THE DVD SHELF: "Slings & Arrows," "Seven Samurai," Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and "Glee"

By Steven Suskin
10 Oct 2010

It seems like Beauty and the Beast [Disney] has been around forever, when in fact the film was first released in 1991; just 19 years in November. (Didn't the Broadway musical run about 20 years?) The two-disc Platinum Edition DVD was released in 2002, and quickly sold out. Now comes the Diamond Edition, available in Blu-ray and — come November — on DVD. Disney takes full advantage of the Blu-ray process; what's more, there are so many bonuses of various kinds that the true B&B fan is likely to be engrossed for weeks.

I've been sitting here watching "Composing a Classic," a discussion with composer Alan Menken. Also of interest is "Broadway Beginnings," which concentrates on stars who have appeared in the stage version. Although none of 'em can hold a candle — or a lumiere — to Angela Lansbury, David Ogden Stiers and Jerry Orbach, who voiced the animated version. Some of these bonuses will be on the forthcoming DVD as well, of course; but looking at the release in hand, it almost seems that this Diamond Edition of "Beauty and the Beast" was devised to show off the Blu-ray process. The two-disc Blu-ray is initially being released with a third disc — the new DVD version — bundled in.

*

The television series "Glee" got off to such a fast start in 2009 that demand existed for a DVD set midway through the first half of the first season, which was duly released as "Glee: Road to Sectionals" last December. Glee: The Complete First Season [Twentieth Century Fox] has now been released, on DVD and on Blu-ray. Seeing as how all self-respecting "Glee" fans already own the first DVD (with 13 episodes), Fox has simultaneously released Volume 2 of the first season, "Road to Regionals." One way or the other, that's 22 episodes of "Glee," starring Broadway favorites Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele along with Emmy-winner Jane Lynch. Stage-worthy guest stars, too, along the lines of Kristin Chenoweth, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Idina Menzel. I haven't waded through all 974 minutes myself, but my 13-year-old thinks it is great. The special features, she adds, look especially neat on Blu-ray.

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released Updated and Expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at ssuskin@aol.com.)

*

Visit PlaybillStore.com to check out DVDs for sale.