The Method To My Madness

Hey there again. This question is particularly for Andy: When you watch your DVDs, is there a process you go through in order to get everything you need to have the DVD covered? I mean, do you first watch it, then see it again for the Video & Audio, then see it again with commentary... or do you kill two birds with one stone? How do you do it? Don't you ever get tired of watching the damn movie more than twice (especially when they suck)?

-- David

I do the technical eval when the film stars. Usually you can get the technical impression early on, so after that I try to just enjoy the movie. The only notes I take after the first 15 minutes are new A/V issues (all of 13 Going On 30's problems surfaced late in the movie) and times when something that would make for a good screen shot comes up. Usually I wait until after sundown, since my apartment faces south and the ambient light screws things up no matter how dark I make the place. I watch the extras after I'm done and listen to the commentary afterwards. I don't do the full commentary, you can usually figure out if it's going to be good after a half hour or so. Nine times out of 10, a review is written the day after the movie is watched. Some times I regret this short schedule, as it doesn't allow for repeated viewing that might change my mind. I've scored movies low that I viewed again and ended up liking, and vice versa.

--Andy

Seinfeld High Def? Nothing Wrong With That.

A recent piece of news on your site mentions that the Seinfeld DVDs will be remastered in high definition. How exactly is this possible? Obviously they weren't filmed in HD, but isn't DVD an "enhanced definition" format anyway? I just don't get it. If you have any information on this, thanks in advance.

-- Sandro

A lot of sitcoms, including Seinfeld are/were shot on 35mm film rather than videotape for this exact reason: life after TV. So since it's shot on film, the 35mm negative has 4096 lines of resolution, four times the 1080 of high definition. Mastering it in high definition, if anything, is dumbing it down.

--Andy

Settling A Bet

My girlfriend and I made a bet that Billy Bob Thornton made an appearance in How to Deal staring Mandy Moore. Did he or did he not. Please help us resolve this bet.

-- Eddie

BBT made no such appearance. So who gets to be on top?

--Andy

More Kill Bill Bites?

Is their any word yet that Tarantino started working on the special editions of Kill Bill for a Christmas release? And if he is will they be sold separately from multiple bites at the apple because I already have all his other movies.

-- Ivan

No bites this year. A Disney rep at VSDA told me there is nothing on the schedule for the rest of the year for KB 1 and 2 in any form beyond the two titles they've announced.

--Andy

A Faster End For Snappers?

I am pleased to see that snappers are on their way out. It took long enough. I do have a few questions:

1. Will Warner retroactively switch the current snappers to Amaray cases, or are the snappers that are currently snappers remain snappers?

2. In Warner's new Hitchcock box set, the cases appear to be Amaray cases. North by Northwest is currently a snapper. Will it become an Amaray for the box set and in general, or will it be the only snapper in a box set full of Amaray cases?

I appreciate the time.

-- Sam

I suspect they won't make a rush to replace, they will just eventually swap out snapper cases with Amarays as a product goes out of print and a new batch is generated and released. They will just let the stuff on the market dwindle down before replacing.

--Andy

Called On The Carpet Again

I read the review, or began to read the review, for Johnson Family Vacation on DVD and I was immediately disturbed by your opening comment.

"Johnson Family Vacation is the latest in this genre, and I welcome it as a more positive portrayal of a black family than we see on screen. No guns, no n-words, no drug dealing."

Now I have seen most recent "black" movies that hit the big screen, and Deliver us from Eva, The Brothers, Barbershop 1 & 2, Love Don't Cost a Thing, Drumline, Brown Sugar, Cradle to the Grave and countless others come to mind. None of these movies contain drug dealing, over-used violence or excessive use of the "N" word. With the excpetion of Bad Boys 2, I cant think of a black movie that has been a major studio release of the last 4 years to contain these elements you seem to find in black movies. These comments apply to black television shows as well.

I hope your readers don't read this and immediately think that most black movies display these horrible attributes that you somehow "see" in black movies.

Needless to say, I didn't read the rest of your review but I hope you can take this into consideration in your future reviews and in your life in general.

-- Brian

Well, you are right to call me on the comment in the story, but I did have a reason for saying what I said. If you had kept reading you'd have seen I thought it was an ok movie. It was written after a series of events leaving me frustrated. I'd just returned from VSDA, where I'd had a lengthy conversation with Disney over why Song of the South will never see the light of day. Yet a few weeks prior I had reviewed the abysmal Never Die Alone, which I felt was hideous. It struck me as ridiculous that Song of the South was deemed harmful but Never Die Alone was acceptable. Plus, I saw a several movies at VSDA that were of the pissed-off-black-men-with-guns variety (Full Clip looks so charming). So along comes a harmless family comedy and I see a black family with a life that looks somewhat familiar (ok, that's a stretch), and it was something of a relief. And in case you missed it, I gave an Editor's Choice to Barbershop 2 and liked it a lot.

--Andy