A Christmas Story (1983 version) comes to single-layered DVD with a standard full-screen aspect ratio. It also includes the following audio track options: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), and Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), with subtitles available in English, Spanish, and French. Closed-captioning is also included, but special features consist only of the usual original theatrical trailers. The plastic DVD case contains a chapter index. Sound and picture are roughly consistent with a VHS-quality film, but the sound is mono throughout the DVD version.
For his sophomore stab at directing, actor/writer/director Jon Favreau (Swingers, Made), took on this holiday comedy starring Saturday Night Live-alum Will Ferrell. Ferrell stars as Buddy, a regular-sized man who was raised as an elf by Santa Claus (Edward Asner). When the news is finally broken to Buddy that he's not a real elf, he decides to head back to his place of birth, New York City, in search of his biological family. Elf also stars James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel, and Bob Newhart.
Clark Griswold and his family get to celebrate the holidays in digital splendor in this DVD release of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The film has been transferred to disc in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which has been enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16 x 9 monitors. The original English language soundtrack has been remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1, while an alternate track dubbed in French appears in Dolby Digital Mono. The movie also features optional subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. No bonus materials have been included.
Chevy Chase is the star of this movie... only thing I kept wondering is where the movie would have gone had he received that Christmas bonus check.... hmmmm.
Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas comes to DVD with a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Closed-captioned English soundtracks are rendered in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, while a French soundtrack has been recorded in Dolby Digital 5.1. The extensive supplemental materials include deleted scenes, outtakes, featurettes on the set design and the make-up, production notes, a theatrical trailer, and a music video for Faith Hill's "Where Are You Christmas?" No matter what one thinks of the film, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is given a fantastic DVD release from Universal.