Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
The movie: Welp, aside from my general theme of watching movies that I should have seen a long time ago but haven't, I've also got my theme of movies set in Vegas that I'm sorta running with. I've heard really great things about this movie, and I've heard really bad things about this movie, and I figured, hey, even though it was mostly filmed in California, it is mostly set in Las Vegas, so I might as well give it a shot.
The coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie, ever, was the moving carpet pattern trip that happened while Johnny Depp was checking into The Mint hotel. [a little trivia -- the Mint was bought and annexed by Binion's Horseshoe]. But overall, I didn't really like this movie. Ok. So the movie is supposed to be like one big long drug trip, but really, if I wanted to experience that, I'd rather go out and do some drugs so I can really experience it instead of being bored off my ass wondering when this movie is going to end. To the true fans of this film, I'm sorry, but I didn't really enjoy it very much.
The DVD: Hmmm, it's hard for me to be impartial here since I didn't even really like the movie. But. It was presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen format, and the transfer did look pretty good. The special features I didn't really pay too much attention to because, well, why would I want to watch deleted footage from a movie I didn't like that wasn't even good enough to make it into the movie? But yes, there is deleted footage, plus your standard filmographies and trailers. Overall, average content, but potentially interesting if you like this movie.

Casino
The Movie: I like this movie so much that even though I already own it on widescreen VHS, I wanted to get it on DVD too. So I did. But truthfully, I have a hard time watching it past the first half of the movie because well, I don't like seeing a guy who has it all get his life ruined by a woman he falls in love with... but this movie is great. It's about Sam Rothstein, a guy with mob ties, that runs the fictitious Tangiers casino in Las Vegas... but the story is actually based on real-life events that occurred at the Stardust during the 70's.
It's one of those loooooong movies, but it's very well written and acted, and has Joe Pesci using the "F" word more times than you can ever imagine. Plus it's got Robert DeNiro playing the lead role, so how can you go wrong?
The DVD: You'd think there would be a "special edition" of this movie out there, but amazingly there isn't. What you get is a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that is of mediocre quality. You get a trailer, production notes, and that's it. As popular as this movie is, you'd think there'd be some director's commentary, or a documentary or something, but nope, nothing of the sort. Hrm.

Carlito's Way
The Movie: I wasn't ever actually planning on ever watching this movie, but when I went out to buy Casino, I noticed that I could get Casino for $22, or get a two pack with Casino and Carlito's Way for $27. Eh, I figured for $5 I could try out Carlito's Way.
I wasn't every encouraged by the description I read on the back of the package. It's about Al Pacino as Carlito, a former mob guy who "tracks down his onetime girlfriend and rekindles their romance, promising he's changed for good. But Carlito's dream of going legitimate is undermined at every turn by murderous former cronies". Hmmmm, didn't I already see this movie and wasn't it called The Godfather: Part III?
And in some ways, I did already see this movie, starring Al Pacino in The Godfather: Part III, but where Part III was power and corruption at the highest levels, Carlito's Way was down and dirty in the streets. And it was a pretty good movie. Worth watching, but not going out of your way for. I thought Sean Penn did a great job in this movie... heck, I didn't even realize it was him until i saw the credits at the end!
The DVD: This is just what I hate to see in DVD's... letterboxed 2.35:1 widescreen. I mean really, why would you want to take such a great format as DVD and use only 57% of the available vertical resolution? Blah. Oh by the way, if you wanna know what all this fuss I'm kicking up about anamorphic widescreen is... there's a pretty good demonstration at this page on The Digital Bits of what I'm talking about. This disc has your standard production notes and trailer as special features.

Cinema Paradiso
The Movie: Am I covering the C's or what? This movie was originally suggested to me by Clara, some six years ago. It comes from Italy, and she raved on about how great it is. I never did get a chance to see this movie, until Netflix came around... they have everything! (well almost... they don't have music video DVDs). DVDPlanet.com places this movie in the Foreign, Italian Cinema, and "Tearjerker". And well, that's exactly what this is... an Italian tearjerker.
In fact, it won the Academy Award in 1989 for best foreign language film for being an Italian tearjerker. The middle of the movie seemed to drag a bit, but I'll be damned of the ending didn't try its very hardest to jerk some tears out of these eyes. Are you feeling like being in a sappy mood tonight? Then go ahead and rent this movie, and you can tell all your friends in the morning that you watched a foreign film last night and they'll be like "oooooh you're so hip and artsy".
The DVD: I was actually rather surprised that this DVD was anamorphically encoded. A lot of time these "smaller" movies end up getting letterboxed. But then again, a lot of times they aren't. There were a number of choices for the soundtrack, including the original Italian soundtrack in mono, a remixed Italian soundtrack in stereo, and an English dubbed one, which I cannot remember if it was mono or stero. The stereo soundtrack didn't seem to be Dolby Pro-Logic encoded (i.e. the dialogue didn't come out of the center channel speaker) so actually the mono soundtrack ended up being better. And of course, for maximum artsy effect, you'll wanna watch it with the Italian soundtrack and the English (or whatever language you speak) subtitles.
Special features included filmographies and production notes as well as the American market theatrical trailer, and that's about it.

The Princess Bride vs. The Princess Bride: Special Edition
The Movie: OK. So I already owned The Princess Bride. But the original version is letterboxed (actually it's a dual sided disc, one for letterboxed widescreen, and the other for pan and scan), and that was enough reason for me to also want to get the Special Edition version which is anamorphic widescreen. And besides, I'm giving my old DVD player to my sister, and I figure, I might as well throw in my old Princess Bride for her as well since she doesn't own any DVD's yet.
If you haven't seen this movie, you absolutely must. It's one of the funniest movies ever made. Sure, when I was a kid, I was put off by this movie's girly title. But I got over that, and you manly men should as well, as this movie is one of the great things I remember about my childhood.
The DVD: Well, I already covered the first major difference between the two versions, and that is that the regular version is a dual sided disc with both pan-and-scan and widescreen leterboxed versions. The Special Edition on the other hand comes only in anamorphic widescreen format. The anamorphic transfer looked just OK, and actually had some problems with gradients... in some places (especially mist) you could clearly see stepping. Ooops. This effect is not so pronounced in the original version. Both versions have a 5.1 soundtrack, but I didn't feel like sitting down to scrutinize whether they were the same or of the special edition had a spiffed up version. Also, the Special Edition was broken down into more chapter divisions than the original version.
Where the "Special Edition" really shines though is in the special features. The original version has a theatrical trailer, and that's about it. The special edition comes with documentaries about the film (both old and brand new), a little documentary thing made with a video camera on the set narrated by Cary Elwes and Robin Wright, still photos, two different audio commentary tracks (one from director Rob Reiner and the other from the writer William Goldman)... and my personal favorite -- the TV commercials. There are a number of TV commercials included here, but my favorite is the one where they interview the people coming out of the movie theater, in their full 1987 clothes and hair glory! Did we really all look like that back then? Why yes, we did!
Both versions surprised my with their booklets (liner notes?) that unlike most DVD's which pretty much only have a chapter listing and some photos, actually has some information about the movie in it... with the Special Edition's version being a bit more fleshed out. So is the Special Edition worth it? Well for me it was, but there is one thing to keep in mind -- since the Special Edition came out this year, the regular version has gone down in price quite a bit... but the Special Edition does come with more stuff.
So yeah. That's it for today's installment of Bryan's DVD reviews.

Monday, 19 November 2001 12:35am (late monday night)

W

eird dreams again. Remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about having that dream where I got married to that girl I had a crush on in 7th grade? Well she was in the dream I had this morning. We weren't married though. But it was really weird... I was wearing this monk robe carrying a rosary and everyone kept calling me "Father Bryan". I don't even know where such images would come from, I mean, I wasn't raised Catholic or anything. Too many mob movies maybe? But the images were very vivid, and they've been running through my mind all day. Weird.
Business is very slow right now. Not too many people are willing to shell out money for websites right now... not just because of general economic downturn, but because their marketing budgets have run out for the year. But I'm getting bored. Very, very bored. I feel like my brain is slowly melting away. I need something to keep me occupied. Heck, I might even prefer working at a job I hate to being like this. I'm gonna try to last until the new year before I resort to that though. Maybe business will pick up and give me more stuff to do... but then again maybe I won't last that long before I go insane!
Tomorrow, the original Ocean's 11 comes out on DVD. I think I'll have to get that. After all, it's about Vegas. Something to look forward to, I guess. Speaking of Vegas... I am going early next month, and I can't wait. It'll be almost 4 months after my last trip!! And I may even go again the following week... gotta see what happens first.

Thursday, 22 November 2001 11:00pm

H

oly Jebus, two updates in a row with no DVD reviews? Wow! Anyways. Yes, today is (was?) Thanksgiving. And as is traditional in our family, we get together with all our cousins and aunts and uncles and meet up at my uncle's or grandmother's house. It's always fun to see all the kids again, and of course, to stuff ourselves with tons of food. The turkey was quite good this year... usually I only eat the dark meat but this year even the white meat was juicy and tender. Woohoo!
Pictured here on the right is my uncle Tim, holding his daughter Sarah, with my cousin Michelle hanging out in the back. Every picture I got of Sarah has her with her eyes closed. They say she probably inhereted that from my mom. It was a little different this year though... the four boys took off early to go to the Clippers game (vs. the Nets? Why would you wanna see that?) and my other cousin Michael was in Yosemite or something, so by the evening only the girls were left. But yup, Thanksgiving is always fun!
Hairstyles. See the picture to the left which I took today. Click on it if you like. I've been wearing my hair like this (or similar) for about a year and a half now. When I first got it, I walked in to a Robert Cromeans salon with my hair growing all wild and free and told the stylist "do whatever you want to it, I need something new", and this (or similar to this) is what I got. It was pretty new and fresh back then, and nobody else was cutting their hair that way back then.
I sometimes go to Rocco's which is a mall chain haircutting place. I got very mixed results when asking for a similar haircut because not everyone knew what I was talking about... Fast-forward to the end of 2001. The last time I went to Rocco's, the lady cutting my hair said "wow, everybody is asking for this hairstyle, it must be in!"... say what you will about me, but at that moment I thought... "uh oh... maybe it's time for me to get a new hairstyle."
I think it may be time to let my hair grow wild and free again and to give someone who is more on the "cutting edge" (bad pun intended) a blank canvas from which to work from. What do you think? Speaking of which, this is a damned good excuse to get some of you to try to email me :)

Friday, 23 November 2001 2:05am (late friday night)

A

n unwelcome guest has invited itself back into my life -- joint pain. It started on wednesday or so, but unlike what I was suffering from a couple weeks ago, it's been isolated to my left shoulder this whole time, not moving around to different parts of my body. Hmmmm. Boy what a rockin' Friday night I had tonight. I'm still at my folks' place, and tonight I hung out with my old roommate Kenny. We shot a little pool at his house, then we did some really exciting stuff like going out to Best Buy cuz there was nothing else to do.
Of course there's no way for a man to walk into such a store and not come out with something, so I picked up the movie Space Balls because it was only $9.99, and we brought it back and watched it. Then Dieu came over and we shot some more pool. Then we went out and had a midnight snack. The end. Yup, so all of you out there in internetland that might be thinking that it must be really exciting to be Bryan Hong, now you see the truth of what really goes on!
As far as my hair goes... I have received only one suggestion so far, and that suggestion was for me to shave all my hair off. This is actually not that bad of an option for me as my hair grows very fast, and it wouldn't be much more than 4 or 6 weeks before I'd have at least an inch or two back on my head. I don't think it would look that good though because the back of my head is flat. At least, I think it is.