The DVD format is great not only for the tricked-out explorations of past American classics it can offer American film enthusiasts, but also long-forgotten foreign films it can wash up on our shores anew. After all, to borrow NBC’s sly small screen marketing line regarding catalogue repeats, if you haven’t yet seen it, well, it’s “new to you.” Case in point: two rarely screened Italian classics largely considered lost, but fresh to DVD, Roma Città Libera and Francesco Maselli’s political drama Open Letter to the Evening News.

Sexual and erotic obsessions are at the hub of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer’s canon, but don’t expect unadorned titillation. One of the founding critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinema, Rohmer began translating his written manifestos to the big screen in the 1960s, standing apart from New Wave contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut with his patented brand of gently existential, hyper-articulate character studies — a thematic forerunner for everyone from Woody Allen to Gabriele Muccino and Noah Baumbach. Set chiefly against vivid seasonal landscapes, his half dozen “Moral Tales” — a succession of jousts between fragile, mostly inwardly reflective men and the women who tempt them — unleashed upon the world of film a modern, liberating and nonjudgmental voice, one at once philosophical and liltingly insightful on sexual matters.

Sure, Snakes on a Plane has been old news for awhile now, even though it only hit theaters yesterday. Still, it’s always fun to talk to the film’s star, the irrepressible Sam Jackson – if only because there’s a certain giddy junior-high-school-kid flashback thrill to sitting around with a movie star who curses almost as often as he breathes.

Friday is the night that will see the least amount of changes in the upcoming fall TV season. With just one new show premiering and only three returning shows changing timeslots, viewers shouldn’t have to worry about changing their habits. Of course, there are also attractive options further up the dial. SCI FI Channel has had some success the past few seasons with its SCI FI Friday lineup, and with the second season (or series, as the Brits say) of the new Doctor Who (Sept. 29) airing alongside Battlestar Galactica (Oct. 6), the cable network is poised to give the broadcasters a run for their money, especially considering what the Big Four and a Half have to offer (in short, not much).