By Jeremy Kinser

Happy Endings

In Happy Endings, writer/director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex) not only weaves an intricate story about a group of Angelenos coping with buried secrets, missed opportunities, and welcomed second chances, he also provides biographical notes about the characters detailing their pasts and futures through witty on-screen notes. It's a gimmick that works. This all-star ensemble piece features fine performances from Tom Arnold (no kidding), Bobby Cannavale, Lisa Kudrow (as a blackmailed basket case, it's her best work to date), Jason Ritter, and especially the always wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal, who also proves herself an adept vocalist. Bonus features include an audio commentary by Roos and Kudrow, outtakes, and a "making of" featurette.

The Sound of Music/Oklahoma!/State Fair

To mark its 40th anniversary, The Sound of Music is being rereleased on DVD in yet another two-disc set filled with new bonus features. The audience-pleaser by Rodgers & Hammerstein about a disruptive novice nun sent to govern the unruly singing children of an uptight widower baron in picturesque Salzburg, Austria, hardly needs recommendation. The film's popularity (five Oscars, including one for Best Picture, dethroning Gone With The Wind's 35-year reign as the all-time box office champ and adjusted for inflation, the film still ranks as the third highest earner ever, and it recently launched a spate of sold-out sing-along screenings across the globe) speaks for itself. New bonus features are the main reason to pick up the new set. Best of all is the hour-long "My Favorite Things: Julie Andrews Remembers," in which Andrews recalls the making of the film and her long relationship with R&H having already played the title role in their TV production of Cinderella, and Johannes von Trapp discusses how the true story of his family differed from the depiction on stage and film. In the 22-minute "On Location with The Sound of Music," Charmian Carr (Liesl) revisits breathtaking sights where the movie was filmed. Other material includes an A&E documentary on the von Trapps, a pre-Peyton Place Mia Farrow's screen test for the Liesl role, and a whimsical look at the sing-along phenomenon. Also being rereleased are two other R&H classics. It's common knowledge that Oklahoma!, the story of a young prairie woman struggling with two suitors, was a groundbreaking American musical with the songs and dances growing out of the characters and their emotions rather than just the need for singing and dancing. Few, however, know that two movie versions were filmed simultaneously. Both the already-available widescreen Todd-AO version and the never-before-released on DVD ultra-widescreen Cinemascope format are included on the new two-disc set to mark the film's 50th anniversary. Bonus features include audio commentaries by star Shirley Jones and by Ted Chapin, president of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, and an all-new Cinemascope vs. Todd-AO featurette on the various filming and projection methods used to create the two theatrical experiences and how important these technologies were to the film industry at the time. Also rereleased to coincide with its 60th anniversary is 1945's State Fair, which starred Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, and Vivian Blaine, and, to borrow from the lyrics of another song from R&H, is "as corny as Kansas in August." Still, the story of a family taking its giant hog to the fair (seriously) is colorful and boasts the popular standard "It Might As Well Be Spring." On the second disc is the 1962 remake starring Pat Boone, Bobby Darin, and the vivacious young Ann-Margret, which makes its DVD debut. Bonus features include "From Page, To Screen, To Stage," a documentary that chronicles the story's evolution from a novel, to a non-musical film, to the 1945 R&H movie musical, the 1962 R&H movie musical remake, finally, as a 1996 Broadway musical, and a sing-along feature.