-Mark Walker.

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.

Boyz n the Hood is a landmark film beyond its commercial success, presenting a portrait of South Central in the late '80s and early '90s as painted by Singleton (who grew up in that neighborhood), achieving accuracy and dramatic resonance in this story of at-risk youth. -Shannon Gee.

Enter new doctor Phillip Capra (Paul Provenza) and his journalist wife, Michelle (Teri Polo), brie-eating yuppies from Los Angeles. Northern Exposure remained a fish-out-of-water comedy, but these two characters are as bland as tilapia. Though not nearly the hard cases that a resistant Joel was, they, too, succumb to Cicely's charms, and by series' end, Michelle is having hallucinatory forest chats with Joel's former New York rabbi. Happily, the rest of the characters are still good company. Between Ruth-Anne and trapper Walt (Moultrie Patten) and Maurice (Corbin) and Officer Barbara Semanski (Diane Delano), love really blossoms this season. But as Iris Dement sings in the heartbreaking lament, "Our Town," which ends this series on a lovely grace note (and is one of the few originally broadcast songs to survive the transition to DVD), "Nothing good ever lasts. " Northern Exposure lasted six seasons, which is good enough. To paraphrase a postcard Joel sends to Maggie in "The Quest," Cicely is a state of mind, and thanks to DVD, there is no need to "kiss it goodbye. " -Donald Liebenson.