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  EW review: Laborious 'Elizabethtown'Also: Irresistible 'Youth' and groovy 'Electric Company'By Eric Kohn  YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(Entertainment Weekly) -- Despite the manipulative and trite mechanisms that detract from "Elizabethtown" -- the pop-addled soundtrack, the two-hour-plus run time -- the film is at least thematically consistent with director Cameron Crowe's more rewarding works. The lyrical romance between despondent corporate failure Drew (Orlando Bloom) and poetic optimist Claire (Kirsten Dunst) recalls the soulful coupling in the compulsively engaging "Almost Famous." But that's where the similarities end. Crowe's elegy to mourning could have benefited from more condensed storytelling. Tip: Now that it's on DVD, fast-forward through the more laborious sequences (especially the needlessly drawn-out roadtrip ending). EXTRAS Just 10 minutes of extended scenes, a couple of brief docs showcasing the cast's on-set camaraderie, and a dense, aimless photo gallery. Sadly, a director's commentary, where the always eloquent Crowe could have taken a shot at self-justification, is absent. EW Grade: C+ 'The Best of Youth'Reviewed by Timothy Gunatilaka "The Best of Youth," a made-for-Italian-TV epic, passes the six-hour mark without evoking one peek at the watch from the most antsy viewer. "Youth" ambitiously traces the lives of two brothers -- one a generous-to-a-fault physician (Luigi Lo Cascio), the other a tortured romantic-turned-tetchy soldier (Alessio Boni) -- over four decades of broken love affairs, political strife, World Cup wins, and natural and domestic disasters. And all along, Italy itself ("A beautiful but useless place, destined to die") beats with as much vitality as any character. Brothers playfully rekindle sibling rivalries amid Marxism's militant rise; future paramours flirt about photography while Mob violence pervades the nation; and the trivial delights of family melodrama converge with the grand sweep of some historical novel, leading to the ecstatic fairy-tale finale. There simply aren't enough films today exuding such irresistible passion. EXTRAS None. (But who cares!) EW Grade: A 'The Best of the Electric Company'Reviewed by Kirven Blount Advisory warning: May cause out-of-body experiences. This esteemed program (and subject of this DVD, "The Best of the Electric Company"), conceived in 1971 as a "Laugh-In" version of "Sesame Street," featured big stars (Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno), with-it up-and-comers (Morgan Freeman), and groovy bass lines. Amid the 20 episodes in this best-of collection, "The Adventures of Letterman" (voiced by Gene Wilder), "Fargo North, Decoder," and songs like Tom Lehrer's "Silent E" will induce disorienting time travel, while the reading lessons and the Catskills-esque humor may move hands toward skip buttons. EXTRAS All we get is a karaoke version of "Silent E," a few outtakes, and four lo-fi interviews. Though Moreno remembers the experience as "such a hard job," she clearly loved every minute of it. PBS pioneer Joan Ganz Cooney gives Richard Nixon credit for his national literacy push, while executive producer Sam Gibbon and head writer Tom Whedon detail the extensive research involved (such as eye movement studies to determine the optimum placement of subtitles) and their focus on incorporating "black English." Admirable stuff -- but where are Freeman and the Cos? EW Grade: B+ Click Here 
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