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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, August 29, 2003

DVD SCENE
Golden days of 'ER' return in Clooney-era reprise

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

I recall watching the 90-minute pilot episode of "ER" in 1993 and thinking that this was exactly how "St. Elsewhere" had begun. It was like a shotgun round coming out of the barrel, with so much action, so many characters and so many plots I could never possibly keep track, and I loved it.

At the same time, I feared it would go the way of "St. Elsewhere," with its soap-opera plots and revolving-door cast and goofy gallows humor — which, of course, it did.

I stopped watching a couple of years ago, having tired of seeing the waiting area littered with the comic wreckage of the week — a clown convention, a gay bicycle tour, whatever — and bored senseless with Carter's love life. But the four-disc box "ER: The Complete First Season" (Warner) confirms that, when it was young and full of adrenaline and interesting storylines, "ER" deserved the accolades it received.

There have been dozens of cast changes, and this remains the best staff — George Clooney as the pediatrics romeo, Julianna Margulies as his on-off lover, Anthony Edwards as the doc you wanted looking after you, Eriq La Salle as the one you didn't and Noah Wyle as the sensitive med student. And does anybody remember Malgoscha Gebel as Bob Romansky?

I admit I didn't, and it's that kind of stuff that makes the DVD fun to peruse, along with the interesting making-of documentary for the pilot. There's also a fine commentary on a gripping episode by director Mimi Leder, who parlayed her work here into a feature-film career. There's a big doctor's bag of extras besides, which you may want to save for an extended hospital visit — or not.

More TV boxes

"The Simpsons — the Complete Season 3" (20th Century Fox) is a four-disc set of a year that may boast more memorable episodes than any other.

And "Yes, Prime Minister: The Complete Collection" (BBC), which usually ties with "Fawlty Towers" for the title of best British sitcom ever, stars Paul Eddington as the compromise candidate without a clue who grows into the job over the course of the series. Nigel Hawthorne plays the secretary originally out to sabotage his administration but who grows in his own way as well.

Oh, you animal

"Animal House," the 1978 comedy that elevated dumb comedy to something like art, finally gets the DVD treatment it deserves with "Animal House: Double Secret Probation Edition" (Universal). The new 25th-anniversary edition gives the college comedy a transfer upgrade that bears witness to the outrageousness the movie begat — though saying that there would have been no "American Pie" without it may not sound like praise. (See story above.)

The fading National Lampoon never again had it so good, but it scored big with 1983's "National Lampoon's Vacation" (Warner). That was the last decent film to bear the periodical's imprimatur; it was again based on a magazine story and starred Chevy Chase, in what may be the last time he was funny for 100 minutes. Chase, costars Randy Quaid and Anthony Michael Hall and director Harold Ramis offer intermittently amusing commentary, and the transfer makes the film look and sound better than it did in the mall theaters of the 1980s.

My memory was also jogged by "The Howling: Special Edition" (MGM). I caught the movie at a drive-in in 1981 and promptly declared it to be the cleverest horror film I had seen in years.

The werewolf thriller was directed by Joe Dante, who was promptly recruited by Steven Spielberg as one of many proteges; the script was by John Sayles, with whom Dante had worked on the amusing "Jaws" rip-off "Piranha." "The Howling" married the werewolf myth to those left-coast personal-growth seminars that were then in fashion.

If there was ever a shocker in need of an upgrade, it's 1982's "Poltergeist," ostensibly directed by Tobe Hooper, though legend — and the evidence on screen — says Spielberg took over when Hooper failed to deliver. Instead, we get a combo "Poltergeist II" and "Poltergeist III" (MGM). The cut scenes from "II" featured on the laser disc have gone missing from this DVD, which is no real loss. "III" is a bonus by the dictionary definition only.

Deluge and delinquents

Two documentaries are worth seeking out this week.

"Johnstown Flood" (Inecom) is a well-made look at the 1898 act of God in Pennsylvania that killed 2,209 people and left thousands homeless; it's narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and features hundreds of archival photographs as well as an on-camera interview with one of the last survivors.

In "Scared Straight" (New Video), hard-core prisoners give teenage screw-ups a look at what their lives could become. Narrated by Danny Glover, it had such an amazing impact on television that similar prison programs were initiated nationwide.

Best for last

Two theatrical releases arrived too late to make it into last week's column:

Academy Award-winner "Chicago" (Miramax), director Rob Marshall's faithful, invigorating adaptation of the Bob Fosse musical, with commentary from the director and the addition of the musical number cut from the film.

"I'm Going Home" (Milestone), a brilliant, elegiac drama from veteran Spanish master Manoel de Oliveira about an actor (Michel Piccoli) whose wife and son are killed in an accident and who belatedly assumes responsibility for his grandson and for himself. This is a beautiful, beautiful film, overlooked when released in the United States in 2001 and deserving of rediscovery.