Well, it looks like my purchase was well-timed: Toshiba has now officially discontinued the HD-DVD format, and will phase out players and media over the next few months. I for one am glad to hear this news, although I confess that I’m not excited to run out and repurchase all of my movies again. There is so much content available for so cheap on DVD, I can’t see myself ever buying as many Blu-ray Discs as I have DVDs. At least, I hope I won’t.
Some call it Mardi Gras. Others call it Super Tuesday. I have a different name for it: my birthday.
Another year has gone by, and I am still walking the earth. To celebrate, I decided to cast my vote on an important national issue, one that will shape our country for years to come. This is perhaps the preeminent concern of our generation, and I thought it was time to take a stand and make my position known:
I bought my first Blu-ray Disc.
After the shocking announcement by Warner Bros. at CES that they would be dropping HD-DVD support (after which the HD-DVD consortium cancelled their press conference), Blu-ray now has support from 80% of the major motion picture studios, with Paramount and Universal being the remaining holdouts. There are rumors that even they will commit to Blu-ray by June. Combined with plummeting HD-DVD sales, it looks like Blu-ray finally has the marketshare and the mindshare to become the new high-definition standard for home video. But the reason I decided to make my first purchase today is out of nostalgia: It was on this day ten years ago that I bought my first DVD. I think it is only fitting that I make the switch to HD on the same day. (For the curious, my first DVD was Little Shop of Horrors, which had just been recalled, and the Blu-ray Disc I bought today was The Fifth Element.)
In other election news, I continued my celebration by doing what all good Americans should do: voting for Mitt Romney. Hopefully he can pull the Republican nomination out. In any case, it’s nice to vote in a national election where my vote actually counts, since California is not a winner-take-all state. Most of the time, my voice is drowned out among all the liberals around here. I guess we’ll know later tonight if my birthday truly is a day for celebration, or a day of mourning.
When I read truth, I love to share it. And thanks to 43 Folders, I found a fantastic article about living a backlogged life. The gist of the article is this: At one point in time, if we missed something, it was gone: a phone call, a TV show, whatever. But now, thanks to the wonders of technology, these time sinks are now collected and sorted and aggregated for future enjoyment. Instead of letting technology free us, it has removed our ability to let go of the past.
As I’ve been trying to get my life organized, this point particularly resonated with me. As I try to get my life organized, I have realized that the more you hang on to the past, the more difficult it is to enjoy the present. The more I worry about sorting and deleting and responding to my old email, the less time I spend actually working on things that I need to do today. And sure, I have hundreds of hours of shows recorded on the TiVo, but which are the ones that I watch as soon as they are recorded, and which are the ones I think that I might get to someday, maybe?
This has also affected my life in a purely financial sense. A long time ago, I read a great book by the Motley Fool entitled You Have More Than You Think. The authors offered a piece of advice about purchasing luxury items which has great application to daily life: Don’t buy something new unless you’ve used up what you already have. For example, don’t buy a magazine at the newsstand if you have a magazine you haven’t read sitting on the coffee table at home. Don’t buy a new book if you have a shelf of unread books in your office. It’s really a simple rule, and it’s very lenient if you’re using what you have. I have been trying to follow that rule, in general, but recently I have gotten very specific in applying it.
A few weeks ago, I was feeling very poor, and feeling like my spending was getting out of control. In an effort to get ahead of the game, I decided to go into lockdown. I have so many unread books sitting around, and so many unwatched DVDs, and so many unplayed video games, that I could literally not buy any media for probably a year, and still have plenty to do in my free time. So, until I have made some headway on what I already own, I am not buying anything new. I expect that at some point, something will come along for which I will bend these rules a bit, but I hope that will be the exception rather than the norm. Until then, I hope to find a new appreciation for the things I already own. Maybe I’ll finally get to that great book that I’ve heard so much about, or that videogame series that I never finished. It’s as if my entire life were leading up to this point. I’ve collected all this crap my whole life; time to start enjoying it.
Some of you may already listen to the DVD Weekly Podcast, but if you dont, I was featured this week in the call-in segment at the beginning of the show, giving my quick rundown of the new features on the upcoming Sin City special edition DVD (which you are already familiar with). In fact, my coverage of the topic was so thorough, they ended my phone call by saying, And thats our show for this week!” Anyway, its a great show, so give it a listen if you have any interest in DVDs.
Before you buy Sin City on DVD next week, you may want to read this Robert Rodriguez Interview at IGN, where he talks about the two-disc Sin City special edition that he is currently working on. Some of the planned special features sound incredible:
The real DVD should come out fairly quick, [and] its the one that will be obviously the double-disc set with all of the goodies on it. I mean, it has all kinds of stuff on there—I have a 20–minute Film School, a new Cooking School, Sin City Breakfast Tacos, and my favorite feature: when people watch DVDs, they complain ‘oh, the only thing about home entertainment is you miss that audience experience. Well, the best audience is in Austin, especially for a movie that was made there. We showed the premiere with the actors there in a 1500–seat theater, and they would go crazy and Sin City got a big reaction. I recorded the audience in 5.1 so if youre watching the DVD and you want to see it with an Austin audience on premiere night, you just click a button and theyre all there going ‘aaaah! so its really cool.Quentin, when he was directing his sequence, he just let the tape roll when we were shooting, and the sequence taped for an hour, so there are some 20-minute uninterrupted takes. You see him wander in front of the camera and talk to the actors, and [hes] directing and you hear the whole sound of the set. Its like you're sitting right there on the set seeing the movie being shot from the point of view of the camera thats shooting the movie, uninterrupted, and its really cool. You feel like youre right there, and you get to see what its like to work with Quentin and the actors and how the movie actually gets made. [And] he will do a commentary on his section.
So, if you dont want to spend the $15 or whatever this current version is going to cost, you might want to wait for the feature-packed special edition. By the way, it looks like it will also have each of the three storylines broken out into individual mini-films, so you can watch them separately (as they were originally published in comic form), or edited together as one movie. Of all of todays directors, I think that Robert Rodriguez is taking the best advantage of the DVD medium as film school.
After an extended delay, NewsRadio is finally available on DVD, in a three-disc set covering the show’s first and second seasons. It was originally scheduled to be released sometime last year, but rumor is that the show’s creator, Paul Simms, found out about the pending bare-bones DVD release, and had it delayed so that he could add some extras. As a result, we now have creator and cast commentaries on 20 of the 29 episodes, as well as some other minor documentaries and blooper reels.
A quick primer on NewsRadio: When it originally aired on NBC, the show seemed to continually shift timeslots, which may have accounted for its poor ratings. Nevertheless, it was usually renewed, until the season following Phil Hartman’s death, when the show was finally cancelled for good. However, it was always a critical success, if not a commercial one.
It is difficult to pin down why NewsRadio is so brilliant. Part of it could be due to the ensemble cast, who are all very entertaining and (yes, I’ll say it) quirky. Dave Foley (from The Kids in the Hall) plays it somewhat straight, but with some subdued comic touches here and there. I am particularly fond of Maura Tierney, who I think is a brilliant comedic actress, especially when she is playing anger. And of course, Phil Hartman was stellar.
But besides the cast, I think the real genius of the show is that even though it is a fairly straightforward sitcom, the writers are very aware of that fact, and play with some of the typical conventions. For example, the will-they-or-won’t-they tension between Dave and Lisa, the two main characters, is set up in the first episode. On a typical sitcom, this would be stretched out over several seasons, until finally they consummate the relationship, whereupon the humor plummets and people stop watching the show. But on NewsRadio, instead of letting the tension build, the characters end up sleeping together in the second episode, setting up a completely different dynamic for the series. Or consider the “what if?” episodes, such as “What if NewsRadio was set in space?” Again, the writers are aware of this typical sitcom gimmick, so they basically make fun of the concept, where everything is called a “space chair” or a “space filing cabinet” or a “space heater”…you get the idea. Even better is the later episode, “What if WNYX, instead of being a radio station, was actually a luxury liner called the Titanic?” Again, the set doesn’t change at all, but now Matthew sits outside of the office window watching for icebergs, the building eventually floods…okay, maybe you need to see it to understand. Just trust me on this one: If you buy the NewsRadio DVD set and watch it, you will thank me later.
You have heard me talk about Samurai Jack before. This week, Season Two is available on DVD. Read what I wrote before about Season One, then go out and buy this DVD for more of the same groundbreaking animation and storytelling.
Only one notable release this week, but it’s an important one….
Finally out on DVD this week is Volume One of Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated series which bridges the events of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Episode II ended with the start of the Clone Wars, and unfortunately, you won’t see much of the war in Episode III. Through discussions between Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network, Lucas asked Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack, to direct a series of three-minute episodes, each detailing a battle of the Clone Wars.
Because of the time contraints, each episode is short on dialogue and heavy on action, and Jedi who were only in the background during the previous movies get center stage on Clone Wars. The result is a series that enhances—and in some ways, surpasses—the movies that came before it. I would have to agree with the person who said that two particular episodes of the series (12 and 13) are better than the previous two movies combined. Oh, right…that was me! For only $12.99 at Best Buy, you can’t go wrong with this one. Plus, you need to watch the episodes to prepare for Clone Wars Volume Two, which started airing this week on Cartoon Network. If you missed yesterday’s episode, there will most likely be a marathon of the episodes sometime soon. The episodes in this new season are nine minutes each, so I presume the storylines will be fleshed out a little bit. Set your TiVo accordingly.
Has it really been that long since the last DVD Tuesday? I’ve tried to be a bit more selective in what DVDs I have recommended, but perhaps I’ve been a bit too selective. What gems have I missed telling you about? The Brak Show: Volume 1, Sealab 2021: Season 2, new transfers of Rocky II and III, Angel: Season 5, Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut, South Park Season 5, Heat, Bambi…oh, what have I done?? Can you ever forgive me? I will try to be more diligent in the future. With that in mind, here are this week’s essential DVD purchases:
Remember back when I told you to buy The Iron Giant? You didn’t listen, did you? Well, Pixar’s latest animated film, The Incredibles (by the same director) just won the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture*. Are you listening now? Good.
(* Okay, okay, I know that “Best Animated Picture” is kind of an insulting prize, kind of like “Smartest Kid Who Eats Paste” or “Greatest Star Trek Film.” What, Beauty and the Beast got nominated for Best Picture, but other animated pictures require some kind of special qualification? It’s almost as if they came up with this category to get the people off their backs who said, “Hey, an animated picture can be a great movie too!” And now the animation fans are placated, and as a result, you get The Incredibles up for the same award as Shark Tale. Come on. That would be like making a category called “Best Director of a Film About Howard Hughes,” just so that Martin Scorcese could finally win an Oscar. It’s demeaning, and I won’t stand for it.)
So, the DVD opens with an introduction by Brad Bird, explaining how it was transferred directly from the digital source. And oh, does it look like it! To say the image quality is pristine would be an insult to the word. If this image looks this good, I can hardly imagine what an HD transfer will look like! The DVD is THX-certified, Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio, commentary with the filmmakers, blah blah blah…old hat for owners of previous Pixar special editions. Also included are the new short, “Jack-Jack Attack,” and the Academy Award—nominated short film Boundin’. Buy and enjoy at Best Buy for only $15.99.
Have I talked about Red Dwarf before? Probably not. It’s just your typical British sci-fi comedy TV series. I’d say that it’s similar to Star Trek: Voyager, except that it came out about seven years before Voyager. Remember how Voyager was so cutting-edge with a holographic crewmember? Red Dwarf did it first. And when Voyager got sent to the far reaches of space, and it would take them 80 years to get back to Earth? Red Dwarf ends up three million years away from Earth, where the human race has almost certainly become extinct. And how does Dave Lister, the last human being alive, respond? “Turn the ship around! We’re going home!” Oh, and the love of Lister’s life, Kristine Kochanski, was also killed in the accident that wiped out the rest of the ship’s crew. In short, it’s a love story across time, space, death and reality. It’s ingenious, hilarious, smart, actually has some good science fiction, but never takes itself too seriously.
Of course, all of that is a lead-in to the announcement that Red Dwarf V, the fifth series of Red Dwarf, is available today on DVD. (Remember, in Britain, it’s called a series, not a season. A season implies that the show is ongoing, and will continue to have new episodes, while a series implies that each particular group of episodes stands alone, and there may be a long wait between one series and the next.) As with most British series, Red Dwarf V consists of six episodes, which keeps each episode packed full of comic genius, and assures that the show remains memorable and doesn’t wear out its welcome. As with every other Red Dwarf DVD, Season V features a commentary on each episode by the cast. Additionally, there is a fan commentary on one of my favorite episodes, “Back to Reality.” The set also includes deleted scenes, Smeg-Ups, featurettes and documentaries, easter eggs, and much more.
And of course, if you’re picking up Red Dwarf V, you might as well pick up Red Dwarf VI too. This set also includes the episode “Gunmen of the Apocalypse,” which won an International Emmy (whatever that is). Special features are about the same as the previous DVD. You can get Series V and VI at Best Buy for $29.99 each, or if you order online, you will save $10 on any two Red Dwarf series, or $40 if you order all six. So if you would like to start your collection now, you can get Series I-VI for only $140. This show gets my highest recommendation; there is really nothing like it on American television.
And rounding out this week’s picks is the Star Trek: First Contact Collector’s Edition. As with previous films in the series, the earlier single-disc DVD has been replaced with a deluxe two-disc set, featuring a new video and audio transfer, commentary track with Jonathan frakes, text commentary track, and numerous behind-the-scenes features. Only $14.99 at Best Buy, for what could be the greatest Star Trek film of all time.
Check out these previews from the Sealab 2021 Season Two DVD. Genius!
According to rumor, Song of the South may actually be released to DVD in 2006! Take it with a grain of salt, but it sounds reasonably plausible to me.
Welcome to the first DVD Tuesday of the new year! Actually, there have been other DVD Tuesdays, but this is the first one that is so epic, so monumentous, that I could not put off posting about it. So, without further ado…
If you didn’t see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in the theater, you should have, if only to see the future of filmmaking. You see, director Kerry Conran came up with the story, then developed a green-screen process (using his Macintosh, I might add) to film the entire movie with just the actors, with all of the sets and effects work to be added later. He created a six-minute short using the process, and based on the strength of that work, he was able to sign Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie to work on his film. By combining the big-name actors with this revolutionary digital process, you end up with a $40-million film that looks like it cost $100 million.
The story is a little hackneyed, but the dialogue and action try to capture the feel of movie serials from the 1930s. It is worth purchasing just for his epic vision and sense of style, which also borrows liberally from the old Superman cartoons from the Fleischers. Anyway, for $16.99 at Best Buy, you get the widescreen version of the movie, an impressive Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, two commentaries (one with the director and Jude Law, one with the effects team), a bunch of special features, and the original six-minute short that started it all. Sky Captain earns the distinction of being this week’s Top Pick.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned Coupling before. Coupling is a BBC sitcom that is not the British equivalent of Friends, despite what the advertising for the short-lived American version would lead you to believe. It is a very funny, very sweet, slightly edgy, and wholly creative sitcom. The creators often play with time in the narrative, juxtaposing events from different times for humorous effect. There are other clever techniques that are used, but I’ll let you watch the episodes and judge for yourself.
Unlike American television, British shows usually have only a handful of episodes per season (or series, as it is called over there). But rather than being a hindrance, the smaller number of episodes allows the creators to focus all of their energies on making each one as funny as it can be. Thus, instead of 22 reasonably-good episodes, with a few standouts, you end up with six hilarious episodes. That is definitely the case with Coupling: The Complete Fourth Season, out today. Sure, you have the loss of a main character from the previous seasons, but the new character, while a little tentative at first, ends up being a deeper, more resonant replacement. And as with previous seasons, Season 4 sends the story off in whole new directions. Definitely worth buying…for that matter, you might as well pick up the previous seasons as well. Season 4 is $24.99 at Best Buy.
Can you honestly say anything bad about Alien vs. Predator? Okay, maybe you can, but I still enjoyed it, as you know if you read my earlier review. You get a DTS soundtrack, a couple commentary tracks (one from the director and actor, one from the effects team), an alternate opening, deleted scenes, and a few documentaries, all for only $14.99 at Circuit City, or $15.99 at Best Buy.
And if you’re buying Alien vs. Predator, and you already bought the special edition of Predator, why not round it off by picking up the new special edition of Predator 2? You know the drill…new transfer, DTS sound, two commentary tracks (one by the director, one by the writers), numerous documentary footage, blah blah blah. It’s become so old-hat by now.
Remember back in the glory days of laserdisc, when a commentary track was something rare and special? When even a Dolby Digital soundtrack was something that was worth noting on a release? Now it seems like every DVD has a special edition, multiple commentary tracks, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 5.1 EX or DTS or DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 sound…the wonders of DVD have made the special into the mundane. “Oh, only two commentary tracks? How quaint.” Not that I’m complaining, mind you….
Back to the topic at hand, you can get Predator 2 for only $12.99 at Circuit City, or if you would rather go to Best Buy, you can pay the usurious price of $14.99.
Remember back in the glory days of laserdisc, when most movies were $39.99 or more, and if you found one for $34.99 or $29.99, it was a great deal? And the special editions were $100, but they came with cool special features like a commentary track, a better transfer, maybe a few documentaries….
If you don’t already have the Back to the Future Trilogy, they just dropped the retail price of this one. You can get it at Best Buy on sale this week for $19.99. Oh, and the new release has the corrected framing on the II and III. I know you were very concerned about that, so I thought I would ease your mind.
The final chapter of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Return of the King wraps up the story in splendid form. Why else would it be #2 on the IMDb Top 250 Films list? It couldn’t be the obsessive fans, could it? Of course not! Just ask the Academy: It also won all 11 Academy Awards that it was nominated for, including Best Director and Best Picture. (Oh, and it also won for Best Visual Effects, which makes it the seventh film in a row to win that award after using Apple’s Shake compositing software.)
So in any case, whatever you liked about The Return of the King, this special extended edition has more of it. Did the original 3-hour and 21-minute version feel too abrupt, with not enough endings? You’ll have plenty of room to breathe with the extended 4-hour and 11-minute cut. And if you add in the extended versions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, you can have a massive 11-hour, 22-minute Lord of the Rings marathon. (By contrast, you could watch the entire Godfather Trilogy in that time, and still almost have enough time to watch The Godfather again. Or you could watch all five Star Wars films, then start watching the Clone Wars cartoons in the remaining time.) However you slice it, you’ll have more Lord of the Rings movie goodness than you could ever want.
But of course, once you’re done watching all 682 minutes, you’ll just have to start over again and listen to each of the four commentaries, which will put you at over seven eight-hour days of watching time. The actor commentary on Return of the King also features Andy Serkis, as well as Gollum and Smeagol, so that should be interesting. You also get a DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete soundtrack, and two more disks of extra behind-the-scenes features that I won’t even bother to go into here. So if you loved The Lord of the Rings before, you can work your way through all of the DVD sets, and you will love it even more. Or maybe you’ll hate it. I can’t make that decision for you. All I can tell you is that it’s $22.99 at Best Buy, or $72.99 if you would like to pick up all 12 discs for the three movies. Much like Frodo, the decision is in your hands.
I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is, if you’re trying to save money, there’s only one DVD release that I’m recommending this week. The bad news is that the DVD is $52.99. Well, technically it’s a DVD set, not a single DVD…okay, just read on.
Ah, what a cash cow the Matrix Trilogy has become! With the release of The Ultimate Matrix Collection, I guess we’ll be safe…at least, until HD-DVD rolls around. But until then, you can buy this monster 10-disc set which contains two discs each for The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix, all of the filmed segments from the Enter the Matrix videogame, and a few discs of other bonus documentaries.
Even if you already have the previous DVDs (and honestly, who doesn’t already own The Matrix?), it may be worth picking up this set just for the new transfer of The Matrix alone. The original was one of the earlier DVDs, and compared to current releases, the video transfer is pretty poor. At the time, the general murkiness was blamed on the stylized color palette of the movie (everything in the Matrix has a greenish tint, if you didn’t already know that), but it ended up looking very washed out. The new transfer has improved color timing and looks much clearer overall. In addition to the new transfer, each movie includes two commentary tracks: one with a pair of philosophers who explain the various metaphysical concepts in the film, and one with a trio of film critics who generally liked the first movie, but hated the two sequels. According to reports, both sets of commentators are very entertaining.
I should also note that if you’ve never seen The Animatrix, it is a worthwhile collection of animation. Several of the segments were written by the Wachowski Brothers, and serve to flesh out the story of the movies. The Second Renaissance Part I and Part II provide a history of the rise of the machines, the war, and the creation of the Matrix. Kid’s Story gives the backstory of a character featured in Reloaded and Revolutions. The Final Flight of the Osiris is kind of a Matrix 1.5, and is a CGI piece (by the people who made Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) that shows the events leading up to The Matrix Reloaded. Of all the pieces, that one is my favorite. The other segments are original stories set within the world of The Matrix, but not directly related to the films themselves. Still, they’re all worth watching.
Okay, this has already gone on too long. Pick up the DVD set this week at Best Buy for $52.99.
Oh, where did the time go? Its already December, and Im still on Novembers DVD update. Ill make this a quick one, once again:
Oh, but how to keep it short when the movie is Spider-Man 2, the greatest superhero movie of all time? Well, you can read my earlier review of the movie, and then my review of the Imax Experience, and then go buy the DVD at Best Buy for $14.99 (or if you buy it with Spider-Man, you get both for $25).
Whats better than Spider-Man 2? Why, the Superbit version, of course! Only $17.99 at Best Buy, and you get better picture quality, DTS sound, and no extras. You can read What is Superbit? for more info.
If you have to choose between the two editions, ask yourself this question: Am I a person who loves movies, or am I a worthless cheapskate who cant even spend a few extra bucks on one of the greatest movies of all time?” If youre the former, then buy both; if the latter, then just pick up the Special Edition, and wallow in your shame. Oh, and an extended cut DVD will be out next year with three or four minutes of new footage, so you can get that one too.
Okay, okay, I havent seen Daredevil. But the Directors Cut is about 30 minutes longer, it apparently fleshes out the characters more, and its only $12.99 at Best Buy. Come on, youre already buying two copies of Spider-Man 2…whats one more superhero movie?
I almost didnt mention this one, since my long history with Northern Exposure ended abruptly and tragically. (Do a Google search for andy bates” ”northern exposure” if you dont know the association, and maybe Ill share the whole tragic story sometime.) But this Season 2 DVD set does have my all-time favorite episode, Spring Break,” and it is a fantastic show in general. The DVD set just may seem a little truncated, since the second season was a very short one. On sale for $37.99 at Best Buy if youre interested (and, indeed, even if youre not).
Hero. Edited on Final Cut Pro. Big epic martial-arts battles. Plus, its presented by Quentin Tarantino, which means that he liked the movie and wanted to get his name on it somehow. If you dont already have the imported Hong Kong DVD, then this is the one to buy.
Okay, for those of you too lazy to download the ad scans from the Best Buy Friday 6-hour sale (6am–Noon), here are the DVD deals (sorted roughly in order of preference within each price range):
$12.99: 24 Season One—Pick this up if you dont already have it.Will & Grace Season One
$9.99:
Chappelles Show Season One Uncensored—This is the best-selling television show on DVD. Find out what everyone is talking about.Aladdin—If you dont already own it….
Mean Girls
Man on Fire
The Day After Tomorrow
5 for $25:
Blade Runner: Directors Cut—Again, if you dont already own it, you need to buy this one. Now. Or at least, on Friday morning.Dave—Ah, what a great movie! Kevin Kline is likable and funny, and even Sigourney Weaver isnt that bad. A little sweet, a little hopeful, and a lot of fun. Toss in a little Ving Rhames and a dash of Charles Grodin, and you have another fine movie to add to your collection.
Pale Rider—In contrast to Unforgiven (which is essentially the anti-western), Pale Rider is a more straightforward Clint Eastwood western, but is thoroughly enjoyable one nonetheless. And of course, it makes a perfect companion to the other Clint Eastwood westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and Hang Em High) that you picked up at last years Best Buy 5-for-$25 sale. (You did pick those up, didnt you? Theyre probably still in the shrinkwrap.)
Youve Got Mail—I love this movie. Sweet, sappy, and sentimental. Plus, how can you not love Tom Hanks and
Meg Ryan? Speaking of which…Joe Versus the Volcano—Another sweet movie, but not the blockbuster that you might expect. A perfect $5 purchase.
Boiler Room—Vin Diesel? Ben Affleck? Giovanni Ribisi? Sign me up! I saw part of this one time, and it looked pretty good. Sounds like a $5 deal to me.
Demolition Man—See? At $5 a pop, the hits just keep on coming. Another perfect movie to spend $5 on! You may not want to admit it, but youll probably enjoy this low-budget Stallone/Snipes sci-fi action movie. (Its funny…in the 90s, a sci-fi movie mentioning President Schwarzenegger was perfect action-movie satire; in the 00s, its eerily close to reality, even down to the Constitutional amendment. Weird.)
Executive Decision—Again, a straightforward action movie, but a pretty good one. And if you havent seen it, just wait until you see who gets killed off in the first twenty minutes…. I loved that twist.
Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker—I havent seen this one, but I have really enjoyed what I have seen of Chris Rock. Another keeper.
Absolute Power—A reasonably good Clint Eastwood thriller.
Training Day
Conspiracy Theory
About Schmidt
Falling Down
Space Cowboys
Sleepers
Grumpy Old Men
The Client
Exit Wounds
Spies Like Us
Disclosure
Selena
3000 Miles to Graceland
Fear Dot Com—I heard this was horrible.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective—Resist your urges and do not buy this. It is not letterboxed. When it is, I will pick it up in a heartbeat. Until then, stay strong.
So thats it for this year! Not a bad selection. Last year I picked up 10 DVDs at the 5-for-$25 price, but I think Ill only pick up five this year. I think I need to be a little more selective, instead of saying, Hey, I heard that Falling Down was on okay movie. Maybe Ill get that one too.” I guess Im just growing up.
If you want up-to-the-minute news on the after-Thanksgiving sales, check out Black Friday 2004. I went to Best Buy last year at 6:00 am, thinking in my naiveté that it would be empty and I could swoop in, get my stuff, and swoop out before the crowds rolled in. When I drove in and saw a line around the block, I suddenly realized what I was getting myself into. After I finally found a parking space, the line had just entered the building. After about twenty minutes of shopping, I got in line to pay. After another 55 minutes, I finally got up to the register. I went home with a bundle of cheap DVDs and an overdose of adrenaline. Hopefully theyll have some good DVD deals this year.
Once again, Im behind this week, and we have a lot of ground to cover, so Ill try to keep this short. If you want to pick up any of these DVDs, Deep Discount DVD has a special sale through this Saturday, where you can use a coupon code (email me if you would like it) to save 20% off of one order. Combine that with the already-low prices, no tax and free shipping, and you can get some fantastic deals on this weeks releases. The deals are so good that I didnt even pick up a single DVD at Best Buy this week. Ill list prices on a per-title basis.
The Iron Giant was portrayed as a simplistic kids story, but it is actually one of the most intelligent and riveting animated features I have seen outside of Pixar. As an animated film, it was tragically mis-marketed, and in fact was the last feature produced by the Warner Bros. Feature Animation Division before it closed its doors completely. Director Brad Bird pitched the idea to his next animated feature, and the studios turned it down, so he took the idea to Pixar, where it became their first feature by an outside director, The Incredibles. To contrast with the poor performance of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles made three times as much money in its opening weekend than The Iron Giant made in its entire theatrical run. Now, some of that can be attributed to the dim view taken of traditional animation these days, not to mention the do-no-wrong Pixar movie machine, but some of the blame has to lie with Warner Bros. poor handling of the film.
Luckily, The Iron Giant has gained new appreciation on home video, resulting in this new Special Edition release of The Iron Giant. You get a new commentary with the director and various animation and story personnel, 18 minutes of deleted scenes, and various featurettes on the making of the film, including a look at Vin Diesel as the voice of the gravel-throated title character. Combine this with an all-new digital transfer and a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix, and you have the best DVD deal this week, for only $11.11 after discount.
Rounding out the series is Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Seventh Season. After Buffys death in the season five finale, the show took on a decidedly darker tone (as opposed to the relatively cheerful mood after Buffys death in the season one finale). This somber mood continues with season seven, where the threats to the Scooby Gang become more epic in both scale and import. For example, I will tell you that a major character has an eye gouged out during the season, although to maintain some level of suspense, I will refrain from telling you which eye is destroyed. (This fact can safely be used as a matter of suspense, since it is of relatively little consequence.) In any case, season seven wraps up the series reasonably well, and if you already have the previous six seasons, I recommend picking this one up as well. Only $32.91 after discount.
Ah, college! Im sure that most of us had a college roommate with multiple tapes of The Kids in the Hall. (Isnt that a weird coincidence?) And if youre like me, then you probably started taping the show off yourself, and suffered through the butchered Comedy Central versions. Well, throw away those dusty tapes and replace them with the new DVD set of The Kids in the Hall: The Complete Season Two (1990-1991). Theyre releasing these at a rate of about one per year, so go ahead and spoil yourself! If youre a sucker like me, you paid full price by preordering the first season directly from the website (and got it several months ahead of everyone else). Dont do what I did; pick up the new set from Deep Discount DVD for only $28.78 after discount.
You know its a great week for DVD releases when a brilliant show like The Office ends up fourth on the list! If you have BBC America, then stop what youre doing and write a note to yourself to record The Office when it airs. Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) called it the funniest show on television. It won two Golden Globes this year, one for Best Television Series—Musical or Comedy (beating out Arrested Development, Monk, Sex and the City and (ugh) Will and Grace), and one for Best Actor—Musical or Comedy for the series star and co-creator, Ricky Gervais. But why take my word for it? Record it and watch it. Like most British shows, each season is very short; The Office ran for two seasons of six episodes each, and The Office Special (out today) is the two-hour series finale.
The show is simply fantastic, but I have to warn you that it is not your typical comedy. After seeing numerous promos for the show, I watched the first episode. I thought it was depressing, and it really made me feel uncomfortable. Then I watched it again later, and thought it was hilarious. The show has no laugh track, and it is filmed in a documentary style. You dont have the typical setup line, punch line” format typical of most sitcoms. I realize that the more I explain it, the worse it is going to sound, so you just need to check it out for yourself. As for The Office Special in particular, I would have to agree with the review in the San Francisco Chronicle that calls it quite possibly the finest closing chapter ever for a TV series.” In fact, go ahead and read the whole review; I have duplicated some of that information here, but it goes into more detail about the brilliance of the show.
If you already have the previous DVDs of seasons one and two, you can pick up the special for only $13.71. But if you dont own any of the previous DVDs, just trust me and pick up The Office: The Complete Collection, which includes both seasons plus the special, for only $34.53.
Okay, these have been taking far too long, so Ill shorten this up a bit. Space Ghost Coast to Coast is a talk show where an animated host (Space Ghost) interviews real celebrities. Have you ever seen one of those bits where they interview a big star, but they intercut fake questions with their responses to other questions? Some fake interviewer will ask, Have you ever eaten a radioactive space turnip?”, and then theyll cut to Willie Nelson saying, Yes,” and everybody laughs, but you know that Tom Cruise was actually answering the question, Do you enjoy acting?” or some other moronic question. Well, this show is kind of like that, except after Space Ghost asks the question, Willie Nelson will respond with, Yes, I think one time in the 70s, I did eat a radioactive space turnip.” In other words, they dont fake it. They actually ask these A-level celebrities (well, B-level or lower) these questions, and their reactions are often entertaining. Now theyre collected on Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Volume 2. If you dont believe me, just read the reviews on the back of the box. Includes commentaries on all episodes, the original Andy Merrill pilot, pencil test, the Matt Groening raw interview, and more. Only $18.51 after discount.
Elf is out on DVD this week. Will Ferrell is very funny. Its actually pretty clean. Its a very sweet movie, and a little sentimental, so its perfect for this holiday season (with holiday season” being defined as the period between Labor Day and Christmas Day, apparently). $13.71 after discount.
So thats it for this week! I dont see any upcoming weeks that are quite as packed, but things dont slow down completely until after Christmas. You might want to keep that credit card in your front pocket, just in case.
Ars Technica has a wonderful review of Delicious Library, the wonderful Mac OS X program for cataloging DVDs, CDs, video games, and books. Along with a thorough review of the application, its target market (read: collectors) and its potential, there is some discussion about the Macintosh experience of installing and using new software.
If you dont have a Mac and dont want to wade through the multi-page review, just jump directly to page 4 and look at the screenshots, particularly the close-ups at the bottom of the page. The attention to detail is amazing. This is an application that caters to the person who wants to organize and display his collection, and you can tell that the developers worked to make something that is both easy to use and looks nice.
I have heard the outcry from my readership: Help! What DVDs should I buy? I dont know what to spend my money on!” Well, things have been a bit busy over the last few weeks, and new DVD releases have been few and far between. However, I wanted to make sure that one release didnt slip through the cracks:
If you have ever enjoyed a cartoon, you owe it to yourself to pick up Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Two. This four-disc set contains 60 classic Warner Bros. cartoons, including two from the Chuck Jones Holy Trilogy, Whats Opera, Doc and One Froggy Evening. (The third, Duck Amuck, is on the first Looney Tunes Golden Collection. There has been endless debate over which of these three cartoons is the greatest of all time, but for my money, One Froggy Evening holds the title, with Duck Amuck a close second.) The collection of cartoons is truly astounding, with this second set shoring up some of the deficiencies of the first, most notably the lack of Road Runner cartoons. With numerous documentaries, commentaries, and music-only tracks, this set (and the previous one) will keep you entertained for days, if not years.
Of particular note is the restoration work done for each of these collections. Simply put, the image work is astounding. (One comparison is at the right, with several more below.) If you are used to watching these cartoons on network television, as many of us have for years, you may not realize how washed out and degraded the picture has become over the years. The difference between the faded originals and the newer versions is like night and day. Some of the original opening credits have also been restored, instead of the later Blue Ribbon” titles that were used by Turner and others. In any case, you can get each set for $45 and change from Amazon, so make sure and pick them both up with your extra Christmas money.
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Delicious Monster has posted a sneak peek at their new Mac OS X program, Delicious Library. Delicious Library is a cataloguing program that lets you track and organize your library of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. Among the cool features: a visual bookshelf that lets you see the covers of your collection as they would appear on a real bookshelf; a system that uses iCal and Mail to let you check out an item, then notify the borrower when it is overdue; and the coolest feature, using the iSight video camera as a barcode scanner, where all pertinent details and cover art are downloaded from the internet. The developers claim that using this scanner, you can enter 750 new items an hour! Anyway, it looks really slick. Expect a full review when its finally available.
Please take note of the addendum to this weeks DVD Tuesday posting.
I thought Id get this weeks DVD Tuesday out of the way a little early, so you wont accidentally miss this weeks big releases, both of which I am very excited about.
After many, many, many many delaysEd Wood has finally made it to DVD. It was going to be released as a bare-bones movie-only edition a few years ago, but it got pulled at the last minute, supposedly because Tim Burton heard about the release and wanted to contribute to a special edition. (The usually taciturn Burton seems to have a newfound love for DVD special editions, as evidence by the Pee-Wees Big Adventure special edition, among others.) Then the special edition was almost released earlier this year (even making it to some stores and selling for a day or two), but it was also pulled at the last minute. Word is that the only piece removed from the final version was a short piece about cross-dressing, because Burton didnt like it.
In any case, the Academy Award–winning film on the life of visionary director Ed Wood is finally available! Martin Landau is almost unrecognizable as Bela Lugosi, but he is simply brilliant in the part. And Burton favorite Johnny Depp is also a joy to watch as Ed Wood, the director with boundless blind optimism and a love for movies. Pick it up for $19.99 at Best Buy or most other stores.
Double-dipping, or filling a market demand? Interpret it how you like, but the Hellboy: Directors Cut is finally out this week. As I mentioned before, this DVD is a companion piece to the original Hellboy DVD, and includes an extended directors cut (about 10 minutes longer) with an all-new commentary. The set is indeed a three-disc special edition. There had been rumors that it would have one disc for the directors cut, and the other two discs would simply be the discs from the previous DVD edition. Instead, we get the new directors-cut disc, the same special-features disc from the previous DVD, and an all-new third disc with more behind-the-scenes material. So yes, you are paying for one disc twice, but if you love Hellboy like I love Hellboy (or at least, really liked it), then youll want to pick up this new DVD.
The DVD is $22.99 at most places, but Best Buy has a deal where you can buy both the directors cut and Underworld, and save $10. And of course, if you later decide that you dont really want Underworld, there is nothing stopping you from returning it, netting you Hellboy for $17.99. Tack on the $5 rebate from the previous DVD, and youre down to only $12.99 for two new discs of pure Mignola goodness! No need to thank me…just doing my job.
Addendum: Okay, I was excoriated by Chris for not including Arrested Development: Season One on my list of must-buy DVDs for this week. I informed him that I had never seen the show, and was hesitant to pick it up sight unseen. He gave me a money-back guarantee: If I buy it and dont like it, he will refund my money. Given that level of confidence in the show, how can I refuse? Therefore, I am adding Arrested Development to this weeks recommended DVDs. It has Chriss seal of approval. I will watch and report back.
This is definitely a red-letter week for animation lovers! Who would have thought that DVD could provide such a glorious bounty of cartoons that were cut down in the prime of life? Certainly not I!
Normally, I would have led off with the new Invader Zim DVD, but there is one thing that could beat it out: The Ren and Stimpy Show, Seasons 1 and 2 Uncut! Yes, the prime John Kricfalusi years (before Nickelodeon kicked him out and his erstwhile partners took over) are finally available on DVD in their pure, uncut form! Actually, there is some debate about that last fact; some on the internet are reporting that there are indeed some parts that are still edited from the original broadcast. However, given that Mans Best Friend is finally available in its entirety (Nickelodeon refused to air it at all) and Powdered Toast Man is available uncut (after the first airing, Nickelodeon cut the part where Powdered Toast Man burns up the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights), Im a happy buy. Best Buy has the best deal Ive seen, at $27.99, and that includes a preview 44-minute DVD of shorts from season 3. Since this set is authorized by John K. himself, you have no excuse to not pick it up.
Invader Zim is another fantastic show that was cancelled by a short-sighted Nickelodeon (are you sensing a trend here?) after it received poor ratings and was too controversial. Of course, the poor ratings couldnt have been due to the fact that they kept changing the time slot and pre-empting it. Anyway, complete your collection with Volume 3: Horrible Holiday Cheer, which includes the final Christmas episode. Expect the usual loads of commentary tracks and extra stuff. $15.99 at Best Buy.
Another epic Tuesday of DVD releases, including one of my favorite movies of all time:
If you have TNT, then chances are youve caught The Shawshank Redemption once or twice, since it currently airs on that channel about eighteen times every weekend. But dont bother with sitting through the edited, cropped TV version; this tenth-anniversary DVD edition is all youll need. The Shawshank Redemption is a testament to the relevance of home video. It only made $30 million in its theatrical run, despite earning seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. But it really earned a huge following on home video and DVD, and has consistently been one of Warner Bros. top sellers, selling around one millions DVDs in the past year alone. It currently holds the #3 position in the IMDb list of the Top 250 Movies, although it did hold the #1 spot for quite a while (and only The Fellowship of the Ring has gotten more total votes). For a movie that did so poorly in the theaters, such overwhelming and near-unanimous praise is truly amazing.
Because of its huge fan base, Warner Bros. saw fit to rerelease it to theaters for its tenth anniversary, followed by this long-overdue two-disc DVD special edition. A new master of the film has been created for the theatrical release, which the DVD benefits from as well. In addition, a commentary by director Frank Darabont is included, as this has long been a request by fans. There are also two documentaries on the production of the film, totalling about 90 minutes, and a yet-to-be-aired appearance by Darabont, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman on the Charlie Rose show to talk about the tenth anniversary. Finally, the DVD cover is illustrated by the spectacular poster artist Drew Struzan, who has created some of the most famous movie posters of all time, including Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. For the definitive edition of one of the greatest movies of all time, its a steal at Target for only $15.99, or $19.99 at most other stores.
Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. Maybe it just came out at the right time, during those exciting college days when a bunch of us would go out and see Disney movies. Maybe its the fantastic songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, with their catchy tunes and clever lyrics. Or maybe its the story which goes beyond the standard boy-tries-to-win-girl plot of previous Disney movies. Robin Williams is actually sympathetic and moving as The Genie, back before he degenerated into self-parody.
This new special edition (I dont think this was released as a Platinum Edition) is the first release of Aladdin on video since way back in 1994 or so, when wise and forward-thinking individuals picked up the laserdisc edition. (If only those people has thought to sell said laserdiscs back when one could have gotten more than $1.50 for it. Sigh.) But now its all digital, and the color palette of the Cave of Wonders should really shine on DVD. Like The Lion King, this release has a new Enhanced for Home Theater Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, in addition to the original Dolby Digital 5.1 track. If its anything like The Lion King remix, expect more aggressive use of surrounds and enhanced bass response. Those with a powerful subwoofer will want to take full advantage of the Home Theater mix. There is the usual second disc of extras, but after being unavailable for so long, the movie itself is really the only justification you need. Expect to pay $15.99 at the major retailers.
The Untouchables is one of those movies that has been out for so long, and youve seen so many times, that you forget how impressive it really is. Just like Robin Williams in Aladdin, Kevin Costner plays the same kind of character in all of his movies (in Costners case, the likable nice guy), but The Untouchables was before everyone realized that. It is also one of his best roles. Back in 1987, Andy Garcia was Hollywoods new up-and-coming actor, but against all logic, he somehow dropped off the face of the earth after making this movie and The Godfather Part III. Character actor Charles Martin Smith (youd recognize him if you saw him) plays the federal agent/IRS man who wants to nab Capone for tax evasion, and he fulfills the everyman role quite well. And of course, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro bring new life to their respective characters, with Connery picking up the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. If for some reason youve never seen this movie, you should buy it just for the train station scene alone. Its $8.99 at Circuit City, or $9.99 at most other stores.
