Biting the barebones bullet

I'm becoming less and less concerned about extras and goodies. I don't have the time to wade through all this stuff, and most of the extras on brand new movies aren't worth shit anyway. As long as I get a good transfer of the movie itself, I'll be happy.

Of course, there's the rub. Most of these old single disc editions are also lousy transfers.

I got Münchhausen and Bram Stoker's Dracula long ago because I wasn't patient (Dracula's finally getting a decent release which I'll double-dip). But I still haven't purchased Face-Off or any of the Lethal Weapons on dvd in hopes they'll release better editions.

Yep. The Seagal catalog beckons to me every time I'm in Best Buy, but bare bones discs just feel like a rip-off somehow, low price notwithstanding.

Face/Off is getting a new SE. I don't mind it because I've had the old one for almost 7 years now.

I tend to just let myself get screwed on double-dips unless I know for sure something better is coming (Zodiac). Usually a double-dip means my parents get my old copy, since they don't give a crap about extras.

Because of this, their DVD collection is somewhat bizarre. Hellboy next to National Treasure or Miss Congeniality, stuff like that.

Lately, I spend more time with the extras than with the main feature. I mean, I went through all the extras on Hot Fuzz before actually watching it again. Actually, the first time I watched Hot Fuzz on DVD was with the commentary track on. I am an extras whore.

Isn't Road Warrior about to come out on HD?

Road Warrior is already out on HD DVD and Blu Ray. It has an exclusive commentary with George Miller and an introduction from Leonard Maltin.

And it looks amazing.

I'm one of those people who loves buying extras stacked discs even though I rarely watch the special features. It's a strange compulsion, but I just like the feeling of getting the most for my money. However, I'll rarely double dip unless I have a damn good reason for it.

The Road Warrior seems like something that would get a Special Edition sooner or later. Amistad and Baron Manchausen, not so much.

Also, I'm glad I somehow managed to hold out on buying any Kubrick films in the hopes that they'd get special editions. My patience will finally pay off in a few months.

The Road Warrior is probably a safe purchase now. If the HD version doesn't have special features, I doubt they will put out a "stacked" regular version. Ditto the "Segal" films. They are also hitting HD "bare bones". Unless Segal has Travolta like "second coming", his DVDs will remain as dry as his dialog.

Waiting on Fearless.

I've watched Zodiac probably 12 times since I bought it so I'd say the barebones is worth it.

Also, no theatrical cut on the Extended Edition.

A few years ago I bought Creepshow out of the $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart just to have a copy on DVD. I can't imagine Warner Brothers would ever put out the jack to do a decent special edition. It's a shame, that's one of my favorite flicks.

I guess I'm just assuming the new cut will be better. This is by no means guaranteed, but I am getting more of a Lord of the Rings: Extended vibe than an Aliens: Directors Needless Wankery vibe.

That turret scene was awesome, though.

Reminds me of my experience with the old Blade Runner dvd. In either late '04 or early '05 I had the thought that if this thing had been sitting on the shelves since '97 and still hadn't gotten reissued, it wasn't happening until '07 at the earliest and somehow I was concerned about it going out of print. I think this was also before any word had gone out of WB untangling the legal rights to the original version, so I grabbed the one copy at the local mom and pop's for around 12 dollars.

My then roommate and I were both fans of the movie and I remember showing him how weird it looked on my computer monitor with all that empty space on either side of the frame. I'm still not so sure that was intentional, I now understand it was mastered from a 70mm print for some reason, but it will always stand as a testament to just how much televisions overscan the image.

It actually ended up coming in handy at one point that year when I got back to the room to find my roommate showing the fullscreen side to some people we knew, playing it on his computer that was hooked up to my small as shit tv (which, ironically, resulted in a slight black border around the image). I picked up the remaster back in december more out of compulsion to avoid getting the non-remastered star wars dvd's than anything else.

Now the old one sits in my slowly growing "discs to give away" pile along with the old Superman: The Movie dvd, which I bargain binned in late '05 knowing full well there was a better dvd on the way.

Personally I tend to watch the extras once, maybe twice if a friend wants to see them. Although they add a little extra spice to the purchase at the end of the day the reason I'm gonna buy a dvd is for the content of disk one.

Yeah, this is the one case I caved on a fullscreen DVD of this. Ack.