| L |
It seems like it's been a while since I've watched a DVD, and it has been a little while (by my standards), what with Vegas and all getting in the way. My sister is a huge fan of the Rush Hour series, and had to get the Rush Hour 2 DVD on the day it came out (which was yesterday). I actually had been waiting to get this movie too, but I didn't know it came out until my sister told me she got hers, so hey, why not get one too? So yeah. Here:
Rush
Hour 2: Infinifilm
The movie: I love this movie! Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan are back together in this sequel to Rush Hour and if you ask me, this is one of those rare occasions where the sequel surpasses the original. Chock full of ad-libbed comedy and Jackie Chan's "situation-fighting", this movie is entertaining from start to finish. Plus it's got some Zhang Ziyi, and a little bit of Las Vegas action, so how can it go wrong?
Vegas, baby!
That
Zhang Ziyi... she's so cute when she's mad! There are plenty of funny
and memorable scenes such as Chris Tucker putting on a big show at the
craps table, and of course the scene with Don Cheadle conversing in Chinese
with Jackie Chan about martial arts training from Master Ching. These
days so many comedies out there are just full of campy parody and low-brow
humor, but this movie is genuinely funny without having to resort to either.
And oops! I almost forgot to mention the bloopers at the end credits!
The DVD: It seems like every DVD out there is a "special edition" and that every studio has their label for their super special editions -- in this case, New Line Cinema's "Infinifilm". The packaging really hypes up the Infinifilm features claiming that you'll "go beyond the movie" and that it will be a "unique experience". It really is overly hyped up on the packaging.
That being said, this DVD did not disappoint. The film was presented in a widescreen anamorphic format (which I think is actually a little wider than 2.35:1), and the film transfer is excellent (although in some places it seemed like the reds blew up a little bit). I really liked the clever menu designs, particularly the scene selection menu which looks exactly like a slot machine display, down to the "Winner Paid" and "Play up to 3 coins" messages.
This
disc is chock full excellent special features! Lots of insights
into the making of the film, the locations, the actors, the director and
the whole process, and it was actually somewhat entertaining as well as
informative. On top of all of the behind the scenes type stuff, the subtitle
track of the movie contains random factoids that you can read throughout
the movie. There is also director's commentary, deleted scenes (also with
director's commentary), more outtakes, and of course, the standard selection
of trailers and filmographies. And while many DVD's feature a high quality anamophic widescreen format for the film, most skimp out on the image quality in the special features section, keeping them either letterboxed with horrible film transfers, or in standard 4:3 format. This DVD's anamorphic widescreen format carried through not only the movie itself, but through every last bit of special feature on this disc, from the menus to the behind the scenes footage. You get the feeling that whoever was in charge of putting this disc together owns a widescreen TV and was sick of aspect ratio switches and seeing shoddy film transfers in the special features section, since even the behind the scenes footage shot on video were in a widescreen format!
If you have a DVD-ROM drive in your computer, this disc also features DVD-ROM content, including the movie script which you can read along as the movie plays in a little window (or even print out, if you please) -- lightyears ahead of most discs that claim to have "DVD-ROM content" which usually amounts to nothing more than a page with a link to the movie's website.
A great movie with an excellent film transfer, great menu design (but not quite as great as the Willy Wonka ones in my opinion), and the hands down best special features I've ever seen add up to Rush Hour 2 becoming my favorite DVD in my collection so far!
That's it for this review... I've got 3 movies here from Netflix now that piled up while I was gone in Vegas, so the next reviews you see will probably be Nightmare Before Christmas, Network, and The Red Violin (not necessarily in that order), going back to the "movies that I should have seen already but haven't yet" theme that I have going on with those movies I rent.
Friday, 14 December 2001
11:59pm
| M |
I remember a while ago seeing a sign at a building in downtown San Diego where they were selling some "studio" space (like 100sq.ft, basically a box) for $60/mo or something like that. It might be worth looking into, even if I have to pay extra to get another Internet connection down there. Just to get me out of the house and get a little more human contact going on, ya know? And now... today's DVD reviews -- I actually ended up watching these movies on the same day that I watched Rush Hour 2 but I didn't get around to actually writing about them until now. So here is Network and The Red Violin.
Network
The movie: This movie is from 1976, and it contains that famous quote -- "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!". That's all I knew about it before I watched it. I only knew that it was one of those movies that I should have seen a long time ago. Well, it's basically about corruption in corporate America (especially in the media), and revolves around the story of a long-time news anchor who goes crazy on the air, and the network takes advantage of it as he boosts their sagging ratings.
It was actually quite interesting to watch, and I found it to still be quite relevant 25 years later -- perhaps it is even more relevant today than it was in its own time. It was quite thought provoking. It was also somewhat frustrating to watch as in almost every shot you can almost see Faye Dunaway's boobs, but you never do quite get to see anything... not just in the obvious "nude but from behind" shots, but in most of the movie she's wearing loose fitting tops and leaning over a lot and stuff. Man the 70's could be so frustrating some times! But anyway -- to appreciate this movie, you don't even need all the quality of the DVD format, it's just not one of those kind of movies... but it's a movie that I think you should see, however it is that you see it.
The DVD: This is another one of those dual-sided discs with 4:3 pan-and-scan on one side, and a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen version on the other. The film transfer was clean (but 70's grainy), and the soundtrack was two channel... but it's not like this movie would have any need for crazy sound effects, so that really was plenty anyway. The content of the DVD is pretty much no-nonsense, you get the movie, and a trailer and that's pretty much it.
The Red
Violin
The movie: I've heard this movie was pretty good, but I'd never seen it. It was kind of interesting, as the story traces the tragic lives of the people who have owned the so-called Red Violin all the way from the 1600's to the present day -- from Italy, to Germany (or was it Austria?), to England, and even to China. I thought it was pretty cool how the stories were woven together, and though it was a bit long, it held my attention most of the time. I did feel though that the ending was pretty weak -- while each of the stories told were punctuated with some great human tragedy, the ending just wasn't... big enough to punctuate the entire film. It just kinda fizzled out. The soundtrack was great though, with the sounds of the violin, of course, being an everpresent theme.
The DVD: The film is presented in an anamorphic widescreen format, with an excellent transfer free of noise and whatnot. The soundtrack was amazing, and I'm sure it sounds even better if you've got a proper DTS setup (which I don't... yet). This disc is light on special features, but it does include a theatrical trailer, and an option to watch the movie with no dialog, just the music.