But all is now forgiven.

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is not only a terrific piece of popcorn entertainment, it’s far and away the best of the trilogy. And the best news is that Bay’s delivered another pro-freedom, pro-American, pro-military blockbuster that made somewhere around a billion dollars. We don’t get too many of these, and we should embrace and support the good ones.

The film isn’t perfect. In most cases, I still can’t tell an Autobot (the good guys) from a Decepticon (the bad guys), which makes it difficult to understand who to root for during the many action sequences, but unlike its predecessor, “Dark of the Moon” has a story that sets up and explains the stakes well enough that you don’t feel like you’re watching someone else play a video game for two hours.

Length is another problem. This is a four-act story instead of the standard three-act, but the too-long climax really is jaw-droppingly well done and on Blu-ray the only thing that surpasses the fantastic picture quality is a sound design that made my archaic 5.1 system do things I never thought possible.

Though I hate him in almost everything else, in this particular franchise, Shia LeBeouf is perfectly cast as the every boy who’s not only unwittingly thrust into a secret war between giant robots from another planet, but also into the deepest recesses of America’s national security apparatus, which Bay always portrays with humor but also respect. Moreover, while the boyish LeBeouf is the star and hero of the film, he is always surrounded by the American military, which — and God love him for this — Bay always portrays as selfless and heroic. In other words, Bay portrays our service men as they really are.  

Liberals will love that LeBeouf’s Sam Witwicky is smitten with meeting President Obama and conservatives will get a huge kick out of the humor-mileage Bay, with the help of a very game Frances McDormand,  milks out of Senator Barbara Boxer’s unfortunate “Ma’am controversy.

Leonard Nimoy returns to voice Sentinel Prime, a character who gives a powerful voice to the film’s important theme, that of human liberty and why that’s something worth fighting and dying for. And when the fight is over and our heroes gather to take inventory of what just happened, it is the tattered stars and stripes that waves prominently in the background.

As big a treat as the film is the four-disc package it comes in that was just released last week. You get a 3D copy of the film, a digital copy, a regular DVD copy, and another Blu-ray disc that includes hours and hours of extra features to dig into. This is probably the first time ever that I thought watching at home in 3D might be kind of fun.

After my experience with the first sequel, I was soured as hell on the franchise and hit “play” with some real trepidation. But I had a blast watching Michael Bay redeem himself and I suspect you will, as well.

‘Transformers Dark of the Moon’ is available at Amazon.

A few years have passed since Harold and Kumar escaped from Guantanamo or killed time hanging out together smoking their beloved mary jane. And sometime over the course of the last few years, the boys went their separate ways and became estranged. They’re now two completely different people who haven’t seen each other in over a year and probably wouldn’t become friends were they to meet for the first time today.  In fact, they would probably hate each other.

Harold now works in high finance. His is now THE MAN and even has to deal with Occupy Wall Street-types who protest outside his offices. Harold also enjoys an upper middle-class life in the suburbs with a nice car and an even nicer fiancée. Kumar, however, is still Kumar — an unemployed burn-out who smokes weed all day and avoids responsibility like he does a shower. Closing in on 30, sadly, the reefer’s become an escape for Kumar, a way to avoid coming to terms with the emptiness of his life and the loss of his girlfriend. What had been recreational and rebellious in his youth, is now a pathetic crutch.

It’s Christmastime and Harold’s smoking-hot fiancee’s rather large family has come to stay for the holidays. The most important thing to Harold’s future father-in-law (Danny Trejo), a man who’s crazy about Christmas and someone with whom Harold is desperate to make a good impression, is the perfect tree. Harold promises everyone that when they return from church, the perfect tree will be decorated and waiting for them. They leave. Kumar shows up. Mayhem ensues.  

The story is only sporadically funny. In-between bits that are truly clever, like a clay-mation sequence and Neil Patrick Harris riffing on his public persona, the jokes tend to be more miss than hit. The more vulgar (very vulgar) stuff meant to shock mostly falls flat, but some of the less politically correct moments involving race do hit the mark. It’s all good-natured and, in this day and age, pretty refreshing.

While this third chapter is definitely an improvement over the one-note Bush-bash that was chapter two, you can still sense The New Production Code at work. Some targets are safe. Some are not. Muslims and gays take no satiric hits and I still don’t understand a Hollywood that crusades against cigarettes but builds a trilogy around two sympathetic protagonists who, without any health consequences, love to smoke dope.

In the end, though, this is a story about two estranged friends who have gone their separate ways, grown apart, and are now uncomfortable in each other’s company. The emotional spine of the story involves them finding a way to become friends again, and this is something many of us can relate to. There are also some mature themes involving family and the reality that you actually do have to grow up eventually.

If you’re a fan of the genre or the first two, you’re going to enjoy the further adventures of… Others should probably stay away.

‘A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas’ is available at Amazon.

Our heroine is never named other than with the pronoun “I,” and is portrayed by the then somewhat-unknown Joan Fontaine (sister of Olivia De Havilland), who offers up one of history’s most impressive “arrivals” as a full-blown movie star. Our heroine is an innocent who’s terribly vulnerable and a newlywed very much in love with her husband, Maxim (Laurence Olivier), a deeply troubled man still working through the death of his first wife.

Swept off her feet, this orphan who made un undignified living as a paid companion and doormat to an insufferable woman, is suddenly thrust into a world she never knew existed. Maxim is incredibly wealthy and sole-owner of Manderley, a breathtakingly gothic estate populated with servants and also the intimidating and suffocating shadow of Rebecca, Maxim’s dead wife.

It’s within this shadow that the new mistress of the house, already a fragile flower, wilts even further. Rebecca’s hold on the living is supernatural and the primary keeper of that flame is housekeeper Miss Mrs. Danvers (an unforgettable Judith Anderson), who wields the memory of her former mistress like a psychological club to break down her “replacement.” Miss Danvers is destined to succeed until a shipwreck uncovers truths that will either result in the destruction of all involved or their salvation.

Thanks to my notoriously bad memory, I had almost completely forgotten the plot of the film and did forget the outcome of the mystery. And what a treat it was to rediscover this spellbinding two hours full of unexpected twists and the kind of suspense Hitchcock perfected, that which comes from a man who unknowingly puts the woman he loves in terrible danger and finds he can only save her by crossing an emotional Rubicon.

“Rebecca’s” show-stopper is the masterful scene in which Maxim finally tells his full story, when the pieces of all that came before are made to make sense and come together. This is a moment of flashback that isn’t a flashback and one that only an actor and director in full command of their powers and perfectly in tune with one another could pull off.

But the real star here is Fontaine, who would go on the following year to work again with Hitchcock in “Suspicion” and win the Oscar for Best Actress. Selznick, hoping to recreate the public relations boost his search for Scarlett O’Hara created, auditioned anyone and everyone, but most certainly made the perfect choice. Fontaine’s beauty takes your breath away, but there is no more difficult persona to pull off than that of an innocent, and this the actress does flawlessly.

One of the pitfalls for Fontaine in playing this nameless heroine was not only the risk of melodramatic, wide-eyed pathos, but in not taxing the patience of the audience with a one-note performance that drains our sympathy through the act of being a perpetual victim. Through the hard work of plotting and characterization, a fine script certainly does some of the heavy-lifting, but it’s the bottomless depth of Fontaine’s eyes that does the real storytelling and communicates that it’s worth hanging in there because there’s much to be discovered in this woman.

As is always the case with timeless films and most of what this Golden Age of Hollywood produced, the essential basics of storytelling are all in place. Though the run-time is 130 minutes, the pacing is perfect and the plot engrossing from beginning to end. And, of course, the black and white photography — that comes alive on Blu-ray — and production design are about as good as it gets.

The Selznick Empire might’ve burnt out quickly, but the style itself has been made immortal thanks to a producer obsessed with perfection and a remarkable eye for talent.

“Rebecca” is available at Amazon.

Set in the Depression-era South in 1936, our narrator (Kim Stanley) is Scout Finch (a remarkable Mary Badham), who tells the story as an adult looking back on three defining summers of her childhood as an impoverished tomboy who lives in a small town with her older brother Jem (Phillip Alford) and their father Atticus (Gregory Peck), a lawyer and widower in his middle age.

The story’s themes are as rich as they come. We see everything through the eyes of the children and though they don’t realize it at the time, this is when they lose their innocence — thanks to events that involve the very worst kind of bigotry, the kind that leads to death and murder. But they will also learn to overcome their own childish prejudices when, as children will, a man they turned into a boogeyman turns out to be just the opposite.

For his portrayal of the quietly heroic Finch, Peck would win one of the biggest no-brainer Oscars in Hollywood history. In the special features, Peck’s co-stars and others involved in the film’s production (he would remain friends with many of them, and Harper Lee, until his death in 2003) compliment the actor by saying he won an Oscar playing himself. That might well be the case, but possessing certain qualities and having the talent required to portray them on screen are two entirely different things. 

Peck’s is an iconic and career-defining performance that emanates from within and creates the unforgettable presence of a man burning with dignity, disappointment in himself, and the loneliness that comes with the unthinkable loss of a soul mate before the promise of growing old together can come true. What we remember about Atticus Finch is not what the man did or said. What we remember is how he made us feel, and that can only be the by-product of an actor in full command of his craft.

It is Peck’s performance and Peck’s performance alone that elevates “Mockingbird” above that very worst of self-involved, patronizing, and racist Hollywood genres: the white liberal savior who’s come to rescue all those poor, helpless black folks. “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.” That might be one of the most memorable and touching moments in the film, but watch it again and you’ll see that Finch doesn’t even realize the gallery is standing in his honor. Through no fault of his own and not for lack of trying, he’s failed and that failure isn’t even complete. Atticus is no one’s savior, and without a word of exposition, Peck never lets us forget that.

What Atticus is, though, is the perfect hero for his time, a man who sees the raging injustice around him and fights against it, but who also understands that in order to be effective, in order to kick the ball down the field, he can only fight so much — and this is where the disappointment with himself comes from. He’s also the perfect father who teaches his children through words backed by action. Most of all, he teaches them humility. Atticus doesn’t see himself as a hero, because trying to do the right thing doesn’t make you a hero. You’re supposed to do the right thing.

Finch is also a man who makes mistakes. When a rabid dog threatens his home, he’s quick to come home and put bullet in its brain. But when a rabid dog in the form of a man threatens him and his family, his pacifism goes too far and almost costs him his children.

Screenwriter Horton Foote would win an Oscar for a masterful adaptation that perfectly captures the atmosphere, mood, and tone of Harper’s work (Foote won a second Oscar writing again for Boo Radley (Robert Duvall), with 1983’s “Tender Mercies“). Elmer Bernstein, a composer not known for subtlety, put his famous largesse into the emotion of a perfectly minimalist score. Director Mulligan and cinematographer Russell Harlan were both nominated, and with the help of Oscar-winning art direction, create an incomparable look and feel that evokes all that is perfect about childhood in an imperfect world.

When you’re dealing with this kind of photography, Blu-ray is a must. The knotty trees, the front porches in need of paint, the dried-out lawns , tire swings, and worn-out clothing are characters every bit as important as the main players, and to see them with such clarity adds so much to the experience.  

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a grand piece of storytelling that not only represents the art of the motion picture at its most poetic, but also gives proper due to the humble, quiet, workaday heroism of everyday Americans who fill the bucket of a better future, one day, one selfless act, one drop at a time.

 ’To Kill a Mockingbird” is available at Amazon.

Director Andrew Niccol’s “In Time” opens with  a lot of promise and no small amount of tension, thanks to a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the narrative sputters and misfires in the second-half, but as a political allegory, by design or accident, we are treated to a damning look at what our culture and country might look like should Obama and his fellow leftists continue to prevail.

The year is 2161 and some years ago, due to fear of over-population, scientists not only discovered a genetic cure for aging, they implanted a clock in the forearm of every newborn that counts down the years, hours, minutes, and seconds you have left before you die. No one ages a day after they turn twenty-five, but once that birthday hits, you’re given a year to live. That is, unless you’re able to earn more time. Where Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives, a working class ghetto called Dayton,  your choices are limited to manual labor, begging, and crime.

Will’s not alone, either. In Dayton, the average person won’t survive the day unless they can earn more time. Here, a cup of coffee costs you four minutes, a bus ride two hours, and the rent a couple of weeks. Time is this nation’s currency, and with the cost of living always going up, it’s a hand-to-mouth existence for the half-million or so residents who live with their mortality constantly hanging over them and in the knowledge that something as mundane as missing a bus can mean you count down to zero and die on the spot.

The whole world isn’t like this; in New Greenwich, for instance, life is good. The average citizen has 347 years banked (some have millions) and most live in the kind of opulence we see today in Beverly Hills. This power and wealth is something these very few hang onto through control and manipulation. For instance, it costs years to cross the roadblocks that separate Dayton from Greenwich, and with the use of storm trooper-like police officers called Timekeepers (and the criminals they let run wild), no one in the ghetto is allowed to improve their station in life or to bank any real time.

As the saying goes, for one to be immortal, many must die.

Through a truly selfless act, a humane act in a place where humanity is in short supply, Will ends up with  a century and change from a man who tells him the truth about how the system is rigged to ensure the population growth is kept under control. It’s not that coffee and bus fare is more expensive today than it was yesterday due to the laws of supply and demand, it’s that those prices are manipulated in order to create invisible ripple effects that that keep the right number of people dying.

—–

Driven by this knowledge, his newfound century, and a personal tragedy, Will can afford to make his way into New Greenwich, which he does with the intention of blowing the lid off the whole thing. It’s among the profanely rich that Will meets a Time Baron’s daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), and it’s also here that what had been a tense, fascinating and smart plot goes completely off the rails.

A disappointing plot, though, does not change the fact that “In Time” is a shockingly conservative film. The filmmakers might have thought they were making some kind of statement about the top 1%, and I suppose some could argue that “In Time” is an indictment of capitalism, but there is no capitalism in this world — just a godless society, genetically manufactured to control a population-growth problem (something only the left sees as a virtue) that doesn’t appear to exist. In fact, for a story that takes place in an urban environment, the lack of people is a noticeable part of the barren landscape.

What we are presented with is a two-tiered society where the ultra-elite live like kings while the rest are given no opportunity to better themselves. That’s not capitalism; that’s socialism. It’s the monstrous vision of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s eugenics institutionalized. In other words, this is big government, left-wing social-engineering personified, where oppressive equality is enforced by an elite few who don’t hold themselves to the rules they create.

Moreover, the dignity of the individual means nothing here, and God has been scientifically engineered out of the equation. Good heavens, the super rich even quote Darwin to justify their depraved indifference and the story presents immortality as something unnatural. In fact, the only sign of God that exists is in the form of a squalid mission in Dayton that selflessly gives LIFE to others.

“In Time” might not be a very good film, but if you want a peek into the mind’s eye of Barack Obama and his army of secular leftists who worship at the feet of oppressive equality but see themselves enforcing this “virtue” from the Hollywood Hills, this is about as close as you’ll ever come.

“In Time” is available at Amazon.

Something you almost never hear from me, though,  is “my top 5″  or “my top 10″ or “my top 25.” That description is used for all-time favorites, and represents a pool of about 50 steady titles that, over the years, have fallen in and out of one of those categories. So when I tell you that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 romantic-thriller “Notorious”  has been a perennial top 5 of mine for over two decades now, you understand what this film means to me.

There is no other movie that makes me feel as much as this one does. Thanks to the extraordinary performances of two of the most beautiful people ever to stand before a camera, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergmann, “Notorious” throws me on an emotional roller coaster of suspense, exhilaration and, most of all, heartache, for the full 101 minutes. And the reasons are many.

No matter how many times I’ve seen this pulse-pounding story of an American girl with a sordid past who, on behalf of her country, agrees to pretend she’s in love with a man aligned with a group of dangerous post-war Nazis in South America, within the first few minutes I fall deeply in love with Bergman’s Alicia. But that’s the least of it. The thing that wrecks me, thanks to Grant giving one of the greatest performances ever put on film (and again I’m choosing my words carefully), is the emotional grinder Alicia is put through.

Usually, when a love story keeps its lovers apart based on something that remains unspoken between them, the conceit is lazy and maddening to watch. But Ben Hecht’s script is so brilliantly crafted and Grant’s Devlin is so obviously tortured by his own pride (and things we’re never told about but see in his tormented eyes), that we buy into it; which makes for a deliciously agonizing road to a climax so satisfying repeat viewings never diminish the impact.

Alicia’s father is an American traitor, a Nazi sympathizer, sentence to 20 years in prison. Alicia herself is a party girl, a full-blown alcoholic who likes to take men to bed. It’s at one of her many parties where she meets Devlin, a quiet, handsome man she intends to seduce. Only instead of waking up like she usually does, nude, hung-over, and alone, she’s hung-over, dressed, and offered the opportunity to do something for her country.

Alicia tells Devlin she doesn’t give a damn about patriotism, as a response he plays a secret recording of a conversation she had with her father. The truth is that she loves her country, quite a bit in fact, and while she could never turn her father in, it’s clear that nothing will ever convince her to betray America.

The people Devlin works for have been monitoring her and now need her for some kind of top secret mission in Rio de Janeiro. Though Devlin doesn’t know what the mission is, she agrees and during the week they spend waiting for instructions, the two of them fall in love.

It’s obvious Devlin doesn’t want to fall for her, not for someone so striking and vulnerable. This isn’t the kind of woman you have a fling with. This is the kind of woman you either win for life or long for for life. Though not a word of exposition is used to tell us this, Grant’s performance is so pure, we know she terrifies him, and that her past — the drinking and the men — rips him apart inside. As a consequence, he tears away at her. The fact that she loves him, gives him this power, and with an emotional paper cut here and there, he throws her past in her face at every opportunity.

But passion eventually overcomes all until the details of the mission are revealed.  A number of well-connected Nazis have fled to Brazil after the war. One of them, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), used to be in love with Alicia. Using her father’s reputation as cover, the plan is for her to reconnect with him in the hopes she can find out what they’re up to.  

What follows is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes ever put on film. Just an hour prior,  Alicia and Devlin had been blissfully happy in the glow of young, new love. Now they’re alone on the romantic, outdoor terrace of what was going to be their love nest. Devlin explains the mission to her, and they both know what it means; that taking the assignment means she will have to become Sebastian’s lover. Alicia is desperate for Devlin to tell her not to accept. Devlin is just as desperate for her to refuse.

Because this scene is so perfectly crafted, we know that Alicia agrees to the mission because she loves Devlin. More importantly, we know Devlin knows this and yet he still resents her for it.  And what will follow is the fullest expression of human anguish you will ever experience through the medium of the motion picture.

Forget the classic elegance of Hitchcock’s shooting style and even the impossibly suspenseful sequence that involves the key to a wine cellar. All of that is wonderful, classic moviemaking to be sure, but nothing compares to the closing sequence, when every bit of emotional and storytelling track that’s been laid, pays off with unparalleled precision. The hero saves the girl. The hero saves himself. The hero gets the girl. The hero redeems himself. The hero defeats the bad guy.

And those of us watching are left breathless.

“Notorious” is not only Hitchcock’s masterpiece, it is Hollywood’s masterpiece. It is as though the movie gods poured everything that made the Golden Era the Golden Era into a bottle, shook it up, distilled it over a flame, and found the essence, the formula … the perfection. 

“Notorious” is available at Amazon.com.

The film doesn’t deserve a rebirth on home video. The story is difficult to swallow, and thrillers need far more shocks than the few doled out here. But star Daniel Craig invests so much in the main character that you’ll keep watching just to see how the tortured story resolves.

Craig plays Will Atenton, a writer who leaves his posh publishing gig to write the next great American novel — or British novel, perhaps, given his plummy accent.

Will retreats to his family’s snow-kissed home and a wife (Rachel Weisz) and two daughters who look like they sneaked out of a ’50s family sitcom.

It’s all too bloody perfect, and soon we’ll see why.

The house Will calls home once belonged to a family murdered by the father. Naturally, the real estate agent neglected to mention this fact to Will, but some curious run-ins with a beautiful neighbor (Naomi Watts in an utterly thankless role) and some goth-lovin’ teens fill in the blanks. What’s worse, the home is frequently stalked by strangers, and when Will summons the police for help, they all but shrug their shoulders.

The trailer’s big reveal isn’t the true story here, but the film doesn’t improve when the narrative switches from psychological horror to straightforward mystery.

It’s all too daffy to  gin up our interest, with screenwriter David Loucka (“Borderline”) using Will’s delusional mind to unfairly trick us at every turn. But Craig’s Will is so full of good cheer and so crestfallen when reality sneaks  up on his cobalt blue eyes that we keep rooting for a finale superior to the set up.

Nothing doing. Most horror movies wish they had set designs as gorgeous as what’s seen here, but even the lowest of low-budget shockers are more effective at getting under our skin than this “House.”

The Blu-ray extras manage to transcend the flawed feature film. “Burning Down the House” breaks down how a critical sequence late in the film avoided both CGI and singeing the film’s cast. Special effects maestros describe how some propane tanks, a well placed fireball and some flame-proof paint helped create a firefighter’s nightmare.

Director Jim Sheridan clearly has had enough of computer-aided effects, and in “Building the Dream House” he says as much while exploring how the titular “House” became an uncredited character in the film. In fact, hearing how the location scouts found the structure used in the movie as well as how it was recreated on a sound stage for interior shots is a reminder that even inferior movies require a staggering amount of preparation.

Had the “Dream House” screenplay received such tender loving care, it might have fared better with film goers.

Yes, the tagline for director Arthur Hiller’s “Love Story” is unforgivably stupid, no question. Almost as bad is Ali McGraw’s performance as the gorgeous but doomed Jennifer. My wife hates this film and MacGraw’s performance so much that she only agreed to screen the Blu-ray with me so that she could delight in Jennifer’s cancerous demise. My wife’s tagline for the film is, “Marrying the studio head means never having to take an acting class.”

So what was it about this fairly mediocre 1970 tear-jerker that made it, not only the highest-grossing film of the year, but also the 6th highest grossing film of all time — the “Titanic” of its day?

Believe it or not, I saw this “chick flick” classic for the first time ever when the Blu-ray screener arrived last week, and thankfully I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit that the story got to me. You can’t disagree with the film’s critics and their many criticisms, but in the end I’m not completely ashamed to admit that Jennifer’s death choked me up and that I found the third act a little gut-wrenching as that reality became increasingly inevitable.

For everything the story does wrong, it does two key things so right that those moments help to overcome the rest. When, in the middle of a perfect day, Jennifer tells her husband, Oliver (Ryan O’Neal), that she has to go to the hospital, it’s a real kick to the gut. Laugh all you want, but just thinking about it gets to me. And then there’s how we learn that she’s died. (No spoiler warning necessary. We’re told Jennifer will die in the opening scene.)

Those were the exact right moments for the story to avoid melodrama and those moments all but redeem the entire production. “Love Story” isn’t a great film, but it’s a good one that manipulates you just enough that it stays with you for a little while, and that’s a pretty rare accomplishment. There’s also something charming about Jennifer that grows on you over time. At first she’s haughty and obnoxious, but there was something that eventually won me over. By the time she and Oliver are sitting alone in the dark in that chair together coming to terms with the news, the story owned me. MacGraw is no actress, but she has an undeniable quality that helps to overcome that.

Another of the movie’s saving graces is that most of the production was filmed on-location, which looks marvelous in high-definition. The disc also offers feature-length commentary from the director as well as an above-average behind-the-scenes documentary.

You know what really does mean never having to say you’re sorry?  Making a cheesy tearkerker that pushed my buttons.

“Love Story” hits shelves Feb. 7 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

The Mighty Jack Lemmon is C.C. Baxter, a worker-drone in the Kafkaesque office located on the 17th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that’s home base for the insurance company Baxter works for and is desperate to get ahead in. With thousands of employees competing for a very few executive positions, Baxter decides to stand out by joining the good-ole-boys club. The awful men who can help to promote Baxter are a gaggle of adulterers in need of a place for their trysts. Believing the inconvenience is worth the eventual payoff, Baxter lends out the key to his bachelor pad a few nights a week.

As smitten as he is with the idea of becoming an executive, Baxter also has his head turned by one of the building’s many elevator operators, Fran Kubelik (a delightful Shirley MacLaine), who on the outside stands out as a confident, composed, and charming young woman who has it all together. The opposite, unfortunately, is true, but by the time Baxter figures this out he’s already in love with her.

The key to Baxter’s executive dreams is held by the company’s powerful personnel director, Jeff Sheldrake (a superb Fred MacMurray), and Baxter’s cynical plans all appear to come together when Sheldrake agrees to his promotion… in exchange for the key to Baxter’s apartment. It seems the very-married Sheldrake is just another good ole boy, but that’s no skin off Baxter’s nose, until the perfect moment I mentioned above arrives.

You see, it’s Fran Kubelik Mr. Sheldrake is trysting with, and it’s at the company’s wild Christmas party (a clothed Roman orgy) where Fran finally learns she’s being used — that she’s not the first subordinate Sheldrake’s conned into bed with the promise of a future together. This is also where Baxter learns the truth about Fran.

At this point the story has all been fun and games, not unlike those delightful Doris Day sex comedies always based on comic misunderstandings. But it’s at this moment you know Wilder is about to steer two characters you’re already very much invested in into some very dark and murky waters — something Wilder does as expertly as any director ever has.

I absolutely ADORE Jack Lemmon, and because his marvelous career extended into the first three-quarters of my life, I mourn his loss like no other movie star (Paul Newman, for the same reason, is a close second). It’s a cliché and it’s repeated whenever one speaks of Lemmon, but he is an Everyman. The reason he is, though, is because Lemmon was a brilliant actor capable of plumbing the endless depths of his famous persona like only a real movie star can.

When we meet Baxter, he’s nothing but a pimp, a man enriching himself by providing the means for scumbags to cheat on their wives. It’s indefensible behavior, and what the movie’s really about is his moral awakening to this fact. Wilder puts Baxter through emotional hell and screams “see what you’re enabling!” at him. In one of the making-of extras, a number of film experts go on and on about how Wilder pushed the boundaries of the Production Code (as though removing the limits that make art art is some sort of virtue) with “The Apartment,” and yet they all seem to miss completely how, in a word, MORAL this story is.

Adultery and those who aid and abet it are either portrayed as the lowest scum on earth or are forced, like Fran and Baxter, to pay a breathtakingly high price for their role in it. That’s what “The Apartment” is about. It’s also about chivalry. The heart of the story comes from witnessing the terrible blame Baxter volunteers to take on in order to protect Fran’s honor.

MacLaine is a real standout here. My goodness, she’s fetching — pretty, sexy, funny, and smart. But the mindblower is MacMurray, who plays the sleaze of all sleazes. Paul Douglas was the director’s first choice, but the actor died before production began. I don’t mean to sound cold, but things did work out for the best. Wilder knew there was a dark side to MacMurray and had brought it out magnificently before in 1944’s “Double Indemnity.” 16 years later, the depravity of Sheldrake’s selfish indifference hits even harder coming from the kindly face of the MacMurray who would go one next to star in all those Disney films.

In high-def the black and white, widescreen photography is nothing short of stunning. The detail of the production design, especially Baxter’s apartment and the vast office we meet him in, is a feast for the eyes. The disc also includes two documentaries, one about the making of the film and another about The Mighty Jack Lemmon’s career and technique.

“The Apartment” is available at Target.com.

Told with a scattershot timeline (that somehow works) and through an endless number of short scenes that could stand on their own as insightful, amusing, and romantic skits, “Annie Hall” is a story told to us in the first-person by Alvy, a famous New York comedian. His story isn’t so much about his romance with Annie; it’s more about what he’s learned from the experience — not only about himself but human nature in general. And if you judge the film by its touching closing scene (as I do), you can count this among Allen’s rare optimistic offerings.

Keaton’s performance is a wonder to behold. When you compare the “la-dee-da” Annie Alvy first meets to the more worldly and composed Annie she eventually becomes (much of it due to Alvy pushing her in that direction), Keaton’s Oscar win is a no-brainer.  Right along with Alvy, we fall in love with Annie at first sight and, in the end, long for the innocence she loses. And this, of course, is also why the film is so bittersweet. With the best of intentions (mostly), Alvy helps Annie grow up, and she ends up outgrowing him.

What “Annie Hall” really is, though, is hilarious. The hit-to-miss ratio for jokes that fly at you about every 15 seconds is somewhere around 98%, something that even the Marx Brothers never achieved. Like “Manhattan,” none of the humor is contrived or driven by the need for a punchline. It all emanates from that most perfect of places, and that’s characters created with genius precision. For that reason, the humor of “Annie Hall” never grows stale, and thanks to depth of Allen’s themes and ideas, there’s always something new to discover in subsequent viewings.

In 93  perfectly paced minutes, Allen not only gives us a full tour of the human condition of his two protagonists but one of the most penetrating and hilarious skewerings of Hollywood you’ll ever see. And, as always, liberal intellectuals are hit hardest.

“Annie Hall” is a flawless film, and thanks to a structure impossible to recreate, it’s also a one-of-a-kind storytelling experience. Unfortunately, this new Blu-ray release is as bare bones as the DVD release. The notoriously private Allen — because he wisely wants his films to stand on their own and not be interpreted by anyone, including him — just doesn’t do behind-the scenes extras or commentary.

For those of you as in love with the pre-Disneyfied New York of the 1970s as I am, that alone makes the upgrade to Blu-ray worthwhile. Almost every shot in “Annie Hall” is iconic, and Allen taking us on an affectionate tour of a small part of that small island he loves so much is just one of the many pleasures waiting to be discovered in one of the best films produced during a decade with all kinds of impressive competition.

“Annie Hall” is available at Amazon.com.