2006 Gift Guide

After countless hours spent watching TV screens, wearing headphones, and thumbing video game consoles – ah, the sacrifices we make for our readers, eh? – the staff of Weekend is ready to unveil its picks of the very best new DVDs, CDs, and video games on the market. For your friends and family, of course. But we wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself updating your own wish list...

Bogie & Bacall – The Signature Collection ($39.98)

They met in 1944, on the set of Howard Hawks's "To Have and Have Not," allowing viewers the pleasure of watching the legendary couple fall in love both onscreen and in real life. Humphrey Bogart divorced his third wife and married Lauren Bacall the next year (they were together until his death in 1957). In 1946, Hawks directed the two stars again in their best-known vehicle: Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles noir thriller "The Big Sleep." Bogart plays detective Philip Marlowe, hired by Bacall's wealthy father to track the man trying to shake down her sister. Viewed all these decades later, their chemistry still captivates – her sultry look and breathy banter a perfect foil to his hound-dog mug and hard-bitten growl. With "Dark Passage" and "Key Largo," this box includes all four films Bogie and his "Baby" made together – as well as behind-the-scenes looks at the couple's off-screen romance.

Controversial Classics, Vol 2 ($59.98)

A perfect gift for the media lover on your list. This set cleverly collects in one box those famous muckraking reporters who brought down Washington ("All the President's Men"), an unsettling satire of television ("Network"), and the media circus that ensued amid a botched Brooklyn bank robbery ("Dog Day Afternoon"). It's practically worth the price just to see such strong casts of actors looking so impossibly young: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino. Each movie is accompanied by a disc packed with bonus material. Among the stellar features: Redford, Hoffman, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein discuss "All the President's Men;" commentary on "Network" by Walter Cronkite; and the fascinating writing and filming of "Dog Day Afternoon," based on a true – and truly bizarre – event.

Holiday ($24.98)

Johnny Case (Cary Grant), a carefree, acrobatic financier, who is betrothed to the conformist Julia Seton, gradually falls for her lovely and endearingly unconventional sister, Linda (Katharine Hepburn) – the self-described "black sheep" of their fantastically wealthy family. Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon also give wonderful turns as Nick and Susan Potter, Grant's best friends. Less known than other Grant/Hepburn collaborations ("The Philadelphia Story," "Bringing Up Baby"), "Holiday" is effervescent, poignant, and worth discovering. Extras include stills of the film's deleted first scene and a short feature on Grant.

The Première Frank Capra Collection ($59.95)

The quintessential American director was a Sicilian immigrant, beloved by audiences for his hopeful Depression-era depictions of the everyday hero. This compilation offers a smorgasbord from the Frank Capra oeuvre. "It Happened One Night," starring Clark Gable as the irascible newspaperman who falls in love with Claudette Colbert's headstrong runaway heiress, garnered five Academy Awards – including Capra's first for best director. In the zany "You Can't Take It with You," Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart must reconcile her eccentric family (Lionel Barrymore is marvelous as Grandpa Vanderhof) with his blue-blooded parents before the couple can wed. Arthur and Stewart are paired again in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." A documentary on Capra narrated by Ron Howard and a "movie scrapbook" with autobiographical excerpts, annotated script pages, and personal photos round out the set. Conspicuously absent: "It's a Wonderful Life."

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