A balmy summer night, on which the dark sky suddenly explodes with a rainbow of man-made comets, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. America’s “first family of fireworks,” the Gruccis, and author George Plimpton extol the magic of pyrotechnics in Fireworks! (Tuesday on A&E Home Video, $29.95).
The program reviews the history of fireworks, from humble beginnings in ancient China to today’s computer-controlled and hologram-enhanced extravaganzas. Viewers are also escorted to fabulous light shows as seen at the Statue of Liberty Centennial, the Los Angeles Olympics and four presidential inaugurations.
Snoopy and his Peanuts pals remind kids why we celebrate with fireworks every 4th of July in The Birth of the Constitution, part of Paramount Home Video’s “This Is America, Charlie Brown” series (available Tuesday, $9.95, closed-captioned).
The art film “Baraka” (MPI Home Video, $29.98) proves that a picture can convey a thousand words. Photographed on six continents in TODD-AO 70mm (the technique used for “Lawrence of Arabia”), “Baraka” (a Sufi word which roughly translates to “essence of life”) has no dialogue, but presents images of the world’s marvels (from the Pyramids at Gizha to the Empire State Building) and disasters (the Auschwitz death camp and burning oil fields in Kuwait) which are so powerful that they transcend all languages.
