This week Entertainment Weekly is "Counting Down the New Movie Classics," listing the best films made in the past 25 years. The magazine claims that all 100 are good enough to be considered alongside the usual classics (you know, like Citizen Kane, Casablanca, etc.), but I guess that's relative. I wouldn't consider #99, The Blair Witch Project, to be equated with Poltergeist III, let alone Psycho. But isn't that the fun of these lists? They fuel our excitement about cinema while also angering us that our favorites aren't higher up, or more commonly, that the films we hate most are included on any list, ever.

On the first day of the countdown, EW shows us the bottom 25, which includes such masterpieces as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Breaking the Waves, In the Mood for Love and Full Metal Jacket. When I saw that the last of these was only at #94, I got really excited, wondering what 93 films could possibly be better. And then I was shocked to see that so-so comedies like Swingers and Waiting for Guffman and the fine but poorly aged Moonstruck placed higher. I almost didn't even see those titles, though, because I almost threw my computer when I saw that Napoleon Dynamite was just ahead of Back to the Future. Just another reason to hate Napoleon Dynamite, I guess. Even the Back to the Future sequels are better than ND, but I'm going to now assume they don't even make it on this list.

#s 75-51 will be revealed tomorrow. I wonder what kind of delights and blasphemies will meet us then.

Last week in my Indies on DVD post, I mentioned a new Stanley Kubrick box set (from Warner Home Video) and Criterion's release of Terence Malick's Days of Heaven. Both releases had raised pre-release questions. Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere sounded the alarm back in August that Criterion's upcoming re-issue of the Days of Heaven on DVD would look "really different" than the previous version from Paramount Home Video. He based his concerns on comments by Criterion's Lee Kline. Now that Wells has seen the new DVD, he writes: "I saw Days of Heaven in 70 mm on the day it opened -- 9.13.78 -- at the Cinema 1 on Third Avenue, and the Criterion DVD took me right back to that transporting experience. This is how it looked back then, and should have always looked. " Good to hear.

The Kubrick set raised eyebrows when it was announced that three of the films (The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut) would be presented in a different home video format than Kubrick had insisted upon when he was alive. Film critic Dave Kehr noted: "Kubrick apparently had his reasons, as mysterious as they may be, for releasing them to video the way he did." The new, reformatted aspect ratio, Kehr says, "would be closer to the way the films were originally seen in theaters." Kehr then quotes a statement from Jan Harlan (the present keeper of the Kubrick estate) and questions the historical sense of Harlan's statement before concluding: "I'm really not well informed enough to have a solid opinion. And without Kubrick around to consult, I don't see how we'll ever know for sure." He recommends hanging onto the older DVD versions as reference points, if nothing else. So if you've been waiting for the definitive edition of these films (others in the set are 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, in addition to the doc A Life in Pictures), you'll need to weigh out the positive and not so positive.

Wowwy wow wow. I knew there were some new Stanley Kubrick special editions on the way, but I had no idea that Warner was going all out with new features! I don't even know where to begin! (OK, breathe.) According to DVDActive.com, five of the master's films will be hitting the shelves as part of a massive box set. Those films are The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. All of 'em 2-disc widescreen treat-laden Special Editions! (And yes the DVDs will also be available outside of the box set.)

Each of the 2-disc sets come with documentaries / featurettes both old and new, but what I find most exciting are the all-new audio commentaries. (Yes, I'm a commentary nerd. No apologies.) The new chat-tracks break down like so: On 2001 we get actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; on Clockwork it's the awesome Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman; on Eyes Wide Shut we'll hear from actor/director Sydney Pollack and professor Peter J. Loewenberg; The Shining delivers Steadicam creator Garrett Brown and Kubrick biographer John Baxter; and (this should be great) on Full Metal Jacket the participants will be actors Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and film critic-turned-screenwriter Jay Cocks. (What, Matthew Modine was too busy?)

And again I'll reiterate an important factor: All of these DVDs (which have been approved by Mr. Kubrick's estate) will come in digitally remastered widescreen. (The old-school Kubrickians know what I'm talking about.)

The discs will hit the stores on October 23, and if you're not satisfied by these five offerings, you can also pick up the new-but-movie-only releases of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Lolita. And just to quell any confusion, I'll remind you that Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory are Sony properties, whereas Spartacus is a Universal title. That's why they're not included here. But hats off to Warner Bros. for this inevitably awesome box set!

Talk about guts! This kid submitted this video to Stanley Kubrick way back in 1983 when Kubrick was having open auditions for Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick had advertised around the U.S. for young actors to send in audition tapes to be considered in the casting process. Brian Atene, aged 20 at the time, sent this tape in and was apparently never heard from again, as least by Hollywood. That is until this video started making the rounds on the web.

Now, Mr. Atene can be accused of many things, but being shy about his "acting abilities" sure isn't one of them. He compares himself to a young Alec Guiness, and calls the Juliard School where he is a student, the "finest acting institution in the world". Although he says this, "not as a statement of conceit, but humbly as a statement of fact." He calls Kubrick one of the greatest directors of all time while rolling his eyes to the heavens, although tells him that he isn't quite as good a director as Michael Curtiz, who directed The Sea Hawk (which is apparently Atene's favorite film) in 1940.

After taking Kubrick to task for not directing 2010, he goes on to let him know that his favorite composer is Erich Wolfgang Korngold (he composed the music for The Sea Hawk, of course), that he won a puppy for 50 cents when he was 12 years-old, and his favorite color is green. Oh, and he's a Trekkie. He then performs a short "cutting" loosely based upon on The Outsiders, by which I think he means the book, and not the film, since that came out the same year that Atene was recording the tape.

This is probably the best video definition of the word hubris that I've ever seen. See for yourself after the jump. Once you've seen that, check out the parody update of Mr. Atene, aged 43.