This Week in DVD

A Whole Mess of Sinatra: Warners is releasing all kinds of DVDs featuring Ol' Blue Eyes this week. You get Young Frank, Rat Pack Frank, Re-released Frank. Looking at the roster of films, plus checking out the marathon of his films on TCM this month, makes you realize, hey, this guy had quite a film career. And if you don't think so, you're liable to get a kneecap busted. Just kidding! But maybe if you can't find something to like in this grand assortment, you deserve to have a kneecap at least dislocated in a painful manner.

Mission Impossible Season 4: Sometimes, a fourth season in a long-running show like this is just a fourth season, and its release might elicit a few yawns. Not so in this case. Season 4 of "MI" was the first without Barbara Bain's Cinnamon and, more importantly, Martin Landau's awesome Rollin Hand characters. Landau was replaced, of course, by a young Tom Cruise. Kidding again! it was Leonard Nimoy. Hardcore fans, I think, think the show lost a lot with the transition, but I think it's fun seeing a post-Trek Mr. Spock work with the IMF team.

Saturday Night Live Season 3: Minor quibbles aside, these sets continue at a decent pace with the majority of material, including the musical performances, intact. This season features the debut of the nerds (Bill Murray and Gilda Radner), the Olympia Cafe "cheeburger, cheeburger") and Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin teaming up on "Weekend Update." You also get multiple guest host appearances by Steve Martin (including a classic episode which many think is the best SNL ever did) and Buck Henry as well as special hosts O.J. Simpson, a random grandmother who won a contest, and the returning Chevy Chase (who scuffled with Murray before the show according to show lore). All this and one of the series' finest moments, Nick the Lounge Singer's rendition of "Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars..." And how about one of my favorite all-time sketches, "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber"?


Fox Western Classics: 3 oaters (I love that term, "oaters") for a low price. I haven't seen Tyrone Power's "Rawhide" or Gary Cooper's "Garden of Evil" yet, but I can tell you Gregory Peck in "The Gunfighter" is worth the price of this set alone. If you don't buy it, you're a no-good skinflint varmint. So there.


Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 and 2: Universal irritated collectors by making these sets Best Buy-exclusive previously, and they were pretty scarce even at Best Buy. Now, however, these great old flicks like The Incredible Shrinking Men and Dr. Cyclops are available for ALL brick and mortar retailers to either ignore outright or bury on their shelves.

Bunch of Oldies but Goodies About Which I Know Very Little: It's a light week for high-profile new releases on DVD ("Mad Money," anyone?), but it's a big day for catalog titles, with MGM dropping a ton of Westerns and War pictures. There's also a set of John Wayne westerns from Fox. I am ashamed to say I have seen very few of any of these, but you may find something you like if you just check your DVD release schedule of choice to get the details (um, assuming it's not this site, of course).