The Graduate, which turns 40 this year and really hasn't aged a day, is now available in a new anniversary edition DVD with extras like new commentaries from Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross, and an examination of the film's considerable impact.

Young, aimless, sexually inexperienced Benjamin Braddock and predatory proto-cougar Mrs. Robinson have so many cinematic children that it's nearly impossible to count them. Every subsequent onscreen directionless slacker and tadpoling midlife hottie can thank Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and especially novelist Charles Webb and screenwriter Buck Henry for their very existence.

The film added catch-words ("plastics") and catch-phrases ("Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me") to our vocabulary, but it also gave us a raft of scenes stunning in their visual power: Benjamin submerged in his parents' pool wearing his graduation gift scuba suit; Mrs. Robinson's nude body shot in separation as she traps Benjamin in her bathroom; Elaine Robinson weeping as a stripper's tassels spin in front of her; and the final devastating image of Benjamin and Elaine in the back of the bus, as their exuberance turns to doubt.

As far as this new DVD is concerned, I plan to stroll around the grounds until I feel at home.