Now Playing
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Warner Brothers
2001, Color, Rated PG
2 Hr 32 Min
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16:9 Enh.)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Starring John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane,
Daniel Radcliffe, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw,
Maggie Smith, Julie Walters.
DVD Release date: 5/28/02
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5
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Entertainment |
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Video |
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
Not
Tested |
Violence |
Mild |
Sex |
No |
Language |
No |
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"Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
Synopsis
The book phenomenon comes to the big
screen in this cross between a Grimm's Fairy Tale and Charles Dickens.
Little Harry Potter (Radcliffe), is raised by relatives after his
parents pass away. While still a young boy, he discovers that his
destiny is that of a wizard when he is whisked away to the Hogwarts
wizard's school, under the instruction of Chief Wizard in Residence,
Albus Dumbledor (Harris) and Professor McGonagall (Smith), but also
under the watchful eye of Hagrid (Coltrane). There, he meets his
fellow wizard students, along with an array of strange characters . .
. the good, the bad, and the very ugly. He is assigned to the group of
students at Gryffindor, who have more admirable goals in mind, while
others are assigned to a group at Slytherin, who favor the dark side
of wizardry. Through adventure and misadventure, Harry discovers the
true nature of his parents' deaths. Since the Harry Potter series is
based on simple fairy tales, the plot will not challenge your
intelligence, but the acting is superb, and the special effects, along
with astonishing set decorations, will leave you breathless. -
JEJ - |
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Columbia Tristar
2001, Color, Rated R
1 Hr 30 M
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 (16:9 Enh.)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Directed by Scott Ziehl
Starring Dan Aykroyd, Amelia Heinle, Devon
Gummersall, Christopher Cousins, John Cho.
DVD Release date: 5/07/02
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Entertainment |
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
Not Tested |
Violence |
Yes |
Sex |
No |
Language |
"F" & "S" words |
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"Earth
vs. the Spider"
Synopsis
Quentin Kemmer (Gummersall) is a
security guard at a chemical research company, and when burglars break
in, he gets stabbed with a syringe full of spider venom, transforming
him into the arachnid super hero he has always wanted to be. Police
Detective Jack Grillo (Aykroyd) tries to find who is suddenly not only
getting rid of bad guys, but also draining them of their blood.
Quentin's neighbor Stephanie (Heinle) tries to help Quentin with the
strange malady that is slowly overtaking him, but when he starts
sprouting extra legs, that proves too much. Officer Grillo must now
hunt down the man turned spider. Although not a comedy, this film is a
spoof of giant bug movies that proliferated in the 1950s, and some of
the Arkoff family, who pioneered these B flicks back then, produced
this one. - JEJ - |
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Universal Pictures
2001, Color, Rated PG-13
2 Hr 16 Min
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (16:9 Enh.)
English DD 5.1
French DD 5.1
Directed by Ron Howard
Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer
Connelly, Ed Harris, and Paul Bettany.
DVD Release date: 6/25/02
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
Mild |
Sex |
No |
Language |
Moderate |
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"A
Beautiful Mind"
*** Spoiler Alert ***
If you are not aware of the events that make up the life of John Nash,
then we recommend you skip the synopsis and head straight to the video
store and pick up this DVD when it becomes available.
*** End Spoiler Alert ***
Synopsis
Russell Crowe plays John Forbes Nash Jr., whose
work in game theory earned him the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics
Science. Regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of our time,
Nash is afflicted by schizophrenia shortly after producing his
groundbreaking work. The movie tackles all aspects of Nash's life in a
fluid weaving of his academic struggles, romantic breakthrough,
painful treatments, and eventual triumph over the presented obstacles.
The story manages to bring up social commentary effortlessly in
straying from the central story. I found myself thinking about social
acceptance and mental health awareness as Nash transitioned from
brilliant intellectual to schizophrenic outcast. Nash's wife, Alicia
(Jennifer Connelly), does her best to support him but suffers
enormously as the invisible disease changes her understanding of the
ideal world, love, and identity. The details and depictions throughout
the movie are refreshingly realistic and accurate. Ron Howard chose to
depict schizophrenia through Nash visually; while this is one of the
least common forms of delusion, it vividly illustrates the illness and
captures the viewer simultaneously. Even the academic atmosphere was
quite accurate, from the arrogant competition of rivals to the
reluctance and inability to teach by many a renowned faculty member.
Many will point to Nash's recovery as the one area of the plot that
was portrayed with inaccuracy. There is no doubt the recovery was more
complicated and excruciating than what was shown; recoveries of such
magnitude are quite the exception. Then again, this is an exceptional
movie about an extraordinary man, and should be commended for its
disciplined focus on John Forbes Nash Jr. At the end of the movie, I
wanted to know more about Nash's life, difficulties, and
accomplishments. I appreciated the nod towards incompleteness, as I
felt it acknowledges and resists the bite-sized tidbits that viewing
audiences have become accustomed to in modern media.
The acting in the movie is nearly flawless –
Russell Crowe establishes another milestone in versatility while
Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, and Paul Bettany have equally convincing
performances. - Ya-Bing Chu -
Technical Aspects
Overall the video quality is excellent. The image is detailed and free
of noise. The only thing keeping the video quality from a perfect 5 is
the small amount of edge enhancement found in the film. The movie is
largely focused on dialogue, which was clear and high quality.
Surround channels weren't really used except for one or two sequences,
in which it was effective but not memorable.
We are going to try something new starting with
this DVD, which is to analyze the quality of the MPEG flag encoding on
the disc. This part of the review will only be relevant if you are
using a progressive scan DVD player. Since this is the first disc with
such a review anywhere, it is hard to know how good or bad the disc is
because we have not established a baseline. This will happen over time
as we view more discs. The ultimate purpose of this section is to
inform our readers working in the DVD production industry, so that
they can correct problems we find, in future discs.
We found that, during the entire length of the
film, the flags dropped from film to video mode 25 times. This means
that the 3-2 pulldown flag cadence vanished for a moment at each drop.
The majority of the drops only lasted for 10 video fields. Most of
these appeared on an edit or scene change. Two of the drops were for
approximately 60 fields of video. Neither of these happened during a
scene change or edit, and as far as we could tell, there was a strong
3-2 pulldown cadence present. If you are using a progressive DVD
player that reads the flags, you may see a comb or double image at
each drop point. The image below is from one of the 60 field drops and
you can see the double image from the player going into video mode
deinterlacing. You can see the blur on her shoulders, pointed out by
the white arrows. The DVD player dropped into video mode and applied a
vertical filter to the entire image. This scene takes place at
approximately 40 minutes and 4 seconds in chapter 9. If you are using
a DVD player with a Sage or Silicon Image chip, you should see no
problems at all.
There did not appear to be any problems around
chapter breaks, which is a good sign. Since this is the first review
that looks at the flags, we thought we would share with you 1 second
of MPEG flags where such a glitch occurs.
E 01:29:00 | C
00:05:50
Pic: 08 P:F:P-B
Pic: 09 B:F:PRB
Pic: 10 B:F:P-T
Pic: 11 P:F:PRT
Pic: 00 B:F:P-B
Pic: 01 B:F:PRB
Pic: 02 I:F:P-T
Pic: 03 B:F:PRT
Pic: 04 B:F:P-B
Pic: 05 P:F:PRB
Pic: 06 B:F:P-T
Pic: 07 P:F:--T
Pic: 08 B:F:--T
Pic: 09 P:F:--T
Pic: 10 P:F:--T
Pic: 00 I:F:--T
Pic: 01 B:F:PRT
Pic: 02 P:F:P-B
Pic: 03 B:F:PRB
Pic: 04 B:F:P-T
Pic: 05 P:F:PRT
Pic: 06 B:F:P-B
Pic: 07 B:F:PRB
Pic: 08 P:F:P-T
Pic: 09 B:F:PRT
E 01:30:00 | C 00:06:50 |
Here is a quick guide on how to decode the
flags:
Pic: 00 I:F:PRT
The first number, 00, is the relative picture number in that I-frame
sequence. The next letter tells whether it's an I, B, or P frame. The
letter after that tells whether it's frame or field structured (F =
frame, T = top field, B = bottom field). The last three letters are
progressive_frame, repeat_first_field, and top_field_first. The
sequence --T is what the flags look like when it is encoded as video
instead of film. One Pic line represent either 3 or 2 fields.
When looking at the last group of characters, a 'PR' represents
3 fields and a 'P-' or '--' represents 2 fields.
We marked the problem area above in red. There
are usually 24 pictures in a second of time for film and 30 for a
second of video. When you have a mixture of film and video, the number
of pictures will be anywhere from 24 to 30. If you look at Pic 9
above, it is 3 fields, Pic 10 is 2 fields, Pic 11 is 3 fields. This is
the 3-2 pattern that you often read about.
If you would like to know more about progressive
scan and how these flags can effect the image quality, we refer you to
Part 5 of the DVD Benchmark. - Stacey Spears -
Overall, the two disc DVD set (Awards Edition)
is highly recommended – the extras are extensive and informative, but
not groundbreaking.
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Paramount Pictures
2002, Color, Rated PG-13
1 Hr 22 Min
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (16:9 Enh.)
English DD 5.1
English DD 2.0
French DD 2.0
Directed by Jake Kasdan
Starring Colin Hanks, Jack Black,
Catherine O'Hara, Schuyler Fisk, John Lithgow, and Lily Tomlin.
DVD Release date: 6/18/02
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
Mild |
Sex |
Suggestive |
Language |
Moderate |
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"Orange County"
Synopsis
Two Sentence Plot: Young man wants to get into
Stanford, and everything (mostly chemically induced) conspires against
him resulting in comic mayhem. Bottom line: whence comes happiness; it
ain't always the beaten path.
Let's get one thing straight off the bat: I
think Jack Black is one funny mofo. He could just stand still and I
would laugh (it's like some weird comic charisma). He's kind of like
Spicoli from "Fast Times" but with real heart (not just the cardboard
cutout that Penn was).
Colin Hanks is his father's son in the best
sense of the word. He's got the good natured everyman bankability that
his dad has without being a total clone. He's got the range to go far
(must be genetic).
The movie starts out with the perpetually
hung-over/recovering Jack vomiting on Colin's painfully wrought
novella. Sorry, but that is the finest art commentary I've seen all
year. Brief…to the point…and understood at a visceral level. I can
only hope to attain that level of impact (more metaphorically than
literally, mind you) in my writing.
The supporting characters are flawless and
probably echoed in everyone's high school existence. Plus, this movie
is jam packed with grade AAA talent. The mom who can't let go with a
wee drinking problem (Catherine O'Hara), the dad who's got other more
profitable plans for his son (John Lithgow), miscellaneous step moms
and dads, the guidance counselor who should be kept miles away from
dolling out guidance (Lily Tomlin), various high school stereotypes
like cheerleaders and stoner types (except these teenagers have more
collagen and silicon than my rural Appalachian school chums). It
leaves me to wonder what the budget was for all the talent (or what
dirt the casting agent had on everyone to get them to work for a
reasonable fee).
The DVD features the cool ads (“interstitials”)
that sold me on the film but don't actually occur in the movie. I've
never seen quite so many in a movie, but they make it worth trolling
through the DVD's special features to see them.
Yeah, this film was predictable, but it was
predictable in a good way. The characters were all so great, I wanted
the movie to be longer to play around with some additional weird
parent/friend/teacher/guidance counselor/girlfriend situations. They
built a Ferrari and just used it to go to the corner market for a
quart of milk. It's a good rental, but probably not a disc you'll want
in your permanent library. - Evan Upchurch -
Technical Aspects
Overall, I am impressed with the technical
quality of the film. While the deleted scenes are pretty low quality,
the film itself is first rate. All exterior shots look stunning with
excellent contrast and only minor halos around objects. The interior
shots are not as good, and appear a bit flat and soft. Low-lit shots
tend to contain more grain, and applying a filter lessens this, making
it easier to compress. The quality of the audio is equal to that of
the video. Dialog is always intelligible throughout, with popular
music sprinkled in like your typical teen comedy. The surround
involvement was subtle, and was used mainly for ambience. They never
pulled my attention away from the characters on-screen. I did not
detect any audible distortions from any of the channels.
This is the second title where we have taken a
close look at the MPEG flags, and it is much better than the previous
disc. The disc starts out with 2-2 pulldown flags, but this only last
for 8 fields and occurs at the very start of the movie. Perhaps it is
the black just before the Paramount logo. There is only 1 drop to
video during the entire film, and that takes place approximately 17
seconds from the time you start the movie, so this appears to be
somewhere just after the Paramount logo and during the black prior to
the MTV logo. I listed the 1 second sequence of flags below with the
drop to video in red. I would rate the encoding on this disc as
virtually perfect. The errors do not happen during the film, so this
disc should look great on both flag and cadence-reading progressive
scan players alike.
E 00:17:01 | C
00:17:01
Pic: 05 P:F:P-B
Pic: 06 P:F:PRB
Pic: 07 P:F:P-T
Pic: 08 P:F:PRT
Pic: 09 P:F:P-B
Pic: 00 I:F:PRB
Pic: 01 P:F:P-T
Pic: 02 P:F:PRT
Pic: 03 P:F:P-B
Pic: 04 P:F:PRB
Pic: 05 P:F:P-T
Pic: 06 P:F:PRT
Pic: 07 P:F:P-B
Pic: 08 P:F:PRB
Pic: 09 P:F:P-T
Pic: 10 P:F:PRT
Pic: 11 P:F:P-B
Pic: 00 I:F:PRB
Pic: 01 P:F:P-T
Pic: 02 P:F:PRT
Pic: 03 P:F:P-B
Pic: 04 P:F:PRB
Pic: 05 P:F:--T
Pic: 06 P:F:--T
E 00:18:00 | C 00:18:00 |
To have a better understanding of what the flags
above mean, please refer to our "A
Beautiful Mind" review. - Stacey Spears -
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Touchstone Pictures
2002, Color, Rated R
3 Hr 4 Min
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16:9 Enh.)
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English DTS 5.1
French Dolby Surround
English Dolby Headphone
3 separate commentary tracks
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale.
DVD Release date: 7/02/02
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
Yes |
Sex |
Suggestive |
Language |
"S" Word |
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"Pearl Harbor: The Director's Cut"
Synopsis
JJ, our Editor-in-Chief, reviewed the original DVD
release in issue
81 of our Movie Renter's Guide back in December of 2001. He found the film
more entertaining than I did.
The set is split on 2 discs. Disc 2 goes straight to the
menu instead of the film.
The movie follows the lives of two life time friends,
from their entrance into the army air force, through the events of Pearl
Harbor, and on into the first air raids into Japan. When one of the friends,
Rafe, goes off to fly with the British in England, the other, Danny, is left
with Rafe's girlfriend Kate, an army nurse stationed at Pearl Harbor. When
tragic news comes from England, the two become emotionally involved, but they
soon find out that Rafe did not die when he returns in time for the attack on
Pearl Harbor. The two friends overcome their differences in combat and go on
to fly in the first air raids against Japan.
This is one of the biggest disappointments to come out of Hollywood last year
in that all the resources were at hand for a truly wonderful picture, but
Pearl ultimately fails on many fundamental levels.
How can I even begin a commentary without discourse on the two films which
Pearl so obviously tries to be: "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic" (1997).
And it attempts to do so within the Bruckheimer formula, exemplified in his
film "Armageddon".
Just as James Cameron proved to the world that a romance could be set against
the backdrop of a real life tragedy, Spielberg successfully told a story of
war through the personal lives of individuals. Pearl does the opposite and
tries to tell the story of individuals through war. It just doesn't work and
the attack on Pearl Harbor seems a consequential ancillary element to the
whole thing as oppose in integral as the Titanic sinking was in the 1997 film.
Its almost as if the historical value of the battle is just an excuse for some
really wicked action.
The movie is presented with 3 almost distinct acts: The tale of the friends
and lovers (which permeates the 2nd and 3rd acts), the attack on Pearl Harbor,
and the first aerial assault against Japan. The pacing is disorienting and the
whole thing wraps up much too quick with sticky-sweet patriotism (a-lŕ
Armageddon). Any film must in and of itself urn the right to run for 3 hours
and Pearl does not, lacking the Epic qualities such a running time requires.
To his credit, the most emotionally charged line in the whole film is by the
dramatically underused Cuba Gooding Jr. when he says "Everyone is where they
need to be captain..."
The directors cut adds just a little over one minute of
footage, which changes the rating of the film from PG-13 to R. Most of these
new scenes take place during the attack and include such things as a severed
head.
While the film is on the whole enjoyable, it simply does not get a "must see"
status, displacing itself from potential instant classic to just being summer
hit. Further, it seems unfair for the title to be "Pearl Harbor" (it's like
calling Saving Private Ryan "D-Day").
The lads at ILM have really outdone themselves this time with their digital
art. The camera is unfortunately too 'candid' at times with its wild shimmy,
but when stable, the WW2 fighter shots are some of the best you have ever
seen. Of particular interest are the shots from 'just behind' the fighters or
bombs which deliver a spectacular ride. Composition is excellent, lighting is
excellent, resulting in marvelous cinematography. - Brian Florian -
Extras
This new special edition Vista Series is a 4 disc set
that is packed in one of the most interesting cases I have seen yet. I found a
little trouble getting the discs out, but overall I liked the look and feel.
There are numerous documentaries in this DVD set. There
are also two short video segments with some of the actors attending military
training. My favorite was with the enlisted men. They went through a small
boot camp type course with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. It brought
back memories of the military and how much fun basic training wasn't. :)
However, it appears that they had it easy, because it looks like the majority of the time was
spent going through a confidence course. Of course, this was training for an
enlisted man when they were all officers. It think they should have attended
the same training course as Alec Baldwin.
If you are a film collector, this set belongs in your
collection.
Technical Aspects
The Dolby Digital soundtrack is the one of the best I've heard this year with
aggressive creation of all sound spaces. The discreet channels are exploited
to full advantage as plains, bullets, and explosions permeate the sound space
but never to a degree which distracts from the visual. LFE is judicious, not
exigent, and while generally loud, the soundtrack is never piercing.
Also included is a special Dolby Headphone track. This
is currently a one of a kind and you can read more about the process on the
Dolby
website. With most films, to actually experience Dolby Headphone, you need
a Dolby Headphone processor. This is an external box that takes the 5.1 signal
and converts it to a special 2-channel signal that provides the surround
sensation through a pair of headphones. Pearl Harbor is unique in that they
did this process on the authoring side and actually have that special
2-channel signal on the disc. This means you can use a normal pair of
headphones and experience it. This is great if you use a laptop or portable
DVD player.
Overall the image quality is very good and the only
thing keeping it from a perfect 5 is the halos (Edge Enhancement) that often
show up around objects, most notably the fighter planes.
E 129:44:01 | C
04:17:42
Pic: 05 P:F:PRT
Pic: 06 B:F:P-B
Pic: 07 B:F:PRB
Pic: 08 P:F:P-T
Pic: 09 B:F:PRT
Pic: 10 B:F:P-B
Pic: 11 P:F:PRB
Pic: 00 B:F:P-T
Pic: 01 B:F:PRT
Pic: 02 I:F:P-B
Pic: 03 B:F:PRB
Pic: 04 B:F:P-T
Pic: 05 P:F:P-T
Pic: 06 B:F:P-T
Pic: 07 P:F:P-T
Starting Chapter 32.
Pic: 00 I:F:P-T |
The flags for the film were virtually perfect. The
last 5 MPEG pictures (10 fields) on each disc was stuck in 2-2 pulldown, the
example above is at the end of the first disc, but the rest was perfect. I do
wish that inserting the second disc would have gone straight to the film
instead of the menu. - Stacey Spears -
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Universal Studios Home Video
2001, Color, Rated R
2 Hr 18 Min
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16:9 Enh.)
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Directed by Robert Altman
Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Camilla
Rutherford, Charles Dance, Geraldine Somerville, Tom Hollander,
Natasha Wightman, Jeremy Northam, Bob Balaban, James Wilby, Claudie
Blakley, Laurence Fox, Trent Ford, and Ryan Phillippe.
DVD Release date: 6/25/02
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
One Murder |
Sex |
Not Graphic |
Language |
Minor |
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"Gosford Park"
Synopsis
The critical acclaim that the film has received,
including the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, does little to hide its
limited appeal to most viewers.
The film's setting is England in the early 1930's, at
Sir William (Michael Gambon) and Lady Sylvia McCordle's (Kristin Scott Thomas)
magnificent country estate. The occasion is a weekend shooting party, where
the well-to-do can gather and show off their finely trained servants. Oh, and
they do shoot some birds too. The veritable train of supporting characters is
so populous that it's difficult to identify who's who. The conformist attire
of the privileged bunch doesn't make things any easier. From start to finish,
the movie screams of the period piece that one endures in the name of
edification, much like some “classics” assigned in high school literature
classes.
Unfortunately, much of the charm in a typical period
piece is also missing in Gosford Park. The characters aren't deeply developed,
doing so with 20+ characters might have been impossible without changing the
format to a BBC mini-series. The acting and interaction between characters is
a bright spot, with Ryan Philippe's performance being a notable exception. The
dialogue is subtly amusing at times, although the underlying social commentary
is predictable and unoriginal. The murder mystery concept materializes very
late in the movie, and the characters don't seem to care or change much after
it happens. It's a lot to ask of any viewer to create empathy and interest on
their own.
The movie does offer quite a bit in terms of camera
work, set design, and period atmosphere. The long, continuous shots of the
talented cast are impressive, as is the contrast of the upstairs and
downstairs of the mansion. The environment of the estate is completely
convincing, attractive, and immersive – so much so that if you like the style
of that era, it may be worth watching for the sets alone. - Ya-Bing Chu -
Technical Aspects
The overall video quality is a tad on the soft side. There are minor halos
(Edge Enhancement) during the interior shots, mostly seen around the black
jackets of the male servants. The hunting scene opens with a bird flying and
it has pretty severe edge enhancement around it. The entire hunting scene is
shown outdoors and is noisy.
Audio effects are at a minimum level, as the use of
surround sound was definitely in its infancy in the 1930's. Voices are located
quite well, which helps the many scenes in which many people are talking at
once. However, I was still unable to understand some snippets of dialog that I
was curious about, no matter how many times I replayed certain scenes.
The were 25 times during the film that the flags dropped
to video. 16 of these occurred during a chapter break. In fact every chapter
break would drop to video for a few fields before and after the break. There
were also six drops that only lasted for 2 fields, two drops that lasted for
10 fields, and one drop at the end that was 8 fields.
E 82:00:01 | C
10:14:31
Pic: 03 B:F:P-B
Pic: 04 B:F:PRB
Pic: 05 P:F:P-T
Pic: 06 B:F:--T
Pic: 07 P:F:--T
Starting Chapter 10.
Pic: 00 I:F:--T
Pic: 01 B:F:PRT
Pic: 02 P:F:P-B
Pic: 03 B:F:--B
Pic: 04 B:F:PRB
Pic: 05 P:F:P-T
Pic: 06 B:F:--T
Pic: 07 B:F:PRT
Pic: 08 P:F:P-B
Pic: 09 B:F:PRB
Pic: 10 B:F:P-T
Pic: 11 P:F:PRT
Pic: 00 B:F:P-B
Pic: 01 B:F:PRB
Pic: 02 I:F:P-T
Pic: 03 B:F:PRT
Pic: 04 B:F:P-B
Pic: 05 P:F:PRB
Pic: 06 B:F:P-T
Pic: 07 B:F:PRT
E 82:01:01 | C 00:00:49 |
Above is a one second sequence taken around
chapter 10. You can see the 2 Pic (4 fields) prior to chapter 10 and
the 1 Pic (2 fields) after chapter ten represented by --T. You can
also see two random 1 Pic (2 fields) drops to video with Pic: 03 and
Pic: 06 after chapter 10. - Stacey Spears -
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Fox Home Entertainment
2001, Color, PG-13
1 Hr 59 Min
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
English Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0
Directed by The Farrelly Brothers
Starring Jack Black, Jason Alexander, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
DVD Release date: 7/02/02
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
None |
Sex |
Suggestive |
Language |
None |
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"Shallow Hal"
Synopsis
Two Sentence Plot: Beauty is skin deep, and all
it takes is major hypnosis to realize it. This movie reminded me of "Shrek"
with the unpleasant addition human deformity and illness.
Frankly this movie starts out in a really, really
depressing way. Hal's dad, a minister (adding to the oddity of the situation),
is dying on a morphine drip and gives his son some really strange, drug-addled
advice in matters of the heart scarring him for life. It took ten minutes for
me to recover from it before I could really concentrate on the rest of the
film.
The movie gets its dramatic juice from a chance
encounter with Tony Robbins when he and Hal (Jack Black) get trapped in an
elevator together. Self improvement hypnotic suggestion changes Hal from a
superficial prick to an “inner-beauty” focused guy. Incidentally, I felt
myself wishing for someone to hypnotize me into thinking that Tony Robbins was
doing a good job acting. Hal's supposed to have changed to only see the inner
beauty of people, but it's really irritating in the opposite direction. His
delusion makes the fact that they are unattractive on the surface somehow more
insulting. Maybe it's just me. Although, I have to admit that it was
interesting that some of the attractive people (who didn't have inner beauty)
were seen by Jack as more ugly. I wish that they had done more of that.
The Farrelly brothers aren't known for their restraint,
but joking about spina bifida, vestigial tails, burn victims, and morbid
obesity really is a bit much. Whenever I see movies like this it makes me
wonder what the casting call was like. “OK...I want you to send over some
8x10's of some really fat and unattractive people. Oh, and hey, what do you
have in an actor with spina bifida. [Covering phone with hand] Hey Tony [the
makeup artist]…we're gonna have to get some crazy ugly makeup and prosthetics
going, too.”
I know that I said that Jack is funny guy in a previous
review, but man this was strained a bit with him acting as a somewhat serious
guy. I guess that I'll always see him as the Tenacious D, High Fidelity Jack.
When he dials it back a notch, I'm not so enamored with him. Don't get me
wrong, I still think he's great (there is a twisted sparkle to everything he
does).
Just as an aside, Jason Alexander's character's first
dialog sounds suspiciously Seinfeldian (c'mon breaking up with a girl because
one toe is longer than the other?!). I suppose that is the funniest way for
him to be. His other TV work (sitcom and KFC commercials) hasn't really helped
him realize his comic potential.
Bottom Line
I was uncomfortable through the majority of this film,
and it just barely recovered for a weakly heartwarming ending. I reckon
there's a lesson in this film, but I really didn't want to learn it this way.
- Evan Upchurch -
Technical Aspects
The video quality rates just slightly better than the film's entertainment
value. I found the entire film to be soft, very soft. On top of that, there
was excessive halos (Edge Enhancement) around everything. All medium to long
shots were fuzzy and lacked any type of detail.
The good news is the MPEG encoding on this disc is
perfect. Not a single drop to video mode during the entire film. -
Stacey Spears -
|
Columbia Tristar Home Video
2001, Color, Rated R
1 Hr 35 Min
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (16:9 Enh.)
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Directed by Larry Clark
Starring Andrew Keegan, Tara Subkoff, Richard Hillman, Tiffany Limos,
and Stephen Jasso.
DVD Release Date: 7/02/02
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0 |
5 |
Entertainment |
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Video |
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
Yes |
Sex |
Involving Teens |
Language |
"F" & "S" Words |
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"Teenage Caveman"
Synopsis
In 1995 Larry Clark unleashed upon the world the
disturbing tale of teenage life in New York known as Kids. Six years later
Larry Clark is back once again showing us the wild side of teenagers in
another one of the Arkoff Create Feature remakes. This one is loosely based on
the 1958 Roger Corman tale, Teenage Cave Man. JJ previously reviewed one of
the other recent Create Feature titles
Earth Vs. the Spider.
Sometime in the not-so-distant future a group of
teenagers, in a post apocalyptic society, are forced to run-away from their
tribe after David (Andrew Keegan) kills the clan's shaman (Paul Hipp), his
father, for trying to bed his girlfriend Sarah (Tara Subkoff) in the name of
god.
While with the tribe we learn that sex is a forbidden
subject and so was reading. Only those privileged were aloud to read. David
had learned to read from his father and set out to teach is his friends.
Penthouse letters, yes the adult magazine, was the training material. This was
a mildly amusing scene as they really had no understanding of what it was they
were reading.
Upon discovering what appear to be the ruins of Seattle,
the group is caught in a storm and seeks shelter under a rock. When they
awake, they find themselves in new clothes sprawled out on comfy couches in a
clean apartment. Moments later their gracious new hosts Neil (Richard Hillman)
and Judith (Tiffany Limos) arrive and introduce them to a world of drugs,
booze, sex, more drugs, more booze, and some deadly sex.
When one of the girls goes missing, Sarah gets suspicion
of her new hosts and convinces David they should investigate and they soon
uncover the secrets that Neil and Judith are hiding.
Looking at the cover you might think the film is filled
with monsters, but this can't be further from the truth. The party scene is
pure Larry Clark as he explores teenage sexuality. This is a B-movie pure and
simple and teeters on the boarder of guilty pleasure. It was originally shown
on cable TV.
Technical Aspects
This disc contains both a widescreen and
Pan & Scan
version of the film on a dual layer (DVD-9) DVD. I am impressed the quality of
the image for such a lower budget title. There is nary a hint of edge
enhancement to be found. The exterior shots are all over exposed and look
blown out contrast wise, but this appears to be the style chosen. This is
similar to the exterior shots in the film Pitch Black. Though some of the
exteriors do appear a bit noisy.
During the film I noticed a few deinterlacing artifacts.
My progressive scan DVD player is using the Sage (Faroudja) chipset, which is
one of the best. I was surprised at the combing, until I dumped the flags.
Teenage Caveman was shot on film and transferred to video for editing and its
eventual cable premier. Because of this, the encoding on this disc is 100%
video. This film is pretty much not viewable on a flag based progressive scan
player like an HTPC. If you want to watch this film in 480p, you need a DVD
player equipped with Silicon Image or Sage deinterlacing. This is just like
the More Tales of the City DVD we used in
part 5 of the
DVD Benchmark. - Stacey Spears -
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Miramax Films
2001, Color, Rated R
1 Hr 51 Min
Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
English Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 2.0
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom
Starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Scott Glenn, Rhys
Ifans, Pete Postlethwaite, and Cate Blanchett.
DVD Release Date 6/18/02
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0 |
5 |
Entertainment |
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Video |
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
Rape & Pillage |
Sex |
Yes |
Language |
"F" & "S" Words |
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"Shipping News"
Synopsis
This is the Story of Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) who, one
days, runs into Petal (Kate Blanchett) a wild girl who just wants to have sex
and eat snacks. We quickly fast-forward several years within minutes at the
point where their daughter Bunny played by (Alyssa, Kaitlyn, and Lauren
Gainer) is a young girl. Petal decides to take Bunny and sale her and escape
with the money. Tragedy strikes twice for Quoyle, which quickly places Bunny
back with him and he meets his aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) as she tries to still
her brothers ashes.
The unlikely trio make their way to Newfoundland, which is where the Quoyle
family came from. Quoyle manages to land a job at the local news paper where
he learns self confidence. He also meets a new love Wavey (Julianne Moore)
where he gets his first taste of seal flipper pie. Quoyle slowly learns of his
ancestors and the pirates that they were.
Unlike Lasse's previous two films, Chocolate and the Cider House Rules, the
Shipping news was a bit slower and more depressing. The first part of the film
was a real downer as we learned that Quoyle has had a pretty sad life.
The film is based on the novel by E. Annie Proulx.
Technical Aspects
There is a fair amount of edge enhancement and ringing found on this
DVD. All film credits have halos (I would call ringing instead of edge
enhancement) above and below, which often happens when they were not filtered,
but should have been. On screen text contain hard edges and should be
filtered.
While the overall appearance of the film would suggest
some type of horizontal filter has been applied, the appearance of excessive
film grain at times would would seem to make that not possible. It is possible
they applied a filter and then artificially sharpened (DVNR) the image to make
up for the softness, which would explain the halos.
The audio, on the other hand, was nicely done. They used
the surround channels for believable ambience.
The MPEG encoding dropped to video 36 times during the
length of this film. During the last couple minutes of the film, the encoding
drops to video and stays that way for the remainder of the film, I have
included that segment in the example below. This appears to take place during
the film credits, which is not uncommon. There was a drop to video at every
chapter break for 10 fields. There were another 11 random drops to video, each
lasting 2 fields.
E 111:46:01 | C
01:37:11
Pic: 01 B:F:PRB
Pic: 02 I:F:PRT
Pic: 03 B:F:PRB
Pic: 04 B:F:PRT
Pic: 05 P:F:PRB
Pic: 06 B:F:PRT
Pic: 07 B:F:PRB
Pic: 08 P:F:PRT
Pic: 09 B:F:PRB
Pic: 10 B:F:PRT
Pic: 11 P:F:PRB
Pic: 00 B:F:--T
Pic: 01 B:F:--T
Pic: 02 I:F:--T
Pic: 03 B:F:--T
Pic: 04 B:F:--T
Pic: 05 P:F:--T
Pic: 06 B:F:--T
Pic: 07 B:F:--T
Pic: 08 P:F:--T
Pic: 09 B:F:--T
Pic: 10 B:F:--T
Pic: 11 P:F:--T
Pic: 00 B:F:--T
E 111:47:00 | C 01:38:10 |
There were also a few other random drops to
video throughout for varying lengths of time, all short. To have a
better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our
"A Beautiful Mind" review. -
Stacey Spears -
|
Paramount Pictures
2001, Color, Raged G
1 Hr 22 Min
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (16: En.), 4:3 Full Screen
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0
French Dolby Digital 2.0
Directed by John A. Davis
Featuring the voices talents of Martin Short, Patrick Stewart, Debi
Derryberry, and Carolyn Lawrence.
Release Date: 7/02/02
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0 |
5 |
Entertainment |
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Video |
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Audio |
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Photography |
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MPEG Flags |
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Violence |
None |
Sex |
None |
Language |
None |
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"Jimmy Neutron"
Synopsis
Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius is the new animated feature
film from Paramount and Nickelodeon. Jimmy Neutron is unique in that both the
theatrical film and television series were developed at the same time along
with a multi-media franchise. Jimmy Neutron also received an Academy Award
nomination this year in the new category Best Animated Feature Film.
In 2001, Nickelodeon created a series of 1 minute segments leading up to the
premier of the film, which are included on the DVD under “interstitials and
cliffhangers.” The actual TV series launches this fall on Nick starting
9/6/02.
Jimmy, as you might have guessed, is a boy genius. He has a pet robot dog
named Goddard who is always by his side and comes loaded with features and
bugs. His two best friends are Carl Wheezer and Sheen. The girl that he likes,
if he were to like girls, is Cindy Vortex and her best friend is Libby. Of
course Nick Dean is the cool kid in class that everyone looks up to.
Jimmy has more cool gadgets than James Bond or Batman, but unlike Bond and
Batman, Jimmy builds all of his own toys.
As the film starts, we see Jimmy and Carl heading off into space on Jimmy's
rocket. He is trying to place a mini satellite into space so he can
communicate with aliens. What Jimmy does not realize is that the Aliens who
find the satellite are not really friendly and kidnap all of the parents in
town. Jimmy and his friends must get together and save their parents from
becoming a sacrifice to a big chicken God. To do this, Jimmy retrofits a bunch
of rides at the new amusement park to fly into outer space. And so the
adventure begins.
Unlike the Pixar films that cross the age barrier for all to enjoy, Jimmy
feels more geared towards the younger audience. Adults may enjoy it the first
time around, but may not be able take the multiple viewings their kids will
surely endure.
Along with the interstitials, there are two music videos and a short making of
documentary on the disc.
Technical Aspects
The video quality on this disc is excellent. The only flaw I could find is
what appears to be clipped white detail. This is most noticeable when light is
reflecting off of a characters face or the white extinguishing agent that
Jimmy uses to put out the fire caused by his rocket pack. Paramount DVDs have
always contained video with excellent dynamic range with detail the extends
from below black to above white. I am sure this disc will become another
favorite home theater demo disc. A word of warning to those with DVD players
that have the insidious
chroma bug, this will be another great test disc!
The audio on the disc is fun as well, but not quite as
active as other recent films. I suspect this is purely by design to not
frighten the younger audience. It seems that the young ones don't always
appreciate mixes as active as as older folk. - Stacey Spears -
© Copyright 2002
Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity
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