Sci-fi and naval-film fans will want to climb aboard the USS Nimitz for the 1980 time-travel thriller The Final Countdown, available in a shipshape new double-disc edition from Blue Underground ($29.99, blue-underground.com). It’s our…
DVD pick of the week
Kirk Douglas is at the helm when the aircraft carrier, on routine maneuvers off the Hawaiian coast, passes through a freak electrical storm that transports the nuclear-powered ship back to Dec. 6, 1941.
It takes some time for the assembled characters, including James Farentino and Ron O’Neal as Kirk’s fellow officers, and Martin Sheen as a Defense Department expert, to assimilate the fact that they’re faced with an unparalleled dilemma: foil the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and irrevocably alter history, or hang back and helplessly observe the carnage.
Further complicating the situation are a U.S. senator (Charles Durning) and his assistant (Katharine Ross), rescued after Japanese Zeroes sink their nearby yacht.
Unlike many such time-twisted adventures, “The Final Countdown” adopts its own satisfying logic, one put across by an assured cast and solid scripting by four credited writers. Add exciting aerial action, shipboard frictions, romance and an unrelentingly earnest tone and you have a grand, old-school, “Twilight Zone”-style thriller.
Blue Underground’s set comes complete with audio commentary by director of photography Victor J. Kemper, interviews with actual F-14 Jolly Roger fighter squadron pilots, theatrical trailers and more.
Unlikely associate producer (and minor cast member) Lloyd Kaufman (later of the irreverent “Toxic Avenger” series fame) supplies the film’s fascinating backstory in another bonus interview, in which he basically credits a determined Kirk Douglas with getting the oft-stalled project out of port and into the celluloid seas.
Collector’s corner
In other vintage video news, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment releases a welcome “Studio Classics” DVD of John Ford’s unforgettable 1940 John Steinbeck adaptation The Grapes of Wrath ($19.98). In addition to the digitally restored, multi-Oscar-nominated film itself, starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine, Fox’s edition includes audio commentary by cinema scholar Joseph McBride and Steinbeck expert Susan Shillinglaw, a “Biography” episode focusing on “Grapes” producer Darryl F. Zanuck, a 1934 “Movietone News” short, outtakes and more.
MGM Home Entertainment contributes a pair of family-friendly features on DVD this week: Mickey Rooney, Susan George and Isabel Lorca go the equine route in Lightning, the White Stallion, while Miles O’Keefe joins Sean Connery, Peter Cushing and Trevor Howard in the 1984 Arthurian adventure Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Keyed to the upcoming remake of the same name, the label also offers the digital debut of John Wayne’s 1960 historical epic The Alamo, co-starring Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and Richard Boone, complete with the documentary “John Wayne’s ’The Alamo.’” The discs are tagged at $14.95 each.
The ’A’ list
This week, the remake-in-name-only Cheaper by the Dozen (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, $29.98), starring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, arrives in an extras-laden edition with audio commentaries, featurettes and more.
In fantasy-film developments, The Wachowski brothers conclude their influential “Matrix” sci-fi trilogy with Matrix Revolutions, flying into vidstores this week in a bonus-packed double-disc edition ($29.95) via Warner Home Video.
Next week, look for John Sayles’ latest, Casa de los Babys (MGM Home Entertainment, $29.98), featuring a femme ensemble cast led by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daryl Hannah, Marcia Gay Harden and Mary Steenburgen.
Tele-video
In TV developments, boomer-age sagebrush buffs will welcome MPI Home Video’s new The Cisco Kid Collection 1 ($49.98), a four-disc assemblage of some 20 half-hour color episodes from the early ’50s TV series, starring Duncan Renaldo as O. Henry’s fabled “Robin Hood of the Old West” and Leo Carillo as his sidekick Pancho.
Elsewhere, Paramount Home Entertainment presents the five-disc Resurrection Blvd.: The Complete First Season ($49.99), collecting all 20 premiere season episodes of Showtime’s Latino-flavored, boxing-themed Santiago family saga.
Video verite
Two highly recommended documentaries also surface in extras-enriched DVD editions: Barry Blaustein’s surprisingly intimate inside-wrestling probe Beyond the Mat: Special Ringside Edition (Universal, $19.98) and the “American Splendor” (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini) team’s Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (Docurama, $24.95), an affectionate look at the famous Hollywood eatery’s rise and fall.
Phan mail
Dear Phantom: Any chance of finding the 1960s Vincent Price horror film The Last Man on Earth on DVD?
— Daniel Slater, via e-mail
Several labels currently offer that 1964 “Living Dead” precursor, though the Critic’s Choice widescreen edition ($9.99, ccvideo.com) boasts the best quality.
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