:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

Millions of people in the U.S. grew up watching Raymond Burr in scratchy prints of Godzilla, King of the Monsters. But as they grew into their teen and adult years, they came to realize there was a different, longer version of the same movie, but without Raymond Burr! How could that be? We all know now, of course, that GKOTM was a re-edited version of the Japanese language Gojira. For decades, however, that movie remained elusive to most people outside Japan. Now Classic Media has packaged Gojira and Godzilla King of the Monsters into a two-disc DVD set, chockablock full of spiffy features. (more…)

The 2-disc special edition of Superman Returns is worthwhile, but the extras are a bit of a disappointment for those really interested in the creation of the movie and the thought processes of Bryan Singer and his writers and editors. There is no director’s commentary, nor are there any after-the-fact interviews, so no one has a chance to take a step back and tell stories of particular scenes or particular creative decisions.

There is a lengthy documentary called Requiem for Krypton, whose five parts total about three hours of behind-the-scenes footage during the preproduction and filming. The footage of the various flying rigs used to make the movie work was interesting, and Singer’s personality and filmmaking style become very clear. There is some discussion of the script itself, but that quickly goes by the wayside as sets are built and costumes designed. And plenty of sets were built – Singer was not shy about spending the money to put actual physical sets together, going so far as to plant his own corn field in Tamworth, Australia. (more…)

There are good movies and there are bad movies. There are movies that are intended to be good but turn out bad, and movies that are so bad that they end up being good. Somewhere in the middle lies The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, the 2001 film shot in the style of those “so bad they’re good” sci-fi classics from the drive-in era.

At first glance the movie appears to originate from that era. Originally shot in in MiniDV format, the film has been digitally converted to black and white and manipulated to look older than it really is. The plot harkens back to the midnight budget films from that era as well. A series of coincidences has led three separate couples to the same location, searching for the ultra-rare radioactive element “atmosphereum”. Scientist Paul Armstrong and his wife Betty are searching for a meteor filled with atmosphereum, which has crashed in a field. Kro-Bar and his wife Lattis, two aliens from the planet Marva who have crash landed on Earth and need atmosphereum to repair their rocket. And then there’s Dr. Roger Fleming, the mad scientist who needs atmosphereum to bring the titular Lost Skeleton of Cadavra back to life. Thrown into the mix later are Animala, the “half woman/half four other forest animals” dancing queen, and “The Mutant”, a horrible-looking creature whose costume gives Sigmund the Sea Monster a run for his money. (more…)

Whether media is electronic, print, or online it’s a window to a different era. Even that post on a blog is a miniature time machine, tapping into a past perhaps just a few minutes ago. Maybe more than most, works in the public domain capture the zeitgeist of their times more than works in which copyright has been kept up to date.

The classic Superman cartoons produced by Max and Dave Fleischer in the 1940s are a prime example. The brothers are most well known for dozens of Popeye cartoons and for creating Betty Boop. They pioneered rotoscoping, which was used to animate live action, a process that is still in wide use.

The Superman cartoons are much like any of the other Fleischer cartoons, but at an even higher level. (more…)

Ed Wood has had a long, strange trip to the digital promised land of DVD. To begin the journey, we need to look at the early days of the DVD revolution and a strange little offshoot known as DIVX. For those of you who don’t know what DIVX was, it was a format created by Circuit City that utilized specially coded discs that only played for two days after first being run in their DIVX-enabled DVD players. Since the price of these discs was set at about $4, it was intended to be a replacement for video rentals. Customers who wished to continue to watch the movie after the viewing period had ended could “purchase” the movie by paying an additional $20 and unlocking the movie for long-term play. The special nature of these discs not only allowed Circuit City to control how long they could be watched, but on which machines, since it they would only work indefinitely on the machines in which they were unlocked. It also provided protection against copying (to this day, no one has broken the DIVX format. Of course, who knows if anyone is trying?).

The practical upshot of this was that many studios that were skeptical about the DVD format (strange to think of that attitude today) chose to release their movies on DIVX. One of these studios was Disney. One of the films they released was Ed Wood. (more…)

Fair warning here: oddly enough for something that’s been released around the world virtually simultaneously, I’m reviewing the UK (Region 2) version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and I’m doing it for a reason.

For the most part, the release is the same in the UK as it is in North America. The movie itself gets a crisp transfer and a great sound effects mix, and it’s almost a given that the DVD’s menu structure will be based on that of the Hitchhiker’s Guide itself. (more…)

I was fond of Revenge of the Sith when I saw it in theaters, and I feel no differently about it now that it’s on DVD. George Lucas apparently feels the same, as it’s the only one of the six movies to have no alterations made for the DVD release. While this 2-disc edition is not quite as loaded with features as the DVD for Attack of the Clones, it still provides a fairly extensive look at the filmmaking process. (more…)

Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of those films that seem to get released by a different company every few years. Although not quite as prevalent as the films found at the local dollar store, Plan 9 has had dozens of releases over the years from multiple companies. There are currently three DVD releases in the US alone (and several more abroad). The release under consideration here is the one made available through Image Entertainment under the auspices of the Wade Williams Collection. (more…)

“For the people of this planet, it was a time when the sea and the sky and the very land on which they lived had been polluted by their own cultural waste. They came from as yet unknown outer space. They landed on the planet and sucked up air, water, and even living creatures into their womb, stealing away the very roots of the planet’s culture. And so began, with the few remaining inhabitants, and later with the one called Rodo, the creation of a new world.”

Let’s activate the way-back machine and go back to March 31st, 1998. A year has elapsed since DVD players were first introduced to the market. DVD players still cost a few hundred dollars each, and titles were few and far between. Some major studios were still sitting on the sidelines. The studios that were releasing titles were still learning how to utilize the format. (more…)

The third and most recent DVD release of Stargate is rather light on special features, but offers very good sound and picture for two versions of the film. (A few frames appear to have suffered significant damage, but other than that, it’s a very good remastering.) An extended director’s cut mostly features scenes designed to embellish the background characters or add a slightly different shade to the main characters’ actions. For example, the Giza prologue is extended slightly to show the fossilized remains of a Horus warrior who rematerialized in the rock after the gate was buried. The Air Force has those remains, which shows that the military knew there was a good chance the expedition would encounter hostile aliens. None of the changes are essential, and a few slow down the pace of the movie. But with the theatrical version also available in this set, it’s worthwhile to see a more complete picture of what the creators envisioned. (more…)