Released as part of Universal's Alfred Hitchcock Collection, this is as perfect a version of The Birds as viewers are going to find. Packed with extras, and presented in a glorious 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen format, this is the only way to see the film. The picture is simply perfect, showcasing clear colors and luminous tones. The last shot alone is worth the price. Although the sound is Dolby Digital 2.0, it does not feel that way, particularly in the scenes when the titular characters wreak havoc. As for extras, the viewer is simply inundated. From promotional trailers (one featuring a droll appearance by Hitchcock himself), to Tippi Hedren's original screen test, this DVD has everything the Hitchcock enthusiast would want. Also included are the script pages for a deleted scene and the film's original ending. A must-own from every standpoint.
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After his great success with Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock followed up with a different kind of horror tale. A carefree bachelorette (Tippi Hedren) follows a man (Rod Taylor) she had a less than ideal encounter with to his home town of Bodega Bay. At the same time they reunite, birds of all kinds (seagulls, crows, blackbirds, pigeons, you name it) inexplicably begin attacking human beings all over the place. The character scenes aren't quite as strong as they were in Psycho, but there is so much nervewracking (& even paranoid) tension that you won't care. There is, interestingly, no music score to this flim. But that didn't stop Hitchcock from utilizing the services of the great Bernard Herrmann for the sound work for this pic.
This two-sided, Dolby Digital 5.1 DVD offers both anamorphic standard (1.33:1) and widescreen (2.35:1) versions of the film. The DVD plays rather dark throughout, possibly enough to require an occasional adjustment of one's television brightness knob. Nevertheless, the scenery is stunning, the outdoor shots panoramic, and the action sequences evocatively directed. Also included with this DVD are brief production notes (text only), two theatrical trailers, and English, Spanish, and French subtitles. The audio track is available in English only. The remastered music plays clearly and with adequate bass and treble in surround mode; the film's audio effects are well integrated into the soundtrack without any distracting pr unexpected background noises. The picture, though sharp throughout, has poor contrast here and there due to the omnipresent darkness, shadows, and flesh tones.
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This entertaining western, obviously inspired by Shane, begins with a young girl (Sydney Penny) praying that someone comes along to give her town a hand against tyrannical miners. That help comes in the form of a preacher (Clint Eastwood) who speaks softly but carries...,well, I think you know the rest.
For a non-anamorphic picture (widescreen letterbox, 1.85:1 aspect ratio), the picture quality of Office Space is fairly sharp and smooth with rather detailed-looking events, faces, and scenes. Audio options on this single-layered DVD include English Dolby Digital 5.1, English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, and French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, with optional subtitles available in English and Spanish. Closed-captioning is also included. Bonus or special features are not, however, except for the original theatrical trailers. The sound quality comes through as mono sounding and front-directed, with overly loud dialogue in places throughout the film; coloring is a bit splotchy and inconsistent in some scenes.
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The classic which reflects our desire to vent after a rough day at, well, the office. An everyman (Ron Livingston) finally gets fed up working day in/day out in his cubicle with no appreciation & decides to get himself fired. He ends up turning work neglect into an art form, inspiring his co-workers & his sweet, new girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston).
This disc lacks only one element -- a widescreen transfer. The disc contains a standard full-frame 1.33:1 image that fails to reproduce the original theatrical aspect ratio. A closed-captioned English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital 5.1. Spanish and French subtitles are accessible. The bountiful supplemental materials include a "making of" featurette, deleted scenes, storyboards, production photographs, design sketches, theatrical trailers for the first three films in the series, a dinosaur encyclopedia, and production notes. This exact same set of special features is offered on a different package that also contains a widescreen transfer of the film.
This reviewer is a member of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. This invitation-only program provides BestBuy.com reviewers with manufacturer-supplied products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased and usage-based reviews. Outside of receiving products to test and review, Best Buy Tech Insider Network Reviewers are not compensated in any other way.
Steven Spielberg directed this sequel to Jurassic Park, which also brings back Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm & Richard Attenborough's John Hammond. Four years after the first film, Hammond reveals to Malcolm that a second island (where the dinos were actually created) exists & is now being threatened with industrialization by Hammond's company, now controlled by his unscrupulous nephew (Arliss Howard). Malcolm is reluctant to return to the dinos' den until he learns that his girlfriend (Julianne Moore) has already gone there. Like most sequels, this is pretty routine, but there are some nice action set pieces with even better dinos than the first time around. Goldblum & Moore also make a cute couple.
One would expect Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg's phenomenally successful dinosaur adventure, to be an almost flawless DVD, and this Universal edition is generally very satisfying. The picture quality is certainly outstanding, bringing out Spielberg's use of color and detail perfectly, while the widescreen format ensures that the dinosaurs are no less terrifying at home than in the cinema. The Dolby 5.1 sound (a DTS edition is also available) is better still, with every roar and rumble bellowing out in crystal clarity. This DVD has clearly been designed with love and attention; even the menu screen is an amazing work of CGI art. Amongst the huge range of features are standard fare such as production notes, biographies, and trailers for Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Jurassic Park III (the latter is totally unrevealing). Footage of early pre-production meetings illustrate Spielberg's desire to make the dinosaurs as frightening as possible, while "Raptors In the Kitchen" shows how Phil Tippett's animatics technique helped to shape the look of the film before CGI was introduced into the equation. A messy but interesting storyboards section includes an omitted scene and the original ending for the film, and the "Foley Artists" feature provides fascinating insight into how the film got some of its Oscar-winning sound. Obviously this DVD will be popular with kids, and it is at kids that the fun and quite thorough "Dinosaur Encyclopaedia" is aimed. The location scouting footage, DVD-ROM features, and production photographs are all moderately interesting, but the best of the extra features is probably "The Making of Jurassic Park." Fifty minutes long and narrated by James Earl Jones, this is a detailed and authoritative documentary, although it does concentrate almost solely on the special effects side of the film, even incorporating footage of the original puppet dinosaurs before Spielberg opted for full-blown CGI creations. The glaring absence from this disc is a commentary by Spielberg himself, which would surely have been revealing, and would have made it an exceptional rather than very good DVD. Nevertheless, Jurassic Park fans will probably be delighted to have this edition in their home libraries.
This reviewer is a member of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. This invitation-only program provides BestBuy.com reviewers with manufacturer-supplied products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased and usage-based reviews. Outside of receiving products to test and review, Best Buy Tech Insider Network Reviewers are not compensated in any other way.
Just before making Schindler's List, Spielberg made this film, which became the best-known dinosaur movie ever. A billionaire (Richard Attenborough) uses the latest scientific technology to create a theme park with authentic dinos at an island near Costa Rica. He invites his grandkids (Joseph Mazzello & Ariana Richards) & 3 scientists (Sam Neill, Laura Dern, & Jeff Goldblum) to be the first to check it out. Things go drastically wrong, however, due to the actions of one of the employees (Wayne Knight) and everyone soon gets a feeling of what it must have been like to be living in the age of dinos. Like The Birds, this emphasizes tension over character moments (although Goldblum gets some good, funny lines). There are some deviations from Michael Crichton's book, but you won't mind because you'll be too busy getting thrilled.
Rob Reiner's Best Picture Oscar nominee A Few Good Men comes to DVD with a widescreen anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio. An English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Surround, while Spanish and French soundtracks are recorded in Dolby Digital Mono. Spanish and Korean subtitles are accessible. There are no substantial extra materials, which is something of a surprise considering the film's popular and critical success. Fans of the film will appreciate the great picture, but those that were underwhelmed by the film in the theater will find nothing to change their minds on this release.
This reviewer is a member of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. This invitation-only program provides BestBuy.com reviewers with manufacturer-supplied products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased and usage-based reviews. Outside of receiving products to test and review, Best Buy Tech Insider Network Reviewers are not compensated in any other way.
This could very well be the best courtroom drama ever made! A brash Navy lawyer (Tom Cruise) is reluctantly recruited by a litigator (Demi Moore) to defend 2 Marines who killed one of their own at Guantanamo Bay. He finds unexpected resistance in the defendants' superior (Jack Nicholson). The final courtroom confrontation between Cruise & Nicholson always gives me goosebumps.
The ultimate cult classic experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets a single-disc release from Fox. The film is presented with a 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of both the U.K. and U.S. versions. The audio is available in Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English and Spanish. Other audio options include a commentary track from writer/actor Richard O'Brien and actress Patricia Quinn, as well as a full-length audience participation audio track. You can learn how to be a live show pro with the "Participation Prompter," which provides subtitled cues for the various actions of audience participation. While this disc offers less than the special editions out there, it is certainly not lacking in special features. Extra materials include an introduction by fan club president Sal Piro, multi-angle footage with audience participation, and DVD-ROM games.
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Some have called this the "King of Cult Movies." This film is fun, but only if you attend an actual screening with an audience, who react to this film, its songs, & its characters as if they were cheering on their favorite sports team. If you simply watch the DVD at home, you'll quickly find out how stupid this film is. A couple (Barry Bostwick & Susan Sarandon) walks to a nearby castle after their car breaks down one stormy night. Before they can get to a phone, they encounter the castle's bizarre inhabitants who hail from the planet (not the European land) Transylvania, including the head of the household Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), who's a cross between Dr. Frankenstein & Beetlejuice-& bisexual to boot. My favorite song number here is "Time Warp," but this film, perhaps more than any other ever made, requires viewing with an actual audience in order to attain any enjoyment of it.
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This cop-buddy pic (written by the same guy who wrote Lethal Weapon, no less) is entertaining, but strictly by the numbers. A down-on-his-luck P.I. (Bruce Willis) teams up with a former quarterback (Damon Wayans) to investigate the deaths of people with ties to sports corruption.
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The momentum of the previous two Superman pics unfortunately began to decline with this entry. An unemployed nebbish (Richard Pryor) soon discovers that he's not bad with computers & ends up unwittingly giving his new boss (Robert Vaughn) the means to do in the Man of Steel. There is some good stuff here, like the phony Kryptonite the bad guys give our hero, which causes his good and bad sides to eventually split into two people, who have a great fight scene in a junkyard (kudos once again to Christopher Reeve). Pryor's humor is also great without being a distraction to the picture. Sadly, the bad outweighs the good here as there are too many moments which make the viewer roll his/her eyes (the biggie being what Pryor's supercomputer does to the villain's butch sister).
This reviewer is a member of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. This invitation-only program provides BestBuy.com reviewers with manufacturer-supplied products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased and usage-based reviews. Outside of receiving products to test and review, Best Buy Tech Insider Network Reviewers are not compensated in any other way.
Despite its good intentions, this 4th Superman pic (& the last to star Christopher Reeve) is the worst of the series. The Man of Steel decides to rid our world of nukes, which inspires his nemesis Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman again) to create Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow). Reeve & Hackman are as watchable as ever, but there are more holes in the film's plot than there are in swiss cheese & the poor SFX certainly don't help.