The Animated Views MIA: DVD Thread

[Randall]

Oh, I forgot Time Machine! I knew there was another favorite that I'd missed.

Gee, I'd forgotten there was a Houdini one, too. I've never seen it. I guess there are two that I don't have in my collection.

I have that Pal box set, but haven't watched The Great Rupert yet.

Destination Moon is splendid, and of course you've got to love the Woody Woodpecker segment on it, explaining space travel. Ever seen Conquest of Space? It's horrible in some respects, yet typically fun. It has maybe the most ludicrous ending of any sci-fi film I've seen.

Atlantis isn't his best work, but it is pretty neat in its own way. I'd sure like to have a widescreen copy.

I showed Doc Savage to a couple of friends a few years ago, and they loved it, though they'd never heard of the character before. They still comment on it. Those who've read the novels will certainly get more out of it, but even to neophytes the movie was great fun. Too bad it was such a bomb at the time--- an unfortunate ending to a momentous career in fantasy/sci-fi film-making. Audiences were done with camp by that time, but I think the film holds up very well today.

Hey, I have a laser that Ben doesn't own!!

[Ben]

You have a LOT of lasers that I don't own!

The Great Rupert is a pretty standard movie...and with very little Pal animation in it, save for a few shots with the title squirrel. It's a cute, Wonderful Life type movie, in black and white, though the Rupert animation is a little stiff. Not one of the greats, but a very nice little film that I'm glad they were able to rescue from PD heck and put in their box.

Conquest of Space and Atlantis I also have yet to see, but I did pick up Haskin's Robinson Crusoe On Mars recently from Criterion, which turned out to be a great movie and a nice disc.

[GeorgeC]

Battleship Potemkin -- Kino DVD -- RESTORED NTSC edition -- just got it today with 30% off coupon at Borders!

This IS the version I talked about over a year ago with the full restoration and authentic soundtrack.

http://www.animated-news.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=310

I was very, very surprised to see it turn up and got this instead of another cheaper film.

Not so surprised that I saw it at Borders since the chain tends to stock more esoteric films than the mass-market discounters. You'd NEVER see this film at Wal-Mart or Target for sure!

(Gotta use those 30% coupons on the more expensive stuff. No point in using them on $15 discs.)

[Ben]

Hey George - is it true native NTSC? Or Pal interlaced?

Reason I ask is because Kino is a Euro company and most of their restorations are done in PAL and converted. I'm still disappointed with my "Flying Deuces" from them that was cleaned up but displays some ghosting - I'd have been better buying it from their PAL release.

The set looks nice, but I was going to hold off until anyone could confirm the speed/ghosting issues.

[GeorgeC]

Couldn't really tell you about the PAL transfer, Ben. Still haven't sat down too watch it all the way through, too. I'm guessing it's probably a PAL-NTSC transfer since all the restoration work was done in Europe by a consortium of German and Russian (as far as I can tell) companies. The liner notes on the film seem to indicate it was reconstructed from pieces of film gathered worldwide. Kinda like the situation with the original King Kong. I doubt the original Potemkin negative still exists, too.

I just got the DVD last night. Totally unexpected to see it but I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it.

I checked the liner notes booklet and confirmed that it IS the version I talked about in 2005 but I didn't read anything about a PAL transfer.

It is 69 minutes long and as close as authentic to Eisenstein's vision as anybody's probably going to get since the original film was edited by different individuals so many times since it was released. For years, the version people saw as based on a 1950 Soviet version that was "stretched" (frames duplicated therefore ruining the original editing and pacing of Eisenstein's vision) to accommodate a soundtrack that had newer music, sound effects, and possibly some dialogue.

This version also has the 1926 German premiere symphonic score, too.

It's a two-disc set. Disc One has the English title version with all the extras like a photo gallery and a "Making of" documentary that I imagine covers the making of the originial movie and its restoration. Sound is in 5.1.

The second disc is the Russian version, same length, with titles produced as close as possible to Eisenstein's specifications. All the extras are on Disc One.

I'm not much for silent film (other than German horror films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and I own very few Russian/Soviet films, but this is a film that I respect and had to have once this version came out on DVD...

Here's the link to the DVD set I bought on Amazon.com ==
http://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Potemk ... 667&sr=1-1



P.S. --- While I was looking for it on Amazon I happened to notice that a newer, 2-disc version of Nosferatu was ALSO released last year. Guess what one of my next buys is going to be...? It never ends!

[Ben]

Yes, these sound as good as Kino's restoration of "Metropolis".

I'll likely end up buying both Potemkin and Nosferatu in those editions. Still need to grab that Hunchback Ultimate Edition, the Image disc of The Lost World and a couple of others...!

[eddievalient]

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but one show that seriously needs to be on DVD is Daria (it's obviously on my mind lately). What's extremely frustrating is that the fans are the ones holding it back. All the petitions and whatnot all insist that a DVD release keep the original music. Unfortunately, there were so many songs used (mostly as background with no relevance to the plot) that it would be nearly impossible for MTV to clear them all. One solution would be to replace most of the music with generic stuff and only clear what's absolutely neccessary (for instance, there are at least a couple of great, memorable gags that wouldn't work without the original music). However, it's going to be tough to convince people of that. I wrote a letter to the main petition site explaining why it wouldn't be feasible to get all the music in there and what we should go for instead, but I haven't heard back from them yet. Fingers are crossed, though.

[Ben]

I remember covering a couple of Daria titles for previous DVD reviews and didn't find the show relied heavily on its source music. Of course, I only ever saw those particular shows and it could have been that Paramount used music-issue free episodes.

[GeorgeC]

The new Indiana Jones releases that came out today are disappointing... http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews3/ ... oxdvd.html

Basically a double-dip of what came out in 2003. Nothing notable and worth your money, folks. The Best Buy exclusive DVD that came with the original boxset release was a much better deal than what's on these new single-disc releases.

Yep, Lucas and Spiellberg sure aren't skimping on the extras here, no sirree!

Might be best to wait for the rumored Blu-Ray releases of the original films along with Indy IV when that one gets released on Blu-Ray (almost 100% chance the fourth film WILL hit BD later this year)...



Best Buy special of the week --- you can buy select Blu-Rays for $19.99 a-piece this week, or 2 BD's for $30! Picked up Pan's Labyrinth and the 5-disc Blu-Ray release of Blade Runner that way.

[eddievalient]

Thanks for the heads up, George. I wasn't going to rebuy Indy, but it's nice to know that I'm not missing anything. Lucas has said that he's preparing a massive BR set for the Star Wars series that'll empty the archives and have all the bonus material he's been holding back (although I doubt it'll include the Holiday Special as it's been disowned by everyone who was involved) and supposedly be his final word on it. It could be he's planning the same for Indy Jones. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Ben]

We got these in for review and I'll be covering this shortly. The main thrust will be to look at what's "new" and whether these are worth going for in the short term, but the answer pretty much seems to be no.

[GeorgeC]

Pretty much what the other review sites have been saying for the Indy DVD releases so far, Ben.

I'm waiting for an eventual release on Blu-Ray that will make it worth it to pick these films up again. Of course, I'm hoping they LEAVE the film grain in and don't attempt to clean the films digitally like Disney did for Snow White back in the past decade. Film grain is becoming hi-def's widescreen/pan & scan bogeyman with all the newly initiated "film connoseurs" wondering what all that "dirt" on the video image is! Believe me, we have only begun to hear about this little bugaboo now. It'll pop up more and more as classic films make their way onto Blu-Ray.

As far as the fourth Indy film is concerned, we'll see what happens after the next public screening at Cannes on Sunday.

50/50 chance it will be ugly. It's not looking very good so far...

[GeorgeC]

First news that Paramount has a lot of highly expected films out on Blu-Ray later this year .... www.thedigitalbits.com , Monday Edition

"...our industry sources have checked in with confirmation that Paramount is readying a new Blu-ray edition of Michael Bay's Transformers for release in the 3rd quarter (the unofficial street date is 9/2, but that could change). We know the studio has been working on the title for a while now (think of it as Paramount's OTHER worst-kept secret), and the rumors are further backed by the fact that the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) has just cleared some of the special features due to be included on the set. Transformers, Top Gun, the Godfather films and the Indy films? This could be a BIG Blu holiday for Paramount."


Start saving up... This won't be a cheap holiday!

[Cinderallaboi]

The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons (1987)

Yogi's First Christmas (1980)

A Flintstone Christmas Carol (1994)

A Flintstone Christmas (1977)

The Jetsons' Christmas Carol (1985)

A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)

The Flintstones Christmas In Bedrock (1996)

A Flintstone Christmas Carol is on dvd i have it

[Daniel]

Note the date on that particular post though: "Dec 05, 2006".