This week sees a number of classic releases in and
out of the genre. Pick up the best of them this
Tuesday.

First, the genre releases:

• Bambi:
  The
  fantasy classic comese to DVD. It’s a Platinum
  edition from Disney,
  so it’ll be pulled from shelves in a few weeks
  time.
• Exorcist
  – The
  Beginning: The prequel has come to DVD. Did we
  need to see a
  prequel to this story?
• Godzilla
  7
  Pack: Has basically every Godzilla film but the
  original.
• Lost
  In Space
  – Season 3, Vol. 1: The classic series in its
  high camp years.
• The
  Spongebob
  Squarepants Movie: I’ve tried watching Spongebob,
  and just don’t
  get the appeal.
• Wonder
  Woman –
  The Complete Second Season: Yes, the first season
  was cheap and
  cheesy, but it was still fun. I’ll be getting this
  season, too.

Now, the non-genre releases:

• The
  Brady
  Bunch – Season One: Yes, this is the old show.
  You bring the
  wine, we provide the cheese.
• Hoosiers
  – 2
  Disk Special Edition: Gene Hackman is always
  great.
• My
  Own Private
  Idaho (Criterion Collection): It’s Criterion
  Collection, so you
  know you’ll be paying for a good movie.
• SCTV
  Volume
  3: So, how does one represent the theme to “Great
  White North” in
  text, anyway?

This week also has a rather large assortment of
3-pack collections
with movies already released. Some of these, though,
look rather
interesting, and they hit many genres. They don’t
always list the
individual titles, so I’ll just link to the theme
names when they
don’t: Audrey
Hepburn, Austin
Powers
(with all three movies from that series), Bette
Davis, Black
History
(with Driving Miss Daisy, The Color
Purple, and
Malcolm X), Bogart /
Bacall,
Christopher
Guest (with A Mighty Wind, Waiting
for Guffman,
and Best In Show), Comedy
(with
The Big Bounce, Starsky and Hutch,
and The Whole
Ten Yards), Denzel
Washington
(with John Q, Fallen, and
Training Day), Film
Noir, Friday
(with
Friday, Next Friday, and Friday
After
Next), Jim
Carrey (with Dumb and Dumber and the
Ace Ventura
movies), John
Carpenter (with Christine,
Vampires, and
Starman), John
Grisham
(with The Pelican Brief, A Time To
Kill, and The
Client), Man
Versus Nature (with Twister, The
Perfect Storm,
and Deep Blue Sea), Mandy
Moore (with
Chasing Liberty, A Walk To
Remember, and How To
Deal), Musical
Westerns,
Oh
God! (with
all three Oh God! movies), Romantic
Comedy
(with You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding
Singer, Two
Weeks Notice), Sci-Fi
(with no
titles listed, but with Leslie Nielsen in the cast
listings,
Forbidden Planet is a fairly safe bet), Slapstick
Comedy
(with Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles,
and National
Lampoon’s Vacation), Stanley
Kubrick
(with A Clockwork Orange, The
Shining, and 2001:
A Space Odyssey; ownership of these films should
be mandatory for
Bureau 42 readers, as far as I’m concerned, although
buying the in this
set is
optional), Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles (with all three films in
that series), Thriller,
and WWII.

Finally, the pick of the week. Bringing
Up Baby
is one of one of the first screwball comedies.
Starring Katharine
Hepburn and Cary Grant, and directed by Howard Hawks,
you can be sure
that there was talent behind and before the camera.
I saw this in a
film studies class just over a year ago, and have
been watching for
the DVD release. You’ll find numerous homages to
this film in the
screwball comedies since then, some of the most
blatant of which can
be found in What’s
Up, Doc?, which should be taken as a sign of the
respect this
films has earned within the industry. This movie is
well worth your
time, especially if you need a laugh. Also available
as part of a classic
comedies
collection.