I'm making a few changes to the TFT format; comments, suggestions and ideas from regular readers are more than welcome!

*Scott's Gimme Pick!* A Fish Called Wanda (Collector's Edition) -- One of the '80s very best comedies (FINALLY) gets the full-bore special edition it deserves! John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin and the (Oscar-winning) Kevin Kline bounce through this farce that's both sunny and acidic, smart and silly, goofy and great. And this package is absolutely stocked with goodies: Cleese commentary, 30 minutes of deleted scenes, some featurettes, a trivia track... I can't wait to add this into my collection! :)

Home Alone (Family Fun Edition) -- If you're a big fan of this celebration of holiday sweetness and hardcore slapstick, this new re-issue looks to be a solid buy. In addition to a Chris Columbus / Macaulay Culkin yack-track, you'll also get a whole bunch of extra goodies -- most of which are all-new to this edition!

Ice Age: The Meltdown -- Because your kid probably doesn't own enough animated movies about animals. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary return to add some personality to the prehistoric critters, and the DVD is predictably stocked with goodies for both old and young.

An Inconvenient Truth -- Al Gore gets all ecological and scares the bejeezus out of those of us who actually consider global warming a real threat. Extras include a pair of filmmaker commentaries, a few featurettes and a box composed of entirely recycled materials.

Independence Day -- Fox was planning to release a 10th Anniversary edition of this movie until someone reminded them that there'd already been a Special Edition, a Limited Edition and a Five-Star Collection edition. And the movie still kinda stinks.

Miracle on 34th Street (Special Edition) -- The 1947 holiday classic finally hits DVD with a swanky SE that's long overdue. The stocking-load of extras include an audio commentary from actress Maureen O'Hara, the 1955 made-for-TV remake, a bunch of documentaries both new and archival ... and you can choose between the (icky) colorized version or the (glorious) original B&W transfer!

The Punisher (Extended Cut) -- Everyone keeps telling me the extended cut of Daredevil is much better than the theatrical version, and I bet the same holds true for The Punisher. Thomas Jane does some solid work in this fairly standard (yet still watchable) little revenge story. New extras (aside from 17 extra minutes wedged into the main feature) include a still-deleted scene, a look at The Punisher's comic book history and some random featurettes.

Scoop -- Yep, Woody Allen's still making movies. This is the one with Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman, I think. And if you've ever owned a Woody Allen DVD, you know what kind of extras to expect here: None. (I think.)

You, Me & Dupree -- Owen Wilson is a wacky dude who squats in the house of newlyweds Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson. Since I have yet to see the movie, I can only assume that much wackiness ensues before a valuable life lesson is learned. Extras-wise you get a pair of audio commentaries, a few featurettes, some deleted scenes and the ever-popular alternate ending.

It's been awhile since we've seen the debate over release-windows. Maybe now that the Box Office Slump of '05 has long since past, and the issue with day-and-date releases has made the debate almost obsolete, theaters just aren't complaining as much. At least in America, anyway. Last week, distributors and exhibitors throughout Italy were furious about Universal's plan to release Miami Vice on DVD exactly two months after its release in cinemas there. The movie, based on the '80s TV-show, opened in the country on October 6 via United International Pictures and it was planned to be out on video December 6. The head of the Italian exhibitors' association ANEC threatened legislative intervention and Warner Village Cinemas actually stopped playing the pic.

All the protesting and boycotting helped. On Friday it was announced that Universal would change the DVD date to January, which would lengthen the window to the usually honored three months. Unfortunately, the win by distributors and exhibitors probably won't change the success of the movie at the box office. In its first four weeks, Miami Vice made only a little more than $4 million. Comparatively, in the same amount of time Woody Allen's Scoop made almost $5 million, World Trade Center has made $6.5 million and The Devil Wears Prada has made close to $15 million. And obviously, Miami Vice didn't even figure into the top 20 this past weekend thanks to it being pulled from so many screens. So, maybe, just maybe, Italians aren't that into the movie, and it wouldn't really matter if the DVD came out next week. Or, it could be the matter of it opening so late, since in countries like the UK and France, where it opened closer to its release in the U.S., grosses were pretty decent.

[via In Focus Magazine Newswire; box office numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo]

A recent news story reported that while fewer 2006 movies have broken the $150 million mark (13 in 2005 and only 7 in 2006) the overall box office has been much higher. That's good news for everyone; it corresponds to a New York Times magazine story from a few months ago. With new types of tracking tools, companies are realizing that there's good money to be made from smaller items. While one super-widget may make a ton of money and look good on the record books, the combination of the sales of hundreds of smaller widgets may actually equal that sum.

For example, Apple has noticed that, while iTunes has its best-selling songs that rank in the top 100 each day, they also do good business on older songs. Virtually every song in their catalog gets downloaded at least once every few months. This is called "individual taste" and it assumes that customers are human beings.

Well, I ventured out of my art house hole last week to catch a Friday morning showing of Snakes on a Plane (a whopping 3555 screens) and I loved it. I finally got the summer movie I wanted. I was ready to hate it, I admit, mostly because I was peeved about New Line not screening it for the press, and all the B.S. they churned out to explain themselves ("it's not a movie for the critics," "everyone's going to get to see it together," etc.). In the end, they wound up with a fairly paltry $15 million gross, mainly because the core audience -- you good folks, the savvy Internet users -- got wind of the film not screening for the press and assumed it was a loser. With a slate of good reviews, mine included, I guarantee business would have been a bit brisker.

While we're at it, let me duck back down into my dank, darkened art house realm and talk about guilty pleasures. Let's start at the bottom, with a gay romantic comedy, The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, currently hanging on by its manicured nails on one lousy screen with barely enough gross to pay back the caterers. Based on a comic strip, the film is about a wishy-washy hero who can't decide what he wants; when his boyfriend asks him to move in, he panics and breaks up. Most reviewers complained about this guy (played by Daniel Letterle), but the performance was just sunny and flighty enough to score a win. Not to mention that the entire movie has a sort of goofball unreality to it; it sets up the rules that anything is allowed to happen, then it plays by those rules and plays hard.

Woody Allen returns this weekend as Sidney Waterman, an aging Borscht Belt magician with a silly stage handle -- Splendini -- and props that seem more like fire hazards than things one might use to make a living. Don't wait around for the prestige in Splendini's act -- you'll be waiting a long time. There's only a bare minimum of effort as he shuffles around in comfortable old duds, converses with the audience while he's supposed to be entertaining them, uses words like 'prestidigitation' and beckons the prettiest girl in the crowd up on stage so he can leer at her while promising to "agitate her molecules." Splendini's magic show is such a narrow affair it could only be attended by a crowd that has sought it out and arrived at the theater with total precognition of what's in store for them. The same holds true for Scoop, the second entry in Woody's Late European Period.

The lovely assistant summoned to the stage is journalism student Sondra Pransky, played by sore-throat ingenue Scarlett Johansson. Sondra is pushed into Splendini's disappearance box about the same time that he's seeing another volunteer -- a pasty Brit -- off stage, telling her "thanks, you're a credit to your race." Inside the box, Sondra is only mildly shocked to discover it's the domain of a ghost, played by Deadwood star Ian McShane. The ghost was a journalist who was killed after possibly learning the identity of the elusive Tarot Card Killer. Based on that unsourceable info, Sondra sets off on a wild scoop-chase with Sidney at her side. An atom of decency -- ours, not Woody's -- demands that their relationship quickly fold into a father-daughter rhythm, with Sondra pulling doting dad-figure Sidney around town by the ear and bouncing her theories about the identity of the killer off his Hubble-thick glasses. Their frantic quest is contrasted by the fate of the poor ghost, who is adrift on a fog-swept barge to nowhere that's crewed by the actual Grim Reaper. Backed into a corner by his own acknowledgment of an afterlife, Allen comes through with one that's as pointless as possible.

Quick, when you think "athletic fashion", who's the first person you think of? If you guessed, "Scarlett Johansson", then Reebok made the right bet. According to Ad Week, Reebok has signed a multi-year deal with Woody Allen's new favorite go-to girl to create the Scarlett "Hearts" Rbk line, which will feature (and I'm not making this up) "head-to-toe looks designed to take today's multi-dimensional woman from the studio to the street in style." I'm not sure exactly what a "multi-dimensional woman" is, but I bet there are some guys around here who'd like one.

Johansson is reportedly "enthusiastic" about working with Reebok on the line. Reebok president and CEO Paul Harrington characterized her as a "world-renowned style icon". Well, that makes sense, I guess, because when I think 'haute couture", I think "Reebok", don't you? Johansson will also be featured in a global women's advertising blitz for Reebok beginning in 2007, so if you just haven't had enough of her on-screen, you'll be getting more Scarlett than you can shake your ... tennis racket at.

The Venice Film Festival may be in (rumored) financial trouble, and facing a possible challenge from an upstart fest in Rome but it nevertheless retains the power to draw the big names, both to its jury and its screens. Though its director insist the focus of this year's festival (which will run from August 30-September 9) will be on European films, the group of American projects expected to debut in Venice is pretty darn impressive. According to Variety, David Lynch's Inland Empire (once rumored to be bowing at Cannes) has been confirmed for the festival -- it'll be screening out of competition -- and Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (YAY!), Woody Allen's Scoop (Have you seen the trailer? Yawn.), Home of the Brave, Children of Men, and World Trade Center are all assumed to be on the slate as well.

In addition to the American products, Kenneth Branagh's The Magic Flute has been confirmed, and The Golden Door (an Italian film about Ellis Island) and Petites peurs partagées, the latest from the legendary Alain Resnais, are also likely to screen. The festival will also feature a tribute to Roberto Rossellini, who would have turned 100 this year; the tribute will include screenings of newly restored prints of his films (Open City, without flecks of white all over it? Holy awesome.)

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you asked yourself, "How in the world did I get here? More importantly, is it at all possible to escape and still manage to live a somewhat normal life?" I shouldn't even need to ask this question because, at one point or another, I'm sure all of you have been in one of those uncomfortable places -- suffocated by the fear and intensity of the situation at hand. What do I do? Where do I go? How will I survive? Is the pizza place still open?

Yes, it sucks -- you're in over your head. Somewhere along the way, be it on purpose or by mistake, everything got away from you. Suddenly, life is caving in and all you're capable of is acknowledging the fact that, well, you're f*cked. Most of the time, it's our curiosity that gets the best of us. We wonder, we ponder, we use our imagination to invent the perfect scenario. Only problem is, there's no such thing as the perfect scenario -- just risk. And if you decide to take that risk, be prepared to battle. If not, you'll drown. That's life.

All of the following films feature characters who are in over their head, caught up in situations that felt right early on, but soon realized things would get a whole lot harder before that light at the end of the tunnel became visible. I've always said that life is like a game of poker -- the guy sitting next to you always wins. However, watching them win helps you to appreciate what matters most. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park:

Odds and ends for Friday:

• The internets have been buzzing for the last 24 hours with word that Angelina Jolie has agreed to star in Tomb Raider 3. According to reports in UK tabloid The Daily Express, Paramount has option the third film and Jolie has signed on -- she's even "already in training to make sure she gets rid of her post-pregnancy bulge." (Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that bulge known as a baby at this point?)
  

• As Karina mentioned in today's podcast, Focus Features has picked up the North American distribution rights (as well as those to New Zealand and Australia) to Woody Allen's Scoop. Set in London, Allen's new favorite-est city EVER, the movie stars Hugh Jackman and the inescapable (trust me, I've tried) Scarlett Johansson, and involves a young American student journalist -- one guess who that is -- stumbling upon both a scoop and a romance while studying abroad. Focus plans to have the film in theaters in the US this summer.

• Columbia has snapped up a comedy pitch from Alex Sabeti entitled The Art of Cool, about a boy who uses Sun Tzu's The Art of War as "a template for how to approach surviving the social politics of high school." According to The Hollywood Reporter, the fact that Michael Ovitz has apparently given everyone in the industry a copy of Sun Tzu's book has made it a running joke for many including Sabeti, who laughed about it for years before he decided to turn the book into the root of his first script. Whatever its source the story must be really, really funny -- Columbia spent over $500,000 on it.

Oops. Michelle Williams? David Krumholtz? Cancel those Paris plane tickets, and never mind about that job. Look at this way -- now, instead of counting your money and adding "Starred in a Woody Allen movie" to your list of accomplishments, you can go look for work! Ah, the struggles of life in Hollywood. It turns out, you see, that Allen's mysterious (the people at Variety are hilariously pleased with themselves for uncovering the fact that it was going to be about "Americans in Gaul." Gee, ya think?) Paris project isn't actually, um, happening any more. According to elusive insiders, the budget was getting out of control, so Woody just punted and ran back to London, his new favorite city in all the world.

Now, instead of filming in Paris, Allen is going to shoot a third film in London (Match Point was filmed there, as was the upcoming Scoop) before heading off to Spain next year, where he has already agreed to mount a production. (He's 71, by the way. How is he more active than I am?)