Want heroes? We got Spidey, Red Sox, Rambo

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

The "Spider-Man 2" DVD set is packed with outstanding special effects and enough extras to please the die-hard afficionado. Advertiser library photo

Both the wide-screen and full-screen versions include two discs, and they are packed with extras, including a commentary by Raimi, Maguire and the producers, as well as programming focused on the technical aspects of the film. The four so-called Web-isodes — shorts originally seen on the Internet — have been collected. A 12-part documentary takes you through the film's making, and "Spidey Sense" factoids pop up on screen to impart trivia, should you desire it.

Equally impressive is the surprise late-summer hit "Hero" (Buena Vista), an enthralling and intelligent martial-arts epic from the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou. It recalls the legend of the so-called Nameless (Jet Li), the country magistrate who arrives unexpectedly at the palace of the emperor, reporting that he has dispatched the great assassins who had been sent to kill his majesty and disrupt his plan to unite China's provinces.

Real-life heroes, meanwhile, are celebrated in "2004 World Series — Boston Red Sox vs. St Louis Cardinals" (WEA), a documentary that compresses the history-making fall classic (as well as some of the drama of the Yankees playoffs) into 80 exciting minutes. It's as nicely done as most Major League Baseball productions. A shorter version covering the American League Championship Series can be found on the www.mlb.com Web site for $9.95. The devoted fan can also download the entire series as broadcast, should he or she desire, for $3.95 per game.

Then there's the little-known, real-life hero Susan Tom of Fairfield, Calif., who has adopted 11 special-needs children and whose story is told without sentimentality in the excellent documentary "My Flesh and Blood" (New Video). Winner of both the audience and the director's award at last year's Sundance Film Festival, it was overshadowed by other great docs, "Capturing the Friedmans" and "The Fog of War."

Another Sundance winner (for its gorgeous cinematography) that failed to receive wide theatrical distribution is Christopher Munch's "Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day" (New Video) from 1996. It's a film as original and impressionistic as its title (derived from an Octavio Paz poem). It dramatizes the true story of John Lee (Peter Alexander), a Chinese-American determined to save a short-line railroad after World War II, partly in tribute to his Chinese grandfather, who worked to build the transcontinental rail system.

There's rambo, too

He didn't start out as a hero: In his first film, 1982's "First Blood," John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) was a Vietnam vet and drifter struggling with post-traumatic stress that led him to believe he was under siege after he was arrested while passing through a small town. Holing up in the woods and waging a one-man war on the local authorities, Rambo was saved only through the intervention of his former Green Beret commander, played by the late Richard Crenna.

The film's success saw Stallone eyeing another franchise to complement "Rocky," so Rambo was mentally cleared and uber-buffed for 1985's "Rambo: First Blood Part II," which had him being sent back to the Big Muddy, ostensibly to rescue left-behind POWs. By 1988's "Rambo III," he was a cartoon action figure in a headband, fighting alongside the Mujahedeen against the Russians in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden does not make an appearance, but a lot of future Taliban are portrayed here as freedom fighters.

With rumors of an impending Rambo resurrection, the trilogy is now boxed up in "Rambo: Ultimate Edition" (Lion's Gate), with an array of special interactive features apparently designed for war game junkies: You can even dial in a satellite positioning map to locate Rambo's pursuers. Of more interest to civilians is an alternate ending to the first movie in which the surrounded Rambo commits suicide.