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"Jet Li: Contract Killer" (Sat sau ji wong) Synopsis Plot Overview Jet Li kicking butt and taking names this time as a hitman out to collect a large reward for finding the King of Killers. Review When a Yakuza boss is executed by the King of Killers, his family offers up a large reward for anyone who can capture or kill him. Ah Fu (Jet Li) is just trying to make a living because he has promised his mother a large house. He is living in a small apartment with many others who are all trying to become hitmen. When Fu learns of the reward money, he attends the briefing by the family. When he is unable to enter without an invitation, he runs into Ngok Lo (Eric Tsang) who has an invitation and invites Fu with him. Lo, himself, is not a hitman so he needs Fu to do the dirty work while he acts as his agent. Fu and Lo become friends, and Fu makes a promise to Kiki (Gigi Leung) Lo’s daughter, that he will keep an eye on him. Fu spends a great deal of time keeping Lo out of trouble. As the movie progresses, we learn that someone had actually hired the King of Killers to take out the Yazuka boss for something he had done a long time ago. This is an interesting role for Jet Li because his character is rather inept. While he can fight, he does not know much else. He trusts everyone he meets, and he is always saving his change. While looking at this DVD, I also had the Tai Seng version on hand, which is titled "The Hitman". While the picture on the CTHV release is much better, the soundtrack on the US release is dubbed. We do not get the option of hearing the original Cantonese soundtrack. It is a unique soundtrack because Jet Li is not dubbed. Of course in the US film, everyone is dubbed, including the ones who speak English. The film itself is another action packed film with Jet Li. If you like his style of action, which I do, you will probably want to take a look at it. Extras There is little in the way of extras on this disc. With the exception of a film trailers and filmographies, there is nothing else. Technical The film elements used to make this DVD were not in the best condition. There are several nicks and scratches visible, which appears to be common with films coming from Hong Kong. It is an anamorphic transfer, which I feel is a big improvement over the Tai Seng DVD. My gripe, as I stated above, is that we do not get the option of listening to the original Cantonese soundtrack and reading the English subtitles. MPEG flags seems to be about average.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red and chapter breaks marked in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview The tale of Sherlock Holmes told once again, this time in animated mouse form and no, we are not talking about Mickey, though if you look hard enough, you will find a hidden Mickey in the film. This is the story of Basil, a little mouse, who happens to live in the home of his idol, the famous Sherlock Holmes. This film is actually based on a children’s book series by Eve Titus entitled Basil of Baker Street. Review When a toymaker goes missing, his daughter Olivia searches out the help of Basil. While looking for Basil, she runs into and older mouse named Dawson, and the two of them track down Basil together. Dawson ends up being the Dr. Watson in this mouse fable. Basil discovers that Professor Ratigan, his arch-nemesis, is behind the mouse-napping of Olivia’s father. Ratigan and his hench-bat Fidget have not only taken her father, but they have also planned to eliminate the Queen. There is a great deal of character development for such a short film. I guess that happens when you only have a couple of songs in the film. Basil and Ratigan often battle using wits instead of strength, which is a nice change. In fact, we see Basil use science on many occasions during this film. It was not until Disney released "The Little Mermaid" that the studio's luck turned into their favor. With The Little Mermaid we had great musical numbers that brought back the enjoyment of musical for the younger generation. With all the great Disney films since, such as "Aladdin", "The Lion King", and "Beauty and the Beast", we have almost forgotten about the great ones that came before. This is the first animated film to use computer graphics even though Beauty and the Beast often gets that credit. This is one of the better Disney films, though it gets very little appreciation. I highly recommend this movie for children and adults alike. Extras There are two small features that have some relation to this DVD. One is the 8 minute short The making of the Great Mouse Detective, which is a very short look at some of the voice talents and the artists. There is also a Karaoke from one of the movie's songs. Also included are a couple of other animation shorts Donald's Crime and Clock Cleaners, neither have anything to do with this film. To round out, there are several trailers for upcoming Disney films. Technical I am actually glad it has taken so long for this wonderful film to make it onto DVD. A lot of earlier widescreen Disney animations on DVD are not enhanced for anamorphic displays. Just because a film is a mere 1.66:1 does not mean it should not be presented in the highest available quality. Disney has done this disc correctly by delivering a very clean transfer. Like most animations, this disc looks great. Since Detective is an older film, Dolby Digital was not in use at the time this film was released theatrically. With that said, it is mainly dialog driven with little surround use. Not a bad mix by any means, but not what we are used to today. Several times during the film, some of the dialog sounded a bit edgy like it was starting to distort. The MPEG flags are a bit mixed. The drops to video lasted a little longer than normal. On the good side, only 4 chapter breaks dropped to video.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview In the last few years, we have been hit with an onslaught of both high school and gross-out films (sometimes they were both). Which one is this? It is a little of each and a lot of neither. You have your typical collection of geeks, babes, and bullies. Review Dizzy Harrison (DJ Qualls) has been picked on all his life, but things are going to change because he is now a senior in high school. On the first day of his senior year, he sees Tina (Rachael E. Stevens), the popular girl in school, having car trouble. He figures this is his chance to make an impression. While he does solve her problem, she tells him he is not her type. Later in the day, he approaches Tina in the cafeteria and hits on her again. This time Tina’s boyfriend steps up and things begin to go down hill for Dizzy here. This initial scene made me think we were in for yet another gross-out film. Because of some unfortunate events, Dizzy must pay a visit to the school guidance counselor, Kiki Pierce (Ileana Douglas), who goes on to misdiagnose Dizzy throughout the rest of the film. She manages to get Dizzy’s father (Lyle Lovett) to sell his home and spend more time with Dizzy. Through some other events that take place, Dizzy ends up in jail, and this is where he meets Luther (Eddie Griffin) who helps Dizzy to take control of his life. He tells Dizzy he must start over in a new school and take down the toughest kid there, so that he can become popular. Dizzy manages to get expelled from his current school and moves on to another. With the help of Luther and friends, he transforms into the mysterious new guy Gil Harris and is able to climb to the top at the new school. Here is where he meets Danielle (Eliza Dushku), whom he happens to steal away from Connor (Ross Patterson), the school's bully/tough guy. Dizzy must now make a choice between his old geeky friends or his new popular crowd. To enjoy this film you really need some serious suspension of disbelief. There is nothing realistic in the film. Dizzy is paired with the toughest inmates for one night because of a small incident? He is then allowed to visit and hang out in the yard with the inmates so that he can get transformed. The entire cast looks too old for high school, and the film is not sure if it is a Airplane style comedy like, “Not Another Teen Movie” or a more serious teen film like “Can’t Hardly Wait” The film has a few funny moments that stand on their own, it has a good musical soundtrack, and there are lots and lots of cameos. These reasons alone make it a good rental. There is nothing in the way of supplements except for one music video and a handful of trailers. Technical The DVD contains both a widescreen and Pan & Scan presentation on a single side. There were several scenes that contained a fair amount of video noise (possibly compression related). The bitrate during the film bounced between 3-4 Mb/sec, which is fairly compressed. On the audio side, the film had a really good soundtrack. MPEG flags seems to be about average.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview How about a comedy from a girl's point of view? Be careful what you wish for because it just came true. This is the story of three best friends who must deal with the age old problem, men! Review Christina Walters (Cameron Diaz) has made a life out of not getting too close to any one guy. She commonly hands out the wrong phone number to guys or simply disappears when the time is right. One night, when trying to console her roommate Jane (Selma Blair), who was dumped just prior to her 1 year anniversary with her boyfriend, she happens into the man that might be the one, if she is willing to take a chance, of course! The initial encounter between Christina and Peter (Thomas Jane) is a bit confrontational. You see Christina just grab his butt in the club and then proceeds to set him and Jane up for a one night stand. While arguing, Jane manages to find her own guy. Getting a second chance that evening, Christina and Peter have a much better second conversation, but then ends when Peter’s brother whisks him away. Before going, Peter does invite her to a party at the hotel where they are staying. She chickens out that evening, but decides to catch him the next morning, but it’s too late, he has checked out. Christina’s other roommate Courtney (Christina Applegate) decides to motivate Christina, so they take off on a road trip to find Peter. I have to be honest; I was not expecting much from this film. I was pleasantly surprised after watching the DVD. It actually turned out to be entertaining. I do think that Christina Applegate stole the show, and upstaged both Cameron Diaz and Selma Blair. However, I did feel that both Camera and Christina had a nice on-screen chemistry together that made you believe that have been friends for a long time. One of the things that disappointed me about comedies like "American Pie" and its sequel was the one-sided story. Those films dealt only with the guy’s side, and this one tells its tale from the side of the girls. We get to hear the raunchy stories that woman tell and the way they behave outside the company of men. There is a nice musical number that takes place at chapter 10, which is kind of like the song from "My Best Friend's Wedding", but this song is a little more, well, sexually explicit! Actually, it is like something straight out of "South Park". Not amazing, since the writer of the film, Nancy Pimental, was a staff writer for the popular TV series. There are two versions of this DVD, and I watched the unrated version of the disc. I am not sure what the differences are or which scenes were added, though I can think of a few. While it feels some of what they were going for was gross-out, it came off much nicer than that. Extras The film has a couple of shorts, one which is a behind-the-scenes called, “Politically Erect”, and the other is “A day in the life of Nancy M. Pimental.” The Day in the life is a pretty entertaining piece. It is an interview with Nancy and her friends about a typical day in her life while writing the movie. While I am sure the friends in this feature are real, the rest is just an amusing story. We learn that Nancy uses poor children to do the writing for her; she spends most of her time admiring her pool boy Tad, who happens to clean her pool 4 times a week. We get to meet the obsessed fan who is the head of the Nancy P. fan club. We also get to meet someone from her high school days who is now back in her life because she is famous. Technical The video quality is fairly good on this disc. There is an exterior shot during the opening of the film when some of the former men in Christina Walters’s life are being interviewed, and that scene looks spectacular. It is filled with detail and rivals some of the films I have seen on HD. There are other interior shots that are a bit noisy. The bitrate on this disc bounced between 5-7 Mb/sec, which is a lot less restrictive. It is not as detailed as some of CTHVs Superbit titles (7 - 8 Mb/sec), but does look good. (Remember, the maximum video bitrate for DVD is 9.8 Mb/sec. The maximum combined audio and video is 10.08 Mb/sec.) This disc also has a wonderful soundtrack. The song during chapter 10 did sound like it was sung in a recording booth, but the rest of the soundtrack worked nicely. MPEG flags seems to be about average.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Clockstoppers has quickly arrived on video after its short theatrical run. Like so many films these days, Clockstoppers should be more successful at home on the small screen than it was at the Cineplex. Clockstoppers is an easy to watch, so I would consider it one of those “sit back and enjoy it” rides. Zak (Jesse Bradford) is your typical high school teenager whose main interests include cars and girls. Zak’s dad, (Robin Thomas) however, is not your typical dad. He is a science professor at a local college. He pays more attention to his students than he does his own son, which causes some family tension. Zak has worked hard saving up the down payment for his first car, but his dad seems preoccupied with both an upcoming trip and a recent discovery from a former student of his, Earl Dopler (French Stewart). This causes a rift between the two, and Zak’s father leaves on his trip before this issue can be resolved. Zak stumbles on the “discovery” by accident and unknowingly takes it with him, which happens to be in the form of a watch. Just what is this discovery? It is a device that is capable of speeding up the wearers molecules, which appears to make time stop. In reality, you are just moving a lot fast than everything else. Meanwhile, Zak notices Francesca (Paula Garces), a new foreign exchange student at his school. While his first attempt to hit on her fails, he does get a second chance and ends up spending the day with her, raking leaves. While in the process of cleaning the yard, he engages the watch's ability and enters what is called hypertime. This takes the bullet-time special effects from "The Matrix" to a whole new level. Zak and Francesca embark on an afternoon of hypertime, having fun with the local town. They also manage to help Zak’s friend Meeker (Garikayi Mutambirwa) in a DJ competition where he otherwise would have embarrassed himself. And what movie would not be complete without an antagonist? Michael Bean plays Gates, the head of the program that created hypertime. It seems the government wants to shut down the program because they are afraid the technology might fall into the hands of terrorists. What the government does not know is that Gates and his team have already got the technology working. Like all new technology, there are always a few small bugs to work out, and in the case of hypertime, it is aging. The hypertime process ages you if you spend more than a coupe of hours in it. Gates is forcing Dopler to solve this problem. When Dopler informs them he enlisted the help of his former teacher, they tear apart Zak’s house looking for the watch. Dopler manages to escape with the help of Zak, so Gates decides to kidnap his father to complete the work. Clockstoppers is a Nickelodeon film, which suggests it is intended for kids. However, the film appears to be targeted at a slightly older audience. As I said initially, this film is easy to watch. It requires no mental involvement from you, you can just sit back and enjoy hour and a half ride. It is not great filmmaking, but it is fun and easy to recommend. Extras There is a small 10 minute featurette on the making of this film. We get some short insight from the director and the cast members. We also get to see how some of the special effects scenes were created using the Matrix-pioneering bullet-time technique. There is a theatrical trailer and four promotional spots. We get one with Zak on his own, Francesca on her own, Zak and Francesca, and finally one with Meeker. I don’t recall ever seeing this on TV, but perhaps they were used on Nickelodeon. And finally there are two music videos. The Smash Mouth, “Holiday in my Head” and Lil’ Jay, “It’s the Weekend.” Technical The overall video quality on this disc is excellent. The exterior shots are very clean and detailed. The interior low-lit shots are consistent with the exterior shots in remaining detailed and virtually noise free. The only aspect of the picture quality I would criticize is the lack of detail in facial shots. Perhaps this was the original intent, but I am not sure. All close-ups of faces appear a bit smoothed out. This DVD contains an aggressive sound mix. The opening credits are a demo scene all on their own, with a strong surround envelopment. I thought the surround mix, while aggressive, was not distracting, and I never noticed any compressed or distorted dialog. The MPEG encoding on this disc is excellent. There was not a single drop to video in the entire film. There were 25 occurrences of 3-3 flags and 23 occurrences of 2-2 progressive.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) is finally reunited with her long lost brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell), which she has not seen since she was four. She knows very little about her brother, and before she gets a chance to really know him, he disappears for awhile. Meanwhile Irena is left to tour New Orleans all on her own. She winds up at a zoo where she is fascinated by a recently acquired black leopard. I guess she lost track of the time because she is still standing there sketching the animal long after closing. How do you suppose no one at the zoo saw her? Oliver (John Heard), the zoo’s curator, finds Irena while he is closing up shop for the night. Initially she runs away and this is our first shot of her doing something “unusual”. She manages to scale up a tree rather quickly. Oliver and Irena end up going out to dinner for some tasty oysters, and she ends up with a job working at the zoo in the gift shop. A little while later Paul shows back up and tries to get Irena in bed, but she manages to escape. This is when the police make a startling discovery in Paul’s basement. There appear to be the remains of human bones and a cage. The authorities believe Paul is the owner of the black leopard and that he has been feeding the cat some humans. If they only knew the truth! Irena discovers that Paul has been searching for her his whole life. He tells her that they cannot have sex with anyone but each other or they will turn into a leopard. The only way to take human form again is to kill. This film is more about sexuality than anything, and this includes incest. The character of Irena is a virgin who has a strong interest in Oliver. Paul is jealous of Oliver because he wants / needs Irena for himself. I don’t recall ever seeing this film up until now. I guess I was expecting something along the lines of a werewolf type film, but I was pleasantly surprised. Extras There is a 25 minutes interview with director Paul Schrader entitled “Cat people: An Intimate Conversation with Paul Schrader”, which was created in 2000. There is also a shorter 10 minute interview with Paul Schrader made during the film entitled “On the set with director Paul Schrader”. He makes a couple of comments that stuck in my mind. First he tells us that he wishes he would not have called the film "Cat People". Too many compared it to the 1942 version. Second was during an interview when he was asked to give a synopsis of the film. He feels that this film is more about imagery, and he would not summarize the film. He also talks about the provocative ending the film has and how his vision was more skin and less blood. He also discusses the casting of the characters. Next up is the 11 minute interview with Tom Burman, the special makeup effects designer on the film. This interview discusses how the effects were created and the style that he was going for. We also get to see some of the designs created for but never used in the film. Following that is a rather scant 3 minute feature from Robert Wise where he talks about producer Val Lewton. Val produced the 1942 version of "Cat People". There are also a couple of short features that includes matte paintings and production photos from the film. We also get the theatrical trailer from the film. Technical I have never seen the previously released non-anamorphic version of the film, so I cannot compare this new release to it. The opening of the film is grainy, but fortunately this clears up quickly. I would describe the overall image quality as soft. I would guess that very little time, if any, was spent cleaning up the source for this DVD as there are nicks and scratches throughout. While the video is now enhanced for 16:9 displays, unlike the previous DVD release, the audio is still only 2-channel. Even so, I obtained very good results when I played back using Pro Logic II decoding in my surround processor. There was a great deal of envelopment from the surrounds, especially with the Carpenter’ish style synthesizer. While there are only 15 drops to video on the MPEG encoding, some of the drops last for a very long time. The first 6,269 MPEG PICs (12, 538 video fields) or nearly 3.5 minutes are all video. The next big drop happens during chapter 11. This drop lasts for 23, 846 MPEG PICs (47,692 video fields) or nearly 13 minutes. Chapter 14 also has a long drop for 3,230 MPEG PICs.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview The story takes in a small New England town. Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl) is having the time of his life, dating the lovely Natalie (Marisa Tomei). He gets along great with her two children. And he is happily working on a lobster fishing boat. While it is hard to gauge the exact age of Frank, he appears to be just out of high school. Natalie is in her thirties and has two children. While Frank’s parents like Natalie, they can’t help but feel she is holding him back. Both Matt (Tom Wilkinson) and Ruth (Sissy Spacek) Fowler are college educated and they want the same for Frank. While Matt feels Frank is free to make up his own mind, Ruth is very much the opposite and tries to control Frank’s decisions. Frank’s parents are not the only ones who are unhappy with him dating Natalie. Richard Strout (William Mapother), Natalie’s soon to be ex-husband, is hoping to get back together with her, but Frank is in the way. Richard continues to make an appearance at all the wrong times. The more we get the know Frank, the more it looks like he is going to put college on hold for Natalie. In one scene Natalie is not happy with this decision, but she never really fights to make him change his mind and go off to college. The rest of the story is spent dealing with the tragic events that take place. While there is much I would like to say, at this point it is best just to pick a copy of the DVD and see it for yourself. This film did receive 5 Academy Award nominations, which should be enough to peak your interest. Extras This disc is lacking in the extras department. With the exception of some trailers for other Miramax films, there are no extras on this disc, which is surprising given all of the Academy Award nominations this film received. Technical This is another nice video transfer from Miramax. Like "Behind the Sun", this disc has a great deal of detail in the image. The interior and night scenes contain a little noise, but this appears to be from not filtering the video, which I consider a good thing. The soundtrack is mainly dialog driven with a strong center channel presence. There were no audible distortions in the soundtrack. The MPEG encoding on this DVD is excellent. There are 0 drops to video during the film.
Below are samples of the errors marked in red with the chapter break in blue.
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