VIDEO LEAVE HIM ALONE... HE'S A `FAMILY MAN'.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Figuring out why Nicolas Cage chooses his film roles is an exercise in futility. The Oscar winner is as likely to blast his way through some mindless action film (last year's ``Gone in 60 Seconds'') as he is to do something gritty and interesting (1999's ``Bringing Out the Dead,'' directed by Martin Scorsese).

So, while having Cage attached to a film is no guarantee of quality, at least half the time the projects he opts for have some merit. He followed up ``60 Seconds'' with ``The Family Man,'' a feel-good fantasy for the holidays. It's out today on DVD and video. Cage has done these romantic feel-good films before, such as ``It Could Happen to You,'' but this time instead of being a good-hearted New York City policeman, he plays Jack, a high-powered Manhattan businessman who dresses in designer suits and drives a Ferrari.

Jack's charmed life is changed during the Christmas season when he begins thinking about a woman he left behind many years before so he could pursue his career. A while later he intervenes in a grocery-store robbery, talking the robber (Don Cheadle) out of the crime. But the hold-up man is there for other purposes (think of Clarence in ``It's a Wonderful Life''), and suddenly Jack magically finds himself living the middle-class existence he opted out of. The woman he left behind, Kate (Tea Leoni), is his wife, and they live in the suburbs with two children and an unreliable minivan.

Jack encounters new predicaments, and this is where Cage's ability to seemingly bare his soul with the minimum of gestures works to the benefit of the film. Jack's struggle to come to grips with his new life, including the cheap suits and the maze of toys and other items of suburban life he must navigate through, is as much evident in Cage's melancholy, confused eyes as it is in anything he says.

``The Family Man,'' directed by Brett Ratner (``Rush Hour''), travels over familiar territory, but it manages to hit enough comic and emotional notes to keep it entertaining. Leoni proves a perfect foil for the new Jack, while the always excellent Cheadle is gone too soon. The DVD includes plenty of extras, including commentary by composer Danny Elfman.

We wish, however, that Hollywood would get off this kick of trying to make us feel sorry for rich guys who chose money over something more philosophically substantial. Last summer's ``The Kid,'' starring Bruce Willis, is another example. While the stories can be amusing, the message doesn't elicit much sympathy.

DUCK AND COVER: Last week, New Line released ``Thirteen Days'' as the initial offering of its Infinifilm DVD line. The Kevin Costner-starring film about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the perfect choice. What New Line has done with Infinifilm is take a lot of the options available on DVD already - audio commentary, supplemental information, deleted or alternative scenes and behind-the-scene footage - and make them easier to access during the playing of the film.

In this case, it goes beyond satisfying the film junkie by incorporating plenty of historical background to give the story some perspective. The Roger Donaldson-directed film does its best to capture the tension of those two weeks, but it's doubtful any film can truly do that.

(I remember, as a boy, going through those drills where you hid under your desk, but considering the horrors of nuclear war that they had already made you aware of, we were all pretty sure it probably wasn't going to do much good.)

The drama plays out in a series of classic power confrontations, including diplomacy vs. the use of power, such as Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay (Kevin Conway) advocating a possible first strike on the Soviet Union. Costner plays Kenny O'Donnell, top aide to President John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and his brother Robert (Steven Culp), the attorney general. To his credit Costner doesn't have the glamour part, but O'Donnell's real role may be overstated.

Of course, this is Hollywood history, but the ``Thirteen Days'' filmmakers have taken pains not to take too many liberties. Considering how often schools play movies to tweak the interest in history of their students, ``Thirteen Days'' is one they should show. Here's hoping they invest in a DVD player so they can begin to put the story a larger historical perspective.

RECOMMENDED: Writer-director-actor Bruce Robinson has helmed three films. Two of them - the 1987 ``Withnail and I'' and the 1989 ``How to Get Ahead in Advertising'' have just been released on DVD. Robinson's writing credits include Roland Joffe's ``The Killing Fields'' (for which he got an Oscar nomination and won a Writers Guild award) and Neil Jordan's ``In Dreams.'' His most recent acting appearance was in the 1998 rock 'n' roll film ``Still Crazy.''

``Withnail and I'' stars Richard E. Grant as Withnail and Paul McGann Marwood (the I). The pair are a couple of down-on-their-luck actors in London in 1969. After a particularly drunken night the two head off to the English countryside to stay at the cottage of an uncle of Withnail. They soon find that depravity isn't confined to the country. The offbeat comic film is semiautobiographical, and Robinson captures the looniness that was the tail end of the '60s.

``How to Get Ahead in Advertising'' also stars Grant, this time as Dennis Dimbleby Bagley, a young ad writer trying to come up with a slogan to sell a new pimple cream. Hit with writer's block, his frustrations grow, and so does a large boil on his shoulder. It eventually becomes another head that battles for control of his body and soul. ``Advertising'' is a David Cronenberg horror flick gone comically awry. Grotesque and outrageous, the film may be taking on an easy target, but Robinson does it with panache.

``The Family Man'' (Universal) is for rental on VHS and is $26.98 on DVD, which includes commentary by director Ratner, writers David Diamond and David Weissman, deleted footage and outtakes, Seal's ``This Could Be Heaven'' Music Video,'' music score commentary with Elfman. ``Thirteen Days'' is for rental on VHS and is $26.98 on DVD, which includes commentary by Costner, Donaldson, writer David Self and executive producer Michael De Luca, historical commentary and speeches, the documentaries ``Roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis'' and ``Bringing History to the Silver Screen,'' visual effects scene deconstructions and deleted scenes with director commentary. ``Withnail and I'' and ``How to Get Ahead in Advertising'' (Criterion) are $29.95 each.

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Nicolas Cage plays a bachelor and businessman who is mystically transported to a life of domesticity, and to wife Tea Leoni, in ``The Family Man.''