<I>F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay, Kenneth McMillan. Directed by Milos Forman. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0. Two discs. 180 minutes. 1984. Warner Home Video 37464. R. $26.99.</I>
"This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl," Peter Parker tells us at the beginning of Spider-Man-not what you'd expect to hear from a superhero. But, as delighted audiences soon discovered, Spider-Man doesn't play by the rules.
The Ratings: Movie: 4.5 stars out of 5 DVD: 4.5 stars out of 5
Accept it. If you buy this set, containing a film that is three hours long and a whole separate disc of extras, you will be compelled to get one of the four-disc extended editions.
What do pastel-colored eggs have to do with Easter? And what exactly do Easter eggs have to do with DVDs? To answer the first question: I have no idea. Maybe it's just another greeting-card industry conspiracy.
Given that Spider-Man has been spinning his webs in comic books for almost 40 years, it's about time the wall-crawler made the leap to the big screen. Besides starring in his own flick this spring, Spidey has his sticky fingers into - appropriately enough - the World Wide Web.
No wonder people have fallen in love with DVD extras. Increasingly, releases have a little something for everybody, going beyond the usual deleted scenes, commentary tracks, and "behind the scenes" documentaries to include games, Web links, and elaborate featurettes on things like costume design and special effects.
"The one that started it all" - that's how Disney Studios describes its first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film that proved the naysayers wrong back in 1937 by drawing millions of people into theaters to watch an 83-minute cartoon.
There's Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, watching helplessly as his trusty lightsaber flies out of his hand and over his shoulder. On Corus cant, we see two pieces of toast pop out of the dual seating pods of an air taxi.
It's hardly the kind of story that drives a classic Steven Spielberg adventure: boy meets spaceship, boy struggles to make a second date, boy lives happily ever after in space. No sharks, no dinosaurs, no Nazis to subdue. But Close Encounters of the Third Kind has endured thanks to its irresistible portrayal of human-alien contact and the sheer spectacle of its special effects.
More Ben-Hur than Spartacus, director Ridley Scott's Gladiator is painted with broad strokes of sentimentality, gory violence, and New Age spirituality.