'Da Vinci Code' extras not to die for
By Terry Lawson
Detroit Free Press
The best thing about what's destined to be the week's best-seller, director Ron Howard's long-awaited adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," is that it's marginally better than the clunky Dan Brown novel on which it is based.
The two-disc "Special Edition" (Columbia-TriStar) puts the far-fetched, exposition-laden tale of a Harvard symbology professor (Tom Hanks) and a French cryptologist (Audrey Tautou) who stumble on a history-altering Catholic Church conspiracy on one DVD. The second disc, with 90 minutes of unremarkable featurettes on the director, cast and the source material, walks around all the attendant controversy as gingerly as possible.
MORE KONG
Many people thought Peter Jackson's 2005 "King Kong" remake was, at 3 hours and 7 minutes, extended enough. But that has not prevented the director from overseeing a three-disc "Deluxe Extended Edition" (Universal), which includes almost 40 minutes of deleted scenes, with director's commentary on disc one. There's more commentary and some interesting new featurettes on disc two and all the making-of extras and production diaries and additional background on disc three.
It's a lot of chest-pounding for an impressive technological achievement that was not nearly as emotionally involving as the 1933 original.
ALSO NEW
It would be easy to dismiss "Paul McCartney: The Space Within Us" (A&E) as another tour, another DVD. But that would mean not acknowledging that of all the ridiculously priced, high-prestige concert performers, McCartney may be the best of all. Those who couldn't afford or get tickets to shows on his 2005 outing have the next best thing in this beautifully shot, exquisitely mixed (in 5.1 Dolby) documentary, which brings together all the songs performed at the shows, plus eight unreleased songs played at sound checks, including a rocking cover of "Whole Lot of Shaking Going On."
"The Space Within Us" has been compiled from various concerts and includes footage from the show in which a concertgoer held up a sign alerting McCartney he was using the occasion to propose to his girlfriend.
"Go on, get on your knee then," orders Paul, who is dutifully obeyed.
Also inserted is a testimonial by one Michigan family composed of three generations of McCartney lovers (Beatles, Wings, Grand Old Eminence) who attended the show together and got a backstage audience with McCartney. All that prevents "The Space Within Us" from being one of the all-time-great concert DVDs is the between-songs interviews, in which McCartney's generation-crossing appeal and musical brilliance are so endlessly extolled that we expect it all to end with his music miraculously curing cancer.
TV ON DVD
That "The Wire" has quietly turned into the best cop show ever is not surprising when you remember its creators were also responsible for the previous best cop show ever, "Homicide." The season box sets have been best-sellers, and your friends will appreciate them if you trade up to "Homicide: Life on the Street — Complete Series Megaset" (A&E).
In a case file drawer are 35 discs containing 122 episodes, including the "Law & Order" crossovers and the TV-movie wrap-up, and very cool extras.
ALSO THIS WEEK
FAMILY PICK OF THE WEEK
Hear me out: 1956's "Forbidden Planet" is generally considered one of the greatest of all sci-fi adventures, in part because it so cleverly transposes Shakespeare's "The Tempest" to outer space and in part because its influence was so vast. It is also ridiculously entertaining.
Part of this, of course, is thanks to Robby the Robot, who greets the crew of the spaceship commanded by John Adams (the young Leslie Nielsen, considered leading-man material in the 1950s) on a galactic hunt for a lost U.S. expedition. Though they have been warned via a message from the missing ship's captain (Walter Pidgeon) that something is seriously amiss, they are hardly prepared for what they find.
The set is packed with extras, including a sequel starring Robby, 1958's "The Invisible Boy," and an episode of "The Thin Man" TV series in which Robby co-stars.
