ENTERTAINMENT

Home Video: Celebrating the 20th century's brightest lights

Todd Hill
Reporter

It's that rarest of occurrences, a week in which not a single prominent movie is arriving on DVD or Blu-ray. However, the home-video market has become so vast, and full of niches, that in any given week a variety of intriguing, if less prominent, titles arrives on the small screen. Normally, they're overlooked, but this week is their moment in the sun.

New movies

"Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles." It seems that every year something started by Orson Welles but never finished surfaces. He was more than just a filmmaker, he was something of a creative genius, but he left a lot of irons in the fire when he died in 1985. Whether his unfinished business is worth a look, that's debatable. Perhaps the kindest thing to say about Welles is that he peaked early, directing Shakespeare at the age of 14, making movies by 18, and then creating what is routinely considered one of the most important films of them all, 1941's "Citizen Kane," at 25. This documentary is both comprehensive and honest, and leaves one a little sad that Welles' flame burned out when it did.

Old movies

"Pin-Up Girl." Before there were sex symbols, there were pin-up girls, and Betty Grable was the first. Her iconic 1943 photo showing off the actress's "million-dollar legs" was one of the most reproduced images of the World War II era. This 1944 film, released by MGM and Fox Cinema Archives, is just another in a very long line of disposable Grable pictures. There were 62 from 1929 to 1955, and only two – "Mother Wore Tights" and "How to Marry a Millionaire" – are much remembered today. But "Pin-Up Girl" is a quintessential Grable entertainment, with a loopy plot, great dancing numbers, and nice supporting work from the likes of Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye.

Television

"Hello Ladies: The Complete Series & The Movie." If you're one of those persons for whom the deliberate awkwardness of "The Office" eventually became too much to take on a weekly basis, then this HBO sitcom is probably not for you. This DVD box set, which includes all eight episodes of the British show as well as the film that followed it, features Stephen Merchant as the nerdiest of nerds trying to make it in the dating arena, with unfortunate results. The series has its moments, and becomes easier to watch over time, but it's hardly can't-miss entertainment. And if buffoons bumbling their way through encounters with the ladies are your thing, then you already know no one can hold a candle to early Jerry Lewis.

"Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces." The good folks at Warner Bros. have been more than thorough at putting everything featuring Bugs Bunny and company out on home video over the years. All the cartoons and much more, created during the middle decades of the 20th century, are out there, and they're all fascinating to greater or lesser degrees. Now Warner has resorted to repackaging the goods, but when the quality is this high all marketing shenanigans can be forgiven. This small package of 18 cartoons features classics such as "What's Opera, Doc?," "Rabbit of Seville," "Rhapsody in Rivets" and much more. I'm not familiar with "Pizzicato Pussycat," but I'm sure it's something to see.

Most of the detective TV series that were so popular during the 1970s don't stand up at all well today, even as exercises in nostalgia. "The Rockford Files: The Complete Collection," featuring all 120 episodes of the show on DVD, as well as eight TV movies, offers up what may be an exception to that rule, thanks to the charm of its star, James Garner. … Nostalgia for the 1990s may be the only reason to snap up "The Nanny Diaries: The Complete Series." Fran Drescher starred as the title character in this sitcom, sporting what has to be one of the most annoying accents in the history of language. All 146 episodes, which originally aired in 1993-99, are here, on DVD.

Top 10

Here are this week's most popular DVD/Blu-ray rentals as compiled by Rotten Tomatoes – "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," "Interstellar," "American Sniper," "Into the Woods," "The Imitation Game," "Taken 3," "Seventh Son," "Fifty Shades of Grey," "Selma" and "Wild."

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