DVD REVIEWS OF NEW RELEASES.Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor Sex, suburbs, suds - it's desperation in a box In a recent conversation, Bob Newhart George Robert "Bob" Newhart (born September 5, 1929 in Oak Park, Illinois) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Early life Bob Newhart was born in Oak Park, Illinois to George David Newhart and Julia Pauline Burns. He was drafted in the U.S. marveled at how ``Desperate Housewives'' was a hit right from the start. While now-classic shows like ``Seinfeld,'' ``The Dick Van Dyke  This page is protected from moves until disputes have been resolved on the .The reason for its protection is listed on the protection policy page. Show'' and ``All in the Family'' took awhile to find audiences, ``People knew right away that they wanted to watch 'Desperate Housewives,' '' notes the comedian, who has a recurring guest role on the series. Unless you've been really ``Lost'' for the past year, you probably know all about the gals on Wisteria Lane Wisteria Lane is a fictional street, appearing in the American television series Desperate Housewives. Premise within the show Wisteria Lane is located in the city of Fairview, in the fictional Eagle State. - Teri Hatcher Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning American actress and author. She gained attention for her role as Lois Lane in the television series co-starring with Dean Cain. , Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman Felicity Huffman (born December 9, 1962) is an Academy Award nominated American actress. She is well known for her role as Lynette Scavo, the hectic busy Super-Mom on the ABC hit show Desperate Housewives which debuted in 2004, and for which Huffman won an Emmy Award. , Marcia Cross Marcia Anne Cross (born March 25, 1962 in Marlborough, Massachusetts) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-nominated American actress, best known for her lead role as Bree Van De Kamp Hodge on the hit TV show Desperate Housewives. and Nicollette Sheridan - so there is no sense trying to recount the show's twisted plot. But you've got to love any series that starts off with suicide and follows with laughs. Many of you undoubtedly have been waiting for the new six-disc DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. of the series' first season. It includes commentary from the show's creator, Marc Cherry, on a number of episodes, including six that are extended. There is also commentary from the actresses on their favorite scenes as well as a number of featurettes that go behind the scenes of the series. And there's a blooper reel. Though the soapy, loopy dramady didn't win the best comedy Emmy, Huffman took the best actress award over Hatcher and Cross. So maybe ``Housewives'' can start planning for next season's DVD extras - like what the rest of the girls are saying about Huffman now. Wouldn't it be fun if extras about the making of the series were as filled with back-stabbing and dirty little secrets as the series itself? ``Desperate Housewives - The Complete First Season'' (Disney; $59.99) 'Inside Deep Throat,' 'Born Into Brothels BROTHELS, crim. law. Bawdy-houses, the common habitations of prostitutes; such places have always been deemed common nuisances in the United States, and the keepers of them may be fined and imprisoned. 2. ,' 'The Longest Yard,' 'The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl' In 1972, porn went mainstream with the release of ``Deep Throat'' as curious citizens went to the movies to see Linda Lovelace perform. Today, the porn industry cranks out thousands of even raunchier DVDs each year and makes billions doing it. The documentary ``Inside Deep Throat - Theatrical NC-17 Edition'' examines this cultural turning point. (There's an R-rated version if you're squeamish squea·mish adj. 1. a. Easily nauseated or sickened. b. Nauseated. 2. Easily shocked or disgusted. 3. Excessively fastidious or scrupulous. .) Produced by Brian Grazer (Oscar winner for ``A Beautiful Mind''), the documentary tries to put the change in a cultural perspective - the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. , disco about to come on the scene (just kidding). The film did change perceptions - Johnny Carson joked about it and the film's title became the code name for the secret source on the Watergate scandal. Interviews with Gore Vidal, John Waters, Dick Cavett and Helen Gurley Brown Helen Gurley Brown (b. February 18, 1922 in Green Forest, Arkansas), is an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years. Brown's father died in an accident when she was young, and her sister was a polio victim. are amusing, but no one ever quite gets a handle on the phenomenon. And neither does this documentary. Still, the pornification of society and its effects continue - and continue to divide people. ``Inside Deep Throat'' offers some interesting background on the opening salvos. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's ``Born Into Brothels'' won the Academy Award this year for best documentary. The film looks at eight children of Calcutta, India's, notorious red-light district who are taught to become photographers. The stories are poignant and heartbreaking. To see the children brighten as they learn how to use a camera and are allowed some creativity is joyful. But it's a joy tempered by the thought that the cycle of prostitution and drug addiction in their lives will likely continue. Robert Aldrich's 1974 sports comedy ``The Longest Yard'' took a hard look at the violence in both football and our prison system. It also had the added element of having an anti-establishment edge that spoke to the times. This year's version starring Adam Sandler had none of that, only a few jokes, with few being the operative word. Robert Rodriguez's kids' film ``The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl'' is amiable enough but doesn't measure up to his first two ``Spy Kids'' movies. ``Inside Deep Throat - Theatrical NC-17 Edition'' (Universal; $29.98) ``Born Into Brothels'' (Thinkfilms; $29.99) ``The Longest Yard'' (Paramount; $29.95) ``The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl'' (Buena Vista; $29 for either 3-D or 2-D version) 'Masculin Feminin,' 'Naked,' 'The Outsiders,' 'Major Dundee,' 'Mallrats' Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 film ``Masculin Feminin'' is probably the French New Wave director's most accessible and likable film. Often didactic, obtuse ob·tuse adj. 1. Lacking quickness of perception or intellect. 2. Not sharp or acute; blunt. and brilliant, Godard softened his approach in ``Masculin Feminin'' for a sensitive look at the youth of the time, whom he called ``the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.'' It stars Jean-Pierre Leaud, a staple of Francois Truffaut's more humanist films, as a young man growing more and more disenchanted dis·en·chant tr.v. dis·en·chant·ed, dis·en·chant·ing, dis·en·chants To free from illusion or false belief; undeceive. [Obsolete French desenchanter, from Old French, with society's increasing commercialism. ``Masculin Feminin'' is amusing, provocative and, yes, brilliant. Speaking of brilliant, David Thewlis gives a brilliant performance as Johnny, an often unlikable young man on the ragged edge of life in Mike Leigh's dark and darkly funny 1993 ``Naked.'' The film's title says it all. Leigh presents a very raw look at people whose lives are constantly in the shadows. After his failure with ``One From the Heart,'' Francis Ford Coppola Noun 1. Francis Ford Coppola - United States filmmaker (born in 1939) Coppola retreated to smaller films, beginning with ``The Outsiders,'' an adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel about Oklahoma teens in the 1950s. Hardly in the ranks of Coppola's ``Godfather'' films or ``Apocalypse Now,'' ``The Outsiders'' pushes a few emotional buttons. It also has a cast of future stars - Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane and somebody named Tom Cruise. The director Sam Peckinpah, who died in 1984, was often over the top and on his good films wonderfully so - witness ``The Wild Bunch'' or ``Straw Dogs.'' His 1963 ``Major Dundee,'' starring Charlton Heston as a cavalry officer pursuing a band of Apaches while having to guard a group of Confederate prisoners, has some of those moments. The film was taken away from Peckinpah in the editing role and key moments involving Heston's character and Richard Harris' Confederate officer were excised. Adding those scenes back does not make this new version a great film, but it does do justice to a good one. The 10th-anniversary extended edition of Kevin Smith's ``Mallrats,'' which is considered his worst film, has some laughs. Smith's movies are more about jokes and offbeat off·beat n. Music An unaccented beat in a measure. adj. Slang Not conforming to an ordinary type or pattern; unconventional: offbeat humor. situations than anything else. The camera is mostly static and there doesn't seem to be a lot of thought to composition, so no one is expecting it. Smith's ability to hit a nerve (or a funny bone) now and then is what keeps people interested, and `Mallrats'' has a few of those moments, plus a young Jason Lee. ``The Outsiders - The Complete Novel'' (Warner; $26.99) ``Major Dundee (The Extended Version)'' (Columbia; $19.94) ``Mallrats - 10th Anniversary Extended Edition'' (Universal; $26.96) ``Masculin Feminin'' (Criterion Collection; $29.95) `Naked'' (Criterion Collection; $39.95) 'Battlestar Galactica,' 'Crime Story,' 'From the Earth to the Moon,' 'Wallace & Gromit,' more TV The idea of a new version of a '70s TV series usually makes my skin crawl, but ``Battlestar Galactica'' on the Sci Fi Channel Sci Fi Channel may refer to:
The NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. series of the late-'80s ``Crime Story'' was executive produced by Michael Mann, who has done gritty films like ``Manhunter'' and ``Collateral.'' Starring Dennis Farina, ``Crime Story,'' which lasted two seasons, had the same intensity - a less-explicit forerunner to shows like ``The Sopranos.'' The 1998 HBO Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) A form of oxygen therapy in which the patient breathes oxygen in a pressurized chamber. Mentioned in: Ozone Therapy miniseries ``From the Earth to the Moon From the Earth to the Moon Verne tale of a group who have a monster gun cast to shoot them to the moon. [Fr. Lit.: WB 13:650] See : Astronautics ,'' executive produced by Tom Hanks, is an excellent history of the Apollo space program Apollo space program: see space exploration. , if a bit dramatically dry at times. The 12 episodes have been remastered and there are a number of space-related featurettes on the new special edition. For those of you looking forward to the upcoming ``Wallace & Gromit'' movie, the first three shorts created by clay animator Nick Park have been put together on a single volume. Other notable TV-related discs are listed below. ``Battlestar Galactica - Season One'' (Universal; $59.98) ``Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures'' (DreamWorks/Universal; $19.99) ``From the Earth to the Moon - The Signature Edition'' (HBO; $99.98) ``Crime Story - Season One'' (Anchor Bay; $39.99) ``Crime Story - Season Two'' (Anchor Bay; $39.99) ``The Pretender - The Complete Second Season'' (Fox; $39.98) ``Ned and Stacey Ned and Stacey is a US television sitcom that aired on the FOX network from 1995 to 1997. It starred Thomas Haden Church and Debra Messing. The major thread of the series was that the two were brought together in a marriage of convenience—Ned Dorsey (Church) needed to - The Complete First Season'' (Columbia; $39.95) Rob Lowman, (818) 713-3687 robert.lowman(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: FELICITY HUFFMAN, left, MARCIA CROSS, EVA LONGORIA, TERI HATCHER and NICOLLETTE SHERIDAN in ``Desperate Housewives'' |
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