Human drama of 'Apollo 13' captured

By Susan King

March 29, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

“It’s big news,” Tom Hanks is proclaiming in jest. “This is massive!”

Kidding aside, the decade-old movie to which Hanks refers is the Oscar-winning “Apollo 13,” which arrives today in a special two-disc anniversary edition DVD (Universal, $23). The discs feature the original widescreen and Imax versions of the box-office hit about the near-fatal 1970 space mission, commentary with director Ron Howard and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell and his wife, Marilyn, and three documentaries.

“There is an awful lot of stuff on the DVD, both the movie and the history” of the space missions, he says. Hanks believes the 1995 film continues to resonate because it was the first definitive space drama about the Apollo missions. “There are oceans of documentaries, most of them long ago and most of them very kind of almost industrial film-oriented.... Other than that, the entire area had been relegated to less interesting programming on Discovery and the History Channel.”

“Apollo 13” succeeded, he says, because it focused on the human dimensions of the story. “It’s great drama, it’s also great science and great history.”

The film inspired Hanks to produce the 1998 Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries, “From the Earth to the Moon.”

“I thought the two hours we had for ‘Apollo 13’ were great and fascinating,” he says, “but I thought there were easily 12 more stories we could tell the same way.”

Hanks has returned to outer space again as a producer of a 3-D Imax movie, “Magnificent Desolation,” which is scheduled to open this fall. “We are taking a huge amount of archival footage [from the manned moon flights], much of which has not been seen, and we are also recreating the lunar surface, so it’s like the audience is walking on the moon along with the astronauts. I am lucky we keep finding this burgeoning technology [to tell the story], as well as the market for an audience that will show up for the subject matter.”

Also new this week:

“Closer” (Sony, $20): Natalie Portman and Clive Owen received supporting actress and actor Oscar nominations for this adult relationship drama directed by Mike Nichols. The only extra is Damien Rice’s music video, “The Blower’s Daughter.”

“Vera Drake” (New Line, $28): Mike Leigh’s latest project about a 1950s abortionist working illegally in England received three Oscar nominations -- for Leigh’s direction and screenplay and for Imelda Staunton’s sterling lead performance. “Blue Vinyl” (New Video, $27): When documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand learned her parents were re-siding their home with blue vinyl, she and co-director Daniel B. Gold set out to discover how vinyl is made and if its production was hazardous to health. Included on the DVD is commentary with Helfand and Gold, an epilogue featuring her parents, deleted scenes and two bonus shorts.

“Kagemusha” (Criterion, 40): After being fired as director of the Japanese section of “Tora! Tora! Tora!” legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa went through a period of depression -- which led to a suicide attempt. When he had a difficult time securing the funding for this stirring, handsomely mounted 1980 historical epic, Kurosawa’s good friends George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola convinced 20th Century Fox to put up the money and release the film.

The two-disc set includes commentary from Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince, a Japanese documentary, new interviews with Lucas and Coppola, and the inventive “Image: Kurosawa’s Continuity,” a video piece that reconstructs the film through Kurosawa’s watercolor storyboards and sketches for the film.

“Astro Boy -- The Complete Series” (Sony, $50): Third TV version of Osamu Tezuka’s 1952 comic book creation about an innocent robot. The original 1960 animated Japanese series was in black and white; the 2003 version combines hand drawing and computer animation. The only added attraction is a “remaking of” featurette, which is in Japanese with English subtitles. Ironically, the 50 episodes are only available in dubbed English, Spanish and Portuguese.

“Orgazmo” (Universal, $20): Trey Parker and Matt Stone (“South Park,” “Team America”) also made this 1998 comedy about a Mormon who becomes a porn superhero called Orgazmo. The collector’s edition features the unrated and R-rated version, outtakes and deleted scenes, interviews with the creators, a documentary and three audio commentaries.

“Murder, She Wrote -- The First Complete Season” (Universal, $50): Angela Lansbury achieved TV superstar status in 1984 as spunky mystery writer Jessica Fletcher. There are no extras.

“After the Sunset” (New Line, $28).”The Saint -- The Early Episodes, Set 1” (A&E;, $60).

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

DVD sales

The 10 top-selling DVDs for the week ending March 20. Rankings are compiled from a variety of major retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Blockbuster and Circuit City.

1. “The Incredibles”

2. “Ladder 49”

3. “Bambi: Special Edition”

4. “The Notebook”

5. “Napoleon Dynamite”

6. “Shark Tale”*

7. “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”

8. “Friends: Ninth Season”

9. “Flight of the Phoenix”

10. “Alfie”

* Widescreen (letterbox) edition

Source: DVDExclusive.com