Video Discs

Passports and cigarettes (invaluable for barter) aren't the only things that pop stars apparently feel are essential when heading to Russia. There are also video crews and recording equipment. Elton John, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi and the Scorpions have either recorded live albums or made documentaries during their Soviet excursions.

If you grew weary over the holidays of revisiting one legendary '60s band (via the Beatles' "Anthology 1" album), here's your chance to start off the new year by reliving some of the magic of one of the other celebrated bands from the era, the Doors. Even if you already own "Dance on Fire," "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" and "The Soft Parade" in videocassette form, this laser package, which combines all three, is a delight.

This captivating video caps an extraordinary year for Reed. First, he demonstrated the vision and talent to make a deeply moving album--"Magic and Loss," an eloquent and ambitious reflection on the deaths of two friends. Then, he had the courage in concert to do the entire album in sequence. Finally, Reed captures the vision of the album and the courage of the tour in this captivating live performance, shot on a sound stage in England.

The "candid moments at home" promised on the back cover turn out to be nothing more than lang's conventional narration, but the "rare live performances and videos" add up to a lively chronicle of the evolution of one of pop's most electric and independent artists. As the country-accented singer moves through some early Canadian TV appearances to her own stylish videos, she experiments with everything from musical genres to hairstyles.

Laserdisc video, the movies-on-CD technology on which Image Entertainment built its business, seems to be going the way of eight-track tapes and 45 rpm records. So why is Martin Greenwald, Image's chairman and CEO, smiling? And why has the company's stock doubled in price over the past two months. Call it luck or savvy, but it looks as if Image this time has bet on the right technology.

Traditional disc-based video games and game console sales slid 29% in June, continuing a decline for a seven straight month. U.S. players spent $699.8 million on game discs, consoles and peripherals in June, down from $989.5 million a year earlier, according to estimates released Thursday by NPD Group Inc. Top titles for the month included "Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes" from Warner Bros. Interactive and "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier," an adventure shooter game from Ubisoft Entertainment.

The sun may have set on the heyday of the drive-in movie theater, but two new DVD collections lovingly re-create the innocent--and not so innocent--pleasures of the late-night double-feature picture show. Elite Entertainment's "Drive-In Discs" and Something Weird Video's "Drive-In Double Feature" offer everything from vintage driver-safety tips and intermission countdowns to tantalizing snack-bar come-ons. Oh yes, and movies too.

What more can you ask of a video than it turn someone who was only mildly interested in a veteran performer into a fan? Part of the credit on "Evening" goes to director Bud Schaetzle, who has done an excellent job of capturing the intimacy of a Griffith club performance in this modest but winning 45-minute package. But the video's most important element is Griffith herself.

Not even the wonders of laser disc picture and sound quality help bring these seven pedestrian videos to life. The inane backstage patter that links the videos doesn't help much, either. Bon Jovi's melodic hard-rock is so hollow and their videos so unimaginative that you don't expect the band's fans to be music or cinema majors, but that's no reason for PolyGram Music Video (which has also released "New Jersey" in videocassette) to suspect the group's fans didn't take enough math classes to recognize that the disc's running time is a full 18 minutes short of the package's claim of "approximately" 60 minutes.