Which DVDs do you regret buying?

[Taxi]

I'll start it off with Hurlyburly. Biiiig mistake.
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Taxi
DVDFile Moderator

[Ratboy]

Pulp Fiction. Great movie, but I sure hope that Criterion is working on a definative edition of this movie bacause the features suck.

[Rock]

Hmmm, The Rock is lucky because he hasn't bought a disc and then regreted it. He got 5 free ones with his DVD player, 3 of which suck, but that doesn't count.

Then again, The Rock only has between 50-60 discs. Let The Great One get back to you when he has a couple hundy.


DVDFile.Com Moderator
LucasP@Wabash.edu

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The Rock kicked cocaine because he got tired of all those ninjas on his lawn.

[This message has been edited by Rock (edited 11-29-1999).]

[Sid]

Army Of Darkness (Universal release)2 weeks after I bought it, Anchor Bay announces the Limited Edition. Although, I just picked up the limited edition a few hours ago and I love it, although the picture on the DC is lacking, its great to finally have it.

Scream, but I doubt I'll ever buy the collectors edition. F U Disney

The Road Warrior, a few days after I bought this I found that a SE is in the works.

Lethal Weapon, The DC is comming, I dunno if I regret buying it, but I sure hope the upcomming DC on DVD is anamorphic.

Scarface, Horrible sound, horrible picture (more shimmery than a sequence jumpsuit), good extras, hell the extras have better picture than the film itself.

Highlander, horrible picture. But the sound and extras are good, extras would have been better if a music video was included.

[This message has been edited by Sid (edited 11-29-1999).]

Armageddon, A Bug's Life, and Tomorrow Never Dies. The only reason why is because now I own either the Criterion or Collectors Editions, and have two versions of each. Thanks Buena Vista, for your wonderful and timely release dates

[StrangeNova]

Goodfellas and Seven, only because I didn't know they were flippers...

[jb523]

Features aren't that important to me. I love it when discs have them, but that is very rarely a deciding point for me. So I don't regret, say, Pulp Fiction, Thin Red Line, etc. The things that are important to me are (in order) the film itself, image quality, and audio quality (price is in there somewhere too).

With that in mind, the only film I regret getting because of image quality is Diva. There are a number of titles that I regretted (and consequently sold) because in my second viewing I discovered the films weren't nearly as good as I remembered them being when I first saw them: The Usual Suspects, The Professional, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. One film I bought sight unseen and regretted (my roommate made fun of me for weeks) was Awakenings. I figured any film with De Niro and Robin Williams couldn't be bad.

In any case, I have put these all behind me and sold them, and will do so in any future case of regret.

[Filmmaker]

Madacy's METROPOLIS (which looked like baked ass so I promptly returned it and got my money back) and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: 30th Anniversary Edition (which I had faith would be good since so many of the original production personnel were involved--WRONG! Oh, God, was I wrong! Fortunately, I was able to get it quickly traded away.) But I guess 2 bad buys out of 125 DVDs ain't so bad.

www.dvdtracker.com/~filmmaker
www.laserdisctracker.com/~filmmaker.asp

Id have to say Scream 2 reg 2 i have never seen a dvd with soo much artifacts! Almost VCD quality in some shots!

Regarding film quality: Baseketball, Mr Magoo, Lost in space, Red Corner, Arlington Road, Island of Dr Moreau, In Dreams.

[evileye]

Would definitely have to be HALLOWEEN H20!
Hawked my laserdisc at the chance to own a copy of this in a special edition with cool extras. Iamgine my surprise getting the sucker into the player and finding absolutely nothing and a picture/sound quality no better than the Laserdisc I had already owned!

Untill Disney does some restructuriing, I will pass on their product!

The only ones I regret buying are those that were later "upgraded" to collector's/special editions: A Bug's Life, Rushmore, Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, and all the early Bond releases.

I actually enjoyed Hurlyburly... go figure.

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Too many DVDs, too little time...

[mahavishnu]

Tenebrae. What a pile of crap.

[Taxi]

Craig, you wanna buy my copy? I'll make you a deal.

Taxi
DDS#42

[micahp]

Bug's Life, Tomorrow Never Dies, Spy who loved me, and Taxi Driver.

All because they came out with special editions later.

Sniper
I don't like the movie anymore.

Almost Regret:

Highlander, Outland,and American Werewolf in London
I'm dissapointed in the DVD's themselves and in the case of Werewolf, I haven't even watched it in the 2+ years I've owned it

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Resident Me,
Micah P.
Digital Dreams

snake eyes, hurlyburly, lock stock and 2 smokin barrels, congo, one ytough cop or one good cop? a baldwin brother flop!,

Let's see...Haven't bought any yet that I consider to be really bad quality [knock on Sony]...but here's a few I regret..

1 Tenebre - last time I take Video Watchdog's [no offense to any VW fans] word for a 'must have' dvd

2 Army of Darkness, Life of Brian, Brazil and soon Evil Dead 2 as the spec ed's are out or coming out soon

3 Seeking Asylum - I'm a HUGE Benigni fan from way back and was thrilled to see more of his movies being released here...movie was strange at best and disturbing at times [but maybe its just me]

I'll admit. I was just taking my first nervous steps into DVD and gleefully plucked some titles from their rusty support rack i wish I hadn't. Among them, the Mask (one of those films that's good only once), the Jackal (I'd love to swap it for the original!) and The Rock (just plain bad!) I can now say I purchase with restraint

No. . . no. . . must. . . buy. . . Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang!

[clortho]

The only dvd I somewhat regret is Highlander 2: The Renegade version.

Reason being: First and foremost the audio & video quality is inexcusable...artifacts & pops abound! Secondly, I was one of the few who enjoyed the "original" version, and the Renegade version feels like a try at a quick fix to appease the Highlander fans it pissed off with shoddy editing. Lastly, the commentary track, its just one long excuse and apology to the afore mentioned Highlander fans for the original version.

Micah- You have Werewolf in London? I've been trying to find that sucker and haven't found it anywhere!

Clortho

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I am the Keymaster
clortho@hotmail.com

[gotdvd?]

Regret because the movies blew chunks:

Critical Care
Lost In Space
Mr. Magoo
Red Corner

Regret because they are not widescreen:

George Of The Jungle
Grumpier Old Men
Grumpy Old Men
Happy Gilmore




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gotdvd?

Why did I hate Bram Stoker's Dracula so much? I don't know, but it ain't part of my collection anymore. Great sound, I just found it hard to stay awake...

With the SE of Brazil on the way, it's a shame I've got the original DVD release...hey, it's still in the shrinkwrap...anyone?

[micahp]

Clortho- really? I didn't think it was hard to find. Still, I got it over 2 years ago.

a few moments later:
Ahh, I see from amazon that this title is OOP, I guess I should actually look at it now that it's a collectors item.

Seriously Clortho, if I were you, I would hope that they are taking this sucker back and remastering it with a better transfer. It had more than a few artifact problems.

I'd sell/trade it to you if I wasn't such a damn pack-rat.

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Resident Me,
Micah P.
Digital Dreams

[clortho]

I can sympathize, I'm a packrat also. Guess I'll have to go off to ebay to find a copy of it and hopefully won't get reamed too badly!

Clortho

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I am the Keymaster
clortho@hotmail.com

[Dehrian]

Godzilla, The Saint, and Lost in Space. The discs were fine. I just thought the movies sucked.

Master P: Da Last Don.

I still don't know what I was thinking. It mustve been because It was after christmas and I had a lot of dvd money to spend and the dvd racks were nearly empty due to the big dvd rush last holiday season.

Doom Generation
Palmetto
Instinct

[brian]

Childs play (Pan and scan, dd2.0 No special features)
Karate Kid (Pan and scan, dd2.0 No special features, crappy picture)
Exorcist SE (I really didnt enjoy it too much, but it was a good dvd)
Twister(poor video despite being anamorphic, no special features, plus a new version will be coming out)
Rocky 1 +2(bad picture and sound, special editions have been anounced)

Although i like this movie, I really wish Christmas Vacation was widescreen, and i can live with 2.0 sound on this

[micahp]

Blair Witch: I hated the movie, Bought the hype.
Murder of Crowes: Not only hated movie, but the disc sucks too.
Emmanuelle:Bad disc.
Taxi Driver:31 days after purchase, Announced special edition.


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Resident Me,
Micah P.
Digital Dreams
Home of the Spider Monkey.

[Taxi]

It's good to see these old topics get dreged up for another go 'round.

I'm still willing to trade my copy of Hurlyburly for just about darn near anything I don't have and want.

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Taxi
DVDFile.Com Moderator

[TheMovieKid]

Films that just sucked that I bought before I saw them...
"The Last Broadcast"

Films that sucked and I still bought em...
"The Blair Witch Project"

Films that sucked, but I got em on DVD for free...
"Six Days, Seven Nights"
"Lethal Weapon 4"
"Stepmom"

Good films that have crappy sound/video quality...
"Halloween II"

Good films that deserve a better disc...
"Sleepers"
"Goodfellas"
"Gremlins"
"Dawn of the Dead"
"Hair"
"South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut"

This is all I can think of at the moment...

[indiephantom]

Taxi, what was your problem with the HURLYBURLY disc? Doesn't it have some interesting commentaries.

I liked the film, but I didn't see it on disc. I wasn't sure if it was a quality issue or what that you didn't like about the DVD. New Line is usually top drawer in DVD.

I'm interested in getting a copy of the film, but I've got enough bad discs of good films, so maybe I won't.

Why are people dumping on TENEBRAE? That was a great disc, and no one can tell me that they've seen this film look better. I had a VHS copy of the film when it was called UNSANE for it's US release. People are always saying ANCHOR BAY makes poor discs, but I think Tenebrae looked and sounded fantastic (5.1 DD to boot) I'm a little surprised at the reaction to this. I thought the menus were really cool too.

Actually, a DVD I felt cheated by was THE USUAL SUSPECTS. It didn't have the 5.1 audio it said it did on the package, and the only really good feature was the commentary.

[This message has been edited by indiephantom (edited 03-29-2000).]

[roger thornhill]

Early on I bought some great movies that turned out to be the most horrible dvds imaginable. They all had one thing in common:

MADACY

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dds #070

[UCFKevin]

Er...

Moviekid....you saw Blair Witch and hated it...and you bought the DVD? Why? That makes no sense.

[Taxi]

indiephantom, in all honesty, I bought it because it had some actors that I really like (Kevin Spacey, Meg Ryan, Chaz P., Robin Wright and Sean Penn, etc..) and I hadn't heard a thing about the movie before I bought it. I just found nothing about the film appealing. I remember absolutely HATING it when I watched it last year. I'm sure the supplements are good, the picture and sound were fine, but it wasn't really a sound kind of movie, mostly dialog.

Maybe I should check it out again with a fresh mind, but honestly, I doubt I will.

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Taxi
DVDFile.Com Moderator

[Dick]

I'm not too concerned about the featureless first releases of films that are being reissued as special editions: BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, GLORY, BUG'S LIFE, JUMANJI, the BOND films, EXORCIST, etc. since there is always someone on eBay willing to buy them back from me for about $12-15..I only lose a couple bucks and, hell, I owned and enjoyed them for a few months first.

My choices: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE...Fairly awful transfer of a great classic film. Too many blurry shots - improves somewhat as the film progesses but still too distracting, so I sold my copy.

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, however, is a film I really, REALLY like, and this DVD looks worse than the laser disc edition - terrible grain throughout. Hope they re-do it as a SE.

ARMGAGEDDON. Watched it, sold it. Despicable movie. A waste of three zillion dollars and another hack director thinks he's God.

GODZILLA & LOST IN SPACE. Ditto.

DARK CITY. I don't agree with Roger Ebert on this one, though I enjoyed his commentary.

MASTERWORKS OF THE GERMAN HORROR CINEMA. Almost nothing was done right. All three titles could easily have been put onto a single disc to lower the price. Transfers are in terrible shape, also run at sound speed. No color tinting. Awful music (none at all for DER GOLEM). Just a wretched presentation, not up to Elite's usual quality

But fortunately, even for these there was good old eBay to assure I woudn't take too much of a loss. I tend to rent films from the NetFlix Marquee program now before buying questionable titles.

John S: AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is now out of print, but belongs to new owner MGM so will probably be re-issued. Meanwhile, it is probably worth something on eBay.

[TheMovieKid]

I agree with Indiephantom, "Tenebrae" was a great disc.

Why did I buy "The Blair Witch Project" when I hated it? The extras, and you know what? Most of them sucked too. But I only got the DVD (new) for $14, so I don't mind.

[This message has been edited by TheMovieKid (edited 03-29-2000).]

[Damian]

Sphere
We just got our DVD player and it was cheap

Tomorrow Never Dies
Following week...special edition announced

Any Disney Animation Release
**SEE ABOVE REASON**

The Blair Witch
Okay...I have no excuse for this one. I could have flushed the money down the toilet and been better entertained

Halloween
Disk was horrible, transfer was bad but all was better when they came out with the special edition.

Wing Commander
Loved the video games but whoever thought up this pile of junk should be permanently kicked out of Hollywood and sent to some Turkish prison for crimes against humanity



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-Damian

Oh, I love Anchor Bay. Their Fitzcarraldo disc is marvellous (though should have included Burden of Dreams), and I think the Theatrical Disc of Dawn of the Dead does the film proud.

I just wish I hadnt bought the Tenebrae disc because it is quite possibily the crappest film I have ever seen. The camera moves are a shoddy, plodding, offensive imitation of Leone, the plot is not just ridiculous but ridiculously boring and filled with more holes than a proverbial swiss cheese. I would say the film is laughably bad, but it's just so downright tedious that the word "laugh" does not belong in the same sentence. I've sat through it once and still regret it. For further evidence of Argento atrocity just look at the way he treated Romero's masterpiece DOTD...

I have to say that I regret purchasing the entire box set of the "Alien Legacy", due to the crappy-ass versions of Alien 3 and Alien Resurection.

Why on earth would they put out such lack-luster efforts along side great discs like Alien and Aliens I'll never know. It's not like I expected the movies themselves to be better, but the presentations and (ha!) suppliments leave a lot to be desired...

[jb523]

Anchor Bay seems to do fairly mediocre transfers (of the films I'm interested in). Fantastic Planet is a pretty bad transfer (not terrible, but not good by any means). Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu are both watchable, but neither have good transfers (better than Fantastic Planet, though). Notorious and Rebecca are good, though soft. I generally put them right between Fox Lorber and Criterion in terms of quality (although the best Fox Lorber discs that I've seen are better than the best AB discs that I've seen, generally their output is crap, whereas Criterion has put out transfers worse than the worst AB transfer I've seen, generally their output is fairly good). Just my two cents.