• Pan's Labyrinth review • del Toro's Labyrinth sketches and interview • Rent it at Netflix • Buy it at Amazon • The 10 Best Movies of 2006 • Rent Army of Shadows at Netflix • Buy Army of Shadows at Amazon

The new release of the week is a bit of a no-brainer: it's New Line's Platinum Series edition of Guillermo del Toro's magnificent Pan's Labyrinth. This two-disc release presents the movie itself beautifully, and is packed to the gills with detailed, intelligent extras, from del Toro's own commentary to well-organized featurettes to presentations of his designs. It's an amazingly thorough breakdown of both the creative process behind the film and the ideas and traditions that it draws upon. Del Toro talks about all this further in an exclusive new interview with Premiere.com, here.

My classic DVD pick of the week, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1968 film Army of Shadows, could have also been a new release pick, as the U.S. theatrical debut was only last year. Indeed, the picture topped my ten best list of 2006, and figured on the lists of many other critics. This provoked a slightly dyspeptic reaction from a colleague, who wondered, was the WWII French Resistance thriller Shadows really the best film of 2006, or was I (and some others) merely indulging in some critical grandstanding? I still contend that the former is the case. (Well, I would, wouldn't I?) I would have loved to convened a website or blog symposium on the matter to debate the point, but the run-up to Cannes and other concerns left me with no time to do so. But the point here is that, thanks to Criterion's excellent two-disc set of Shadows, you can form your own opinion. Aside from a first-rate transfer of the picture, there's a bunch of archival material on Melville and the film — a preponderance of evidence in favor of my case. And even if you don't agree that this was one of the best films of 2006, this is an undeniably tense, complex, and tragic work featuring remarkable performances from Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret.