Lou Grant - When Will It Be On DVD?

It's like the biggest black hole in the TV universe - no Lou Grant on DVD.

Why oh why, 2oth Century Fox, haven't you issued this great newspaper drama on DVD?

Long after the Mary Tyler Moore Show was issued by Fox we Lou Grant fans still wait for our favourite show, a Mary Tyler Moore spinoff, which aired on CBS from 1977 to 1982.

Surely Lou hasn't been spiked because of the sometimes controversial left-wing views of its main star, Edward Asner? OK, so advertisers were queasy about Asner 25 years ago, but surely that wouldn't be a factor now in preventing this superb show coming to DVD?

Heck, we've got full frontal nudity, foul language, drugs and unbelievable violence these days on TV - all of it being issued on DVD - and someone, somewhere is still nervous about old Lou?

Fans - if you want to see Lou Grant, please leave me a comment and I'll forward it to some folks I know at Fox.

I just gotta see Lou Grant back at the old LA Tribune City Desk, barking "Hey, Animal!"

DVD Format War Over - Blu-Ray Wins

My sympathies if you bought an HD DVD player - it's the loser in the high-def war with the Blu-Ray format.

With the announcement Tuesday Feb. 19 by Toshiba that it will no longer "develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders", Blu-ray has emerged the victor after a three-year dogfight.

Blu-ray is backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., (Panasonic brand), and major Hollywood studios like Sony, 20th Century Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. In fact, it was Warner Bros' decision last month to back Blu-Ray that finally tipped the balance. (Universal and Paramount had backed HD DVD).

The final blow came Friday when retail giant Wal-Mart said it would sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware.

Around 600,000 people in North America have bought HD DVD machines and Tosiba says it will continue to provide product support for the technology.

Shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers will stop by end of March.

If there are any winners in this it is cheapskates like yours truly, who have resisted the siren call of the ad agencies: "Upgrade to high def or your life will be meaningless."

I have continued to enjoy my "standard" DVD setup and now look forward to a huge drop in price for Blu-Ray machines and discs before I'll even think of buying one.

Hey, high-def looks great, but it's not not so great as to spend a bundle of money of money on when you know the price will plummet if you are patient. Plus there will now be a flood of back-catalogue DVD titles released on Blu-Ray.

Check out my DVD reviews at Andy's DVD Reviews.

Star Of Movie Classic Jaws Dies

Roy Scheider, famous for his role as the beleagured police chief in the 1975 movie Jaws has died at age 75.

Scheider died Sunday Feb 10 in hospital in Little Rock, Ark., where he had been treated for bone marrow cancer.

Scheider's most famous line in the movie about a rogue shark attacking vacationers -"You're gonna need a bigger boat" - was voted No. 35 on the American Film Institute's list of best quotes from U.S. movies in 2005.

Scheider starred in dozens of movies, including The French Connection, Klute, Blue Thunder, and Marathon Man. He recently completed filming Iron Cross, the story of a retired New York cop who as a child witnessed the massacre of his family in Poland by the Nazis.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws was the first of the Hollywood blockbusters and co-starred Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. Read my review of Jaws.

A Passage To India - Special Edition DVD

Great news for fans of legendary director David Lean as his final film A Passage To India gets the 2-DVD special edition treatment.

The 1984 classic, to be released April 15, features a new picture and sound transfer plus some great featurettes on the making of the movie.

Nominated for 10 Oscars, the film won for Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Musical Score (Maurice Jarre - who wrote the music for Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago).

Judy Davis, Alec Guiness, James Fox and Victor Banerjee also star in the absorbing story of a young woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted during a visit to some remote Indian caves in 1924. A legal battle ensues with many plot twists.

As you'd expect, Lean's movie is visually magnificent and the period details are perfectly captured. It was a fitting final film for the master of the epic.

Anyone interested in Lean's career should check out his earlier British movies, particularly Oliver Twist.

Was Heath Ledger Seeking A Cure For Insomnia?

More details have emerged about the life and sudden death of Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger, including his battle with insomnia.

The 28-year-old Ledger was taking sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs in the weeks leading up to his death in New York last month. New York's medical examiner ruled Feb. 6 Ledger died from an accidental overdose of six different prescription drugs, including pills to help him sleep.

It's clear the Oscar-nominated star was under huge personal and career stress, was having trouble sleeping and and needed help with his sleeplessness.

Last fall, Ledger parted company with his Brokeback Mountain co-star Michelle Williams, the mother of his two-year-old daughter Matilda, and said his roles as the Joker in The Dark Knight and as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There had left him "stressed out a little too much".

In an interview in November with The New York Times, Ledger admitted: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night.

"I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."

Just before his death, Ledger had flown back to New York from London, where he'd been filming yet another movie, Terry Gilliam's fantasy The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Police have said there were no illegal drugs in Ledger's apartment and they suspected from the start he was the victim of an accidental overdose of the prescription drugs he was taking to calm his anxiety and help him sleep.

Insomnia has long been a problem in the entertainment industry and on Feb, 4, the Los Angeles Times reported that another well known actor, Justin Chambers, (who plays Dr. Alex Karev on the TV show Grey's Anatomy) had voluntarily checked himself into UCLA Medical Center recently "to get help with a pre-existing sleeping disorder," according to his publicist, Danica Smith.

Showbiz people are no different to the rest of us - they want an easy cure for insomnia. However, popping sleeping pills is not a long-term solution.

Read more about my e-book Banish Insomnia, which offers a cure for insomnia without drugs.