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 Hello, Hemingway (First Run)
Fernando Pérez’s 1990 film is a slight but earnest melodrama about a struggling young Cuban woman who recites the words of Ernest Hemingway to herself while staring at the writer’s nearby mansion. (Hemingway lived in Cuba near the end of his life.) The gulfs between social and economic classes are insufficiently explored here, but this watchable soap opera is enlivened by the sweetly ingratiating presence of actress Laura de la Uz. EXTRAS: One hour’s worth of short films and newsreels about Hemingway in Cuba.  Kaos (Koch Lorber)
The Taviani brothers’ affinity for Sicilian peasants make them perfect interpreters of stories by the great playwright Luigi Pirandello. 1984's Kaos (1984), an epic-length omnibus film based on a quartet of stories by the master, is filled with humor and horror, absurdity and tragedy, and an encompassing love for life that eclipses their other classic, The Night of the Shooting Stars. After three hours of spellbinding storytelling, the Tavianis brave an emotional epilogue that imagines Pirandello discussing his art with his dead mother. It's as startling and refreshingly humane as all that has come before.
 The Last Bolshevik/Happiness (First Run/Icarus)
This essential, two-disc set brings together two equally brilliant filmmakers: French essayist Chris Marker and Russian director Alexander Medvedkin (who died in 1989). The Last Bolshevik is the ultimate tribute from one artist to another, as Marker explores how art and politics intertwined in Soviet Russia -- not only in Medvedkin’s work, but also in the culture at large. Of Medvedkin’s films referenced in The Last Bolshevik, his masterpiece, Happiness (1934), is included on the second disc. EXTRAS: Additional Medvedkin featurettes.
 Laverne & Shirley -- Season 4 (Paramount)
By its fourth season, Laverne & Shirley was the biggest hit sitcom on television, routinely getting better ratings than the show it was spun off from, Happy Days. But just as Happy Days began jumping the shark, L&S was losing some of the guileless innocence that permeated its loving view of those dopey gals from Milwaukee. In an otherwise mediocre 1979-80 season, look for guest appearances from singer Toni Basil, actors Ed Begley Jr. and Robert Alda, and a stand-up comic named Jay Leno. Of course, the comic chemistry of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams is always a major plus.
 The Night of Shooting Stars (Koch Lorber)
The Tavianis’ 1977 breakthrough, Padre Padrone, could not have prepared anyone for the magic of this stunningly simple study of Italian peasant life in a small town during WWII. The brothers’ celebration of the peasantry could seem calculated or patronizing (see Fiorile, above) but in The Night of the Shooting Stars, everything clicks. The absorbing storyline, the compelling non-actors, and the lovely photography add up to an intensely personal film with pleasures both small and large. EXTRAS: 85-minute documentary about the Tavianis.
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