“CSI: The Complete Series”
A jackpot at the casino pays off in murder when the winner’s body is found on the pavement below his hotel suite. The CSI investigator speaks as if communicating with the corpse. “How do you talk to a dead body?” asks a homicide cop. “I let him talk to me, actually” he replies.
The six-time Emmy winning series, “CSI” (2000-2015) has been issued on a 93-DVD (!) set with all episodes and the requisite bonus material. “CSI” concerns the Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigation unit and probably helped popularize the notion that DNA solves all puzzles. Driven by a rock-guitar soundtrack, the show zips across the world’s gaudiest city as scientist-cops combine old-school police work with newly minted technology. A capable cast including William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, Laurence Fishburne and Elisabeth Shue, enact the terse screenplay. “CSI” spin-off, “CSI: Miami,” is out in a relatively modest 65-DVD set.
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I’ll Be Seeing You
Joseph Cotten gives an introverted performance as a soldier on leave hiding his PTSD. He meets Ginger Rogers on a train—and she’s keeping secrets too, resulting from sexual harassment on the job. Out now on Blu-ray, this 1944 holiday favorite continues to be relevant for veterans and workplace issues as well as the gap between perception and reality in wartime. Cotten plays his role with realistic awkwardness in this William Dieterle-directed paean to human decency.
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The Settlers
Most of the settlers interviewed by Israeli director Shimon Dotan don’t like being called settlers. The word implies that they are on someone else’s land. The truth hurts. More than 200 settlements have been built on Palestinian land since 1967 by Jews convinced that they are rebuilding the biblical Kingdom of Israel. Aware of international law, the Israeli government didn’t encourage them until Menachem Begin became prime minister (1977). The voices of settlers and Palestinians are heard.
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