We could all use a little pick me up as we head back into work after the Labor Day weekend, and one of the best shows on television is doing everything it can to help. Season 5 of NBC’s comedy The Office comes out on DVD today, and for those of us who have been Dunder Mifflin fanatics from the beginning, this five disc set doesn’t disappoint.

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Having grown rather disgruntled, last week, by the fact that the American Life Network has started inexplicably preempting everything (including beloved St. Elsewhere reruns) with irritating late night infomercials for thigh-press machines and hair conditioners, I eventually gave up and tuned into an animated short that I impulsively DVR’ed from the Sundance Channel, entitled Harvie Krumpet. And in the process, I discovered a minor miracle: a commendably offbeat, fresh, hysterically funny creation that was deservedly one of the breakout hits of the Sundance Film Festival six years ago (and won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 2003 Oscars). Though only 23 minutes long, it has been released on North American DVD, supplemented by earlier shorts from the same director. It won me over instantly, and if you haven’t yet seen it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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It’s a full and exciting month as we return to the realm of outstanding television finds that have evaded home video issue. This month witnesses the return of a largely unknown Sean Connery psychothriller, a Kaneto Shindo horror outing never issued in stateside ancillary, and a Howard Keel cult favorite, among others. So sit back and keep your remotes handy, and enjoy the ride as we go channel surfing once again.

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Live near Chicago and looking to kick-start your sci-fi summer the right way?

Well you’re in luck, because the Music Box theater and Rusty Nails are set to deliver fourteen hours of laser-blasting, body-shrinking, space-tripping, damn dirty ape-fighting, enzyme-barfing mayhem to a silver screen near you. That’s right, the Sci-Fi Spectacular is back, and this time special guest Gary Lockwood is dropping by to greet the fans personally.

Tickets are $20 pre-sale at Laurie’s Planet of Sound, and Music Box Theatre and ticketweb.com, and $24 day of show at the door.

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As I discussed at length in a January 2008 blog post concerning Stanley Jaffe’s 1983 thriller Without a Trace, one of the great logical conundrums of the mystery thriller from a screenwriter’s standpoint is how to end a missing persons tale without disappointing the audience. Refuse to provide an answer as to the vanished character’s whereabouts, and an audience feels cheated; offer a solution, and the motion picture loses an element of fascination, especially with repeat viewings. As a result, very few films in this subgenre feel particularly successful. Some, like the way-overhyped Bunny Lake is Missing, practically hand us the solution from the first scene, while others (Jonathan Mostow’s cruelly manipulative Breakdown or Robert Schwentke’s Flightplan, for instance) take a dramatic shift away from the central conceit to hand us something overblown and even ludicrous.

One immediate exception that leaps to mind is an extraordinary British thriller from 1950, directed by Anthony Darnborough and Terence Fisher and entitled So Long at the Fair.

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After taking a month off from this regular list, I’m pleased to return to the annals of outstanding, overlooked cable programming that has evaded ancillary release. As usual, this month includes a trove of exciting finds, and one could lose oneself in observing the trends now overtaking these channels. With its after-dark programming, Turner Classic Movies seems to be resurrecting the treasures of old night owl finds from late-night TV thirty and forty years ago, while Ovation continues to list incredible arts programming that seemingly can’t be found anywhere else. (I hope that this list encourages viewers/readers to sample the programming on that wonderful network!) In any case, I’ve tried to showcase the best of these two trends in my list. So happy viewing as we head into March 2009!

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One of the most curious and interesting benefits of the ‘DVD Revolution’ is the ability to go back and re-watch decades-old series, years after they entered the public eye for the first time, thanks to their re-release on disc. But what of the outstanding network programs (and yes, there are a notorious few) that have either completely evaded digital reissue or that have only received a partial reissue, with no plans to expand beyond a Season One box set?

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Here we go again with another monthly list of excellent films on cable that have been passed over for stateside ancillary distribution. The best that can be said about this December’s cable schedules is that, despite every Christmas movie and special imaginable, none of the networks appear to be showing Albert Zugsmith’s yuletide-themed schlockfest Dondi or the Star Wars Holiday Special. The stations are, however, programming some equally obscure finds that actually deserve attention, such as a long-forgotten Hollywood effort by the legendary Jacques Demy, a critically-praised Jennifer Jones comedy by Ernst Lubitsch, and other treasures - the finest of which I’ve included in this list. So keep your remotes and DVRs handy and get ready for some channel surfing.

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