Best of 2006
10 Best Movie Box Sets of 2006

(and before and after)
By Heather Johnson

Some of the last movies you would want to revisit seem to have made their way on to a DVD Box Set. The Karate Kid series, available as a four-film collection, and the "World Destruction" box with Independence Day and Volcano, comes to mind. But interspersed with this fare exists a wealth of worthy collections ranging from contemporary blockbusters to silent classics. Below, I bring you my own compilation of favorite DVD boxes released in 2006 (okay, some of them were released earlier, and one comes out next month, but I watched them in 2006):

The Spike Lee Joint Collection. With Lee having a comeback year of sorts in 2006 (with Inside Man and When the Levees Broke), this set, originally issued in 1991, is a bargain. Contains the excellent quintet of Clockers, Do the Right Thing (not the Criterion version, alas), Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, and Crooklyn, on three discs, all for around $20.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Box Set Collection Dig musicals? This box contains six of the most hummable songbooks ever: The King and I, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Carousel, and State Fair.



Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection, offers five stunning films that portray her winning collaboration with director Josef von Sternberg. Disappointingly free of any extra frills, the reasonably priced set is still a bargain because of the rarity and importance of the films themselves. The highlight is Blonde Venus; the lowlight probably Morocco. Also includes The Devil is a Woman; The Flame of New Orleans; and Golden Earrings.

The Ingmar Bergman Collection includes digitally restored versions of Persona, Shame, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, and The Serpent's Egg, as well as poster stills, featurettes on each film, interviews with star Liv Ullmann, and original trailers. A bonus disc offers interviews with Bergman himself, photos galleries, and articles on Bergman's works.

Claude Chabrol's Tales of Deceit box offers five films directed by Chabrol, the auteur some call the "French Alfred Hitchcock": Cop Au Vin, Inspecteur Lavardin, Betty, L'Enfer, and The Color of Lies. A very worthy addition to any suspense movie fan's library.

The Busby Berkeley Collection offers five remastered Warner Bros. classics from one of the all-time greatest motion picture choreographers. The six-disc set includes 1930s dazzlers such as 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933 (featuring Ginger Rogers' "We're In the Money"), Footlight Parade, Dames (with the song "I Only Have Eyes For You"), and Gold Diggers of 1935, as well as an exclusive Busby Berkeley disc with 20 musical numbers from nine of his films. The set also includes a stunning amount of vintage featurettes, cartoons, trailers, and film notes.

The Preston Sturges Collection: This set comprises the screwball comedy auteur's best work, including several previously unreleased near-classics like the raw but fascinating The Great McGinty and the hilarious Hail the Conquering Hero, as well as an interesting misfire (The Great Moment) and several masterpieces. A must.

The Val Lewton Horror Collection. Val Lewton produced some of the most creative B-movies in history during four-year stint at RKO in the early to mid 1940s. The Val Lewton box includes Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, The Seventh Victim, the sort-of sequel The Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam, The Leopard Man, The Ghost Ship, and Shadows in the Dark, all restored and accompanied by audio commentary, documentaries on three of the nine films, and another doc on Lewton himself.

The Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection also comes with lots of extra goods, aside from such films as Psycho, Rear Window, The Birds, the underrated Shadow of a Doubt, and Rope, among quite a few worthy others. Peruse the 36-page booklet of poster art and stills, as well as bonus documentaries, commentaries and other bonus material, all packaged in a velvet box.




Viva Pedro: Pedro Almodovar Collection (Coming in January): After Sony Classics re-released these for a brief theatrical run in selected theaters, they come to DVD, at last. Features an assortment of the singular Spanish visionary's work, including his vastly underrated Matador and the previously out of print The Flower of My Secret, as well as consistent favorites All About My Mother and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The special features on the bonus disc include three featurettes: "Deconstructing Pedro," "Experiencing Almodovar," and "Viva Pedro." Viva, indeed!


Heather Johnson is a San Francisco-based journalist and author of "If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour Through San Francisco Recording Studios." Click here [www.out-word-bound.com] for info. She also wrote an article for GreenCine on movie box sets, and interviewed the director of the Gram Parsons documentary, Fallen Angel.