NOEL MURRAY
7 Men From Now (Paramount)
The taut, existential Westerns that Budd Boetticher made with Randolph Scott remain conspicuously absent from DVD, but Paramount has made a good start at reintroducing Boetticher to cineastes with a stellar edition of this tough, fleet 1956 offering. Scott plays an ex-sheriff looking to avenge his murdered wife and track down the spoils of a Wells Fargo robbery. Screenwriter Burt Kennedy parcels out Scott's story—most grippingly in a long, steely monologue delivered by outlaw Lee Marvin—and Scott builds a character so driven that he's become jittery and anxious, responding to his fleeting whims and impulses. The movie zips along to a climactic gunfight in an empty, boxy canyon, but most of its action is internal, defining manhood by the way heroes sometimes succeed through inaction. The DVD adds a fine commentary track and an extensive documentary appreciation of Boetticher, which should be enough to whet movie buffs' appetites for more by the man who's arguably the Western genre's most underappreciated auteur.
Runner-up: The Spirit Of The Beehive (Criterion)
For an essential corollary to Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming Pan's Labyrinth, watch his favorite movie, Víctor Erice's The Spirit Of The Beehive, which tells another allusive story about childhood, fantasy, and the Spanish Civil War. The Criterion DVD doesn't initially seem to have many extras, but a set of short interviews actually provides an essential entry point for understanding a tricky, beautiful film about what monsters are, and what death means.
KEITH PHIPPS
John Wayne/John Ford Film Collection (Warner Bros.)
The collaborations between director John Ford and frequent leading man John Wayne have been long underserved by DVD, appearing in fairly unsatisfying packages, if at all. This eight-film box set corrects that problem in a big way. The landmark Westerns Stagecoach and The Searchers bookend the set, and there's a bittersweet story of dimmed optimism between the two, as played out in the cavalry Westerns She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache, and the spiritual-redemption parable 3 Godfathers. Loaded with extras—from commentaries to a reprint of a '50s comic-book adaptation of The Searchers—the set also shines a light on lesser-known efforts like The Long Voyage Home and They Were Expendable, a clear-eyed film about warfare made in the midst of World War II. Rights issues kept crucial films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Rio Grande out of the mix, but this is as essential as they get.
Runner-up: Petulia (Warner Bros.)
It's simultaneously heartening and a little troubling that a decade after DVDs came into existence, masterpieces like Richard Lester's Petulia are still waiting to be released. At least Petulia itself finally saw the light of day this year. A time-capsule shot in San Francisco at the height of the counterculture, it offers a melancholy snapshot of how freedom can get snatched away even amid a revolution. George C. Scott and Julie Christie make an unlikely pair, but their heartbreaking kook-and-square chemistry syncs perfectly with Lester's elliptical, affecting storytelling.
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