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Outstanding
Achievements in DVD for 2005
continued
from last page
 BEST
DVD - STUDIO |
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Warner
Bros.
At least one category this year was an easy call. For the
second year in a row, Warner continues to impress us with their
commitment to the DVD format, their willingness to learn from
past mistakes, and their ongoing effort to find new ways to
improve their product for the home viewer... not just for their
bottom line. They maintained a high level of quality with their
new titles, like Batman Begins
and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
and they quite simply blew us away with their amazing
restoration work and their in-depth special edition treatment on
their ever-growing library of classics on DVD. Our
congratulations to Warner Bros. for another amazing year.
|
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| BEST
DVD - MUSIC (NON-LIVE) |
Special
thanks to our friends at
 |
Bob
Dylan: No Direction Home
(Paramount)
If there's anything surprising about
Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half hour documentary about the
early years of Bob Dylan, it's that it didn't get a theatrical
release. This is simply one of the best films on the subject of
music you'll see. The film itself is a fantastic, intimate
exploration of one of the great singer-songwriters of all time.
On top of that, the bonus disc included in this set contains a
number of additional Dylan performances. No
Direction Home is a must-have for anyone with a
serious interest in music of the last forty years. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
For rockumentaries, it was a very good year.
Metallica:
Some Kind of Monster is a revealing look at the
world's biggest metal band.
End
of the Century: The Story of the Ramones goes
into great detail about the rise and fall of one of our favorite
punk bands.
The
Director's Label Series, Volume 2 continues a
great idea by compiling some of the best in music video, this
time focusing on the work of Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer,
Anton Corbijn and Stephane Sednaoui with videos by the likes of
U2, Nirvana, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Johnny Cash.
Finally, if you find yourself singing "America, fuck yeah!"
from time to time, you'll understand why we've included Trey
Parker and Matt Stone's
Team
America: World Police - Uncut and Uncensored in
this category and not under Best Animated Release. Like the South
Park movie before it, this was one helluva great film
musical. |
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| BEST
DVD - MUSIC (LIVE/CONCERT) |
Special
thanks to our friends at
 |
Rush
- R30: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
(Anthem/Zoë)
You've really got to hand it to Rush. When they were spanked by
critics for releasing their Rush in
Rio concert DVD sans anamorphic widescreen
enhancement, they learned their lesson well. The DVD team at
Anthem and Zoë went back to the drawing board and assembled
R30... one of the most
rock solid, ground-up music DVD releases we've seen to date. You
get the very best looking anamorphic widescreen concert video
we've ever seen and enveloping Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. A second
DVD offers vintage band interviews and music videos. You get a
booklet packed with photos. You even get the complete concert in
2-disc CD format as well. Finally, the packaging is slick and
includes an actual backstage pass from the tour, along with
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson's guitar picks. All that's missing is
Neil Pert's signed drumstick and somebody's first-born child.
Hands down, any way you slice it, this is THE concert DVD of the
year. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
Our obligatory U2 shout-out goes to
Vertigo
2005: Live from Chicago. Green Day released a
great CD/DVD combo for their first live release,
Bullet
in a Bible. The raw power of Iggy Pop's live
performances is beautifully captured in the career-spanning
Live
at the Avenue B. The troubled history of one of
pop music's most legendary albums is retold, complete with a
live performance of the entire album, on
Brian
Wilson Presents SMiLE. The Boss was well
represented on yet another great CD/DVD box set combo with the
Born
to Run: 30th Anniversary 3-Disc Set, which
included great live performances and a documentary on the DVD
disc. And the Bono/Geldof-organized
Live
8 is a far more satisfying event on DVD than it
was live on television, complete with the legendary Pink Floyd
reunion (and Floyd rehearsal footage too). |
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| BEST
DVD - AUDIO COMMENTARY |
 |
Joel
Schumacher
Batman
& Robin: Two-Disc Special Edition
(Warner Bros.)
This may be the first non-Razzie Award that Batman
& Robin has ever won. It's almost unheard of to
hear a director own up to the flaws in a major blockbuster movie
the way Schumacher does here. It was brave of Schumacher to be
so candid and bold of Warner Bros. to allow him to have his say.
Get it? The brave and the bold? Little joke for you comic book
fans out there. Trust us... this is a completely fascinating
listen from start to finish. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
Particular mention needs to be made of the commentary by J.J.
Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk on
Lost:
The Complete First Season. The episode actually
stops to allow them to focus on a particular thought. Pretty
cool. Also of note, the camaraderie you see between Paul
Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church on screen in
Sideways
extends to their funny and warm-hearted commentary. Don Cheadle,
director Paul Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco take a
revealing look at
Crash,
providing a surprisingly large number of revelations. Ridley
Scott is always a good listen, but he's even better joined by
Russell Crowe (in his first ever commentary) on the
Gladiator:
Extended Edition. And the
King
Kong: Collector's Edition provides a seamless
blend of newly recorded commentary and vintage audio interviews
with Ray Harryhausen, Ken Ralston, Merian C. Cooper and Fay
Wray. |
|
| BEST
DVD - DOCUMENTARY (TIE) |
 |
Grizzly
Man
(Lionsgate)
Hoop
Dreams
(The Criterion Collection)
Our winners in this category this year have just one thing in
common. Both are extraordinary non-fiction films that you'll
want to watch more than once, demonstrating the power of
documentary filmmaking at its best.
Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man
casts an almost hypnotic spell in exploring the strange story of
Timothy Treadwell, a complex young man whose obsessive love of
bears led to him ultimately capturing his own death by mauling
on tape.
Set in a decidedly more urban environment, Steve James' Hoop
Dreams follows two young African-American boys' plan
to escape the ghetto via their talent on the basketball court
(and hopefully the NBA draft). This film has appeared previously
on DVD, but in the hands of the good folks at Criterion, you
just knew it could only get better. Indeed, the two commentary
tracks on this disc alone are worth its purchase price, letting
us know just how close the boys' dreams came to reality. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
If Grizzly Man gives you
a case of Herzog fever, you'll want to follow it with
Criterion's
Burden
of Dreams, Les Blank's amazing documentary
about the making of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo.
Gunner
Palace does a better job of putting a human
face on the soldiers fighting the Iraq war than any news story
ever could. And sports documentaries don't get much better than
Murderball,
a look at the competitive world of quadriplegic rugby. Also
worth your time are
The
Errol Morris DVD Collection,
Bob
Dylan: No Direction Home,
Metallica:
Some Kind of Monster,
DiG!,
Tarnation,
March
of the Penguins,
The
Corporation,
Born
into Brothels and many more. Documentaries
rarely get their due, and 2005 was another great year for the
genre. |
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| BEST
DVD - ANIMATED FILM (DOMESTIC & ANIME) |
 |
Disney
DVD
We tried our best to come up with a single winner in this
category, but there were just too many great animated releases
in 2005, all of which had one thing in common: They were
released by Disney. The studio has been producing outstanding
animated DVD releases for some time now, but in 2005, they
really kicked it up a notch. Their association with Pixar
produced the brilliant
The
Incredibles: 2-Disc Collector's Edition, as
well as two-disc reissues of both
Toy
Story and
Toy
Story 2, complete with new transfers that
somehow managed to improve on the seemingly flawless original
discs. The Walt Disney Treasures
line produced more
Donald
Duck, as well as a set of
Disney
Rarities that included a wide range of one-off
cartoons. The Studio Ghibli films were in good hands with discs
like
Nausicaä
of the Valley of the Wind and
Porco
Rosso. Best of all, Disney's Platinum Edition
versions of their best-loved films brought us excellent
restorations of
Cinderella
and
Bambi.
After a year like this, there's little doubt that the House of
Mouse still has the touch when it comes to animation on DVD.
THE RUNNERS-UP
A cult classic from Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta was given a
stylish new presentation in Blue Underground's
Fire
and Ice: 2-Disc Limited Edition. One of the
most popular anime series around got an upgrade with beefed-up
sound in Bandai's release of
Cowboy
Bebop: The Remix Editions. One of the great
anime feature films became a pretty great anime TV series, and
was given its best digital treatment in Bandai's
Ghost
in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Limited Editions,
with even more extra info about the series revealed in the
Official
Log 1. You can get the taste of that Charlize
Theron movie out of your mouth with Paramount's Æon
Flux: Complete Animated Collection, reminding
yourself why the show was cool in the first place.
Finally, on the studio front again, special mention goes out to
the continuing work of Warner Bros. on their animated releases,
including Hanna-Barbera library titles like
The
Flintstones, Cartoon Network series like
Samurai
Jack and
Aqua
Teen Hunger Force, their line-up of DC
superheroes including
Batman
and
Superman
and, last but by no means least, the latest
Looney
Tunes Golden Collection (outstanding work all,
which we've honored here in previous years). |
|
| BEST
DVD - TV SERIES PRESENTATION |
Special
thanks to our friends at
 |
Lost:
The Complete First Season
(Buena Vista)
The cult phenomenon Lost
shows how to do TV on DVD right with its freshman set, a
beautifully produced package with top-notch picture and sound
and a boatload (or maybe a planeload) of terrific bonus
features. Even the menus on this set are great. Like 24
before it, Lost is a
series that was made to be watched on DVD. Unlike the continuing
adventures of Jack Bauer, however, Lost
also demands to be re-watched again and again. This first season
set makes it a pleasure, whether you're watching it for the 4th
time, the 8th time, the 15th time, the 16th time, the 23rd time,
or the 42nd time. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
Battlestar
Galactica: Season One and
2.0
are the best ways to get acquainted with not just one of the
best sci-fi shows on TV, but one of the best shows on TV period.
Star
Trek: Enterprise was a series that just got
better and better until its untimely demise. Paramount released
all four seasons on disc in 2005, so you can track its entire
progression (and in anamorphic widescreen to boot - a first for
TV Trek on DVD). HBO's
Deadwood:
The Complete First Season spotlights the cable
network's most addictive new show in years. By the power of
Grayskull, BCI's
He-Man
and the Masters of the Universe: Season 1, Volume 1
is one of the best presentations of an animated TV series to
date.
By the way, the great work done on the above series takes
nothing away from continuing TV series packages on DVD, like
Seinfeld,
The
Twilight Zone, and
The
Simpsons. Each of these shows has set a
standard of excellence that we've honored in previous years, and
we're extremely pleased to say that they continue to live up to
our high expectations. |
|
| MOST
SURPRISING DVD |
|
King
Kong: Peter Jackson's Production Diaries
(Universal)
Releasing an elaborate "making-of"
DVD package for a film that hasn't even hit theatres, much less
DVD, is either a marketing ploy of amazing hubris or a vote of
real confidence in the quality of the film (or maybe both).
Whichever side of the argument you come down on, there can be
little doubt that Peter Jackson set a new standard for
behind-the-scenes access with this set.
THE RUNNERS-UP
Warner's
Val
Lewton Horror Collection is the box set horror
fans dreamed of, but never really thought they'd get to see due
to the relative obscurity of the films themselves. Buena Vista
could have simply dumped
The
Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou as a bare-bones
disc and been done with it, but by licensing it to Criterion we
were treated to a delightful two-disc set. Almost nobody wants
to believe it at first, but
The
40-Year-Old Virgin really is a terrific
movie... and not too shabby a DVD, either. We're huge Zatoichi
fans here at The Bits, but
even on our most optimistic days, we never really expected to
see a domestic DVD release of the classic
Zatoichi:
The Blind Swordsman TV series. And one of the
most surprising re-releases of the year had to be MGM's
Hoosiers:
Collector's Edition. Issued with very little
fanfare, the disc boasts plenty of excellent bonus features,
including the 1954 Indiana High School Championship Basketball
Game. That's right, actual archive film footage of the ENTIRE
game upon which the film was based. We sure didn't see THAT
coming! |
|
| BEST
USE OF DVD FEATURES |
 |
Audience
Reaction Commentary
Sin-Chroni-City Timeline
Frank
Miller's Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated
(Buena Vista/Dimension)
Sin City was hands-down
the special edition DVD of the year, thanks to a multitude of
terrific and innovative special features. The Audience
Reaction Commentary mode is an idea so simple and
great, you have to wonder why it's only been done once before
(on the 2-disc special edition of The
Rocky Horror Picture Show, naturally). Even better is
Sin-Chroni-City, an
interactive feature that allows you to explore the intersecting
people, places and events of Basin City, complete with audio
commentary by creator Frank Miller himself. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
Those tired of navigating ordinary menus can explore Disc Two
of the
Batman
Begins: Deluxe Edition via the Inner
Demons Menu Mode/Interactive Comic Book. Ridley
Scott's
Kingdom
of Heaven found a new way to present its "making-of"
documentary via the Interactive
Production Grid. The too-often ignored multi-angle
capability of DVD is well-utilized in the Pita's
Abduction - Multi-Angle Sequence on Tony Scott's
Man
on Fire: All-Access Collector's Edition. And
James Cameron's
Titanic:
Special Collector's Edition takes viewers out
of the movie and behind-the-scenes with its branching Behind-the-Scenes
Viewing Mode.
Finally, special mention must be made again of Peter Jackson
and WETA Digital's reconstruction of the lost Spider Pit
sequence from the
King
Kong: Collector's Edition. While it doesn't
technically exploit the DVD format's capabilities, it's an
extraordinary way to illustrate (specifically for the DVD
release) the process involved in making the original film, while
also attempting to resurrect footage from that film that was
considered lost. |
|
| BEST
DVD EASTER EGG |
|
Five
Different Easter eggs
Lost:
The Complete First Season
(Buena Vista)
It should come as no surprise that the DVD release of Lost,
a series built upon riddles that hides little clues, in-jokes
and red herrings throughout its episodes, should win in this
category. Disc Seven hides an alternate title sequence, a funny
alternate ending to the episode The
Climb, the repeating 'French message',
behind-the-scenes video of the shooting of Locke's 'orange
smile' scene and even an alternate menu animation. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
Hidden on the second disc of
Gladiator:
Extended Edition is the tantalizing suggestion
of a possible sequel film, Gladiator
II: Blood of the Empire. Keep using the Infinite
Improbability Drive menu option on
The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and sooner or
later you'll get to see the bizarro cartoon that Deep Thought's
watching in the film. Our favorite Jedi master and his posse
thrown down (Master Y and the Clone Troopas anyone?) in a funny
music video hidden on the first disc of
Star
Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. And if
you're like us, you probably thought Titanic
would be much improved if it were 30 seconds long and performed
by bunnies. Such dreams come true on the third disc of the
Titanic:
Special Collector's Edition. |
|
| BEST
HIGH RESOLUTION AUDIO (ANY FORMAT) |
Special
thanks to our friends at
 |
Dire
Straits: Brothers in Arms: 20th Anniversary Edition (SACD)
(Vertigo - UK)
Unfortunately, 2005 saw high-resolution
audio take a back seat to low-rez audio downloading. SACD and
DVD-Audio all but disappeared here in the States in favor of
DualDisc releases, with decidedly with mixed results.
Fortunately, the SACD format has enjoyed continued success in
Europe. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the UK SACD
release of Brothers in Arms.
The title is available as a DualDisc here in the States, but it
just doesn't compare to the sonic clarity and fidelity of the
SACD (thank goodness for Amazon.co.uk!). We also think it's
entirely fitting that one of the first titles ever released on
the CD format way back in 1985 should win in this category in
2005. |
THE RUNNERS-UP
A very close second in this category was the exceptional
Talking
Heads Brick, which collects 77,
More Songs About Buildings and Trees,
Fear of Music, Remain
in Light, Speaking in
Tongues, Little Creatures,
True Stories and Naked
in DualDisc format, with CD audio, DVD-player compatible Dolby
Digital 5.1 and 2.0 audio and Advanced Resolution (DVD-Audio)
5.1 and 2.0 audio as well, along with a wealth of unreleased
tracks and video-based extras. Also noteworthy on the high-rez
front in 2005 were
Jackson
Browne: Running on Empty (CD/DVD-Audio),
The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The Complete
Recordings (CD/DVD-Audio), and
Beck:
Guero - Collector's Edition (CD/DVD-Audio). |
|
on
to Other DVD Awards for 2005 |
|
