WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —Start saving your shekels. The "Murnau & Borzage at Fox" box set coming out in December will retail for more than $200 and promises to be worth every dime, bringing 12 movies to DVD for the first time. F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise" has been around for a while, but the set is also offering his "City Girl," a slightly compromised but still lovely film from the changeover to sound.
Take my word for it, though; the film that will justify the package is Frank Borzage's luminous "Lucky Star." Like all of the great Borzage films, it's a story of love transcendent in an entirely studio-bound universe, and has an overwhelming emotional impact.
This set is made possible by the great success of the "Ford at Fox" box set of last Christmas, which was equally expensive and equally valuable, documenting as it did John Ford's slow ascent from craftsman to artist. Fox was slow climbing into the DVD market with prestige offerings, but they have nothing to apologize for anymore.
SCOTT EYMAN DOESN'T RECOMMEND!
Of all the lousy movies in all the world, why did Nicolas Cage choose to remake "Bangkok Dangerous"? Granted, it's a good title, but the 2000 release that's just made it onto DVD isn't any good at all. Physically, it looks like a '70s exploitation film, except '70s exploitation films have more juice than this. Mostly we watch the central character, a hit man named Kong(!), who happens to be deaf, moon around after the cute pharmacist who's nice to him. A movie about a deaf hit man has to be good, sleazy fun, or it's nothing. "Bangkok Dangerous" is nothing.
Chick flick alert: "Sex and The City: The Movie"
George Clooney: "Leatherheads"
ON THE HORIZON
Tuesday: "Iron Man," "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
Scott Eyman writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: seyman AT pbpost.com