Film_Fatale

*Amazon Kicks Off Disney Blu-ray Sale* Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 03:00 PM ET Amazon kicked off a new Blu-ray promotion this week, offering 72 Disney titles at significant savings. There's no word on how long this latest promotion will last, but with the launch of Amazon's Disney Promotion, which showcase 72 of the studio's most popular titles at up to forty percent savings, fans should be able to grab some good bargains. Listed titles include 'Ratatouille,' 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' 'National Treasure: Book of Secrets,' 'The Prestige,' and 'Dan In Real Life,' among many others.

It's an OK little B-movie. Can't imagine what it is that drives folks like QT to devote 2+ years of their lives to remaking relatively obscure B-movies from the 70's.

> {quote:title=iowahawkeye wrote:}{quote} > discounts from Amazon seem to stay at 31% or higher, and no special incentives to buy early. Actually in some cases they do seem to provide an incentive to buy early. The latest "Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory" has a SRP of, like, $69.99. Amazon offered it for around $50 right at the time of release, then brought the price back up to $69.99 and kept it there up until the last time I checked. I ended up ordering from another online retailer, where I found it for around $42.

Some interesting comments by an L.A. Times blogger: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/ New 'W' trailer: A walk on the wild side with Bush 05:40 PM PT, Jul 28 2008 It was just a couple of weeks ago that conservative commentators were all saying that liberals were humorless dolts, offering as Exhibit A the outraged reaction to the New Yorker's hilarious Barack Obama as Muslim terrorist cover cartoon. So I'm betting those same commentators will heartily embrace Lionsgate's first teaser trailer for Oliver Stone's "W," which just posted today on YouTube (with the admonition: "This is not a fake"), focusing on the young Dubya, acting like he's starring in a boozy remake of "Old School." The reason "W" got turned down at every big studio in town wasn't because anyone was politically nervous about making the movie--Bush is too unpopular today to worry even the most timid Hollywood studio chief. In fact, the studio that came closest to saying yes was the Rupert Murdoch owned 20th Century Fox, which figured that having Fox release a wild-eyed anti-Bush movie would cause so much buzz that it would be a unique marketing ingredient unto itself. The real worry has always been that the story itself was HBO docudrama material, with too many talky scenes set in White House war rooms. The Lionsgate trailer shrewdly explodes that notion. It opens with Dubya (played by Josh Brolin) being dressed down by his dad ("I remember correctly, you didn't like the sporting goods job...") before careening off into hard-partying, tail-chasing territory, ending up with the infamous drunken-driving incident that prompts another stern lecture from Bush Sr. (played by James Cromwell), who says derisively: "Who do you think you are, a Kennedy? You're a Bush. Act like one." To make sure we get the point, the scenes are accompanied by George Thorogood's version of the roadhouse standard "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer." The music then shifts to the serene "It's a Wonderful World," which plays as the trailer poses a question that could perhaps make us curious enough to see the movie in a theater. It asks: "What Drove George W. Bush ... From Here ..." (Dubya brawling with his old man) "To Here?" (Dubya in the Oval Office, cowboy boots cockily propped up on his desk). Movie executives always preach, ad nauseam, that a successful film needs a hero who overcomes a series of obstacles, making him a very different person at film's end from what he was at the beginning. "W" sounds like it fits the bill quite nicely, as long as you grade on a curve when it comes to the part about overcoming the obstacles.

> {quote:title=filmlover wrote:}{quote} > Information has just been released on what extras will be in the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray box set of five films. > Thank you for that info, filmlover. Now, although very rarely like to post info about the DVD releases of recent movies (because those announcements are already everywhere) I would like to make an exception for the new Indy movie, because the whole series has been a homage of sorts to old movies and serials. http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68410 Paramount Home Entertainment have announced the Region 1 DVD release of *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* on 11th November 2008. The latest Indy adventure arrives as a two-disc set with all other information TBC. At this time no Blu-ray version has been announced, though it would seem unlikely that one isn?t coming.

> {quote:title=filmlover wrote:}{quote} > CK, you have been asked _time and time and time and time again_ (I've lost track there have been so many times!!!), not just by me but by several others here, to stop posting info that has already been listed. You could do us all a real service by not posting anything here anymore. We have tried to advise you to check on things in previous posts...there is an excellent search feature available...but you just continue to do what you want day in and day out. You've proven that you don't care about anything that others have already done the research on and posted, and you just keep posting blindly. > > You are not bringing anything to the forum. I hate sounding arrogant and it will sound that way to others who are just encountering this thread for the first time, but if they were to read even a little further in, they will find this has been going on for months now. I have always thought that everyone contributes something special to this column, but you, you don't contribute. You just repeat things others have listed. Why don't you stop? Please do this thread a service and don't post here. filmlover, some people just can't be reasoned with. I can only think of two possible reasons: either the person in question lacks the ability to reason with others, or the person in question simply doesn't care about others because he's too self-absorbed. Add to that the very obvious fact that the person in question is simply starved for attention (presumably because he doesn't get enough attention at home or at school) and the only thing that can come out of that is... what we have been seeing here.

> {quote:title=Hobsonschoice wrote:}{quote} > I believe the special effects people in days of old had to be more creative. I put the following special effects up against anything being produced today... > > - King Kong > - Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau) > - A Midsummer Night's Dream > - The Wizard of Oz > - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari I would add *The Thief of Bagdad* to that list. From what I remember of the audio commentary and/or bonus features on the Criterion DVD, it was reportedly the first movie ever to use blue-screen effects. The effects might look rudimentary to people who grew up with CGI, but as Marty Scorsese mentioned in the audio commentary, these movies worked because you used your imagination when you watched them. Most folks at that time had grown up listening to radio, so using their imagination came naturally to them (Scorsese's opinion, not mine).

> {quote:title=filmlover wrote:}{quote} > yeah, I just saw that article about Batman on digitalbits.com and was going to post it here. It sure would be nice if Fox and Warners would get together on this. Exactly. How hard is it to agree to make a pile of money together? One other thing that may or may not be of interest to TCM movie fans. It has come to my attention that Gus Van Sant's indie feature *Paranoid Park* is a Blockbuster exclusive in the U.S. However, it is available to the public through amazon's Canadian site, *amazon.ca*

*Sony to Double Dip 'Casino Royale' (2006) Blu-ray in October* http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/James_Bond/Sony/Disc_Announcements/Sony_to_Double_Dip_Casino_Royale_Blu-ray_in_October/1950

Bad news for those who had gotten their hopes up about a DVD release of the Batman TV series: Unfortunately, we have another little bit of bad news for you. It seems the Comic-Con rumors of the 1960s Batman TV series finally coming to DVD are untrue. The rumor was based on an Adam West comment in AgentDVD magazine, indicating that he was working on special features for a Batman DVD. Turns out, he was working on HIS OWN DOCUMENTARY DVD about his time on the series, tentatively called Adam West: The Batman Dairies. Naturally, word got around, the buzz spread fast and the story got all out of control. Our friends Dave an Gord over at TVShowsonDVD have a full update today. The sad fact is, Warner still owns the license to the Batman franchise, Fox still owns the actual series and neither seems in the mood to compromise on making a deal to release it on DVD. It's almost enough to make frustrated fans go buy a bootleg DVD version of the series - and they DO exist. I saw them on sale down at the Con just this past weekend. Hey, I guess Fox and Warner are just happy to leave money on the table over this show.

Anyone here a fan of the Carry On movies? IIRC, TCM pulled some of these movies off the schedule a few months back. Well, what's a measly ?150 for the pleasure of owning all 30 Carry On movies? http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001CWLFJ0

Good storytelling is what really matters. If the story is compelling, it doesn't quite matter if the effects aren't perfect. But excellent effects aren't much help if the movie is a bore.

Woo-hoo! SUTS starts Friday!!! Mucho Michael Caine!!! B-)

Fear not, Oliver Stone is back again. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/07/w-trailer-walk.html

Nice cover!

When a studio forgets to renew a copyright on a movie, that film is effectively in public domain hell. The market gets flooded with horrible-looking videos that sell for peanuts, and the studio that used to own the rights typically won't bother with a proper release.

The only thing that ruins classics for me is when one of them is caught in PD hell.

Could it be that I would like to hear from folks who don't follow the DVD forum?

> {quote:title=Meanie220 wrote:}{quote} > Isn't White Dog about this canine that's owned by a racist bigot, and it's trained to attack black people? I remember when it originally came out. I think the special effects are rather gory in this...shudder. Don't know if I'm up to it. Not exactly. An actress finds the white dog and adopts it without realizing it's been trained to attack African-Americans; she then takes it to a dog trainer to retrain him so he won't attack people because of the colour of their skin. I don't remember the movie being all that gory, but in any event it's a hard movie to find because it has never been released in video in North America. I believe it showed at the NYC Film Forum a while back as part of an Ennio Morricone retrospective.

Tnx for the news, Donna. I must sheepishly admit I don't recall hearing about that show before, but if Henry Fonda's in it, I'm interested. For how many seasons did it run? Was it a big hit at the time? Oh and in other news... *MGM Makes a Date with 'Carrie' on Blu-ray* In an early alert to retailers, MGM has set an early-October Blu-ray release for the 1976 horror classic 'Carrie.' Launching the careers of Sissy Spacek, John Travolta, and Amy Irving (as well as snagging Oscar nominations for Spacek and co-star Piper Laurie), 'Carrie' will make its Blu-ray debut on October 7. No tech specs or supplemental details have yet been announced. We'll keep you posted. Suggested list price for the Blu-ray has been set at $39.98.

> {quote:title=scsu1975 wrote:}{quote} > This begs the question, are there any Glorious Bastards? Interesting question. I hope to have a better idea after I've watched the movie B-)

It's not exactly a classic movie, but since it's based on a pretty much timeless Dr. Seuss story... well, the animated *Horton Hears a Who* will be out Dec. 9th.

> {quote:title=iowahawkeye wrote:}{quote} > edgecliff, in regards to BR, why would you go w/rentals? because of the price? eventually the price will be going down... I can't speak for edgecliff, but personally I'm kind of in a similar situation. Seriously considering going mostly with rentals. It makes a lot more sense. For one thing, I have a stronger incentive to actually watch them promptly. When I buy it's much too easy to put off watching a box set until some "special day". Not to mention that with few exceptions, there aren't that many movies I'm likely to want to watch more than once. So in many cases, what's the point of paying $50 for a box set if the movies are available on Netflix and I can just rent them whenever I want to watch them? The only ones really worth buying are limited editions of movies you really like, but those are few and far between. Of the time I have to watch movies, I'd really rather spend 80% or 90% watching things I've never seen before, and only 10% or 20% of the time for repeat viewings of the ones I really like. Not to mention that there's more ways to get instant viewing at home and they continue to grow.

I starred it out because I didn't know if that kind of word was allowed here.

Well, there are. And some of us have already started considering if it's the right time to start upgrading certain titles to BR.