Gladiator
Silence of the Lambs
The Cell
Road Warrior
Escape from New York
The Hollow Man
The Abyss

Gladiator

A two disk set.
The picture-2.35:1 WS Anamorphic
The picture quality is awesome.I love it.The ONLY thing that I didn't like in the movie was that first battle scene.I did not like the way it was filmed.
The sound-dolby surround 5.1 also DTS-es 6.1 My receiver has the DTS decoder and I am able to watch the movie in the DTS format even though I am only set up for the 5.1 sound.I had this movie blasting through my speakers.LOL. Hans Zimmer has made a brilliant score.

The Extra's
  • A commentary by Ridley Scott. I have not watched it YET.
  • 12 deleted scenes with commentary. The last being a great 7 minute montage.
  • An interview with Zimmer on scoring the film.
  • A 25 minute documentary about the film.
  • A 50 minute long documentary about the real gladiators. Very well done.
  • A slide show,photo gallery from behind the scenes and the usual trailers and stuff.
  • One last thing that I LOVED was a diary written by Spencer Treat Clark "Lucious". It was great to read and I spent over an hour reading it.I hope more DVDs have something like that!

The picture 5 out of 5
The sound 5 out of 5
The extra's 5 out of 5
Over all DVD rating 5 out of 5

Silence of the Lambs

This is the Criterion version DVD.
One of my 5 favorites of all time.
The picture is good, DVD quality. It was made 10 years ago.It's not as good as the films made these days. As far as the picture quality goes.Although it is good.
1.85:1 WS ratio.
The sound is dolby digital 2.0. I wish they would have made it 5.1 of course.It is ok. I really love the score. It fits right in with the story.

The Extras
  • It has a lot of word for word transcripts from real serial killers. I liked that a lot.
  • Seven deleted scenes. Nothing too interesting. There was one scene of the preacher giving a sermon that was kind of funny to see.
  • FBI crime classification manual. Kind of interesting stuff.
  • Commentary by John Demme, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. As well as the screen writer Ted Tally and FBI agent John Douglas. This was an EXCELLENT commentary. Very informative and I learned a lot about the film. One thing was that Buffalo Bill was made from 3 real killers,Ted Bundy, Ed Gein and Gary Weidnick (sp) this guy sounds very interesting.I would like to read about him.He would put his victims in a deep pit,only he would put water in the pit and hook the victims up with wires and electrocute them. He would also grind up their body parts and feed them to his dogs. Trippy stuff!!!
I was wondering who was the first choice to play Clarice??? Foster said that she was the 2nd choice. (Answer: Michelle Pfeiffer)
Picture quality 4 out of 5
Sound quality 3 out of 5
Extra's 3 and a half out of 5
Over all DVD rating (Criterion edition)
4 out of 5
My rating of the movie itself 5 out of 5

The Cell

I can't believe that I was going to wait a while before buying this incredible DVD.
The movie itself is decent.I see that the Silence of the Lambs influence might be a little too much but the movie had a lot more than the killer.Visually this is one of the best films ever made.IMO


Now to the DVD.

The sound is 5.1 surround compatible.A very strange sound track,arabic music with a punch.For the most part I love the score.The surround speakers get decent use and you can hear the separation of sounds fairly often.Not one of the best but very good. The picture 2.40:1 WS transfer.I don't have a bad thing to say about it.The beautiful rich colors,the stunning and sometimes disturbing visuals.This one melts into my brain.The picture quality is top notch. The Extras

  • Two feature length commentaries.One by the director,which is very good.One by the production team.I have not watched that one yet but I wish the actors were also involved.
  • Deleted scenes with director commentary.These were decent.A couple of them were great.The studio made him cut a couple of the good parts out. I think there might be a European cut coming out,not sure.
  • A short documentary about the director,its ok but short.It could have been more informative.
  • Visual effects vignettes:there are 6 special effects sequences.These have alternate angles (which is cool).
  • A brain map (cool) and a kind of fun Empathy test.To see if you empathise with others.There are two parts to the test.Ten questions each.
  • A couple of trailers some dvd-rom stuff that I can't access and the usual bios and junk.

The picture 5 out of 5
The sound 4 out of 5
The extra's 4 out of 5
Over all DVD rating 4 out of 5

Road Warrior

There are really no extra's to speak of. The sound is 5.1 dolby digital. Even though it is in 5.1, there is not much going on in the surround speakers. It only seems like a two channel type of sound too me. There is too much bass sound through out. I also had to turn the sound down when there were scenes with a lot of music. It got very loud.Then I couldn't here the dialogue so I had to turn it back up. LOL. The picture quality was much better than I expected for this movie. It was very nice. As far as extra's go.There are only the usual-trailers,interactive menus, production notes and languages.
It's a good purchase, if you liked the movie. Even with the sound quality and no outstanding extra's.

The picture 3½ out of 5
The sound 2 out of 5
The extra's 1 out of 5
Over all DVD rating 2½ out of 5

Escape from New York

I want to say a little about the movie itself. It is great. I forgot how much I enjoyed this film. A brilliant score.A GREAT cast. Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance, Harry Dean Stanton, Isaac Hayes and Adrienne "The Rack" Barbeau.
The sound is only dolby digital 2.0 but it is surprisingly better than I expected. Part of the reason is the brilliant score.This movie has great atmosphere. The music is mixed fairly well.
The picture quality is also better than expected. Taking everything into account.It looked good.

The extra's are disappointing. I don't understand why they didn't put in the commentary. I knew before I bought it that there wasn't one. I try and research before I buy my DVD's. You really have to. This one has less extra's than The Road Warrior, It only has the trailer.


The picture 3 out of 5
The sound 3 out of 5
The extra's 1 out of 5
Over all DVD rating 3 out of 5
I give the movie itself 4 out of 5

The Hollow Man

I enjoyed this movie a lot. That being said. It is not for everyone. Kevin Bacon plays a egotistical scientist who has been able to transform animals to an invisible state. He decides to try it on a human. (Himself,of course! lol)
Things go wrong when he can't be transformed back. The first hour is an ok drama. The last 40 minutes is literally a bloodbath.


Now the DVD-

The sound quality is very good dolby digital 5.1 surround.
The picture quality is very good with some great FX. WS 1.85:1

The extra's are excellent-

  • A decent commentary track with Paul Verhoeven,Kevin Bacon and Andrew Marlowe.
  • Isolated music score with commentary.
  • HBO-Making of documentary.
  • 3-deleted scenes with commentary.
  • 15 very good behind the scenes featurettes.
  • VFX picture in picture.3 scenes that have picture in picture.The small picture shows what the actual movie looks like (Bacon being invisible) and the bigger picture shows how it was actually filmed (with Bacon in colored costumes so he can be taken out of the shots.) Kind of cool stuff.

The picture quality 4 out of 5
The sound 4 out of 5
The extra's 4 out of 5
Over all DVD rating 4 out of 5
The movie itself l rate 3 out of 5

The Abyss

This DVD has the original theatrical release and a special edition of the film. Both versions are on disk #1.The SE is 28 minutes longer and it is great. There is a threat of war from Cuba and Russia. I hope every fan of the movie gets a chance to view the extended version!

The Picture-

  • The picture is widescreen format 2.35:1
  • The picture quality is decent, but not great.

The Sound-
  • The sound is THX 5.1 dolby surround.
  • Not much of a soundtrack but the sound quality is very good.

The Extras-
  • A 60 minute behind the scenes documentary. One of the best that I have seen.
  • James Cameron's complete screenplay.
  • Multi-angles of pseudopod sequence.That was cool to watch.
  • 3 DVD-ROM games.
  • extensive storyboards and original concept art and more.
My favorite extra is on disk one. A text commentary for both versions of the film.You can watch the film and get subtitles on how they did the scenes and so on. It's very informative without disrupting the film.

The picture quality 3½ out of 5
The sound 4 out of 5
The extra's 4½ out of 5
Over all DVD rating 4 out of 5
The movie itself l rate 4 out of 5