'Cinema Paradiso'

Cinephilia -- movie love -- is at the heart of Giuseppe Tornatore's largely autobiographical "Cinema Paradiso" (Weinstein, $39.99), 1990's foreign-language Oscar winner.

Tornatore's bittersweet coming-of-age story remains resonant. Filmmaker Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) reflects on his childhood and youth in small-town Sicily circa the late '40s, when his lifelong passion for the movies was nurtured by kindly elderly projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret).

The titular fictitious theater, where the local priest regularly ensured that passionate displays of affection were excised from movies, was a communal gathering place, a means of escape from the hardships of life in the wake of WWII.

"Cinema Paradiso" bombed when it was first released in 1988 in Italy, attacked as overly sentimental and nostalgic. But the 123-minute incarnation shown at Cannes in 1989 became a critical and commercial success. The original version, with a reunion between Salvatore and his first love, is included in the lavish new three-DVD package.