The tough question when picking the top 10 DVDs of any year is whether you are judging the film, the digital package or some mystical amalgamation of the two. The new technology can give both celebrated and berated titles startling rebirths. A movie like Scarface, considered by many a vile, repugnant exercise in excess on its theatrical release, is now, on a Special Edition DVD, deemed a classic. Give a marginal title a content-packed double disc anamorphic format, complete with clever cover art, commentary tracks, and a making-of featurette, and it's a must-own delight.
Worse yet are the hyper-mega-digipac sets. Do we really need a nine-disc set for the four Alien films, especially when they enact the law of diminishing returns after the first two? Or consider the beloved Indiana Jones trilogy, now packaged with weak extras.
The past year's output was mostly predictable. The list below is a mixed bag, representing major studio releases and off-brand surprises.
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Extended Edition (Peter Jackson)
Jackson made going to the movies fun again. Sure, The Two Towers, like The Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King, is a monument to CGI spectacle and good old-fashioned emotion, but it also provides sheer joy, too. The DVD extras are equally impressive.
2. Looney Tunes: The Golden Collection (Various)
In a desperate challenge to reclaim the cartoon for the adult, where it all started originally, Warner Brothers has finally begun the arduous process of releasing their classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts onto DVD. It was worth the wait! Bugs, Daffy and the gang absolutely shine in these 56 pristine examples of animated anarchy. This set is, we hope, a magnificently manic appetizer for more to come.
3. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
Sergio Leone's ultimate "spaghetti" Western -- with perhaps the most beautiful score Ennio Morricone ever conceived -- was simultaneously the benchmark and the death knell for the genre.
4. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney)
Director George Clooney takes the so-called autobiography of Chuck Barris and turns it into a disturbing, witty look at what it means to sell one's soul to the devil, a.k.a. the glass teat of television. Using The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show to represent Barris' adolescence, adulthood, and middle age (and a CIA hitman subplot to expose a streak of self-hatred), the film dissects popular culture via one man's pathologies.
5. Day of the Dead: Special Edition (George Romero)
George Romero's severely undercut third "movement" in his zombie symphony is Reagan-era politics wrapped in dirty, rotting flesh. From the aging scientist (who believes he can "domesticate" the hordes of cannibal corpses) to the liberal-minded helicopter pilot (who wants to forsake society and retire to a tropical island), the film illustrates social engineering as sloppy silence and military madness. Oh yeah, and Romero and F/X guru Tom Savini teach a generation of fanboys how to use gore to underscore, not obliterate, your points.
6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Criterion Collection (Terry Gilliam)
Terry Gilliam's most misunderstood, least appreciated film gets the royal treatment from the leading preserver of important cinematic masterworks and the results are stunning. Maniac expatriate Gilliam shines a garish light on a nation still in denial over the end of the 1960s. And Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro do magnificent Method work.
7. The Mondo Cane Collection (Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi, Paolo Cavaro, David Gregory)
DVD upstart Blue Underground's release of five documentary collaborations between Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi in an elaborate box set makes a clear case for the original Mondo movies as masterworks of editing and mise-en-scene. While some images aren't easy to look at, they offer some of the sharpest social criticism ever committed to film.
8. Eraserhead (David Lynch)
It took him two years to get the image correct and another few months of planning, but 26 years after it first stunned moviegoers, David Lynch's nightmare finally came to DVD this year. Featuring foul fetal images and awe-inspiring black and white cinematography, Eraserhead remains far ahead of its time.
9. Something Weird Video Traveling Road Show Films (Howard Bretherton, Albert H. Kelley, H. Haile Chace, Gary Graver)
Few film fans have experienced the goopy, gory days of ballyhoo road show films. But thanks to Something Weird Video, they can now see Damaged Goods/The Hard Road and Street Corner/Because of Eve (on two DVDs), vivid illustrations of how sex education and hygiene pix used scare tactics to alarm gullible patrons. Live birth footage, images of venereal disease, cornpone kitchen sink melodrama, and pitches for "marital aid" guidebooks turn the modern home theater experience into a tent revival of the tainted and tawdry.
10. The Outer Limits, The Original Series: The Complete Season 2 (Various)
Once upon a time, we celebrated the release of beloved television shows on DVD. Now, with everything from cult hits to cancelled crap getting the digital treatment, it's time to champion actual artistic and historical merit. While the first season of Outer Limits is wonderful, the 17 episodes offered here represent the series at its pinnacle. The set includes a pair of profound works by Harlan Ellison and "The Inheritors," two hours of great SF drama, all going to show that ideas, not budgets, make the most entertaining speculative fiction.
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