M*A*S*H

I have nothing against the TV series, but FX will probably be playing back-to-back episodes on the last week of December. Watch the Robert Altman film instead. It's funnier, darker, and deeper.

The two-disc widescreen DVD set is everything a collector's edition ought to be. It looks and sounds better than I remember the feature film being back in 1970, and it has a fabulous commentary track by Altman, as well as a truly fascinating documentary on the trials and tribulations of making the film (it is most emphatically not a "making of").

M*A*S*H is a fascinating film. It's a war movie in which only two shots are fired -- and they're blanks that start the two halves of a football game. It's set in the Korean War, but no mention of locale is ever made (so it was the perfect metaphor for the Southeast Asian conflict that was going on when it was made). Like Catch 22, it posits that the only way to stay sane in mad circumstances is to go mad.

It's also filled with fabulous performances by a young cast that was just embarking on distinguished careers: Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Robert Duvall, and Sally Kellerman.

It's not polite or cuddly or safe, but it remains hilarious and -- unfortunately -- timely.

The Stunt Man

Now here's a cult film that lives up to the hype! It was released in 1980 and immediately disappeared from theaters -- less than six weeks after its opening. Only days after having read the opening-day reviews, I caught it in a second-run theater in New York, alone with 30 other film buffs in a 1500-seat movie palace.

This THX Certified remastering looks and sounds better now than the original print I saw in its year of release. The Stunt Man is full of tricks and turns; you're never sure whether what you're seeing is really happening or if it’s part of the movie within a movie that onscreen director Peter O'Toole is making. As you'd expect from a film called The Stunt Man, the action scenes are amazing -- between gasps of awe and gales of laughter, you might have a hard time drawing a breath.

And the best part is, this is one almost nobody has already seen.

Brazil

Another exemplary transfer and packed with worthwhile extras, but it's the crazed dystopian imagination of Terry Gilliam that makes this story so compelling.

Set in a time that is equal parts Victorian and futuristic, Brazil tells the tale of a mild-mannered government clerk (Jonathan Pryce) who becomes embroiled in a massive bureaucratic error when a smooched bug on a form leads the government's security agency to classify him as a terrorist. The resulting farrago is all too plausible -- in a savagely sarcastic way.

But if you want to see a real horror story involving bureaucrats run wild, check out "The Battle of Brazil," which recounts the controversies surrounding the release of the film and its network debut on TV, where its ending was changed to make it more upbeat.

That ought to make your domestic battles look tame.

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

The blackest comedy of them all: fast paced, wickedly funny, and all too plausible. It's Peter Sellers' finest moment as Group Captain (G/C) Lionel Mandrake, US President Merkin Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove -- and very probably one of George C. Scott's as well (as General "Buck" Turgidson).

Much of the dialogue has entered the language -- we routinely speak of "precious bodily fluids" and "commie preverts" today without even thinking about where these phrases come from. Forty years after its release, the film still comes across as fresh and audacious -- even in B&W, which seems almost antediluvian these days. Don't let the lack of color throw you -- this is the movie that took the "black" in black and white extremely seriously.

Perhaps you should hang onto this one until January 1 -- it's the perfect film to kick off a Presidential election year.