Plot in one sentence: A journalist and a lawyer, fueled by pharmacology, make a raid on '70s Las Vegas.

Extras:

• Disc One
• Audio commentary by director Terry Gilliam
• Audio commentary by Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, and producer Laila Nabulsi
• Audio interview with Thompson, recorded Saturday, September 7th, 2002 with producer Nabulsi, Thompson's companion Anita Bejmuk, and a Criterion audio track recordist Michael Wiese
• Deleted Scenes with optional director commentary: "The Mint 400" (1:24), "The DA from GA" (5:36), "The Hardware Barn" (3:31)
  
• Disc Two
• "Johnny Depp — Hunter S. Thompson Correspondence," read by Depp, recorded in the summer of 2002, in widescreen (14:05)
• "Not the Screenplay," audio discussion among Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, and Laila Nabulsi (about 15 minutes)
• "The Dress Pattern" (1:07), short black and white full frame movie made by Gilliam in 1998 during Writers Guild deliberations
• Storyboards and production illustrations: opening sequence (79 screens); The Mint Hotel (61 screens), Baker (14 screens), The Flamingo Hotel/D.A.'s Convention (46 screens), Adrenochrome (28 screens), Duke Drives Gonzo to the Airport (59 screens), Final Sequence (19 screens); production designs by James Clyne and Linda Newman (46 screens)
• Stills galleries: color and black and white set photos by Peter Mountain: "The Trip" (31 screens), "Las Vegas" (52 screens), "The Magnet" (43 screens)
• "Hunter Goes to Hollywood," short film by Wayne Ewing about Thompson's visit to the set (10:37)
• Original theatrical trailer, wide screen (2:14) with optional director commentary
• Seven TV spots (:32 each)
• Oscar Zeta Acosta, Dr. Gonzo: photo and essay gallery (28 screens); "The Revolt of the Cockroach People," Acosta reading from his book at a festival in 1974 (29:41); "Thompson on Acosta," Thompson reading his 1989 foreword to a re-issue of Acosta's books, recorded in 2002
• Ralph Steadman gallery (106 screens)
• "Breakdown on Paradise Boulevard," excerpts from the 1996 audio book with Jim Jarmusch, Maury Chaykin, Glenn Headley, Laurie Metcalf, and Harry Dean Stanton reading a scene not used in the movie
• "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood," hour long Omnibus documentary for the BBC from 1978, following Thompson and Steadman to Hollywood (six chapters, 50:14)

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS is an ugly film.

Intentionally so.

That's one of the key facts you learn from the new Criterion Collection release of the film, care of director Terry Gilliam's lively audio commentary track. From Benicio Del Toro singing "One Toke Over the Line," free of any adherence to conventional musical notation while speeding through the desert in a red convertible, to the succession of debris-filled hotel rooms that the main characters methodically trash, FEAR is a museum of ugliness, a catalog of the worst excesses of American culture, its fast-food packaging, cigarette filters, Hawaiian shirts, hats, sunglasses, visors, aluminum beer cans, flyers, papers, cords, swizzle sticks, and sports pages, all heaped in a living landfill generated by the film's pack rat heroes.

Originally a Universal-Rhino release, produced by long-time Hunter S. Thompson associate Laila Nabulsi, FEAR AND LOATHING was rather unpopular when it was first released. Naturally, it has acquired a cult following, and seeing the film again after five years, the originally skeptical or repulsed viewer can better appreciate its time capsule qualities, especially with the help of the lavish scholarly apparatus pressed onto this two disc set.

FEAR AND LOATHING is, of course, the tale of Hunter S. Thompson, calling himself Raoul Duke, and a friend named Dr. Gonzo, in reality a civil rights lawyer named Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, taking a quick trip to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race. The background, according to Thompson's straightforward account in the text "Jacket Copy for FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS," included on the disc, is that Thompson had an assignment from SPORTS ILLUSTRATED to cover the race, but ended up writing about his more expanded experiences for ROLLING STONE in a two-part story, illustrated by Ralph Steadman and later republished as a book. In large part, Thompson was really trying to get his friend Acosta out of Los Angeles so that they could talk about matters relevant to the slaying of a journalist name Ruben Salazar, which Thompson was also writing about. If alone with Acosta over the weekend, Thompson felt he could talk about the case with some frankness. The original book and its illustrations, along with Thompson's Salazar story, and the "jacket copy" are all available in the Modern Library's edition of the book, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS AND OTHER AMERICAN STORIES (283 pages, $15, ISBN 0 679 60298 4).

Of course, Vegas and the Hollywood movie industry have had an ongoing mutually cannibalistic relationship, each thinking that they are really like the other: one (Vegas) believes it is an entertainment industry and the other (Hollywood) thinks it is a haven for ballsy gamblers. There are even some American movies that go "Vegas" without even actually going there (such as NATURAL BORN KILLERS, another convertible-in-the-desert movie, or A.I.'s pallid Rouge City), and Vegas brings out the showman in otherwise classical directors, such as Coppola (we sometimes forget how important Nevada is to the GODFATHER series, and that Coppola has a whole other Vegas movie).

It's not exactly clear how much of Thompson's account is true. But that doesn't matter because the important element of the book is Thompson's impressionistic dissection of American in the early '70s. Fun as FEAR is, in some ways it is a defeatist book (like the film) because Thompson is waking up from an American exceptionalism that has gone awry thanks to the Vietnam war, swinish political leaders, and Baptists. What most young contemporary readers got out of it, of course, was the drug use and the comical flouting of authority. Sometimes you wonder if the rabid Thompson fans even really understand the writer. The real Thompson is a Kentucky gentleman, a gun-fancying sportswriter turned Gonzo journalist, not at all as media savvy as his fans. Thompson's letters, collected in two volumes so far, are fun and fascinating, but they evince a writer's grimy daily concerns, getting assignments and getting paid (the second volume, FEAR AND LOATHING IN AMERICA, is especially relevant to the events in FEAR). Like cartoonist R. Crumb, Thompson was in the '60s but not of it, least of all in the way he dressed. While everyone else had long hair and beads, Thompson dressed like a tourist, the Ugly American.

In fact, the enduring fascination the book has for a certain section of the public probably has more to do with its true kinship with American literature. A reading of the late Leslie Fiedler's LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL (recently cited in THE SOPRANOS) provides insight. For those unfamiliar with Fiedler, the critic noticed a strange pattern going through the great American novels from the beginning. They were all about a white guy coupled in a quasi-homo-erotic quest with a larger, more competent ethnic person, usually an Indian, but sometimes a black. Fiedler traces this pattern through Cooper's novels, MOBY DICK, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and all the way up to ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The implied homosexuality and the implicit misogyny, which Fiedler thought said a great deal about the sociological and psychological milieu out of which almost all American novels come, can also be found in many movies, and maybe even journalism, if FEAR AND LOATHING can be viewed as fact rather than fiction. Acosta/Gonzo is the book's Chingachgook, its Nigger Jim, its Queequeg, its Chief Bromden, to Thompson's Ishmael, Natty Bumpo, Huck, and McMurphy. Thompson's Duke is the last of the frontiersmen, going out west (via Los Angeles) in search of freedom and quiet and escape from the enveloping pincers of society (and to make some money on a writing assignment). Gonzo is his strong, silent partner, but unlike in the books Fiedler explores, Gonzo needs as much help from his white partner (to sober up, to stop from killing himself) as Duke needs to get out of tight situations. None of this is explored in the DVD, however, though many of the observers talking on the discs sensed that something homoerotic was going on in either Gilliam's mind or the approach of the actors.

The movie's version of Gonzo is much more menacing, and much less charming, than the one in the book. Which isn't to knock Del Toro. In a way it is perfect casting. But perhaps taking his cue from the script, or the whole creative team's slight misunderstanding of the book, he plays the character exclusively as a dark, easily enraged, uncaged beast whom Duke needs to frequently hold at bay with whip and chair.

The real Acosta appears in one of this set's wealth of supplements. He is shown in a video reading from his own book, THE REVOLT OF THE COCKROACH PEOPLE, at a Chicano festival in 1974. He doesn't seem very gonzo. He's a laid back but interested fellow with a belly hanging out of a mesh shirt. He reads his excerpt well, but he is not the mad, out-of-control person that Thompson created, perhaps for narrative interest, on the page. Nor is he wearing a black glove on one hand.

The "real" Hunter S. Thompson also appears extensively on the disc. First it is in the form of a quasi commentary track recorded in 2002 with producer Nabulsi, Thompson's companion Anita Bejmuk, and others, including the answering machines of some stars he calls, and another person who calls Thompson while they are in the middle of recording. With the ice in his drink clinking throughout, Thompson proceeds to not take anything very seriously. He begins by noting the moment where Depp throws a waiter's tip on the floor. Thompson views this as "a horrible insult to me," and complains for a while and then refuses to discuss it any further. Occasionally, Thompson will erupt into a horrible squealing noise, and the auditor isn't quite sure what he's doing it. Certainly the others in the room think the squealing is hilarious, "laugh men" whose job is to cackle over everything the grumpy Thompson does even if they don't understand it. But you wonder if Thompson is necessarily always joking. He thinks the "Circus Circus" scene "sucks," and remarks concerning Johnny Depp that "that bastard wanted everything once he knew he could get a few clothes out of me." At 11 minutes and 59 seconds, he reveals that the hippie they picked up in the desert wasn't really bald, as in the movie. And he tells us that "we came to find the American dream," which at this late date doesn't really ring true. Most interesting are Thompson's remarks on Timothy Leary, a "horrible goddamn person," whom he characterizes as a "blade in the back of my whole generation." Finally, though, even the film's producer, Nabulsi, an old girlfriend of Thompson's, gets exasperated with the guru of gonzo, as he continually tries to evade her questions about why he thinks the book had such an impact on a generation.

Thompson pops up again in "Hunter Goes to Hollywood," a short selection of scenes by Wayne Ewing, who has been chronicling Thompson's life on film. It shows Thompson arriving in L.A. to visit the set, giving Depp some tribal headgear, and hanging out with Del Toro, Harry Dean Stanton, and Gilliam (in the audio track, Nabulsi completely rejects Thompson's rather different view of his day on the set). And there is "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood," an hour long documentary made for the BBC's Omnibus series in 1978. It follows Thompson and Ralph Steadman around Hollywood, where the writer is rarely without a bottle of Heineken.

Depp, clearly one of the screen's great actors, really does quite a turn of mimicry with Thompson. He has the bad clothes, the mumble-mouthed growl, the strange sounds, the very bad clothes, and the erectile cigarette holder, which has just as much dialogue as the actors. Depp even has Thompson's strangled, spasmodic walk down. It forms an interesting contrast with Bill Murray's version of Thompson in WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM (where Peter Boyle plays the Acosta role).

The film itself comes in an excellent and sharp widescreen (2.35:1) transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions, supervised by Gilliam, according to the box, and the audio track— a new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, and a new DTS 5.1— have been cleaned up.

Other supplementary materials from disc one include a yak track from director Gilliam. He gives a joyous account of its making, and his cheerfulness belies all the difficulties he has had on not only FEAR but BRAZIL and other movies. Gilliam chortles over his own film, and his laughter is infectious. He makes an interesting point about CGI, which he seems not to like in theory. He notes that "thousands of people make the real world," while only one or two people make a CGI image, thus limiting its freshness and unpredictability. He mentions that the "typewriter" sequence in the movie is from a section cut from the book that Depp found while riffling around in Thompson's papers. He also reminds us that there is little actual story in the film, and that the paranoia is really the plot. Also, once he points out that the same Steadman-esque cactus appears in all the exterior shots, you can't help but notice it. The only thing that Gilliam doesn't go into is the Rhino end of the production team, which he does on pages 250 - 251 of GILLIAM ON GILLIAM, the indispensable Faber and Faber interview book with the director.

There is also an edited audio commentary by Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, and producer Laila Nabulsi, which is informative, and though filled with the usual "happy chatter" (so-and-so is great to work with), it seems more sincere here than most other tracks.

Finally on disc one there are three deleted scenes with optional director commentary. "The Mint 400" is an extension of an existing scene with more cameos from visiting actors and more of the Tim Thomerson. "The DA from GA" is a long conversation in a casino bar among Duke, Gonzo, and a DA whom they try to scare into thinking that California is rife with blood drinking cultists. "The Hardware Barn" is the original closing scene of the film, a quiet end to the story that links up with Thompson's occasional somberness. It's also one of the few scenes that is actually critical of Thompson, and Gilliam's comments on it are very interesting. These three scenes appeared earlier on the U DVD.

Disc two is all supplements. It is divided into two sections, the film, and the source. Highlights include Depp reading out loud from the letters between him and Thompson. Recorded on video in the summer of 2002, it's presented in widescreen and takes up a sizable chunk of an hour.

The genesis of the film is discussed extensively in "Not the Screenplay," a 15 minutes audio-only recording among Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, and Laila Nabulsi. Essentially, Alex Cox and another guy wrote a script that Cox was going to direct. Then Cox got fired, and Gilliam stepped in. He and Grisoni track the absurdities of the Writers Guild's procedures for the assignment of authorship. In connection with that "The Dress Pattern" is a short black and white full frame film that Gilliam made in response to the Writers Guild's deliberations.

Other movie related material includes storyboards and production illustrations, production design art, the original theatrical trailer, in wide screen, with optional director commentary, and seven TV spots.

The remaining material in the Source half of the disc is a photo and essay gallery about Oscar Acosta; "Thompson on Acosta," which is an audio-only track of Thompson reading his 1989 foreword to a re-issue of Acosta's books; a gallery of Ralph Steadman's illustrations; And "Breakdown on Paradise Boulevard," an excerpt from the 1996 audio book with Jim Jarmusch (as Thompson), Maury Chaykin (as Acosta), Glenn Headley, Laurie Metcalf, and Thompson pal Harry Dean Stanton, all reading/enacting a scene not used in the movie.

Frontal Lobotomy

FULL FRONTAL

• Theatrical release date: August 2, 2002
  
• Miramax Home Entertainment
  
• $29.99
  
• 101 minutes
  
• R
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 11, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer enhanced for wide screen televisions
  
• Static, silent menu with 30-chapter scene selection
  
• Single sided, dual layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround in English and French
  
• Close captions
• Keep case

• Cast: Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood, Catherine Keener, David Hyde-Pierce, David Duchovny, Nicky Katt, Mary McCormack
  
• Directed by Steven Soderbergh
  
• Credited writer: Coleman Hough
• Significant music: original music by Sarah Flack

Plot in one sentence: The lives of seven variously frustrated Los Angelenos who intersect in the course of one day.

Extras:

• Audio commentary track by director Steven Soderbergh and writer Coleman Hough
• Deleted scenes with option screenwriter commentary: "Eating Disorder" (:53), "Writing Partner" (1:01), "Dreaming Masseuse" (1:25), "Sweet Breath" (:41), "Hip-Hop Hitler" (1:48), "The Letter Doesn't Make Sense" (:55), "Dancing With Hitler" (:38), "Francesca Gets to Know Sam" (:42)
• In-character interviews, in full-frame digital video, conducted by Soderbergh: Arty/Ed (6:46), Calvin/ Nicholas (10:24), Carl (10:15), Francesca/Catherine (9:43), Lee (10:50), Linda (10:32)
• Director's spy cam, full-frame, black and white video (3:09)
• Soderbergh video interview (7:10)
• "The Rules," Soderbergh video interview about the script's famous production rules (7:27)
• Theatrical trailer, full frame, white letters on black background (1:18)

The palate-cleansing cheese course between the frenetic hijnks of OCEAN'S ELEVEN and the somber rain-splattered romanticism of SOLARIS, FULL FRONTAL is on the surface a movie about moviemaking, until you think that like many other Soderbergh films it's really about relationships, before you conclude that in fact it really is about moviemaking.

I'm a big Soderbergh supporter, but I was underwhelmed with the film on first viewing. For those interested, here is this reviewer's original comments about the film. I wish that the underlying Altman-esque stories in FF, so reminiscent of THE ANIIVERSAY PARTY and TIME CODE 2000 were more interesting on the fundamental level of plot. I would only add that the supplementary material on the disc for FULL FRONTAL at least helps the viewer understand the intentions of the filmmakers.

There is an interesting trompe l'oeil aspect of moviemaking, which is that over the decades audiences have accepted the convention that black and white and hand-held camera work is more "realistic" than color and good sound and the full panoply of Hollywood technology being brought to bear on a dramatic scene. Having just done three popular multi-million dollar movies, the one-time indie director must have felt (as he reportedly did after making THE UNDERNEATH) that his personal interest in making movies is getting buried under the massive architecture it takes to make a film. FULL FRONTAL is Soderbergh's version of a Dogme film, a stripped-down production that just happens to have Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt in it. The film also functions and several levels at once, with a film-within-the-film and several characters wandering in and out of each other's lives.

It's the contrast between the film-within-the-film and the surface film that seems to interest Soderbergh, as he recounts on the audio track. Though one format seems more "real" than the other, both are fakes because both are manufactured. But because of home movies, snapshots, and cinema verité documentaries, we associate the raw with the real and the cook with the artificial.

The disc has a good transfer (though much of the film is intentionally rough), and comes reasonably packed with extras. There's an audio commentary track from Soderbergh and the film's screenwriter, actress turned playwright Coleman Hough (although there is little if any explanation has to how they two came together creatively: for that, you have to go to the published screenplay). Curiously, Soderbergh starts off by wondering out loud what people want from audio tracks, which is curious since he has done several already. In any case, Soderbergh gives a good account of the film, while Hough seems inhibited and ill-informed. Even worse is her solo track for the deleted scenes, which is cursory and unhelpful.

There are eight deleted scenes, but this is the kind of movie where you can't tell if it helps or hurts the movie to have them missing. The first one, "Eating Disorder," reveals that Blair Underwood's character is a male bulimic. In fact most of the deleted scenes affect his character more than others, such as "Writing Partner," "Hip-Hop Hitler," and "The Letter Doesn't Make Sense." The other deleted scenes have more footage of Julia Roberts, Nicky Katt and a few other characters. Also available are interviews conducted by Soderbergh with several of the actors in character interviews, in full-frame digital video. Some work and some don't. The ones with Catherine Keener and Mary McCormack actually help you to understand their characters more, while the one with David Hyde-Pierce is funny just on its own. Each of them is about 10 minutes long. A little bit of wasted DVD real estate is the director's spy cam, a full-frame, black and white selection of video bits shot on the set. Unsupported by a commentary track, the footage is hard to figure out. More helpful is an interview with Soderbergh, in which he goes into the background of the film, and a second part in which Soderbergh describes and discusses the famous rules of production he tacked onto the front of the script. Finally, there is the film's interesting theatrical trailer, a full frame image of white letters on black background with enticing audio but no images from the film. What's missing from the disc is the material from the very busy and playful FULL FRONTAL website, which the DVD seems to pretend didn't exist.

Oblivion Seekers

LIVING IN OBLIVION

• First screening: January 20, 1995, at Sundance
  
• Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment
  
• $29.95
  
• 90 minutes
  
• R
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 11, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color and black and white
  
• Wide screen transfer (1.85:1) enhanced for wide screen televisions
  
• Static, silent menu with 28-chapter scene selection
  
• Single-sided dual-layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital mono
  
• Close captioned
  
• One sheet insert
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, James Le Gros
  
• Directed by Tom DiCillo
  
• Credited writer: Tom DiCillo
• Significant music: regular DiCillo composer Stephanie Carroll's snappy score

Plot in one sentence: An indie movie director deals with the demands of his stars and the impediments of his equipment.

Extras:

• Audio commentary by Tom DiCillo
• Deleted Scene (2:08) with James Le Gros, the soundman, and a midget
• Video interview with by Tom DiCillo and Steve Buscemi (16:41), taped May 22, 2002, at The Golden Age of Cinema in New York City
• Trailers, wide screen: AUTO FOCUS (1:59), LOVE LIZA (2:14), THE BIG PICTURE (full-frame, 2:22)

Purely as a film about filmmaking, LIVING IN OBLIVION is much more successful. But then, it also sets its sights much lower, endeavoring to convey to the viewer the horrendous impediments that can interfere with the process of filmmaking.

In fact, listening to director Tom DiCillo on the audio track and in the short interview featurette on the disc you wonder how he was able to even make this film or any others. The man had quite a lot of anger at moviemaking. Not at the people. More at the machinery. As he says in the commentary track, the filmmaker is utilizing gross machines to capture something delicate and fragile, the interactions between people, and when the machinery breaks down, he finds it deeply, maddeningly frustrating. LIVING IN OBLIVION comes in three parts (he explains why on the audio track), each segment a comedy of frustration. The first segment shows how the film within the film's director Nick (Steve Buscemi) is driven mad by a number of mechanical and personnel failures that keep him from getting his shot, which the second segment shows how the charged interactions of the actors and the crew on the set can thwart a director's vision. It's hilarious, and in-jokey, but also a very realistic account of what happens on a movie set (or so I'm told).

Good as the movie is, the supplements are also standouts. What's funny is that the film was made quickly and inexpensively (with many of the actors actually paying to be in the film), and DiCillo says he never had a better time on the set. In the commentary track DiCillo is also at pains to make clear that the character played by James LeGros is not based on Brad Pitt. Pitt was originally going to be in the film but a conflict with LEGENDS OF THE FALL prevented his participation, which in some convoluted way is probably how that rumor got started. Instead, DiCillo says that Le Gros based the character on an actor he had just worked with in a movie made just before LIVING IN OBLIVION (those films were FLOUNDERING, DON'T DO IT, MRS. PARKER AND THE VISCIOUS CIRCLE, and BAD GIRLS, so somewhere in those casts is the real Chad Palomino). The video taped interview with DiCillo and Buscemi is fine, but basically repeats information he provides on the yak track, though it is nice to see him with the actor (a shot of a glum member of the audience not laughing at DiCillo's tale of woe is a little perplexing, however).

Feather Brained

THE FOUR FEATHERS

• Theatrical release: September 17, 2002
  
• Paramount Home Entertainment
  
• $29.99
  
• 131 minutes
  
• PG-13
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 18, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Widescreen transfer (2.35:1) enhanced for widescreen televisions
  
• Animated, musical menu with 19-chapter scene selection
  
• Single sided, dual layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, English 2.0, French 2.0
  
• English subtitles
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson, Wes Bentley
  
• Directed by Shekhar Kapur
  
• Credited writers: Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini, from the novel by A. E. W. Mason

Plot in one sentence: Cowardly soldier tries to earn back the respect of his peers by going undercover in the Sudan.

Extras:

• Audio Commentary by Shekhar Kapur
• "A Journey from Within: The Making of Four Feathers" (16:06)
• "The Sounds of East and West" (4:05)
• 'The Battle of Abou Clea" (4:46)
• "A Historical Perspective" (17:00)
• "The Friendship of Abou Fatma" (2:30)
• "A Journey of Self-Discovery" (2:52)
• "Surviving the Prison" (2:52)
• Theatrical trailer for THE CORE before opening menu (2:29)
• Theatrical trailer (2:30)
• One sheet insert
  

One hates to be so dismissive and reductive, but THE FOUR FEATHERS has one great shot in it, and that's about it.

The shot comes when the uptight British in the Sudan form a square to ward off the heathens charging at them from all sides. It's a breathtaking shot (the great Robert Richardson was the film's photographer, although this might be a second unit shot), doesn't last long enough, and says more in a few nanoseconds than the rest of the film laboriously tries to put forward.

I don't have much to add about the film itself beyond the remarks in my original review. The new DVD of the film would have been a marvelous package, if only the movie itself were not so boring, miscast, and incoherent.

In viewing it again, I realize that Heath Ledger is actually quite good in the film, unlike some of his co-stars, and it's also clear that director Shekhar Kapur is doodling a little Lawrence of Arabia arabesque around his character. I'd like to say that the film transcends the racism and the jingoism of the source book and the previous films, but it is too at odds with itself to sustain that argument.

Paramount has done a great job with the movie. It has a fantastic transfer, with great sound, and the supplements are detailed, if you care about the movie in the first place. There is a clump of eight "making of" featurettes, which are of course all one feature annoyingly broken up into little bits. There's a curious phenomenon about Shakur's presence on these featurettes. He comes across like a real phony, blathering about the characters' "journey" and other gobbledygook. But on his audio commentary track he comes across interested and interesting, funny, passionate about the movie, and insightful about many aspects of filmmaking. One can chalk it down to the differences between material recorded before the movie is finished and material recorded after the film has bombed.

The disc begins with a trailer for THE CORE, and it's pretty obvious that the film, which has already been delayed at least once, was in danger of being pulled again, as the trailer features a shot of a space shuttle crash landing in Los Angeles. The latest word, however, is that Paramount will pull and change this trailer, but retain the space shuttle sequence in the film (the trailer suggest that the shuttle makes a successful landing).

[Copyright 2002 by Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer, Inc.]

Bronson Agonistes

MR. MAJESTYK

• Theatrical release: July 17, 1974
  
• MGM Home Entertainment
  
• $14.95
  
• 103 minutes
  
• PG
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 4, 2003

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Wide screen transfer (1.85:1) enhanced for wide screen televisions, with a full frame transfer on the other side
  
• Static, silent menu with 20-chapter scene selection
  
• Dual-sided single-layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital mono
  
• English, French, and Spanish subtitles
  
• Close captioned
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Charles Bronson, Al Lettieri, Linda Cristal, Paul Koslo, Frank Maxwell, Alejandro Rey, Lee Purcell
  
• Directed by Richard Fleischer
  
• Credited writer: Elmore Leonard
• Significant music: catchy and uplifting score by Charles Bernstein

Plot in one sentence: A melon farmer becomes the target of a hit-man after interfering with his prison break.

Extras:

• Theatrical trailer, widescreen (1:40)

For those who liked nothing better in the '70s than to plop into one of the spacious seats of a once-proud but now near-empty grand old theater and spend away the afternoon watching one of the several thousand Charles Bronson movies to come out at that time, the appearance of many of these TV level movies from MGM is a godsend. Though most of them are fairly lazy movies, the cop ones especially making Dirty Harry seem like a typical 'Frisco radical, a few of them are enjoyable and show weird chinks in the Bronson persona.

MR. MAJESTYK is one of the few more interesting Bronsons, probably because of the accident of having a competent director (Richard Fleischer) one board, and because it was written by Elmore Leonard. There's a funny story about how Leonard came to write this movie, which I don’t remember in detail and can't figure out where to look up. Suffice it to say that it is a typical Leonard story insofar as a kidnapping plays a significant role in the plot (one of Leonard's identifying signatures). In this case it is a gangster named Frank Renda (Al Lettieri), a hit man for the mob who has somehow managed to get himself arrested. In a prison break out, Renda ends up the prisoner of fellow inmate Vince Majestyk. He's a Colorado melon farmer who is being victimized by a local hood named Kopas (Paul Koslo, a familiar character actor of the time). The point of all this torturous exposition is to get Renda mad at Majestyk so that the whole thing can build to a face off between the experience killer and the land and liberty defending farmer.

MR. M has much to recommend it. The breakout sequence is well done, with action that is clear and understandable. A melon assassination scene is memorable. For some reason everyone is pretending that California is really Colorado, and the love interest is perfunctory, but Bronson is interesting as a guy who goes up against both the law and the mob, but with a jokey insouciance that you don't usually associate with the star. And good character actors pop up throughout the film, including Lee Purcell as Renda's squeeze. Lettieri, who died in 1975, is absolutely brilliant as the gangster. Lettieri is one of the few actors who can really do anger well. Kevin Spacey and the late J.T. Walsh are also good at it (hmmmmm: given the early deaths of these great anger actors, Lettieri at 47 and Walsh at 54, does this put on poor old Spacey, who is already 43, at risk of an early death?). Acting buffs should pick up this inexpensive disc if for no other reason than to study Lettieri.

MGM offers up nothing extra but a rather scratchy wide screen trailer (full frame on the full frame side of the disc). The film was always California over-bright and the disc seems to be an accurate account of the original film. Richard Klein, the DP, worked with Fleischer before, but obviously they were on a tight budgetary and shooting schedule, and the film has a drive-in feel to it in both look and sound. The print used for the transfer is fine and seems free of any unduly distracting problems.

M*A*S*H Note

M*A*S*H: THE THIRD SEASON

• Originally aired: September 10, 1974 through March 18, 1975
  
• Fox Home Entertainment
  
• $39.98
  
• 613 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: February 18, 2002

• Three disc set
  
• Color
  
• Full frame (1.33:1) transfers
  
• Static, silent menu
  
• Single sided, dual layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital mono, in English, Spanish, and French
  
• English, and Spanish subtitles, and close captioning
  
• Eight page insert with episode cast, crew, air dates, and plot summaries
  
• Folding digipak keep case

• Cast: Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, McLean Stevenson, Harry Morgan, Larry Linville, Gary Burghoff, Jamie Farr, Allan Arbus
  
• Directed by Hy Averback and others
  
• Credited writers: Larry Gelbart and numerous others, from Robert Altman's film and Richard Hooker's novels

Plot in one sentence: The conflicts between doctors and military bureaucracy during the Korean war.

Extras:

• Zero
  

Before there was THE WEST WING, liberal television viewers had M*A*S*H. It started out as a somewhat crude comedy derived from the hit movie, but by the third season, now out on DVD, it had begun to wear its liberal heart on its surgical togs and coalesce as a great series. The liberalism and anti-war stance of the show was a source of unending disappointment to the author of the original books, Richard Hooker, who in fact was an Eisenhower and Nixon supporter.

This third season is one in which the show started to take off, the writers were in the groove, and the cast had come together. It starts out with "The General Flipped at Dawn," which introduced Harry Morgan to the show as a nutty general, but who was to come back the next season as a replacement. Other highlights of the 24-episode season include "O.R.," one of the episodes set solely in the operating room, "Springtime," which features Mary Kay Place as Radar's bespectacled love interest, the famous "Adam's Ribs," in which Hawkeye schemes to have some spare ribs shipped from Chicago to the 4077th, "A Full Rich Day," in which life in the 4077th is summarized by Hawkeye in a letter to his dad, "Aid Station" in which Hawkeye, Houlihan, and Klinger find new-found respect for each other, "Big Mac," in which General MacArthur makes a drive-by visit, and the final show of the season, "Abyssinia, Henry," in which Mclean Stevenson was written out of the series.

It's hard to imagine this series coming to television now, what with its celebration of boozing and extra-marital sex (love those running nurses in the opening credits). Those who complain about the stupidity of the networks might reflect on how M*A*S*H managed to get away with a lot of subtly subversive elements that wouldn't make it in shows today. Most important is that the show is not only hilarious (such as when Hawkeye characterizes that morning's grub as "Trench toast"), but has a range of cultural references that rival Dennis Miller and MST3K, and never insult the viewer's intelligence. One only laments that Fox has chosen to leave on the laugh tracks, a horrible tinny and unnecessary prompt that sounds like rip tides in a cave. Can't the laugh tracks be removed?

The transfers are much better than the versions aired on television (although the scratches in the credits are the same from one episode to the next, which almost makes you think that the scratches are intentional). There was some weird flickering at the end of the first episode, but other than that the transfers were adequate. In any case, it is much more invigorating to watch the episodes in order rather than jumbled up or without knowing which season you are in or what year, as happens on television syndication. Yet because of the war setting the shows are almost timeless, and M*A*S*H's onslaught of puns, plays on words, and its breadth of cultural gags keep it among the funniest programs ever written for TV. Trench toast, anyone?

M*A*S*H Note update: 2/18/2003 There is nothing quite so bracing of a Tuesday morn, while still in the afterglow of a hard job well done, than to discover your ignorance broadcast to billions of people. A correspondent writes to inform me that A) the opening credit sequence footage for M*A*S*H was derived from the feature film, which was indeed intentionally scratchy, and B), if I had bothered to look in the language set-up section of the disc (accompanying each individual episode), I would have found the English without laugh track" option. Kudos to Fox for providing that option.

NEXT TIME: THE KILLERS '46 AND '64, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, SEASON ONE, KNOCKAROUND GUYS, LA VALLEE, and more!

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