Valentine's clipfest for your valentine

A couple of years ago, one of my stepdaughters asked me to put together a little videotape of some romantic movie moments for a Valentine's Day party. It was a hit, and she asked for another the next year.

I'm not smart enough to think in commercial terms, of course, or I might have marketed that little Valentine's clipfest and made some big bucks. Now, Hollywood Greeting has beat me to the punch . . . except that videotape is passe, so these romantic movie clips are on a mini-DVD.

The DVD can be found inside what appears to be a typical greeting card, with a photo of a couple smooching beneath a theater marquee, which says: "Now Showing, To My Valentine."

The disc offers up three minutes of dancing, romancing and kissing scenes from a variety of movies, ranging from Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray in "First Love" (1939)" to Hugh Grant and Rachel Weisz in "About a Boy" (2002). In between there is liplocking by Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, Penelope Cruz and NIcolas Cage and many others, under the strains of Andrea Bocelli performing "Con Te Partiro." (Perhaps the strangest film choices are "American Pie 2" and "Psycho"!)

The card retails for $9.98 (but you should be able to get it for seven or eight bucks), and is available at Kmart, Wal-Mart and other marts.

It's cute, guys, but I suggest you get flowers and candy to go with it, or she may enjoy the film clips more than you.

AMONG NEW-TO-DVD movies are a pair of Mary Higgins Clark made-for- TV pictures and an ABC two-parter, all of which are by-the-numbers ordinary:

-- "Mary Higgins Clark's Lucky Day" (Lions Gate, 2002, PG-13, $19.99).

-- "Mary Higgins Clark's Loves Music, Loves to Dance" (Lions Gate, 2001, PG-13, $19.99). Both of these films are predictable thrillers, second-tier efforts that are part of the "Mary Higgins Clark Mysteries" series of movies on PAX TV. Curiously, both also star former British sexpots who affect American accents.

"Lucky Day" is the better of these two, starring Amanda Donohoe as a sometime actress who works for an overnight-delivery service in Manhattan. When a widowed delivery man at her workplace disappears after calling her and implying that he's won the lottery, Donohoe finds the police unresponsive. So she begins investigating on her own.

"Loves Music, Loves to Dance" is, as the title suggests, about Internet dating, with Patsy Kensit as a New York TV producer who encourages her best friend to go on some dates as research for the talk show she produces, which is sort of the anti-"Oprah."

Both films are mediocre and by-the-numbers. "Loves Music" is a bit more gruesome than "Lucky Day," and for some reason Kensit's character is, in the end, a victim who must be rescued, while Donohoe fights back and refuses to be victimized.

Look fast for Mary Higgins Clark's cameo in "Lucky Day."

Extras : Widescreen, trailers, etc.

-- "Widows" (Lions Gate, 2002, PG-13, $24.99). This two-part ABC- TV movie, which aired last summer, is the perfect example of a film that should have been cut down to feature length for its DVD release. At two hours and 45 minutes, it's way too long, and many scenes are redundant flashbacks or feel padded. At 90 minutes, this might have been a pleasant little caper comedy, but as it is, it just sags and drags.

Mercedes Ruehl has, more or less, the lead role as Dolly, a tough dame from the old school whose husband was a two-timing crook. When he appears to have been killed during a heist gone awry, she meets up with the widows of his two cohorts -- Linda (Rosie Perez) and Shirley (Brooke Shields). Eventually, they figure out what their husbands were up to and who killed them, which leads to the climactic robbery of a multimillion-dollar painting.

A little of this goes a long way, and Ruehl's anger, Perez's blustering and Shields' ditsiness would have been more paltable in smaller doses. Also, a twist at the end, involving a cop played by Jay O. Sanders, has no reason for being.

Extras: Full frame, etc.

E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com

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