Welcome to the last DVD Diggers of 2004. What a year it’s been.
I just want to take a minute to say thanks to Josh for the fantastic opportunity he’s given me, writing for Cinema Blend. A year ago I was just a regular bum, commenting on the forums a couple of times a day and being a general pain in his ass. For reasons unknown he asked me to write for the site again (I wrote half a dozen or so reviews back in the FilmHobbit.com days) and the rest, as they say, is history.
I also want to thank the fantastic staff of DVD critics the site has amassed. As you may or may not know, writing for the site is strictly voluntary, there is no reimbursement for our time, no glory other than seeing our name in lights. From the few people willing to do such a thing, we’ve gotten a great team of writers, most of which have joined the team in the last year. Bill, Matt, Sandy, Scott, and Stuart - great job gang, and of course, Wilson - we miss you buddy.
A Fool(screen)ish Holiday
The Christmas season is always a painful time to go shopping. I’m usually quite on top of shopping, only having a few odds and ends to collect during the last especially painful week before Christmas. This year, unfortunately, was different. My schedule has been so tight, my Christmas shopping didn’t even really begin until eight days before the holiday.
Braving the crowds and long lines, I was able to get a large amount of shopping done in an extremely short amount of time. Within three days I had most of my shopping done, or so I thought. Then came Tuesday night, when my fiancee and I sat down to wrap the presents we had managed to get. As she started to wrap a DVD we had purchased for her dad she came to a sudden halt, turned to me, and asked if I knew I had picked up the Fullscreen version of Master & Commander. A quick check showed that several other DVDs I had purchased at the same time were all Fullscreen versions as well.
Can you believe it? Me! Me! The person who rants on an almost weekly basis about separate widescreen and fullscreen versions of movies, didn’t bother to check the DVDs I had purchased. I guess in the ridiculous rush of the holiday season, my shopping instincts moved to a different place - a world where Widescreen and Fullscreen come on the same disc, or better yet, a world where Fullscreen doesn’t exist.
The next day (one day closer to Christmas for those of you keeping track), I headed back to the store with the Fullscreen versions in hand, ready to exchange them for the proper Widescreen DVDs. As expected, the crowds had gotten worse, and the return lines were just as bad. After waiting for an eternity (which in normal person’s time is about half an hour) I got to the cashier and explained what had happened. She offered to refund my money since I had my receipt. I thought this over - if I got a refund, I’d have to get back in line to purchase the proper versions of the DVDs... assuming the proper versions were out there to buy. If I didn’t get the refund, I’d be stuck giving out the Fullscreen versions, and risk being the laughing stock of CinemaBlend.
Well, I decided to take on the lines yet again. I got a refund and was able to find all but one of the movies in Widescreen. Luckily that one movie was a copy of Love Actually that was for myself (an excellent Christmas movie) so while no loved ones were missing out on a holiday gift, I was losing a great movie. Oh well. Maybe that one copy can me a message to studios like Universal - Give me Widescreen or give me death.... er, dead screen.
Remember when you’re out there shopping - Friends don’t give friends Foolscreen movies.
Title Query
Each week I have to look at the titles that are coming out to determine what I might talk about in this column, and what releases the site is going to cover with full reviews. Every once in a while a title stands out above all others, even if it’s not worth covering with a review.
This week that release was titled Can you be a Porn Star? Apparently this is an “Apprentice”esque show that takes on 32 contestants to determine who is the true survivor... er... yeah, I’m not even going for that punchline. I don’t know if the premise of the show cracked me up, or the fact that the release includes Volumes 1 and 2 of the show. That means this show has put out (no pun intended... or maybe it is) more volumes of the show in less time than “The Apprentice”, which was most likely it’s inspiration. Now this is my kind of reality television!
The other non-mainstream release this week that caught my eye was How to Shoot Better Home Movies which, if you ask me, is the true factor in determining if you can be a porn star. That’s right ladies and gentlemen... with title lists like this, the jokes just write themselves. They don’t get any better, but they write themselves.
See you next year.
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