A classic Disney animated feature gets the spiffed-up Blu-ray treatment, and a hard-to-find Fellini film gets a much-needed restoration among these movies that are new to DVD.
"Bambi: Diamond Edition" (Disney/Blu-ray, 1942, G, $39.99). This was always one of Disney's more artistic accomplishments, and now its high-def look is off the charts. But it also remains of the greatest animated movies of all time for its sheer entertainment value. Watching it today, it's amazing to see that it hasn't dated at all.
This is the familiar story of a young deer named Bambi from his birth to his adulthood, along with various other characters among his immediate circle of friends, including Thumper the mischievous bunny, Flower the bashful skunk, wise old friend Owl, etc. A hilarious, poignant and utterly charming movie experience from beginning to end.
Extras: full frame, Blu-ray and DVD versions, deleted scenes, featurettes, 1937 cartoon short: "The Old Mill," interactive games (to be released April 19: two-disc DVD, $29.99).
"I Clowns (The Clowns)" (RaroVideo, 1970, $29.98). Made when Federico Fellini was an auteur revered as much in America as his native Italy, this Italian-TV semi-documentary (dubbed a "docu-comedy") was made as a very personal exploration of clowns and circuses, which he had featured in various ways in several of his movies.
Fellini uses real-life performers, some of them quite famous at the time, from a variety of European circuses, to offer up an amusing, touching and poetic overview of what circuses mean to audiences, in particular children, and by extension, how they reflect on life in general.
Fellini is still Fellini, and it's easy to see through the faux documentary trappings that he is in complete control, far beyond his on-camera appearances as the film's ringmaster.
Extras: full frame, in Italian with English subtitles, featurette, 1953 short film by Fellini; 52-page booklet (with drawings by Fellini)
"Kennedy: Robert Kennedy and His Times" (Sony, 1985, two discs, $19.94). This three-part CBS miniseries (originally titled simply "Robert Kennedy & His Times") paints Bobby as a candidate for sainthood, which is to be expected, I suppose. So if you're looking for a warts-and-all profile, a documentary is probably going to satisfy you more.
But if you just want an entertaining Hollywood re-creation, this five-hours-plus production delivers the goods, with Brad Davis in the title role and a slew of familiar faces in supporting roles. Perhaps most astonishing is to see three future stars among the Kennedy children: Jason Bateman, Shannen Doherty and the late River Phoenix.
Extras: full frame, three episodes
"Faster" (Sony, 2010; R for violence, language, drugs; $24.96). Dwayne Johnson abandons kids movies for a while as he returns to the kind of silly, mindless action he was making when his stage name was "The Rock." Here, he's an ex-con exacting revenge on those who murdered his brother, while pursued by crooked cop Billy Bob Thornton and hitman Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
Extras: widescreen, deleted scenes/alternate ending, introduction by director George Tillman Jr.
"S.W.A.T.: Firefight" (Sony, 2011; R for violence, language; $24.96). This is an alleged follow-up to the 2003 film (minus Samuel L. Jackson), which was based on a 1970s TV series. In this one, Gabriel Macht and his team (which includes Giancarlo Esposito, Carly Pope and Kristanna Loken) go up against a government assassin (Robert Patrick) obsessed with taking them down.
Extras: widecreen, featurette
"Walking on Water" (Sony, 2007, $14.94). This documentary follows two teens as they travel to Hawaii, Peru, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and France on the pro surfer tour. But it also has a Christian component, and though it gets a bit preachy toward the end, it's also highly motivating and has a great message for kids about our relationship with people all over the world. The Africa section is particularly notable.
Extras: widescreen, featurettes, promo for the upcoming theatrical film "Soul Surfer"
"Birdemic: Shock and Terror" (Severin, 2008, $24.98). Idiotic Syfy Channel reject, a riff on Hitchcock's "The Birds," with wooden acting, awful computer graphics and no discernible plot as we follow a solar-panel salesman and a Victoria's Secret model as they try to elude killer birds. Truly awful, but not on purpose, and often very funny, but not on purpose.
Extras: widescreen, deleted scenes, audio commentaries, featurettes, trailers
e-mail: hicks@desnews.com