Category: DVD/BR

  • Dear DVD Reviewer: Review the DVD, not the Film.

    This is my little request to people who give their review in places like Amazon, YesAsia.com, and other online stores throughout the web. Is it too much to ask to write a review that talks about the product at hand?? We’re not at the movies, we’re not paying to ‘just’ watch the film. We are also paying to ‘buy’ the DVD, so we would like to know how’s the image transfer, the audio, what options for setup we have, what extras we get, what kind of packaging we get for said price, etc.

    In all my years of DVD buying (somehow this doesn’t apply much to CDs), I have maybe read one or two reviews by a customer that talk about technical stuff. 99.9% of the time you would find a review of the film saying what a wonderful film it was, and how great the acting is. Yes, it’s important to give your opinion of the film, in case someone who hasn’t seen it wants to watch it. But, let’s face it… they could go on a google search and find it anywhere else.

    What if I already have seen the film, and want to get the DVD??? Is the DVD worth the price tag? No one mentions that a $16 dollar tag for a single disc with no extras might be to pricey, considering there are single disc DVDs that cost as much as $5. Does it have a blow-your-mind type of DVD Menu maybe? Did it come with something extra that make you treasure it?? Like some pretty nifty printed s tuff?? Only 0.01% of customers mention this type of stuff, and it BUGS ME because it screws up my buying experience.

  • Pricey Hobbies

    Wah… That’s all I have to react, Wah~~~ hahaha

    So because I’m a dork, I usually try to purchase stuff I really quite like listening or watching, or just for the sake of having it. So, for the past week, I have been totally addicted to Yu Aoi material – Films and Shows – so dorky me went “What the heck?” and I visited YesAsia.com to check on DVDs. I watched an episode of Camouflage, which I thought was BIZARRE, but surprisingly good as in “it almost looks like a film” type of show.

    The show (also known as Aoi Yu x 4 Lies, or something like that) is told into four 3-episode-chapters (making the number of chapters 12), each chapter directed by a different director, who had no restrains to tell a story centering on the idea of lies.

    So I watched it, and thought it was really good, but all episodes are not downloading so I went and looked them up. They’re coming out on DVD (Japan Region, 2) this July 15th, on 4 different sets. However, problem number one! They don’t have English subs. And problema numero dos, each set of 3 episodes is roughly $40USD, making the whole 12 episodes $160USD… roughly, give or take. So my mouth dropped, and profanity came out of it hahaha.

    Because of this, I went and searched for Nodame Cantabile (just to check on average prices), which was roughly $240USD for the 11 episodes on the show. LE GASP! My heart broke, my brain cried, and my spirit was broken realizing how broke my bank account would be. Can you imagine?? Buying 3 different Jdrama DVD sets at $240USD each? Lucky, or unlucky for me~~ most of them are not English subtitled. Maybe not knowing Japanese is a perk? LOL’

    The good thing is that Amazon.com has some Yu Aoi movie DVDs, but it’s VERY limited… at a reasonable price, but limited. And I doubt they will list Camouflage… le sigh. I might consider buying “Hana and Alice” and “Hula Girls”, though I will be missing Rainbow Song. T_T

  • Firefly – Shows You Should’ve Watched

    On year 2002, a little odd sci-fi show began showing on Fox… and as all worthy Fox shows, it got canceled. Sadly, I never saw this show when it was on the air because it was not showing in Peru in 2002, and when I got to Canada, it was already out of the air. I remember that when I returned to Lima, I saw a couple of commercials on tv, but never made anything out of it.

    fireflyIt was not until my friend Nathan dragged me to the movies to watch Serenity… well, he didn’t drag me because I was more than willing to watch films, LOL’ – so when I watched the film, I was WOWed with it. And so… my friend lend me his pirated DVDs. HAHAHA. The DVD set was expensive back in the day, so I watched the whole show in less than a week and have been totally addicted to it. The same story can be told for a whole bunch of classmates, as the day arrived when the DVD set dropped in price thanks to a sale at HMV, and ALL of us went and bought it. Seriously, it’s like 6 of us went one day without knowing we did and bought the set. Like synchronized-buying.

    The show is so unique that my sci-fi-fantasy-fiction-hating of a mother LOVED watching it. If you mention Lord of the Rings to my mother, she will tell you it’s well made… or Star Wars, she will tell you the story when she fell asleep during the film, a story similar to the one she will tell you when she watched Matrix. So my mother HATES this type of shows, but she LOVES Firefly – That’s how GOOD this show is… or was.

    The show is set in the futuristic future (2517, to be exact), and we are screwed. LOL’ Earth is just the Earth that was, thus we were forced to search for somewhere else to live namely other planets and moons. Western culture has mashed up with Eastern culture, thus giving us great moments when our characters swear in unintelligible Chinese. Moreover, there is also The Alliance, which is very much like the Empire in Star Wars… and we have “the space cowboys”. The crew of our flying Firefly vessel, namely Serenity… including one of my favorite characters, Captain Mal Reynolds, ass-kicking 2nd in command Zoe, outrageous Wash the pilot, dense and gun lover Jayne, the sex-hungry mechanic Kaylee, love-daft Simon the doctor, crazy lunatic River mystery, and the sexy ‘companion’ Inara.

    You’ll love the characters, you’ll love their bad moments, you’ll love their good moments. It’s not about the western, it’s not about the sci-fi, it’s about the people and their relations. I LUV it. I love the jokes, I love the mixing of Chinese and English… the gorram GORRAM! xD So you better WATCH it NOW, GORRAM it!

  • 2008 Films I wanna see!

    Well, it’s already month three of 2008, and my original 2007 post of films I wanted to see it’s complete! For a complete record of what I’ve been watching from the lists, check this tag.

    So here’s a new list of films that I wanna see this year (I’ve watched some already):

    • Les Chansons d’Amour
    • Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
    • Nim’s Island
    • Baby Mama
    • Son of Rambow
    • The Life Before her Eyes
    • Smart People
    • Married Life
    • Young People Fucking (though this has been released a while ago… 2006 or 2007)
    • The Dark Knight
    • The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

    And these are the films I have been watching since this update post. (more…)

  • The Academy Awards are tomorrow, and…

    I will be posting live. I’ve got my predictions, but won’t post or I might jinx them! In the meantime, this is a new whole bunch of films I’ve seen in the past few days… (following this post)

    • Across the Universe
    • Goya’s Ghost (Los Fantasmas de Goya)
    • My Blueberry Nights
    • The Darjeeling Limited
    • I’m a Cyborg, but It’s OK
    • Martian Child
    • Fido
    • Becoming Jane
    • Margot at the Wedding
    • Persepolis
    • Juno
    • Gone Baby Gone
    • Lars and the Real Girl
    • El Orfanato
    • 4 luni, 3 saptamini si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
    • The Jane Austen Book Club
    • Jesus Camp
    • Into the Wild
    • Sicko
    • The Kite Runner
    • 12
    • Tout pour Plaire (Thirty Five Something)
    • 3 Needles
    • Rocket Science
    • Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
    • The Air I Breathe
    • Run, Fat Boy, Run
    • L’auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment)
    • Les Poupées Russes (Russian Dolls)
    • 10 Items or Less
    • Lucia y el Sexo (Sex and Lucia)
    • Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

  • Jeux d’Enfants – Love Me If You Dare

    Continuing with the Best Kisses posts, this is one of my fave films. A dark romantic comedy about Julien and Sophie, who become friends as kids and begin playing a dangerous game of Truth or Dare. Marion Cotillard is truly fantastic on this one, and the various versions of La Vie en Rose make it great.

    Since I couldn’t find great captures online, I took some time to make my own. If you use them, it’ll be great that you could link back, or leave a message. ^^

    The graphics are from the following moments of the film; Julien and Sophie kissing on top of a car, after Sophie dares him to do so, which continues in the alley until the moment ends and she realizes that it might be just a game to him. And the other moment was when they were about to be covered with the cement, and Julien tells her he should’ve dared to love her like crazy… and they stay happy. together. forever.
    (more…)

  • Juno Luv

    Ellen Page - Juno PreggersThe last time I remember writing a review, it was for Golden Compass. This time I must express my luv for Juno… I instantly fell in luvvvv with the film, and we luvvv Diablo Cody for that. Ellen Page was superb as pregnant teen, Juno, though I admit Juno might be a little too smart to end up in shenanigans like that, but that’s besides the point. Ellen Page = Junoness.

    Michael Cera is cute as Juno’s sperminator, while Simmons and Janney do great as the parents who don’t freak out… Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman appear as the couple adopting Juno’s unborn baby. Oh yeah! And I have to mention Valerie Tian as abortion protester/classmate Su-chin (who happens to be from Vancouver, woot woot).

    Juno is enjoyable, well acted, and has a rocking soundtrack. It’s a must-watch for people, and it’s a must-have for me! Oh yeah, and how much did all those cute doodling-doodle-dos rock?

    I leave you all with a kick-ass interview with Ellen Page from Curve online-mag.

  • Films I Wanna See – Update

    Well, apparently I’m rubbish at watching the films I want to watch… the lack of films on Peruvian theaters also doesn’t help one bit. Follow up to this post.

    • Across the Universe (2007)
    • The Other Boleyn Girl (Hopefully 2007)
    • Goya’s Ghost (2007?)
    • My Blueberry Nights (2007?)
    • The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
    • I’m a Cyborg, but it’s OK (2007???)
    • Martian Child (Oct 26, 2007)
    • The Savages (Sept. 7, 2007)
    • Fido (Jun. 15th)
    • Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (Jun. 1st)
    • Becoming Jane (Aug. 3)
    • Rocket Science (Aug. 10)
    • Margot at the Wedding (Oct. 19)
    • Persepolis
    • Juno
    • Gone Baby Gone
    • Lars and the Real Girl
    • El Orfanato

    I’ve also seen the following that weren’t on my list…

    • The Kingdom
    • Eastern Promises
    • Eagle vs. Shark
    • I Am Legend
    • Den Osynlige
    • The Brave One
    • Backstage
    • All the King’s Men
    • Little Manhattan
    • The Water is Wide
    • Ballet Shoes 1975
    • Ballet Shoes 2007

  • Jason Bourne Collection Already Out of Stock!!

    I just can’t believe Amazon doesn’t have any more of The Jason Bourne Collection, especially since they didn’t have it listed when Ultimatum appeared for pre-order~~~ damn u, amazon! I could’ve pre-ordered, duh!
    I. DONT. BELIEVE!

    **EDIT**
    Late edit, but I ended up buying from Amazon.ca, and Amazon.com re-stocked.

  • OotP DVD Technical Opinion

    Ok, I admit it. OotP is the first Harry Potter film on DVD I’m not buying, as well as the first HP soundtrack that I’m not getting…

    I didn’t even remember the DVD came out this past week, so I decided to check some of the reviews. It was interesting to see some complaining about the technical aspects of the discs, so I thought it important to write about.

    wakecowboy writes about buying two different copies just to see if his dvd was damaged.

    i bought another widescreen harry potter dvd from a different store, the first came from wall-mart, the second from best-buy.
    same thing…at times, the images are so bad, faces are blurry and unrecognizable, sometimes the background wall-paper is over their faces.
    terrible, terrible job of dubbing.

    Ryan Rowley writes about how bad the video quality is, even if he enjoyed the film.

    I thought I knew what I was getting when I bought this movie. I had watch it in the theater and was excited to watch on the big screen in my home. During the opening sequence I knew something was amiss and it just got worse from there. The video quality is the worst I have seen on a recent release highly touted movie.

    Descent also writes about the technical aspects.

    As for the DVD itself, generally you will see a smattering of special features on a primary disc with additional details added to a second disc. Not the case here. There is absolutely nothing on the primary disc but the film itself. This would be acceptable if the technical quality of the film was outstanding. It’s not. Far from it.

    HPFan wrote too…

    Think twice before ordering the two-disc Special Edition Order of the Phoenix in wide screen;
    the DVD-Rom stuff works poorly or not at all on Macs; the menu designs are terrible;
    there is no director or actor commentary; there is no real addtional information on the movie
    except an extended piece of fluff with the character Tonks; a cheesy edit your own movie bit
    is a waste of space. This DVD seems really thrown together in a hurry.

    Important to note that I’m not even posting reviews based on the film, but the DVD in itself. I think one of the users pointed out that maybe this is happening so users are encouraged to get the HD version instead. However, the HD version seems as poorly transferred.