‘Family Stone’ comes together on DVD

REVIEWS

By David Germain

updated 2:41 p.m. ET May 1, 2006

“The Family Stone”
A big, sloppy ensemble gathers for a big, sloppy family Christmas in this feel-good comedy that mixes bouncy holiday hijinks with a dramatic shade or two. In her first major role since “Sex and the City,” Sarah Jessica Parker leads the cast as an uptight businesswoman whose fiance’s laid-back kinfolk take an immediate dislike to her when they meet over the holidays. The cast includes Diane Keaton, Claire Danes, Craig T. Nelson and Luke Wilson. The DVD has six deleted scenes, a question-and-answer session with the cast, a making-of featurette and commentary with Parker and Dermot Mulroney, who plays her fiance. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha teams with some of his filmmaking collaborators for separate commentary. DVD, $29.98. (20th Century Fox) Read the review

“Last Holiday”

Stephen Vaughan / Paramount Pict

Queen Latifah tones down her sass and brass to play a meek cookware saleswoman who learns she has three weeks to live in this comic update of a 1950 Alec Guinness movie. Co-starring with LL Cool J and Gerard Depardieu, Latifah makes a thin flick tolerable, her character giving herself a new look and attitude and setting out on an adventurous final fling in Europe, where she lives it up for the first time in her life. Heavy on food and cooking themes, “Last Holiday” comes to DVD with a couple of recipes from the movie. The disc also has two deleted scenes and three behind-the-scenes segments. DVD, $29.99. (Paramount) Read the review

“Hoodwinked”

The Weinstein Company

After departing Miramax, the Disney-owned film banner they founded and built into a powerhouse for independent movies and Academy Awards contenders, Harvey and Bob Weinstein got into Disney’s traditional business with this animated flick. The brothers’ new Weinstein Co. scored a modest cartoon success with this irreverent retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, featuring the voices of Glenn Close and Anne Hathaway. Along with five deleted and extended scenes, the DVD includes a music video, a making-of featurette and commentary with director Cory Edwards and the screenwriters. DVD, $29.95. (Genius) Read the review

“Tennessee Williams Film Collection”
The playwright’s best-known film works are packaged in an eight-disc boxed set, led by new DVD editions of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” The two-disc “Streetcar” release replaces a bare-bones previous DVD, the new set featuring Marlon Brando’s screen test for a film in the late 1940s that was never made, believed to be the first time the actor worked in front of the camera. Co-star Karl Malden offers commentary, and the set has a documentary on director Elia Kazan and five other behind-the-scenes segments. The boxed set has single-disc releases of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and four films making their DVD debuts: “Night of the Iguana,” “Sweet Bird of Youth,” “Baby Doll” and “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.” Each film has a mix of commentary and featurettes, and the boxed set includes the 1973 documentary “Tennessee Williams’ South.” DVD boxed set, $68.92; “Streetcar” two-disc set, $26.99; single DVDs, $19.97 each. (Warner Bros.)

“Kenny Rogers: Legend of the Gambler”
Country crooner Rogers knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. The singer turned his hit single into a TV movie and a series of sequels in which he stars as a gambler out to do a few good deeds between hands of poker in the Old West. A three-disc set includes 1980’s “The Gambler,” in which Rogers picks up Bruce Boxleitner as a sidekick, and the first two sequels, “The Gambler: The Adventure Continues,” co-starring Linda Evans, and “The Gambler: The Legend Continues,” featuring Linda Gray. For those with an itch to ante up, the set is packaged with a set of Kenny Rogers playing cards. DVD set, $39.98. (Time Life)

“The Lucy and Desi Collection”
Before they were America’s favorite TV couple on “I Love Lucy,” Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were big-screen partners. They met on the set of 1940’s Broadway musical adaptation “Too Many Girls” and were married soon after, teaming again in the 1950s, after “I Love Lucy” had made them small-screen sensations, for the honeymoon road-trip flick “The Long, Long Trailer” and the outdoors comedy “Forever Darling.” All three movies are included in a three-disc set, accompanied by vintage short films and cartoons. “The Long, Long Trailer” and “Forever Darling” also can be bought separately, while “Too Many Girls” is available only in the boxed set. DVD set, $29.92; single DVDs, $14.97 each. (Warner Bros.)

Along with Lucy and Desi’s movies, the sixth and final season of “I Love Lucy” debuts on DVD in a four-disc set with all 27 episodes, featuring such guests as Bob Hope and Orson Welles. The set features deleted scenes, bloopers, commentary with co-stars and five episodes of Lucille Ball’s radio show “My Favorite Husband.” DVD set, $38.99. (Paramount)

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