DVD SCENE
Grit of 'NYPD Blue' revived on six-disc set
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
Highlighting the DVD extras is a segment on the life-and-death import of rap battles. ("When you see these battles, you see their dexterity with words and their use of words as weapons," notes director Curtis Hanson. "You see the way in which they hurl invective at each other literally as fists, as though it were a boxing match.") The segment includes unscripted battles between Eminem and four extras from the film's club scenes. Hanson notes that Eminem was losing his voice and was supposed to pantomime his portions, since the scenes were intended as montages without audio. But by the second battle, Eminem could not resist flipping on his microphone and talking back. — Associated Press
I was halfway through the first season of "NYPD Blue" when I finally asked the TV critic if he could please tell me the meaning of "skel." I had figured out most of the cop-shop lingo on what was then the grittiest police drama series ever produced, but "skel" remained a mystery.
"8 Mile" (Universal) is not Eminem's life story, but a near-enough simulation. The rapper returns to his Detroit roots in this story of a hip-hop wannabe struggling to find his voice in the city's blighted 8 Mile area.
The fact that the TV critic didn't know either was vaguely comforting, and I returned to "Blue," whose entire first season has been released in a six-DVD set (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), with the feeling that I would always be an outsider.
If I had ponied up next to the bar with Detective John Kelly (David Caruso), he would have brushed me off like, well, a skel. If I had attempted to befriend his partner Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) at an AA meeting, he might have poured his weak coffee on my shoes. And for those who never did get the lingo, "skel" is short for "skeleton," cop talk for a junkie or street person.
The DVD set features commentary by various principals. There's also a new making-of documentary that revisits the controversy surrounding the first TV show to contain regular swearing and, most shocking off all, brief nudity.
'Roger Dodger' a gem
The best overlooked movie of 2002 may have been "Roger Dodger," so the DVD (Artisan) will afford this original comedy-tragedy the opportunity to win the audience it deserved. Campbell Scott gave an Oscar-worthy performance as a loquacious New Yorker who appears to have everything — especially women — figured out. Scott's Roger is sought out by his teenage nephew (Jesse Eisenberg) when the kid figures it's time for him to learn his way around the opposite sex.
The disc has two commentaries, both featuring writer-director Jason Kidd, who obviously has a lot of Roger in him. There's also a walking tour of Manhattan at night with Eisenberg as your leader. Maybe you'll get lucky.
Bob Crane got lucky a lot: first by scoring the lead in a hit TV sitcom, "Hogan's Heroes," then with the women who fulfilled the sexual desire that apparently drove him. His sad and seedy, if occasionally amusing, story is told in "Auto Focus" (Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment).
The movie focuses on the relationship between Crane, nicely played by Greg Kinnear, and John Carpenter, an audio-video salesman who hooked him up with some of the first home-recording equipment to record their trysts with women.
Paul Schrader directs with style, if no obvious purpose, but he talks about why he wanted to make the film on one of three commentaries; the other two are by Kinnear and the film's producers. Five deleted scenes are included, along with a documentary about Crane's still-unsolved murder.
