As is the case every year, there are several special edition DVDs coming out in anticipation of the holidays. Buzzine.com checked out a few of them to see if they’re stocking stuffers you’ll keep…or re-gift.

While all of the movies themselves are excellent and undoubtedly classics, only one of them offers any great revelations (hint: it’s an offer you can’t refuse). Completists will probably already have these flicks in all their incarnations, but for those who’ve been waiting for the ultimate edition, now’s the time to buy.

Halloween: 30-Year Anniversary Collectible Box

The coolest-looking one is the collectible 30th Anniversary Boxed Set of John Carpenter’s Halloween, because it’s actually wearing a perfect replica of Michael Myers’s iconic mask. The film, originally entitled The Babysitter Murders, would later be known simply as Halloween, but that was really the only simple thing about it. Scratch the surface — or go behind the mask, as the case may be — and there’s a lot more to the movie than meets the eye. This explains why it has become a landmark flick and why it’s endured for 30 years.

The movie begins in 1963 in Haddonfield, Illinois, where a beautiful young teenage girl is brutally slaughtered…by her ten-year-old brother. It’s in the beginning that we know we’re in for something smart and slyly tongue-in-cheek in its homage to Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense (a couple of character names are nods to those in 1961’s Psycho, and of course star Janet Leigh’s daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis as Halloween’s virginal heroine).

Flash forward to present time (a time in which high-waisted jeans and feathered hair ruled the fashion — and slashin’ — scene), when that young boy, now all grown up and still totally mental (Michael Myers aka “The Shape,” played by Nick Castle), has escaped the asylum and goes home to Haddonfield to wreak havoc on teenage girls who remind him of his sister (and their boyfriends, and a hapless hound…he’s really an equal opportunity eviscerater).

The plot is nothing special nowadays (and maybe wasn’t then), but the movie still holds us in its thrall because it uses tried and true techniques to keep the audience disoriented and wondering what’s going to happen next — yet those unknowns are tempered by co-screenwriters Carpenter and Hill in allowing us to know the back story, to identify with the victims, and care what happens to them. Donald Pleasance as Myers’s psychiatrist borders on the histrionic at times (which certainly fits in with the character’s constant urgency), and Curtis is cute and competent while her posse (PJ Soles, Nancy Kyes) are your typical wisecracking teens.

In The Box:

• Halloween Restored original 1978 film;
• Halloween Extended Edition Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers;
• Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers;
• Halloween 25 Years of Terror SPECIAL BONUS DISC Halloween release

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad: 50th Anniversary DVD

This rated-G Ray Harryhausen timewaster is more fun in memory than actuality. I loved it when I was a kid, but now I find it awfully dated and somewhat dull… I much prefer his 1970s variations on the same tale: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

The tame, leisurely-paced fantasy about a sailor (Kerwin Mathews) and a princess (Kathryn Grant) who encounter evil embodied in the cunning conjurer Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) is livened up by claymation master/monster-maker Harryhausen’s cool creations. These fanciful creatures include a giant Cyclops, an army of sword-fighting skeletons, and a furious, flying Roc.

The extras boast a new interview with Harryhausen, now 88 years old. His power of recall is enviable, and his ability to tell a story is sparkling as ever — and I even learned a few new things.

Single disc.

The Godfather DVD Collection: All Three Movies

Writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s definitive mob movies may have paved the way for flicks like Goodfellas and series like The Sopranos, but even today it is (horse) head and shoulders above the rest.

Right off the bat, in the first film, we meet the entire Corleone family. They’re living it up at the wedding of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)’s daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). Her brothers Sonny (James Caan), Michael (Al Pacino), and Fredo (John Cazale) are all there, as are several of her dad’s friends…and enemies. A great time is had by all until a hit is put out on Vito. The attempt fails not once but twice, and as the redoubtable Don and The Family fight back, all three films flow back and forth in time, from the early 1900s, to the ’40s to the ’70s, showing how the Corleones rose to power and what evils they will do to keep it. Robert DeNiro plays the younger Vito in Part II, while Pacino appears in all three films.

This release is special because not only are The Godfather and The Godfather II newly restored (Robert A. Harris of the Film Preserve supervised the restoration under the direction of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis), but they’re also coming to Blu-ray for the first time.

All three films are available individually or in a five-DVD collection or four-disc Blu-ray collection, which are loaded with so many all-new special features, you’ll be craving cannoli for weeks.

The fresh special features created by Kim Aubry, founder of Zoetrope Aubry Productions, explore the complexities of the restoration process and provide insights and perspectives about how the film almost didn’t come to pass as we know it (”The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn’t”).

In The Box:

Disc 1:

• The Godfather feature film
• Commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola

Disc 2:

• The Godfather, Part II feature film
• Commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola

Disc 3:

• The Godfather, Part III feature film
• Commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola

Disc 4: (previously released special features)

• Making of The Godfather
• Additional Scenes
• Filming Locations
• The Corleone Family Tree
• The Music of The Godfather
• The Godfather Historical Timeline
• Profiles on the Filmmakers
• Photo Galleries and Storyboards

Disc 5: (new special features)

• Godfather World
• The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn’t
• When the shooting stopped
• Emulsional Rescue Revealing The Godfather
• The Godfather on the Red Carpet

Four Short Films on The Godfather

1. The Godfather vs. The Godfather, Part II
2. Cannoli
3. Riffing on the Riffing
4. Clemenza

Also, there’s a special Sopranos Easter egg! This collection’s got everything you ever wanted and then some. It’s an offer you can’t refuse.

Popularity: 3% [?]