The Facts of Life: The Complete First and Second Seasons

As every girl and gay boy who came of age in the ‘80s knows, The Facts of Life was spun off from the hit sitcom Different Strokes as a vehicle for Charlotte Rae’s character Mrs. Garrett. Playing den mother to a house full of teenaged girls, including a pre-Sixteen Candles Molly Ringwald, Mrs. G., via some mind-numbing dialogue, helped the young ladies with problems ranging from shoplifting to teen suicide to (gasp!) suspected same-sex attraction. By season two the household was whittled down to that fabled microcosm of humanity we know today -- plump, jolly Natalie (Mindy Cohn), pretty, shallow Blair (Lisa Whelchel), gossipy, impish Tootie (Kim Fields), with rebellious, tough-talking -- and lesbian icon, natch -- Jo (Nancy McKeon) added to the cast. All 29 episodes are included in the four-disc boxed set. Bonus features: featurettes “Remembering The Facts of Life” and “After Facts,” in which several of the actresses share their lives since the series left the airwaves. -- Jeremy Kinser

The Mudge Boy

Building on the momentum of his short film Fishbelly White, writer/director Michael Burke’s The Mudge Boy is a sensitive story about Duncan (Emile Hirsch), a rural farm boy with a special connection to chickens. While dealing with the recent death of his mother, after another painful confrontation with his grieving father Edgar (Richard Jenkins), Duncan befriends Perry (Thomas Guiry), a hunky farm boy. Following a raucous ride in a pickup truck with the local delinquents, Perry coaxes a reluctant Duncan to try on his deceased mother's wedding dress. More than eggs are laid in the barn out back. The Mudge Boy has a beautifully uncomplicated spirit, and the film's camera work and accompanying score are a wonderful complement to Hirsh's magnetic and very vulnerable performance. Bonus Features: Commentary from Burke who discusses his inspiration for the film. -- Jim Holmes

Robin's Hood

Just when you think there can't be another remake of the classic steal-from-the-rich-give-to-the poor tale, along comes Robin's Hood. This multi-racial romance begins when African-American Robin, a disenchanted social worker, meets Brooklyn a street-wise albeit good-hearted auto mechanic who moonlights as a thief. According to Robin, “The system doesn't want change,” so she joins forces with Brooklyn, for some sex, stealing, and very tedious social commentary. Things become unpleasant when Robin discovers she's pregnant from an earlier affair. Between robbing banks they work out their relationship upsets. Due to amateurish lighting, dialogue, and camera work, it feels as if you're watching a bad home movie. This film is a far cry from the merriment of Sherwood Forest. Bonus Features: Trailers.-- JH

The Tennessee Williams Film Collection

If you think Tennessee Williams’ name is synonymous with brutish beefcakes, gorgeous gigolos, frustrated sexpots, and great ladies on the skids, you’re right. Besides colorful, iconic characters, the gay playwright -- arguably the finest America has yet produced -- is also the master of poetic dialogue. There’s plenty of evidence in this compilation of six of the better film versions of his work, three making their DVD debuts in the eight-disc boxed set, The Tennessee Williams Film Collection. The best film in the set -- and possibly the best film version of any play -- is 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Two of the most beautiful actors in cinema history, Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, give two of the medium’s greatest performances as unrefined Stanley Kowalski and ethereal, doomed Blanche DuBois. It’s also worth noting composer Alex North’s influential, sultry jazz-infused score. Though the gay subject matter was completely deleted for 1951 audiences (Blanche’s late husband is now just a sensitive poet), this remains the crowning achievement for all involved. Gay references were again diluted in 1958’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring an impossibly handsome Paul Newman as a tormented, alcoholic former athlete and breathtaking Elizabeth Taylor as unfulfilled Maggie the cat. Carroll Baker stars as a teenaged bride who drives hubby Karl Malden to despair in 1956’s Baby Doll, a comedy deemed so shocking it was denounced by the Legion of Decency. Leigh plays another drifting beauty in 1961’s The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, based on Williams’ only novel. This time an obsession with an Italian gigolo, played by Warren Beatty with an elusive accent, leads the lady to her doom. In 1962’s Sweet Bird of Youth, Newman stars as a failed actor who returns to his hometown with a drug-addicted movie queen played by Geraldine Page, in one of her most-acclaimed performances. Richard Burton starred opposite Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr as a fallen clergyman leading a bus full of religious women, including a repressed lesbian, along the Mexican coast in 1964’s steamy Night of the Iguana, which made Puerta Vallarta a top tourist destination. Bonus features: There’s an off that charts smorgasbord here -- a new featurette on each film, select vintage featurettes and commentaries, plus a bonus disc, Tennessee Williams' South, in which the man himself reads from his work while visiting his homes in Key West and New Orleans. The second disc of Streetcar contains movie outtakes, a screen test Brando made for a never-filmed version of Rebel Without a Cause, a feature-length doc on Kazan, the director most associated with Williams, and there’s also a shamefully disappointing commentary which is just audio lifted from the featurettes. -- JK

Also available:

Blanche, Rose, and Sophia stop eating cheesecake when Dorothy is forced to confront her gambling addiction -- just one of the many plotlines on everyone’s fave series about those four single gals in Miami. Golden Girls Season Five is now on DVD.