A ‘Cold Mountain’ primer

Cold Mountain

Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger

Miramax, $30

All too often directors don’t seem to know what to say on the commentary track for the DVD of a movie. Sometimes a director will simply describe what’s going on or get too technical or self-congratulatory. So writer-director Anthony Minghella is like a breath of fresh air in his commentary for his uneven but ambitious adaptation of Charles Frazier’s Civil War romance.

Minghella, an Oscar winner for “The English Patient,” is intelligent and insightful -- he has to know the music for a scene before he can write it. Oscar winner Walter Murch, his editor and sound editor, joins him in his commentary.

The two-disc DVD set includes a better-than-average 70-minute documentary, “Climbing Cold Mountain”; the TV documentary “A Journey to Cold Mountain”; 11 deleted scenes; a toe-tapping concert, “Words & Music of Cold Mountain,” taped in December at UCLA’s Royce Hall; and storyboard comparisons.

*

Barbershop 2 -- Back in Business

Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer

MGM, $28

In this entertaining sequel to the 2001 African American hit comedy set in a traditional barbershop in Chicago, the business is threatened with the arrival of a corporate hair salon. The extras on the digital edition, though, are less than stellar. There are the requisite outtakes, music videos and photo gallery. Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan and producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr. give passable commentary.

-- Susan King