If you care Beans about it, you can rent series
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
The name is Bean, Mr. Bean. If you haven't lived in England or wished you did, all you might know of him is the shorts Fox attached to a couple of its films a decade back — remember the idiot in the waiting line for the queen? — or the full-length Mr. Bean movie that introduced the world's most embarrassing little man to a mostly unsuspecting U.S. audience.
Now you can see the little twerp in his element in "Mr. Bean: The Whole Bean" (A&E Home Video), a three-disc set with all 14 episodes of the BBC series that introduced actor-comic Rowan Atkinson's brilliantly fussy and inappropriate little schlemiel to English audiences.
After you have become acclimated to the world of Bean, where an ordinary, everyday distraction like a stray piece of tissue or a crying baby can launch him into hilariously escalating crisis mode, you can see how he tapped into and nurtured his hidden doofus in a 40-minute documentary telling how Bean became one of Britain's most beloved comic characters.
You can also witness Bean's appearance as one of the prospective choices on "Blind Date," England's variation on "The Dating Game." Extras also include a full Atkinson filmography, so you can say, "So that's where I've seen him before."
It could even cause you to rent "Four Weddings and a Funeral," just to see Atkinson doing his stuttering parson again.
Wealth of Jewish history
If you have never experienced the lyrical vision of Israeli director Amos Gitai, Facets Video, the Chicago video-by-mail company (www.facets.org) that supplies film-lovers around the world with thousands of foreign, classic and independent DVDs and VHS tapes that can't be found in your local Blockbuster, is looking out for you.
Gitai is fascinated with Jewish mythology and history and has made dozens of films on the subject.
The five-DVD "Exile" series includes 1985's "Esther," an update of the biblical story of the peasant who became queen; 1989's "Berlin Jerusalem," about two very different women who emigrate to Palestine during World War II; 1990's "Birth of a Golem," in which Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics plays the statue that comes to life; 1992's "Golem, the Spirit of Exile," in which a diverse cast of characters revisits the themes of "Berlin Jerusalem"; and 1993's "Golem, the Petrified Garden," a drama about an art dealer obsessed with a golem statue.
Early Fellini film available
Speaking of hard-to-find films: The movie mentor who turned me on to Federico Fellini spent a sizable amount of time, and I presume money, back in the early '70s trying to locate a tape of Fellini's first film as a solo director, 1952's "The White Sheik." He found one, which he copied for me and which I have kept for years, since it looked better than one semi-officially released a couple of decades later.
I can now throw it out, thanks to the Criterion Collection, which has released a new, much-improved transfer of the dreamlike comedy about honeymooners who get separated in Rome.
The usual Criterion extras, including interviews with cast members and a Fellini essay, are included.
Don't forget the Duke
John Wayne's last traditional Western, 1971's "Big Jake" (Paramount Home Video) may be most notable for being the source of the classic response every time the outlaw hero shows up in "Escape from New York": "I thought you were dead."
But Wayne's Jake McCandles is alive and ticked off in what may be the most violent movie the Duke ever made, looking to get even with Richard Boone as the leader of the gang that kidnapped his kid, played by Wayne's real son, Patrick. For comparison, see "Rio Lobo" (Paramount), 1970's final collaboration between Wayne and the great but waning Howard Hawks, with Wayne on the trail of hidden gold and a Civil War traitor.
Paramount's continued excavation of the Western side of its vaults also brings us the improved-by-time "Little Big Man."
Arthur Penn's heart-on-its-sleeve 1970 history of the taming of the West is seen through the weathered eyes of ancient Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), a Little Big Horn survivor captured as a boy by Indians and witness to all the indignities visited on them for over a century.
Although the film benefits from remastering and a low price, it has no extras, a fate that also befalls another much-requested DVD title from the same company, 1971's "Le Mans," starring Steve McQueen as an American driver who makes his competition with a German personal.
It is generally considered one of the most accurately depicted racing movies ever made.
Documentary won Oscar
The 2001 Academy Award winner for best documentary, "Murder on a Sunday Morning" (Docu-rama), is a riveting revisit to a Florida murder case in which a black teenager confessed to the point-blank murder of a white woman.
Fortunately, the teen had more than adequate representation in a public defender who was both showy and thorough, and director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade relates the entire incident in the style of a classic courtroom thriller.
Extras include scenes not shown in the original HBO "America Undercover" episode as well as interviews with the principals and a transcript of the confession.
Recent films on DVD
Of the recent theatrical releases, the unfairly maligned "Treasure Planet" (Walt Disney Home Video) is the standout, a smart, entertaining and gorgeously animated re-imaging of "Treasure Island" in space.
Though the film's box-office failure is probably what prevented Disney from giving it the usual two-disc treatment (an honor afforded even the mediocre "The Emperor's New Groove"), it still has a spaceship full of extras, including commentary from the producers and animators, deleted scenes and an alternate ending, along with lots of games and extras.
Disney also has taken the opportunity to release its 1950 live-action version of "Treasure Island," a fairly faithful version of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, with Robert Newton creating what would be the template for every actor ever to play Long John Silver.
It says more about the sad state of Hollywood romantic comedy than it does the movie itself to report that "Two Weeks Notice" (Warner Home Video) was one of the more entertaining examples of the genre last year.
The adorable/irritating (your choice) Sandra Bullock does her abrasive but idealistic thing as a socially conscious lawyer who makes the mistake of going to work from a Donald Trump-like developer played by Hugh Grant.
She quits the job, but she discovers she just can't get the guy out of her life or her head.
