OTHER TECH

1. Pan's Labyrinth (Platinum Series; New Line, 2 discs). Guillermo del Toro's astonishing tragic fantasy becomes one of the best DVD sets to date, with images of stunning color and detail, immersive DTS-ES 6.1 sound, and cool extras, including an interactive DVD-ROM screenplay. 2. Inland Empire (Rhino, 2 discs). With its extreme light/dark contrasts and rumbling, restless soundtrack, this DVD of David Lynch's latest, richest, and strangest vision will push your equipment - and you - to new limits. A second disc offers an embarrassment of riches. 3. Army of Shadows (The Criterion Collection, 2 discs). Jean-Pierre Melville's strong, somber drama of the French Resistance has finely detailed images and is fleshed out with terrific extras on both the film's making and the story's historical background. 4. Sansho the Bailiff (The Criterion Collection). Kenji Mizoguchi's 50-year-old masterpiece looks and sounds remarkably vivid in this splendid DVD. 5. The Lives of Others (Sony). This DVD offers solid technical quality in its coolly controlled image and sound, without calling much attention to itself - rather like the fine, understated German drama of the movie. 6. The Conformist (Paramount). The gorgeous visuals of Bernardo Bertolucci's lush evocation of 1930s decadence are enough to compensate for the long wait for its DVD appearance. 7. Volver (Sony). Pedro Almodóvar's best film in years arrives on DVD with vibrant color, great detail, and a powerful soundtrack - all making this a movie you live with rather than merely watch. 8. An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount). A movie that everyone should see delivers beautiful images from a variety of formats. The commentaries and the making-of short are informative and refreshingly honest about how Al Gore's environmental slide show was turned into a film. 9. The Threepenny Opera (The Criterion Collection, 2 discs). With this badly needed restoration, Americans can finally see what G.W. Pabst's grandly scaled 1931 production of the Brecht/Weill classic looked and sounded like. And the simultaneously shot French version makes for an interesting comparison. 10. Hamlet (1996; Warner). The image for Kenneth Branagh's 4-hour extravaganza manages a fair approximation of the 70mm original, and the soundtrack is excitingly theatrical. In an above-average commentary, Branagh staunchly defends all of his controversial artistic decisions.