Guest TSMAdmin Report post Posted October 2, 2002 What’s On The Box: Frasier What’s In The Player: Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey Well hell-fuckin’-o. I’m just so fucking happy right now. Panasonic Q’s all hooked up, and the damn thing’s a thing of beauty. It plays ALL of my DVDs, VCDs, MP3s it even plays SVCDs (well, kind of). So besides looking totally fucking boss, it’s also a very nice DVD system. Man, I’m gonna have a pretty swank room at college next term. I’ve also FINALLY got my hands on screen grabbing equipment. Which meand I am now, officially, THE KING OF ALL MEDIA. Lithe radio DJs be damned. As soon as some free time rolls around, I’ll get a shitload of grabs together for all my reviews, which should liven things up a bit. Let’s see what I’ve been grabbing thus far. Academy Award Winner Halle Berry. Veteran actress Connie Nielsen. Rising starlet Charlize Theron. Yup, definitely worth the purchase. I’ve been holding off on new reviews until I could get some decent grabs taken, so now I guess I’ve got no excuse. I’m leaning heavily towards Shaolin Soccer right now, as it’s a review I’d always said I’d do, though I’m also intrigued at the idea of doing one of the ECW DVDs in the live play-by-play, "Rant" style, interspersed with match pics. We’ll see. Hey, here’s something that just amused the shit out of me. It’s from the Temple of The Unknown forum, where a bunch of guys were discussing the DVD of Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey. Turns out that the Region 1 version of the disc doesn’t include the special features, yet Warner Brothers bandied them about in the advertising and even on the back of the damn box. Responding to another disgruntled consumer, this fellow had the following to say: “same with my copy. we got shortchanged by big time crooks warner brothers. i now buy pirated warner brothers products. no point paying good money for their substandard products.” That’s just GOLD right there. Anyway, ON WITH THE CONTENT~! WHAT’S HOT THIS WEEK Ouch. This is gonna be an expensive week. Quentin’s gonna OWN this week, what with loaded, loaded, LOADED two-discers of Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction on shelves tomorrow. No commentaries, which is initially a downer, but there really is just a ridiculous amount of other stuff on the sets that you won’t miss them. Then there’s the tasty looking special editions of Gremlins and Gremlins 2, which I’m sure just about everyone reading already has on pre-order. I never actually saw We Were Soldiers, largely because it stars Mel Gibson, the mulleted freak. However, I’ve been told it’s very good, so if you can put up with the ageing Lethario, well, more power to you. I’d rather spend my time leering at Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing, which is also out this week. I won’t be buying either of them, but that’d be my choice if I had to make one. Something that really is worth buying though is Startup.com, which gets the re-release treatment this week. I’ve fellated this flick before, but it’s basically a documentary about a couple of guys during the rise and fall of the dot com boom. It feels a lot like Beyond The Mat, exceot it’s about the internet. Great stuff. N*Sync The Unauthorised Biography and Britney Spears Star Baby Scrapbook both sound like absolute gold. In fact, I’m sure the Amazon review of the Britney disc said that this was one of those sensationalist documentaries where there’s about two minutes from the star themselves, and another forty from next-door neighbours, bitter wannabes and jealous hangers-on. And really, those are the best kind of documentaries. Unless you like them a little more poignant, in which case one of the three September 11th docs might be more to your liking: CNN Tribute America Remembers, New York Firefighters The Brotherhood of September 11, and World Trade Center Anatomy of a Collapse. Actually, that last one sounds like it could be one of those “When Surgery Goes Bad!” TV specials, though I dearly hope it’s not. Jet Li fans are in luck, with re-releases of Black Mask, The Master and Modern Warriors. Hey, isn’t Rob Van Dam supposed to be in Black Mask 2? When the hell is that flick coming out, anyway. You know what would be really cool? Universal Soldier 4, with Rob Van Dam, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Goldberg. I’d buy that for a dollar. On the wrestling front, the two-disc Hollywood Hogan: Hulk Still Rules DVD actually looks pretty damn good. The first disc contains the, what, 100-minute WWF-friendly “documentary” (for lack of a better term), while the second holds FOUR HOURS of extras, most notably classic Hogan moments and matches. Yeah yeah, everyone hates the Goblin, but damn, this set looks sweet, even if just to see Freddy Blassie and Hogan’s mushroom cloud-shaped chest hair in his ’78 Fed debut. Just as a side about the Hogan DVD, there was some seriously funny shit over at Amazon. In the “Other DVDs that might be of interest” section are The Hulk and Undercover Brother. Priceless. The other WWF DVD is King of The Ring 2002, but since that was a shite PPV that soured Chris Jericho on the internet forever, I can’t say as I’ll be too eager to pick it up. Daddy Of The Week: Oh boy oh boy, is there ever a load of crao to choose form this week. There’s a whole load of blaxploitation-sounding DVDs, like Black Panther Warriors and Carmen A Hip Hopera. Or how about Unlimited Destruction, starring Lee Scratch Perry? Then there’s shite like Gary Null’s How To Live Forever With Gary Null. GARY NULL HAS DISCOVERED THE SECRETS TO ETERNAL LIFE? Holy shit. But the hands-down winner this week is none other than Scooby Doo Meets Batman, which just sounds SOOOOOOOO terrible. In fact, I might even have to pick it up just to see what the hell the world is coming to. One of the features on the disc is entitled “It’s No Joke”, but I beg to differ. APPARENTLY, ED WOOD Well, info is coming through in dribs and drabs, but info it is nonetheless. Better still, it’s OFFICIAL info. Oooooohhhhhh. Anyway, straight from the folks at Buena Vista comes a little info on the upcoming newly-special editioned DVD. Of course, the film will now be anamorphic (as well it should be), and it will include an audio commentary with Tim Burton, Martin Landau and co.. Gee, I REALLY hope they get George Steele and Bill Murray in there. In fact, they could invite some bums in off the street to do the commentary (oh wait, they already did that on the Brass Eye disc), as long as we don’t have to endure another horrific solo Burton commentary. The disc will also include a music video (huh?), as well as “Pie Plates Over Hollywood”, which I can only imagine must be some sort of documentary. It still looks a little bare for a special edition that they were so eager to satcj with features they actually pulled it from release, but more extras may materialise at any time. I’ll say it again: DISC TWO, PLAN NINE, UNCUT. What the hell, may as well have everyone do a commentary on that, too. Props to… um, IGN? I think it was, anyway. ILLA KILLA Whoops, looks like ol’ Jay fucked up last week. I said that I’d have specs for the upcoming HKL release of The Killer, didn’t I? Hmm. Sorry ‘bout that. Here then, as promised, are the specs for the upcoming Region 2-only special edition: Digitally re-mastered and restored DVD transfer 2.35.1 Anamorphic version enhanced for widescreen TVs Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio Feature length audio commentary with HK Cinema Expert Bey Logan Trailer Archive Art Gallery-A Series of stunning images from the movie and conceptual artwork campaigns Interview with producer Tsui Hark and leading-man Chow Yun-fat Interview Gallery with leading lady Sally Yeh, co-star Kenneth Tsang and cinematographer Peter Pau Extensive gallery of rare deleted scenes Fully Animated Themed Menus Hmm… interesting. The Killer was first scheduled to be a two-disc Platinum Edition affair, and it is now “just” a single-disc special edition. And neither of the two John Woo commentaries are included on the set. What does this mean? HKL may very well be planning to double-dip us, which would make me very, VERY disappointed in them. However, even if they’re not, this set still looks awesome. Many will point to the absence of either of Woo’s commentaries to make it instantly inferior to the Criterion or Winstar editions, but I disagree. Woo’s commentaries are generally pretty difficult to listen to, given his thick accent and abundance of silences. Compare that to a Bey Logan commentary track, and there really is no comparison. Simply put, Bey is my favourite DVD commentator along with Kevin Smith. If anything, Bey is a better commentator, since Smith’s commentaries rely heavily on the camaraderie and participation of his crew, while Logan carries an entire commentary on his own while managing to be just as good. Anyway, slobber on Bey’s nuts aside, you also have to believe that the HKL remastering of both the transfer and audio will be absolutely breathtaking, and the presentation and other features will be similarly first-rate. That said, anyone writing off this new set at this stage is just TALKING CRAZEEE. Thanks to the DVD Times. DANCES WITH HASBEENS Wow, remember when Kevin Costner used to be, you know, good? Sure, everything the guy’s done recently may have been pure dick, but you CAN NOT FUCK with The Untouchables. Similarly, Dances With Wolves was one of Costner’s key flicks, and one on which he served as both actor and director. Well, the film, due for a two-disc special edition release from MGM, will street as soon as first quarter next year. Rumour has it that the set will include the 232-minute European cut of the movie (a whole FIFTY-ONE minutes longer than the American cut), two feature commentaries (including one with Elliot Ness himself), numerous featurettes and behind-the-scenes docs and more. Looks cool. Now if only they’d get their ass into gear with The Untouchables… Thanks to The Bits. Yikes, time for my bed. My sweet, sweet bed. I’ll probably start re-posting the old reviews with grabs towards the end of the week, so check back regular and often if you care about that sort of thing. If not… well, fuck you too, pal. BE LIKE WATER, MY FRIEND. Peace. Jay Spree Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
