Gangs of New York (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
The plethora of extras on this two-disc set are worth your time. There are several well-produced segments on the physical aspects of the film highlighted by a tour of the vast Cinecittà Studio sets with director Martin Scorsese and production designer Dante Ferretti (with a 360-degree-view feature to boot). Historian Luc Sante introduces you to the Five Corners area in New York circa the mid-19th century, and there's a vintage vocabulary guide (from the 1859 edition ofThe Rogue's Lexicon). Even though it was made as a "puff piece" for the movie, the Discovery Channel show "Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York" is an informative half-hour on the film's historical background. There's another espresso double-shot from a Scorsese commentary track. Not recorded traditionally as he watches the movie, the track pieces together thoughts from the director including some recorded in an NPR interview. This allows Scorsese to be even more focused, dealing with the history of the time and his own 30-year struggle to make the film. One serious demerit for stretching the feature film over both discs, which most likely had to be done with having both Dolby 5.1 and DTS tracks along with the commentary on the long film.--Doug Thomas