Bottle Rocket
Wes Anderson’s debut feature gets a beautiful restoration and the full Criterion Collection treatment. The two-disc set is packed with features, including about 30 minutes of deleted scenes and the Bottle Rocket short Anderson and Owen Wilson put together after coming up with the idea for the movie. The best feature is the making-of featurette. These candid interviews offer tremendous insight into the filming process rather than the typical, strung-together slew of DVD interviews. The set also includes a booklet styled after Dignan’s (Wilson’s character) notebook, including his multi-year plan and stories about Anderson and the movie.
Bam Margera Presents: Where the #$&% is Santa?
Margera and his crew of mischief-makers are back for a direct-to-DVD holiday adventure. Bam needs to get his wife Missy the perfect present; what better to surprise her than by bringing back Santa Claus himself? The crew travels to Finland to find Santa, pulling pranks on each other along the way. Metal band HIM makes an appearance, as well as The Dudesons and Andy McCoy of Hanoi Rocks. The DVD doesn’t have a ton of extra features, but there’s roughly 30 minutes of deleted scenes to extend the merriment.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
When the remake of this 1951 sci-fi classic drops Dec. 12, it will have big shoes to fill. The original film has been remastered for this two-disc set and packed to the gills with special features. Highlights include a Fox Movietone newsreel showcasing a sci-fi organization, a featurette exploring science fiction as a metaphor and a fascinating, brief history of flying saucers. It looks at historical evidence of UFOs and alien landings in the United States, dating back to an 1897 newspaper article from Texas. There’s also an explanation and demonstration of the theremin, the instrument responsible for the spooky theme of the film.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
The long-awaited and critically derided addition to the X-Files canon arrives as either a single disc or a three-disc set. The set features both the theatrical version of the film and an extended edition with deleted scenes edited back into the film. The second disc features a three-part documentary about the making of the film, Trust No One: Can the X-Files Remain a Secret? It describes the lengths the production team took to keep the plot details from leaking out and the filmmaking process, which reunited many crew members from the show’s original shoots.
