic Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is presented in two versions, a 1988 so-called director's cut and a 2005 restoration cut. All the discs feature interesting extras from Nick Redman and a clutch of noted Peckinpah authors. From Warner DVD.


4.  

We've been waiting for this one for a long time. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's personal wartime drama A Canterbury Tale is a valentine to a nation of free-thinking patriots. The odd story about three modern 'pilgrims' who find the answer to their wishes in Canterbury shows England to be a stack of contradictions, yet gives more reasons why the country needs to be saved than a dozen rah-rah battle epics. With unforgettable images like Sheila Sim walking through the bombed town in her "Land Girl" outfit, and a medieval falconer's bird transforming into a Spitfire fighter plane across a 2001- like time-jumping match-cut. Criterion's disc producer is Karen Stetler.


5.  

Project X and New Yorker have been producing handsome discs of the collected works of Peter Watkins, a remarkable filmmaker and all-round rebel. The War Game & Culloden are the two BBC shows that made Watkins' reputation as the most creative English TV producer/director of the decade. Watkins' style is to film events as if they were being covered by news cameras, and Culloden picks a particularly ugly battle between Scottish Highlanders and British troops in 1746. The even more famous The War Game tells the truth about Britain's dishonest civil defense establishment by dramatizing what would likely happen in the event of a nuclear strike in Kent. The BBC refused to show the film and lied that they hadn't been coerced into suppressing it by the government. The War Game finally saw exhibition as a theatrical release ... and Peter Watkins was no longer welcome at the BBC. A terrific show.


6.  

Five years ago Toho wasn't cooperating with any American distributor except Sony, and their backlog of classic Kaiju films simply wasn't available in this country. The original Japanese version of the very first Godzilla film made its American theatrical premiere two years ago with the stern declaration that it would not be made available to home video. This Classic Media / Sony Music set graces us with a 2-disc presentation of Gojira, the Japanese-language original and Godzilla, the Terry Morse English-language re-edit that cleverly shoehorns Raymond Burr into the proceedings. The quality is high, allowing American fans to appreciate the original's sober focus on the horror of the atomic bomb. Excellent commentaries by Ed Godziszewski and Steve Ryfle examine the 'Big G' phenomenon from all angles.


7.  

For plain funny entertainment, the best disc in this year's stack is Universal's Preston Sturges The Filmmaker Collection, with Christmas in July, The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Great Moment and Hail the Conquering Hero. That's Sturges' entire Paramount output save for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which came out last year. There was never a string of comedies to compare with this before or after. Each exhibits Sturges' knack for devastating wit and his weakness for freewheeling slapstick: "It's not the coffee, it's the bunk." The Ale & Quail Club. "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"


8.  

Obscure? Old-fashioned? Irrelevant? Richard Attenborough's anti-war musical Oh! What a Lovely War would be welcome any time, but seems particularly apt this Christmas season. The 'antiquated' quagmire of World War One is still highly topical. In this weird fantasy version of the war, the trenches are a realistic horror while the home front is represented as a fun-fair amusement pier. Troops just disappear as they set off to the front, and unbelievably callous generals spend thousands of lives a day on insane but face-saving battle strategies. The highly imaginative musical numbers are built around original 1917-era songs with wickedly mordant lyrics. With practically every British actor alive and breathing in 1969. From Paramount.


9.  

This one will really cause some head-scratching, but Dark Sky's The Creation of the Humanoids, a micro-budgeted 1962 obscurity, shines with true literary Sci-Fi brilliance; it may be maladroit filmmaking but for ideas it's a marvel. In a Philip K. Dick-like future, robots are supplanting people. The only opposition comes from a reactionary cult of Nazi-like bullies and terrorists that is losing out to changing times: It's becoming difficult to distinguish the clunky 'Clickers' from organic human beings. Creation is mostly talk, talk and more talk but Jay Simm's script predates 101 Sci-Fi 'revelations' of the 70s and 80s. The film makes an attractive case for 'artificial immortality' and even tackles the social issue of robot-human cohabitation. Double billed with the disposable War Between the Planets, and heartily recommended.


10.  

Tipping this year's top ten balance further in the direction of Science Fiction, Universal's The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection breaks out a bushel of much-awaited 50s titles: Tarantula, The Mole People, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters and Monster on the Campus. A couple are borderline camp turkeys, but Tarantula is a bona fide classic and The Incredible Shrinking Man one of the most liberating pictures of its decade. Among some disputable full-frame transfers, Shrinking Man is presented for the first time in its widescreen glory and looks better than ever. And it even has an intriguing teaser trailer narrated by Orson Welles.



Savant has once again checked the tally; he's chalked up 414 reviews since this week last December -- it's been a banner year for 'library' titles. The biggest contributor by far has been Warner Bros.; they've averaged several five fat boxed sets a month -- with five and more titles in each. Universal has also picked up the pace with their multi-title releases. They've lately stopped trying to pack four features on single discs (that netted unwanted Q.C. grief) and are doing fine. Sony and MGM practically fell off the radar for library fare, what with the MGM distribution arrangement 'migrating' over to Fox. The paralysis of slow transitions means that very little of interest came out of MGM this year. We don't know yet what their eventual product flow will be like.

Fox's record with its own library continues to be good, what with a welcome helping of spy films. The Kremlin Letter got pushed back over transfer quality issues and Boomerang! may have been axed for legal problems, which is a shame ... and I know that some lucky reviewers got a few early copies!

But the year was mostly one pleasant surprise after another. Here, in alphabetical order, are discs or disc sets from 2006 that Savant heartily recommends:


American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt  Paramount/PBS Home Video  01.14.06
Astaire and Rogers Collection Volume 2: Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle  Warners  10/31/06
Atragon  Kaitei gunkan  Media Blasters  01/27/06
La bête humaine  Criterion  2/04/06
Billy Wilder Speaks  Kino  9.26.06
Body Heat  Warners  11.07.06
The Brainiac  El barón del terror  CasaNegra  9.16.06
Brazil  Criterion  9.12.06
The Busby Berkeley Collection: 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Dames, Golddiggers of 1935  Warners  3.18.06
Cabin in the Sky  Warners; 01/17/06
The Cecil B. DeMille Collection: Sign of the Cross, Four Frightened People, Cleopatra, The Crusades, Union Pacific  Universal  5.23.06
Cemetery Man  Dellamorte Dellamore  Anchor Bay - Fox  5.23.06
The Children are Watching Us  I bambini ci guardano  Criterion  3/21/06
City for Conquest  Warners  7.04.06
The Clay Bird  Matir moina Milestone - New Yorker  11/18/06
The Conformist  La conformista  Paramount  12.05.06
Bette Davis Collection 2: Jezebel, Marked Woman, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Old Acquaintance and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?  Warners  5.27.06
Decision Before Dawn  Fox  5.23.06
Marlene Dietrich The Glamour Collection: Morocco, Blonde Venus, The Flame of New Orleans, The Devil is a Woman & Golden Earrings  Universal  4.04.06
Double Indemnity  Universal  8.15.06
Dune Extended Edition (1984)  Universal  2/11/06
Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon  Milestone - New Yorker  7/22/06
Elevator to the Gallows  Ascenseur pour l'echafaud  Criterion  5.19.06
Equinox  Criterion  6/27/06
Fallen Angel   Fox 3.11.06
The Fallen Idol  Criterion  11.07.06
Film Noir 3: Lady in the Lake, His Kind of Woman, Border Incident, The Racket & On Dangerous Ground  Warners  7/14/06
Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 1: Waterloo Bridge, Red-Headed Woman & Baby Face  Warners  12.12.06
Forbidden Planet Ultimate Collector's Edition  Warners  11.14.06
John Ford Collection: The Lost Patrol, The Informer, Mary of Scotland, Sergeant Rutledge, Cheyenne Autumn  Warners  5/30/06
The Fountainhead  Warners  11.14.06
Fourteen Hours  Fox  8.15.06
Grand Prix  Warners  7.08.06
Carole Lombard The Glamour Collection: Man of the World, Hands Across the Table, We're Not Dressing, Love Before Breakfast, The Princess Comes Across, True Confession  Universal  4.08.06
Heart Like a Wheel  Anchor Bay - Fox  8.12.06
A History of Violence  New Line  3/07/06
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Season Two  Universal  10.28.06
Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection: Doctor X, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Mad Love, Mark of the Vampire, The Devil-Doll, The Return of Doctor X  Warners  10.10.06
Humphrey Bogart the Signature Collection: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1931), Satan Met a Lady, All Through the Night, Across the Pacific, Action in the North Atlantic, Passage to Marseille  Warners  10.16.06
Island in the Sun  Fox 01/07/06
It's Always Fair Weather  Warners  4.15.06
Japan's Longest Day Nihon no ichiban nagai hi  AnimEigo  9.16.06
Jigoku  Criterion  9.19.06
Johnny Belinda  Warners  2/08.06
Icons of Horror - Boris Karloff: The Black Room, The Man They Could Not Hang, Before I Hang ,The Boogie Man Will Get You  Sony  10/31/06
King Kong (2005)   Universal  4.01.06
Kings Row  Warners  8.22.06
The Last Days of Mussolini  NoShame  12/23/06
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)  Legend  10.02.06
The Long Good Friday  Anchor Bay  4.01.06
The Loved One  Warners  8.04.06
Lovers of the Arctic Circle  Los amantes del Círculo Polar  Home Vision - Image  5/13/06
Loving Couples  Älskande par  Project X - New Yorker  6.10.06
Madmen of Mandoras + The Devil's Hand & They Saved Hitler's Brain  BCI Eclipse  10.03.06
Magdalena's Brain  Heretic  10.06.06
Masters of Horror: Joe Dante: Homecoming  Anchor Bay  7/01/06
Metropolitan  Criterion  3/07/06
Mr. Arkadin  Criterion  4/11/06
The Most Beautiful Wife  La moglie più bella  NoShame  11/28/06
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)  Warners  11/18/06
Nate and Hayes  Paramount  7/11/06
The Paul Newman Collection: Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Young Philadelphians, Harper, Pocket Money, The MacKintosh Man, The Drowning Pool  Warners  11.21.06
The Night of the Iguana  Warners  4.29.06
The Nun's Story  Warners  5.16.06
The Passenger Professione: Reporter  Sony  4.18.06
The Perfect (Ferpect) Crime Crimen Ferpecto  Netflix Exclusive  3.14.06
Playtime 2006 reissue  Criterion  10.02.06
The President's Last Bang  Geuddae geusaramdeul  Kino  3.18.06
Putney Swope  Home Vision - Image  08.29.065
Quick Change  Warners  2.14.06
The Quiller Memorandum  Fox  11.25.06
Rediscover Jacques Feyder: Queen of Atlantis, Crainquebille, Faces of Children  Image - Blackhawk  12/18/06
Rice People  Neak sre  Facets Video  6.20.06
Eric Rohmer Six Moral Tales: The Bakery Girl of Monceau, Suzanne's Career, My Night at Maud's, La Collectionneuse, Claire's Knee, Love in the Afternoon  Criterion  8/17/06
Roma cittá libera  NoShame  9.09.06
Ryan's Daughter  Warners  2/08.06
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre  Fox  6.06.06
Schultze Gets the Blues  Paramount  10.24.06
The Seven-Ups  Fox  5.19.06
Sólo con tu pareja  Criterion  10.26.06
James Stewart The Signature Collection: The Stratton Story, The Naked Spur, The Spirit of St. Louis, The FBI Story, Firecreek, The Cheyenne Social Club  Warners  8/08/06
Stormy Weather  Fox  01/17/06
Superman II The Richard Donner Cut  Warners  12.09.06
Sweet Bird of Youth  Warners  4/22/06
A Tale of Two Cities  Warners  10.28.06
The Tarzan Collection Starring Johnny Weissmuller Vol 2: Tarzan Triumphs, Tarzan's Desert Mystery, Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, Tarzan and the Huntress, Tarzan and the Mermaids  Warners  7.1.04
This Island Earth  Universal  8.26,06
Track of the Cat  Paramount  6.06.06
Unwed Mother + Too Soon to Love  VCI - Kit Parker  5/06/06
V for Vendetta  Warners  7/22/06
The Virgin Spring  Jungfraukällan  Criterion  01/30/06
John Wayne John Ford Collection: Stagecoach, The Long Voyage Home, They Were Expendable, Fort Apache, 3 Godfathers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers, The Wings of Eagles  Warners  6.03.06
Who Wants to Kill Jessie?  Kdo chce zabít Jessii?  Facets   10.28.06
Winter Soldier  Millarium Zero - New Yorker  4.15.06
Yi Yi  Criterion  8.05.06
Young Mr. Lincoln  Criterion  02.25.06


I'm sure many readers will consider this top ten list rather a cheat, what with the second list of over a hundred titles, many of which could easily be up top. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was up top until I realized I'd skipped the Preston Sturges Collection. If a title like The Creation of the Humanoids gets the nod, it's only because a class presentation like Eric Rohmer Six Moral Tales didn't seem as immediate to this reviewer. It's all just subjectivity, like radiosubjective fallout.

In general, I feel that the Savant column still works. I get plenty of emails from happy readers that have tried a wild Savant suggestion and found something new. That makes me either a helpful guide or a corrupter of morals, depending on what one finds when they actually take one of my suggestions. I don't get much hate mail (a blessing), indicating that I might be doing this job well. It's either that, or hateful people find me boring!

On a semi-personal note, I think we have a good chance in 2007 of seeing the three Sergio Leone double-disc special editions Savant helped finish over two years ago: Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and Duck You Sucker. They were released in Region 2 but not here. If they do show up, I selfishly hope that our extras remain intact. Sometimes it all seems too much to hope for!

Cheers to all and thank you once again for all the notes, suggestions and corrections. Here's to Peace in '07. Bring back the Peace Symbol!

Glenn Erickson, December 15, 2006



Nostalgic?
Check out the other DVD Savant Favored Disc Roundups:

Savant's 2009 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2008 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2007 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2005 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2004 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2003 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2002 favored disc roundup
Savant's 2001 favored disc roundup

This has been a yearly tradition since 2001. Happy Holidays!



DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson

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