The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition)

Oct 15, 2010 19:38:50

Get Special Offer!

Product Overviews

Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition includes over two hours of all-new exclusive content: documentary on director Victor Fleming, Dreamer of Oz TV special, and Munchkin featurette!

Review

When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. Young Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), her dog, Toto, and her three companions on the yellow brick road to Oz--the Tin Man (Jack Haley), the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), and the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger)--have become pop-culture icons and central figures in the legacy of fantasy for children. As the Wicked Witch who covets Dorothy's enchanted ruby slippers, Margaret Hamilton has had the singular honor of scaring the wits out of children for more than six decades. The film's still as fresh, frightening, and funny as it was when first released. It may take some liberal detours from the original story by L. Frank Baum, but it's loyal to the Baum legacy while charting its own course as a spectacular film. Shot in glorious Technicolor, befitting its dynamic production design (Munchkinland alone is a psychedelic explosion of color and decor), The Wizard of Oz may not appeal to every taste as the years go by, but it's required viewing for kids of all ages. --Jeff Shannon

Special Features:

- The Movie with Commentary by Historian John Fricke

- Restoration Featurette

- Illustrated Video Storybook

- Supporting Cast Profile Roundup

- Sing-Along Feature

- The Life and Times of Original Author L. Frank Baum

- Documentary Profile of Director Victor Fleming

- The TV-Movie Special The Dreamer of Oz

- The 2007 Hollywood Walk of Fame Salute to the Munchkins

The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition) Reviews By Customers

Wow! We were blown away by the quality of the picture. We saw it on our 60" screen shown w/ a projector and a blu ray player.
It's really amazing what they've done with this 70 yr old movie. We saw things that we'd never noticed before. The colors are truly amazing, the details are crisp and clear.
The rest of the set has a beautiful watch, a book, and several other items that we haven't even looked at yet.
There's also a second dvd that I assume has special features on it to enjoy at another viewing. There is also a free digital copy included so you can see it on your computer if you wish.
Get this set! You will not regret it.
Paid . on Gold Box Special.

A wonderful edition - Pedro Sebastian Muñoz Hern -
This edition is beautiful. Interior has thousand wonders. I would recommend to any lover of collecting.

Read Full Reviews!

Best movie ever - emily -
What can I say. The wizard of Oz is as wonderful as ever. I was hoping to get in widescreen, but at least the color is restored and the sound is great.

Read Full Reviews!

Summer Hours (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Oct 14, 2010 19:19:55

Brand : Image Entertainment

Get Special Offer!

Product Overviews

Widely hailed by critics as 2009’s best film, Summer Hours is the great contemporary French filmmaker Olivier Assayas’s most personal film to date. Three siblings, played by Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier, must decide what to do with the country estate and objects they’ve inherited from their mother. From this simple story, Assayas creates a nuanced, exquisitely made drama about the material of globalized modern living. Naturalistic and unsentimental yet suffused with genuine warmth, this is that rare film that pays respect to family by treating it with honesty.

Summer Hours (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Reviews By Customers

Summer hours is a treat to watch simply because it is a film that will appeal to a lot of people. It is an essay about the dreams of your children versus parental dreams and preserving the relics of their lives.
At the heart of the movie is Edith Berthier ( Edith Scob ) she is now 75 and at the celebrations of her birthday, she gives the task of liquidating her estate to her oldest son Frédéric (Charles Berling)
Obviously he wants to leave everything for his siblings and their children to enjoy for future generations. However the children have other plans, Jeremie (Dardennes brothers regular Jeremie Renier) works for Puma in China. Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) is a designer for a Japanese store who's based in New York. It's only Frederic (Charles Berling), an economist and academic, who lives and works in France. Frederic is the only of the three who wants to preserve a part of their life but the older siblings see no point in it and want to get on with their lives. The rest of the movie is the process of selling the house and the precious artifacts thereby destroying a piece of their lives.
Some sequences in the movie were splendid and have stayed with me. I thought that the musical piece accompanying the scene which gives us a voyeuristic glimpse of the happenings at the celebration was haunting. Similarly Edith's face as she sits in the dark after her children have departed their home is evocative of the heartbreak that parents face when their children have left them for far off places. In my opinion the movie was accurate in depicting the lives of people who have left their homes for distant shores although they are nostalgic about their past they are too busy in their new lives to preserve the past that they have left behind. This is a movie about trying to make a life for oneself in distant lands while letting the past disintegrate. I loved the movie four stars. 5/21/10

A look at estate liquidation - Ted - Pennsylvania, USA
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film

Summer Hours is about a recently deceased woman whose children decide on what to do with her massive estate. Due to estate taxes they sell much of her expensive art to museums and are also forced to sell her home. The film shows the grandchildren spending a final summer in the home with some of their friends.


This film is very interesting and the art in the film is nice to look at.

The supplements include an interview with the film's director Olivier Assayas, a documentary on the film's production and a documentary about the film's subject matter of fine art.

Read Full Reviews!

A Tale of Two Directors - Zarathustra - Sacramento, CA USA
I agree with Robert Holzbach on this one, but I'll be a bit more charitable. Summer Hours is beautifully filmed and well acted, but the story is just not that compelling. Let's face it: a film about liquidating an estate is just not that interesting unless you're an estate liquidator.
My favorite contemporary French director is Cedric Klapisch. His recent film Paris is also beautifully filmed and acted and he tells a compelling story of a dancer who needs a heart transplant. Both films feature Juliette Binoche, who is still excellent in her middle years.
If you're a fan of the French new wave, comparing these two films is a bit like comparing Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. Godard wins easily.

Read Full Reviews!

Ok... so what happened? - Rizzo - Denver, CO
I can't get over the disappointing ending in this film. If you truly adore the history of fine art, you may enjoy this DVD Criterion Collection, especially the special features. The storyline is about a 75 year old wealthy French woman who owns a magnificent estate that is filled with a large collection of fine, museum quality artwork. The more memorable pieces in the film are a Louis Majorelle desk, paintings by Corot, Felix Bracquermond vases, panels by Olidon Radon, and a Christofle Tray. And her life is focused around the paintings and drawings of her uncle, painter Paul Berthier (fictional).

Sensing her death, she invites her three grown children over for a birthday party. Two of the children, live away from France. Plus, she has a devoted housekeeper.

We get the sense that she was in love with her uncle, the painter Paul Berthier as she speaks of him constantly. And it is a tender moment when the children are gone from the party, she says: "lot of things will be leaving me, memories, secrets, and stories that interest no one anymore." And to her, all she has are the objects.

Fast forward to her death, and the focus is not on grieving, but the three children are vacillating what to do with the estate, and the decision is to sell it. The next step is to discuss with committee members from the museum how to disperse the valuables. Much time is given to the discussion of the art.

Although you might feel there is a little drama, who fights over what, what happens to the estate, when does it sell, who gets a share of the profits, etc. Nothing much like that was discussed. There always remains an air of suspense, but what happened? We assume much of the artwork has gone to the museum as a donation in lieu of a huge tax bill.

Then, as little as we know about the characters, mainly the son who lives in France, comes out of the blue his dealing with a teenage daughter in trouble at school. Why did this storyline come into the picture. It means nothing.

So, all in all, the storyline is good.......until the end. The DVD film provides an hour documentary titled The Inventory, given by the experts from the Musee d' Orsay Museum, and, there is an interview with the director. Take the time to watch these special features, they are more interesting than the film. Forget about the ending!! ....Rizzo

Read Full Reviews!

Rollerball (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)

Oct 13, 2010 19:01:19

Get Special Offer!

Product Overviews

From the director of Die Hard comes this high-octane thriller that roars along at a breakneck pace (Los Angeles Times)! Starring Chris Klein (American Pie), Jean Reno (Ronin), LL Cool J (Charlie's Angels) and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (X-Men), Rollerball goes full-throttle with excitement from its death-defying opening until its explosive end! Jonathan Cross (Klein) is the newest recruit in the most extreme sport of all time where his fast moves and killer looks make him an instant superstar. But Cross life in the fast lane collides with reality when he learns that the league's owner (Reno) is orchestrating serious on-court accidents to boost ratings. Now Cross plans to take down the owner and his ruthless sport before the game puts an end to him!

Rollerball (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging) Reviews By Customers

It's really not that bad. I thought it was kind of cool. If you can pickup a used copy for a couple bucks,,, go for it.

So why remake rollerball? - R. Bagula - Lakeside, Ca United States
The brave new world isn't about 'fake' blood and
stunt-men...Rollerball is a deadly contact sport
even simulated for the camera. Sort of a dirtier
version of world wrestling and it appears the
other reviewers don't have a stomach for
telling it like it is becoming.
Violence and sex in the media has gotten all out of hand
and this remake shows the level of escalation?
The Romans had bread, gladiatorial games and circuses,
we have TV. American social decline recorded in video for all
the generations to come to see? I think maybe vampire movies
and this one have a common ground of
blood drinking?

Read Full Reviews!

Little to say about this embarrassing film... - Andrew Ellington - I'm kind of everywhere
Not many films make me feel stupid for actually watching them, but this movie did. Despite starring LL Cool J (who generally happens to at least make stupid films entertaining) this film falls so far flat that it almost bows under and creates a ditch. Chris Klein is a horrendous actor and he manages to muddle up nearly everything he comes in contact with, and no matter how hot Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is (just Romijn now), she doesn't bring anything to this film outside of her body, and that just can't cut it. The violence is cheap, the script is preposterous and the action sequences feel third rate. This is one of those films that offer us absolutely nothing.

I have nothing else to say about this.

Read Full Reviews!

Taking Arrogance TO THE EXTREME! - Del Keyes - In The Middle of the Sunshine
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has a fascinating career slump, dating the origins of its downfall for many years. The company used to be the king of producing movies, or at least it and Warner Bros. saw eye-to-eye, but the trouble began once Ted Turner bought the majority of the MGM library in the mid-1980s. And then in the mid-90s, MGM started heading down the quality crapper with the release of "Showgirls", a movie I personally thought was enjoyable but I had to acknowledge the critical lashing the film had. From then on, it kept a consistent record of producing below-average movies, with very few non-UA movies worth praising; not even the recent James Bond movies (sans "Casino Royale") helped them with their downward slope. As of now, the once-roaring studio is in financial trouble and in danger of being bankrupt (despite being sold to multiple companies), so what films did it accomplish in recent years? "Soul Plane", "College", "The Mod Squad", "Sleep Over", "Good Boy", "Jiminy Glick in Lalawood", "Fame" remake...and this movie, "Rollerball". What can I say, at least they had "Barbershop".

I'm on the defense to say this isn't the worst of the worst, but if this movie expected for me to accept a dystopian world where corrupt businessmen are using this sport as a global-televised sensation, then it had another thing coming. It's glorified roller derby, for goodness sake, and the way it was set-up is impractical. This sport had a pretty small field of play, no bigger than a regular skating rink. Since many players had to fill in the stage, it would be pretty cluttered to watch and to experience, and this sport is suppose to include skateboarders AND motorcyclists. Do you know how crazy is it to ride a motorcycle in a small area surrounded by other players? There's no way one can drive fast and maneuver around the field without running over the majority of players; although logic like that seem dismissible in this film since one biker manage to run over a player and he didn't get seriously injured. And what are the rules of this game, besides hitting a metal ball at a goalpost? The film's final act decided not to have any rules, but I didn't know what the rules were to begin with; the chubby announcer in the film hadn't any idea what to make of this sport either.

Even if I'm just humoring the premise, I can't deal with the film taking obnoxious lengths to be edgy. For this movie to be edgy, every character has to be cocky and insulting each other (this is par for every sport, though), they have to wear spikes and other ridiculous get-ups (with the girls wearing dominatrix attire), the largely heavy metal soundtrack had to blast Slipknot and Rob Zombie whenever it can, and there has to be lots of jump cuts whenever the action occurs. It tried too hard to be extreme that the film reached the point of pretentiousness.

And then there's the plot, which has "The Running Man" written all over it. Chris Klein is the lead hot-shot, LL Cool J is the black partner, and Rebecca Romijn is the fanservice; they're part of an elite team of the popular sport, which is controlled by Jean Reno, and once they know how corrupt the sport is, they planned to fight their way out. The lack of any exposition is what nearly destroyed this movie. Somehow, everyone knows what's going on and where to go at particular moments without being told, so a lot of events just happened out of change. There's too many characters and the film didn't bother to establish most of them, and often times it pulled random conveniences out of its edgy behind (i.e., how that one character manages to steal the locker key off of some other character without showing it).

The convoluted, inexplicable plot and the obnoxious hardcore attitude about itself made "Rollerball" almost unenjoyable. I say 'almost', because I admit in enjoying the climax of the film, which had some tension and it wasn't boring (plus, I have a thing for uprising conclusions); plus, the whole desert sequence shot in night-vision was certainly new, if a bit of an odd design choice. But there are better movies out there follow this kind of dangerous premise and it's best to see those instead, like "Death Race".

Read Full Reviews!

Jade [Blu-ray]

Oct 13, 2010 19:00:27

Brand : Lions Gate

Get Special Offer!

Product Overviews

Assistant D.A. David Corelli (David Caruso) is trapped between friendship and the law when the brutal murder of an important San Francisco millionaire points toward his former lover and college friend, Trina Gavin (Linda Fiorentino), a beautiful woman with a mysterious alter ego. As details of the murder victim's sexual escapades emerge, Corelli uncovers evidence that the victim was blackmailing a powerful politician with incriminating photographs. But as the crucial witnesses are systematically murdered and attempts on Corelli's life are made, the case assumes a paranoid veneer in which nothing is certain and no one can be trusted. Set against a backdrop of the immaculate mansions of the San Francisco wealthy with a decorative fetish for the ancient Far East and contrasted with a classic Friedkin chase scene through the city's Chinatown, JADE is a lush, dark, and suspenseful sexual thriller from the writer of BASIC INSTINCT that will keep the audience guessing until the very last scene.

Jade [Blu-ray] Reviews By Customers

Five stars for William Friedkin's JADE, a masterful thriller that is gorgeous to look at but presented in an underwhelming edition by Lionsgate. The disc has a fair amount of grain all over it that descends into little more than digital noise in a couple of scenes, most notably the scene in the morgue and the climatic night/fight scene.
These scenes turn outrageously snowy/grainy and there is no excuse for this kind of a shoddy transfer. Making matters more sad, the rest of the disc looks pretty good and there are several scenes that are as beautiful as anything out on bluray (except AVATAR of course). It is a shame there is no consistancy in the picture quality of this disc. Also noteworthy is the excellent new 5.1 DTS-HD audio that really packs a lot of punch and puts you right in the middle of the action. Rear speakers blast during the spectacular car chase sequence. The disc retains the classic artwork that has appeared on every edition and movie poster for the film. The only extra on the disc is a poorly presented theatrical trailer.

It should be noted that this edition includes ONLY the THEATRICAL CUT of the film and not the much longer (and more explicit) directors cut. With all the much hyped superior storage capacity of bluray it seems ridiculous that studios are consistently failing to put multiple cuts of a film on a disc.

JADE has never been a popular film and has not even developed a cult following so I'm surprised that it has made its way onto bluray at all. I'm very glad it did but I wish it had been handled with a bit more care. This entire presentation is a bit slapdash. Still, I only paid for it at Walmart so I can't complain too much. The overall quality is a step up from the DVD edition and well worth the price at Walmart, although I would think twice about paying much more than for it.

Not a great Blu, but a decent improvement - Steve Kuehl - Ben Lomond, CA
I had no expectations as Paramount typically does some kind of DNR thingy with their 80s/90s titles, so I was just hoping to see a nice preservation of some Bay Area locales. By the time the credits rolled on this theatrical BD cut, I wasn't disappointed, it just had some serious issues.

Admittedly, I enjoyed watching this Basic Instinct clone (at last count there were 28 identical/similar characters, scenes, etc.), so between the sights, characters and score I felt sure Michael Douglas was going to cameo any second, but Loreena Mckennitt's The Mummers' Dance version of Mystic's Dream adds a nice feel throughout (although misplaced in half the scenes). The end result is laughable, but I figure one is reading this to hear about the BD.

The picture quality is vastly improved over the other products available; The colors have been enriched, the majority of artifact has been removed, the flesh tones have been glorified and depending on the camera being used - the views of the Bay Area show a decent time capsule preservation from 94/95. The cons: The resulting edge fuzz is prevalent, there is TONS of grain on most of the interiors, and the intermittent artifact/film fade pops up in some irritating spots. Overall - a decent upgrade but there is still plenty to pick apart.

The sound is a mixed bag. The DTS felt like it was forced as the outer channels were getting used heavily, even in the smallest of scenes, to the point where is was mixed incorrectly a few times. The vocals were drowned out in some of the louder sequences by outer channel garbage, and there were a couple of scenes where the post-production must have missed the timing (lips clearly not matching the words). The score sounds clear though, and any time Mckennitt sings you almost wish for a music-only track.

The only special feature is the original trailer which shows how bad the film looked (with a few brief clips of what must be in the Director's Cut). Region coded A. I cannot give this a higher rating as a BD because it had too many technical failings, no special features, and no director's cut.

Read Full Reviews!

Good! - Kanji - JPN
This blu-lay quality is clearer and vivider than DVD's.
Like many fans,I'm dissatisfied at not containing unrated version.
But I welcome this blu-lay because I'm fanatical collector about Billy Friedkin's works. His intencive vision is always novel for every generation.

Read Full Reviews!

The Blues Brothers [Blu-ray]

Oct 13, 2010 19:00:11

Get Special Offer!

The Blues Brothers [Blu-ray] Reviews By Customers

How could the Blues Brothers not be on Blu Ray yet!? If it were the Red Brothers or the Green Brothers I might understand, but come on, it's the BLUES BROTHERS!!!! I need John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in 1080p now darn it!

How can this NOT be on Blu Ray yet? - Richard S. Puchalski - Michigan
Nearly every man in the universe loves the Blues Brothers. Men also like technology like 1080P.

How can this not be on BluRay yet?

Hopefully the release will come soon.

Read Full Reviews!