New on DVD this week: Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee And Cigarettes," John Cassavetes: "Five Films," Fellini's "La Dolce Vita," and Lars von Trier's "Epidemic."
1. Coffee and Cigarettes
Enter Jim Jarmusch's black and white universe, where thick black coffee sloshes onto dirty saucers and cigarette butts overflow from ashtrays. The super cool cast includes Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Steve Buscemi, Roberto Begnini, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, GZA and the RZA.
2. John Cassavetes: Five Films
John Cassavetes has been called a genius, a visionary, and the father of independent film. In an eight disc set, The Criterion Collection presents "Shadows," "Faces," "A Woman Under the Influence," "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," and "Opening Night" in stunning new transfers.
3. La Dolce Vita
Federico Fellini's 1960 film is considered by many to be his greatest. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a jaundiced paparazzi in Rome, living a playboy life in high society while covering the decadent world of flighty celebrities (Anita Ekberg), the shallow rich, and the desperate hangers-on. The 2 disc special edition offers a collection of never-before-seen Fellini shorts, the musical montage "Cinecitta: The House of Fellini," and an introduction by director/screenwriter Alexander Payne.4. Epidemic
Director Lars von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vørsel star as themselves in this bizarre psychodrama about a director and a screenwriter who concoct a horror film about a plague that engulfs Europe, and then watch it come true. The second film in Lars von Trier's "Europa" trilogy (between The Element of Crime and Zentropa) co-stars Allan De Waal, Ole Ernst, Michael Gelting, and Udo Kier.5. Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine
Iranian filmmaker Bahman Farmanara plays a fictionalized version of himself, a director who hasn't made a film in 24 years and seems on a treadmill of rejected scripts and frustrated opportunities when he is handed a documentary assignment about funeral rites in Iran for Japanese TV.