Last week was unofficially Superman DVD Week, as Warner Brothers released special editions of each of the four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, as well as Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. Also released was a long-awaited alternate cut of Superman II, which restores (as close as possible) director Richard Donner's version of the film.

Some history: Superman I and II were filmed at the same time by Donner, and were originally conceived to be two parts of one movie (much like the Lord of the Rings films). Donner stopped work on II (with much of the filming completed, including all filming by Marlon Brando as Jor-El and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor) so he could devote the time necessary to make sure Superman I met its release date.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Along with much too much candy (an unfortunate habit further enabled by having to buy enough candy for 1,000 kids in our new neighborhood), my Halloween tradition for years has included viewings of the classic "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and, for the last decade or so, Tim Burton's gorgeous and twisted "The Nightmare Before Christmas". This year, Disney's special release of the classic stop-motion animated film in theaters and in "Disney Digital 3-D" allowed me to give my DVD copy a rest.

In the wake of some Oscar hopefuls petering out a bit (see "Flag of our Fathers") and some unexpectedly (but certainly deserved) strong word of mouth, it looks like Martin Scorcese's "The Departed" is picking up steam as a bona fide Oscar contender. We'll have a review of "The Departed" up later this week (sorry for the delay) and a look at how the Oscar season is shaping up so far in the near future. But I'm pretty excited about this development. "The Departed" is a tense, taut return to form for Scorcese, searing genre work at its best, and it would be great for Scorcese to actually win for some of his best work in a long time. I have some catching up to do, but so far "The Departed" is currently at the top of my year's best list. We'll see what happens as some of the other contenders start getting a release, and especially when "Dreamgirls", which sight unseen has become the current conventional wisdom favorite, starts advance screenings in November.