Recommended DVD's

[ProfCrash]

I just got a DVD player and am in DVD heaven. Share your favorite DVD's here

[ProfCrash]

I guess the cool things about DVD's are the extra's that come with them. That said here are the ones that I have enjoyed so far.

Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail. If the free extra 24 seconds is not enough to grad your attention then the subtitles using Richard the IV will do it. This one had me rolling with laughter. You can follow the rabbit. When the rabbit pops up on the screen you will see either a picture or a receipt. I don't quite get why but it makes me laugh. Then there is the sing a long on disc two where you learn the appropriate method for singing the Monks Chant. I listened to some of the commentary by the actors but not much. I had a good time playing this DVD and I have not watched all of it.

The Fellowhip of the Ring 4 disc set. The added footage is amazingly cool. I also enjoyed listen to Jackson's commentary about why some scenes were cut.

[Astaire]

Have heard that more money is now generated in the aftermarket for the movie industry, so in essence the theatrical release is just a big ad for the vhs/dvd sales, hmmm.

Most of the stuff I own is just too weird to recommend in general, I bought it for some quirky reason that's unique to me. But there are some that stand out from the whacky mess:

LOTR has four (!) distinct commentaries and its not necessarily the comments alone (after all its just a bunch of guys sittings in a room years after filming, watching the movie with you, wracking their brains, trying to remember something to say and not spoil the next two films which were all shot together) that make it great. Its the fact that you can here the disparate views of the same situation from the actors who had to deliver the lines, to the guys at WETA who had to make all the crap used in the shot, to the bigature makers and artists who did the set, to the gardeners who had to plant all the crap a year in advance of filming, to the producers who had to come up with a way to fool some one into giving them a truckload of money to pay for it all. And thats for almost every scene in the whole film, heh. So it was amusing to hear the different takes on the what's going on..

Christopher Lee talking about how, at 79 years old (?) he can't climb the damn steps spryly enough in his long robes, working in B movies for all those years he's used to having just one and only one take to get it right and Jackson talking about how authentic its got to be and how it took 30 tries to get something on film and we'll get it, while the costume designer talks about the weft of the weave (even thought you don't get enough resolution in the shots to tell) so the cloth hangs right, and how many layers it takes to look right and just how many yards it took to make it, to the artist who says when he drew the tower of Orthanc he never had to imagine the what the top of it looked like, so he had to make it up decades after the original painting and on and on....

I think it took me a whole week of watching it over and over to finally get it all listened to, and now I officialy know way to much about Hobbits.

Now what the hell was I doing, oh yeah, recommending..

2001: a space odyssey

This film just begs for the higher resolution of dvd, vhs never did it justice. Progressive scan letterbox with a hdtv capable tv, yeah! A Kubrick and Clarke commentary would kick ass, but we'll never get it now, of course. Many books have been written on the 'making of' 2001, so I guess I already have the commentary in print, sigh.

and after years of copyright battles we finally (sep. 2002) get to buy a legitimate copy of the the '83 art-housey film by Reggio Fricke Glass

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance

packaged with Powaqqatsi for like twenny bucks at Borders, not perfectly done but cheap and good looking and good sounding on dvd.

and something thats probably gonna really take off in the future is that any must have cd that you own, will also have its matching dvd release with studio/concert footage of your favorite tunes to tempt you out of some more of your hard earned cash.

and since its crash, what about uh, spidey, or x-men, er uh, or maybe a bootleg copy of DareDevil downloaded from an anonymous Chinese cracker web site....eh why no officer, thats not my IP address.....

[AsIs]

Hey Astaire, welcome to the board! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I wish I had a DVD player. I feel so technically behind. [img]frown.gif[/img]

The only DVD I have seen is Putting It Together, a musical by Stephan Sondheim. It had some cool features and the finale when Carol Burnett had a ahem, issue with her dress.

[ianviking]

If you have the 4 disc set of LOTR Crash, then also listen to the cast commentary. It's quite informative and funny at times.
"How many times Elijah, who can't double Tig on a Tag" - not so funny out of context I guess.

B5 Season 1 has almost no extras, other than JMS commentary on 2 eps. No extra footage either [img]frown.gif[/img]

The Matrix (with Reloaded/Rebooted) has some nice behind the scenes stuff.

Most of my DVDs are a bit older, so have very few extras. All good quality sound and vision though.

[ProfCrash]

I did listen to some of the cast commentary. It was really funny. I guess Elijah was an easy target for practicle jokes.

[iznardy]

Regarding the expanded version Fellowship of the Rings on DVD and VHS. Can anyone who as seen it tell me if it is worth it? It supposedly has 30 minutes of new scenes not in the movie. But I'm not paying $20 to get 30 more minutes of Aragorn and Arwen! If its scenes in the Shire, or Orthanc, or Moria, that might be worth it--I've already got the regular version.

Iz

[ProfCrash]

It is worth it. It has additional scenes from Lothlorian that are very cool, a scene introducing the Hobbits, a great scene with Gandalf and Frodo outside of Moria, and many scenes are extended. There is one scene with Aragorn that is added but it is a good one. He is at his mothers grave in Rivendell (sp).

My younger brother had the origanl DVD, I got him the extended DVD for Christmas (not knowing he had the original). He called me to thank me and siad that the added scenes were great. We then talked about why they might have been cut.

The commentary is pretty funny.

[iznardy]

Thanks, guess I'll spring for it. Bought VHS of The Tenth Kingdom the other day for $10; cheesy, but worth it, since I only saw the second half of the orginal series and they haven't re-aired it. The half-wolf guy is hysterical, especially in the scenes where he's been transported from the ninth kindom (Snow White land) to the tenth (New York City). There's a scene where's he's trussing up the heroines grandmother in a big pot saying, "Oh, bad, bad, I really shouldn't be doing this. Hmmmm. You're not gonna fit in the oven are you? I should untie you. I really should. Just let me put a little fat in the pan first." He more than makes up for the annoying trolls.

[AsIs]

My first DVD purchase, Xena's final Episode. It has been sitting in my box at the comic shop for awhile.

So far the coolest feature is you can watch the ep with Rob Tapart, Lucy and Renee talking about it. So you hear what they think or were aiming for in all the scenes. They talk about the actors, story and acting choices, why things were cut, what they were aiming for, controversys and more. It is very cool.