Murder at 1600 (1997) [14915]
I was surprised the picture was very good but the film itself not much to write home

I've been watching the LD of Madonna: The Girlie Show, which I received yesterday. I'm terribly disappointed with it too - I originally bought the title when it was first released on LD in 1994 and it was a stunning DADC Austria pressing; every copy I've seen of it has been an Austrian pressing. Well, my original copy got lost when I moved to Missouri and I finally got around to buying the disc again - and wouldn't you know it, it's a US Sony DADC pressing! And both sides have mild to moderate speckling for the first 10 minutes or so, which then clears up completely - thankfully, neither the digital or analog sound is affected by the speckling.

I never knew this disc had been repressed and the database didn't show any other manufacturer besides DADC Austria. Still, even in its US pressed version, it looks better than the DVD - the concert was an NTSC composite D2 edited and mastered recording and Warner used an awful comb filter for the DVD conversion - in the opening "Erotica" song, Madonna's fishnet stockings show all kinds of cross-color rainbowing that is completely absent on the LaserDisc, even through a 2D comb filter - throughout the DVD there are numerous NTSC comb filter artifacts. The LD's stereo sound is also a better mix - Warner remixed the DVD's audio into 5.1 channel with vocal and instrument placements that make no sense with the visuals, and the overall fidelity is thin and harsh.

So, while I'm glad to have The Girlie Show on LaserDisc again, I'll have to keep looking for a DADC Austria pressing. And BTW, I added the disc's mint marks to the database.

Does anyone else have this LaserDisc and if so, where was your copy made?

I just this few minutes ago bought this at cheap price.

Just checked my copy and it's the DADC Austria.




Strangely, I like the film. Or at least it gets played once every 2 or 3 years. Gets played with Absolute Power and US Marshals, similar style movies.[/quote]

US Marshals, not a bad follow-up to THE FUGITIVE. I haven't played US Marshals, on R2 DVD in maybe 6 or 7 years.

What have I been watching? DIE HARD 5 is what I have braved for 1hr 37mins of what is a total train wrack.

Well at least I got my money back? Well the way I see it if you like to see a scene in film again at the cinema you have to pay to see listen to it again. Since skipping back to take picture capture adds on too time then that's how I get my money back.

I wouldn't have paid to see this at the cinema since it was rated 12A for kiddies. It was still violent enough and its the distributors Fox that cut it theatrical to get 12A. Well that's the word on facebook DIE HARD 12A page.



Theatrical 1h.37m.39s
Extended cut 1h.41m.11s




Set fader at 6.5db trimmed Pucks in the seats for a vibrating level and subs too. Then let the film play.




Main menu



only 1.85:1 W/S there goes the continuity of the 2.35:1 SCOPE look of a true DIE HARD film.










The director of this train wreck.











Of course the film mix was going to sound great with cars exploding.









This scene felt realistic when Jack, beats his fist against the driving wheel.





Really this film isn't even worth 1080i on my projector. It would be waste of lamp time and I must have a few thousand hours left? But I'm not going to waste 97mins on this. Its only CRT worthy of 480.

Plus the DP needs to see SpecSavers! What COLOUR is this? Its all tinted like seasick green all the whites. Is this the future of digital cinema?


Intermission time.



Sooty, gives his review of DIE HARD 5? Wweeeeewoooooowwwww meow meow weeee woooooowww

Sooty, translation: "WHAT THE BLEEP IS THIS TRAIN WRECK?"



Sooty, gives DIE HARD 5 a catnap rating

Resume film













Okay that was funny scene.













Even taking the screen captures is waste of re-chargeable batteries.







WOW this explosion was great like I haven't heard that before?





Worst ending to a DIE HARD film. This makes an Edward film look like "the Godfather"



Wow that was great in DOLBY ATMOS... just kidding I mean dtshdma 7.1.



And they even mentioned all the thousands who worked on this train wreck at the end.


Best DIE HARD is DIE HARD (1988) DIE HARD 2 (1990) and DIE HARD 3 (1995)

Worst DIE HARD? DIE HARD 4 and DIE HARD 5.

Give it up DIE HARD was the late 80's and 90's.

well, i'm donating a ton of stuff, so this summer I figure I would give the VHS tapes one last watch and then donate them. I'm in the middle of Dragon Ball (NOT Z) right now. I should donate my doubles of Laserdiscs. Anyone else like this series? I have enjoyed the first 11 episodes so far. And drats! it's not available on Laserdisc.

Best DIE HARD is DIE HARD (1988) DIE HARD 2 (1990) and DIE HARD 3 (1995)

Worst DIE HARD? DIE HARD 4 and DIE HARD 5.

Give it up DIE HARD was the late 80's and 90's.[/quote]

Totally agree. Die Hard 5 was a complete waste of time. A CGI fest that is not worthy of the Die Hard title. Bruce Willis looked like he was sleep walking most of the time.

Well Bruce, did looked a little dozy come to think of it?

By morning I would have forgotten I watched it. It just didn't seem memorable enough? The lines in the film wasn't funny or even worth quoting.

Plans for DIE HARDEST 2015.

Its odd the only terrorists or "bank robbers" as it was "robbery" in the first DIE HARD only two survived. One punched in the face with side of machine-gun by McClane, the other in the car park had car ramped into the side the ambulance, then had his lights punched out are the only ones who didn't end up being gunned down by McClane, shot between the groan a few times, tossed out a window and then wearing a car windscreen C4 dropped down an elevator shaft and blown to bits, a few extra crispy FBI agents, and Hans, being dropped off skyscraper and then his buddy shows up at the end and gets put down by Hal. And everyone drives off home with "Let It Snow".

All the terrorists DIE HARD 2, ether ended up being luggage, an icicle shoved though their eye or being roasted, on a 747.

DIE HARD 3 most of them ended up ether being arrested while the others got roasted in the helicopter.

DIE HARD 4, I think all the terrorists ended up wearing a car after slamming into a helicopter, or diced into bits blown to smithereens or shot at the end.

DIE HARD 5 I can't really remember?

The action wasn't even that good! Whereas in the first three films there was a consequence to the action and people actually got hurt and were beat up, in this there's complete car wrecks and jumping off buildings etc... not a broken bone. Forgettable characters, no chemistry between Bruce and his son. Forgettable bad guys etc etc..... It was always going to be mediocre at best when directed by John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix remake, Max Payne, The Omen remake).

If you want to watch a really good recent Bruce Willis film check out Looper from last year.

And add jumping head first into window! I mean that window ether had bad case of wood worm where it would even break if you breath on it.

I bet if you ran into patio glass door, you'll end up in hospital.

I can tell you straight window frames do not break so easily. I cut right my hand open in 1990 when putting out my hand to stop a door on door-spring and I missed the wooden frame and put my hand right threw the glass.

Then I looked at my Fish & Chips and thought to myself? I didn't have tomato sauce, then started feeling light headed. That is what doesn't happen in DIE HARD 5 it was nothing but a total load of 97mins of rubbish.

I have heard of "LOOPER" (2012) and seen the trailer once last year.

The glass in McClane's feet in DIE HARD now he would also have small splinters not so easy to remove and it would be so painful. Even if an ounce of vinegar dropped on his, feet he would be screaming. Plus he can sure run around a lot in DIE HARD 2. You'd have if not possible nerve damage to the feet.

I have nerve damage in my right hand since 1990.

"Flight of the Phoenix remake" is only good for its soundtrack low end and nothing much less we fans care about. I'd sooner buy a MONO "Flight of the Phoenix" original with James Stewart.

Flight of The Phoenix - Original vs. Remake Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6FYe3hD1yE

I was a little disappointed with Die Hard 5 myself, mainly I see no reason to call it Die Hard at all. It was mostly a Bruce Willis action movie that had nothing to do with Die Hard. I think it's mostly the Russian setting, it just kills the Die Hard feel to it. Or the really long car chases, which are really good, but take up a lot of the movie.

All of the previous films, even Die Hard 4 have involved terrorists hijacking something, in this one, they're just after some old retired nukes or something. And then it was off to Chernobyl which was just a really boring ending. It made me think of another movie I had just seen a few weeks before which is Chernobyl Diaries and let me tell you...that movie is F'ed Up! Freaky on a low budget but somehow I couldn't turn it off.

A look at Die Hard Pentalogy:

Die Hard 1 Terrorists take over a tower for money
Die Hard 2 Terrorists take over an airport to demand the release of a drug lord
Die Hard 3 Terrorists take over a city to distract law enforcement as they make of with a large gold deposit
Die Hard 4 "Cyber" Terrorists take over government and city computers to start a fire sale of financial assets essentially hijacking the city and possibly the entire country.
Die Hard 5 Terrorists are after a file (later actually old nukes), and throw in John McClain and his son who try to stop them.

What's missing?

The human element. In each of the previous movies note that terrorists take over something which doesn't happen at all in Die Hard 5. This also gives the movies the normal, average joe look at how a super cop takes down the baddies. In 5 there is little to no look from average people reacting to John McClain. The scenes are nearly all focused on John and his son if I remember right. There's the court room scene early in the movie, but John McClain isn't there. I'd have to watch again to see if I'm missing it.

I wanted to like this one but it pains me to say I think 4 was better and I didn't care much for that one when it came out. But at least it retained what made Die Hard great. Terrorists take over something and average people see how John McClain does his magic. Yippie Kay Yay!!! Totally absent from 5, true there's great action and chases but the plot is really weak and doesn't have what the previous films had. They could have called it anything else and just changed Bruce Willis's character to something else and it would have been fine.

I'm surprised to see 4 was actually the most successful. I probably like them in this order: 1, 3, 2, 4, 5. It's a toss up for me on 2 or 4, I'll give 2 3rd place because it's an older film.

The last good movie Bruce Willis was in?

I'd say Sixth Sense, before that Armageddon and then The Fifth Element. He's had some mediocre roles since then, but nothing great.

tomtastic, Good points on all of the above. You've been eating you're daily diet of DIE HARD recently haven't you.

I haven't watched that film in 8 years or so now. The Sixth Sense which had me until the end. But not many fans of M. Night? After Earth, bombed and it looks like a cool sci-fi.

To be truthful I think Armageddon sucks. The launch scene doesn't have enough flight cabin rumble to even give my seats a good shaking. The launch is flawed. Two shuttles within a few seconds of each other launched and when it cuts to the shot where we see all two passing by camera LOL the first shuttle would be miles away. Plus the "go with throttle up" comes in too early in the launch if you have watched many live ones on NASA TV?

The external-tank is jettisoned far, far too early. The launch is a total load of bollocks that lasts less than 2 mins and real flight takes about 8 1/2 mins. I would have sooner watched a full boring at times as it seems a full 8 1/2mins to be truthful to the real launch. Not Flash Dance, Top Gun in 2 mins.

A lot of the audience at the cinema was laughing at the film in 1998. Not at the jokes but at the film.

I wouldn't worry about technical details in a movie about landing on an asteroid. You have to use your imagination...lots of imagination! Still, I think it was one of Willis's best roles. He makes a good lead for that film. Viewed the Blu ray about a year ago. I have other one on LD, Deep Impact, it was ok, not as good as Armageddon. Best part is when steve bucemi is ridding the nuke. And when he says "We're staying, we're going, we're staying, we're going, make up your mind!" "A busted ship? And I'm strapped in here? I had a great spot picked out there!" It's just a fun flick.

Yeah its fun all-rounder summertime popcorn.

Deep Impact was okay but Meteor (1979) beat these films by at least 17 years.
Meteor (1979) [ID2842OR]

I'll have to give it spin again in Dolby AC-3.

Deep Impact (1998) [LD330821-WS]

Back in 2004 we screened Deep Impact on the 5-storey iWerks (IMAX competitor) screen at Union Station in Kansas City. Our 35mm projector had a special long-throw lens (that cost almost $25,000) so 35mm scope could fill the screen from side to side.

Anyway, I got my boss to do a deal with the A/V company that supplied the equipment for special events and in addition to the theater's standard four 18-inch EAW subwoofers, we had 6 Cerwin-Vega folded horn subs, each had a 21-inch driver, installed down behind the screen - they were placed right up against each other, side by side to provide mutual coupling, centered in the middle of the screen and tilted back slightly (since the floor was below the bottom row of seats) with the horn mouths radiating into the audience. Their bass cut off at around 25-Hz, but man, they could really move the air. Since our sound system had a full patch bay I kept the extra subs off until the first comet, Beiderman, hits, then turned them on and turned up the Dolby CP-500 from its normal fader setting of 7 to 9. The projection booth was shaking the sound was so intense. After the comet impact, I kept the subs running but lowered the volume back down to 7 until they blew up comet Wolf, where I raised it back to 9 for Wolf's explosion and then back down to 7 and Cerwin Vega subs off for the rest of the film and credits.

I went down to the lobby during the end credits and people were talking about how impressive the sound was - we ran Deep Impact for 3 nights and I recognized probably 10 people returning on all three nights. On the last nights showing an usher came up to the booth and said that a few customers had asked if they could see the sound system when the show was over, so I took them on a tour of the booth and then back down behind the screen to see the added subs. They loved the sound and I felt wonderful having provided a great screening and sense of showmanship to the film. I just wish the subs could have gone lower in their frequency response - I recall Widescreen Review measuring the AC-3 LaserDisc and stating that it had sub-20 Hz bass on the LFE.

It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to love it - I got no complaints about it being too loud - but we never did another show like it. Bringing in the subs for only 3 shows was just too much of a hassle. Its a shame Union Station didn't buy the subs and make it a permanent installation. There were two corner areas in the back of the theater that would have been perfect for some rear subs - and they wouldn't have blocked the exists or reduced handicapped access either.

So, although it didn't go near as deep, I got to show Deep Impact in Dolby Digital with a "Sensurround-type" of special effect. I've always loved the film Deep Impact and getting to do a special presentation like that has made the movie even more special to me.

^ Nice story and what a great idea. Deep Impact playing in Disclordurround for 3 nights only at Union Station iWerks!

Pacific Rim in Imax 3D.

Pretty disappointing all round. 3D added nothing to it.