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DVDs
Special features

What to buy the movie or TV buff in your life

by MARK SLUTSKY

If you’ve got a serious film buff on your holiday shopping list, the one gift they’re almost certainly drooling over, and which is likely to win you a lifetime of gratitude, sexual favours, proposals of marriage or any combination thereof, would be Essential Art House—50 Years of Janus Films. It might look like just a nice coffee-table book about the legendary film distribution company that brought the best of European cinema to North American shores, but inside is a whopping 50 DVDs featuring some of Janus’s hottest hits.

We’re talking Grand Illusion, The Third Man, The 39 Steps, Wild Strawberries here. We’re talking Jules et Jim, Ikiru, Black Orpheus. Oh yeah. Curated by Criterion, you should know that the discs don’t contain any special features, save their awesome selves and the accompanying tome.

Collected classics

If you’re shopping for a cinéaste and you don’t have the 700 or so dollars you’ll need for the Janus set floating around in your pocket, there are still plenty of choices to make your movie-mad loved one happy. Despite also being special-feature-free, Preston Sturges—The Filmmaker Collection is one of the year’s best boxes, containing seven of the brilliant writer/director’s comedies, including Sullivan’s Travels, The Lady Eve and Hail the Conquering Hero. An essential set.

Also key is the John Wayne-John Ford Film Collection, featuring eight of the film legends’ collaborations: The Searchers, Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and more. There are a lot of cheapy Wayne sets floating around with some of his less known work, but this is the real deal. As is the Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector’s Edition, with 10 hooftastic classics: Top Hat, Shall We Dance, The Gay Divorcee and more.

And, if you’re not tired of classic filmmaker collections at this point, peep The Premiere Frank Capra Collection, which may not contain holiday perennial It’s a Wonderful Life, but is well-stocked indeed with the hits, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and more.

TV party

Of course, if the success of the DVD format has proven one thing, it’s that people really like watching their favourite TV shows without commercials and at their leisure. You really can’t go wrong with almost anything from HBO, from The Sopranos (the first half of the final season goes on sale this month) to the somewhat silly but enjoyable soapy Rome, the first season of which is now available, to the always entertaining Entourage, to Baltimore crime drama The Wire, the third season of which hit stores this fall, and which may be the best show on television.

The best show on TV that’s not on HBO, the Sci-Fi network’s revamp of Battlestar Galactica would also make a great gift, with the second half of the second season (or “season 2.5,” if you will) just out on DVD, so you can catch up to the currently running season three. Sci-fi fans might also appreciate the first series of the recent Doctor Who revamp, starring Christopher Eccleston (who didn’t return for season two) and Billie Piper.

In the past couple of years, media companies have been raiding their coffers to release complete editions of pretty much every show ever aired. While you may not know anyone who’d be thrilled by a Mama’s Family set or the complete works of Full House, many’s a fan who might thrill to the Seinfeld season seven set, Michael Richards’ recent racist remarks notwithstanding. Or get your laugh-hungry loved one the complete first season of Saturday Night Live, available now for the first time, as is the debut year of the influential St. Elsewhere.

The fifth and final season of Quantum Leap recently arrived on disc, and the time-travelling Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell adventure actually holds up surprisingly well. The last two seasons (six and seven) of the original run of the brilliant Columbo are also new to stores—don’t miss the episode with guest star William Shatner as a TV detective who matches wits with Peter Falk. The fifth season of mid-’90s classic Northern Exposure also hits shelves this month.

Animania

One of the year’s absolute best DVD box sets is the NFB’s superb Norman McLaren: The Master’s Edition, featuring the genius filmmaker’s collected works and plenty of archival material luxuriously spread out over 10 discs—it’s a must.

If you’ve got an animation nut (or child) on your list, there’s also plenty more to choose from. Disney’s always been a reliable source of well produced, feature-stocked discs, and they have an incredible library of material to choose from. This month sees the release of a bunch of collections of classic Mouse House stuff in their Walt Disney Treasures series: More Silly Symphonies (1929–1938), the behind-the-scenes series Your Host, Walt Disney, The Complete Pluto, Volume Two and The Mickey Mouse Club Featuring the Hardy Boys. For newer stuff, look for the more recent Little Mermaid, Robin Hood and Cars releases.

If you want to get a gift that’s a little more, well, old school, check out the Sesame Street—Old School, Vol. 1 set, which collects highlights from 1969–1974 and which would make a great gift for kids and nostalgic adults alike, or one of the four, terrific Looney Tunes Golden Collections, featuring some of the greatest cartoons ever.