A Speechless David Mamet

David Mamet may be one of our greatest playwrights but his audio commentary on his 1999 film “The Winslow Boy” was disappointingly mundane. For the digital edition of his latest movie, “State and Main” (New Line), the writer-director doesn’t even do a commentary. Instead, he leaves the talking to several of the stars of this delicious comedy about what happens when Hollywood arrives in a small New Hampshire town to make a movie.

And it turns out to be a wonderfully funny and intelligent journey through the movie.

David Paymer, who plays the movie’s obnoxious producer, says he jumped at the chance to work with Mamet because of the fabulous monologues he was given. And since the film came out last December, he says, people have come up to him and quoted his dialogue from “State and Main.”

William H. Macy, who stars as the seen-it-all director, has known and worked with Mamet for more than 25 years. During the scene in which the film’s star, Alec Baldwin, tells Macy’s character he’s not happy with his dialogue, Macy relates how much he hates it when actors try to change the screenwriter’s dialogue. It’s very rare, he explains, that their alternate wording is an improvement.

Clark Gregg, who plays the town’s ambitious politico, is also one of Mamet’s repertory company of actors, having first met when the playwright came to talk to a class at New York University in 1983. Now Gregg is a writer too; during the production of “State and Main,” he had to leave frequently to fly to Vermont to work on rewrites on his screenplay for “What Lies Beneath,” with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Sarah Jessica Parker, another of the “State and Main” cast, says she was afraid about taking the role because she didn’t know that she was up to doing “a Mamet.” But she says she eventually calmed down because she discovered that each actor approached Mamet’s material in a different way.

The DVD also includes the wide-screen and full-screen editions of the comedy and the trailer.

Taylor Hackford’s action-thriller-romance “Proof of Life” didn’t have much life with critics or at the box office last Christmas, despite the presence of Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Even audience curiosity about the Crowe-Ryan romance during production didn’t add much fire. The digital edition (Warner, $25) is serviceable but unexceptional. Besides the wide-screen version of the film, there is a theatrical trailer, a standard behind-the-scenes documentary hosted by co-star David Caruso and listenable commentary from Hackford.

Far more worthwhile is the DVD of “Save the Last Dance” (Paramount, $30), a teen drama with music that was this year’s first big hit. Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas star as classmates who fall in love while discovering their love of dance.

The digital edition includes the wide-screen format of the movie, a music video, deleted scenes, the trailer, a decent “making of” feature, and cast and crew interviews. Stiles talks about how she loves to dance in clubs and how she spent two months learning ballet and hip-hop for the film. Director Thomas Carter offers intelligent commentary--talking about everything from how he made the transition from acting to directing to the arduous casting process for “Save the Last Dance.” He admits that he wasn’t sure if Thomas was right for the part as Stiles’ love interest and says it was Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing who admired his screen test and believed in him.

Tom Skerritt, Susanna Thompson, Reed Diamond and Maria Conchita Alonso star in “High Noon,” the remake of the classic 1952 Gary Cooper western that premiered last year on TBS. Certainly better than the previous TV remake with Lee Majors, this version boasts beautiful scenery and a nice cast, but it certainly won’t make one forget the original.

The DVD (Artisan, $25) features a crisp, wide-screen picture, filmographies, two featurettes, interviews with the cast and crew, a photo gallery and trailer. The commentary is supplied by executive producer David A. Rosemont, who is a bit of a snooze, and cinematographer Robert McLachlan, who discusses the problems in making the movie on location in just 19 days and dealing with unstable weather conditions in Calgary, Canada.

New from Creative Design Art is a limited-edition collector’s box set of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey” ($60). The wide-screen edition includes a fully restored picture and sound sourced from the 65-millimeter Super Panavision 70 original camera negative and six-track magnetic sound masters, the original trailer, the fully restored and remastered music soundtrack CD, a 70-millimeter limited-edition film frame from the movie and a 16-page commemorative booklet.

In “Row Your Boat” (York/Maverick, VHS & DVD), an offbeat drama, Jon Bon Jovi plays an ex-con with a heart of gold who, after being released from prison, refuses the help of his sleazy brother (William Forsythe). When he takes a job as a census taker, he falls in love with the unhappily married wife (Bai Ling) of an elderly businessman.

Hi! Ho! Baby boomers will enjoy the special-edition DVD of the 1956 western “The Lone Ranger” (VCI, $25), starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels from the long-running TV series. It’s corny but tons of fun--especially seeing the Lone Ranger, Tonto and Silver in Technicolor. The DVD features the wide-screen and full-screen editions of the Warner Bros. release; the trailer; a sweet interview by Leonard Maltin with Moore’s daughter; filmographies; a photo gallery and even the Lone Ranger’s code. Also available on DVD from VCI is the 1958 theatrical “Lone Ranger & the Lost City of Gold” ($25).