Alexander After his Colin Farrell–as–a–blond epic flopped, Oliver Stone blamed American audiences’ prudish reactions to his hero’s bisexuality. Now Stone seems to have cynically straightened up the plot. In this director’s cut, he drops twenty minutes and adds twelve, excising the flirting with Jared Leto and amping up the vamping by Angelina Jolie. R; $29.95.
Look at Me The opening film of last year’s New York Film Festival, Agnes Jaoui’s crafty French comedy sends up the social circle of an outrageously egotistical writer. PG-13; $29.95. downfall Heavyweight actor Bruno Ganz is powerful as Der Führer, crumbling in his last days. R; $29.95.
Errol Morris Film Collection The master documentarian’s first three films: his small-town classic Vernon, Florida, the legendary murder investigation The Thin Blue Line, and his 1978 debut, Gates of Heaven. NR; $49.96.
The Cosby Show: Season 1 Preferable to those awful impersonations Kenan Thompson won’t stop doing on Saturday Night Live. NR; $49.99.
The Nuppet Show: Season 1 Buy it for your kids, watch it for the vintage guest appearances: Twiggy, Ethel Merman, Phyllis Diller, Lena Horne, Mummenschanz (!), Vincent Price, and others. NR; $39.99.
The High and Mighty and Island in the Sky Manna for John Wayne completists. NR; $19.98 and $14.98. because of winn-dixie Named after John Wayne by his movie-buff father, filmmaker Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing, Maid in Manhattan) continues his descent into supermarket melodrama. PG; $29.98.
The Wedding Date Worthless: a cute romance about a man-whore. PG-13; $29.98.
Maestro A low-budget love-letter documentary to the Paradise Garage nightclub. NR; $21.95.
Memories of Murder A tight, smart Korean crime flick about cops who can’t find their man. NR; $24.98.
Guess Who A terrible remake of the Hepburn-Tracy-Poitier classic—but really not so bad if you think of it as The Bernie Mac Show and close your eyes when Ashton Kutcher appears. PG-13; $28.95.
Off The Map Campbell Scott pulls a terrific performance from Joan Allen in this otherwise parched desert drama. PG-13; $24.96.
Avant-Garde Experimental Cinema of the 1920’s and 1930’s A smattering of restored shorts from Marcel Duchamp, Paul Strand, Sergei Eisenstein, Man Ray, and others. NR; $29.95.
Our Pick
In 1934, Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger was shot down by the Feds in front of Chicago’s Biograph Theater, having been flushed out of hiding by Myrna Loy. (The longtime Loy fan had been unable to resist her turn as a gangster moll in Manhattan Melodrama.) His wasn’t the last heart she’d break. After her wisecracking, easygoing turns in the six Thin Man romantic comedies—compiled in the must-have, long-overdue Complete Thin Man Collection—men formed “Must-Marry-Myrna” fan clubs and stormed box offices. (Unlike Dillinger, most of them survived.) As the wisecracking socialite Nora, Loy was every bit the equal of her husband, Nick, the hard-drinking detective played by William Powell. Together, they constituted one of the most urbane, enviable, and hilarious couples in American film. As a public service, please buy these DVDs for Nora Ephron and her romantic-comedy-director peers. (Includes The Thin Man, After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, Song of the Thin Man, two documentaries, radio plays, and a 1957 television adaptation. NR; $59.92.)