MGM has released a Sidney Poitier collection in time for Black History Month. Undoubtedly, the actor deserves a whole whack of tributes, especially considering the aspersions he was forced to endure throughout much of the '80s, when he became a virtual Hollywood outcast.

This collection includes all three Tibbs movies, the best being the first, Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night. Tugging on heartstrings a bit too mawkishly is Lilies of the Field, for which Poitier won an Oscar for helping a bunch of German nuns build a chapel in the country. Sadly, what's noteworthy in this set isn't so much what's included but what's not included. Conspicuous by their absence are The Defiant Ones and A Patch of Blue. The other thing that slapped me in the face was They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!, in which Poitier ends up in a disciplinary standoff with his barely-pubescent son, a scene that involves dad repeatedly smacking his child in the face, despite the onslaught of tears. How perceptions of child-rearing have changed, thankfully. » Matthew Hays