There’s nothing more horrible than looking back wistfully over the year’s more awe inspiring cinematic releases, only to realise that the relevant DVD was as vanilla light and vacuous as a lobotomised McFly. It is therefore our happy duty to report that many of 2004’s more luminous films kept up the good work in the digital afterlife.

Lost In Translation yielded an appropriately sweet package, A Tale Of Two Sisters boasts interviews, commentaries, documentaries – you get the picture – while Capturing The Friedmans is simply a required purchase. Containing everything you’ll ever need to know about director Andrew Jarecki’s disquieting documentary tale of clowns, child abuse and mob mentality, the DVD makes an already multi-faceted film all the more fascinating.
But enough with the good taste. The big, bombastic releases around are aimed squarely at chaps (and they nearly always are chaps) dreaming of a geek Christmas. After a wait of several light years and galaxies, the Star Wars trilogy finally arrived this year in a spanking new box with Empire Of Dreams, an epic two and a half hour making of doc attached. If Jar Jar didn’t kill the whole thing for you, you’d be well advised to check it out.
The internet recluse in your life, meanwhile, is sure to be knocked on their ass by either the whopping ten disc Matrix collection or the equally generous Lord Of The Rings special edition. Featuring a chronologically enhanced version of The Return Of The King (now forty-eight minutes longer), Minas Tirith models for the, er, truly specialised, countless bonus features and your own pet Gollum (probably), it’s a whole sci-fi convention’s worth of joy in a box.
Those who yearn for rather more restrained cinema can enjoy just as many hours out of the sunlight by picking up the Ealing Comedy Collection which brings together The Man In The White Suit, The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts And Coronets, The Titchfield Thunderbolt, Passport To Pimlico, The Magnet, Hue And Cry and the original Ladykillers.
Of course, if you really want to get all genteel then afterwards grab the four disc version of Alistair Cooke’s America before drinking some Horlicks, listening to the Shipping Forecast and promptly hitting the electric blanket.
If you’re feeling rather more adventurous and entirely up for chasing some white rabbit, then there’s always the psychedelic epic, El Topo, made available for the first time this year long after many of us had frittered away our youth chasing beat up video copies. And while we’re getting trippy, there’s a rather splendid box-set of The Prisoner featuring all seventeen episodes.
Our absolute favourite, favourite DVD release though, is the coolly cultish Jean-Luc Godard collection. With Une Femme Est Une Femme, Alphaville and Le Petit Soldat, it’s like, wow, they read and blown our minds. Okay, now let’s all send out collective psychic vibes demanding a ten-hour Kill Bill cut with a bizillion extras.