VIDEO BEGINNING WITH A CLEAN SLATE.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Well, you could run out and buy or rent the updated version of ``Charlie's Angels.'' It's silly enough to be diverting, and it holds a certain fascination for teen girls, who will enjoy the female action figures in the form of Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz kicking butt. And there is also Tom Green, whose character is named Chad and who likes to refer to himself in the third person, as in: ``Was it the Chad?'' The film opened just before the presidential election last year, so the line has taken on an added level of humor.

On the other hand, there's ``Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate)'' by director Bertrand Tavernier. The recent DVD release is from Criterion, a company that specializes in digitally improved versions of classic films; its catalog is a movie buff's dream, with titles by Arika Kurosawa, David Lean, Francois Truffaut, Frederico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, among others. (Go to www.criterionco.com for a list of titles.)

The French filmmaker Tavernier is probably best-known to American audiences for his 1986 film ``Round Midnight,'' which starred real-life saxophone great Dexter Gordon. The 1981 ``Coup de Torchon'' is based on ``Pop. 1280'' by tough-guy novelist Jim Thompson, whose work has been the basis for ``The Getaway'' and ``The Grifters.''

Tavernier transferred the setting from a backwater Southern town of 1910 to the backwater Colonial Senegal of the '30s, where racism and small-mindedness also reign. Philippe Noiret (in a wonderfully subtle performance) stars as Lucien Cordier, the effectual corrupt chief of police in the small West African village. His wife (Stephane Audran) openly cheats on him, and the town thinks he's a joke. His only haven is in the arms of Rose (Isabelle Huppert), a battered wife who is also seeking refuge. Then one day Cordier realizes that his image can work for him. He kills two crooks who have been humiliating him, and no one suspects because, after all, he has never shown himself to be much of a man. ``Coup de Torchon'' is a very dark tale with comic moments, and Tavernier doesn't let the audience off the hook. Most of the story is shown through the eyes of Cordier, so the viewer is, in a way, implicated in the police chief's decisions. The film is wonderfully photographed by cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn, whose subdued tones seem to echo the fact that there is little distinction between good and evil, black and white in this amoral tale.

``Gimme Shelter'' is the 1970 documentary by the Maysles brothers on the free Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California four months (December 1969) after Woodstock. ``Gimme Shelter'' is a grim look at the dark side of the ``peace, love and understanding'' movement of the time. While Woodstock was a happy accident (some 400,000 people got together for a weekend of music, etc., and everything was, hey, you know, cool), Altamont was a manufactured disaster. In some ways, it spelled the end of the '60s era (or was that disco?).

The naivete that led to the knifing death of a concertgoer and the lame responses from the superstar musical acts illustrate just how out of touch many of those involved were with the realities of the world around them. Who in their right mind would hire Hells Angels as security guards? And then give them beer?

The Maysles brothers, along with Charlotte Zwerin, did a masterful job of capturing all the ambiguities and Fellini-esque moments in what has been rightfully called the greatest rock documentary ever made.

Thankfully, the Oscar season is over, but you may want to check out ``The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'' Philip Kaufman's 1988 film is far from perfect, but it does have it moments. Kaufman, whose last work was the excellent ``Quills,'' has always shown a penchant for literary adaptations (``The Right Stuff''). But Milan Kundera's dark, existential, erotic novel of a womanizing surgeon (Daniel Day-Lewis) that takes place in Prague just prior to and during the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 never fully translates onto the screen. As a meditation on commitment and freedom, the film is unbearably light, but it does boast excellent performances from Oscar winner Day-Lewis, an actor we haven't seen enough of recently; Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (who was also nominated for ``Chocolat''); and the underappreciated Lena Olin (a ``Chocolat'' star, too).

``Coup de Torchon'' (Criterion) is $29.95 on DVD and includes an interview with Tavernier and an alternative ending with commentary by the director. ``Gimme Shelter'' (Criterion) is 39.95 for the DVD, which includes commentary by Albert Maysles and Zwerin and collaborator Stanley Goldstein, never-before-seen footage from the 1969 tour of the Rolling Stones performing ``Oh Carol'' and ``Prodigal Son.'' ``The Unbearable Lightness of Being'' (Criterion) is 39.95 for the DVD, which includes commentary by Kaufman, Olin, co-writer Jean-Claude Carriere and editor Walter Murch.

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