DVD Review & Discussion Thread

[a6m5]

I've been wanting to make this thread for while. I wasn't really ready yet, but with the new edition of the "Office Space" and "Star Wars Episode III" coming out in a couple of days, I had to get it going.

Please share your thoughts on the DVDs you liked or disliked. Also, information on the features of the DVDs, like bonus features(documentary, interviews) or technical features(anamorphic widescreen, surround sound quality, etc.) would be much appreciated.

To start off, I want to mention the Office Space and Episode III that I talked about earlier.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Actually, all I know is that it's coming out this Tuesday.

Office Space: I'd think, some of you already own a DVD of this movie. If you own a widescreen TV, it's time to trade-up. While the current DVD has almost no extra features(just trailers, I think), the new version features a retrospective with Mike Judge(Director) and some deleted scenes. Also, it should finally be enhanced for widescreen TVs.

 

[Dave A]

Man on Fire special edition.

I haven't seen all the extras on this yet but theres supposedly over 4 hours worth, theres a documentary I want to watch that I haven't seen yet on it to do with kidnappings in Mexico.

It was nice to see the aternate ending but I'm glad they used the one they did, it was a bit predicatbale and I won't go into it incase anyone hasn't seen it yet.

Theres some TV trailers ect and the usual stuff, the movie is fantastic, the extras so far are okay but nothing above the expected levels, maybe what I haven't seen yet will raise the stakes though.


Band of brothers (the set in the metal tin, oh yes).

A superb addition to anyones DVD collection. Theres an 80 feature with all the people being interviewed who were in Easy company and theres a lot more than what you see in the episodes, that was a nice addition. Also theres behind the scenes and you can put the bonus disk into your PC for an experiencing the war feature which I've yet to try. I only really got this because it's just such a good series though and I saw a set in the metal tin for cheap.

 

[a6m5]

"Band of Brothers" is awesome. It was spendy though. I think it cost me 60-70 bucks.

I forgot to mention the Best Buy exclusive "Extra" special - Office Space DVD. It comes with a coffee mug, picture frame, mouse pad, pen & pencil and that's not all....... a red swingline stapler!

I will be buying one of the "Office Space" DVDs and the new Star Wars DVD, tomorrow.

 

[livemusic]

Good thread. I've been thinking of starting something similar to this in the Music forum, about concert DVDs.

I won't be posting here much since I don't buy movie DVDs, but I'll keep an eye on it. 👍

 

[the_undrtaker89]

The lord of the Rings Dvd's are awesome in my opinion. I got really hooked, and ended up spending a lot of time looking at the extra features, plus watching the extended edition is really nice. And if i need to go to the washroom, i just pause, I know people had problems when they watched the trilogy in theatres.

 

[a6m5]

Thank you, FatAssBR!

The lord of the Rings Dvd's are awesome in my opinion. I got really hooked, and ended up spending a lot of time looking at the extra features, plus watching the extended edition is really nice. And if i need to go to the washroom, i just pause, I know people had problems when they watched the trilogy in theatres.

I had the first one on regular DVD, but when the extended version came out, I had to get those. And were they worth it! On the first one, I saw all of the extra features. I saw the second and the third in theaters. On the third one, I was wishing long movies had intermissions. My legs were numb by the time the movie finished.

 

[a6m5]

"Millions" by Danny Boyle just came out in the U.S. on DVD. I'm a fan of Danny Boyle's work. I've probably seen all his films, and loves every single one of them. "Shallow Grave", "Trainspotting", "The Beach", "28 Days Later", "Life Less Ordinary".... well, you get the idea.

"Millions" was rated PG in the U.S., and it was little Disney-like as the rating suggests. Movie is about Damian, who runs into a bagful of money while he was playing in his (cardboard)fort. I really thought the movie was about this kid shopping around with the money(that's what I would've done). It was actually his older brother that's into having fun with the money, while all Damian wants to do is to share the money with the poor.

While it was a quality movie, it was due to that PG-ness that I wasn't really able to get into this movie. But as a Boyle fan, it was worth renting it on DVD and would recommend it to anyone who's looking to rent a quality "PG" rated DVD. I'm hoping that my next Boyle film has little more mature content. I'd give it a "B".

 

[livemusic]

Thank you, FatAssBR!


I had the first one on regular DVD, but when the extended version came out, I had to get those. And were they worth it! On the first one, I saw all of the extra features. I saw the second and the third in theaters. On the third one, I was wishing long movies had intermissions. My legs were numb by the time the movie finished.

I'm thinking of getting the box set of the Trilogy. It's a 6 DVD pack with the 3 films plus 3 DVDs of extras. The bad thing is the extended versions were not released here in Brazil, it's just the original versions. That's whats keeping me back on purchasin the box set, but I think I'll buy it anyway.

 

[Dave A]

But the extended editions online and get them sent to you.

 

[livemusic]

But the extended editions online and get them sent to you.

With no Portuguese subtitles.

 

[///M-Spec]

If anyone is considering getting their copy of Star Wars - Episode III at Walmart with the extra bonus DVD, "The Story of Star Wars", don't bother.

The packaging looks nice and official since it uses the same layout as the movie, but what you get when you load it up is a lame series of clips from I, II, IV, V and VI narrated by C-3PO and R2-R2. They simply retell what happens in each movie, for some completely unknown reason---minus the events of EP III! The narration provide nothing in terms of insight or entertainment.

The DVD is in FULL SCREEN and mixed in STEREO. 👎 Was NOT mastered in THX and looks terrible. The picture is washed out, the sounds is weak and I have no idea who did the voice for 3PO, but it wasn't Anthony Daniels.

Just get the movie on it's own. It's a mindblowing transfer and looks/sounds unbelievably good.


M

 

[vr6gti72]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Criterion Collection. Well the movies great, I bought this for the extras. It has 3 different commentarys...one by Hunter himself. It has alot of extra stuff. Im glad I ordered it.

 

[a6m5]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Criterion Collection. Well the movies great, I bought this for the extras. It has 3 different commentarys...one by Hunter himself. It has alot of extra stuff. Im glad I ordered it.

It's a very good movie, I have the regular version on DVD. I think Terry Gilliam directed "Fear and Loathing...."? I really want the Criterion Collection version of "Brazil". 👍 It's really expensive though, if it hasn't gone out of print yet.

 

[vr6gti72]

I really like the commentarys. Some of my favs are Willow, Dances with Wolves, Alien..there are a couple more I cant think of.

 

[Touring Mars]

A tale of two movies...

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

Superb film, but not for the faint of heart, the DVD doesn't disappoint. Although there are not really any extras to speak of, the film is complete and unabridged (uneditted), looks great (widescreen presentation) and sounds great aswell. The amazing but barmy soundtrack by Walter Carlos makes this film sound quite unlike any other... a disturbing film, but a work of genius. Viddy well...

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

An even superberer film, this DVD should be the centrepiece of any DVD collection... but what's this? 31 minutes (that's 21.2% !?!) of the film is missing?! WHY?? Also, it's fullscreen (4:3)... why no widescreen? On the plus side however, it sounds great, and Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos once again delivers an eerie soundtrack. There is also a great documentary (by Mrs. Kubrick) showing some behind the scenes footage of Jack Nicholson and the making of the movie, which is really worth having... but why show us how the movie was made and then not even show us the whole damn film?! I believe the official reason is that the film is too 'long' and slow for a modern audience, so they made the DVD 'punchier' by splicing over 30 minutes out. All cuts and no play makes Chris an angry boy... Total and utter craziness...

 

[a6m5]

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

An even superberer film, this DVD should be the centrepiece of any DVD collection... but what's this? 31 minutes (that's 21.2% !?!) of the film is missing?! WHY?? Also, it's fullscreen (4:3)... why no widescreen? On the plus side however, it sounds great, and Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos once again delivers an eerie soundtrack. There is also a great documentary (by Mrs. Kubrick) showing some behind the scenes footage of Jack Nicholson and the making of the movie, which is really worth having... but why show us how the movie was made and then not even show us the whole damn film?! I believe the official reason is that the film is too 'long' and slow for a modern audience, so they made the DVD 'punchier' by splicing over 30 minutes out. All cuts and no play makes Chris an angry boy... Total and utter craziness...

👍 I hope it's safe to talk to you now.... How long is the running time on your DVD? My region 1 cover says 144 minutes. 30 extra minutes would have made it a very long film, which I would've loved. I agree with you on the documentary, it was a very interesting look into behind the scenes. On the "full screen" thing, I heard that Kubrick preferred full screen. 👎 If it's true, man must been nuts. It does say on the back cover that the aspect ration has been modified to fit your screen, so the studio must have the widescreen edition hidden somewhere????? Knowing how greedy they are, they are probably working on the Special Collector's Limited Issue Directors Cut Unrated Digitally Matered THX Superbit Gift Set version now.

 

[Touring Mars]

👍 I hope it's safe to talk to you now....

Almost, I have been ranting about it since January

How long is the running time on your DVD? My region 1 cover says 144 minutes.

My version is just 115 minutes

Kubrick... must been nuts.

He was... you know all those pages of type that all read "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"?, he ordered his staff to actually type them all individually, there are no copied pages in that whole pile... he even typed many of them himself

so the studio must have the widescreen edition hidden somewhere????? Knowing how greedy they are, they are probably working on the Special Collector's Limited Issue Directors Cut Unrated Digitally Matered THX Superbit Gift Set version now.

If only...

 

[Zardoz]

The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)

Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Wladyslaw Szpilman, the world-class Polish pianist who barely survived the Nazi occupation of Poland.

This is a tough movie to watch, because you know all the while that its a true story, but its certainly worth it. The "making-of" documentary on the DVD is also excellent.

If I had to pick just one Holocaust movie to recommend, this would be it. Brace yourself, though. Its truly gut-wrenching.

 

[Dave A]

I've just ordered the directors cut of Leon from the US so expect a nice write up when I get that.

 

[VIPFREAK]

I'm still gonna push this damn it but, The Chronicles of Riddick: Directors Cut was bad ass because it had extra stuff added in the movie that the original version didn't have ( hint: hot chick scene although they never get it on ) It has the usual delete scenes and stuff too.

 

[a6m5]

Don't laugh(too hard), but I purchased "War of the Worlds" Season 1, this weekend. I think I was like 13 when this show was on, and used to be my favorite show at the time. Too bad I couldn't understand a lot of it at the time, I didn't know English in '88. This DVD set has no extra features. Transfer is VHS quality at best. 80's SFX is so bad, maybe fuzzy video is a good thing. Only thing that's saving this set is the price. I got the entire season one for $15.

The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)

Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Wladyslaw Szpilman, the world-class Polish pianist who barely survived the Nazi occupation of Poland.

This is a tough movie to watch, because you know all the while that its a true story, but its certainly worth it. The "making-of" documentary on the DVD is also excellent.

If I had to pick just one Holocaust movie to recommend, this would be it. Brace yourself, though. Its truly gut-wrenching.

That was quite good, for I'm a Polanski fan. I liked Schindler's List a little bit better though. I sold the DVD without watching the documentary.

I've just ordered the directors cut of Leon from the US so expect a nice write up when I get that.

Can't wait. 👍 My DVD's the "Uncut International Version". Might be the same thing.

I'm still gonna push this damn it but, The Chronicles of Riddick: Directors Cut was bad ass because it had extra stuff added in the movie that the original version didn't have ( hint: hot chick scene although they never get it on ) It has the usual delete scenes and stuff too.

I'm a sucker for mediocre Sci Fi, I should buy this "Director's Cut".

 

[VIPFREAK]

Just for that... You bought War of the Worlds. j/k

It's not mediocre damn it, Pitch black is and that's not even the sequel.

 

[a6m5]

Just for that... You bought War of the Worlds. j/k

It's not mediocre damn it, Pitch black is and that's not even the sequel.

Wow, this is scary. Check out the post I just made in the "War of the Worlds" thread. For the record, I do like the Chronicles(it's still average at best ).

 

[livemusic]

I'm thinking of getting the box set of the Trilogy. It's a 6 DVD pack with the 3 films plus 3 DVDs of extras. The bad thing is the extended versions were not released here in Brazil, it's just the original versions. That's whats keeping me back on purchasin the box set, but I think I'll buy it anyway.

So I bought it.

I asked a friend if there was any chance of the Extended Pack being released here and he said NO, because Warner Bros. is too lazy to do the subtitle of the extra 40 minutes in each film, plus extras. I'll try to find some time to watch them this weekend.

I also bought a football documentary called "FIFA Fever", but that's a christmas gift to my dad.

 

[a6m5]

So I bought it.

I asked a friend if there was any chance of the Extended Pack being released here and he said NO, because Warner Bros. is too lazy to do the subtitle of the extra 40 minutes in each film, plus extras. I'll try to find some time to watch them this weekend.

I also bought a football documentary called "FIFA Fever", but that's a christmas gift to my dad.

That's the "Lord of the Rings", right? You've probably already seen them before, but it's still a treat to see those on DVD. Great thing about those DVDs are the extra features, they are excellent.

I ordered some DVDs as well. In the States, retail stores has huge sale on the day after Thanksgiving. I ordered "24" season 2($20) and 3($20), "Seinfeld" season 1 & 2(one set/$20), "In July"(german flick/$11) and "Devil's Advocate"($5). I used to have "24" season one and I would highly recommend it to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. It's like crack. When I got it, I was coming down with flu or something, so I just holed up in my apartment, finished watching the entire set in just 2, 3 days! If I remember correctly, there weren't any extra features, but transfer was great and it was enhanced for widescreen TVs. 👍

 

[Dave A]

My Delux edition of LEON: The proffesional, has arrived all the way from Caiman USA in Florida, yes, yes. I'll be giving it a full write up when I've gone through it all.

 

[a6m5]

My Delux edition of LEON: The proffesional, has arrived all the way from Caiman USA in Florida, yes, yes. I'll be giving it a full write up when I've gone through it all.

Freight/postage probably cost almost as much as the DVD. j/k In my case, I like to buy CDs, etc. from U.K. I've gotten a sticker-shock from those shipping charges time to time.

 

[livemusic]

I bought the "Back To The Future" trilogy box set, and it comes with a bonus footage DVD. The case is pretty cool, and in total there's over 9 hours of bonus footage. Plus, it features DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, and even Dolby Digital 5.1 dubbed in Portuguese, which is very rare to find.

I only had time to watch the first one last night, I'll try to watch the others this weekend. And I also got to watch the LOTR trilogy, I haven't even tested the DVDs yet.

 

[Sprite]

Heat - Two Disk Special Edition

Cast

Al Pacino
Robert De Niro
Val Kilmer
Jon Voight
Tom Sizemore
Diane Venora
Amy Brenneman
Ashley Judd
Mykelti Williamson
Wes Studi
Ted Levine
Dennis Haysbert
William Fichtner
Natalie Portman
Tom Noonan

Director

Michael Mann

Disk 1:

Feature
Commentary by Writer - Producer - Director Michael Mann
3 Trailers

The film is obviously the main item on this disk and we all know its a great movie so i see no need to go into depth about the film, except i didn't see anything added or taken away from it compared to the VHS version, and the trailers and commentary are standard fair for most DVD's these days.

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍 / 👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

Disk 2:

11 Additional scenes

Theses extra scenes are nothing special and dont add any extra depth to the film, infact most of them are obvious to why they were cut from the final film.

True Crime Documentary:"Recalling the real-life Chicargo cop and criminal whose exploits inspired the movie."

This Documentary is not the best of the five on the disk, but it give a real face to the names in the movie but they are old time gangsta types and it bears only a passing resemblance to the film characters.

For those who want to know more about the characters development in movies then this quite interesting, but as far as adding extra value to the movie then its only slight.

Crime Stories Documentary:"The screenplay's 20-year history and how the movie finally got made."

This is quite interesting to watch as it tells the story of the script and how many times it was re-written and all the messing about with funding and so on, it also mentions L.A. Takedown which is basically Heat in a poorer guise, as far as the info tells you about the film and how it had problems being made, it dosnt add to the film... but taking this into account it dose make and good watch.

Into The Fire Documentary:"Filming in L.A., how the cast trained for their roles, shooting the climatic downtown heist and post-production."

This is the best documentary on the second disk and is very interesting and lends alot to the insite of the best shootout on film. I wont go into details just incase it spoils it for you, but it show the actors training with live guns on a police shooting range and lets you into the actual way in which they made the whole shootout, it also shows other big scenes from the film.

Pacino & De Niro: The Conversation Documentary:"Anatomy of this historic on-screen showdown."

The one people are probably more interested in is actually here, this documentary goes into the whole scene and shows how it was all filmed down to how the cammera angles were chosen. Its very good docu and lets you in on one of the most memorable scenes between two big heavy weights of movies.

Alot of nice information to be had in this documentary, and lends to the movie as a whole.

Return To The Scene Of The Crime Documentary:"Revisiting the film's real-life locations 10 years later."

Not much in this documentary and seemed like an after thought compared to the others, lends no real value to the experiance of heat and isnt worth the time watching.

over all there is some nice bits of trivia and information to get from the second disc but if your not too bothered by extras, there is nothing to attract the dissering dvd buyer, if you get a chance to watch the dvd either rent, buy cheap (like i did) or borrow off a friend then its worth a look, but its not worth paying full price for.

👍 👍 👍 / 👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

 

[Danoff]

Thank you, FatAssBR!


I had the first one on regular DVD, but when the extended version came out, I had to get those. And were they worth it! On the first one, I saw all of the extra features. I saw the second and the third in theaters. On the third one, I was wishing long movies had intermissions. My legs were numb by the time the movie finished.

When I first bought the LOTR extended box set, I watched the fellowship and TTT the same day. Then the next morning as soon as I got up I put on ROTK.

It makes for quite the marathon. You can do them all in one day but you'd have to be even more of a geek than me to try that.