Time to catch up on some good content elsewhere.
DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) takes on Sony's new release of "20 Million Miles to Earth," the effects master Ray Harryhausen's final black and white movie. Glenn can live with the colorization since there's a slightly improved b&w version to enjoy, but has this to say about the set:
"Sony's 50th Anniversary Edition is a fancy package that at first flatters Ray Harryhausen's semi-classic, and then becomes a case of celebratory overkill. Despite the big-name contributors most of the extras are shallow and commercially oriented. The release sums up a problem with many studio Special Editions -- the added value features are often not much more than marketing lures. One of the featurettes is geared to break down film fan resistance to the practice of colorization, and watching it is like spending time with used car salesmen."
While doing the monster mash, Glenn hails South Korea's "The Host": "The last time monster epics took a major conceptual leap forward was in the first two Alien movies."
Another DVD Talk veteran, Joshua Zyber, recently launched a column at High Def-Digest. I like what he had to say in the first post, "Memo to the Studios: Ten Easy Ways to Improve High-Def Discs."
The New York Times' Dave Kehr gets in the swim with "Esther Williams Vol. 1" from Warner Home Video/TCM. Kehr gets off this line about Williams' collaborator Busby Berkeley: He "seemed to be working under the influence of drugs yet to be discovered." Kehr also queues up Universal's release of the original "Scarface" and Paramount's upgrade of John Landis' money-mad "Trading Places."
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