Conan the Barbarian: Collector's Edition (2008)

It's always a treat to hop in the way-back machine and revisit one of your favorite actors at a point in his career when cinema stardom was still on the horizon. Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a bodybuilder -- albeit a seven-time Mr. Olympia -- when he was first tapped to play Conan, Robert E. Howard's legendary pulp adventurer, and since then he's become, well, Ah-nuld, Hollywood Institution.
SPECIAL FEATURES The commentary track, which features director John Milius and Schwarzenegger, is a hoot: They spend most of it alternating between a sort of masturbatory reverie (''That's a great shot''), play-by-play commentary (''Here's the scene with the giant snake''), and filmmaking insight (in casting Conan's adversaries, Milius made sure that they were all bigger than Arnold, so that viewers wouldn't see his victory as a foregone conclusion). Deleted scenes, production notes and stills, an anamorphic wide-screen transfer, trailers, and before-and-after special effects footage round out this muscle-bound package of no-nonsense nostalgia.

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