This is it. If you are a fan of great movies, especially if they are Academy Awards® winners, then “Columbia Pictures: The Best Picture Collection” is for you. I am sure that you have seen many film collections over the years. I am also sure that you probably have purchased many of the movies included in this collection separately, many of them loaded with special features.  But I can sincerely say that this is the best collection Columbia Studios ever produced.

The luxurious “book” or slipcase — for a lack of better words –, and the 14 discs inside, include Best Picture Oscar winners from 1934 to 1982. They are: “It Happened One Night” (1934), “You Can’t Take It with You” (1938), “All the King’s Men” (1949), “From Here to Eternity” (1953), “On the Waterfront” (1954), “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957), “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “A Man for All Seasons” (1966), “Oliver!” (1968), “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), and “Gandhi” (1982). Represented here is the work of such directors as Frank Capra, David Lean, and Richard Attenborough.

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The Three Stooges – Larry, Curly and Moe — are truly part of Americana — comedy icons, if you will.  Despite being an extremely physical, slapstick, and at times silly act, there was an innocence to them that invariably attracts the most skeptical.  It is no surprise that they have developed a huge fan base that gains new converts as time goes by.  Needless to say, these legions of fans will be delighted once again with the release of the awesome “The Three Stooges Collection: Volume Two 1937-1939.” 

Even tough there have been many Stooges DVDs and VHS shows sold on the market for years – some people claiming to own the whole collection –, Sony’s “The Three Stooges Collection” series is the real thing.  This collection is presented with the highest possible quality. According to Sony, this material is “chronologically organized by their original release date and painstakingly restored from the original negatives for the very best picture and audio quality.”   In other words, this is the best Three Stooges that you can get for your money.

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There are names that will live forever in the history of cinema. The Hollywood star-making machine never stops, and very few survive the test of time. One of the lucky ones, and rightly so, is, without a doubt, Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known to the world as Bette Davis. She was nominated 10 times for Best Actress Oscar and won twice. She was placed second on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest female stars of all time, being second to Katherine Hepburn, who was nominated to twelve Oscars and won four. So it is just fair that Warner Brothers, her home for almost two decades, released the fabulous and remarkable “Bette Davis Collection: Volume Three.” 

As a reminder, the “Bette Davis Collection: [Volume One]” served to introduce us to some of the early work of the actress with such films as “The Star,” “Mr. Skeffington,” “Dark Victory,” “Now, Voyager,” and “The Letter.” Volume Two features some of her more recognized films, such as “Whatever Happened with Baby Jane,” which she co-starred with another legend of cinema history — Joan Crawford –, done when both actresses were past their glorious years; and “Jezebel,” for which she won her second Oscar. Other films included in this collection are “The Man who came to Dinner,” “Marked Woman,” “Old Acquaintance,” and “Stardust: The Bette Davis Story,” a documentary about the actress’ life.

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“The Dragon Painter” is another treasure from the silent films era that has been fortunate to have been rescued from oblivion. The movie was released in 1919 by the Haworth Studios, which was based in Hollywood. Haworth did a total of 22 films, “The Dragon Painter” being number nine. The studios were created by Japanese actor / director Sessue Hayakawa, and it was his interest that his films someway change the opinion or stereotypes that the people in the United States had about the Japanese culture. His approach was very subtle and poetic, and it is greatly represented in the fascinating “The Dragon Painter.”

It all begins in the Hamake Mountains, in Japan, where we find Tatsu (Sessue Hamakaya), a local painter “who seeks an enchanted princess, whom the spirits took from him.” Tatsu paints inspired by his missing love, claiming that the spirits changed his fiancée into a dragon. The world doesn’t know about his talents – that is, until Uchida (Toyo Fujita), a land surveyor, discovers him. In the meantime, Kano Indara (Edward Peil, Sr.), a renowned painter who is the descendant of a respected family of painters, is preoccupied because he doesn’t have an inheritor to continue his work. For his good fortune, Uchida brings Tatsu to him. Indara is fascinated by his work and realizes that he is the adequate person to follow his family’s tradition. However, Tatsu is not all convinced that he will find his fiancée in that environment. Indara, fearful that he will loose Tatsu, convinces his daughter, Ume-Ko (Tsuru Aoki), to impersonate Tatsu’s lost love. Tatsu falls into the trap, but the long-term results of this action will be dramatic.

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“Bonnie and Clyde” is another welcomed modern cinema classic that makes its way into a special edition DVD.  Smartly directed by Arthur Penn, this film is said to have changed the way movies were made before, influencing and paving the way to a young generation of filmmakers that came afterward, with films like “The Godfather,” “Taxi Driver” and “The Wild Bunch.”  Because of its importance, it was placed on the 27^th position of the American Film Institute Greatest Hundred movies, and it was also selected to be archived in the National Film Registry.

“Bonnie and Clyde” was filmed in a straightforward way. It begins when Bonnie Parker (a very sexy Faye Dunaway) meets Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty). She is of the adventurous kind, and he is a bank robber; they bond immediately. From then on they are shown in their early, comical attempts of robbing grocery stores and how they mature and evolve as professional thieves, developing the famous, but simple, calling card ” “We rob banks.” . Along the way, they recruit C.W Moss (Michael J. Pollard) as their accomplice, and they meet Clyde’s brother, Buck (Gene Hackman), and his wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons), who also join the band in their bank-robbing spree. Their activities will not go unnoticed, and they become media celebrities, which will do them some good, but will also eventually bring them down.

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