You have to know you can count on a guy named Nuts McDougal to bring you the latest movie and DVD scoops, and sure enough--he did not let us down this week. I mean, if it were not for Nuts, how would we have known the full scope of Warner Bros.' Sidney Lumet reissues planned for 2006?

On February 28, Warner Home Video releases two of director Sidney Lumet’s most explosive films from the 1970’s -- Network and Dog Day Afternoon -- both as Two-Disc Special Editions. Boasting the star power of Al Pacino, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, John Cazale and more, and tackling the media mania of news and reality TV, thirty years later these films are just as exciting and relevant as they were when they were made. Bonus features include commentaries by Sidney Lumet and new making-of documentaries, including The Making of Dog Day Afternoon which features Academy Award® - winner Al Pacino.

Also available February 28 will be a special Controversial Classics Vol. 2:
The Power Of Media, a three title, six-disc collection which showcases these groundbreaking films about the power of the media and will include the two featured Lumet films along with the Two-Disc Special Edition of All the President’s Men (released February 21).

Oooooooh--"The Power of Media"! OK, so the guy is just handy with a press release. Nevertheless, thank God for Nuts, who, inadvertently or not, clues us in to the most likely Good Night, and Good Luck DVD release date as well. After all, Warners' full-page, Oscar-season ads will seem that much more resounding with Good Luck nestled up beside a box-set of Oscar-winning media classics (and do not forget that George Clooney will helm a live remake of Network next fall for CBS). Not that Clooney's film stands a chance against the Steven Spielberg's masterful-if-yet-unseen Munich, but still.

Also look for Dinah Shore's archival interview with Network scribe Paddy Chayefsky, and check Walter Cronkite's own cultural commentary in the accompanying making-of featurette. The kids are going to be all over it. Still, here is my Oscar-time prognostication: Lumet's Network commentary will be one for the ages--required listening/viewing in journalism and film schools around the country. You heard it here first. But I owe it all to Nuts.