Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens Thursday to get a jump on the Memorial Day weekend and likely will set a box office record. How could it miss? Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are revisiting their beloved action figure, and Harrison Ford is still fit to play the lead, after a 19-year gap between The Last Crusade and Skull.
Capitalizing on a renewed Indy mania, the studio is releasing Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection (Paramount; $59.98). The collection gathers the three original films -- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984) and Last Crusade (1989) -- and the box boasts that these are ``first time available -- special editions.''
Except the same restored prints came out in 2003 in a four-disc boxed set, The Complete DVD Movie Collection. The fourth disc had three hours of supplemental material that only the most obsessive would want to watch more than once -- if that. And that box had a fifth bonus disc attached to the outside packaging with an Indiana Jones ''classic featurette.'' That set is still available on Amazon for $10 less than this new cash grab. The Adventure package boasts new introductions from Spielberg and Lucas and contains other promotional material. The one improvement? The packaging is slimmer. Each disc is held in a thin plastic case and will take up less space on your shelves.
MARVEL HEROES
Here's another repackaging -- probably designed to piggy back on Iron Man's boffo box office. Marvel Heroes (20th Century Fox; $69.98) is an eight-disc boxed set gathering previously released DVDs of the three X-Men movies, the two Fantastic Four films, Daredevil, Elektra and a special features Marvel Collectibles disc, plus two X-Men comics, a Silver Surfer comic and art. If you must have these films, this is a handy way to own them. But if you bought them individually, feel free to pass.
`SINATRA'
Wednesday marked 10 years since Frank Sinatra died so, naturally, an influx of product hits the shelves this week.
Among the more interesting relics is the first release on DVD of the 1992 CBS miniseries, Sinatra (Warner Home Video; $19.98) on a two-disc set with no extras.
Daughter Tina Sinatra is the executive producer of the drama, based on a biography she had written about her father. The story begins in 1925, Sinatra's 10, and already a scrapper interested in music and singing.
Philip Casnoff does a good job portraying Sinatra from his 20s through his midlife return to the Madison Square Garden stage in October 1974 after a brief retirement. He's especially believable as the 1940s Sinatra who became the first major teen idol, pre-Elvis and pre-Beatles. The supporting cast, including Olympia Dukakis as Sinatra's pushy mom Dolly, Gina Gershon as long-suffering wife Nancy and Marcia Gay Harden as second wife Ava Gardner, excel. The soundtrack uses original Sinatra tracks spanning the Columbia through Reprise eras.
As storytelling, Sinatra leaves out some incidents. The kidnapping of Frank Jr. isn't mentioned; Sinatra's move from Capitol to his own Reprise Records isn't addressed and the movie role he was most proud of, a heroin addict in The Man with the Golden Arm, is skipped. Still, the miniseries gives a satisfying portrait of the icon so extra supplements are not especially missed.
