A League of Their Own (Special Edition)

Although the film has a relatively-lengthy run time of 2 hours & 8 minutes, it never wears out its welcome or gets tiresome. The first-rate cast sees to that -- a cast that features the likes of Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Lori Petty, and Jon Lovitz.

Lovitz is fall-down hilarious as the scout who plucks Geena and Lori off of their Oregon farm to join the first professional girls' baseball league. He offers up one zinger after another during his short stint in this movie, such as his explanation to the other girls as to why he can't sign up second baseman Marla Hooch (who isn't likely to win the Miss America Pageant anytime soon) -- "You know General Omar Bradley? Well, there's too strong a resemblance."

DVD Special Features for the 2-Disc "Special Edition" ..............

>> A very nice 52-minute documentary on the making of the film, "Nine Memorable Innings", featuring new interviews with the cast and crew, and some behind-the-scenes footage.

>> 15 Deleted Scenes. Many of these cut scenes flesh out some of the movie's shorter scenes. Some very interesting stuff here too. You can play each of these scenes separately, or via a "Play All" option. And these can be played with or without a "Director's Introduction" preceding each clip from Penny Marshall. Total run time: 36:02 with intros, or 32:39 without them.

>> Commentary Track, with Director Penny Marshall and some of the cast members.

>> 3 Trailers -- Including the excellent and funny trailer for this movie, plus bonus trailers for two other sports films ("Brian's Song" and "The Natural").

>> Madonna Music Video -- "This Used To Be My Playground" (run time: 5:02).

>> Cast & Crew Filmographies (text only).

>> A French Language Track (in 2.0 Dolby Surround).

>> English Subtitles.

VIDEO -- The movie is presented on Disc #1 (which is dual-sided with no disc art), with Side A being the Widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) version and Side B being a Full-Screen (1.33:1) Pan-and-Scan version. Now why anybody on the planet would prefer the Full-Screen (aka: "butchered all to hell") variant is beyond my comprehension. (Especially a super-wide 2.35:1 ratio film like this one, where, in the 1.33:1 version you're missing about 45% of the screen image at all times.) But, to each his own. IMO, however, the Widescreen is the ONLY way to go here (or with any other movie, for that matter).

The Widescreen transfer here looks A-1. Very clear, no "jaggies" in the background that I could see, with great color.

AUDIO -- The box shows a "4.0 Surround" English audio track. But my Player reads the sound as "3.1 Dolby Digital". Kind of strange, I thought. But, regardless of the individual number of discrete channels here, it sounds great. The previous DVD version of this movie was done in 2.0 Dolby Surround; and this SE is at least up to par with that older disc, IMO.

MENUS -- A really well-done "baseball-themed" Menu design here. The "Scene Selection" screens are designed so that each scene choice looks like a baseball card, complete with an "AAGPBL" ("All-American Girls Professional Baseball League") logo in the corner. Also shown on each of the Chapter screens is a simulated "baseball card" featuring one of the "players" (or manager) that appears in the movie.

The Main Menu for disc #2, which holds all the bonus material, is cleverly laid out to represent a page of a newspaper, with the menu choices integrated into the "headlines" of the paper. Very cool. As is the disc art for the second disc, which is made up to look like a baseball.

This flick beckons to be viewed a minimum of once per year. And perhaps even more frequently thanks to this fine two-disc SE that is now available. It's a movie that is just plain fun to sit through. And that's not likely to change, even many years down the road.

"A League Of Their Own" will remain in a class all its own for a long, long time to come.