2006 Gift Guide

Our editors have selected the very best in new DVDs, music, and video games for holiday giving.

DVDs - Feature Films

Bogie & Bacall - The Signature Collection ($39.98)

JOHN KEHE - STAFF

2006 Gift Guide • Feature Film DVDs • Action Film DVDs • Children/Family DVDs • TV Series DVDs • Video Games • CD Box Sets

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."

Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection ($59.98)

Next to the good folks at Looney Tunes, nobody does anarchy quite as winningly as writer/director Preston Sturges. From 1940 to 1944, he went on a comedic tear that's not been equaled since. Here are seven of his films, including his greatest: "The Lady Eve." Barbara Stanwyck shines as a con artist who reels in Henry Fonda's wealthy chump. Second best is "Sullivan's Travels." Joel McCrea plays a Sturges stand-in who's determined to direct a great tragedy: "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (Coen brothers fans take note.) "The Palm Beach Story," in which Claudette Colbert thinks she can best support her husband (McCrea) by divorcing him and marrying a millionaire, has many admirers. But the ending is so corny, it derails the film.

The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection ($99.98)

These grand old masters may be sincere, somewhat sanitized views of the worlds they inhabit ("The Sound of Music," "Oklahoma!," "Carousel," "State Fair," "The King and I," "South Pacific"), but they are not sappy. They are all about something larger than the characters who bring the stories alive - the Nazi occupation of Austria, America's fierce range wars, the clash of Eastern and Western cultures - and yet the music keeps the big picture personal and intimate. The newly washed (digitally remastered) sound and pictures make all these films feel fresh. Too big for a stocking, this boxed set with a flurry of fun extras - such as the original French film which inspired "Carousel" - are a perfect fit for a family home theater.

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DVDs - Action Films

James Bond - Ultimate Edition, Vols. 1 and 2 ($89.98 each)

Sure, you could just wait for another of those late-night Bond-athons on cable. But super fans of the black-tie super agent - cue catchy theme music - will want to slip these crisply remastered sets into their dossiers (Vols. 3 and 4 come out Dec. 12). Each volume's five Bond films includes a well-appointed second disc that explores aspects of the storied franchise - from casting calls for villains to the crafting of masterful scores. A black-and-white piece on 007's Aston Martin DB5 (and a mini version, complete with flipping license plates, made for little Prince Andrew in 1966) comes with a charming Sean Connery interview on the "Goldfinger" bonus disc. This set has more goodies than Q's lab.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut ($24.98)
Superman Returns ($34.98)
The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection ($68.98)
Superman: The Ultimate Collector's Edition ($99.98)

In 1978, Marlon Brando received an astonishing payday for his role in "Superman": $3.75 million for a 10-minute cameo as Jor-El, father of the Man of Steel. The film franchise has been trying to make the most of its hefty investment ever since. This year's "Superman Returns" and "Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut" each incorporate scrapped footage of the actor into their story lines. Brando didn't feature in the theatrical release of "Superman II," but original director Donner (replaced by Richard Lester) has inserted him into his reedited, emotionally richer version. Silver hair coiffed into a cedilla-shaped forelock, Brando speaks in stentorian tones that lend welcome frisson to a fresh scene in which Superman rebels against his father. Also new: Lois Lane tries to prove Clark Kent is Superman's alter ego by shooting him with a pistol. (Hey, they don't call her an intrepid reporter for nothing.) Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" picks up where "Superman II" leaves off and succeeds with Brandon Routh's effortless emulation of the gentlemanly quality Christopher Reeve brought to the role. The story also resurrects Brando's Jor-El through computer manipulation of old celluloid, a process revealed during the exhaustive - make that exhausting - three hours of bonus features. The movie's standout scene, in which the caped hero strains against the nose of a plummeting airliner, owes much to a similar sequence in one of Max Fleischer's sophisticated Superman 'toons of the 1940s. Fleischer's noir animated series is one of the superlative bonuses of "The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection." The box set also includes "Superman and the Mole Men," a 1950s live-action feature in which George Reeves appears to fly with the aid of an off-screen trampoline. Unfortunately, Donner's cut of "Superman II" isn't included in that package, but it is available as part of "Superman: The Ultimate Collector's Edition," a 14-disc doorstopper that also includes "Superman Returns."

2006 GIFT GUIDE:    Children/Family DVDs and TV Series | Video Games and CDs | Next