Synopsis: First prize, a Cadillac. Second prize, a set of steak knives. Third prize you're fired. You know the drill. Adapted by David Mamet from his Pulitzer-winning play, this unabashedly theatrical film staged in and around a sparsely-populated real estate office boasts of a dream cast: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey (before he was a usual suspect), Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Jonathan Pryce, and Alec Baldwin. Lemmon's Shelley "The Machine" Levene is on a bad streak with a loved one in the hospital--the Glengarry leads could solve all his problems, but they come at a great potential cost. Why It Rocks: Lemmon sinks his teeth into the role of a salesman somehow more tragic than Willy Loman, and it's the best performance he gave for anyone not named Billy Wilder. Baldwin's monologue provides reams of quotable text. Jonathan Pryce is heartbreaking in an extended cameo that keeps the picture honest. Overlook: The slippery chronology of events, as well as irritating banter between Harris and Arkin that's textbook Mamet--which ain't always a good thing. ("Well, they fucked it up." "They did." "They killed the goose." "They did." "And now..." "We're stuck with this..." "We're stuck with this fucking shit..." "...this shit..." "It's too..." "It is." Enough already.) James Newton Howard's light jazz score is unwelcome after we've suffered the castration of The Machine. The DVD: Artisan won the presumed rights battle that held up the release of this New Line production to DVD, honouring it with a tenth anniversary edition that divvies up excellent widescreen (2.35:1 anamorphic) and full-frame transfers and a smattering of extras between two platters. (The film's subtle 5.1 remix, by the by, comes in crystalline Dolby Digital and DTS flavours.) Disc One contains director commentary for a portion of the film (James Foley elaborates on three indexed topics: directing, the screenplay (we discover that Mamet wrote unfilmed character histories at the request of Foley and the actors), and rehearsals), in addition to "Magic Time," a clip-deprived series of personal tributes to the late Lemmon. (Unfortunately, its subjects--including Foley, Lemmon's son Chris, and "Inside The Actors Studio"'s James Lipton--were shot against a white background that's blinding and bad for your monitor. Ditto for Disc Two's "Always Be Closing.") Disc Two's "Always Be Closing" hears from real-life salesman along with Glengarry vets; here Foley ironically tells the best Lemmon anecdote of the set. Another documentary short focuses on a seller with a storied past, Tony Buba's black-and-white University of Ohio project J. Roy: New and Used Furniture. The full-frame presentation of Glengarry... has commentary snippets from d.p. Juan Ruiz Anchia, Baldwin, Arkin, and production designer Jane Musky. Lemmon's 1992 guest spot on "Charlie Rose", a classic "Actors Studio" moment with Spacey humouring a nervous student, cast and crew bios, and production notes close the deal. Perfect For: Budding thespians. (Artisan) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: A day in the life (though not "A Day in the Life") of John, Paul, George and Ringo, collectively known as The Beatles. Will they make their latest TV gig on time? Why It Rocks: Because it literally rocks--and "If I Fell" is lovely. Richard Lester's tongue-in-cheek, if overpraised, direction gives the piece a sardonic edge, kidding and celebrating both the band and its fans in equal measure. Overlook: The character of Paul's duplicitous grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell), a cancer on the film. Did I mention that Lester's Bolex-crazy technique is overrated? Maybe I'm holding a bitter grudge for Superman II and III. The DVD: Miramax re-releases the film in a Collector's Edition that features a new, controversially letterboxed transfer (1.66:1 approx.) enhanced for 16x9. It's clear as day in any event; black-and-white was made for DVD. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is, alas, a jarring blend of tin-can dialogue and CD-quality music. As luck would have it, the rear channels have not been abused. Though the plethora of interviews (best taken in the summary documentary "Things They Said Today...") on this two-disc set too often veer from A Hard Day's Night, conversations with Richard Lester, The Beatles' personal Tom Parker, George Martin (supplying a song-by-song critique), and workaholic cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (who went on to shoot Star Wars) are must-sees. It's once we reach an interview with the son of The Beatles' tailor that we wonder if Miramax is not only overcompensating for the absence of Paul or Ringo, but also hoarding data for posterity. A tribute to Brambell identifies the source of A Hard Day's Night's "clean old man" refrain, many of the Beatles portraits on display from artist Klaus Voorman are electrifying, and the script-to-screen ROM feature is a rare opportunity to view Alun Owen's screenplay scrawled with revisions. Perfect For: Duh. (Miramax) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: Nineteen-year-old Tony Manero (John Travolta) knows how to do one thing: dance. He asks an uptown girl to be his

partner for a disco competition, and over the course of their rehearsals, Tony's frustrations with his dead-end life outside the nightclubs bubble to the surface. Why It Rocks: Unapologetically bitter as Tony, Travolta locks eyes with the audience from the opening scene, an empowering stroll through the lower east side set to the Bee Gees' overplayed but ferocious "Stayin' Alive." (It's probably the last perfect sequence in seventies cinema.) The ending--the real one, after a Syd Field resolution to a silly teen pregnancy subplot--has so much integrity that I doubt it'd survive the test-screening process in today's day and age. Forget Grease, Saturday Night Fever is the one and only Travolta musical worth seeing--and worth a whole lot more than just that. Overlook: Tony's generic posse of indistinguishable palookas; several unpleasant songs. The DVD: The film's picture and sound elements underwent some digital restoration for its DVD debut and the results are spectacular. In 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital sound, the audio-visual presentation does not scream ancient history. Three deleted scenes reveal a few more of Tony's fangs; one doesn't wish these were still in the movie. VH1's semi-candid (in addressing the firing of Rocky director John G. Avildsen and other internal strife) "Behind the Music" special on Saturday Night Fever arrives shorn of its commercial bumpers and footage from the film. A chronologically fussy commentary by director John Badham caps things off; what, no seamless branch to the misbegotten PG version of the film? Perfect For: Film buffs; Travolta fans; people who reach for the butterfly net when you tell them that the Bee Gees are cool. Apologize in advance for the bedazzled cardboard packaging. (Paramount) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: The talkies have arrived and the studio wants box-office draw Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) to add dialogue to his latest silent. Trouble is, co-star Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is blissfully ignorant of the fact that she sounds like Jennifer Tilly imitating Fran Dresher. Enter the lovely Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), who sparks an idea that would become common Hollywood practice: dub her! No wonder Don gets that glorious feeling when she's around. Why It Rocks: The set-piece from which the film borrows its name--Gene Kelly dancing in a freak downpour--evokes a sensation so joyous as to make the viewer weep. Also, I can't name or imagine a better tool for instructing film students in the ways of early cinema. (And Debbie Reynolds was kind of adorable in 1952, wasn't she?) Overlook: The fact that it starts to dawdle: the "Broadway Melody/Broadway Rhythm" sequence is stylish, but it keeps Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, and jokes off the screen for too long, transforming Singin' in the Rain into the very revue picture it parodies prior to said number. The DVD: Purists seem divided by the brilliant fullscreen (as it should be, given that it's a pre-CinemaScope release) transfer on Warner's "Two-Disc Special Edition" re-release, which represents a version of the film restored in the digital realm. (The image errs on the side of perfection, at least.) The Dolby Digital 5.1 remix is tasteful. A piecemeal yak-track is an event unto itself--dig the participants: Reynolds, O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Stanley Donen, Betty Comden and Adolph Green (screenwriters), Baz Luhrmann (out of place, but no matter), and historian Rudy Behlmer; a white-rabbit gimmick also links to relevant film clips during Singin' in the Rain. Over on Disc Two, there's the intriguing Hugh Hefner-produced "Musicals Great Musicals", a 90-minute, quasi-abridgment of the That's Entertainment! trilogy centering on the Arthur Freed years at MGM; a making of Singin' in the Rain proper (hosted by Reynolds), wherein the commentators show their faces; an invaluable archive of excerpts from the motion pictures in which the ditties sung in Singin' in the Rain's originated--"Ukulele Ike" performs the title track; a deleted scene (an outtake of Kathy crooning "You Are My Lucky Star" to a Lockhart billboard); an animated still gallery; and scoring session music cues. This is the most thorough of Warner's recent spate of 2-disc SEs. Perfect For: Peter Fairburn. (Internal reference, but no joke.) (Warner) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: Lane Myer (John Cusack) learns that he's not good enough for his high-school sweetheart (Amanda Wyss) anymore, so he goes on a suicide binge. A failure at killing himself, too, he commits to training for a treacherous slope, hoping to steal back his girlfriend from a pompous ski instructor. But by the climax, what he really wants is to be with the French exchange student (Diane Franklin) who stole his heart when she fixed his car. Why It Rocks: A seminal yet rarely invoked eighties teen movie, it's hard to believe that Cusack is more embarrassed by Better Off Dead... than by America's Sweethearts. Half the fun of Better off Dead... is in watching director "Savage" Steve Holland's surrealist stylings (the film owes a debt to the British mod comedy of the sixties) collide with John Hughes conventions on the cusp of cliché, not to mention Reagan-era crassness. All

Synopsis: Black Hawk Down with werewolves. Or, as featured player Liam Cunningham says within the supplementary material of the American DVD release, "A soldier movie with werewolves...not a werewolf movie with soldiers." The Scottish highlands become the setting for a siege picture in which a werewolf family tries to take back their farmhouse from the Special Forces team using it as a fortress. Things get hairy. Why It Rocks: A word-of-mouth sensation, Dog Soldiers has a refreshingly unblinking attitude towards gore, generic yet endearing characters, a pessimistic closing credits sequence that shouldn't work but does, and an influential way with words. ("That's bone!" is destined for catchphrase stardom.) Overlook: Neil Marshall's meat-and-potatoes directing style; the fact that, werewolves or no, Dog Soldiers is derivative as hell (of Aliens, Night of the Living Dead, and so on). The DVD: Artisan offers the film in bleary, grainy 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and pan-and-scan transfers on the same side of a dual-layer disc. Shadow detail is compromised by the cramming of it all onto a single platter; the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix exhibits almost nothing in the way of bass, but surround usage is loud and truly terrifying, an attack on Fort Lycanthrope reminding of a similar sequence from James Foley's Fear. Most of the cast and crew are on parade in an untitled 20-minute making-of that portrays the shoot as a blast and a labour of love. David Allen and Brian O'Toole, owners of the company responsible for Dog Soldiers, pitch in a "producer's commentary" that seems as knowledgeable as anything Marshall could have contributed. Perfect For: Fanboys; devotees of old-school special effects. (Artisan) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: After the drowning of their little girl, the Baxters (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) retreat to Venice, where John oversees renovations to a church. A creepy blind psychic and her sister accost wife Laura, convincing her that her dead daughter is enjoying the afterlife; John's increasing impatience towards such claims leads to tragedy. Why It Rocks: Based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier (in some circles, it's called Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now), the Nicolas Roeg film synthesizes Nouvelle Vague expressions with Watergate unease to devastating impact. You may have heard about the love scene, or the chilling climax, but that's no substitute for bearing witness to them. Sutherland was king in the seventies. Overlook: This film has very little to apologize for. The DVD: A smashing 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer brings the colour red, an augury of doom, to scorching life. It's almost impossible to imagine Don't Look Now looking any better, and rather than serve to distract, any print aberrations flavour the gritty film. The mono soundtrack is crisp, the abstract original theatrical trailer a wonderful bonus. Perfect For: Film lovers, genre experts, and our own Walter Chaw. (Paramount) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

Synopsis: "You got a weakness for rich older men with bad hearts, don'tcha Miss Carlson?" Uh-oh, Madonna's been accused of screwing a man to death. Can her lawyer (Willem Dafoe) get her off? (Heheheh heheheh; shut up, Beavis.) Why It Rocks: It doesn't, although Julianne Moore's love scene is smokin'. Overlook: As if preparing that list wouldn't take long. Madonna has no hairline thanks to the awful softcore lighting, Dafoe and Moore give the worst performances of their respective careers (she should have her name in the credits changed to "Amber Waves"), the sex sucks... Is it any surprise that the phrase "Dino DeLaurentiis Presents" introduces the film? The DVD: Body of Evidence debuts on DVD in a flipper that houses the unrated and R-rated cuts, each in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with mediocre Dolby Surround soundtracks. The image leaves no less to be desired than the movie itself, which I concede is not the height of praise. If the title of "Love or Murder," a five-minute promotional tool for Body of Evidence that considers director Uli Edel as iconic as Madonna, is asking a question, put me in a room with the filmmakers and you'll have your answer. Perfect For: People with no idea just how bad a movie can get. (MGM) ~ Buy at Amazon USA/Canada or Compare Prices

NEXT WEEK, OUR GIFT GUIDE CONCLUDES WITH A LOOK AT TV ON DVD, FOREIGN FILMS, AND MORE