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“THE COMPANY”

Robert Altman takes us backstage into the lives of members of a professional dance company. Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell, and James Franco are the stars, with a lot of support from the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. If the word ballet turns you off, you might just be turned on to it if you check out this excellent movie. From Columbia Tristar.

“RECKLESS”
“A deliciously tangled story of passion, infidelity, and civilized revenge,” said the New York Times about this romantic drama that was a highly-praised Masterpiece Theatre series a few years ago. It’s now out in a 4-disc DVD set from Granada and WGBH Boston Video, starring three of my favorite Brit actors - Robson Green, Francesca Annis, and the always excellent Michael Kitchen (Robert Redford’s
friend in “Out of Africa.”)

“POIROT”
Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective with the upturned mustache, Hercule Poirot, is back on three DVDs with three movies on each disc in Collector’s Sets 8, 9, and 10, from Acorn Media. David Suchet holds his place as the most-watched detective of the PBS Mystery! television series in these stories that take us into some engrossing lives, and deaths.




“TOMMY & TUPPENCE, PARTNERS IN CRIME”
Agatha Christie again, this time having created the first husband-and-wife detective team. In this popular PBS Mystery! series, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford make their way through 1920s England in one engrossing mystery after another, with large doses of period costumes, cars, and sets, as well as some clever dialogue. Francesca Annis plays spirited Tuppence in sometimes outlandish 1920s outfits, and James Warwick is her dapper and wry-witted husband Tommy, proprietors of Blunt’s Detective Agency. Set 1 was a treat, and now Set 2 is out on DVD, both in 2-DVD boxed sets from AcornMedia.

“THE IRISH R.M.”

Peter Bowles, in his bowler hat, stars as a retired British army officer who becomes a town’s local magistrate in Ireland in the early 1900s. The Masterpiece Theatre series is a comic drama about some eccentric people you will have fun meeting, and was shot on location in Ireland. From AcornMedia.

“CRACKING THE CODE OF LIFE”
A NOVA special that takes us along on the “amazing, complex, and contentious race” to decode the human genome.
Sound too scientific for you? Don’t worry, there’s lots of stuff easy to understand, such as 1) Did you know that yeast is our very close relative?) and 2) We have about the same number of genes as a mouse). The whole family ought to watch this one together. ON DVD and VHS from WGBH Boston Video.

“THE STORY OF THE BROOKLYN DODGERS”
Baseball fans of all ages will like this 2-disc DVD about
When “Dem Bums” were kings of the ballparks. They’re back at bat or take the field again -- Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Roy Campanella - in their rivalry with the New York Yankees and Giants. See history being made when Jackie Robinson broke the game’s color barrier.
From American Home Treasures and BFS Entertainment.

“DYING TO BE THIN”
Many teenage girls are risking their health and lives by trying to look as thin as the so-called glamour girls of movies, TV, and rock concerts. NOVA’s special explores the dangers of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. On DVD and VHS from WGBH Boston.

“POPULAR MECHANICS FOR KIDS,” a much-watched show on the Discovery Kids cable/satellite channel, takes young viewers into the worlds of rockets, the ocean depths, race cars, submarines, outer space, and monster trucks. On DVD and VHS from Koch Vision.

“POTTY POWER”
My master taught me to do it outside, but kids may need more and longer instruction about indoor hygiene. This entertaining musical teaches children potty training to children aged 18 months to three years. On DVD and VHS from Thinkeroo.

Bushwhacked?
Congratulations to Michael Moore for his hard look at Bush and his administration and the Iraq war in the documentary “Fahrenheit 911” which just won the best picture award at the Cannes Festival in France. Even though Moore and his film got a 25-minute standing ovation, he still can’t get an American company to distribute it in this country. Disney, in what some call Disneyland fashion, said “No way!” So thank heaven America is still a country where you can see a movie that demonstrates freedom of speech -- if you go to a foreign country to see it. You may not agree with everything in the movie -- I might not, either, if I ever get a chance to see it. But I lift my leg to it being kept out of America. But then, I guess I’m old enough to remember when censorship was considered a bad thing. In my humble doglike opinion, if we allow the freedoms in our Bill of Rights to be taken from us, such as in a case like the Moore movie, the terrorists have won.

Bad Skates
Two new DVDs showing extreme skateboarding, SKATE MAPS, have lots of action. They also show professional skateboarders barely out of their teens who are beer drinking, at least one of them is disgustingly drunk, and they go about as far in public with sexy-looking girls as they can. It’s marketed as reality TV on DVD, but ought to come with a warning about the drinking and girlie stuff. Also, lots of kids would like watching the skateboarding stunts, but they’d be risking life and limb to try them.

I bet you didn't know, but besides reviewing movies, I sing opera. Click here to see and hear me rehearsing the Barcarolle from "Tales of Hoffman."

Maybe you would like to visit my master's web site with highlights of his huge collection of old movie magazines, Bijou Follies
Two more web sites I recommend are: Errol Flynn and Jeffrey Hunter