New releases, old classics on DVD

Here are a few of this week's new-to-DVD movies, led by the late Gilda Radner's 1980 concert film.

"Gilda Live" (Warner, 1980; R for language, drugs; $19.95, exclusively online at www.wbshop.com under "Warner Archive"). The very talented Gilda Radner, a driving force in the original "Saturday Night Live" cast (who would die of cancer at age 42), brought her array of characters to Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre in 1979 for this revue, which was filmed and released in movie theaters the next year.

Radner opens the show with an R-rated song, "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals," but most of the rest is in PG territory, as her parade of "SNL" characters show up — Lisa Loopner, Emily Litella and the hilarious Roseanne Roseannadanna, among others.

Between skits, Don Novello in his Father Guido Sarducci persona, offers monologues, and bits are provided by other supporting players, primarily a very young Paul Shaffer (who also supervised the music and co-wrote some songs).

Fun for Radner's fans with sporadic laughs, though there is a you-had-to-be-there feel to it all. And occasional, ill-advised backstage shots, to give the film a documentary feel, don't help.

Extras: widescreen

"sex, lies, and videotape" (Sony/Blu-ray, 1989; R for violence, sex, nudity, language; $24.95). Although this voyeuristic drama won all kinds of prizes and put filmmaker Steven Soderbergh on the map, I've always found it overly pretentious.

A drifter (James Spader) ingratiates himself into the life of an old pal (Peter Gallagher) and his wife (Andie MacDowell). Gallagher is cheating with his sister-in-law (scene-stealer Laura San Giacomo) and Spader gets MacDowell to open up for talky sessions about their sex lives.

Extras: widescreen, deleted scene, audio commentary, featurettes, trailers

"The Professional" (Columbia/Blu-ray, 1994; R for violence, language, sex; $24.95).French star Jean Reno is the title character in this thriller (also known as "Leon: The Professional"), an assassin-for-hire in Manhattan who teams up with an abused 12-year-old girl (Natalie Portman in her film debut) to take down a vicious government agent (Gary Oldman). Reno and Portman are fine but Oldman is way over the top and this thriller by Luc Besson is wildly uneven with slow-motion action sequences. Included here is the European cut, which is 24 minutes longer.

Extras: widescreen, theatrical version, European version (with optional fact track), featurettes, trailers