COMMENTARY

CLOSED - NO TIME!

Sunday November 22nd, 2003 -

Sorry for the long delay, but the new baby is stealing my time. Things are going well.

We recently made a global adjustment (all contributors) to our methodology for creating comparisons in order to facilitate dissemination of superior data!

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Sweatshirts are VERY SOON ! - Check the out visually HERE!

Scoop on Fanny and Alexander (Criterion) - One of our members says "Criterion has done it again- cropping on the upper and lower. I checked it to my PAL version- it is very minor but it is still perplexing that ANY image should be masked. Other than that, a beautiful release." We hope to do a comparison soon.

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RE: Theo Angelopoulos - one of our members says-

"I just received an email from Artificial Eye stating that they will
release 11 films in 2005 with no definite production schedule yet. No other information was given besides the list of the films:
(I dont know if the list is ordered in any way - i.e. release-wise. It
is certainly not chronological)

The Travelling Players
Eternity & a Day
Ulysses' Gaze 2nd
Voyage to Cythera
The Beekeeper
Alexander the Great
The Hunters
The Suspended Step of the Stork
Days of 36
Landscape in the Mist
Reconstruction

You can now throw away that Brazilian "Eternity and a Day"...

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Les Vampires seems to be OOP ? - Amazon says-

"Amazon says - 2 used & new from $599.99"  ????

DON'T BUY IT ! A member informs us...

"Dear John,

Thank you for your inquiry. While "Les Vampires" is not Out of Print, it is currently unavailable due to manufacturing problems. Once these manufacturing problems have been rectified please rest assured that "Les Vampires" will be available in stores.

Thank you."

 

That's all for now !

Gary

Sunday, October 24th, 2004 -

Well, it's been a while since I had anything to say. What's new? We have some new contributors (Warren, Maarten, Peter etc.) for reviews and comparisons, plus a kind of partnership with our German sister-site DVDuell, hopefully this will benefit both sites.

Although I was still blown away by the film "House of Flying Daggers", the EDCO DVD is somewhat of a disappointment, of course, nothing beats the theater experience.

I can't wait to get rid of that POP-UP notice - probably Tuesday. Apologies for having to put up with it.

Still hunting down ways to keep the site afloat with Amazon Associate status. Soon we will be a member of Amazon.jp too. It's a long road for little reward, but I'm doing my best.

We have had zero responses to our latest contest so far. I may have to go with the closest number right wins ! only one more week to go ! REALLY, it's not that hard !

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Monday, October 4th, 2004 -

I haven't had much to say lately. I did watch the Director's cut of "Woman in the Dunes" and was once again blown away. Definitely a favorite film.

I have all the screen captures for the "Memorable Erotic Scenes" article. Now the hard part - the text.

I look forward to buying Guru Dutt's Pyaasa (new edition coming out November 15th - PAL) and HERE is a, as of this writing, unpublished comparison of two other versions by Fred. When Fred writes  like that I KNOW I will love it !

Some NEWS !
Sol del membrillo is released a few days early!!
at fnac.es. We hope to review it soon!

NOTE: We may be expanding DVDBeaver to other countries (native language) - notably German, Danish, perhaps French and Japanese... if you might be interested in helping and running one of the sites, let me know!

Any Japanese Beavers out there able to help me get Associate Status at Amazon.jp ? Thanks!

DVDBeaver sweatshirts will be on the way for Christmas... stock up buy a dozen ! :)

Cheers for now,

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Thursday Sept 16th, 2004 -

I received an email the other day asking why I had not been chosen to give my personal choices in the Master's of Cinema article by Nick Wrigley HERE entitled "Overlooked". Honestly, I had to give the emailer's question some thought... Firstly, I have printed out and read the article a few times - a super job by MoC and Nick! I would have to say that Mr. Robin Wood, who I now consider a friend, and whose selections finish the article (right column) probably knows about 10 times as much about film as I do (conservatively speaking). However, I suspect, tooting my own horn, that I know equally 10 times what he does about DVD. I suppose then that the article was more slanted to film than DVD - which is fine! My own choices would probably have been considered quite pedestrian in comparison to Acquarello's and the rest of the list of contributors. The question?

Which DVDs do you feel may have been lost in the shuffle over the last few years?

Let's see - As I have pointed out many times in the past - The Image Entertainment DVD of Chaplin's "City Lights" has totally been overshadowed by the recent and flawed Warner Boxset. So that would definitely be on MY list. Ditto for the MGM "West Side Story" - with a flawed (voice-sync in "Tonight" is way off) and oversold Boxset as a follow-up to the original - NOTE: The image is exactly the same in both editions. The Warner (Poland) - Region 2 DVD of Kieslowski's "Dekalog" is heads and tails above all the other inferior releases. The Region 4- anamorphic "Brazil" - (the only 16X9 of the film in NTSC). In my opinion no one talks enough about the Universal Region 1 "Vertigo" DVD - perhaps the first perfect DVD ever made (I know its not 16X9! but its superior to its Region 4 anamorphic counterpart). Finally as an odd-ball choice - the Universal - Region 1 DVD of Anthony Mann's "Winchester '73" is a fabulous disc - Great image and super commentary by Stewart! This DVD is golden as far as I am concerned.

Okay there you go - my unsolicited opinion.

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Two articles coming up - 1) About The Vertigo DVD (perfect) and 2) about Erotic Moments in Cinema (my preferences)

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NOTE: Upcoming very soon - a review and comparisons of the entire Cassavetes Boxset. Stay tuned !

 

Tuesday Sept 7th, 2004 -

I'll be off to the TIFF next week to see Zhang Yimou's "House of the Flying Daggers" with 2 Beaver LS members in attendance! Woohoo!

I'm continuing to be impressed with Hitchcock Boxset and replaced "Videodrome" with it as Feature DVD of the Month.

I am expecting to add 3 additions to the Top 100 DVD listing this week - Winchester 73' , Seven Days in May and, of course, the Hitchcock Boxset!

I haven't been overly impressed with the Amazon Associates program yet, but I expect it to grow once I reach a few 'tiers'. I hope so anyway.

The wait grows longer for "Greed"...No "I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang" etc. :

The results are in and we can now officially announce the winners in one of the year's most heated contests. No, not Kerry vs. Bush... we're talking "DVD Decision 2004." For the second year in a row Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies gave fans the chance to vote on a new crop of twenty classic films to be released onto the DVD format. After tallying 140,000 votes, the five films chosen include The Letter, King Solomon's Mines, Ice Station Zebra, Ivanhoe and Random Harvest. Each film is set to debut on DVD in January 2005 with newly remastered transfers and extensive bonus features.

<SIGH>

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No, we are not going to talk about DVD Commentaries !

On our first commentary though I'll talk a little about the new areas of the website today and promise not to turn this section into a 'blog' (yuccchhh! - hi-tec term that usually connotes self-indulgent 'stream of consciousness' drivel). We have so many keen conversations in the ListServ that I thought I could share some of the better tidbits in here.

I won't go overboard on the 'Thank you's" anymore for what has recently transpired. We did have a BIG boost from an 'anonymous' donor somewhere in the vicinity of the 'Big Apple' ... hmmmm...

Okay - new stuff - a few new buttons as you will notice. I particularly like the "Film-Noir" section as this is evidently becoming my favorite 'genre' (oops wrong term). I just like it - social angst and all. "Contests" will be fun. "Hardware" should have come a while ago - hope to build this section substantially. Master List replaces a Search button - that will come one day. Glossary and HTPC will be good resources - as we build them.

Hey, I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - check out this German website - that layout looks awfully familiar! Of course, we are flattered !

 

At the recent BOLOGNA DVD AWARDS (the one where 'Best Collection' went to the Chaplin Boxset (R2) where some films are wrongly formatted in 1.33:1 instead of OAR 1.19:1 pillarbox - SEE HERE) - anyway they gave this the award for 'Technical Quality' to this "Man of the West" DVD- yet it is not anamorphic, shows damage marks and has a peculiar frame shifting problem (one that I also noticed in the French version of Eric Rohmer's "Le Rayon Vert" in the Gaumont Boxset ). So I don't know what these Bologna DVD Awards use for criteria, but I think their name more accurately reflects the Western expression of the luncheon meat rather than any true discerning quality. NOTE: A committee member informed us that:

 1) There were no technical specialists on their 'impromptu' committee in Bologna.

2) One of the members only arrived in town the day before they gave the prizes!

3) They didn't have projection equipment available.

 

Okay, enough for today. Check out What's New section for any future additions to this page (once a week-ish, I hope).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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