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My pick for best release in 2004 is Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King, the Special Extended DVD Edition. Peter Jackson's remarkable achievement combined with his two subsequent film adaptations of Tolkein's epic fantasy-trilogy is already a masterpiece for the ages, but the extended version only serves to make this great film even better!For best edge-of-the-seat suspense films I'd have to say Collateral and perhaps Bourne Supremacy; on DVD these look great!
For best comic book derived films I'd have to list the Director's Cut of Hellboy and Spiderman 2, the former because it's smoother and works even better than the theatrical release version, and the latter because the remaster looks really good and the effects are more impressively realistic on a slightly smaller HT screen or HDTV.
For best SF related films of 2004 I'd list the anamorphic WS release of John Carpenter's The Thing (finally!) and with some reservations, the Star Wars boxed set which contains stunning remasters of the first three films, The Empire Strikes Back being the brightest looking gem in this series, IMHO.
For restorations of classic silent fims on DVD there were a few standouts in 2004 including Fritz Lang's The Woman In The Moon and Spies from Kino.
For 2004 music video releases I'd have to list The Guesss Who: Running Back To Canada, Fly Jeferson Airplane, Wishbone Ash: Phoenix Rising and the long anticipated tour documentary Festival Express among the best legitimate classic rock DVDs issued this year.
I'm sure that I've accidentally overlooked some great releases in composing this list of personal faves of 2004, but I can always add them latter and I'm sure that other's will provide their own lists, recommendations and/or personal preferences.
Cheers,
AuPh
Follow Ups:
Burton cannot sing anymore. BTW; at one time I was the biggest GH fan, and was there for the live album. Very big fan, saw them twice in LA (with some opener band with a guy named Donald with canine teeth fangs, who sang some weird song about "Do It Again").
There's only a few places where he can't quite hit the notes without tackling them in a lower octave range. Overall, he still has what it takes or at least he did the night of this performance (i.e., these guys were really ON, playing their hearts out before a hometown crowd of 50,000 or more and in a lightening storm to boot!). Randy Bachman's axe really smoked on several numbers too, BTW, but that could've been attribuatable to the nearby lightening strikes, I guess. ;^)AuPh
It is just an empty shell of what it used to be. Listen to "These Eyes" or "No TIme" and compare to the timbre of his voice from the "Seattle" CD. All the resonance is gone. Its now just flat and whiny. Listen to him scat on "Truckin off Across the Sky" THAT was a voice. Time Waits for No One.
Part of the problem may be the mic'ing (i.e., at least for the first few numbers), which seems more apparent on the video, IMHO. Never-the-less, I've compared the earlier Guess Who performance you've referenced to this one and don't find that this release suffers by comparison nearly as much as you seem to believe.Quite honestly, I've seen much weaker contemporary vocal performances from aging rock icons like Roger Daltry, Greg Lake, Eric Burdon and Steve Walsh (i.e., when compared with their earlier vocal abilities) than that demonstrated by Burton Cummings on this recent release, but these are just my impressions.
FWIW, I've always considered myself a pretty harsh critic of declining musical chops, but if you're seriously THAT disappointed in the quality of the Guess Who's performance on Running Back to Canada, I'll gladly put your name up for consideration in the Nit-Picker of the Year Award competitions! :o)
Cheers,
AuPh
AuPh,While I loved the first two extended eds. of LOTRs I was pretty disappointed with the ROTK....
* I got the feeling that Peter Jackson didn't have enough live footage towards the very end of the movie and tried to compensate with digital fx
* ROTK is the most "interperative" of the three movies, with the most changes from Tolkien's book
* The climax of the movie -- when Gollum fight Frodo for the ring -- was unintentionally funny (works in print, looks silly when seen). Some of the audience in the theater laughed as well so it's not just me. And Gollum should have been consumed instantly in the lava...
* This is surely heresy for LOTR fanatics but I hate.. hate... HATE digital Gollum. There's just nothing there when you look at him. If PJ can use camera trickery to make a full-grown man look like a 3 foot dwarf, he could make a real actor (Gary Oldman would be my choice) look like Gollum.
Keep in mind that I've read the Hobbit, LOTR trilogy and Silmarillion more than 100 times since I first picked it up in 1969.....
Anyway nice to see you posting again, happy new year.
I felt like the re-edited footage transformed the film in subtle ways, improving many of the niggling issues you mentioned. I was actually glad to see more CGI footage in the battle scenes (i.e., especially Legolas slaying the Mumakil) and there was plenty of live action material as well. Also, the fight scene between Frodo & Gollum over the lava 'seemed' shortened from the film release, making it a little less chuckle-worthy than I recall, but that just may be my impressions; I haven't compared the two versions.BTW, Gollum's slow disolve into the fires seems logical in view of his connection with the magic of the ring; it, too, took awhile to disolve in the molten lava. BTW, I kind of like the digital Gollum because of the fact that he's been changed from a human-like Hobbit to something less than human, slight digital incongruities notwithstanding, but that's just my opinion; YMMV.
As for the live action footage, there was plenty of additional material filmed and present in the Extended Cut, from the openning scenes where Saruman was confronted to the confrontation between Gandalf and the Lord of the Nazgul, etc., etc.
> > > "Anyway, nice to see you posting again, happy new year." < < <
Thanks! Some folks may see my occasional contributions here in the guise of a bad penny turning up to spoil certain poster's X-mas pudding, but what goes around comes around. At any rate, your kind thoughts are greatly appreciated and reciprocated! Yule tidings too you and have a prosperous Happy New Year! :o)
Cheers,
AuPh
Re: " * The climax of the movie -- when Gollum fight Frodo for the ring -- was unintentionally funny (works in print, looks silly when seen). Some of the audience in the theater laughed as well so it's not just me."Actually, this was another one of those " interperative"(sic) moments you mentioned not liking. The struggle between Frodo and Gollum was another attempt by the Jackson, Walsh and Boyens team to add "drama" ( as per their commentary).
For the music DVD's I have to go with the new Los Lobos @ the Fillmore and the expanded/remastered Grateful Dead Movie.Festival Express was cool too, but I really can't see myself watching it more than once, even though I love most of those artists.
how much of the DVD is performance, and how much is talking heads and "stuff"? any really good performance footage?am wondering if it's worth a rental or purchase (like an album would be). thanks.
__________
Today, with all the hard competition in the music business, it's almost impossible to come up with anything totally original. So we haven't. However, this disc was made with the accent on heavy music.
From memory, I'd say about 1/2 the movie is concert footage and the other half is the muscians hanging out on the train, drinking and jamming. Its cool to see them talking with each other and doing some improv jamming, but its quite loose and informal and prolly not something you'd want to view repeatedly. Most of the bands are shown on stage doing one tunes, but two or three of the bands get a pair of tunes. There is some extra footage on the DVD of bands on stage also. (I thought the best footage was the Dead doing Hard to Handle, which is part of this extra footage.)FWIW I rented it and enjoyed it, but I can't see myself wanting to see it again.
Fifty extra minutes of computer animated rumbling volcanos (ooh, scary!), cgi fire-breathing dragons, real-life long-haired sissies posturing with plastic swords, ponderous pronouncements from a wise, world-weary white wizard with a magic walking stick, hairy-footed dwarves eating stale matzo bread who steal a magic bowling ball, collosal collapsing cornices of styrofoam blocks, talking/walking trees - seriously, actual talking trees that walk (!), and a completely-animated shrivelled, emaciated, two-foot tall bald troll with really bad teeth wearing only a tattered loin cloth who runs around like a rabid puppy trying to steal "my precious" from a weak, whimpering man-child "hero" - a hero who, in the end, succeeds only in spite of his own moral failure.Well, at least it's better than your other choices.
It's difficult not to notice that your follow-up contributes nothing besides a sophomoric flame followed by a weak insult. So, Dalton m'lad, do you have any preferences, I mean preferences other than posting insults from your mother's computer when her Cybernanny software hasn't blocked your internet use? ;^)AuPh
Ditto LoTR, My favorite disk was the Japanese R2 dvd of Onmyoji II.
(nt)
My review on Amazon.com goes something like:The photography, costume and effects seem a bit more polished and the actors seemed to have relaxed more into their roles than in the first movie.
As for the story itself: Our legendary hero, Abe no Seimei, and companion, Hiromasa, become involved in the legend of the power struggle between the Yamato line and the Izumo line, for control of the government, and the legends of Susano-o-no-Mikoto, his sister Amaterasu Omikami and the Ame-no-murakumo-no-tsurugi (the famous sword that was later called The Kusinagi or "grass cutter" sword that is now part of the imperial regalia). Those with an interest in the Heian history, costume and legends should really enjoy this film.
I picked up the R1 version to compare with the R2 version:
The R1 is a single disk that includes the Dolby track but not the DTS, and the "making of" segment. It also includes an English dub track (curled my teeth but then I'm picky) and the subs are in a slightly larger, and maybe easier to read, font but is a different translation than the original sub, though similar, I liked the wording of the original better.The R2 version is a 2 disk set with both DD and DTS tracks. The menu selections are in Japanese but have faint English wording next to them as well so you won't get lost. There is a small cellophane package inside the disk that contains a pewter onmyodo charm wrapped in heavy paper. The English subs are white and a bit smaller than the R1 disk but I feel that they are worded better. The 2nd disk is full of extras including theater openings with the cast, the "making of" segment, interviews with the cast members and a film tour of the historic sites around Izumo and Kyoto that were used in the making of the film. The extras don't have subs and sure made me wish I could read kanji.
The R2 is 6000 yen or about $60.00 so you'll have to decide if the extra cost is worth it.
Abe no Seimei lived between 926 and 1005 and worked in the govt. office of divination and it is recorded that he saved Fujiwara no Michinaga's life and was an exeptionally good onmyodo. Legend has it that his mother was a kitsune (fox-spirit/demon), thus the fox references in the movies. A lot of records were lost in the last 1,000 years or so, so the relationship between the Yamato clan and the Izumo clan is kind of obscure, but it is an interesting interpretation (the anime "Eight Clouds Rising" has a different interpretation). And here is an intersting archaeolgical tidbit
Also found this to be kind of interesting
I meant "...two prior, sequentially filmed adaptations..." rather than "...two subsequent filmed adaptations..." (i.e., for the observant grammarians out there)! ;^)AuPh
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