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BY DAVID GERMAIN
AP Movie Writer | Saturday, March 19, 2005 | (No comments posted.)
Ladder 49
Rated: PG-13
Joaquin Phoenix stars in last year's solid action hit about a firefighter whose career plays out in flashbacks while he's trapped inside a burning building. John Travolta co-stars as the mentor who presides over Phoenix's progression from raw rookie to seasoned veteran. Highlighting the DVD extras are five substantive deleted scenes, including one centering on the firehouse's uneasy transition to a new book-learned captain and one touching on an outpouring of reverence for local firefighters in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The DVD also has a making-of featurette, a segment on the risks taken by real firefighters and commentary from director Jay Russell, who discusses effects used to create fire sequences and the elaborate training the actors underwent to come off as veteran firefighters. ("These guys make it look like they've done it forever," Russell says.)
The Ring
Rated: PG-13
Naomi Watts' 2002 horror hit returns in a new two-disc set to help usher her sequel "The Ring Two" into theaters March 18. Watts stars as a reporter who stumbles into a story about a supposed urban legend -- a videotape that leaves its viewers dead in the awfulest ways after seven days -- only to learn the tale is true and she and her young son are the next victims. Extras on the new DVD release are highlighted by a 16-minute short film meant to bridge the gap between the first and second feature movies, tracing how the killer videotape made its way to a gang of thrill-seeking teens who encounter it in "The Ring Two." The set also has interviews with Watts and director Gore Verbinski, a featurette on urban legends, and the deadly videos featured in the first and second movies and in the Japanese hit "Ringu" that spawned the franchise.
Charly
Rated: PG
Cliff Robertson won an Academy Award for the title role in this 1968 tale about a mentally retarded man who becomes a super-genius after experimental brain surgery. The film based on Daniel Keyes' novel "Flowers for Algernon" leads a rush of titles from the MGM vaults: "We Live Again," with Fredric March in a romance set in Czarist Russia; "The Barbary Coast," featuring Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson in a bawdy tale of Old West San Francisco; "Come and Get It," with Edward Arnold and Joel McCrea as a father and son caught in a love triangle over a woman (Frances Farmer); "Dead End," a mean-streets crime tale with McCrea, Sylvia Sidney and Humphrey Bogart; "Enchantment," starring David Niven in a multigenerational romantic saga; "Stella Dallas," the classic soap opera starring Barbara Stanwyck as a woman who gives her all for her daughter; and "Arrowsmith," with Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes in an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel about a doctor whose ideals are challenged by
the prospect of wealth.
Friends: The Complete Ninth Season
Rated: Unrated
The next-to-last season of the sitcom features a parade of celebrity guest stars, among them Freddie Prinze Jr., Christina Applegate, Jon Lovitz and Jeff Goldblum. The four-disc set has 23 episodes, with commentary by producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane on three and a featurette on the show's changing fashions and hairstyles.
Columbo: The Complete Second Season
Rated: Unrated
Peter Falk is back as the police lieutenant in the rumpled trench coat in the sleuth series that began in the 1970s and became one of TV's most enduring whodunits. The four-disc set features all eight episodes from year two, with guest stars including Leonard Nimoy, Robert Culp, Valerie Harper and Martin Landau.
Felicity: Senior Year, Popular: Second Season
Rated: Unrated
Two school-days dramas continue their extracurricular DVD activities. Keri Russell finishes her campus life in "Felicity," the six-disc set containing the final 22 episodes, accompanied by cast and crew reflections on the show's end. Year two of "Popular," a high school battle of the in-crowd and the out-crowd, also arrives in a six-disc set with 21 episodes.
Xena: Warrior Princess -- Season Six
Rated: Unrated
The battling babes of ancient Greece, Xena (Lucy Lawless) and sidekick Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) finish their six-year journey of dishing out justice with a 10-disc set packing the last 22 episodes. Lawless and O'Connor offer commentary, the set's featurettes include a visit to a fan convention, and there's an alternate cut of the series' two-part finale
Green Acres: The Complete Second Season, The Best of Mister Ed: Volume Two
Rated: Unrated
A couple of good old-fashioned '60s sitcoms continue their DVD revival. Year two of "Green Acres," starring Eddie Albert as a big-city lawyer who moves to the sticks to try farm living with his reluctant socialite wife (Eva Gabor), comes in a two-disc set with 30 episodes. Alan Young stars in "Mister Ed," the story of a man and his talking horse, whose second DVD volume has 20 episodes with guest spots by Clint Eastwood and Mae West.
21 Jump Street: The Complete Second Season
Rated: Unrated
Johnny Depp's late 1980s crime show returns. A six-disc set has 22 episodes from season two, whose guest stars included Brad Pitt and Jason Priestley. The show follows the exploits of baby-faced undercover cops who infiltrate a high school to bring in bad guys.
Woman Thou Art Loosed
Rated: R
Kimberly Elise stars in this adaptation of Texas church leader T.D. Jakes' novel, about a woman traumatized by a childhood of molestation and abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend and who later lands on death row. Jakes co-stars as himself as he ministers to the woman in prison after she sends him a letter seeking help.
Stage Beauty
Rated: R
Billy Crudup and Claire Danes star in an intriguing costume drama about a 17th-century English actor who's a star "leading lady" before losing his livelihood after the king scraps a rule prohibiting women from appearing on stage. The DVD has commentary from director Richard Eyre and deleted scenes.
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