Oct 4, 2002 By Scripps Howard News Service 4 min read

Over the years, Warner Brothers has placed video montages of their “Best Of” moments on just about every videotape they’ve sold. Clips from all of Warner’s best, most popular movies have flashed before us hundreds of times, often eliciting thoughts of, “I should see that again,” or, “Man, that was a great flick.” Several of those moments are newly available on Special Edition DVD, as Warner finally replaces the bare-bones, discount-rack versions of “Amadeus,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Unforgiven” and the underseen “True Romance” with two-disc sets worthy of the classic films.

Each film has been digitally remastered, giving it a sharper, clearer look and a cleaner soundtrack (try listening to “Amadeus” with surround sound … whoa, mama!). All have added extra features, commentary tracks and new, slick packaging.

But as for the quality of what’s been added? Well, that varies.

Take “Amadeus,” for example. The film looks and sounds better than ever, with one small exception: 20 minutes of footage initially left on the cutting room floor has been reinstated – an attempt to improve the Best Picture Oscar winner by rebuilding the “director’s cut.” Whether the new scenes work or not is irrelevant (some do, some don’t); the film was a masterpiece as it was, and to issue the disc with a different version of the film – and without the option of the original version – is something of an insult to discriminating viewers everywhere.

A better road would have been the one taken on “Cuckoo’s Nest,” which includes a slew of deleted scenes that are kept separate from the film. Some, including a terrific scene where Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy first meets Louis Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched, would have worked well in the film; others obviously were cut for a reason. But, in a wise decision, Warner Brothers chose to show us all of them – and to do so without tarnishing the finished product.

Warner has also given us terrific “Making-of” documentaries for both of these Milos Forman masterpieces – lengthy features that take us from the moment of conception to casting and all the way up through the film’s production. In the case of “Amadeus,” the feature makes up for a dull, lackluster commentary track; on “Cuckoo’s Nest,” it supplements a surprisingly informative track by many of the same people.

Surprisingly, the commentary track on “Unforgiven” comes not from producer/director/star Clint Eastwood, but from TIME magazine critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel. While Schickel’s comments are both intelligent and, occasionally, insightful, they offer nothing that has the depth the man himself could have brought to the table.

Fortunately, Eastwood and the rest of the cast DO appear in several of the disc’s other extras. The best, a making-of documentary entitled “All on Accounta Pullin’ a Trigger,” gives an account of “Unforgiven” not unlike the features presented for “Amadeus” and “Cuckoo’s Nest.” That account is far more interesting than “Eastwood & Co.; Making ‘Unforgiven.”‘

The rest of the disc is something of a shrine to Eastwood – something the star certainly has earned, and something his fans will eat up. The “Maverick” episode, “Duel at Sundown,” which features a much younger Eastwood playing a seemingly younger version of “Unforgiven’s” Wiliam Munny, is a special treat, and may be worth the price of admission alone for Eastwood fans.

The fans who will get the most bang for their buck, though, are those enchanted by the cult favorite “True Romance.” Along with being the only disc to offer DTS 5.1 sound, “Romance” also offers a wealth of extras large enough to make the three Oscar winners overshadowing it quiver with envy.

The first thing fans will want to see is the series of scene-specific commentaries, which includes, among other things, Brad Pitt discussing his stoner Floyd and Val Kilmer telling about his “drag queen” Elvis look. But the can’t-miss option here has to be Dennis Hopper’s commentary over his classic scene with Christopher Walken’s fib-proof Sicilian mobster.

If that doesnt do it for you, try the series of deleted scenes, or the “Making-of” documentaries that, like those on the other discs, go far more in-depth than anything being put on current films. And finally, when you think you’ve got the energy to handle it, try the commentary by verbose writer Quentin Tarantino, who tells, among other things, everything you ever wanted to know about the battles that took place over the film’s ending.

It’s a commentary that, like many things on this disc and the others, outstrips those found on most current DVDs – proof positive that the film industry knows how to use the DVD medium, even if it doesn’t always make the most of it.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)