 WORST
DVD - OVERALL |
The
Twilight Samurai (Empire Pictures)
One of the best samurai films to come out
of Japan since the glory days of Kurosawa and Mifune, and this
is the best disc Region 1 viewers get? Mediocre, non-anamorphic
video, a flat 2.0 audio track leagues short of what it could be
and a pair of interviews comprise the sum total of this blown
opportunity. Empire needs to start over from square one and
produce the kind of special edition DVD that The
Twilight Samurai deserves.
THE RUNNERS-UP
None. In terms of its mediocrity, The
Twilight Samurai is in a category all its own. |
|
| WORST
DVD - SPECIAL EDITION (TIE) |
The
Bourne Identity: Explosive Extended Edition
(Universal)
Meet
the Parents: Bonus Edition (Universal)
Look, we're not idiots. We know what's
happening here and we aren't buying it. A sequel is about to hit
theatres, so you "enhance" the original film's
existing DVD release (which we likely already own) with slightly
more bonus material and call it an Explosive,
Super-Duper or Bonus
edition. If you're gonna try to double, triple and quadruple-dip
us on a title, you damn well ought to at least give us something
substantially new that we might actually want. And a trailer for
the new movie or tie-in videogame doesn't count.
THE RUNNERS-UP
Somebody save us from uncut, unrated special editions of movies
that weren't any good in the first place. We're talking about
The
Animal: Uncut Special Edition,
Booty
Call: The Bootiest Edition and the
Harold
and Kumar Go to White Castle: Extreme Unrated Edition.
Just because Quentin Tarantino enjoys being on camera doesn't
make
HERO
a special edition either. And Warner usually has better taste
than to double-dip with a 2-disc special edition of something
like
Gothika. |
|
| WORST
DVD - STANDARD EDITION |
The
Twilight Samurai (Empire Pictures)
There's a bare minimum of requirements a
standard edition DVD has to meet in order to impress us... and
The Twilight Samurai
failed just about every one of them.
THE RUNNER-UP
Universal has been releasing a lot of catalog titles as the
barest of bare-bones, full-frame DVDs lately. This cannot stand.
Of them all, Don Siegel's
Charley
Varrick deserves much, much better. One of his
and Walter Matthau's best movies and it doesn't even have a
menu?! Try again, folks. |
|
| WORST
DVD - BOXED SET (TIE) |
Rocky
Anthology (MGM)
The
Rambo Trilogy: The Ultimate Collection (Lions
Gate)
Poor Sly Stallone can't get any respect this year. First MGM
repackages all five Rocky
movies on disc with much-needed improvements in the video
quality... but sneakily drops all the extras from the previous
releases and only includes a bonus 6th disc on packages with a
blink-and-you'll-miss-it sticker on the front. Then Lions Gate
goes back to the Rambo
well, tweaking the picture but dropping the DTS audio options
and a lot of the best extras from the previous "Penultimate"
editions. Talk about one step forward and two steps back!
THE RUNNER-UP
Hey... we'd be first in line for a proper special edition of
Showgirls, but MGM's
VIP
Limited Edition ain't it. That's a big box for
one measly disc and we can get the playing cards, pasties and
shot glasses cheaper elsewhere, thank you very much. About the
only reason to buy this box was for the topless poster of
Elizabeth Berkley - compelling certainly but not worth $40. |
|
| WORST
DVD - VIDEO (TIE) |
The
Twilight Samurai (Empire Pictures)
HERO
(Miramax)
Are you sensing a pattern here? Empire's
The Twilight Samurai
looked like it was mastered from an analog videotape in
letterboxed widescreen only (shameful given that non-U.S.
versions of the film on DVD feature a high-quality anamorphic
transfer). Miramax's HERO
meanwhile, a film that should have looked absolutely
jaw-dropping on DVD, arrived anamorphic but riddled with
compression artifacts and a strangely digital-looking quality to
its transfer. Twilight is
by far the worst looking of the two, but it's a toss up as to
which was more disappointing.
THE RUNNER-UP
Fox's campy hit series The O.C.
is broadcast each week in digital widescreen high-definition,
and it has been from the start. So why is it that Warner's
The
O.C.: The Complete First Season hit DVD this
year with full frame video only? Apparently the folks in
Marketing think teenagers don't like widescreen. This was a
stupid decision (thankfully one of only a very few made by the
studio in 2004). |
|
| WORST
DVD - SOUND |
The
Twilight Samurai (Empire Pictures)
Okay... the disc includes a Dolby Digital
2.0 track in the original Japanese. It's solid if unremarkable.
But how hard would it really have been to re-mix the film in
full 5.1 surround? Not too hard apparently - international
versions of this film on DVD feature both Dolby Digital and DTS
audio.
THE RUNNERS-UP
None really come to mind. Certainly, none were more
disappointing than this. |
|
| WORST
USE OF DVD FEATURES |
"META"
anything
The
Rambo Trilogy: The Ultimate Collection (Lions
Gate)
More often than not, DVD's interactivity is a mixed blessing.
At worst, you get something like this where the "survival
mode" option allows you to branch off to maps, character
profiles and weapon stats and other useless dreck. Who freakin'
cares? It's a movie, not a first person shooter! If we wanted
this kind of information, we'd renew our subscription to Soldier
of Fortune... not buy a DVD. |
|
| MOST
DISAPPOINTING DVD (TIE) |
The
Twilight Samurai (Empire Pictures)
HERO
(Miramax)
We're not even going to talk about The
Twilight Samurai anymore. It's just way too
depressing. As for HERO,
Miramax should absolutely have given this film its best in-depth
special edition treatment (no, Quentin Tarantino kissing Jet
Li's ass on camera doesn't count). The video ought to have
looked better and certainly did on some international DVD
versions. |
|
| DIGITAL
IN |
Independent
DVD Producers
Surprise! As was true last year and the
year before, and probably again in 2006, hands down the very
best DVD special editions are being created by independent
producers... NOT studio marketing departments. If you've been
reading The Bits for any
length of time, we shouldn't have to explain why. Hats off to
all you producers out there who toil away largely without
recognition, but who make our favorite DVDs worth spinning. |
|
| DIGITAL
OUT |
Blu-ray
Disc vs. HD-DVD
Two incompatible high-definition disc formats are coming later
this year. Another f--king format war is now almost unavoidable.
Great.
All you suits responsible for this disaster in Hollywood and
the Consumer Electronics industry, do us a favor will you? Just
slap yourselves upside the head. This is happening for just one
reason, pure and simple: Greed. DVD was a monster success and
now everyone wants a bigger slice of the pie the next time
around. The shame of it is, a format war is only going to
confuse consumers and probably kill momentum for high-definition
material on disc for at least a couple of years... and given
that so many people have only just upgraded to regular DVD, the
transition to HD on disc was never going to be as big anyway.
It's enough to make us pull all our hair out in frustration. |
|
| DVD
STUDIO WE WANT MORE FROM (TIE) |
Miramax
& Universal
This was a tough category to call.
Universal's been cranking out a lot of bare-bones catalog discs,
their quality control is regularly subpar and they're only now
finally starting to deliver long-awaited TV and catalog titles.
On the other hand, the video quality of Miramax's recent DVDs is
arguably the lowest of any major studio, and they have a bad
habit of regularly dropping the ball on their Japanese and HK
titles. Let's hope things start looking up for both studios in
2005 and beyond. |
|
| WORST
TREND IN DVD |
The
Continued Dumbing Down of DVD
Is anyone else sick of preview trailers,
studio logos, FBI warning screens and legal disclaimers that you
can't skip past? Do you mourn the fact that booklets and inserts
seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur? Do you hate TV titles
released with their original music replaced (and no disclaimer
alerting you to that fact)? Are you tired of videogame tie-ins,
silly interactive games and marketing filler that just takes
disc space away from REAL extras, ultra-cheap keep case plastic,
discs without menu screens and chapter stops, recycled
full-frame laserdisc transfers, multiple dips on the same title
and retailer exclusive bonus discs? Yeah... we are too. Sadly,
as we correctly predicted last year, it's only going to keep
getting worse. |
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