Best DVD

The Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring

Extended Edition

At BOP, we loves our DVD collections. As obsessive/compulsive sorts with type A personalities, we feel the same urge to go buy new DVDs that Richard Dreyfuss feels to mold his mashed potatoes into alien technology. 2002 even brought us a new trend in the marketplace as TV shows old and new alike garnered release on DVD. The staff took note as 30% of our top ten wound up being television series rather than movies.

While you might think that a site who names both an uber-columnist and these very awards you're reading after a certain Sports Night character would give that title an edge in the voting, it turns out we're much bigger nerds than you might realize. The Lord of the Rings SuperMegaUltraExtremeExtended DVD release (MSRP of $799.95) wound up winning a tight race for the category. Apparently, we are a group of individuals with a lot of disposable income but no real desire to move away from the cliche that people who spend a lot of time on the Internet are massive, massive nerds. As such, upon the completion of this write-up, I will hand over my lunch money even though I correctly voted for Sports Night. Yes, I'm bitter.

The Royal Tenenbaums carries over the goodwill from being Best Picture of 2001 as it finishes second for Best DVD. Sure, it doesn't include sonograms of Gollum or anything but the staff at BOP was still gung-ho over the volume of features included on this magnificent two-disc compilation. We already loved the movie, so the care taken with this package was the cherry on top of our sundae.

Speaking of discs with massive features, Monsters, Inc. finishes third as Pixar again demonstrates a preternatural understanding of what consumers want. Even in the days when chapter search was bragged about on the backs of most boxes, the CGI wizards were already showing how much they cared about their products. Their latest release is a tour de force with the inclusion of a new featurette, tons of "making of" details and enough hidden items to keep easter egg hunters on the prowl for months to come. Would that every production company followed the high standards of Pixar.

Say Anything... ended up fourth in the voting. As soon as this title was placed on the release schedule, we penned it in for the top ten with the only question being where. As we showed in 2000 with the Almost Famous sweep and again in 2001 when that film won best DVD, we are huge fans of the work of Cameron Crowe. Say Anything... is arguably the best teen film of all-time and has been hailed as the greatest romantic work of the modern era by Entertainment Weekly. Putting it on DVD was always a no-brainer, so we've been impatiently tapping our feet waiting up until this past year. Our (lack of) patience was rewarded with a lovingly crafted disc including marvelous commentary by Crowe, Ione Skye and John Cusack which starts several minutes before the movie begins to play. The 23 deleted/extended scenes create an entirely new movie worth of content and the included featurette is also perfect. Say Anything... on DVD is bliss.

Finishing fifth is the excellent The Usual Suspects Special Edition. Some of the staff were a bit annoyed that it took the third time to get the disc right, but the latest (and we expect last) version is breathtaking in its efficacy. Short of a Keyser Soze prequel, this is the last TUS disc you will ever need. The deleted scenes in particular make this one the completionist's dream.

The rest of the top ten includes the disappointing performance of Sports Night: The Complete Series on DVD. My sitemates were torn between thanking Buena Vista for releasing the disc and scolding them for not adding features to it. In the end, using the Comedy Central aka butchered versions of the episodes proved too unforgivable for most. A feature-laden disc (hint, hint) would probably do much better for the diehard Sorkin fans out there. Again, I'm not embittered by the vote inasmuch as I'm blinded by hateful rage.

From there, we voted in two of our favorite shows for releasing their second seasons as The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature-intensive discs arrived. We also loved the care taken with the Memento and Singin' in the Rain releases. When the movies are great, the secret ingredient for a DVD is the same as Mom's secret ingredient for cookies, Love. You'll notice throughout the DVD top ten that we are most kind to those who take the extra time to not rush a release but instead to make certain it's one we won't have to buy again and again til they get it right. We call this the lesson of Army of Darkness (now up to DVD V6.0). (David Mumpower/BOP)

Top Ten
Position	Film	Total Points
1	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings - Extended Edition	88
2	The Royal Tenenbaums: Criterion Edition	77
3	Monsters, Inc.	68
4	Say Anything...	56
5	The Usual Suspects: Special Edition	48
6	Sports Night: The Complete Series	46
7	The Simpsons: Season 2	41
8	Memento: Special Edition	40
9	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2	38
10	Singin' in the Rain: Special Edition	31