European video “label” CINEMA16 was founded a few years ago to promote the art of the short film, a laudable goal if there ever was one, with collections of shorts by well known directors and artists. Their collection European Short Films comes out in Canada this week and it features a really impressive roster of directors and a stylistically diverse set of films. There are shorts by Christopher Nolan, Lynne Ramsay, Mathieu Kassovitz, Nanni Moretti, Martin McDonagh, Lars von Trier and Jan Svankmajer.

Included is a short by former commercial director and personal favourite Roy Andersson, in his inimitable wide-angle, blackout style (though it seems like it’s taken from a poor VHS transfer, unless the poor quality is deliberate). Toby MacDonald has a pretty funny Breathless-in-London Godard tribute called Je t’Aime, John Wayne!, and Andrea Arnold’s Oscar-winning Wasp is an almost unbearably tense English council drama.

While they’re not all masterpieces (Juan Solanas’s The Man Without a Head is annoyingly mannered and precious), this collection, spread over two discs and featuring directors’ commentaries, is still pretty cool. One complaint: you can’t browse by director on the DVD menu, just by title (you have to refer to the DVD booklet to see who did what), which is a poor design choice for a collection relying so heavily on name value.

The always brilliant Muppet Show’s third season, which ran from 1978–1979, makes it to DVD this week. The show’s really hitting its stride here; this was the season to feature the bizarre erotic masterpiece (at least as it appeared to this very young writer) that was the Raquel Welch episode, as well as guest stars Gilda Radner, Harry Belafonte (so good!), Sylvester Stallone, Loretta Lynn and of course Alice Cooper. Everyone should see this stuff, young or old, and if you have kids of your own, you better make sure they’re exposed to as much Muppets material as possible. There’s really no finer children’s entertainment out there.