filmlover
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Posts posted by filmlover
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kim,
Check quickly. I was in one store last week and I don't recall seeing the Motos there any longer. The stock does change quickly (and, LOL, other times never at all).
filmlover
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Yes, Don Q, Son of Zorro was a sequel, with Fairbanks playing both father and son (it mostly focused on the son). However, the film was based on a book that actually had nothing to do with Zorro.
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Enchanted (reviewing the Blu-ray version)
I was at first hesitant to post a review of this feature since it is so new, but there are enough elements of classic animated films of Disney from the past in here to warrant it, plus there is a special "D-Files" section (exclusive to Blu-ray) mentioned later that does show classic Disney animated clips in high def.
The first twenty minutes of "Enchanted" takes place in an animated, musical world where our heroine lives, waiting for her prince to arrive, but the film truly comes to life (no pun intended) when she in is transported to live-action modern day, real-life Manhattan and becomes real (played by the truly charming and captivating Amy Adams). While she waits for the prince to come rescue her, she stays with a lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter who help her. She in turn brings magic into their lives. The film is very enjoyable and the tunes are good.
As I mentioned, there are plenty of references to older Disney classics, from easy ones like the evil queen (Susan Sarandon) who turns herself into a spitting image of the old hag from ?Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?, to harder to spot salutes like Paige O?Hara in a TV soap opera telling the man she is with she could never love someone who doesn?t like himself (a reference to starring as the voice of Belle in ?Beauty and the Beast?). The receptionist sitting near the fish tank at the lawyer?s office is played by Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in ?The Little Mermaid.? One of the men who played the chimney sweeps from ?Mary Poppins? is a dancing elderly man in a scene in Central Park. The women who were the voices of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella have lines in a ball sequence. There is much more like this.
That in itself is enough to do a review here, but there is a bonus feature on the Blu-ray disc, not on the standard DVD, that earns it a place here. There is an interactive game that can be selected for viewing during the movie called ?The D-Files? ("D" for Disney). A whole lot of multiple-choice questions, mostly easy for fans of Disney history, are asked at different points during the viewing of the film. When you answer correctly, you are taken to a section with someone involved with the filmmaking process of ?Enchanted? and usually a clip from one of the past Disney animated classics involving princesses, such as ?Snow White,? ?Cinderella,? ?Sleeping Beauty,? ?The Little Mermaid,? and ?Beauty and the Beast (okay, so she became a princess at the end).? The best thing is that each clip is done in FULL 1080p HIGH DEFINITION! ?Snow White,? due to its age is the only one that looks like it will not benefit from HD, but the rest are a visual treat and make me long for their eventual Blu release!
Highly recommended!
P.S. -- I almost forgot to mention that the Blu-ray picture quality and sound of "Enchanted" itself are extraordinary, a definite demo to show people when they come to your home.
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Please review Disney classics DVDs here, thanks. When reviewing, good things to keep in mind that people want to know: how good was the film quality, was the film itself any good, what were the extras and how good were they, was there a good commentary, etc. You know, stuff you would like to know if you were thinking about buying a particular DVD.
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duplicate post, sorry.
Message was edited by: filmlover
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Popeye the Sailor Vol. 1 1933-1938
This is a truly exceptional collection from Warner Bros. of the first 60 Popeye cartoons (restored and in order). The video (in their original b&w) and audio are perfect. Two of the highlights are Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves) two that were done in color at twice the length of a normal color and it?s nice to see beautiful versions of these that you will see often in public domain weak copies.
Each of the four discs has several good featurettes (never lasting long enough, unfortunately). An excellent one focuses on the history of animation from the beginnings to 1920. As a bonus, each disc has several ?from the vaults? silent cartoons of other characters (including Krazy Kat, Koko, and Mutt & Jeff).
There is also commentary for a number of the Popeye cartoons. As to the commentary, this ranges from excellent to pointless. Jerry Beck, who has written several good books on animation, is very informative. However, they have also include commentary from three modern people working on cartoons, who are more of a having-a-good-time audience (?Gee, look at that? type of thing), and put them on cartoons like Ali Baba when we could truly benefit from someone knowledgeable like Beck.
This is definitely a 5 stars out of 5 stars release, a must have. The second volume (1938-1940) will be released on June 17, 2008 but will only be two discs and 31 cartoons. (I suspect some people hesitated paying the $64.98 street price on volume one so they are doing it with less and charging $34.98 with vol. 2). It still looks like a winner because among the extras is supposed to be the full-length animated Gulliver?s Travels (will be great to see this one restored and not like in the public domain copies out there).
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FilmF: The clips in the Editing documentary are from various studios. As to a list, there are quite a lot but most of them are so quick, that it wouldn't be worth me stating one above the others.
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Bullitt (Blu-ray)
The Blu-ray edition of the classic "Bullitt" features a high definition picture, but, regretably, would only give a 3.5 out of 5 for the picture quality. It suffers from too much soft focus and occasional grain. However, it is still worth seeing this film in high def. There is also a commentary by Peter Yates.
There is a good featurette from the time of filming that shows the making of the car chase, but it is in standard definition. Also in SD is the special bio feature Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool.
My favorite, though, is a new documentary in high definition on Movie Editing, featuring a look at a lot of film clips (and because they are in 1080p in this documentary, we can get a look at how they will look on Blu-ray). The documentary runs about 90 minutes.
On the whole, I think this is worth definitely renting but not so sure I would recommend it for a purchase.
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Charlie Chan vol. 4
The new Charlie Chan set features four films starring Sidney Toler: Charlie Chan in Honolulu, Charlie Chan in Reno, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, and Charlie Chan in City of Darkness.
While the presence of Warner Oland and Keye Luke are missed from the series, Toler and Sen Yung are enjoyable, enough. The four films have excellent picture quality and sound. Each disc has extras that are tied into the film and all are interesting, except the one on San Francisco's Zodiac Killer only shares a passing name with a mysterious figure in Charlie Chan at Treasure's Island amd doesn't really belong. However, there is an nice short on the World's Fair on Treasure Island with a good amount of actual footage of the Fair that more than makes up for it.
Another recommended set from Fox.
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I have to disagree, strongly, that one should wait until Blu-ray comes down to $150. That may never happen. Or if it does, it may not be until ten years from now. It's a costlier machine to produce than a DVD player. The only reason HD DVD machines were down to about $150 for awhile was because Toshiba tried to win the technology war by losing hundreds of dollars on each machine they sold in hopes of getting people who would buy HD DVD. That faiiled and they lost about a billion dollars on the war.
Now is a good time to get into Blu-ray. The Panasonic 30 model handles 1.1 profile (picture in picture). Profile 2.0 players (the ability to download things on the web, though that is of no interest to me at all) are due out within the next month or two from Sony and Panasonic.
Blu-ray sales are increasing and will expand a lot during the next year or two. But I doubt they will ever come down to $150. If you see one at about $300-$400, go for it. Believe me, it is worth it. You will be surorised how much difference you will notice with high def, and how it will be hard to watch standard-definition DVDs after that.
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Several pages back, I think I mentioned that 2009 should be a great year for Blu-ray classics because WB will be issuing special remastered versions of Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur, and The Wizard of Oz.
Also, Disney, as has been mentioned before, will be doing Pinocchio in 2009 on Blu. That will be fantastic. I hope in a couple years for its 70th anniversary we will get Fantasia on Blu.
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I was reading in the Rumor Mill at digitalbits.com that The Adventures of Robin Hood is coming on Blu-ray from WB:
"Warner has also confirmed to us that all the elements for the Blu-ray Disc release of the 1938 classic The Adventures of Robin Hood (staring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone) have now been completed, so it's likely that the title will street sometime before the end of the year as well."
I think the special edition on standard DVD WB came out with a few years ago is fantastic, but I hope they remaster it for Blu-ray. I saw the HD DVD version and it was only a little better than the DVD. I also hope that they do something special for the Blu disc since it is the movie's 70th anniversary.
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Costco seems to be testing the market with Criterion discs. They only had four or so titles, nothing remarkable, except for Ace in the Hole, but all were priced about $24.99 each, which matches Amazon's price for Ace.
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(Please note: this is a review of the Blu-ray high-definition version)
Warner Bros. has done an excellent job of remastering Bonnie and Clyde. Very clean, very bright, and nice colors. On a high definition video scale of 1 to 5, I would rank this as a 4 because while the print used is incredibly sharp for most of it, there are some scenes that the image is a bit soft. This is understandable, though, because the film was not made on a huge budget, and as mentioned in the documentary, Warren Beatty was going for a non-studio look by utilizing natural light whenever possible.
The audio is in mono due to the original sound elements being no longer available, but the sound is very clear.
The Blu-ray has all of the Ultimate DVD features in standard definition. The new three-part hour-long documentary on the making of the film is the best, and features interview with Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard, and Estelle Parsons, plus various behind-the-scenes personnel, including director Arthur Penn. There are also two rediscovered scenes that had been cut from the film (no audio survives, but there are subtitles) and wardrobe tests for Beatty. There is also an interesting History Channel program about the real-life Bonnie and Clyde. (The special features are in standard definition.)
The Blu-ray version has the 34-page book as the Blu-ray?s packaging (the inside cover is plastic holding for the Blu-ray disc). I know that WB will be releasing other books like this for some future releases, but I truly regret to say I was unimpressed by the book. It consisted mostly of photos, ads, and bios. There was very little text about the making of the film, but I guess they knew the documentary would take care of that. Still, overall, I felt the book was very light, content-wise.
The only differences between this and the standard DVD Ultimate edition (other than the high definition video on the Blu-ray, of course) are minor with the standard edition having a pressbook reproduction and a mail-in offer for a poster.
I would rate this as a must-have.
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Thanks for moving it in here, Kim!
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I was just over at Costco, and as Kim mentioned in another thread, they have The Clark Gable Collection and the Bob Hope Collection for $15.99 each. But that's not all!!!
At the same $15.99 price, they have the box sets of Mr. Moto vol. 1, vol. 2, the Frank Sinatra Collection, The Jayne Mansfield Collection, Frankie & Annette Collection, Joan Collns Collection, and I can't recall what else. All great bargains!
They also have the newly reissued Gangsters vols. 1 and 2 WB collections for $29.98, as well as most of the WB Film Noir collections for the same price.
Message was edited by: filmlover
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They've only done 4 of these star things in the past and now these 4 a few months from now. Maybe two years from now, they will do another 4. Give them time.
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Moving up so people can find this Box Sets thread here in the Classic Film DVD Reviews Forum.
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Actually, there already is a thread here for Box Sets that has 104 posts and almost 9,000 views. I will move it up so people can add to it.
If you look down the list of threads here in the DVD forum, you should be able to find every genre and idea covered. I tried to anticipate everything when I set up the forum.
There are individual threads for the following DVD types:
Classic Film Stars
Pre-code Films on DVD
Fantasy Films
Criterion DVDs
Crime
Dramas (thanks to sugarpuss for setting that one up)
Home Theater
Musicals
Comedies
Foreign Language
Animation Films and Cartoons
Film Directors
War Films
Cult Movies
Romantic comedies
Science Fiction
Box Sets
Epics
Westerns
Serials
Silent Films
Horror Films
Film Noir
Adventure/Action
Upcoming Releases (thanks to JackBurley for setting that one up)
Special Sales of Classic DVDs
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Thanks to all for the kind words on the covers.
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Fixed the images. Both sets should be seen now.
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A sequel to the four stamps issued in 2006 by the Canadian Post Office is coming out in a few months. Here is the picture of the four Canadians who made it big in Hollywood (sorry about the fuzziness but couldn't get a good scan of them:
They are from left to right: Norma Shearer, Chief Dan George, Marie Dressler, and Raymond Burr
Here is a picture of the four stamps from the first set:
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Hi, everyone, as usual once the Challenge is over, I have created a new series of faux Now Playing covers for this past TCM Challenge. Sorry for the delay but I have been busy, and also had to try to work in the new format that Now Playing is using. It was a great contest, sad it is over, but happy Fedya won.
Anway, here, they are:
For Movieman1957's schedule:
For Fredmill's schedule:
For ChipHeartsMovies schedule:
For my schedule:
For Fedya's schedule:
For NormaDesmond's schedule:
For Sugarpuss' schedule:
For moviebuffer12's schedule:
AND
Though Patful dropped out of the competition, here is the cover for the schedule submitted:
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Special Sales of Classic Titles on DVD & Blu-ray
in Classic Film DVD Reviews
Posted
shearer, I will be going in the next day or two so I will let you know. They had Bette Davis vol. 3 and Gangsters vol. 3 last week, so it is a possibility. The prices weren't great though, around $39 or $49. Costco does great on clearance items but lately haven't been doing so well on new release titles.