Ay, carumba! Springfield follies IV

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

The fourth season of the TV series "The Simpsons" is being released on DVD. Advertiser library photo

If this four-disc box contained only the 22 episodes broadcast in 1992-93, it would be essential: Among them are "Last Exit to Springfield," in which Homer goes all union on Mr. Burns; "Mr. Plow," an object lesson to anyone considering a side business; "A Streetcar Named Marge," in which Marge lands the Blanche role in a community theater production of the Tennessee Williams play only because she is deeply depressed; and the honestly titled "So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show," a walk down memory lane precipitated by an unfortunate accident involving a beer can and a paint mixer.

A case can be made that this is the best "Simpsons" compilation yet, with commentaries for every episode, including one by former writer Conan O'Brien; a nice selection of outtakes, storyboards, etc.; and a hilarious featurette titled "Bush vs. Simpsons," growing out of the first President Bush's remarks that America should be less like the cartoon family. There is also a look back at the raging Cajun controversy, which occurred after some not-so-nice remarks about New Orleans.

With the show having finished 15 seasons, Fox might want to get a move on: I'd like to own a complete set of "Simpsons" episodes before I head off to Kamp Krusty for good.

Then comes "Curb Your Enthusiasm — The Complete Second Season" (HBO), which, in terms of consistency, ranks with "The Simpsons." Every one of the 10 episodes originally shown in 2001 is an excruciating excursion into the dark id of writer Larry David, who sacrifices himself so we can feel better about our own shortcomings, bad behavior and prejudices. Picking a standout is impossible, but if "The Doll" doesn't do you in, then you really should stick to network sitcoms.

The surprise USA Network hit "Monk," starring Tony Shalhoub as a phobic police consultant with obsessive-compulsive disorder to boot, seems almost conventional. The obsessive-compulsive angle may have originally attracted the curious, but the series has transcended the gimmick via Shalhoub's fine sense of character — he's won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe in the show's brief life — and plots that are just odd and offbeat enough.

Until the recent release of the final episode of "Friends," the two-part pilot of "Monk" broadcast in 2002 was the best-selling single episode of any TV show to be released on DVD. It is, of course, included in "The Complete First Season" (Universal), with the 11 subsequent episodes spread over four discs.

'Spartan,' Sandler

I went way out on limb by naming "Spartan" (Warner) the first great film of the year. Because this political thriller written and directed by David Mamet is on DVD only three months after its theatrical release, it appears the movie-going public was not convinced.

But I'll be surprised if I see another movie this year that kept me on tenterhooks the way this one did. Mamet resurrects the clipped dialogue and hard-boiled macho maneuvering that made early films like "House of Games" and "Homicide" so compelling and tells the story of a special-ops agent (Val Kilmer), who returns to the field when someone referred to as "the girl" is kidnapped. The girl is someone who is obviously very important to someone very official.

"Touching the Void" (MGM) is best described as a documentary-drama hybrid, a reconstruction of a 1985 mountain-climbing expedition in the Andes that went horribly wrong. It is both factually true — being told on screen by the men who lived it — and dramatically gripping as director Kevin Macdonald uses actors to re-create every tragic misstep.

"50 First Dates" (Columbia Tristar), largely filmed in Hawai'i, reunites Adam Sandler with Drew Barrymore, with whom he made his sweetest movie, "The Wedding Singer." Here he's an animal-park vet who falls in love with a girl with an unusual problem — she has brain damage that prevents her from recalling anything that happened the day before. That means Sandler has to make Barrymore fall in love with him again every day.