We disc you a merry Christmas

>> Movie and TV gift sets for the
screen-o-phile on your list

by MARK SLUTSKY

Seems like every holiday season, DVD gift sets get bigger and more extravagant. This year is no exception, as there are more outrageous novelty movie and TV packages than ever to satisfy your favourite cinephile.

The most boombastic of them all has got to be the UA 90th Anniversary Prestige Collection, a spectacular set commemorating everybody’s favourite nonagenarian, artist-friendly film studio. Featuring an astounding 110 films from the company’s history, the set contains everything from Red River to The Apartment to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to Hotel Rwanda; dozens and dozens of awesome movies, plus a big fat picture book.

If you can’t afford the six or seven bills you’ll need to fork out for the UA set (and who can?), there are still lots of less expensive, more specific sets for movie lovers. Blade Runner fans will surely be agog at the five-disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition, which contains the, yes, five different versions of the Ridley Scott film that have existed over the years, all packaged in a snazzy metal briefcase. Plus you get a flying car toy!

If you have a particularly well-behaved child on your list, check out the lavish new Harry Potter box, which contains the first five films in the series (up to the most recent) in a fancy-looking leather-y trunk, with bonus bookmarks, trading cards, and a DVD-based game.

Boxes and boxes of TV

It’s not just movies that are getting the wacky package treatment. TV shows are getting bundled up too, with the trend running to the “complete series” deal for shows that have finished their run. Seinfeld is a good example: the complete series—all 180 episodes—comes in a replica of Jerry’s fridge, with magnets, a bonus disc, and a coffee table book about the show. Or take the complete Northern Exposure, which comes in a rugged messenger bag, just in case you want to schlep all those DVDs to Alaska. The entire run of Six Feet Under comes in a box that would be normal enough were it not for the faux-grass “growing” on top—get it?

Of course, not all good things come in novelty packages. Twin Peaks—The Definitive Gold Box Edition will be a boon to any Peaks fan who didn’t buy the previous boxed versions of the show, and annoying to anyone who did, as it finally includes the series premiere, not previously included for rights reasons. You could always buy this one for yourself and give the other away as a gift... just saying.

Strange that Star Trek: The Original Series—The Complete First Season hasn’t all been available in the same place before, but there you have it. Now it is, in a set that includes both DVD and HD-DVD versions of the series’ first 29 episodes, as well as some supplemental featurettes.

Following on the heels of their popular set that collected the first season of the pioneering comedy series, the second season of Saturday Night Live—the one where Chevy Chase bounced and Bill Murray joined the cast—is now available in one package, complete with musical performances by Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Frank Zappa and more.

Smart stuff

The sophisticated TV watcher is probably already pining away for some of HBO’s fine offerings. New this season is the polygamy-happy family drama Big Love’s second season, and on a more comic tip, the first season of the New Zealand by way of New York musical comedy series Flight of the Conchords.

If you’ve got a thinking man on your holiday list, why not get him the thinking man’s action series, as the whole Matt Damon-fronted Bourne trilogy, including The Bourne Ultimatum , the year’s best film of its kind, is now available as a gift set. Or you could get the whole Die Hard set, up to this year’s Live Free or Die Hard for a less consistent but more yippee-ki-yay-ified entertainment package.

The Criterion Collection is a reliable source for high-toned entertainment, and their newest releases arenoexception. Your family’s Fassbinder freak will surely flip for the new Berlin Alexanderplatz set, which collects all 15 hours of the notorious director’s legendary TV serial in one seven-disc set, along with the original 1931 Phil Jutzi adaptation of the Alfred Döblin novel and a bunch of other thoughtful special features.

As always, the company’s got its game on in amajor way. Other notable new releases from Criterion include Ingmar Bergman’s (RIP) Sawdust and Tinsel, Godard’s Breathless, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (which was recently reviewed in these pages and which is as gorgeous, if not more, than ever). If you can’t find something for a movie buff in that list, then darn it, look a little harder!