‘Monsters’ Powers Up Even More Laughs and a New Short

During the production of the Pixar-Disney computer-animated hit, “Monsters, Inc.,” director Pete Doctor and co-directors David Silverman and Lee Unkrich were already thinking about the extras they wanted to include on the DVD.

The sweet comedy is set in a hidden city where scaring kids is the only way to provide power to the metropolis. John Goodman is the voice of the top scare-master at Monsters Inc., a big, furry, blue monster named Sulley, and Billy Crystal provides the yuks as Mike, his one-eyed green assistant.

Pixar has a great track record when it comes to the DVD editions of its films, having produced state-of-the-art discs for both “Toy Story” and “A Bug’s Life.”

“Every time we saw something really cool during production, we would tag it and mark it in some way,” Doctor says. “Then at the end, when the film was done, we came back to all of that stuff and thought, ‘What would be really cool?’ ”

The two-disc set of “Monsters, Inc.” (Disney, $30) won’t disappoint the film’s legion of fans. One of the most enjoyable extras is a new animated short starring Sulley and Mike called “Mike’s New Car.” The idea to add it came from executive producer John Lasseter; Doctor retooled a short story he’d conceived long ago about a guy who got a new car.

Available in either wide-screen or full screen, the discs also include commentary by the filmmakers; the Oscar-winning 2001 Pixar short, “For the Birds”; a look at computer animation work; a read-along story book; animation gags; abandoned concepts and funny outtakes.

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Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen are writers, stars and co-producers of “Kissing Jessica Stein” (Fox, $30). The charming romantic comedy deals with two straight New York career women who become lovers.

The entertaining DVD contains deleted scenes (a few of which are really funny), outtakes, a passable featurette and two commentary tracks: one with the two stars and the second featuring director Charles Herman.

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Bill Paxton (“Aliens,” “Apollo 13”) makes his directorial debut with the creepy but effective psychological thriller “Frailty” (Lions Gate, $25). Paxton plays a widower with two young sons who tells his children one night that he had a vision from God ordering him to purge the world of “demons.”

The digital edition includes a “making of” mini-documentary, an episode of the Sundance Channel’s “Anatomy of a Scene,” the obligatory deleted scenes with commentary from Paxton, and some storyboards. There are commentary tracks from Paxton, producers David Kirshner, writer Brent Hanley, composer Brian Tiler and editor Arnold Glassman.

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One of the best movies to come out of the ‘70s--the last golden era of Hollywood filmmaking--is Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” (MGM, $20). Released in 1973, it is based on the Raymond Chandler mystery of the same name and features a wry performance by Elliott Gould as the rumpled gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Equally terrific is Sterling Hayden as a drunken writer and Mark Rydell as a violent gangster.

The DVD includes a comprehensive documentary with interviews with the always-entertaining Altman and Gould and another featurette with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.

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What’s Coming

Tuesday: “Monsoon Wedding,” “Murder by Numbers,” “Enigma,” “Festival in Cannes,” “Big Fat Liar,” “Stolen Summer” and “Big Bad Love.”

Oct. 1: “The Scorpion King” and “Brotherhood of the Wolf.”

Oct. 8: “Enough,” “Big Trouble,” “The Son’s Room,” “Lucky Break” and “Jason X.”