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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Be Cool Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Be Cool Reviewed By Lucas Stensland Posted 03/22/05 16:48:05

"A very lame movie that wastes a great cast." (Pretty Bad)

Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty, based on the popular book by Elmore Leonard, was released in the mid-90s to justified critical and box-office acclaim. It was smart, tough, colorful and lean. Even though it was followed by two superior Leonard adaptations, Quentin Tarantinio’s Jackie Brown and Steven Soderberg’s Out of Sight, respectively, the film was still a big studio accomplishment. Even though it was a big budgeted film with no auteur or real originality, the audience could only sporadically see Hollywood’s irksome kid gloves.Now about a decade later Hollywood is offering the same audience a sequel, F. Gary Gray’s Be Cool, which is based on Leonard’s less popular follow-up novel of the same name. To put it one way, Sonnenfeld is no Soderberg and definitely no Tarantino, and unfortunately Gray is no Sonnenfeld. To put it another way, Be Cool is incredibly lame. Leaving behind the movie industry (and ostensibly all of his friends), Chili Palmer (John Travolta) takes a crack at the music biz, an industry he has very little to say about, thus negating half of his character’s charm. James Woods plays a sleazy music executive, a friend of Palmer’s from the old neighborhood. He gets whacked by some inept Russian mobsters, leaving behind his wife and business partner, Edie (Uma Thurman), whom he never fully appreciated. In steps Palmer. After buddying up to Edie, Palmer discovers Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a big talent stuck under contract to wannabe-gangster music executive Raji, played by a sometimes funny Vince Vaughn. His partner Nick Carr is played by a surprisingly flat Harvey Keitel; sleevelessness is Carr’s most memorable character trait. Also, Cedric the Entertainer plays Sin LaSalle, a remix master who is after Edie to collect the debt her husband left behind. Yes, all of this, in some convoluted and unsmooth way, comes together. Only The Rock, who plays Vaughn’s gay bodyguard, consistently steals scenes and gets laughs. Get Shorty was wisely set to Travolta’s rhythm. Palmer, a Brooklyn native Miami loan shark who goes west to Hollywood, is one of those roles Travolta seemed born to play. But as audiences have come to once again doubt Travolta’s leading-man abilities, Gray’s direction likewise mistrusts the icon and sadly his direction casts doubt over him. Often Palmer is lost in the haze and muddle of the unstructured loud-clothing contest that is Be Cool. One of the delights of Get Shorty was that virtually every character longed to be something else: Chili Palmer and Rene Russo’s B-actress wanted to be movie producers; Delroy Lindo’s mobster wanted to write and produce; James Gandolfini’s bodyguard wanted to be a stunt man; Gene Hackman’s schlock producer wanted to be a prestige producer; David Paymer’s schluby Leo wanted to be a classy high roller; and so on. And this said a lot about Hollywood, where Danny DeVito’s superstar actor Martin Weir epitomized a cynical truth about Tinsel Town success: People pretend to be other people to such an extent that the original person becomes blurred. This is underscored in one poignant scene where Weir cannot even recall why his pre-fame marriage fell apart. None of this wit can be found in Be Cool, where Sin LaSalle, Edie and Nick Carr are happy with whom they are career-wise. Linda Moon is also quite content with herself; she only longs for top-forty success. In one terrible scene Moon sings a banal ballad about wishing to have popular success, and her overstated singing almost brings tears to Palmer’s eyes. Instead of Get Shorty’s cynicism toward the movie industry, Be Cool seems downright enraptured with the present "American Idol"-ized music business. Chili Palmer surrendered all of his coolness in one fell swoop. Only The Rock and Vince Vaughn can count their performances successful, and they seem to adhere more to the style of Get Shorty.Get Shorty felt like a little-league version of Robert Altman’s The Player by way of Quentin Tarantino (and fittingly it starred Travolta, who’s played hit men for both directors). On the other hand, Be Cool felt like its own Raji, Vaughn’s black-wannabe: This is a PG-13 movie trying to pass itself off as gangsta. Its loud colors and wide spaces don’t highlight what Gray must have intended–buoyancy and personality–but ironically underscores its very lack. Be Cool is wack, yo.
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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Cradle 2 the Grave Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Cradle 2 the Grave Reviewed By EricDSnider Posted 07/03/03 17:15:00

"Good dumb fun." (Average)

I don?t know why directors even bother including Jet Li?s reaction shots in movies. Regardless of what other people in the scene have said or done, Li?s face will have the same expression: stony indifference, followed by reluctant butt-kicking. He is a handsomer, calmer version of Jackie Chan.?Cradle 2 the Grave? plays to Li?s strengths ? ultra-cool demeanor and extraordinary fighting skills ? and wisely avoids his weakness in the area of emotive dialogue. It pairs him with his ?Romeo Must Die? co-star, rapper DMX, and reunites both with ?Romeo? director Andrzej Bartkowiak, whose penchant for testosterone-rich filmmaking (he gave us Steven Seagal in ?Exit Wounds,? too) comes to full fruition here.Li plays Su, a Taiwanese Intelligence agent who has come to Los Angeles in search of a batch of mysterious black diamonds ? deadly in the wrong hands ? that have gone missing. Begrudgingly, he joins forces with Tony Fait (DMX), the leader of a well-organized gang of high-tech jewel thieves whose daughter has been kidnapped by yet another group of bad guys who want the diamonds for their own nefarious purposes.Evil is a question of degrees here. Fait is a thief, yes, but he gives his daughter pretty necklaces and says prayers with her at bedtime. The REAL bad guys, on the other hand, slap little girls around and occasionally kill people.Fait?s crew includes the amusing Anthony Anderson as the requisite guy-who-will-put-on-disguises-to-provide-distraction, and Gabrielle Union (?Bring It On?) as the requisite hot-woman-who-uses-sex-to-distract-people. Tom Arnold is on board, too, as a pawnshop owner with ties to the underworld.The film gets sillier as it goes, leaving reality behind and venturing into full-fledged outrageousness. Witness the cross-cutting between two scenes: In one, Fait is leading police and others on a high-speed ATV chase through L.A., captured by news cameras and viewed live by his kidnapped daughter, whose abductors are not so inhuman as to have denied her TV privileges; in the other, Su is taking on all comers, including a midget referee, at an underground fight club so brutal that spectators hold plastic sheets over their heads to avoid being spattered with blood. (If Britney Spears were the star of this movie, the bad guys would own an underground karaoke bar; since it?s Jet Li, it?s a fight club.)My other favorite scene has the bad guys demonstrating the powers of the black diamonds for the world?s top black-market arms dealers, in what amounts to a trade show attended by the Legion of Doom.Soon enough, people are delivering lines like, ?It?s time to end things MY way,? and, ?You were lucky last time; you won?t be lucky again.? It?s all an exercise in high-energy absurdity; the question is how seriously the film wants us to take it. Well, in Jet Li?s impenetrable expression I see a man who is aloof to his surroundings. And if the star doesn?t think any of this matters, why should we?
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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Constantine Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Constantine Reviewed By Erik Childress Posted 02/18/05 16:32:29

"Finally A Religious Movie In February That Christians AND Jews Can Hate" (Total Crap)

Why is it that religious communities never seem to go after movies like Constantine? It?s always the ones that, God forbid, challenge ideas and force thinking and discussion like Dogma or The Last Temptation of Christ. It?s not wise to confront hardcore religious aficionados since it manages to shake the foundation they have built their whole life around. Comic book fans have their own religion and I don?t know which group I?d rather piss off less. Constantine hedges its bets, waving rotted meat in front of the rabid dogs of both sects, but mostly just manages to hack off any moviegoer that enters its hallowed doors.Based on one particular comic in the Hellblazer series, its hero was once a Blond, chain-smoking, magic-wielding, British dude who was not above blackmailing angels and demons to get the job done. In the movie, its just Keanu Reeves and he smokes a lot. When you?ve got a demon to exorcise, John Constantine?s your man. He?s even got a tagline I?m surprised isn?t printed on a business card. ?This is Constantine. John Constantine. Asshole!? It?s left up to you if the term of endearment is meant for the demon or himself.Suspecting weird things with his latest exorcism, he crosses path with Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz, playing it dead serious), a cop whose twin sister just took a swan dive off the roof of a mental facility, which in some perfect irony later becomes the meeting place for all the true believers. Constantine has been able to see the spooky side of life on Earth like some evangelical man-in-black. And while I?d prefer to listen to Johnny Cash, Constantine has a lot of his own demons to cast out; which he?ll do in scene after scene after nauseating scene. It?s the film?s greatest sin that nearly every scene is filled with exposition and each subsequent one is exposition on the previous exposition in the hopes of discovering the next exposition. If any of it was the least bit gratifying from even a ridiculous theological viewpoint, we could have been involved on a fire-and-brimstone level that can grip even the most skeptical of Revelation speed readers. There?s some jive about God and Old Scratch making a wager for all the souls on Earth and how the little angels and devils on our shoulders are ?half-breeds? taking a neutral position on our planetary Limbo. (We can spot them since their eyes glow like the replicants in Blade Runner.) They aren?t supposed to get involved but can?t help nudging us in one direction or another. The rules are never that clear, but only Papa Midnight (Djimon Hounsou) seems to be following them. The movie never bothers to show us the push of the Heavenly side. Or much of anything for that matter.Much is made in the opening scrawl about the ?Spear of Destiny? which puts the fate of the world in the hands of whoever wields it and (gasp) has been missing since WWII. Who had the spear that delivered the final deathblow to Jesus Christ before, I?d be very curious, and what made them think hiding it in a deeply religious country like Mexico would do the trick? Not since the Ajanti Dagger in The Golden Child has a knife been such a center of importance, but we never quite understand it. If it leaves behind symbolic stigmatas on those who come in contact with it, why does Angela?s sister have it? What?s it used for? Can it cut cans? John Constantine is plagued by so many things, like the lung cancer eating away at him and the knowledge that his suicide attempt has condemned him to hell no matter how much of God?s bidding he does. But his greatest plague is being portrayed by Keanu Reeves. No matter how much we liked The Matrix trilogy, we have to understand that this is still a limited actor. The less dialogue the better for this guy. He doesn?t have the faculties to be playing a sarcastic, know-it-all tough guy and can?t sell lines like ?I?ve pulled demons out of little girls.? Let alone, twice. Watch the way Reeves turns a small plate of pancakes into the ultimate acting crutch.Blaming Reeves is an easy out though, since he?s managed to survive this long by picking interesting scripts. The adaptation here by Kevin Brodbin (The Glimmer Man and the still unreleased Renny Harlin vehicle, Mindhunters) and Frank A. Cappello (Suburban Commando) is the worst kind of amateur hour; in love with its big words and seemingly bigger ideas but without the benefit of a clear-cut storyline and involving characters. How did John become an official instrument of God? Do the police know of him or do they just let anyone tamper with a fresh crime scene? Is that Jobe from The Lawnmower Man calling on all those phones at once? What the hell, he?s got a religious name. The final act is such a mess that the only self-fulfilling prophecy is how many will convert themselves quickly towards the exit. Tilda Swinton?s androgynous Gabriel is on hand to pick up where Christopher Walken?s Gabriel left off in The Prophecy series and the plot to birth the son of the devil isn?t an eighth as fascinating as the take by Cartman?s Christmas story on the last season of South Park.Music video director Francis Lawrence lavishes in establishing his hero with auteurist angles, but paces the film so lethargically that by the time Constantine fashions his golden cross gun and ?deporting? demons back to Hell (in a scene ripped right out of the opening minutes of Blade), it has the too-little-too-late feel that plagued last year?s The Punisher. His vision of hell is basically a firestorm in a hurricane, failing to equal the artist?s stroke of What Dreams May Come or even the Hell-on-Earth holocaustal images of Dreamscape. In one of the great examples of dumbing down for an audience, we?re told that when you die, time stops. So when a character slashes their wrists late in the film, they first take off their watch, and as the blood leaks out it hits the watch and guess what? The little hand stops; which is a good thing because we wouldn?t have understood that from everything else in the film stopping. By my watch, it was around the 20-minute mark.Constantine keeps its poker face so intact that it loses all possible excuse of camp excess. Keanu had much better success fighting off Lucifer in The Devil?s Advocate, which achieved a thought-provoking creepiness and ended not with cross-encrusted brass knuckles, but a face-off of words and ideas. Constantine?s big piece of thought pie is that the worst punishment the Devil can give people is to live on Earth. I prefer to think it?s bad enough to let them to see this film, let alone giving jackasses like Michael Medved another reason to impose his free will on moviegoers everywhere about the sanctity of life in fictional movies. Go to hell, Medved. Or worse yet, go see Constantine.
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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Little Nicky Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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The Movie:




The success of Adam Sandler has been an interesting series of events to watch. After a couple of fairly low-budget goofy comedies (”Happy Gilmore”, “Billy Madison”), he began to change things up a bit. “Wedding Singer” was a nice mix of being fairly serious and the usual slapstick. However, “Big Daddy”, Sandler’s next picture, was an attempt to show even more of Sandler’s serious side. That was actually scarier than much of this comic-horror flick, “Little Nicky“, which is Sandler’s latest offering.



Unfortunately for Sandler, the weirdness of “Little Nicky” seemed to take away from the film’s box office to the point where I heard this film blamed for low grosses for Time Warner for the quarter on a CNBC stock-watch program. Anyways, Sandler stars as Nicky, son of Satan(played by none other than Harvey Keitel). Satan doesn’t want to retire, so his brothers Cassius (Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr.) and Adrian (Rhys Ifans)go off to Earth and freeze the gates behind them, causing their father to lose his energy till he starts falling apart.



Nicky comes to Earth to bring his brothers back and finds that he has a new guide in a talking bulldog named Beefy and a friend in a shy young woman named Valerie(Patricia Arquette, wrong for the film). Actually, that’s about all there is to the plot - the slim offering isn’t too suprising for a Sandler film. Here, the proceedings are occasionally livened by some celeb cameos, such as Quentin Tarantino and Reese Witherspoon as a valley-girl angel. Robert Smigel steals many of the film’s sequences as the voice of talking dog Beefy.




I actually like some of Sandler’s films, especially “Happy Gilmore”. I haven’t really liked anything of the actors since. Those first two films had a goofy, sloppy hilarity especially in scenes like the Bob Barker cameo in “Gilmore”. Sandler has also been better - hiding under a weird haircut and strange accent, Sandler seems less interested here. It’s also easily the actor’s most expensive film to date, with an 80 million dollar budget and some fairly intense visual-effects work and he seems a bit lost in the middle of it all.



At the end of it all, with a film like this, the only real question is, how many good laughs does the film contain? Although there are a couple of times where I laughed loudly (the angels turn on the TV to find “Felicity”), there’s also a few segments of the film that feel flatter than they should for long periods (I wonder how much Popeye’s Chicken paid for all of the film’s product placements). Although definitely not as bad as “Big Daddy” (that courtroom scene in “Big Daddy” was tedious), “Little Nicky” still isn’t nearly the laugh-riot that “Gilmore” was.




The DVD





VIDEO: “Little Nicky” is presented in the film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and like all other New Line titles, it looks fantastic. There’s really no suprises with the studio’s effort here, as sharpness and detail are particularly strong throughout. Theo Van De Sande (”Blade”, “Cruel Intentions”)’s cinematography also makes the film’s visual look more appealing than comedies like this might usually appear. The amount of depth to the image in many of the bright, outdoor sequences is impressive, as well.



The flaws present in this particular presentation are of the “one or two” variety, meaning that they pop up once or twice, but the majority of “Little Nicky” looks crystal clear. A tiny bit of shimmering and literally one or two minor print flaws are all that keeps this from being flawless, although it’s quite close.



Colors are bright and rich throughout the movie, from the reds and oranges of hell to the more varied colors of the New York City scenes. Colors are well-saturated and crisp, never displaying any problems. This is a really outstanding effort from New Line that often looks especially fantastic and well-defined.





SOUND: “Little Nicky” is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and unlike almost every other new comedy that comes to DVD, “Little Nicky” offers a pretty impressive sound experience. Although yes, most of the film does revolve around the jokes and dialogue, there is some good surround use in the film’s more intense sequences and when the characters are in hell. The hell scenes have quite a bit going on, with various sound effects like lightning/thunder and voices placed around the viewer.



There’s also a good deal of emphasis placed on the film’s metal soundtrack, which fills the room with hard-driving, heavy-bass tunes whenever it enters into the movie. Dialogue sounded fine, natural and clear, with all of the jokes - whether good or bad - equally easy to hear.



MENUS:: As usual, New Line provides some fun animated menus that take the themes of the movie and make them into a great introduction for the movie. Yet, there’s some little things with the menu that I didn’t quite like. I’m one of the people who generally want to go directly to the next menu or onto the movie - don’t hide anything. Here, occasionally you must choose the right path to get to the next menu - there’s also a few options on the front menu that lead you right back to the main menu.



EXTRAS:





Commentary: This is a commentary from actor Adam Sandler, writer Tim Herlihey and writer/director Steven Brill. It’s a pretty uneven commentary track - there’s a few big laughs occasionally as Sandler rips into his fellow participants, but it becomes obvious that no one here really knows a great deal about filmmaking (their thoughts about how the special effects are done seems to be, “you like, tell the effects guys what you want and, like, it happens!”). If you’ve listened to any of the Farrelly Brothers (”There’s Something About Mary”) commentaries, this is a pretty similar affair, with the group pointing out locations and actors. Still, there were a few very funny stories that come up if you’re willing to get through some dry periods. Sandler fans may want to check it out.



Commentary: This is a commentary hosted by actor Michael McKean and featuring Blake Clark, Peter Dante, Clint Howard, Rhys Ilfans, Tiny Lister, Jonathan Laughran, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, Ozzy Osbourne and last, but not least, Henry Winkler. McKean serves as interviewer and I actually found this track a bit funnier and more interesting to than the track with Sandler and the filmmakers. Most of these comments are screen-specific and, since all the participants are actors, they generally chat with McKean about what it was like to perform their roles as well as any funny stories that they have to share. There are definite stand-outs throughout the track though, and Lovitz is especially hilarious. Some of these interviews are recorded over phone (seemingly similar to one of the tracks on “Meet The Parents”), but the majority of them are recorded with McKean and the particular participant. What I found unfortunate though, is that with the film’s PG-13 rating, they edited out the curse words in this commentary (usually though, don’t they seem to have the “bonus features are unrated” comments on the back for DVDs now?)





Deleted Scenes: There’s a giant amount of deleted footage, making me wonder how long the first rough edition of this film must have been. 20 deleted scenes are included in all, with some of the scenes being extended or alternate cuts of a scene that we see in the movie and some of the scenes being completely new. Some of these scenes are kinda funny, but most are rightly taken out of the film, likely for pacing. It would have been nice to get an optional commentary to find out why these scenes were taken out as well as a “play all” button so the viewer could go from scene to scene without having to go back to the menu. At the end of the deleted scenes section, there’s an additional scene that’s a funny alternate ending involving Quentin Tarantino’s character. Another one of the scenes called “Grandma Fight Club” was also kind of amusing.



Adam Sandler Goes To Hell: A 32 minute promotional documentary about the making of “Little Nicky“, this is certainly better than the usual promo documentary feature. It has some very funny moments as we take a look behind-the-scenes of the production with a lot of funny moments as the actors crack-up during scenes and talk about their roles in interviews. There’s even some good production information as we are taken on a look at the making of the “hell” sets in the movie and listen to some interviews with the production design team talking about what they looked at for inspiration for the “look”. The documentary is split into chapters and does a fine job at taking a look at almost all of the aspects of the production, from the look and effects to the story to the characters and working with the actors. We even hear from the animal trainers on how the dog was trained for its scenes and how the mouth movements were animated.



Satan’s Top 40: This is a 17 minute documentary that talks about the history of heavy metal as well as its role in “Little Nicky“. Some interesting interviews with the cast and some important people in the metal genre are included.



Theatrical Trailer: The film’s trailer in Dolby Digital 5.1

Also: P.O.D Music Video “School Of Hard Knocks”, Cast and Crew filmographies.





Final Thoughts: “Little Nicky” does have some funny moments, but for the most part, he still hasn’t returned to the kind of comedy film that he does best - simple, amusing idea and basic production values and just let Sandler go free without being covered by an odd haircut, effects or a strange accent. New Line doesn’t dissapoint with their effort here, though. They’ve put together a disc that offers excellent audio/video quality and a group of fine extras. Fans of Sandler will certainly find a lot to like with this DVD. If you’re interested and a Sandler fan, it may be worth a rental - if you’ve seen it and liked it, the DVD is definitely recommended.



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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Dune Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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“A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”

The Movie:
Certain movies have the peculiar ability to drive a person to obsession. For those who grew up watching them during their most impressionable years, specific films can inspire a lifetime of fixation, a compulsion to watch them over and over, to know everything about their development and production that can be researched and learned, and to acquire extensive collections of memorabilia and merchandise related to them. For many, Star Wars and its sequels are such movies. In fact, devotion to that film series has become so mainstream and commonplace that pretty much everyone knows at least one Star Wars freak in their life.

For me, the movie that drives my greatest personal obsession is David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune. A tremendous box office flop in its time, the movie was hated by general moviegoers who wanted an action-packed Star Wars clone, hated by fans of the original Frank Herbert novel who wanted a word-for-word perfect illustration of the book, and even hated by fans of the director who wanted something… well, something not at all like what they got. Needless to say, it’s a little harder to explain to people how Dune could be your favorite movie.

I don’t give a damn. I love Dune. No, I adore Dune. Of the thousands of movies that I’ve seen in my life, I know that objectively Dune is not the best I’ve ever seen, but it is my favorite.

Dune is a subject very close to my heart, and I’ve written a lengthy defense of the film that you can find on my personal Dune movie merchandise web page. Rather than repeat any more of what I’ve written there, I’ll just direct interested parties to the original article. The rest of this review will focus specifically on the HD DVD edition.

The HD DVD:
Dune debuts on the HD DVD format courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The disc includes only the original 137-minute theatrical cut of the film, David Lynch’s one and only Director’s Cut. It does not contain the longer and wretchedly unwatchable “Extended Edition” also available on DVD.

Lynch’s film adaptation of Dune should also not be confused with the later Sci-Fi Channel TV miniseries remake/re-adaptation titled Frank Herbert’s Dune, directed by John Harrison. A gaudy, cheap-jack production in which all the characters wear silly hats and stand around in front of fakey green-screen backdrops, some fans are under the deluded impression that the remake is more faithful to Frank Herbert’s text, even though it eviscerates the entire first 1/3 of the book and misinterprets all of the major characters. Say what you will about the failings of Lynch’s film, but at least it stays true to the intentions and characters of Herbert’s novel, which is something the miniseries cannot truthfully claim.

Menus and Navigation:
The Dune HD DVD continues Universal’s trend of using generic interactive menus with a bland studio logo as the only decoration, over which is played inappropriate music from a different movie. Selections are accompanied by annoying beeping sound effects that can be turned off if you desire (and I recommend it).

The disc is the first I’ve encountered from Universal where a timeline meter will appear on screen during any pause, fast forward, or skipping command. Buried in the Bonus Features menu on the disc are instructions for using a “My Scenes” favorites list, where you can store bookmarks for your favorite scenes and jump directly to them through this menu rather than the regular Scenes Selection menu.

HD DVD discs are only playable in a compatible HD DVD player. They will not function in a standard DVD player or in a Blu-Ray player. Please note that the star rating scales for video and audio are relative to other High Definition disc content, not to traditional DVD.

Video:
The Dune HD DVD is encoded on disc in High Definition 1080p format using VC-1 compression. The movie is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 with letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 frame.

Not to sound too pompous about it, but I’d like to think that I can speak with some authority on this subject. I own a lot of copies of Dune. A lot. At current count, this disc brings my total up to 26 unique editions of the film across 9 video formats. Ever heard of VHD, an obscure and short-lived videodisc format released in Japan during the mid-1980s? No? Well, rest assured that I own a copy of Dune on it anyway. When it comes to this movie, I don’t mess around.

To date, the high water mark for best Standard Definition presentation of the movie is the French “Ultimate Edition” PAL DVD from G.C.T.H.V. released in June of 2005, which boasts a bright, sharp, and vibrantly colorful video transfer that puts all other DVD editions to shame.

Unfortunately, the audio suffers the typical effects of PAL speedup, but otherwise that disc is the standard bearer for the DVD format. When Universal announced their own NTSC DVD remaster for release in January of 2006, I had high hopes that it would match the quality of the French disc with the benefit of audio playback at the proper speed. Disappointingly, Universal completely dropped the ball, delivering a substandard transfer marred by excessive dirt and speckles, faded colors, and heavily filtered video lacking in detail. That disc was a huge letdown, and I was left assuming that their subsequent HD DVD would be sourced from the same master. Even with a higher-resolution encoding, a bad transfer is still a bad transfer.

Kull wahad! Never before have I been so glad to be wrong! I am pleased to confirm that Universal has struck an all-new High-Def master that is clearly superior to any previous home video edition of the movie. Some minor speckling on the source elements remains, but the problem is much reduced from their DVD and hardly distracting at all. Comparing the opening prologue scene, the speckles fall in a different pattern here than those on the DVD, and the credits sequence is free of dirt or grime, proving that different source elements were used for the transfer (or at least that they underwent a good scrubbing). Better yet, the HD DVD has a very sharp picture with an outstanding sense of detail and depth.

For examples of the improvement in detail, look to the “Secret Report Within the Guild” narration and Paul’s later Filmbook.

Both should have vertical striations down the screen to indicate that the images are being viewed on some sort of computer monitor. Those lines were totally filtered away from Universal’s Extended Edition DVD, leaving the shots smooth and fuzzy. The French DVD is better, but here they are perfectly visible in clarity I’d only previously seen in 35mm screenings. Another good test is the doorway through which the Guild Navigator enters and exits the Emperor’s throne room. A sign above the threshold reads “LAW IS THE ULTIMATE SCIENCE” in small text. It’s illegible on the DVD but easily read here. I’m ashamed to admit that it took me a good number of viewings of the movie before I noticed a dwarf sitting next to the Emperor’s throne; now not only is he clearly seen but you can even make out his facial expression.

The colors are also terrific, a vast improvement over that lousy Extended Edition disc. In fact, they appear even more accurate than the French DVD, which though great on its own looks slightly duller and oversaturated in comparison to this copy. I watched the movie in full and saw no edge enhancement or compression artifacts. Considering the age of the picture and the number of dated optical effects, there’s also surprisingly little grain. Those minor speckles are my only disappointment in what is in all other respects the best video edition of Dune I’ve yet seen. Thank you, Universal. You’ve made this Dune fan very happy.

The Dune HD DVD is not flagged with an Image Constraint Token and will play in full High Definition quality over an HD DVD player’s analog Component Video outputs.

The photo images used in this article were taken from the French DVD edition for illustrative purposes only, and are not intended to demonstrate HD DVD picture quality.

Audio:
The movie’s soundtrack is provided in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 format. As with the video, I spent some time comparing the audio on the HD DVD to my previous reference, in this case the letterboxed laserdisc edition released in 1997, carefully volume matching the two discs with a sound level meter. I was surprised to find that the DD 5.1 mix on the laserdisc is noticeably bassier. The rumble when the Guild Navigator entered the throne room had my chair shaking. However, it’s not particularly refined low end, often coming across boomy. The DD+ track on the HD DVD isn’t as powerful, but it’s cleaner and better defined. And don’t get me wrong, the new disc still has plenty of satisfying bass. The first time Paul fires his Weirding Module hits with a nice thump.

Other elements of the soundtrack are also delivered with better fidelity on the HD DVD, including heartier dialogue and a general feeling of spaciousness in the front soundstage. David Lynch has always paid keen attention to the audio in his movies, and the Dune soundtrack (designed by his Eraserhead collaborator Alan Splet) is filled with all sorts of wonderfully strange effects and ambient sounds to create a convincing otherworldly atmosphere. The Guild Navigator’s mechanical breathing/pumping noises are a personal favorite. In one of the few bits of respect that the film received during its original release, it garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound. That’s quite an achievement for a movie that everybody hated.

With all that said, this is still a soundtrack from 1984 and has some inherent limitations due to its age. The Toto score sounds a little thin and strident, especially the opening theme. Surround usage is mainly reserved for ambient envelopment with just a few directional effects. Those expecting a modern whiz-bang 5.1 soundtrack may come out disappointed, but this is a fine representation of the way Dune should sound (and it should go without saying that the disc runs at the proper frame rate playback speed without any PAL speedup effects).

Subs & Dubs:
Optional subtitles - English captions for the hearing impaired, French, or Spanish.
Alternate language tracks - French DD+ 2.0.

Extras:
All of the bonus features on this HD DVD title are recycled from the DVD edition and are presented in Standard Definition video with MPEG2 compression, except the photo gallery which has been re-encoded in VC-1. Aside from the miserable “Extended Edition” of the movie itself (which I’m sure Universal is saving for a future re-release), all of the video supplements from the DVD have carried over.

• Deleted Scenes with Introduction by Raffaella De Laurentiis (17 min.) - The movie’s producer (Dino’s daughter) introduces the deleted footage by attempting to debunk the “4-hour rough cut” myth once and for all. 11 scenes are presented in rough workprint condition. All of this is new, previously unseen footage not found in the extended TV cut of the film:
• Extended prologue by Princess Irulan. This version of the intro runs way too long and contains a lot of confusing information extraneous to the movie’s story.
• Reverend Mother Ramallo’s speech. This scene falters mainly due to Silvana Mangano’s performance. The actress seems unsure of her English, and I doubt she had any idea what the strange terminology she spoke meant.
• Thufir and Duke Leto discuss the Fremen prophecy.
• Lady Jessica encounters the Shadout Mapes. This was a crucial scene in the book, but as played out here comes across as too freaky to work. The Mapes character was reduced to a mere cameo in the movie.
• Paul and Jessica in the desert argue about his fate.
• Paul cries after killing Jamis. The duel between Paul and Jamis was cut entirely from the film and can be seen only in the extended TV version. This is an addendum to that scene, showing the Fremen awed that Paul would shed precious water over the death of another, but is rendered unusable by technical problems with the footage.
• Brief extension to the death of Kynes.
• Jessica and Alia discuss the Spacing Guild plot.
• Paul has a nightmare about his future. This is a talking-in-his-sleep scene, not a dream sequence.
• Death of Thufir Hawat. The character’s storyline is left unsatisfyingly open in the movie. This footage is the first time the character has been given any resolution.
• Extension to Paul’s final speech. Here Paul announces his plans to marry Princess Irulan and claim the throne, capped by Jessica’s consolation to Chani about their status as concubines.
• Designing Dune (9 min.) - Many craftsmen who worked on the film discuss with some pride the picture’s elaborate art design. Concept drawings and detailed photos of props are also shown.
• Special Effects (6 min.) - Priceless behind-the-scenes footage is provided of explosions, wire work, and the fighting robot in operation.
• Models & Miniatures (7 min.) - Discussed here are the usage of foreground miniatures in wide shots (a still amazingly seamless effect in the film), motion control, and of course the worms.
• Wardrobe Design (9 min.) - The movie’s costume designers reveal that the Guild uniforms were made from bodybags!. Also mentioned are the stillsuits and a number of designs that were produced but never used.
• Photography Gallery - A good selection of behind-the-scenes photos and production art.

Missing from the DVD are some text production notes. Normally I’m not bothered by such omissions, and indeed the notes on the DVD don’t contain any information that I wasn’t already familiar with, but they do provide a decent overview of the movie’s production.

Neither the “Extended Edition” DVD nor the HD DVD contain the movie’s trailer, which I find odd considering that it has accompanied almost every other DVD edition of the movie the world over, including Universal’s previous non-anamorphic letterbox disc.

Region-free Dune fans are advised that the PAL DVD edition of the movie from Sanctuary Visual Entertainment in the UK contains an excellent hour-long documentary titled Impressions of Dune and an interesting 6-minute vintage featurette called Destination Dune that I wish Universal had spent the money to license. Sadly, Sanctuary’s video transfer is not particularly good, so the disc should be purchased for its bonus content only.

Final Thoughts:
I fully realize that I hold a minority opinion in my love of Dune. Though the movie has gained some small measure of respect in the 20 years since its release, it’s still widely considered a failure and mainly remembered for its status as a notorious bomb. I don’t care. Dune is a great movie no matter what the naysayers argue. The splendid HD DVD finally provides redemption for Universal after their last crummy DVD release. It has a terrific High-Def transfer that’s the best the film has ever looked on home video. The bonus features aren’t significant in volume, and foreign DVD editions have included excellent supplements that I wish could have made the transition here, but what we do get is packed with worthwhile content (love those deleted scenes!). I expect some controversy over it, but this is my review and I get to pick the rating. I’m a Dune collector and this disc is an essential part of my collection, therefore I can rate it no less than the highest DVDTalk Collector Series score. Deal with it.

“The sleeper has awakened!”

Related Articles:
DuneStuff - Dune Movie Merchandise & Collectibles
The Elephant Man (HD DVD) - David Lynch

HD Review Index
High-Def Revolution - DVDTalk’s HD Column
Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player

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Spider
Based on James Patterson’s best-selling novel in his Alex Cross series,
Washington, D.C. detective/psychologist Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman,
reprising his "Kiss the Girls" role) and Secret Service agent Jezzie
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I began watching this film out of curiosity. Having seen "The Letter" I
just wanted to see how this one stacked up. But other than in general
terms there is little else to compare them. Frankly the first half was
somewhat predictable, a soap opera that telegraphed the outcome. But
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The most interesting Screenshots for the “Toolbox Murders” movie:

This movie would never work in theatres, not a hope in hell. It would go in and out of theatres in 5minutes. Why? Because its not PG13 candy ass horror. This is the real deal.. its no bullsh*t horror.  With the right amount of gore, and great story it makes the Toolbox Murders one of the best horror movies I have seen. Tobe Hooper has outdone himself delivering a story that is creepy, alarming and just enough actual horror to make you grin with glee. A horror enthusiasts wet dream this movie is.

There is always something magical about historic Hollywood hotels. Virtually without exception, their walls bore witness to extravagances and excesses beyond imagination. That much can certainly be said of the Lusman Building, a dazzling art deco monument to the majestics, built in the 1940’s, nearly bankrupted in modern times and currently being restored to its former glory.

Barely able to afford its renovation costs, the Lusman has been forced to remain open throughout the work period, renting out rooms as apartments to anyone willing to sign up at the desk. Unfortunately, as walls begin to be knocked down and floorplans are rearranged, a darker and much less celebrated aspect of the hotel’s history begins to resurface, rooted in the black arts and still very much a current event. It is an occult force that nobody wants to deal with , let alone acknowledge, but through a series of horrifically savage acts, it will make its presence known to even the staunchest of naysayers. The fluids in the Lusman’s plumbing are about to turn a distinct shade of red, and more than a few drains will be clogged with hair, tooth and bone.

Let the carnage and the blood letting begin! An evil demon that was coffin born lurks and preys on the residents of the Lusman building and it is absolutely glorious. With a great story, just enough bumps in the dark to keep you on your toes and enough gore to make you go “ow that has to hurt”. Not overdoing things is why I praise this movie. You dont see any breasts, you dont have over the top brutal gore, and you dont have over dramatic hour long screaming and running down hallways and screaming some more. Its just a good story, with good acting and a great presence.

Angela Bettis blew me away in this movie. Her work was out-standing and was one of the highlights of this film. All of the acting was well done and within the first 30minutes of the film I was knee deep in the story. Angela stood out primarily because she was the main character. Every actor did an overall great job in this film. 

The team that did the special FX also did a great job. Top Notch. The gore was enough to get you into the film but not so much that you thought you were caught up in a Lucio Fulci film. The FX were well done to the extreme reminding me of the great quality I saw in the classic Night of the Living Dead remake.

Well done to the FX crew   As far as the directing goes I give tobe hooper a 10 out of 10. Well there you have it, my first 10. I cant believe I gave him a 10, I almost want to change it to a 9. The story was great, it moved at a great pace and had excellent direction. One beef I had in the movie was the very first scene in the film and I think it should have been cut by Tobe.. it added nothing and was just cheese to an otherwise great film! 

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Angela Bettis blew me away in this movie. Her work was out-standing and was one of the highlights of this film. All of the acting was well done and within the first 30minutes of the film I was knee deep in the story. Angela stood out primarily because she was the main character. Every actor did an overall great job in this film.

Top Notch. The gore was enough to get you into the film but not so much that you thought you were caught up in a Lucio Fulci film. The FX were well done to the extreme reminding me of the great quality I saw in the classic Night of the Living Dead remake. Well done to the FX crew

Well there you have it, my first 10. I cant believe I gave it a 10, I almost want to change it to a 9. The story was great, it moved at a great pace and had excellent direction. One beef I had in the movie was the very first scene in the film and I think it should have been cut by Tobe.. it added nothing and was just cheese to an otherwise great film!

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Bodyguard, The Reviewed By Gordie Posted 01/02/00 16:54:20

"And I liked the Dolly Parton version of the song better, too." (Total Crap)

There are thousands of things that I could ridicule about this movie. However, I’m going to try to keep to a central theme. And my theme is this: this movie couldn’t be any duller. Not even if they tried to make a dull movie.The Bodyguard stars Kevin Costner as Frank Farmer, a former Secret Service bodyguard who can’t get over the Reagan assassination attempt. Now here’s the kicker: he can’t let it go because he had to trade shifts that day to go to his MOTHER’S FUNERAL. Whitney Houston is Rachel Marron, a screen and pop diva with a stalker. But, she doesn’t know that she has a stalker because her flunkies don’t want to upset her. Whit?I mean Rachel resists Farmer’s security efforts until she learns about the stalker, and then she seduces him. After that, they snipe at each other for about an hour of film. Rachel also has a jealous sister, and an old Secret Service colleague of Farmer’s keeps showing up at obvious moments. Anyone care to guess who did it?The plot of this movie is laughably predictable. Murder?She Wrote employed more sophistication. I’m talking about the last season of Murder?She Wrote. The movie is littered with red herrings and paint-by-numbers plot devices. The one mildly suspenseful sequence in the movie occurs after you have checked off everything that you knew was going to happen and are waiting on Farmer to take the bullet for her.Kevin Costner gives a performance that would make his mother proud-provided that his mother is a tree stump. But Kevin is the lesser of two evils. Whitney Houston is called upon to play herself and she tee-totally sucks. She recites her lines with the dispassion of a bored telephone operator. Her seduction of Farmer was practically endothermic. But above all else, she was simply unbelievable in the role. Which when you consider the fact that she was playing herself, is pretty damn bad.The fifteen second clip of Yojinbo is the only reason this movie is even watchable.
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Flushed Away is the first fully computer animated feature from Aardman Animation (Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run), and while it’s disappointing to see them turn away from stop-motion animation (at least for this release), the good news is that it still matches the quality of its predecessors in good humor, fun characterizations, and a good deal of infectious energy.  The premise is that a pet mouse named Roddy (Jackman, The Prestige) gets flushed down the toilet, going from his pampered life into the danger-filled sewers of London.  His mission is to get back up to the world on top, but first he must help his newfound friend, Rita (Winslet, Finding Neverland), in her quest to escape the clutches of the malevolent Toad (McKellen, X-Men: The Last Stand), who wants to obtain the ruby she has stolen back from his possession, which he wants for his own evil plans to destroy the mouse horde living in the city of the sewers.

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