HOT NEW DVD PLAYERS
THE ViDVD ($299)
Think of it as the Swiss Army Knife of DVD players. The ViDVD from Vialta, a developer of digital home entertainment products and services, can do it all: play DVDs, CDs, MP3. You also can view digital photos stored on a KODAK Picture CD , sing-along to karaoke discs (it comes with a professional microphone) or jump on the Internet and check your e-mail. It's like having a DVD player, WebTV, and karaoke machine all in one.
THE PANASONIC DMR-E20 ($3,999.95)
For a higher-end unit, check out the new Panasonic DVD with recording capability. Now you don't have to make your 2-year-old sit through the dark, depressing scenes in The Sound of Music, where the von Trapps are fleeing from the Nazis and their homeland. With the DMR-E20 you can record the movie on TV (there are copyright protections on DVDs) and create your own customized playlist of the film's more cheerful musical numbers. Many also will love that they can transfer their home movies to disc and then splice together with a big Hollywood production, like Independence Day. Nobody will ever know that wasn't you and Will Smith saving the galaxy.
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If you weren't a believer already, this two-disc special-edition definitely will make you one. Just as audiences have never met a hero quite like the not-so-jolly green ogre Shrek, they also haven't seen anything quite like the brand-new technology featured on this disc. "Shrek's Revoice Studio" is, by far, the best interactive feature of the year, enabling viewers to dub their voice over one of the characters in a dozen scenes. Talk about getting into a movie. Now you can not only watch the donkey, you can be the donkey.
The superb Limited Edition DVD to David Lean's 1957 Academy Award-winning Best Picture bridges the gap between Old Hollywood and the advantages of the current digital age. The story, set in the harsh, atmospheric jungles of Asia, is at once a brillaintly crafted epic full of suspense and an intimate drama about conformity and honor among military men. The two-disc set is held up by its solid bonus material, which has exquisitely detailed menus, a DVD-ROM game with maps and military strategy and an exclusive documentary that reveals the clever thinking behind the famous whistling scene.
Clearly, these guys were not monkeying around when it came time to push the limits of DVD technology. With more than 13 hours of extras, the special-edition for Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes is guaranteed to make cult fans go absolutely ape. This thing is loaded with avant-garde features, like multi-angle camera options, a side-by-side comparison of original art with the actual footage and (for those with NUON-enhanced players) two hours of additional viewing on the gamazoom. Get a closer look at the Ape Skull hidden in the mountains as Mark Wahlberg and his funky-smelling bunch cross the desert to Calima. (If you zoom in farther, there is a human skull.) Nothing primitive about that.
You don't have to know the difference between an alley-oop and a Hula-Hoop to enjoy this one. AND 1, the sports apparel company popular with urban youth, has put together a compilation of some of illest b-ball stunts imaginable from footage shot during its national Mix Tape tour. This is what one might expect if Jackie Chan had a 60-inch vertical, crazy handle and loved to talk garbage to his opponents. The DVD includes all four previously released AND 1 Mix Tape volumes, player highlights with video clips, unreleased hip-hop tracks and cool featurettes like "Are You A Playground Legend?" which lets you check out wanna-be ballers from around the country. Eat your hearts out, Harlem Globetrotters.
If there was ever an offer to a family reunion that you couldn't refuse, this is it. Francis Ford Coppola's brutal and operatic trilogy is one of the greatest masterpieces in cinema history, and one that plays beautifully on DVD. The five-disc collection comes with a gang of extras, like an inside look at the creative process by way of the original notebook Coppola used to adapt Mario Puzo's best-selling novel, 30 additional scenes and a documentary about how the filmmakers transformed parts of the Lower East Side into 1912. Every time you finish with one feature, the next one pulls you back in.
There's no need to push a button to play this holiday comedy classic. The deluxe limited edition DVD comes with a 3D pop-up play set. Now, after watching Jim Carrey's heart grow three sizes, you can go to town (as in Whoville) on the 9-by-9-inch package that conjures three scenes from the movie. There's also sing-along songs, a "Dress the Grinch" game, and a recipe for Martha Whovier's Designer Onion Wreaths. (Eew!)
This contains all 13 wildly hilarious adventures from The Simpsons' premiere season with no commercial interruptions. It's all here: the gang getting suckered into buying a beat up RV from Cowboy Bob; Krusty framed for sticking up a convenience store. Read the original script where Homer first yelled "D'oh!" (it called for an "annoyed grunt"). The Season One Collector's Edition also comes with a special audio commentary with the show's creators joking about how difficult it is to find the right tone as they rip apart "Some Enchanted Evening," an embarrassing early episode that never aired.
The movie might not have made the splash its makers had hoped it would, but the top-selling 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition Gift Set already has taken a place in DVD history. Inside the handsome case, which resembles the leather bomber jackets worn by WWII fighter pilots, there are a good deal of tributes to the men and women who suffered through the "date that will live in infamy." For the frequent flier, the movie offers a new technology called Dolby Headphone Soundtrack that presents the illusion of surround sound even if you're watching on a laptop.
Few foreign directors have had a bigger impact on Hollywood than Federico Fellini, and the new DVD for his 1963 Academy Award-winning film is an excellent opportunity to see why. Fellini's classic about an egomanical movie director suffering from an artistic crisis is filled with the kind of indelible imagery and thoughtful character analysis that'll keep viewers engaged even as the erratic hero constantly shifts between memories and fantasy. The Criterion Collection edition comes with several attractive bonus features, including archival footage, a fascinating interview with revered lensman Vittorio Storaro on the historical role of the movie camera and a comprehensive booklet with essays by Fellini. This one's a perfect 10.
A moving tribute to the daring but notoriously reclusive director, narrated by Tom Cruise, the star of Kubrick's final movie, Eyes Wide Shut. It was released shortly after Kubrick's death in 1999. Produced and directed by longtime collaborator Jan Harlan, the documentary spans Kubrick's entire lifetime from his early childhood in the Bronx to his final days living in England. Great interviews with some of the people who worked closely with him; Steven Spielberg (A.I.), Jack Nicholson (The Shining), and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange). This is about more than just a man misunderstood as an artist and a human being. It's an entertaining look at a visionary who reveled in making movies that posed as many questions as they answered.