‘The Beach’ Surfaces on DVD

“The Beach” was much ballyhooed earlier this year as Leonardo DiCaprio’s first film since “Titanic.” Well, just like the legendary ocean liner, “The Beach” sank at the box office.

But Leo’s legion of female fans might want to check out the collector’s edition DVD (Fox, $35) of the drama, which concerns a young American who finds that an isolated community off the coast of Thailand isn’t quite paradise.

The disc features the wide-screen edition, theatrical trailers and TV spots, a short featurette on the making of the film, All Saints’ music video of the song “Pure Shores,” and a storyboard gallery. There are numerous deleted scenes, each with commentary by director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”)--including a far more entertaining opening, which celebrates the Thailand culture, and a more violent ending.

Boyle also supplies the rather pedestrian audio commentary on the making of “The Beach”--too bad he didn’t explain why the film is so disappointing.

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Despite the presence of such icons as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Michael Jordan, the 1996 family live-action, animated comedy “Space Jam” (Warner, $25) isn’t exactly out-of-this-world fun. The new “enhanced edition” DVD is filled with extras but doesn’t soar into the stratosphere. And why does the DVD only feature the pan-and-scan version of the comedy directed by Joe Pytka and produced by Ivan Reitman?

Included are three music videos: R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” Seal’s “Fly Like an Eagle” and Monstar’s “Monstar Anthem: Hit ‘Em High,” a music-only track plus extensive cast and crew credits and production notes on the making of the film.

The audio commentary featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck sounds like it’s going to be a hoot, but these two superstars are DVD duds. Their ad-libbing leaves a lot to be desired; Daffy keeps complaining about the fact that Bugs got higher billing on the film.

Far more entertaining is the commentary from director Pytka, who also did the TV commercials starring Jordan and Bugs Bunny. Doing a live-action, animated film is difficult for actors because they have to work against blue or green screens and often do dialogue and reaction scenes by themselves. For “Space Jam,” Pytka hired actors to play the part of the cartoon characters--dressed in green to match the green screen backgrounds--so the actors would have someone to play against. These actors would ad-lib during the shooting and some of their lines were incorporated into the script.

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Despite a wonderful cast including Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle, sturdy direction from Alan Parker and John Williams’ haunting, Oscar-nominated score, “Angela’s Ashes” (Paramount, $30) failed to live up to expectations when it was released last Christmas.

The harrowing drama is based on Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of growing up poor and Catholic in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s and ‘40s.

The handsome digital edition features a nice wide-screen transfer of the film, theatrical trailers and a compelling “Look Inside” featurette with intelligent interviews with Parker, McCourt, Watson, Carlyle and the three young actors who play McCourt.

Parker also supplies audio commentary, but the best commentary comes from McCourt, who has to have one of the greatest and sexiest Irish brogues in history. As McCourt watches the film, his childhood flashes before his eyes. For example, the first day he visited the set, he watched a scene in which his young self was in school and being berated by an angry teacher. McCourt talks about standing against the wall watching the scene and becoming increasingly fearful that the teacher was actually going to come over and hit him.

Though most of the film was shot in Dublin, McCourt talks about how realistic the sets were of Brooklyn and the tenements he grew up in in Limerick. McCourt reflects that he doesn’t know how his mother survived, losing three children in less than 18 months and trying to raise a family in substandard conditions. He also talks about reliving in the movie one of his most vivid memories from his early life: finding his alcoholic father (Carlyle) in the pub using his young brother’s casket as a table.

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Also new on DVD is the special edition of “Boiler Room” (New Line, $25), Ben Younger’s drama about a group of young men trying to make their fortune in the stock market. The DVD features a wide-screen transfer, cast and crew information, several scenes that (thankfully) were deleted, an alternate ending, an isolated score track with commentary by composer the Angel, and so-so commentary from Younger, producer Jennifer Todd and star Giovanni Ribisi.

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The made-for-video “Beethoven’s 3rd” (Universal; rental only on VHS; $25 for DVD) isn’t quite a dog. But the only redeeming performance in the sequel to the box office hits “Beethoven” and “Beethoven’s 2nd” is from Stanley, the 18-month-old, 145-pound St. Bernard who has the title role. With a face to die for and enough drool to fill up a swimming pool, Stanley almost makes this low-budget snooze worth watching.

This time around, Beethoven causes all sorts of problems traveling across country in a trailer with a family. The subplot involving two bumbling thieves trying to retrieve stolen information they hid in a DVD of “The Shakiest Gun in the West” is for the birds. Judge Reinhold and Julia Sweeney, who deserve better, are the human stars.

The DVD features a wide-screen transfer and information about the production, cast and crew.