In another world, another time, all the old legends of vampires. of ghosts. of werewolves. and all manner of things that go bump in the night, are real. [+]

Two of the all-time cartoon classics It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (a Peabody and Emmy winner from 1965) highlight this three-disc, six-episode set. Although the DVDs contain no extras (good grief!) and could have been combined on a single disc (drat!), the collection looks and sounds wonderful on DVD. The content is the same on the VHS and DVD sets, with two episodes per tape or disc. Accompanying Pumpkin is You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, a cute spin on politics that has aged very well since its 1972 release. Christmas sports a lackluster sequel of sorts, It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown (1992) that has Sally dwelling on getting (instead of giving), Charlie Brown facing a spending dilemma, and everyone suffering stage fright before the annual school play. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) also won an Emmy but is not as well known as others; it also suffers from not having the original cast. Snoopy is foremost in helping to put on an impromptu feast (toast and popcorn) as the gang keeps forgetting the true meaning of the holiday. Also on the disc is a better Thanksgiving venue, The Mayflower Voyages (1988), part of the This is America, Charlie Brown series that breathed new life into the franchise. Mostly narrated by Linus, the show traces the Pilgrims' plight and doesn't talk down to youngsters on the hardships they faced. It's a treasure of a gift (for others or yourself), all nicely packaged. [+]

Originally released in 1991, the three-part OAV Detonator Orgun plays like a mixture of several popular sci-fi films. Tomoru, a teenage boy in the 24th century, is haunted by weird dreams partially based on the computer games he plays with his friends. He soon discovers he's telepathically linked to the mysterious mecha Orgun. Meanwhile, at the Earth Defense Force Intelligence Headquarters, Dr. Michi Kanzaki and supercomputer I-Zak decrypt a message from deep space that turns out to be the blueprint for Orgun's physical being. As they make these discoveries, an advanced race of aliens nears the Earth with plans to destroy it. Naturally only the combination of Tomoru, Kanzaki, and Orgun can defeat them. Director Masami Obari (Fatal Fury) handles the action sequences, space battles, and fist fights between giant robots with his usual skill. He's less successful at presenting Hideki Kakinuma's convoluted story, a needlessly complicated mixture of flashbacks, fantasies, quasi-religious mysticism, and warnings about the dangers of tampering with human evolution that is simultaneously too complicated and too simple for its two-and-a-half-hour length. There also seem to be problems with the translation: although Tomoru sees himself as a World War I-style pilot in his fantasies, he refers to his leather jacket as a "Luftwaffer uniform" (the Luftwaffe was the German air corps in World War II). [+]

This film contains graphic violence and brief nudity. Known as Gunnm in Japan and then Battle Angel Alita to Western manga readers, Battle Angel (in all of its incarnations) is now part of the canon of Blade Runner-inspired anime cyberpunk. The film version follows a "Hunter Warrior" and cyborg healer named Ido. Ido formerly lived in the floating land of Zalem (Tiphares in the book), the paradise that hovers over the refuse heap of Scrap Iron City in which he now resides with his former lover, Chiren. In his travels as a bounty hunter (killing spine thieves in a world in which human nerve tissue has become the most precious commodity), Ido one day discovers and repairs the remnants of a cyborg whom he names Gally (Alita in the manga). Though possessing the body of a young woman, Gally embodies Ido's most sophisticated and lethal cybernetic skill. In the first episode on the DVD, "Rusty Angel," Gally challenges Chiren's own creation, Greweicia-a brain-eating gladiator-to a death match. In "Tears Sign" Gally discovers that her first love, Yugo, has put himself in the employ of the spine trader Vector so that he can earn his way, he thinks, to Zalem. Gally confronts her fellow bounty hunters to protect Yugo, only to watch him horribly wounded in a plot to capture her for Vector. Yukito Kishiro's finely detailed line drawings in the original manga (like a cleaner version of Miyazaki's style in the Nausicaa books) are impossible to translate into film. [+]

Letter Factory Tad, Leap, and Lily hop from the pages of the amazingly popular Leap Pad learning toys onto the television screen in this attention grabbing phonics program. Tad's disappointment at being unable to help his family with an important presentation at the letter factory quickly turns to excitement when he meets Professor Quigley and joins each of the letters of the alphabet in their own fun-filled classroom devoted to learning their unique sound. Tad practices karate kicks with the k's, digs the vibes with the cool cat d's drumming on the bongos, and snores peacefully with the z's while learning to recognize each letter and the sound it makes. A catchy, fun song serves as a summation of each letter's "class" and entices even the most reluctant of toddlers (and their parents) to sing each letter's sound. An interactive game follows the program and gives children a chance to practice their newfound skills of recognizing letters and their sounds. Consumers expect great educational products from LeapFrog and this DVD won't disappoint. (Ages 2 to 5) -Tami Horiuchi Talking Word Factory Building words is an exciting and empowering experience for young children (and frogs) who have mastered individual letters and their sounds. When young Tad wants to nominate his Dad for a "Best Dad" contest he asks his brother Leap and sister Lily for some help filling out the application. The three young frogs go see Professor Quigley at their Father's Talking Word Factory for a little instruction and get to watch the "Sticky-ick-o-rama" and the "Word Whammer" machines at work. Tad quickly discovers that vowels act as the glue that sticks letters together and then learns to combine individual letter sounds to make three-letter words, use common ending sounds to create rhyming words, and blend letter sounds to make even longer rhyming words. [+]

When the first Evangelion feature, Death and Rebirth, proved no more satisfying than the last episodes of the original series, Hideaki Anno brought his watershed epic to its conclusion in this final installment. End of Evangelion begins where the series ended: with the Angels defeated, the sinister cabal SEELE attacks NERV headquarters to seize the Evas and realize their plan for humanity. Misato and Ritsuko fight from inside while Asuka decimates a new Eva series. But when Rei merges with Lilith, and Shinji seems to fuse with Unit 01, the final traces of a coherent storyline dissolve into a protracted collage of fantastic images, played against discussions involving Rei, Shinji, Asuka, and Kaoru. Anno's dazzling apocalyptic vision forms a weird but oddly logical finale that ultimately means whatever the viewer chooses to read into it. This unrated feature, suitable for ages 17 and older, contains considerable violence, profanity, grotesque imagery, and sexual situations. -Charles Solomon.