On the DVD: Extras include a commentary from Leder, and a 13-minute "making-of" documentary that includes cast and director interviews. None of it, though, tells us much we couldn't have gathered from the movie. The clean widescreen (1. 85:1) print and the Dolby 5. 1 sound deliver on quality, and come fully into their own in the all-out bravura finale-shameless tear-jerking on a grand scale. -Philip Kemp.

Recommended. -Jon Foster.

By the end of the season, Jeffrey is gone, while Jerry returns to Crane, Poole & Schmidt. Throughout the year, the firm tackles a variety of timely issues, ranging from religious freedom to immigration law. Reporter Gracie Jane (Jill Brennan), a Nancy Grace doppelgänger, also comes in for some ribbing. Aside from recurring characters, like Jane Lynch (as a sexual surrogate), the third season counts a few actors behind the camera, such as Eric Stoltz ("Dumping Bella") and Adam Arkin ("Nuts"), from David E. Kelley's Chicago Hope. -Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon. com.

Jenny's "am-I-straight-or-not?" kvetching frustrated both her fiancé (Eric Mabius) and many viewers, who were alternately irritated and intrigued by her inability to decide one way or the other. But Jenny's weakness was part of The L Word's strength: in exploring many sides of many issues, both domestic and political, it never came up with an easy answer for any of them, making the show all that more fascinating-and compulsively watchable. -Mark Englehart.

Ambiguous and bold, the movie hints that society may be as guilty as the killers. -Dave McCoy Terrence Malick's Badlands has become a cornerstone in American cinema. Although not a success at the box office at the time of its release in 1973, its influence can be seen years later in the Tarantino-penned Natural Born Killers and True Romance among others, and it remains arguably one of the finest debuts by a director in Hollywood history. Astonishingly, Malick has only made two movies since: Days of Heaven (1979) and The Thin Red Line (1998). Badlands also brought Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek to the notice of Hollywood for the first time. Shot on a low budget, the film (based on Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate's 1958 killing spree) portrays a loved-up couple on the run from the law who embark on a series of killings motivated by their need to survive. The film has become a classic, partly due to Tak Fujimoto's cinematography and partly due to the detached attitude the couple adopt towards murder. Like Tarantino's later anti-heroes and heroines, Kit and Holly are killers without conscience. Holly's naïve teenage mentality makes her passive attitude seem even more shocking, and her only comment that leads us to believe she has any grasp of the situation is when she mentions that Kit may be a little crazy. Yet there is also an innocent, "young love" side to the couple's actions which the audience cannot fail to feel pity for, greatly helped by the pairing of Sheen and Spacek as well as Malick's gift for drawing the finest and most sensitive performances from his actors. On the DVD: Badlands has been cleaned up nicely with a 1. 85:1 widescreen print and 5. 1 surround sound. Although seemingly short of extras the one included on the disc is a real gem: "Absence of Malick" offers insight into this notoriously publicity-shy director from the cast and crew and the reason why he ended up acting in his own movie. -Nikki Disney.