Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on October 4th, 2004
On January 4th, New Line will release separate Rated and Unrated editions of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Both releases will feature a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Extras will include two audio commentaries (teh first with director Danny Leiner and actors John Cho and Kal Penn, the second with writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg), deleted scenes, "Back Seat" Interviews, an "Art of the Fart" sound documentary, Cast & Crew: Drive-Thru Bites,..."A Trip to the Land of Burgers" featurette, a script to screen feature (with storyboards), a "Me and Weedy" photo activity, and the theatrical trailer. The unrated edition will also include a bonus “Extreme” commentary track (with Danny Bouchard), some 'extreme' outtakes and a music video.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on October 1st, 2004
DreamWorks will release the Tom Cruise / Jamie Foxx thriller Collateral on December 14th. This 2-disc set will be presented in a 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with English DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, & Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks. The “extras” information is a little sketchy at this time, but we do know that this disc will include at least three featurettes (“City Of Night: The Making of Collateral”, “Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx Rehearse” & “Visual FX: MTA Train”), as well as deleted scenes and t...ailers. We will post the remainder of the special features as they become available.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on September 29th, 2004
A new technology capable of storing the equivalent of 100 DVDs on a single DVD-size disc has been unveiled by researchers from London's Imperial College.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on September 27th, 2004
Columbia-Tristar will release Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, the sequel to the atrocious J-Lo film Anaconda, on December 7th. This disc will be presented in an anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Extras will include a “Creating Anacondas” featurette, as well as a collection of deleted scenes, and trailers.
Large Cover: click here.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on September 22nd, 2004
Buena Vista Home Entertainment will release the complete first season of the Tim Allen hit show Home Improvement on November 23rd. All 24 first season episodes will be spread over 3-discs, and will be presented in 1.33:1 fullscreen along with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track. Extras will include audio commentaries from the show's creators on all the episodes, as well as a “Loose Screws“ featurette.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2004
This box set has restored my faith in television. I actually don’t have cable or satellite or anything, and if you ask anyone that knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m a steadfast refusenik when it comes to watching TV. Law & Order, however, is intelligent, well-cast, and has very high production values – all the ingredients of a winning series, as its ridiculously long run (14+ years) is testament to. Each episode has a well thought-out plot, usually with some sort of twist – and generally without any glaring plot ho...es. The interplay between characters is fantastic too – the division between the police on the street and the prosecuting attorneys makes for great characterizations, and interesting interactions when the two halves are bought together. The other thing that struck me about the series was relevance - issues in each episode coincide with events actually taking place in the real-world (SARS, for instance, in the episode “Patient Zero”), which lends the entire series credibility and ratchets the interest level up one notch higher.
One thing that struck me while watching a few episodes was how different shows can have an impact on society, or not. Consider the original Star Trek for instance – a three year run with horrible production values that somehow spawned a subculture, many movies, and however many spin off series. Law & Order, despite all of its general greatness (11 Emmy nominations and one win) hasn’t quite penetrated society to the same degree – no one attends Law & Order conventions, and there aren’t any Law & Order fanzines. Perhaps is the day-to-day nature of the subject matter (culled from newspaper headlines) doesn’t lend itself to cult followings, or perhaps the fact that there isn’t much soap-opera to the show keeps the characters at arms length – hard to say. Or maybe I’m just off-base here – if you’re a member of a Law & Order fan club, by all means post a comment and correct me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2004
This box set has restored my faith in television. I actually don’t have cable or satellite or anything, and if you ask anyone that knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m a steadfast refusenik when it comes to watching TV. Law & Order, however, is intelligent, well-cast, and has very high production values – all the ingredients of a winning series, as its ridiculously long run (14+ years) is testament to. Each episode has a well thought-out plot, usually with some sort of twist – and generally without any glaring plot ho...es. The interplay between characters is fantastic too – the division between the police on the street and the prosecuting attorneys makes for great characterizations, and interesting interactions when the two halves are bought together. The other thing that struck me about the series was relevance - issues in each episode coincide with events actually taking place in the real-world (SARS, for instance, in the episode “Patient Zero”), which lends the entire series credibility and ratchets the interest level up one notch higher.
One thing that struck me while watching a few episodes was how different shows can have an impact on society, or not. Consider the original Star Trek for instance – a three year run with horrible production values that somehow spawned a subculture, many movies, and however many spin off series. Law & Order, despite all of its general greatness (11 Emmy nominations and one win) hasn’t quite penetrated society to the same degree – no one attends Law & Order conventions, and there aren’t any Law & Order fanzines. Perhaps is the day-to-day nature of the subject matter (culled from newspaper headlines) doesn’t lend itself to cult followings, or perhaps the fact that there isn’t much soap-opera to the show keeps the characters at arms length – hard to say. Or maybe I’m just off-base here – if you’re a member of a Law & Order fan club, by all means post a comment and correct me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2004
Many fans of the series would agree that during Angel’s five-year run, season four was it’s strongest. It was the first, and only, time that the series made a drastic change in format. Nearly all episodes, 22 in total, ran along a single continuous plot. Not that different compared to Fox’s other hit series "24." Beginning at around the episode "The House Always Wins", each episode essentially hangs with a major cliffhanger and immediately continues at the beginning of the next. This was much more engaging than the s...andard "monster of the week" formula that was used prior.
If you’ve never watched season four when it aired on television than be prepared to have your social life vanish as you can’t help but watch every episode as quickly as possible. With a show that involves one major cliffhanger after another, you can’t help but be drawn to watching just "one" more episode. Next thing you know 3 hours have passed and you’ve watched 4 episodes back to back.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2004
Paul McCartney once implored John Lennon’s son Julian to “take a sad song and make it better”. The same basic concept is at work here, but the words “sad song” should be replaced with “bad cartoon”. Sealab 2021 is a clever show from Cartoon Network that takes a bad old show, Sealab 2020, and replaces the dialog track with something much more enjoyable. Think of it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach to creating a cartoon.
Admittedly, the results are sometimes mixed. When a gag ...oesn’t quite work, it’s amusing in that “I’m having fun, but not quite smiling” sort-of way. When it works, though, the show is laugh-out-loud funny; a concept that seems to be lost on most cartoons after we reach the age of 12. The characters are the same for each episode, including the hapless captain, the token Latino (voiced by Erik Estrada), and my favorite, the occasionally-appearing random Frenchman.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 13th, 2004
In the shadow of the Olympics’ return to Athens, PBS has decided to take a look back at the original games. This mildly-interesting program that feels more like a documentary that might be screened in a High School classroom than one you might watch on television in your free time. Such is the difference between PBS and the History Channel, I suppose. It is a good documentary, but certainly not great.
That’s not to say that the disc is all dry, though. There is some interesting background into some aspects ...f the modern games, especially in relation to the 1934 Munich Olympics. I don’t want to give it all away, but I will say that many of Hitler’s ideas for the games still live on today. For World War II and Nazi buffs, this is an interesting aside that I have heard little about in the past.
