... how anyone could see a botched fool-screen edition as "A Great DVD". As long as anyone is buying those insults to 'Artistic property' (which are much more perverted than any pirating), no wonder some studios keep on releasing such ludicrous editions. Any movie should be seen (and heard) in the original format (and language) : subtitles are ALWAYS better than dubbing (once upon a time, movies were even shot in 2 or more languages, best example is Laurel & Hardy who were even funnier in French or Spanish -because of their accent- than in English).
Of course, rating only apply to the studio, whose name should be read "Tangled Entertainment". When will so-called "Enforcement Agencies" look at this as a crookery worse than piracy : a 2.35:1 movie is missing almost half the image when butchered in 1:33. Full-screen as an option for those whose vision has been irremediably impaired by TV watching could be understandable if original format was included as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great Movie! Great DVD!
Like Michael Caine? If so this is a must have. I'd never heard of this movie now I recommend it to everyone. As time goes by we let some good stuff slip threw the cracks. Talk about an allstar cast...Peter Ustinov, Omar Sharif, William Holden and a VERY BEAUTIFUL BEVERLY JOHNSON. You have Vodoo, a very interesting story and great acting, what more do you want. Try getting that at your local movie theatre. I thought the DVD looked great motion menus, biographies and all.
3 Stars for the PAL, Full Screen DVD Version of the movie...
I just bought the UK version of the DVD, which I really hope, won't be duplicated in the NTSC version.
Not so much for the quality of the picture (which is discreet, even if in a banal Full-Screen presentation) or the sound (plain and dull 2.0 Stereo), but because I am tired, REALLY TIRED, to see movie transferred on DVD in a Full Screen format.
To me, allow me to say this, DVD is meant for the entire piocture resolution and format.
If you, the production companies and distributors, are not able to come up with something better than the same version already on VHS tapes, than just forget it and don't produce this stuff anymore.
It's a waste of time and money. Your time and your money at that, but also ours. And Heaven knows if the economy is at a point where someone has still the right to squander money.
To produce a DVD, one needs serious research of the sources, lots of patience cleaning a movie up, for a better picture and sound resolution, and the money to do so.
Just slamming a video copy on a DVD doesn't do it for the real collector or the true movie connaisseur.
You all do (you producers and you distributors), all so often, treat us (the customers and viewers) as if we were plain imbeciles, cretins or complete idiots, which in some cases maybe true.
But to assume that because out there, there are a few suckers, willing to throw their money at you without any question asked, all the rest of the viewers, which are actually the majority (but you don't even bother to notice), would do the same, is plainly offensive.
I actually know why "Ashanti" is redestributed in this format on DVD (at least the UK copy).
Already in 1979, the year in which it was produced, the producer had to struggle for distribution.
It represented a competition to Hollywood, by an independent and until then, unkown producer.
Although this may not be considered a masterpiece of a movie, it is still a good and entertaining one, tackling with a subject that many have tried to avoid for years: Modern Slavery.
I may not be surprised to know hat behind all the reticence to distribute the movie, was a wealthy Arab, feeling offended by the thematic contained in it. We all know they have the means to do something like this.
They have done so for years and we have allowed them to do so because of the money. These gentlemen are very clever. They don't need to wage war against us. They just need to blackmail us with oil embargos, or withdraw their dominant capitals from our banks, and we are on our knees.
Knowing that, they have played around with us, and our weak Governments, for decades.
Unfortunately for these Gentlemen, not all of us, are suckers or wide-eyed believers of good will, and some even manage to read between the lines and discover the things they don't want us to see, or to know.
Culture, is a true damnation, to such individuals, who try to play on the "clever" note. Being clever, doesn't necessarily mean that one is also very intelligent.
Actually this is exactly the assumption of many "clever men", who always try to outsmart the truly intelligent one with their gimmicks and their stupid tricks.
It is very unfortunate that such individuals truly think that in the long run, they will rule the world and the market, since experience and hundreds of years of history have only proven the exact contrary.
In their immense ignorance, all they manage to produce, is the perpetuation of their mistakes, and in their arrogance (which is the true trait of the ignorant) they don't see that they are only achieving very little for a very limited amount of time.
Here I come back to this little effort of distributing "Ashanti" on DVD.
Quite frankly I hope, that the U.S. version will be in its original 1.35:1 format and digitally remastered for a surround sound (even just a conventional one).
My three stars are just limited to the work contained in the movie and the cast who played in it.
The British DVD version is just another blunt excuse to rip our hard earned money out of our pockets.
Stay away from it and wait for the U.S. release.
But before you buy it, read whether or not it is in Widescreen or not. if it is not, don't even bother.
The scope of this movie and the scenery itself require both that this picture be viewed in a theatrical format.
Mixing action, humor, sentiment, and even a few righteous moral convictions, The Wild Geese is good, rousing fun. Released theatrically in 1978 (oddly, this 2005 DVD release is referred to as the "30th Anniversary Edition"), director Andrew V. McLaglen’s film depicts the adventures of a group of British mercenaries hired by a shady multinational corporation to free the benevolent leader of an African nation held captive by a ruthless dictator. Led by the caustic, no-nonsense Col. Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), these soldiers of fortune are all stout fellows out to earn a big payday and restore a good man to his rightful place of power (the underlying message of universal racial brotherhood is effective, if somewhat simplistic), and they do their job swiftly and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Burton - Roger Moore - Richard Harris - Hardy Krüger - Stewart Granger Director(s): Andrew V. McLaglen DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Cy Endfield co-wrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives, with the British contingent outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another, and this is... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Douglas Hickox DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. The director disowned the results. In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director's intentions, and about messing with film history, but Major Dundee--The Extended Version is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Richard Harris Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This vastly underrated Arthur Penn film from the mid-1970s ranks as one of the era's nastiest and most fascinating pieces of business, a detective story that shuttles back and forth between Hollywood and the Florida Keys, with a plot nearly as complex as Chinatown. Gene Hackman stars as a tired, aging private eye who, as a favor to a friend, agrees to track down a runaway teen. But the case turns out to be something much larger: a smuggling ring of Mayan antiquities. The human impulses get darker and darker and Hackman's character gets pulled in deeper and deeper, even as his own life is falling apart. Ultimately, in one of his best and most unsung performances, Hackman winds up hurting the people he is trying to help. A great cast includes Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, a young... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Hackman - Jennifer Warren Director(s): Arthur Penn DVD Release Date: Released the 12 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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