The following list of highly subjective recent, current and soon-to-be-released DVDs is an attempt to get you into the holiday spirit by selecting something for everyone on your Christmas shopping list. If like myself you are an avid DVD collector, feel free to quickly point out to your significant gift giver that you are the rare person that falls into EVERY category listed below and are, therefore, eligible to receive everything listed. On the first day of Christmas my true love had better give to me the first thing on this list and then he had better keep going for the next 12 days if he knows what's good for him. Bah, humbug!
For your action hero: What could be more super than the 14-disc Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition which includes special editions of all four of the Christopher Reeve entries in the series ( including the much anticipated director's cut of Superman II by Richard Donner ) plus the recent Superman Returns? Well, I suppose a little face time with Brandon Routh might qualify ….
For your boxed-set baby: For even more time on the couch this winter, take your pick of these boxed sets: a four-disc extended version of The Chronicles of Narnia, the whopping 25-disc Six Feet Under: the Complete Series Gift Set, the much more demure but highly anticipated two-disc Book of Daniel: The Complete Series with the gay-themed episodes of the quickly canceled show or ( my favorite ) the eight-disc Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season.
For your classic cinema lover: More boxed sets with classic film heartthrobs have recently arrived from Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Gary Cooper—and they're all worth checking out. Also worth seeing is the newly released Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton boxed set that includes new material on the two-disc special edition of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
For the fashion plate: The Devil Wears Prada arrives on Dec. 12 and the disc has featurettes, 15 deleted scenes and another mesmerizing Meryl Streep performance.
For the TV Junkie: There are tons of stuff to choose from here but closeted gay actor Raymond Burr's Perry Mason Season 1, Volume 2; a second season from gay friendly Marlo Thomas' 60s pop tart That Girl ( that includes the Ethel Merman episode! ) ; expert wisecrackers Bea Arthur, Betty White, Estelle Getty, and Rue McClanahan a/k/a the Golden Girls back with season six; and the double guilty pleasures of the first seasons of both Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 ( available separately or as a set ) are in continuous rotation at the moment.
For the show-tune queen: I love the outrageous gay Spanish indie musical 20 Centimeters, with its transsexual star belting out pop-flavored samba; the 12-disc Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection with special editions of all their movie hits in one box ( including The Sound of Music ) ; and my hotly anticipated copy of Streisand's A Star Is Born, which is finally out on DVD and has extras.
For the comedy queen: There's Talledega Nights, Will Ferrell's racing-car comedy with the hilarious gay French nemesis played by Sacha 'Borat' Baron Cohen.
For the boys: Johnny Depp is the sexually ambiguous Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Avast there, mateys!
For the socially conscious: Al Gore's prescient An Inconvenient Truth is scary as hell, Who Killed the Electric Car? is maddening and Jesus Camp is an eye-opening documentary that achieves both at once.
For the lover of queer cinema: The supremely silly Another Gay Movie, the earnest and politically charged Poster Boy, the historical drama A Love To Hide and the sexy and totally twisted Spanish movie Two Drifters are at the top of my list.
For the ladies: A Prairie Home Companion, director Robert Altman's finale, features another wonderful performance from Lily Tomlin, while the sensual drama Loving Annabelle, more of The L Word ( the complete third season ) and the excellent TV drama Serving in Silence oughta holda ya.
For those into guilty pleasures: The Wicker Man, the Nicolas Cage-Ellen Burstyn 'thriller,' with its heavy lesbian subtext, is the camp classic of the year and arrives on the 19th—just in time for year end screening parties. I can't wait!
