Isn't it funny that few people have not heard of The Birds, and yet fewer would vote it one of Hitchcock's best? Perhaps the reason is that more than any other Hitchcock film, The Birds leaves the viewer with the very unsettling feeling of a nightmare without end.

The basic story of a beautiful, spoiled socialite chasing after her beau to small-town (and fictitious) Bodega Bay seems insignificant to the film. Even the underlying message of the mass revolt of nature, as symbolized by birds against man, seems insignificant. In the end, it is the experience of going through the nightmarish bird attacks that will haunt us forever. Hitchcock unceremoniously throws the audience in with the unfortunate lot of the characters. We were scratched, bitten, terrorized right alongside Tippi Hedren.

With this anamorphic widescreen DVD which included a most educational "Making Of," we are finally in a position to give this cinematic masterpiece its dues. The church and schoolhouse of idyllic Bodega stills looks the same today as in the film, but everything else was sheer fabrication from post-production magic in the studio. Matte painting and other pre-CGI special effects, from Tippi Hedren sailing across Bodega Bay to the horrendous attack outside the schoolhouse, withstood the test of time magnificently. But of course the true star was the birds, seemingly thousands of them, real, mechanical, or just dummies. The electronic sound effects - among the most terrifying on film - were a giant step forward from the pioneering efforts in Forbidden Planets. The 2000 DVD mastering has a slightly grainy picture. Ease off your sharpness control and you'll be rewarded with gorgeous 60s imagery, and a film for all seasons! Highest recommendation.

I have been an avid Miyazaki fan since the Hong Kong Film Festival of 1984, when I saw Nausicaä and Castle in The Sky. I think Miyazaki-san did his greatest work in the 90s, before Spirited Away brought him fame and fortune in Hollywood. And of his 1990s films, there is none more mature, moving, and masterful as Porco Rosso, the story of World War I flying ace Marco Porcellino, whose disillusionment with the rise of fascism made him choose to become a pig.

In abandoning the world, Marco also left behind people who loved him, especially the beautiful Gina, widow of his wartime comrade and owner of the best club in the Adriatics, where bounty hunters and air pirates alike leave their guns (and troubles) behind.

This is Miyazaki's most romantic film, and could easily have been done with live actors. But with his usual zeal and fanaticism for every authentic detail, Miyazaki has created out of manga (cartoon) a completely believable world, much as Hitchcock had in The Birds with matte painting. The seaplanes and their dogfights will overwhelm you with their realism, and Marco's engine actually bears the brandname Ghibli in reference to Miyazaki's movie studio, just as Grandfather Piccolo who owns the plane factory bears an unmistakable resemblance to Miyazaki-san himself.

The Earth was accidentally demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and archetypal English bloke Arthur Dent was left hitching around the Galaxy with just his bathrobe, a towel, and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide (the one that has "Don't Panic" in friendly block letters on its cover.)

Welcome to the first full-length cinematic version of this 1980s sci-fi icon. And, since author Douglas Adams himself wrote the script, there is no reason to panic! The film is mostly harmless - eh, make that mostly delightful. Special effects range from a spacecraft that looks like a cannister vacuum cleaner turned inside out, to aliens from the Hanson Workshop who look like giant beanie babies. But the tour of the "factory floor" of Megrathea, the planet that manufactures worlds, is worth the price of the DVD. Adams included many of the skids, anecdotes and one-liners which made the book so special, and had them discreetly animated as well.