‘Close Encounters’ Lands

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” one of Steven Spielberg’s best-loved films, has landed on video store shelves in a new collector’s edition DVD (Columbia TriStar, $28). Regrettably, however, the Oscar-winning director has yet again not supplied audio commentary.

Thankfully, Spielberg does appear in the comprehensive 1998 documentary “The Making of Close Encounters” that is included on this disc, along with a lovely wide-screen transfer of the sci-fi adventure, a very long theatrical trailer for the original 1977 release, filmographies and a 1977 featurette, “Watching the Skies.” “Close Encounters” won Oscars for sound-effects editing and cinematography.

The most enjoyable aspect of the DVD are 11 deleted scenes, including two involving the late, great French director Francois Truffaut, who played the scientist in the film. One clip is actually an alternative version of Truffaut encountering his translator, played by Bob Balaban. In the film, they meet at the desert location where missing fighter planes from World War II had been discovered. But in the alternate version, they meet in a limousine at an airport. There’s a funny moment in this deleted version where Truffaut, testing Balaban’s translating skills, reads from a trashy romance novel and asks Balaban to translate it into English.

The majority of the deleted scenes involve star Richard Dreyfuss and feature him at his work in the power plant, sitting in a police station and attending a cookout.

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Also new from Columbia TriStar is the special edition of the Academy Award-nominated 1992 courtroom thriller “A Few Good Men” ($30). Adapted by Aaron Sorkin (of “The West Wing” fame) from his play and directed by Rob Reiner, the box-office hit stars Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore and Kevin Pollack.

The DVD includes the wide-screen edition of the film, filmographies, the trailer and “Code of Conduct,” the documentary on the making of the film. A standard behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie includes footage from the film and recent interviews with Sorkin, Reiner, Pollack and co-stars Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, James Marshall and Noah Wyle. The interviews with Cruise and Moore, though, are from 1992.

Far more interesting is “From Stage to Screen With Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner,” a featurette in which the two talk about how Sorkin’s Broadway play was adapted for the screen. Sorkin says that the film rights were sold even before “A Few Good Men” premiered on Broadway. But when it came time to do the screenplay, Sorkin hadn’t a clue how to write a script. He even went so far as to buy a guidebook on how to do it.

Also included on the disc is audio commentary from Reiner, who repeats a lot of what he discusses in the documentary.

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New Line has come out with a double-feature DVD of two John Waters comedies ($25), the delightful “Hairspray” and the disappointing “Pecker.”

The “Hairspray” DVD is a fun watch. Waters’ only PG-rated movie takes place in 1962 Baltimore and focuses on the lives of a group of teens who appear on the No. 1 dance TV show “The Corny Collins Revue.” Ricki Lake, who was quite a hefty gal when she made this movie, plays a teenager who becomes one of the stars of the TV show. Divine, in his last film, plays her mother, and Jerry Stiller is her father.

The digital edition includes a wide-screen version of the colorful musical comedy, filmographies and a commentary from Waters and Lake. Waters talks about his memories of being one of the teens appearing on the Baltimore dance show in the early ‘60s. Lake talks about meeting Divine for the first time. The actor, she says, was initially skeptical about her playing his daughter because he originally wanted to play both the mother and daughter. But Lake and Divine did bond and Divine even taught her how to walk in heels!

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The John Carpenter action comedy “Big Trouble in Little China” was not a big hit. In fact, it made barely a ripple when it was released in summer 1986. But it has gained a cult following on video--so much so that Fox has released a two-disc DVD special edition of the action comedy ($27) that stars Kurt Russell as a very reluctant hero. The DVD includes deleted scenes, trailers, filmographies, behind-the-scenes documentaries, animated menus, a nice wide-screen edition of the film and very funny commentary from Carpenter and Russell, who have made several films together, including “Elvis” and “Escape from New York.”

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Veteran British writer-director Terence Davies offers intelligent commentary on the digital edition of his latest film “The House of Mirth” (Columbia TriStar, $30). Based on Edith Wharton’s classic novel, the period drama stars Gillian Anderson, Anthony LaPaglia, Terry Kinney, Eric Stoltz and Laura Linney.

The DVD features the wide-screen version of the film and several deleted scenes. Davies explains that he was under pressure to keep the film at two hours and 20 minutes and was forced to shorten several scenes. He was told that “less is more” and that these scenes would play better shortened, but he doesn’t believe it.

Davies points out that because of the budget--under $9 million--they couldn’t film in New York, where the action is set. So Glasgow and the Scottish countryside ended up doubling for the Big Apple.

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Die-hard “Dungeons & Dragons” fans may get a kick out of the special edition of the critically lambasted film version (New Line, $25). Jeremy Irons, who chomps on the scenery as the bad guy, Thora Birch, Marlon Wayans and Justin Whalin star. The DVD includes the wide-screen edition of the film, a special-effects “deconstruction” of four scenes, two documentaries and two commentaries.