DVD REVIEWS OF NEW RELEASES THE BEST ACTRESS, THE UGLIEST OF CHARACTERS.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

In ``Monster,'' glamorous cool blonde Charlize Theron (Hitchcock would have loved her) proved to filmgoers that she could act. It's not that she couldn't before. But like other beautiful actresses, she had to take a gritty role for people to take notice. The result was a best actress Oscar. (Two comparable recent examples are Hilary Swank in ``Boys Don't Cry'' and Halle Berry in ``Monster's Ball.'')

In Theron's case, she literally transformed herself - with the help of some makeup wizardry - into the noxious, puffed-up Aileen Wuornos, the notorious Florida murderer often referred to as the first female serial killer (though that's not true).

Written and directed by Patty Jenkins, ``Monster'' avoids being an apology for Wuornos, although it does acknowledge her awful childhood and how she became a prostitute at 13. Somehow, Theron manages to wrench some emotion out of the story of Wuornos, who confessed to slaying six men and died in the electric chair in 2002. The film for the most part focuses on Wuornos' lesbian relationship with Selby Wall (Christina Ricci, who seems almost uncomfortable in the role) and how her attempt to create a home for herself with Wall spun out of control, leading to the killing spree.

Give Theron and Jenkins their due for creating such a vivid portrait, but it's - as you'd suspect - a grisly picture.

For another look at Wuornos, and a chance to compare Theron's portrayal to the real thing, Nick Broomfield's documentary ``Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer'' is also out this week. Broomfield had looked at Wuornos' life once before - in the 1992 documentary ``Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer'' - so she was a subject that clearly fascinated him. Whether this made her a sympathetic figure to him is hard to judge, but ``Life and Death'' does display a morbid fascination, which, unfortunately, the audience must share.

Broomfield's film lays out the view that Wuornos was insane. (In jail she discovered religion and wanted to atone.) And there were horrific circumstances that led to her killing spree. Wuornos' first murder was of a man that had - by her account - brutalized and raped her. But it's best to remember, whatever these films' merits, Wuornos' story is not a tragedy - sad, pathetic, perhaps.

``Monster'' (Columbia; $26.96)

Includes a featurette and an interview with Jenkins.

``Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer'' (Columbia; $19.95)

One more round for 'Ali'

Both director Michael Mann and actor Will Smith knew they had a big responsibility when they made the 2001 film ``Ali,'' the biopic of the legendary boxer. After all, as famous as Muhammad Ali is, many people - particularly younger ones - get their history through the movies.

``This is something you have to get right,'' says Mann, who has recut the movie for a special DVD edition. ``That challenge made it exciting ... and you meet a challenge with this responsibility and dedication, which is why Will Smith spent a year preparing for the role.''

The new cut of the film is only nine minutes longer. Mann confesses to preferring the new version, in which he took about 20 minutes out of the theatrical release and added back 30 minutes of unseen footage.

``Everyone should be able to do it - have a second view,'' notes the director. ``There is nothing wrong with the theatrical release, but the dramatic conflicts in the new version are more conflicted. I think there is a better realization of Ali as a visionary genius, and his realization with Howard Cosell (Jon Voight) and Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) are enriched.''

Though it's been a number of years since they made the film together, both Smith and Mann were anxious to talk about Ali during an interview last week.

``It has forever changed my life,'' says Smith about playing Ali, ``to understand what it means and what it takes to be great.''

The challenge for both was finding new things about the very public Ali, who Mann says is very conflicted, citing the boxer's rejection of Malcolm X - the fiery Black Muslim leader whom the boxer had been close to and who was assassinated - as an example.

``Ideologically, Ali felt what he did then was correct, and he still feels that,'' says Mann - whose new film, ``Collateral,'' starring Tom Cruise, comes out this summer. At the same time, one of Malcolm X's daughters ``told me that the first time she met Ali, he wept and said, 'I hope your father knew how much I loved him.' And both were true and that was a very rich piece of insight for a filmmaker and an actor.''

What Smith had to do, he says, ``is walk in the shoes of, live in the skin of and look through the eyes of Ali in 1967.'' And that wasn't easy for the actor, who stars in this summer's ``I, Robot.''

``If there was a block I was having, it was the comprehension of Ali's perspective or of a black man's perspective in the '60s in America,'' he says.

The actor says to help him get an understanding, he talked to people who lived through the era. What he learned was that many felt that ``war had been declared on black America, and the radical perspective was that we as blacks in America were fighting a war. ... Which was difficult for me (to understand) because I'm a child of rap music. And in rap music - as a black man in the '90s - we're winning. You know, we had ice and cars and houses and parties. So it's a much different mind set.''

Speaking of rap, Smith agrees that Ali's poetry was, in a way, the beginning of rap. ``It's an interesting sort of dynamic - the clarity of what the war was in the '60s, the clarity of the targets, the clarity of what the issues and what the problems were. ... You look at the young blacks of today. We are soldiers and warriors and poets without the clarity of the war.''

``Ali - The Director's Cut'' Includes revised scenes and never-before-seen footage, commentary by director Mann and a new making-of documentary.

`The Company'

Robert Altman is a great filmmaker who doesn't always make great movies. His latest, ``The Company,'' an examination of the artistic process as seen through the workings of a Chicago dance troupe, is an enjoyable, finely crafted film that doesn't reach any great heights. What probably attracted Altman was how the troupe had to work and pull together. The director's own style on the set requires his actors and crew to become part of a community.

The idea for ``The Company'' was brought to him by Neve Campbell, herself a former dancer, who stars as Ry, one of the principals in the troupe. The company is lorded over by its artistic director, Alberto Antonelli (Malcolm McDowell), who's called Mr. A. (Hmmm, Mr. A, Mr. Altman.)

Campbell, who dances her own part, turns in a confident, mature performance, while McDowell shades Mr. A's character to bring out the taskmaster who must at times be kind and cruel to get the best from his dancers. But the film - like others by Altman - is multistoried, multiangled. The joy in ``The Company'' is watching Altman weave together his little moments to create a larger, engaging picture.

``The Company'' (Columbia; $26.96)

Includes commentary by Altman and Campbell, ``The Passion of Dance'' featurette, ``The Making of the Company'' featurette.

New and notable

The old films with new looks out this week include ``Das Boot - The Original Uncut Version.'' The 1981 version by director Wolfgang Petersen (``Troy'') released in America was culled from a six-part German miniseries that ran four hours and 50 minutes. (Even the director's cut is only 3 1/2 hours). Without question the best submarine movie ever made, ``Das Boot'' takes us into the lives of a German U-boat crew during World War II. Petersen's deft camera work makes you understand the dirty, cramped and at times unbearable conditions the sailors endured. The movie version pared much of the story to concentrate on the action. The longer version involves more of the lives of the submariners, who despite being the enemy (Petersen doesn't ignore the Nazi angle) are like most men forced to fight - homesick and hoping the war ends soon.

A director's cut of ``Trainspotting,'' Danny Boyle's sometimes funny, sometimes revolting 1996 film about drug addicts in Scotland, is being released. No one after seeing this film will think that the druggie culture is glamorous.

The sci-fi atmospheric horror film ``Pitch Black,'' which made a star of Vin Diesel in 2000, is out in a special edition. In ``Pitch Black,'' Diesel play Riddick, a dangerous convict being transported from one prison to another on a commercial spaceship that crashes on a deserted planet, which is in constant light due to its three suns. However, the crash occurs at the rare moment there is a prolonged solar eclipse. Once the darkness descends, out come deadly flying creatures with razor-sharp teeth (bats out of hell?). Directed by David Twohy, ``Pitch Black'' twists the usual formula of escaping from evil by making the evil one - Riddick - the hero. It also efficiently delivers its share of thrills and chills. Twohy and Diesel are pairing up again for ``The Chronicles of Riddick,'' which will be out June 11 and no doubt accounts for this release.

Cary Grant would have turned 100 on Jan. 18. The actor who defined suave appeared in his share of classic pictures as well as some lightweights. The five films (all from the '40s) in the ``Cary Grant Signature Collection'' are among the latter but are not without their pleasures. Three of them - ``Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House'' (1948), ``The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer'' (1947) and ``My Favorite Wife'' (1940) - are fun, while the other two, ``Night and Day'' (1946) and ``Destination Tokyo'' (1943), well ... they have Cary Grant. One note: Grant's Cole Porter in ``Night and Day'' is nearly fictional. Wait for the upcoming ``De-Lovely'' for a better film portrait of the composer.

``Das Boot - The Original Uncut Version'' (Columbia; $39.95)

The two discs include a making-of featurette and the shorter director's cut.

``Pitch Black - Widescreen Unrated Director's Cut'' (Universal; $26.98) Includes commentary with Twohy, Diesel and Cole Hauser; commentary with Twohy, producer Tom Engleman and visual-effects supervisor Peter Chiang; a featurette; an introduction by Twohy; ``The Chronicles of Riddick'' visual encyclopedia.

``Trainspotting - Director's Cut'' (Miramax; $29.99)

Includes Cannes Film Festival interviews, interviews with the filmmakers, deleted scenes with optional commentary, making-of featurette and ``Trainspotting'' retrospective.

``Cary Grant Signature Collection'' (Warner; $49.92) Each film includes some extras and all are available individually ($19.97).

Rob Lowman, [phone]

robert.lowman(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1) CHARLIZE THERON in ``Monster''

(2) WILL SMITH in ``Ali''

(3) NEVE CAMPBELL in ``The Company''

(4) VIN DIESEL in ``Pitch Black''