After getting my DVD player to work under Slack 10 last night (it only worked using Totem and for some or other reason when using Xfce MPlayer will not offer a gui and xine kept complaining about missing libraries and the ogle front-ends didn't compile), I was enjoying a concert of Emerson, Lake & Palmer when halfway through Carl Palmer's drum solo the image froze and there was nothing that I could do that would release it. Totem wouldn't close even with kill -9 pid either as user nor as root, and the DVD player would not open and the indicator light suggested that it was still running. I eventually had to reboot the machine.

A couple of queries about this:

On the presumption that Totem does not object to my taste in music I am wondering why it would seize up like that. Has anyone experienced this before and if so, any diagnostics?
Leading on from this, is there a way that I can prevent this from re-occurring and second, if it does, is there a way of stopping the DVD, ejecting it and closing the Totem program without having to reboot my machine?

Thanks for any ideas.