Oscar Winning DVDs

The 2006 Oscars are upon us, a great excuse for the film companies to release Oscar winners
from their vaults and spruce up past Oscar winning DVD releases with new Special Editions.  For
your consideration:
The 1970s for all the camp trappings that continue to resonate through the ages (the platform shoes, the
hideous polyester fabrics, Farrah's feathered hair) is also one of the greatest in movie history.  Not just for
the amazingly rich output from the nascent directors with last names like Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, and
Altman but also because it was a period of intense creativity in Hollywood and the burgeoning independent
film market for ALL directors, writers and actors.

I forgive Warner Home Video for the awkwardly titled
Controversial Classic Collection, Vol. 2 -
the Power of Media for the simple reason that it contains three of the greatest, most entertaining
films ever made.  All three were multiple Oscar winners (and deservedly so) and all three are examples of
movies that one never tires of watching.  I've probably watched
Network, Dog Day Afternoon and All the
President's Men
at least 50 times altogether but what a pleasure to sit down and have a mini movie fest with
this trio of winners.  
Dog Day Afternoon from 1975 is the first up.  Director Sidney Lumet's mouth dropping
account of amateur bank robbers Al Pacino and the late, great John Cazale (so memorable as the hapless
Fredo in
The Godfather Part II) holding up a Brooklyn bank and having everything go wrong is based on a
true story.  Pacino, as Sony, has instigated the hold up in order to get money for a sex change operation for
his lover, Leon, memorably played by Oscar nominee Chris Sarandon.  A rich gallery of character actors enact
this funny-sad and powerful story with Pacino at his finest ("Attica! Attica! Attica!" became a catchphrase).

Next up is Lumet's follow-up,
Network, which features the Oscar winning performances of Faye Dunaway,
Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight (who practically melts the walls in her one big scene).  The expert cast also
includes William Holden, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, and the marvelous Conchatta Farrell in a tiny supporting
part.  Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 black, black comedy about the dangers of television resonates
30 years later in a frightening manner, so prescient is Chayefsky's vision of reality TV and entertainment
usurping everything -- especially "hard news" -- in its path.  Another catchphrase -- "I'm as mad as hell and
I'm not gonna take it anymore!" came out of this masterpiece.  Dunaway is monstrous and funny as
"television incarnate" TV exec Diana Christiansen and she is matched every step of the way by Holden and
Peter Finch, in his final performance, as the newsman gone crazy Howard Beale.  Finch is still the only actor
to win the Oscar posthumously.  He died of a heart attack while promoting the film.

Last up is the powerful
All the President's Men, the true story of Washington Post reporters played by
Robert Redford (who also produced the film) and Dustin Hoffman who went after the Nixon administration
after a botched break in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate hotel in Washington.  The movie, like
the book, plays like a terrifying mystery thriller which in light of current political events is scary as hell.  Alan
J. Pakula does a masterful job of directing and the excellent cast -- many in one scene parts -- give their all.  
Jason Robards won a Supporting Oscar as Editor Ben Bradlee as did William Goldman for his layered script,
adapted from the bestseller.

Each of the film's are presented in 2-disc Special Editions with vintage featurettes and multi-part brand new
documentaries that are informative and entertaining.  All are available separately but I heartily recommend
splurging for the box set and hosting your own screening party.
Warner Home Video has also released seven classic films that have nothing in common other than their
Oscar lineage.  They are also making their DVD debut -- something warmly welcomed by a Classics fan like
myself.  Each of the discs contains vintage material -- either shorts, cartoons or newsreels, and all have
expert commentaries as well.  The wide ranging set includes Edna Ferber's tale of settlers in Oklahoma,
Cimarron, which won Best Picture for 1931, the same year of the Wallace Berry-Jackie Coogan boxing
tearjerker,
The Champ (and Oscar winner for Berry in 1931).  The last movie that MGM producer Irving
Thalberg oversaw, 1937's
The Good Earth, which took Best Picture and Best Actress for Luise Rainer is an
entertaining drama based on the Pearl S. Buck saga, this sprawling epic set in China ends with the still
visually enthralling locust infestation.  That same year Spencer Tracy won the first of his two Oscars in the
high seas adventure tearjerker
Captains Courageous in which he's supported by child actor Freddie
Bartholomew.

It's hard to believe that Ginger Rogers took Oscar gold from Bette Davis in
The Letter and Katharine Hepburn
in
The Philadelphia Story but she did with her portrait of career girl Kitty Foyle in this 1940 love story
enlivened by a typical feisty performance from Rogers.  Should she wait for married hunk, millionaire Dennis
Morgan or accept the ever patient Doctor James Craig?  The Academy also awarded Jane Wyman in 1948 for
her portrait of a mute girl traumatized by rape in
Johnny Belinda.  This is a typical example of post-War
Hollywood's attraction to tough and daring subject matter.

Finally, Kirk Douglas plays mad painter Van Gough in Vincente Minnelli's lushly beautiful 1967 biopic of the
painter in
Lust for Life.  It's a technicolor dream with an Oscar winning supporting part by Anthony Quinn.
Knight at HOME at the Movies