For ‘Sopranos’ Fans, Commentary Is a Treat That’s Hard to Refuse

Talk about timing. With the fourth season premiere of HBO’s “The Sopranos” just 17 days away, HBO Home Video this week released the third season of the Emmy Award-winning mob series on video and DVD ($100 for each format).

The four-disc set features all 13 episodes in the wide-screen format, talent files, a fun featurette that chronicles a day on the set and three entertaining audio commentaries.

Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher, discusses the episode he wrote, “The Telltale Moozadell”; director Steve Buscemi talks about the episode he helmed, the Coen Brothers-esque “Pine Barrens”; and series creator David Chase chats about episode 12, “Amour Fou.”

There are also a DVD-ROM link to the Web site and an episode index.

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The world is divided into those who grew up watching the “Schoolhouse Rock” shorts on ABC from 1972 to 1982 and those who haven’t a clue as to what all the hullabaloo is about.

For those who did, Disney has just released a charming, nostalgic two-disc set, “Schoolhouse Rock Special 30th Anniversary Edition” ($30). The discs feature 46 tunes from the series of clever musical shorts that explore the fundamentals of math, grammar, science, history and money. And even those who have never seen the series before will probably enjoy such classics as “Conjunction Junction,” “I’m Just a Bill” and “Electricity, Electricity.” The collection also features a new song about the electoral college, “I’m Gonna Send Your Vote to College.”

The first disc also includes newly animated menus done by Tom Yohe Jr., son of the original animator, the late Thomas G. Yohe, and narrated by Bob Dorough, who was one of the original musicians and singers.

The second disc includes a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the electoral college song; a “lost” song called “The Weather Show”; a top 20 countdown of favorite numbers; a trivia game; four music videos; a Nike commercial of “Three Is a Magic Number”; an Emmy Awards featurette and audio commentaries from the talent behind “Schoolhouse Rock.”

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“The Rookie” (Disney, $30) was one of the surprise hits of the spring. Dennis Quaid stars in this sweet, true-life story of Jim Morris, a 30-ish Texas high school science teacher and baseball coach who gets a chance to become a relief pitcher in the majors.

The digital edition includes deleted scenes introduced by director John Lee Hancock, a nice profile of the real Morris, baseball tips from the pros and pleasant commentary from Hancock and Quaid. The DVD is available in either wide-screen or full-screen editions.

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Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, who scored a hit together a few years ago in the thriller “Kiss the Girls,” reunite for the pedestrian courtroom chiller “High Crimes” (Fox, $30). Judd plays a high-profile attorney whose husband (James Caviezel) is accused of a vicious military crime. She turns for help to a brilliant attorney with a drinking problem (Freeman).

Director Carl Franklin provides the self-effacing commentary. The better-than-average featurettes examine such topics as “Comparing Military Law to Civilian Law” and “How to Beat a Lie Detector Test.”

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Walter Matthau died two years ago, and his great face, unique voice and crack comedic timing are sorely missed. All three are on display in the sophisticated 1980 comedy caper “Hopscotch,” which recently was released on DVD (Criterion, $30). Matthau plays a Mozart-loving CIA operative who is forced into a desk job by his dimwitted boss (Ned Beatty). Unwilling to be put out to pasture, he decides to write his memoirs, exposing the CIA’s dirtiest secrets. Glenda Jackson, who starred with Matthau in the 1978 comedy “House Calls,” plays his former girlfriend, who helps him in his game of hide-and-seek.

The DVD includes two trailers and informative, amusing interviews with director Ronald Neame and writer Brian Garfield, who both clearly adored the rumpled Matthau.

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Also new from Criterion is the digital edition of Rene Clair’s seminal 1931 French comedy with music, “A Nous la Liberte” ($30). Raymond Cordy and Henri Marchand star in this satire of wealth and industry about an escaped convict who becomes a wealthy entrepreneur as a manufacturer of phonographs. For years he keeps his former identity hidden, until his ex-cellmate arrives at the plant.

Besides a beautiful new digital transfer, the disc includes deleted scenes; “Entr’acte,” Clair’s amusing Surrealistic short film from 1924; a video interview from 1998 with Clair’s widow, Madame Bronja Clair; and an audio essay from historian David Robinson about the lawsuit that Tobis, the company that produced the film, filed against Charlie Chaplin and his film “Modern Times.”

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Nicolas Cage gives one of those audacious performances he seemed eager to attempt early in his career in the offbeat 1989 thriller “Vampire’s Kiss” (MGM, $15). Robert Bierman directed this truly bizarre flick, in which Cage plays an odious New York literary agent who believes he is a vampire after a beautiful woman (Jennifer Beals) he picks up at a bar bites him on the neck. The film stirred a bit of controversy for the scene in which Cage eats a cockroach.

The DVD features the director’s cut of the film and very wry commentary with Bierman and Cage.

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John Carpenter followed up his 1978 slasher flick “Halloween” with the creepy 1980 ghost story “The Fog.” The “special edition” DVD (MGM, $20) of the thriller that stars Adrienne Barbeau (then Mrs. Carpenter), Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis and Hal Holbrook includes a 1980 documentary; a new documentary, “Tales From the Mist: Inside the Fog,” which includes interviews with Barbeau, Leigh, Carpenter and Debra Hill, who co-wrote the thriller; outtakes; a gallery of the advertising for the film and storyboard-to-film comparisons.

Though Carpenter and Hill recorded the commentary on the DVD more than seven years ago for the laserdisc edition, it’s definitely worth a listen.