See it in sequence to really enjoy brilliant British sitcom
By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service
As hard as it may be to imagine, the second and allegedly last season of "The Office" is better than the first, and it's being released as "The Complete Second Series" (BBC). This is not only one of the best British sitcoms ever, it is one of the best sitcoms from anywhere, ever.
If you have yet to experience this alternately hilarious and excruciating show about the white-collar employees of a British paper company and their pathetic, needy, utterly untrustworthy boss, you will almost certainly want to go ahead and buy "Complete First and Second Series."
Though each episode is ostensibly designed to stand alone, "The Office" can be truly appreciated only in sequence.
At the center of "The Office" is the boss, David Brent, brilliantly played by Ricky Gervais. New employees (one is handicapped and another is black, so you are cringing even before David makes his attempt to ingratiate himself) are a lot less tolerant of his management style. Meanwhile, Neil (Patrick Baladi), now David's superior, is looking for a reason to make him redundant, as they so politely put it over there.
"The Complete Second Series" doesn't include as many extras as its 2-disc predecessor; the deleted scenes were obviously cut for time, not content. What we don't get are the final two episodes, shown in England as Christmas specials, which are said to wrap things up wonderfully. Production has already begun on an American version, and for which I can offer one word: "Coupling."
A masterful work
One of last year's most welcome theatrical surprises happened to be set on the 19th-century British warship Surprise. Had the thrilling "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" not been released in a year that also produced "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "Mystic River," it almost certainly would have done better at the Academy Awards.
Nevertheless, director Peter Weir's film combining two of the many historical adventure novels about British Capt. Jack Aubrey (played convincingly by Russell Crowe) and his best friend and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) was a film that gave anyone who saw it a real sense of what it would have been like to have been at sea, and at war, in 1805.
A 2-DVD edition (Fox) has the wide-screen version beautifully transferred with a choice of either a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround track or a DTS version. Disc 2 contains the 70-minute documentary "The Hundred Days," an expansive, chronological production diary; featurettes devoted to the adaptation, the impeccably blended special effects and the sound design; and six deleted scenes, all of which enrich the narrative.
"Master and Commander" is also available in single-disc wide-screen and full-screen versions.
Wholesome time-waster
"The Haunted Mansion," a comedy-thriller starring Eddie Murphy and inspired by the popular Disney theme park ride, provides standard-issue, creaking-door, black-cat gotchas and plenty of overacting, but if you're looking for a fairly wholesome time-waster for the kids, the DVD (Disney) provides a lot of boo for the buck.
The commentary is courtesy of the director, producer and writer. Also, there are brief production featurettes, a deleted scene and outtakes, plus a fun interactive "virtual ride" designed as a mystery game for the kids.
'3 Women' enriching
There is something for just about everyone from the vaults this week. The classy Criterion Collection comes through with one of my favorite and one of the least-known Robert Altman films of the '70s, "3 Women," based, says the director in his commentary, on an elaborate dream he had.
Starring Shelly Duvall as a women's magazine-obsessed nurse in a small California town who is idolized by newcomer Sissy Spacek, and the late Janice Rule as a pregnant artist who paints murals on the bottoms of swimming pools, "3 Women" is richly symbolic, beautifully acted and extremely mysterious. It's a once-seen, never-forgotten experience.
The same can be said of "Stories of Floating Weeds" (Criterion). It pairs Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu's silent 1934 drama "A Story of Floating Weeds," about a Kabuki theater troupe and their interaction with the people who live in a small fishing village, with his own 1959 remake, "Floating Weeds." (The title refers to the performers who float in and out of other people's lives.)
The gorgeous new print of the latter was struck to make this DVD, which also offers a new, improved subtitle translation for both films, commentaries by Japanese film scholar Donald Richie on the original and critic Roger Ebert on the remake, and an optional newly composed soundtrack for the silent version by Donald Sosin.
One of the all-time great comedies, "The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob," in which a Catholic French racist (Louis de Funes) on the run from Arab revolutionaries disguises himself as an Orthodox rabbi, is even more meaningful now than when originally released here in 1973. It's been made available for the first time on DVD by Facets video and if you haven't seen it in years, worry not: It's as hilarious as you remember.
