De Niro’s career takes a second direction

The Life After: Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro made his directorial debut in 1993 with the well-received coming-of-age story “A Bronx Tale.” But it took him 13 more years to venture behind the camera with “The Good Shepherd,” which arrives Tuesday on DVD. Clocking in at a heady 2 hours, 37 minutes, the film, penned by Eric Roth, chronicles 35 years in the life of rather grim CIA spy Edward Wilson (Matt Damon). Angelina Jolie plays his long-suffering wife, and Michael Gambon is the Yale professor he betrays early in his career. De Niro also pops up in a supporting role.

The reviews for the film were generally positive, but not many people flocked to “Shepherd” -- it grossed just $59.9 million in the U.S. Its sole Oscar nomination was for its evocative art direction.

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This ‘news’ didn’t spread in theaters

The Life After 2: Bushwhacked: Controversy didn’t translate into audiences for the audacious faux documentary “Death of a President,” which makes its DVD debut Tuesday. Winner of the International Critics’ Prize at the Toronto Film Festival last year, the film from director Gabriel Range presents a fictional 2008 TV broadcast that recollects the assassination the year before of President Bush. The “documentary” blends archival footage with fictional footage and interviews.

A few weeks before its release in late October, two theater chains -- Regal and Cinemark USA -- refused to show the film. It did open in 143 theaters to decidedly mixed reviews and meager box office -- $519,086 in the U.S.

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Gould, Sutherland together again

The Curio: Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland made movie magic together as the randy military doctors Trapper John and Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s seminal 1970 antiwar comedy “MASH.” But the actors hit a sour note when they were reunited for the ill-fated 1974 spy caper comedy “S*P*Y*S,” which is coming out of mothballs to make its DVD debut Tuesday.

Directed by the usually reliable Irvin Kershner (“The Empire Strikes Back”), this turkey finds Gould and Sutherland playing two bumbling CIA agents who manage to make a mess out of an easy assignment -- helping a Russian ballet dancer defect to the West. Their boss (Joss Ackland) becomes so incensed at their ineptitude that he teams with a KGB chief (Vladek Sheybal) to bump off the bumblers. At least the stars and director went on to bigger and better things.

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That’s who killed Laura Palmer

The Couch Potato: With the release Tuesday of “Twin Peaks -- the Second Season” -- it’s hard to remember what actually happened in the final season of the David Lynch ABC cult series.

When the cryptic mystery premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, with a two-hour episode, viewers were glued to avant-garde soap opera that had everybody asking, “Who killed Laura Palmer?”

But even during its first season, viewership began to fall off as the plots became a bit too twisted. And when stoic agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) discovered who offed Palmer -- it was “Killer BOB” -- the series really lost steam. And moving it from Thursdays to the dead zone of Saturday night in the second season certainly didn’t help matters. Fourteen months after it became the No. 1 water cooler series, the show was over and out on television. But Lynch wasn’t done with the story. A year later, he made the feature “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” which was booed when screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

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-- Susan King