Murphy and Then Some

Fans of sophisticated comedies will want to avoid the gross-out humor permeating “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.” That being said, Universal’s Collector’s Edition DVD of the Eddie Murphy comedy ($27), in which he effortlessly plays the five members of the Klump family and the obnoxious Buddy Love, isn’t half bad.

Included on the disc is the wide-screen edition of the comedy that grossed more than $125 million, an average “Spotlight on Location” featurette, some very funny deleted scenes and outtakes (a few are R-rated), the extended version of the restaurant scene featuring the Klumps, an interesting time-lapse look at Murphy’s makeup application process for two of the Klumps, storyboards and final feature comparisons, co-star Janet Jackson’s “Doesn’t Really Matter” music video, production notes, bios and the trailer.

Director Peter Segal and executive producer Brian Grazer supply the chatty and often funny commentary. Segal points out that the university in which Murphy’s sweet, portly Sherman Klump teaches is actually a combination of USC and UCLA. And he says the restaurant sequence was actually scripted at just four pages, but thanks to Murphy’s ad-libs, it stretched out to 10 pages. The scene took five days to film because Murphy could only play one character per day; the makeup and bodysuits for each took more than five hours to apply.

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The football comedy, “The Replacements” (Warner, $25), is unmemorable but genial fun, thanks to the good-natured performances of Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Jack Warden, Orlando Jones and Jon Favreau. The DVD is an OK time-killer that features the wide-screen edition of the film, a better-than-average “HBO Behind the Scenes” documentary, a short on how the actors trained to play football and passable commentary from director Howard Deutsch.

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New Zealand-born Russell Crowe is riding high in America these days with “Gladiator” being the fastest-selling DVD in history and his latest feature, “Proof of Life,” opening in theaters Friday. And two of his earliest Australian dramas have arrived on DVD and video.

Fox has released a terrific two-DVD set of Crowe’s breakthrough film, “Romper Stomper’ ($27). Written and directed by Geoffrey Wright, the 1992 drama is a raw and terrifying experience. Crowe is electrifying as the brutal head of a group of neo-Nazi skinheads who harass the Vietnamese community in contemporary Melbourne, Australia. Daniel Pollock and Jacqueline McKenzie also star in this controversial film that is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.”

The set includes a restored, wide-screen transfer of the film, cast and crew bios, a new interview with Wright, interviews with Wright, Crowe and McKenzie from 1992, a look at the film’s restoration and compelling commentary from Wright.

Crowe, Wright admits, wasn’t the easiest actor to work with but then, he adds, most of the good actors aren’t. A method actor, Crowe bonded with the actors who played the members of the skinheads, Wright says. They got so into their roles that one evening they picked a fight at a pub and ended up getting arrested.

Crowe gives new meaning to the term “bareback rider” in the fairly engrossing 1992 soap opera, “Hammers Over the Anvil” (Winstar, DVD and VHS). His sturdy performance--especially his opening scene--is the best reason to catch this tale of a horse-breaker who has an affair with a married English aristocrat (Charlotte Rampling).

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Though the late astronomer Carl Sagan seems to say “billions and billions” one too many times, his Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning 1980 PBS science series “Cosmos” is still a delight. The restored and remastered “The Cosmos Collector’s Edition” (Cosmos Studios, video and DVD, $170) features all 13 hours of the science series that turned Sagan into a TV star.

The DVD set features introductions from Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow, who co-wrote the series, as well as updates on the scientific facts presented in the series. The DVD also contains seven different subtitle language tracks.

Both the VHS and DVD are available via https://www.OneCosmos.net, https://www.amazon.com and https://carlsagan.com.

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The adorable baby dinosaurs are back in the animated adventure “The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire” (Universal, $20 for video; $25 for DVD). The latest installment in the direct-to-video franchise is a cut above the usual made-for-video children’s product. And adults won’t be bored watching this morality tale with their children. This time around, Pterano, the black sheep uncle of the sweet little pterodactyl Petrie, arrives with two evil cronies. Michael York supplies the voice of Pterano.

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For connoisseurs of bad sci-fi, Image Entertainment has come up with two fun films on DVD:”Spaceways” and “The Astounding She-Monster.”

“Spaceways” ($25), from 1953, is a hoot. The first British-made sci-fi film since 1936’s “Things to Come,” and the first sci-fi movie produced by the legendary Hammer Films, “Spaceways” is a mystery thriller set at a secret space research facility. Howard Duff and Eva Bartok star.

The pits de resistance, though, is 1957’s “The Astounding She-Monster” ($25), written and directed by Ronnie Ashcroft. The master of bad cinema, Edward Wood Jr. was the uncredited consultant on the film. In this grade-Z thriller, two crooks kidnap a Beverly Hills socialite and take her to the San Gabriel Mountains, where they are stalked by a radium-producing female alien. Both Image releases feature the original trailers.