Short Cuts (1994)

If you can stomach director Robert Altman's misanthropy and dripping contempt for American culture, this deluxe three-laserdisc version is all the Short Cuts you'll ever need. The wide-screen transfer is gorgeous, and there's a supplemental section with six commercials and two trailers, a career documentary, previously deleted scenes, an audio-only appreciation by longtime Altman booster Pauline Kael, and the complete texts of the Raymond Carver stories on which the film is based. But note: Criterion has arranged chapter stops so that — theoretically — you can program your laserdisc player to track each of the interweaving stories separately. Unfortunately, that means you have to constantly get up to change the discs. B-