Watched a rom/com with my girlfriend, "Blast from the Past"..... (again...)
Felt motivated to review being that we are living at def con V.

Like this fun movie. Not a Walkin fan however really enjoyed his role in this one.
My take - Clever, original, and actually humorous.

This one led me to share Dr. STRANGLOVE next !

Cheers to membership.

I watched Gamera, Guardian of the Universe (1995) [DLZ-0185]. This is a very high quality LD. The movie itself isn’t as good as the best Godzilla movie but it’s a lot better than the worse ones. While it is a lot more serious than the OG series the fights still get goofy and Gameras spinning flying trick looks totally badass in this version.

Gamera has always had a special place in my heart.
Based on Zetas assessment I am going to give this contemporary version a spin soon down the road.
Thanks for the interpretation man.

Cheers to the membership.....

My kid and I have been watching a lot of Marx Bros lately. We have the Paramount era BR, which is great, but there doesn’t seem to be a similar thing for the later films. In fact, the DVD copy of A Day At the Races I bought on Amazin’ was an “Archive” version…in other words a burn. It’s strange how differently two different companies can treat the exact same fan base…

One nice thing about movies like this though is that the LD editions look about %95 as good as the 1080p versions so as long as you have LDs you are set other than the LD possibly missing any pre-code footage. B/w movies often look very good on LD. Sadly the only Marx LD I have though is the excellent Night at the Opera, A: Special Edition #31 (1935) [CC1131L].

Revisited Luc Besson classic "Le Grande Bleu, version longue" [PILF-2379].
My girlfriend had never seen this and one of my fav movies so we spun this up last week.
Love Rosana Arquette and Jean Reno in this one.

If your into a good story and epic diving cinema Luc Besson style then check this movie out.
One cannot predict the ending on this one !

Cheers to the membership......

I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It wasn't bad, it also wasn't very good. Other than the first 20 minutes it also was very boring.

John Williams score was good. And it was nice to say goodbye to this character, but it wasn't as good as the Disney Star Wars films. Films i don't even like but weren't boring.

One of these days the modern generation of fanboys will learn that it’s a *good* thing that your favorite thing ends. I don’t want 300 episodes of Faulty Towers. I don’t want 20000 episodes of Zeta Gundam. It won’t be any good at that point, it can’t be, and I don’t understand fans of a thing who seem to genuinely like the things they like but also can’t understand that quality and infinity are mutually exclusive concepts.

I also watched The Flash and i only liked Keaton as Batman and, Supergirl. It was a pretty bad movie.

Started watching Yamato III on DVD with no subs i have no idea what is going on but at least its an official release.

I also have the Yamato II box. I really have to hook up my player on my good tv and give it a spin.

I keep trying to get a tape of the 35mm version of Final Yamato but they want way too much for it. It only ever was released on VHS and Beta once. When they did the Blu-Ray they couldn't even be bothered to include the VHS as a bonus. They could have they just didn't.

I had a copy of Babe: Pig in the City (1998) [PILF-2769] just sitting in display as wall art. I already had the DVD and months ago I lent it to a friend who has yet to return it. So then I opened it from the seal and then decided to play it on the mighty CLD-R7G.

My goodness, I knew Japan specializes in mastering LDs at 0 IRE during the later years of the format but I didn't know it happened as early as 1999! I noticed how dark the picture looked but after playing with the black level settings on my plasma it looked okay. Top-notch transfer as well, beautiful picture and very quiet yet robust sound on the PCM side! I recommend this particular disc to anyone who wants the late-LD goodness but doesn't and will not pay top dollar for discs like Fight Club or Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Also it's perhaps the best looking LaserDisc that I own now.

It is a great looking LD.

I’m a big fan of Babe. I never saw the sequel because I never wanted one. A while back though I decided to get it for the AC-3. It arrived in a perfect condition sleeve but…the disc inside was cracked in two. I eventually got another copy quite some time later and eventually watched it. After like $70 spent and probably a year or two between the two copies and me eventually getting around to seeing it well…it turns out I don’t like Babe II very much at all! Its loud and kinda nightmarish and I get none of the same feelings I got from the first movie. Oh well, there’s always the first one, which I have regular and DTS versions of, and the weirdo fans can have their Big Top Peewee level City of Lost Children-esque freak circus of a sequel.

I know those feelings you have. Pig in the City wasn't a good sequel to Babe in my opinion but I watched it for the insanity of it all. 'Twas a trippy trip!

Last night I decided to spin Jackie Brown (1997) [15065 AS] despite me not having a DTS decoder by me at the moment. I just switched to the analog channels and watched it from there, and talk about a difference a region, let alone a year makes in terms of LD mastering. Unfortunately, I noticed some of the dreaded "CLV-smearing" in the picture, and trust me I have a CLD-R7G which is known to eliminate smear. It has to be a shoddy mastering job, and I believe there has to be some DNR involved because Babe II's disc was smear-free and CLV.

The worst example I can think of is Chapter 5 where Ordell visits Beaumont at night. It's dimly lit for a reason and making matters worse it involves two black people; it's basically smear city! Could it be a master ready for THX certification but without the THX license?

World is not enough on Laserdisc ( one of my grail discs ). solid AC3 experience.

And for the 20th anniversary Lost in Translation on blu-ray.
Will be heaving to Tokyo next April when it's the 20th anniversary of the movie being released in Japan ( it's my favourite movie of all time ).

Watched Age of Innocence, The [52636] with my mother, a notorious DADC USA pressing. Here's my controversial opinion: hardly any rot on my copy, picture looks outstanding coming from the pre-DVD era, and to be fair I didn't notice any flipped channels on the audio side, it's a center-channel, dialogue-heavy movie. Except the first side, DADC USA cannot press CAV discs imho.

My audio chain is Optical from the CLD-R7G, feeding into the Peachtree DAC-ITx, analog RCA out to a Technics SH-8020, equalized, sent out to the Kenwood KR-710. My video chain is simply S-video from the player to the Panasonic plasma display.

I own that but haven’t watched the movie since I rented it in the 90s. I’ll have to give it a spin.

Gone with the Wind:75th Anniversary BluRay lined up this weekend.
Somehow we havn't yet witnessed this 'classic' nor have come across it on LD locally.

Watched some of The Tomorrow War and it wasn't very good i didn't finish it.

This month I received two discs that both were a long time in the making, both are terrific.

I Get Knocked Down https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_get_knocked_down

There is no band in history like Chumbawamba. While most people know them for their hit they existed for 15 years before and after that hit and were a constantly changing group. The movie follows Dunstan Bruce as he looks for the same sort of fulfillment he got from being in the band after it no longer existed. I think anyone who has ever been into punk, left wing activism, student movements, squatting, marching whatever will get something out of this movie. It's very well done. Sadly it's too hard to see. At the moment you can pay to rent it on some American streaming services and Dunstan will mail you a DVD if you want. It's a burn, but whatever. Highest recommendation for Thatcher haters and the like. I Kickedstarted this movie ages ago and I'm super happy to have a copy for real finally. They visit their old house and show home movies and everything, visit some parents. Its great.


23 Seconds to Eternity: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/distribution/no ... tive%20and


For me the KLF were the coolest story in the history of pop music, which is saying something. There are a lot of cool stories in the history of pop music. These guys, seemingly burned out on everything, ripping off everyone, and taking the p**s non stop...also created so much genuinely original stuff. They released it all on their own label, became the biggest band on earth, then literally burnt the money and shut down their company at the apex of their fame, machine gunning the audience metaphorically and literally.

The KLF quite famously and and totally left the music industry in 1992. Nothing at all has been released by them since other than stuff on foreign labels (ie: American copies of Chill Out on Wax Trax). Naturally then there has never been a DVD or Blu-ray and nobody expected one. While the Jams left the biz, their music video director however never did and recently (the year 2023) the films they made together, music videos, ambient scenery tapes, FX demo reels, whatever you want to call them were compiled and shown and now you can buy it all from BFI for I think 17 quid. The sources for The White Room no longer exist so they AI-ed the S out of some sort of interlaced 90s video tape format. It honestly looks really good but you still see color errors from it being in an analog format at some point, especially in Ford Timelord's grill. The sound in The White Room is newly mixed through so it's great. I've waited 30 years for this dang DVD/Blu-ray combo. Packaging is not amazing but better than you'd expect. For fans of acid house, punk/DIY ethic, trance, old timey raves, etc this is a 10/10 release. You want it.

Watched Woody Allen's CELEBRITY with my new wife.
Back and white classic Woody comedy.
All star cast delivers some gut wrenching dead pan.

Not for everyone, however if you are keen on Allen, this one is golden.

Happy Holidays and cheers to the membership.......

I recently watched the first release of Raise the Titanic and also The Shining.

The Shining looks surprisingly good on LD!

All the 5 Jason Bourne movies popped up on my prime so I decided to give them a go. Loved it and instantly ordered the set on blu-ray.