When the SITH hit the fans last May, they reacted in a predictable manner. I remember standing on a street corner waiting for a bus and overhearing two couples run into each other from opposite directions. One couple, the geekier of the two, had just come from SITH. How was it?, he was asked. "A piece of shit," he replied, knowingly, as if he'd won a bet.

I have to confess that I am utterly baffled by that response. That the film still went on to make almost 900 million dollars worldwide despite that all-too-common attitude is testimony that either the homegrown fans will see anything including films they know they won't like or that the rest of the world's film and sci-fi buffs are less likely to become victims of mass hysteria. As I made clear in my original review, SITH is a great movie, one of the best movies of the year, and surely the best independent film of the year.

STAR WARS III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (Fox, 20005, two discs, $29.98, Tuesday, November 1, 2005) also appears in defiance of the skeptical, opinionated fan's ire. This two-disc set completes the STAR WARS series on DVD. It comes in a presentation level widescreen transfer (2.35:1, enhanced), with English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, and French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, plus English subtitles.

It's the audio commentary track where you would expect George Lucas to sit back and let himself slip into a reflective mode. Instead he slips into a coma, talking "yak speak" about how great the cast is, and sounding either bored or emotionally repressed. Maybe that's just the way he talks, I don't know. But instead of having edited snippets of George talking woven into an overall techie track (with producer Rick McCallum, animation director Rob Coleman and visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Roger Guyett) is disappointing. Lucas should have had a track all to himself in which to explore his intentions behind the trilogy, now that it's done. It's nice to hear him admit that the politics of the first and second film are hard to follow, which he does by asserting that their incomprehensibility was intentional, in order to mirror how we all are usually baffled by the politics around us, but I could have used a lot more of that. For example, it's fascinating to hear, as the track is winding down near the credits, Lucas go on to say that what drove him to do the three prequel films was the fact that Darth Vader had so grown to represent evil that Lucas was compelled to make the next three films as a corrective, to show that the whole six film cycle is really the "tragedy of Darth Vader." It's probably the most interesting bit of the yak track (it's also interesting to know that Lucas writes the script in longhand on legal yellow pads and that his reference materials include … a shelf of CLIFF'S NOTES).

Disc 2 is a treasure trove for those willing to admit that they actually liked the film. The main component here is "Within a Minute: The Making of EPISODE III" (1:18:26), a feature length making of that proposes to examine all that went into a 49 second sequence, the Mustafar duel. It's just a convenient conceit (the role of the accounting office was surely more important to the whole production rather than just this little scene), but it allows entry into the complexity of modern filmmaking.

Also on hand are "It's all for Real: The Stunts of EPISODE III," on fight choreographer Nick Gillard, and "The Chosen One," a quick survey of Anakin's life as he becomes Vader. It's an unusual making of feature because it is about the idea of the movie, not its implementation.

I was most interested to see the deleted scenes, all of which have optional intros by Lucas and McCallum. There are six of them ("Grevious Slaughters a Jedi: Escape from the General (Animatic)," "A Stirring in the Senate (Bail's Office)," "Seeds of Rebellion (Padme's Apartment)," "Confronting the Chancellor (Palpatine's Office)," "A Plot to Destroy the Jedi?," and "Exiled to Dagobah"), most of them having to do with the politics of the STAR WARS world, except for the first one, which consists of an alternate early sequence, whose components were later reshuffled into the finished film. It has a very funny Hope and Crosby moment.

The rest of the extras are: an Xbox game demo and trailer for STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II, a trailer for the game STAR WARS: EMPIRE AT WAR, a stills gallery of over 100 production photos, a poster gallery, 15 of the 18 Web documentaries from StarWars.com, two trailers, 15 TV spots, and the "A Hero Falls" music video.

Supposedly there are also two Easter eggs on disc one, but I don't care: either show me the fucking supplements without making it hard for me or leave them off the fucking disc. They are rarely worth it anyway.

If it is fall, then it must be time for the new boxed set of the previous season of ALIAS, so that while everyone is decrying the decline of the show airing now the previous season can be used as a cudgel to beat on the new one.

ALIAS is a show that is always "dying," betraying its heritage, disappointing its fans. From the newfangled credit sequence for the show, to the addition of Nadia (Mía Maestro) as Sydney's previously unknown half-sister, the show has sparked bitter debate, while its creator, J. J. Abrams, is off doing, first, LOST, the No. 1 show on TV, and then the third MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie, perhaps letting quality control slip. The credit sequence inspired ire because it dropped the spinning VERTIGO style design for a succession of images of Garner walking toward the camera in various wigs. The theme song too was slightly modified. It turns out that Garner herself, in the yak track to the first episode of season four, allowed as her she took found the credit sequence "a bit much," and some fans dislike it because it emphasizes Syd and Garner at the expense of the fine ensemble in the show. The fans view Maestro, who is extravagantly praised by her co-stars, as a stiff, a person as expressionless as, say, Charlie Sheen. Fans also groused about the fact that Season 4 tried for more stand alone episodes so that it would be easier to follow for the masses.

I would argue that ALIAS is better in ALIAS: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON (Disney, 2004-2005, six discs, $59.95, Tuesday, October 25, 2005) because Abrams was distracted by other jobs. Let's compare the success of LOST to the middling returns on ALIAS. Everything that people "hate" about ALIAS — glacial narrative development, impenetrable mysteries, perpetual resurrections, the endless inward spiral of its "secrets" — is also true of LOST, and even more so. With Abrams more or less out of the picture, the show did drift toward "normalcy" but also higher energy and more MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE type plots (which suggests why Abrams is the perfect man to helm the new movie; he might be able to bring back some of the heist plots and gimmickry of the old series), though fans still complained that the show lost some of its tension thanks to the fact that Syd was no longer leading double or triple lives.

ALIAS 4 shows a sense of humor about itself not necessarily evinced in earlier seasons. Garner says at one point early in the season, " Fake quitting seems to be all the rage." And another time, Syd says to her dad, " She's supposed to be dead," to which her dad replies, "So are a lot of people." Vaughan announces near the start of episode 1, "Last year sucked." It can be taken two ways.

The biggest disappointment was probably that the show collapsed back to square one. As the first hour unreeled, it was clear that the show had regressed back to the situation the series opened with: Sydney is working for a secret arm of the CIA, which has its headquarters in an underground facility that Maxwell Smart would have envied. Television Without Pity recappers call it the Apple Store. Instead of SD-6, Syd is now working for APO (authorized personal only), surrounded by the same people she started out with.

Still, I liked the show for the same reasons I did four years ago: Garner's costume changes, her emotional range, and the show's unpredictability. If I had a criticism of this season it would be that the writers draw from the same well too often. There is a lot of physical illness and poison in the season: the episode "Ice," the Nocturne drug, and Jack's bout with radiation poisoning, not to mention the zombie ending. It seems that every time you turn around there is info on hard drives or discs that must be fetched and decrypted. "Welcome to Liberty Village" is an unofficial remake of an old X-FILES episode. And Syd is even buried alive in a Cuban graveyard in one episode, an obvious homage to Tarantino and KILL BILL (and he even used a similar premise in the season closer of CSI). There are also lots of lasers and terrorist cells on the show. Garner directed one of the episodes, and if it wasn't just a vanity job, the show would benefit from not only more of the cast members helming, but also brining in outside established spy writers, the way THE WIRE brought in prestigious crime novelists to scribe the show.

ALIAS: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON comes in a beautiful transfer (1.78:1, enhanced), which is a relief to me because ABC comes over my tube all snowy and such. Sound is DD 1.5, with Spanish subtitles.

Disc Six is reasonably loaded with supplements. There is "A Chat With Jennifer Garner," between producer and oft-times director Ken Olin on the roof of a building during a break in shooting, and boilerplate promo info in "Meet Mia: Syd's Little Sister."

There are 11 minutes of "ALIAS Bloopers," very G rated and Disney, though with my beloved Melissa George popping out from behind a vault door. "Anatomy of a Scene" is really two scenes, The Train Fight and The Chopper Escape, broken down in their special effects enhancements. There are also 10 deleted scenes; one of them even adds to the show. Marshall was shot in the last season. Fans complained that his return is unexplained. But in a deleted scene from the first episode, a tearful Marshall helps Syd check out of the CIA after she quits in a huff. There, his recovery is referred to detail. The scenes have a "play all" option.

Further supplements include a "Director's Diary" by Jeffrey Bell, guiding the viewer through an episode's three week history, "Guest Stars of Season 4," highlighting Joel Gray, Sonja Braga and others, "Marshall's World," a 17 minute profile of Kevin Weisman, who also interviews Victor Garber and others, and "Agent Weiss' Spy Cam," a slide show of Greg Grunberg's on set snapshots. The fact that Grunberg calls Garber "SpyDaddy" is a broad hint that he reads TelevisionWithoutPity.

The audio commentaries are mostly love fest, but Abrams and others are not uncritical of the show. Abrams notes something that must have bothered series creators since the dawn of xenon: that no matter how much you plan, major changes (someone not wanting to come back for season three; people uncoupling and leaving the show; pregnancy) compel you to rethink everything. Disc No. 1 has yaks on "Authorized Personnel Only" parts one and two, with Abrams, Garner, Olin and Sarah Caplan, and for "Ice" with writers and director Jeff Melvoin, Drew Goddard, and Bell. Disc No. 2 has a commentary for "Nocturne" by director and producer Lawrence Trilling, along with Jeff Pinkner and Jesse Alexander. Disc One also has trailers for THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, SCRUBS - SECOND SEASON, THE GOLDEN GIRLS - THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON, ALIAS - SEASON 3, LOST, and LOST - SEASON TWO. An eight-page insert gives episode plot summers, color stills, and the list of extras. The whole thing comes in a fold out cardboard and plastic DVD array with a clear plastic box sheath.

For more information about ALIAS, I'd recommend ALIAS ASSUMED: SEX, LIES, AND SD-6 (Benbella, 234 pages, $14.95, 1 932100 46 6), with editing credited to star Kevin Weisman. It's an anthology of 21 essays that consider the show comically, critically, and / encyclopedically. One essay is by Erin Dailey, who does the recaps for TelvisiionWithoutPity, and another is by a prof, Paul Levinson, who analyses the implications of ALIAS "reinventing" itself in the middle of season two. It's a good, informative anthology that ultimately takes the show seriously.

If 22-plus hours of Jennifer Garner isn't enough for you, there is also ELEKTRA: UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT (Fox, 2005, two discs, $26.98, Tuesday, October 18, 2005), her flop of a superhero movie released a few weeks ago in a new two disc special edition that supersedes the disc released on April 5, 2005.

It certainly has more on it, including a feature length making of documentary. That the film is not worth it one whit is sad testimony to the power of supplement mania. While a good movie, such as, say JUGGERNAUT, or ROAD HOUSE, receive bare bones releases, this misguided adaptation of the Marvel comic character, is lavished with attention. Newness is all, apparently.

Fox's "Unrated Director's Cut," comes in a good widescreen transfer (2.35:1, enhanced), with Dolby Digital 5.1 and a DTS track new to this release. Why it is called a "Director's Cut" is mystifying, as it is only two minutes longer than its predecessor, with footage available on the previous disc's deleted scenes menu. It is not at all as different as the director's version of DAREDEVIL, no doubt the inspiration for this release.

Besides deleted scenes, the first DVD had a short making of, an editing featurette, and a short featurette of Garner and Co. at the ComiCon. New for this disc is a commentary from director Rob Bowman and credited screenwriter Kevin Stitt, the two theatrical trailers, the making of feature, "Relentless: The Making of Elektra" in two parts, coming in at a full two hours and 20 minutes, a multi-angle feature, and yet more deleted or alternate scenes, with optional commentary by Bowman and Stitt, plus a "play all" option, and finally five stills galleries. The supplements on disc two are divided into two parts, one about the movie, and the other about the underlying mythology of Elektra, which comprises two docs, "Elektra: Incarnations" (52:00) and "Elektra in Greek Mythology" (15:00). I can't say that any of this stuff made me like the movie better. But I didn't hold it against Garner.

Jim Cameron kicks Jacques Cousteau's fucking ass.

It's as simple as that. Cousteau was progressive and adventurous in his day, which is primarily the 1950s, and for a short time with the help of future cinema genius Louis Malle. But his films have the limitations of documentaries of their day, stolidity, and the imperative to inform at odds with the temptation to simply reveal beauty. Cameron, in the series of documentaries he has done since TITANIC, is up to something different. He shoots a documentary as if it is a major motion picture. It is interesting, and in a paradoxical sense more real, to see an ocean geographer talking to a shipmate about her aspirations, in a frame of film that is shot as if it were THE ABYSS, demanding all the lighting and framing that a major motion picture demands.

Another fun thing that Cameron does in his latest film, ALIENS OF THE DEEP (Disney, 2005, $29.95, Tuesday, November 1, 2005), is let the scientists who go with him for two deep sea excursions in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, Dijanna Figueroa, Pamela Conrad, Maya Tolstoy, and others, narrate the film. Yes, Cameron is a big presence in the film, but his ego is big enough to share the screen space with others, the scientist who fascinate him.

We should have noticed that Cameron has been obsessed with water since PIRANHA PART TWO: THE SPAWNING, back in 1981. THE ABYSS, POINT Break (which he produced), TRUE LIES, and finally TITANIC, all expressed his obsession with the oceans. But ALIENS OF THE DEEP isn't just about our own oceans. His team's excursions are in fact dry runs, so to speak, for potential explorations of other planets, specifically ocean planets such as Europa, a moon of Jupiter. One of the marvels of the film is that it contrasts the hyperrealism of its earth scenes with computer generated imagery of just such explorations of Europa, and other potentialities. And in a beautiful and powerful ending, the film imagines its main narrator and scientist actually meeting alien life forms in the ocean of another sphere.

Disney offers up an excellent transfer of ALIENS OF THE DEEP, which Cameron co-directed with Steven Quale, in a 1.78:1 ratio, enhanced, and with DD 5.1, and French and Spanish subtitles. The original film was 47 minutes long, and it is on the disc, but along side a full one hour and 40-minute minute version of the doc.

DEEP comes out a week after the almost-10th anniversary release of TITANIC (Paramount, 2007, three discs, $29.95, Tuesday, October 25, 2005). I have little time or inclination here to reopen the arguments over this film, which is great, indeed possibly the great American movie of all time (though after JAWS). Suffice it to say here that it is wholly consistent with Cameron's other major films, which usually revolve around a man coming out of another time, place, or space to rescue a woman (as the aged Rose says, Jack "saved me in every possible way a person can be saved," a line of dialogue that all of Cameron's films have been building to). This vertiginously romantic theme is here enunciated against a backdrop of a disastrous historical incident, in which Cameron, in a major Hollywood motion picture, inserts a consideration of the class systems in Britain and America. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it is a full blown Marxist critique of class structures, but it's certainly radical for a multi-million dollar romantic epic. Also, he's taken a distinctly American and usually empty-headed genre, the disaster film, and made it about something. In this case, the disaster and folly of the Titanic's sinking is ultimately an opportunity: for Rose to escape her class-bound fate and "find" herself.

Cameron says that this is the definitive TITANIC: no super deluxe special director's edition is lurking in the background (that is, until the home video technology changes again), but it should be noted that other regions get a four disc set with an additional disc of extras. The previous US platter was a bare bones single disc that came out back in 1999 at the dawn of DVD, and though it was letterboxed it was not enhanced for widescreen TVs. The new set is a three-disc release with the movie spread over two of them and a bunch of extras on the third, like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The break in the film comes around the time the iceberg hits. It is a superb (THX-certified) 2.35:1 image, accompanied by Dolby Digital 5.1-EX and DTS 6.1-ES.

When supplements have any meaning for me it's usually the director or writer audio commentary tracks, the deleted scenes, and anything to do with the music. TITANIC covers these in abundance. The set has no less than three yaks, the first with Cameron solo, who shows an admirable command of at the very least his memory and of the whole agonizing process of researching, writing, and filming the show. The second is a carnivalesque track that features producers Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini, sound designer Gary Rydstrom, composer James Horner, cinematographer Russell Carpenter and Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart, plus even others whose names I didn't catch. The third track features historians or Titanic experts Don Lynch and Ken Marschall, whose principal duty is to note where the film diverges from the historical record. There are also 47 minutes of deleted scenes, which if included would have made the film four hours long, and for a TITANIC fanatic it is a real mine. What I got out of it was a bit more about some of the various passengers and more contrast between Rose and Jack and the people she comes from. These are well-presented deleteds, enhanced and with DD 5.11, and with an optional from Cameron (plus a play all option). Finally, on the second disc is an "alternate ending" which gives an alternative version of what happens to the jewel that Paxton's character has been looking for over some three years. It too has an optional Cameron track.

There are additional supplements on the discs: you can watch the film in "behind the scenes" mode, which signals the viewer when a relevant "making of" doc is available to illuminate a moment (the docs can also be viewed on their own); the music video with Celine Dionl real Titanic footage; cast and crew home movies; previsulizations; visual effects reconstructions; and "Construction Timelapse," which gives you a full tour of the ship in four minutes; but there is more: a tour of the set with optional commentary, stills gallery, a faux newsreel shot during the production, with an optional commentary; DVD credits; a 45-minute TV special about the movie; the press kit; a poster gallery. The discs come in a folding slimline box with a slipcase.

I don't know if there is a huge British bear hug that surrounds the show FOYLE'S WAR: SET 3 (Acorn, 2005, four discs, $59.95, Tuesday, November 1, 2005), which airs on England's ITV in what have so far been three four-episodes-each suites of well-researched tales (with a fourth filming now for airing in early 2006), but there should be. There is a shot in the middle of the second episode in season three of DCS Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) fly-fishing and it is so beautifully pastoral I had to believe that English viewers swooned over it. Set during the early years of World War II, the series takes place in Hastings, location of the Battle of Hastings between King Harold II of England and Duke William of Normandy, a site that looms large in the British lexicon, and which is where Foyle solves crimes that reveal always interesting aspects of wartime England, such as war profiteering, looting, the lure of pro-Nazism, battle fatigue, The first four episodes covered stories set from May 1940 through summer. Season two covered September 1940 to October. Now season three starts in February 1941 to June. Presumably if the series lasts long enough (and I hope that it does), FOYLE'S WAR will conclude in mid-1945. There is at least one website that gives detailed accounts of the show.

FW trades in certain clichés about England and its emotional stillness and stiff upper lip, which might be the element that would attract middlebrow English viewers, but creator Anthony Horowitz's real achievement is to ransack the history of the era to find unusual yet highly indicative subject matter as plot premises. Episode two of Season Three ("Enemy Fire") is, quite arguably, one of the best-written shows ever put on TV. On the one hand the main mystery is a series of vandalisms in an ancient estate being used for the war effort as a hospital for a doctor (Bill Patterson) experimenting with new treatments for burn victims (salt baths). This was a real technique, spearheaded by an actual British doctor at the time. Meanwhile, Foyle's son, a pilot, is experiencing dramatic mood shifts, noticed by his girlfriend, Sam (Honeysuckle Weeks), Foyle's driver, who is dating the lad in secret. How the show ties the quandary of the son to the events on the estate is absolutely masterful in its concision. It also makes for a powerful and emotional resolution to the story.

Horowitz is a children's author turned TV movie writer and from the evidence of his own website , he is a very busy chap. His wife, Jill Green, produces the show and has written a book of her own about FW that appears with, or will appear with, the boxed sets. That the makers of DVDs realize the rising esteem in which FOYLE'S WAR is held finds evidence on Acorn's DVD set, which contains much more in the way of extras than the previous two releases. There is a big making of (which focuses on aspects of episode two), and many, many text-based extras (which nostalgically take you back to the days of 1997 when DVDs first began to appear). They are all indeed helpful but the first thing to do is simply watch the show, let the characters grow on you, and marvel at the cleverness of the mysteries. To that end, I highly recommend starting with Season 1 and going on from there. And avoid spoilers at all costs.

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

Not only that, I've got a new book coming out in October or November (fingers crossed) on an aspect of film noir I call film soleil, titled simply FILM SOLEIL. It is sure to alter film criticism as we know it to its very core. Order it now!

And if you are interested in what I sound like, I can be heard on KBOO radio (90.7 FM) the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 9 AM in the morning (Pacific Standard Time) on Ed Goldberg's show MOVIE TALK along with Dawn Taylor. It's available via streaming audio (in 20 Kbps Stereo). The next broadcast is Wednesday, November 9, at 9 AM.

COMING SOON:SAW II, the 3rd Annual DVD Tray of Terror, FLIGHTPLAN and REDEYE, GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, DEAD AND BREAKFAST, REMINGTON STEEL and other TV mystery shows, many STAR TREKS, and more!

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