Say what?

It's a hard feature to describe and much easier to just... show.

They aren't on all players.
But my 3070 has an option to watch still frame with sound, playback at a strobe version, like every 3rd frame and audio will be regular.

Just some tricks that they threw into players.

The original remote of my player doesn't have the button. Yet it works on my player because of my replacement remote. So how much has that to do with the remotes just not having the button or the players being incapable of doing it?

Anyway probably should start looking into getting more LD's. So I can have more to watch.

Watched a double bill again last night. Two Thousand Maniacs (from the 427 disc Joseph Gordon Levitt box set) and The Invisible Man (from the 8 disc set).

2k Maniacs was supremely poor. The gore and splatter was wonderful, which I suppose is the real draw of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt collection. But it's very much comprised of moments that are few and far between.

The acting was absolutely atrocious. If you were to score the acting on the Richter Scale it wouldn't even register. Stay away as well if you are easily offended, there's more Confederate flags in this thing than what you'd find at a factory that produces nothing but Confederate flags as it's sole business (I guess that's an inaccurate comparison these days but you get my point I hope). This film is hicksploitation on an epic scale.

There was one redeeming feature of this film besides the gore though and that was the ending. I liked how bizarre it was and felt it oddly fitting, almost 'sweet' in a way though I use that term very loosely for want of a better word.

There are some nice extras here though so the disc has some replay value. If I watch the film again it will just be for the kills and that's pretty much it. One thing I would say though, Herschell-Lewis had some serious balls to release a film like this in the USA in 1964. Incredible it was ever made in the first place.

The Invisible Man was a lot of fun. The effects were very good for the time, I loved the bicycle sequence! It's all of it's 71 minutes and more (the time just flies past) and well worth a rewatch.

I think this is a close 2nd place out of the films I've seen so far in the set, with The Mummy in 1st place at the moment.

4 down 4 to go!

Just watched Prisoners of the Lost Universe on betamax.

The only way I can describe it is "imagine if they tried to make Flash Gordon but without any money".

This is in fact a feature. Maybe it’s called Strobe, I can’t remember. Early decks with digital frame buffers would have it. The LD-W1 does for sure.

I know, right.

I streamed it for free on a roku channel about 6 or so months ago, I was really excited as I do like John Saxon but
this film was horrible, he was the only saving part if you can call it saving.
What sparked my interest was the fact I saw a very early LD pressing but then discovered it had also been released on DVD
so I skipped the need to own it.

That's why I decided to watch it after I had some problems with the VCR at first. I figured that if it was gonna end up eating a tape, it'd at least eat one that wouldn't be much of a loss.

Instead, I ended up watching the entire thing.

Finally watched Battle for the Planet of the Apes, rounding up the JP LD box set I bought way back last summer.

It was nice to see the series end on a somewhat upbeat note, after the rather nihilistic Conquest. The production values were very low, and in ways it felt like a TV movie. I noticed some rather bad mastering problems in the movie; right at the end of side 1 when Kolp instructs his lieutenant to fire the nuclear missile when he gives the signal, the dialogue comes out very noisy - but the backing music comes out as clear as day! I bet it has something to do with these, and some of the other instances of similar issues, originally being deleted scenes and thus being in rougher shape than the rest of the movie.

Got round to watching The Bride of Frankenstein this evening. Oh boy, what a letdown it was.

I liked how it started off from the moment the first film ended but the rest was downhill from there. The film felt more like a slapstick comedy at times. The sequence with the minature people felt totally disjointed from the rest of the film.

The greatest offence was calling the film Bride of Frankenstein, for two main reasons. Firstly the bride is in the film for about 3 seconds. Secondly, she's the bride of The Monster. Frankenstein is the surname of the baron so the title makes no sense.

Some of the sets were gorgeous, as they have been with all of the Universal Monsters films I've seen so far. Yet the film is marred by unnecessary comedy (seriously, I thought that Doctor Pretorius was on the verge of calling Boris Karloff a real boy at one stage) and some woeful 'I'll be in my trailer curled up with a bottle of Amaretto' overacting.

In short the film felt like an ill thought out cash cow, as said theory is subsequently enforced further by the 857 trillion sequels and spin offs that followed. I loved the original film but this sequel did nothing for me, in fact I feel you could chop out the first 30 mins and you'd still have the same end product. Not my cup of tea.

5 down, 3 to go!

Since I was still in the mood for movies after Apes, I decided to go for Eraser from that pile of new discs I got.

It's far from being one of the worst movies Arnie has done, but I can kind of see why it didn't perform so well back in the day; coming off the heels of the much better True Lies, it has some similar elements (him playing a government agent) but is nowhere as funny and entertaining; even his one-liners are flat and weak. Some of the funniest dialogue comes from the mouths of the supporting characters. Another thing I realized is that Eraser is basically yet another Fugitive clone, and I'm guessing by 1996 people were tired of those. Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman wasn't that well received either. Hell, Eraser actually has a higher IMDB rating than that one!

Also the disc looks a bit weak, but I think that's down to the rather pedestrian, typical mid-90s action movie cinematography, giving it a rather muted color palette, compared to the much more colorful and fantastically shot True Lies.

I'm with you on Eraser. I watched it last year on Blu and had a great time. It's traditional teetering just above sub-par Arnold fare and that's a great thing.

Binging on Beavis and Butt-head now. Taking a break on GTO.

Just watched GI Jane. Is it just me or do all movies of this type have the exact same act 3 plot development where a training mission turns real?

It’s been family movies lately.

James and the Giant Peach on LD in Dolby Digital 5.1, very nice. The video isn’t as amazing as you might assume from a release like this but the sound is very good. The evil ladies in this are solid gold, like Boss and Roscoe, just perfect. The cabbie centipede is nauseating.

The Lego Movie on Bluray. Sound..B+. The movie itself is pretty unique. Everyone making soulless remakes must be hoping they’ll somehow make something this good. The idea...a movie based on building blocks...I’d never greenlight a budget this big for such a crap idea but the resulting movie is excellent. (If only there was a Star Wars movie that told everyone to open their toys...) I only wish they had used more real Legos and I think they spent way too much money hiring recognizable actors to do the voices when actual voice actors would have been better...and that’s my complaint with basically all theatrically released animation since Robin Williams was a genie...why hire Nick Offerman to do the exact same pirate voice that ANYONE with acting ability can do? I mean, artistically. I know why this is done, of course. It’s because it’s Hollywood and everyone is sucking each other off to some degree so the more expensive everything is the more $$$ you’ll get out of whatever your percentage is, be you an actor’s agent, a lending bank, or just a costar or director who knows the budget continues to increase the more talented is attached and who’s own pay is seen relative to whoever the most highly overpaid guy on the movie is (Will Ferell in this case) but I mean insofar as the quality of the movie is concerned why pay some rich guy to sit in a booth for a day dropping a few lines when you can hire two more animators to work a whole year on the actual movie? You never would, that’s my point. Anyway, good movie. I won’t press my luck with the sequel, it can only be a whammy after the first one.

The Sequel is only slightly worse, as the charm of the original is sorta lost, however, I feel that the Lego Batman movie surpasses the original Lego movie, but that's just my opinion.

Been going though The Streets of San Francisco recently.
Michael Douglas is distracting sometimes. His English is noticeably poor, eg excape instead of escape

Just watched an episode with young Mark Hamill od'ing.

all three are excellent, IMHO...

the people working on LEGO media seem to have a fantastic sense of wry humor,
that often even manages to translate down into many of the LEGO-themed video games...