2002 DVDs

One thing the last post forgets to mention - there’s no ordering in any of these lists. Mainly because I couldn’t be bothered, but I think everything I’m going to be listing is rather good, so you should try them all.

• My So-Called Life
  A confession: I didn’t actually watch all of MSCL when it was originally on British television. This was partly a scheduling problem, as Channel 4 decided to show it at an awkward time, but I had a video recorder; I watched the first three episodes. It was just too real for me to deal with at the time. Looking back, I really should have made an effort to watch it. There aren’t many series that can have the lead say “I love you so much, it hurts to look at you”, and not have the audience burst into laughter. The story of MSCL’s long journey to DVD is too long to recant here, so have a look at this link for the details if you’re interested. If not, then a brief summary: it took a long time, and it was rather expensive for those of us who ended up funding the project. But I’m glad I finally have a chance to watch this series.


• Roman Holiday
  The disc is fairly bare (and misses a golden opportunity to include Audrey’s famous screen test that landed her the role in the first place), but the newly restored print is so wonderful it has to be included in my favourites of the year.


• Singin’ In The Rain
  A digitally restored print which looks like it was filmed last week; glorious songs; a commentary which has more of the great Stanley Donen, another disc full of documentaries plus an entire deleted muscial number. One of the greatest musicals ever filmed. What’s not to love?


• Back To The Future
  Finally.


• The Fellowship of The Ring: Extended Edition
  Even if you don’t like the film, there’s no denying that this is the DVD of the year. An extended version of the film that manages to fill most of the cracks that were apparent in the original theatrical version (including information that’s rather important to certain scenes in The Two Towers), spread across two discs with four commentaries featuring just about everybody who had anything to do with the film. On top of that, there’s two more discs containing documentaries about almost every aspect of the film’s production. New Line even promoted the two different versions of the DVD in a responsible manner, going out of their way to let people know that this version was coming out a few months after the original made an appearance in DVD form. A showcase for what the format can achieve, we can only hope that the trilogy’s other two films will get the same treatment.