Retro week: Lee's 'Gotta Have It', 'Family Guy' resprays 'Star Wars'

This is one of those "wayback machine" weeks, when the best DVDs hitting shelves feature old movies or historical documentaries. Let's start by traveling back to the Reagan era for the landmark debut of one of America's best filmmakers.

"She's Gotta Have It" -- Spike Lee hit the film world like a slap to the face in 1986 with this bracing and funny comedy about a woman trying to juggle three boyfriends. "She's Gotta Have It," which Lee reportedly made for less than $30,000, helped launch the American independent film movement that would reach full bloom in the mid-1990s. It also ignited an all-too-brief renaissance of black filmmaking. And of course, it was the starting point of Lee's own career, which so far has produced one masterpiece (1989's "Do the Right Thing") and a handful of films that rank among the best of the past 20 years. Astoundingly, this film has never appeared on DVD until today.

Nola Darling is a graphic designer living in Brooklyn. Three men want to be with her: Jamie (kind but dull), Greer (handsome but vain) and Mars (funny but juvenile). She likes all of them, but isn't ready to choose one over the others. The men aren't happy about that, and they spend the film begging her to ditch their rivals and accusing her of being a freaky sex addict when she won't (not that any of them promises to be faithful to her). Lee, who wrote the script, does a good job at fleshing out all these characters, even as he pokes fun at the guys' hypocrisy ("She's Gotta Have It" might be Lee's most "feminist" film). The style of the movie recalls early Woody Allen, with its jazzy score, black-and-white shots of New York and scenes where actors speak directly to the camera. But Lee makes the film his own by giving it a frank sexuality and by shining a light on the black middle class, a demographic largely absent from the big screen up until then. More than 20 years after it came out, "She's Gotta Have It" holds up as a smart, fresh and thoughtful comedy.

Now for the bad news. A movie as historically significant as "She's Gotta Have It" cries out for all kinds of DVD supplements, but this release contains nothing. Not even a theatrical trailer. It may be that Lee wasn't interested in revisiting his first film, or that a feature-packed edition is coming later. (The Criterion Collection released a laserdisc in the early '90s that included a Lee commentary, among other features.) I hope the film gets a definitive DVD treatment before too long, but in the meantime, we should celebrate the fact that we can all finally have "She's Gotta Have It." (R; MGM, $19.98)

"Family Guy: Blue Harvest" -- Geeks everywhere felt the Earth move a bit when the popular animated television show "Family Guy" opened its sixth season with an hourlong tribute to (and parody of) "Star Wars." This DVD release includes that episode in its entirety, along with a surprisingly solid group of bonus features. The episode is a quick retelling of the classic 1977 space opera, but with "Family Guy" characters in the key roles: Peter plays Han Solo, Lois is Princess Leia, baby Stewie is Darth Vader and so on. The animation, which includes a healthy dose of CGI, looks great on DVD, and the episode is funny throughout, particularly when it pokes fun at the movie. (When an imperial officer tells his underling not to fire on an escape pod because there are no life forms aboard, the underling snaps back, "What, are we getting paid by the laser now?") "Blue Harvest" -- a reference to the fake title that George Lucas used for "Return of the Jedi" while it was in production -- was clearly a labor of love for "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, and it shows. The DVD includes a commentary from MacFarlane and his animators and a nice conversation between MacFarlane and Lucas. The Force is with this one. (NR; Fox, $22.98)

"Oswald's Ghost" -- This documentary explores the Kennedy assassination and its effect on the American psyche more than 40 years later. Using vintage footage (some of it never released before) and talking-head commentary from Dan Rather, Norman Mailer and others, director Robert Stone re-creates the events of Nov. 22, 1963, with the right balance of taste and drama. He then documents the various conspiracy theories that continue to surround the assassination and compares the country's mood then to its mood after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. History buffs probably won't learn anything new from "Oswald's Ghost," but others should find this solid piece of filmed journalism to be both fascinating and chilling. The DVD includes extended interviews and the famous Zapruder film of the assassination. (NR; Paramount, $24.99)