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Moth3r said:

I still need to see this. Can anybody suggest theatrical or Director's cut for a first viewing?

SilverWook said:

Bingowings said:

So many awful effects to chose from with TOD.

The the exploding plane/mountain composite.

The matte painings of Pankot Palace.

Some of the mine sequence is brilliant but some shots would look nasty compared to Willis O'Brien's work (a genius in his time but this was a mid eighties film).

Then there is compositing of the shot where the water bursts through the model mine shaft with the badly matted in actors.

Then the unforgivable rope bridge models and mattes which breaks what should be a moment of tension.

The sad thing is the Lao Che sequence which gets a lot of flack is a wonderful pastiche of the era and has believable stunts.

I get the Gunga Din and Kim references but Kipling is a Victwardian you can make allowances seeing as for the day he was actually rather progressive in his attitudes.

But as I said it was a mid-eighties movie and had some of the cast of Gandhi (1982).

The banquet scene is astonishingly backwards especially from a country that gave the world McDougal's.

When I'm talking Spielberg Nazis I'm talking Raiders and TLC not Schindler's List.

Only Steven could make a holocaust movie with an upbeat ending.

ILM had a pretty full plate that year, so maybe they were stretched too thin? I think most video transfers make some shots stick out more than they did in theaters. I will give those shots more scrutiny if it plays the revival house here again.

Nazis in the Indy films are pretty much in the vintage Hollywood mold though. Especially the old movie serials that inspired the film. I'm still amazed Kenner got away with making action figures of Toht.

Everything served in the banquet scene is actually a real delicacy, so you can't accuse the screenwriters of making that stuff up. ;)

That's what I wondered, like the dodgy moments in ROTJ like the rancor and some of the mattes etc. Some transfers do make them stick out more, for example the LD TOD seems more uniform than the DVD.

I still think TOD is perfect though.

ROTJ-SWE LD Mitsubishi

Side 3 CAV, great transfer with wonderful color. The image is still shifted up as it would be on the JSC this is sourced from just minus the Japanese subtitles. For my money this far outshines the Faces LD I have of ROTJ, with an image that seems far more filmlike and thus is much more enjoyable. Easily the best looking of the three non Technidisc SWEs. The audio is fantastic with everything being flawless for an 80's Dolby Stereo track. If it is a remix then little to nothing seems to be affected. The surround channel gets far more usage than ESB, and being three years newer the whole mix is better with much improved definition.

captainsolo said:

Moth3r said:

 

I still need to see this. Can anybody suggest theatrical or Director's cut for a first viewing?

 

I think they're both "Director's Cuts" but one version is longer.  They produced both cuts simultaneously and both were released theatrically, but the longer one only went to a few venues.  Art houses, mainly.

I'd go with the longer one.  The "short" one is already long, so you can't avoid length.  But everything in the long cut fits together nicely.

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

I'd go with the longer one.  The "short" one is already long, so you can't avoid length.  But everything in the long cut fits together nicely.

That's what she said.

Go on...

Bingo don't like nuthin.

The Blues Brothers

Decided to give this classic a spin after not watching for so long. I watched 2000 more recently, and I remember being mostly disappointed in the fact that many of the gags were repeated. Watching this movie was more about the music. God, this movie had a soundtrack. To be a movie about a band who was actually an established and successful group beforehand is one of those miraculous things like Spinal Tap. It's so much better to play a musician when you are actually part of that.

The movie is just packed with great actors and comedians, and each look like they are really enjoying themselves.

It's hard for me to say why I think this movie is so fun and entertaining. I guess because of how legit it is for a comedy. It's probably why I liked Spinal Tap as well.

4 fried chickens out of 5.

Frink, there's a version here without audience noise. It's from the original multitrack tapes.

https://soundcloud.com/basement-tapes/sets/blue-brothers-soundtrack-bonus

Done. :)

^You should add the sounds of the military going "Hut hut hut hut" to one of your edits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOvm_RMlkok

TV's Frink said:

Thanks.  Even if I don't use it, that was cool to hear.

You're welcome. Did you hear the whole set? These all come from the master tapes, apparently they were supposed to be part of a new and more complete OST release, but the project died, and the engineer put them online for the world to hear.

rockin said:

I finally decided to watch ST: Into Darkness. I watched it with a completely open-mind, even though I love the old movies and knew this was getting some flak. Overall, to me it felt like a lazy rehash of The Wrath Of Khan. Everything they borrowed, they did worse. Not only that, but the way the whole movie went together was so disjointed. Now I understand why so many people felt let down by it. It was more of a sci-fi action movie, than it was a Star Trek one. 

Meh...Star Trek movies have basically been generic sci-fi action movies since 1994. IMO, the major difference between the J. J. Trek movies and Star Trek VII-X is that now they're at least watchable sci-fi action movies.

Leonardo said:

Frink, there's a version here without audience noise. It's from the original multitrack tapes.

https://soundcloud.com/basement-tapes/sets/blue-brothers-soundtrack-bonus

This is great! Something I've wanted since before I can remember! (literally!)

edit: Even has "Quando, Quando, Quando"!!

Chewtobacca said:

captainsolo said: I still need to see [Dances with Wolves]. Can anybody suggest theatrical or Director's cut for a first viewing?

The theatrical cut is the director's preferred cut.  Costner told Entertainment Weekly that he did not work on the long version.  I would recommend the UK BD of the theatrical.

Huh. 

I could have sworn that I heard/read that he had worked on it.  I briefly read the link you provided- does he infact say that the short version (both were theatrical) was his favourite, or just that he didn't work on the longer version?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dances_with_Wolves#Alternate_versions

One year after original theatrical release of Dances with Wolves, a 4-hour version of the film opened at select theaters in London. This longer cut was dubbed Dances with Wolves: The Special Edition, and it restored nearly an hour's worth of scenes that had been removed to keep the original film's running time under 3 hours.

In a letter to British film reviewers, director Kevin Costner and producer Jim Wilson addressed their reasons for presenting a longer version of the film:^[27]

Upon the release of the four-hour Dances With Wolves, the question naturally arises: why? Why add another hour to a film that by most standards pushes the time limit of conventional movie making? We opted to produce an extended version of Dances With Wolves for several reasons. The 52 additional minutes that represent this "new" version were difficult to cut in the first place...the opportunity to introduce them to audiences is compelling.

We have received countless letters from people worldwide asking when or if a sequel would be made, so it seemed like a logical step to enhance our film with existing footage. Virtually every character is richer, from the teamster, Timmons, to the tribal chief, Ten Bears.

Making an extended version is by no means to imply that the original Dances With Wolves was unfinished or incomplete; rather, it creates an opportunity for those who fell in love with the characters and the spectacle of the film to experience more of both. We hope you enjoy it.

The genesis of the 4-hour version of the film was further explained in an article for Entertainment Weekly that appeared only 10 months after the premiere of the original film:

While the small screen has come to serve as a second chance for filmmakers who can't seem to let their babies go, Kevin Costner and his producing partner, Jim Wilson, hope that their newly completed version will hit theater screens first:^[28]

"I spent seven months working on it," Wilson says of the expanded Wolves. He's quick to defend the Oscar-winning version as "the best picture we had in us at the time," yet Wilson also says he's "ecstatic" over the recut. "It's a brand-new picture," he insists. "There's now more of a relationship between Kevin and Stands With a Fist, more with the wolf, more with the Indians — stuff that's integral all through the story."

Of course, exhibitors may not want a longer version of an already widely seen movie, but Wilson remains optimistic. "I don't think the time is now," he acknowledges, "but ideally, there is a point at which it would come out with an intermission, booked into the very best venues in America." A premiere in the form of a two-night network miniseries (à la The Godfather Saga) is also a possibility. For now, however, the four-hour Wolves remains a private dancer.

This Special Edition was eventually broadcast in 1993 for the American network television premiere at ABC. For the DVD release, the Special Edition was dubbed an Extended Cut. For Blu-ray, the same cut was renamed Director's Cut.

Director Kevin Costner would later claim that he did not work on the creation of the 4-hour cut at all.