Robert Rodriguez Mexico Trilogy (El Mariachi/Desperado/Once Upon a Time in Mexico) (DVD, 2005, 3-DVD Boxed Set)

There is some confusion as to the releases in this set, based on the reviews so far and the limited information in the amazon.com description. I hesitated to buy it at first based on the fact that the back of the outer case simply had credits and the typical info box for all three films giving the languages and aspect ratios of the films, but nothing as to the other content of the discs contained.

Here is what is included in the set:

Disc 1:
El Mariachi (Special Edition)
- 1.85:1 Widescreen Anamorphic/81 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- Robert Rodriguez's Short Film "Bedhead"
- "10-Minute Film School"

Disc 2:
Desperado (Special Edition)
- 1.85:1 Widescreen Anamorphic/103 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- "10 More Minutes with Robert Rodriguez: Anatomy of a Shootout"

Disc 3:
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
- 1.78:1 Widescreen Anamophic/102 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- Deleted Scenes
- Film is Dead: An Evening with Robert Rodriguez
- Ten-Minute Flick School
- Ten-Minute Cooking School
- Inside Troublemaker Studios
- The Anti-Hero's Journey
- The Good, the Bad and the Bloody: Inside KNB FX

So this set re-packages the most recent release of each of the titles into a great little package. Little being the key word - this set uses the slim-line DVD cases often used in TV on DVD packaging and most recently seen in the Ghostbusters 1 & 2 Double Feature Gift Pack. Two slim-line cases take up the space of a single standard DVD case, so this set with 3 slim-line cases is nice and compact.

The transfer of El Mariachi here is the newest one ("From the original negatives supervised by Robert Rodriguez") not the older 1.66:1 transfer from the earlier Director's Double Feature release.

Also worthy of note is that all 3 film are Anamorphic despite the packaging indicating that El Mariachi and Desperado are just "Widescreen" while Once Upon a Time in Mexico is listed as "Anamorphic Widescreen." Columbia Tri-Star has always had a bad habit of not indicating when releases were anamorphic although most of their early releases were in fact anamorphic.