Naturally, anyone who experienced even but a fraction of the 30-year run of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson will see a bit of their life and times captured in this show.  Every topic in the news and pop culture throughout its run is documented in virtually every episode of this Emmy and Peabody winning show. Viewers with a strong sense of their times, and an appreciation for recent history, will garner satisfaction from the six-DVD set, Timeless Moments, the three DVD-set The Original Ultimate Collection (vol 1-3), Carson Country (country stars on the show from 1964-1991) and The Best of Stand-up Comedians (2 discs).  Some things get funnier with age; The Tonight Show is one of them.  Besides, it’s good to get a laugh in, along with the memory.

—Karen Zarker

In 1969, Professor Richard Brown’s Movies 101 class began as a tiny gathering of NYU film students examining contemporary film as cultural discourse. Exemplifying the zeitgeist of “the film generation”, Movies 101 quickly evolved into phenomenon unto itself. Not only did studios begin to take notice and supply him with pre-release films to test their market potential, but, Brown was also able to wrangle the stars and directors into his classroom to discuss their respective projects. Movies 101 invites you to audit the course with a Special Edition four-DVD box set with interviews with recent guests including Martin Scorsese, Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney, Willem Dafoe, and Julianne Moore—and its certainly cheaper than tuition. 

—Gavin Williamson

People get forgotten for unforeseen reasons. Raymond Bernard was the star director of a fledgling French blockbuster industry that was smothered by shifting national circumstances. Criterion’s fourth edition of its Eclipse series, dedicated to the director, is a revealing glimpse at his aborted career and his curiously overlooked talent for precisely attuned epics, incorporating a wide variety of artistic and technological developments into populist narrative filmmaking. The uncertain economics of inter-war France couldn’t sustain Bernard’s large-scale films. As budgets were slashed small-scale poetic realism became more popular, a style he in some ways anticipated. But the die was cast and for decades after France’s film industry was largely defined economically and temperamentally by the modest and more personal. Bernard continued to work, but like his idol Griffith, his status was diminished, an observer on the sidelines of an industry that he helped create. Though his fate was undeserved we can at least take pleasure in these testaments to his faint prominence.

—Michael Buening

James Bond was the very image of British postwar cool and indeed the Bond stories were something of an assertion of confidence and the importance of Britain in the world at large following the dissolution of Empire. That would have meant nothing though without the suave leading men and cutting-edge gadgets that drove the film series’ popularity. Now Bond fans have a reason to rejoice. You can now have every single Bond movie ever made—including the recent Casino Royale—complete with a wealth of extras detailing every last element of the Bond universe, in one big box. Each film is restored and burns up the screen as never before. Perfect for indulging in all those Connery vs. Moore arguments.

—Sarah Zupko

Comprising seven of the best documentaries ever crafted for the small (and later, big) screen, The Up Series is a monumental achievement in cinema and DVD. It is hard to describe in plain and simple terms the impact and the power that these films really have. From their time in a bottle barometers of popular styles and changing social philosophies to the remarkable insight one gains in how people develop and adapt, each and every installment in this landmark undertaking deserves praise and reward. Though it’s hard to imagine how the chronicle of a dozen or more kids from childhood to adulthood could resonate with such colossal themes and universal platitudes, The Up Series is indeed such an exalted exhibition. But it is also much more. It is riveting human theater, the drama of lives fulfilled and dreams dashed, played out over the ambitious possibility of time and space.

—Bill Gibron

The only thing possibly more fascinating than each and every gorgeous, vivid, mind-bogling episode of this award-winning BBC series is the “making of” short that followings each episode. Even the most casual viewer will lose herself in the beauty, violence, and fragility of this planet as conveyed in these stories of life on Earth in places where few humans can or should go. At some point she’ll realize that a few brave and talented humans did go to such places, and went to considerable effort to bring these stories to her TV set. An obvious choice for nature lovers, this exceptional series will also appeal to visual artists, armchair adventurists, and anybody who likes well-told stories of epic scale. (Available for $59.95 at Discovery Channel store)

—Karen Zarker