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ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment Weekly

EW review: Timeless 'President's Men'

Also: Terrific 'Cavett,' decent 'Rent'

By Ken Tucker
Entertainment Weekly

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(Entertainment Weekly) -- Last year's revelation that former FBI man Mark Felt was "Deep Throat," the source who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein expose the nefariousness of the Nixon administration, gives the new Two-Disc Special Edition of the political thriller "All the President's Men" a fresh context.

The present-day pressure on reporters to reveal confidential sources only adds to the sturdiness and urgency of this film by director Alan J. Pakula and screenwriter William Goldman. The material is so familiar, we watch with a trigger finger on the remote, ready to skip the dull bits. Instead, "All the President's Men" transcends quaintness (look, Ma, they're using typewriters and rotary phones!) to achieve timelessness.

The contrast between Robert Redford's Woodward, a stolid plodder of a reporter, and Dustin Hoffman's Bernstein, a jittery hot-dogger, is the stuff of classic movie team-ups. Jason Robards, an Oscar winner as growly Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, reins in his two newshounds admirably.

EXTRAS In one of the DVD's interviews, Hoffman credits Redford with a canny idea -- that they memorize not just their own but each other's lines as well, so they could finish each other's sentences, interrupt and improvise. Hoffman also admits that when Pakula (who died in 1998) asked him if he had any special requests, Dustin had but one: "Make me look handsomer than Bob," he implored. At two-plus hours, the movie zips right along. The second disc of numerous featurettes contains too many talking-head maunderings (shush, Jonathan Alter) about the Role of the Press. Still, this is a dandy package. "More Scandal Inside!" screams the DVD cover. That's malarkey: More pleasure -- more revelations, more inspiration -- is more like it. (Read an interview with Redford.)

EW Grade: A-

'The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends'

Reviewed by Sam Adams

Scratch a comedian and you'll find a philosopher -- Cavett knew just where they itched.

The ex-"Tonight Show" writer/nightclub comic approached comedy from an insider's perspective: He preferred finding out what made his guests tick to steering them through a few canned anecdotes. Though Cavett gets comfy with contemporaries Bill Cosby and Woody Allen, the best of "The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends's" 12 episodes pay tribute to his forebears like George Burns, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Lucille Ball. Groucho Marx gets the most affectionate treatment, reminiscing at length, proposing marriage to Truman Capote, and warbling his way through "Lydia."

EXTRAS A half-hour clip package retrieves highlights from Cavett's lost late-'60s morning show. He sits for episode intros and retrospective interviews with "Curb Your Enthusiasm" director Robert Weide, but the highlight is Cavett's buttoned-down stand-up routine from a 1966 "Ed Sullivan Show," which makes the most of the disparity between his Nebraska upbringing and Ivy League education.

EW Grade: A

'Rent'

Reviewed by Melissa Rose

In the movie-musical pantheon, "Rent" lies somewhere between the audacious genius of 2002's "Chicago" and the plain audacity of last year's "Producers." The obsessively faithful rendition of Broadway's bohemian rhapsody may not thrill film fans -- director Chris Columbus captures "Rent's" glory but not its grit -- but it would probably please creator Jonathan Larson.

EXTRAS The composer-lyricist -- who, at age 35, died of an aortic aneurysm on the eve of "Rent's" Off Broadway opening -- is celebrated in the nearly two-hour "No Day But Today." Friends and family chart Larson's beginnings (starring in high school musicals; slinging hash at Manhattan's Moondance Diner), while cast and crew revisit "Rent's" roots (a producer calls an early version of the play "lugubrious" and "plodding"). On top of the wonderfully overstuffed doc, there are deleted scenes and songs (including the gorgeous "Goodbye Love"), an alternate ending, and a nonstop, wisecracking commentary from Columbus and original cast members Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal (a.k.a. filmmaker Mark and musician Roger). The guys gripe about less-than-glowing reviews, chat about other actors (Columbus calls some of Taye Diggs' early takes "embarrassing"), and point out mistakes. Now we'll never be able to watch the movie without obsessing over Idina Menzel's smudged lipstick in "Tango: Maureen." Thanks a lot.

EW Grade: B+


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