A Pair of Directors Share the Secrets of Their Films’ Success

Two of contemporary cinema’s most successful minority directors, Robert Rodriguez and Carl Franklin, offer fascinating insights into their craft in Columbia TriStar’s DVDs of their most popular films.

Latino director Rodriguez burst into the public’s consciousness in 1992 with his Spanish-language action-comedy “El Mariachi,” which he made for a mere $7,000. Three years later, Columbia gave him $7 million to make the dashing, violent sequel, “Desperado,” which stars Antonio Banderas. Columbia TriStar is offering both films on one disc ($40).

The “El Mariachi” side presents the movie in wide screen and in Spanish, with a choice of subtitles or dubbing in either English or French. Extras include his cute short film “Bedhead,” which stars Rodriguez’s siblings, and the educational “The Ten Minute Film School,” in which he comes clean about how he was able to pull off certain action sequences with no money and no crew.

Rodriguez has a self-deprecating sense of humor that is infectious. He warns viewers that some directors run out of things to say on DVDs, so he’s going to pack his commentary with an overload of information. Listening to it can be exhausting, but it’s also fascinating as he explains how he used a wheelchair for dolly shots and how he cast two newscasters from the Mexican town where he was filming in hopes that they would say nice things about the production. It’s a great primer on how to make a movie for next to nothing.

The “Desperado” side, which is also in the letterbox format, offers “Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shootout.” This time around, Rodriguez discusses how he used a video camera to storyboard Banderas’ exciting, complicated shootout sequence in a bar. Also included is his consistently entertaining commentary. Even if you’re not fans of these movies, this double bill is worth checking out.

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Equally impressive is “Devil in a Blue Dress: Special Edition” ($30). African American director Franklin helmed this 1995 adaptation of Walter Mosley’s bestselling crime novel. Denzel Washington is perfectly cast as private eye Easy Rawlings. It’s Don Cheadle, though, who steals the film as his trigger-happy friend Mouse. The disc features Cheadle’s riveting screen tests, as well as Franklin’s literate audio commentary, in which he talks about the film’s many themes--especially Easy’s embracing of the devil--and such tidbits as the fact that Washington reported to the set every day at 5 a.m. to work out in the gym so he would look buff in Easy’s sleeveless T-shirts.

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“Mercury Rising Collector’s Edition” (Universal, $35): Special edition of this forgettable 1998 Bruce Willis-Alec Baldwin thriller includes deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes documentary, cast bios, production photos and audio commentary from director Harold Becker.