Manzana

Based on your comments, I just ordered the Comedy Pack to get Fierce Creatures in widescreen finally. I've never heard of Crossing Hearts and already have the other 2. I guess I'll get to go into my favorite store once more! I could order it from Amazon for $7.99, but I'm driving by BB tomorrow anyway.

Out of curiosity, are these DVD-10 flippers or 2 DVD-9's with a menu allowing you to select either movie? I doubt we'd be so lucky as to get any submenus with different languages or subtitle options (like English and Spanish) on these cheapo packs? For non-English speakers who sometimes watch movies with me, having subtitles is very important... especially on British comedy like this. Unfortunately my all time favorite TV series, Fawlty Towers, has no subtitles (I don't even know if it has closed captioning). I assume even with English subtitles someone who doesn't know English well has absolutely no chance of understanding most of Fawlty Towers which is a shame because it's so funny it almost makes me cry at times.

Living Deadpan

Do these include the special features from the single-disc releases? For example, does black comedy's Serial Mom contain the John Waters commentary?

NYCMan

To last slew of posters with questions, please reread my last post.
Zero extras means no trailers. No flippers. Etc.
Def worth the buy if you dig even one of the films. 'Cross My Heart' I liked ok when I saw it at 13 or 14. Fairly thoughtful, amusing, and Annette O'Toole is a babe. ('What Happened Was', though, is the best riff on the real-time awkward first date scenario.) Saw 'Fierce' in a theater upon release and was disappointed, but have always wanted to see it again - it's been a long wait for WS. Watched 'Wanda' again last year (that 2-disc edition) and loved it. Have adored 'Fawlty Towers' since I was a kid.

Living Deadpan

Right-O. Sorry.

Well, fortunately, most of these had no extras to begin with. Pretty sure that's the case with cult horror. I may take a trip to Best Buy this week.

Those buckets still exist, eh? Looks like Anchor Bay must've really oversupplied His Name is Jason and Happy Birthday To Me. Did BB still have all those Texas Chainsaw steelbooks for $4.99?

njwiv

Sadly, it does not appear to be enhanced for widescreen TVs.

nando820

I'm still not sure how are these films called Favorites collection, I mean like who's favorites?

NYCMan

Bought cult horror 4 pack, too. Same deal.

Bucket was half the height of average Walmart-style buckets and half-filled, to boot. But they had what I wanted so what the hell? No 'Texas' steelbooks, but about a half dozen 'TCM 2' (Hooper's with Hopper), the special edition version. Also ten or twelve 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'.

ProfessorEcho

Can anyone definitively confirm that the CLASSIC WAR and CLASSIC WESTERN sets do NOT have trailers?

I won't trade in my individual titles for the four pack if that's the case. Just thought I could swap out 8 cases on my shelf for 2. I could always use more space.

story

I picked up the comedy pack with Fierce Creatures as well as the horror pack as a blind buy for The Serpent and the Rainbow. They were in a big ol' barrel at the front of the store though I didn't see them forever. Two employees were combing every inch of the comedy section which I had just gone over. I suggested I might look up front to see if there was a special kiosk or something, they looked at me like that sort of thing has never happened. Well, it did. I decided to go back and let them know and they were both shocked I found the DVDs. Whatever. I usually go to Best Buy once a year for deals like this; maybe my 2011 journeys inside are over with today's little adventure.

Rypro 525

nope just the movies. Picked up the comedy one the day it came out, 4.99 for Wet Hot American Summer and Hamlet 2 was worth it alone

abintra

Well, that is disappointing. As useless as a MAR transfer then.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Manzana

For shame on them for Fierce Creatures not being anamorphic! First, they got the jacket wrong saying pan & scan and even though they finally letterboxed it they didn't do it anamorphic! Still, it shouldn't be any worse than my old widescreen laserdisc. I bet there are no subtitles or other languages besides English.

Also, I had fun at my favorite place (BB) this morning picking it up. I did an in-store pickup order the night before so it would ready so I could zip in and out. So I got there at 11 AM after they had been open for an hour and they hadn't even gotten around to pulling my order. So I said I'd try to find it myself, but I couldn't. As usual, I couldn't find any employees in the store except at the front registers and customer service. Finally they called someone over who took me on a wild goose chase through the various shelves with no luck. I finally said I'd heard it was in a barrel and asked if they had one, so he took me to where it was hidden and found 1 copy at the bottom. I got out of there probably having wasted 20 minutes for what should have taken 5. It just reminded me why it's my (un)favorite store.

When I got home tonight, I never even got a follow up email for my in-store pickup saying my order is ready or they couldn't find it. Hopefully I'll get my money back after 10 days.

NYCMan

I'm positive they do not. A few of the newer titles in these sets came loaded with features upon individual release and NONE of those features are in the mix here - far as I could tell, not even subtitles. I mean not even a scene selection menu. The films are it.

ProfessorEcho

Ah crap! I like having original trailers, so my single discs will stay where they are.

Thanks for the update.

BobO'Link

I had a slightly better experience. When I couldn't find the comedy pack in the regular section I went to the "greeter" to ask. She said she'd seen it and asked the price. When I told her she said "it's either here or in the back", went straight to the $4.99 barrel, which I'd not seen, and started looking. While the two of us looked in the barrel she had another associate look "in the back" as that's where she thought she'd seen it. A few minutes later the associate returned with the title. Overall it was a surprisingly positive experience. It even looked as if they had more DVD stock than the last time I visited (shortly after the chain-wide "reduction" of the DVD section). My overall impression of BB improved slightly.

story

I didn't think the whole "enhanced for widescreen tvs" or anamorphic or whatever - clearly, I have no idea what I'm talking about - would make a big deal. Instead, the picture is mega small on my tv. If I zoom the image, then it loses its clarity. Frustrating. I mean, $5 isn't bad to finally get this on DVD (haven't seen it since I got rid of my VHS six years ago) but come on!

Manzana

Well, now you know how important 16x9 or anamorphic or "enhanced for widescreen TVs" is. I knew it going in (thanks to previous posts) but wanted Fierce Creatures on DVD in widescreen so bad that I was willing to accept non-anamoprhic for $4.99. There are very few movies I like enough to touch non-anamorphic (or even worse pan & scan). I'm still mad at Universal for only going halfway by finally giving us widescreen but not anamorphic. At least Fierce Creatures got 5.1 sound whereas the other 3 in the pack got anamorphic and only 2.0 sound.

Most TVs and some DVD players have adjustments where you can zoom it in so that it correctly fills your 16x9 screen. I ended up using the TV's zoom feature instead. I thought everything was fine, except I had to put the English subtitles on for someone else and ran into the problem I didn't think of...

The subtitles appear either at the very top and very bottom of the picture, so when you zoom in you lose the first or last line of subtitles. My TV allowed me to move the picture up or down, but the fact they put subtitles on both the top and bottom meant you were going to miss some of them no matter what. I was quite surprised that the PS3 has no screen or subtitle position adjustment while my old DVD player did.

However, the subtitles soon became a moot point... my non-native English speaker fell asleep after about 20 minutes not having the slightest clue what was going on in the movie or even knowing what the word "fierce" meant until I explained it. Nor would a non-native English speaker get all of Rollo's freudian slips when he was talking to Wanda... I mean Willa. How sad that such great British humor is only understandable by a handful of native English speakers. I say handful because I know plenty of native English speakers who tell me they don't understand or like British humor, but for me Fawlty Towers, Fierce Creatures, and Monty Python are right up my alley. I got the humor immediately and wish there were more like it. I never cared for other British humor (like Benny Hill or Absolutely Fabulous). So it would seem I'm mainly a John Cleese humor person.

Well, at least I enjoyed watching it again (it had been several years) once I turned the subtitles off. It still looks decent zoomed in in spite of being non-anamorphic... much better than my old laserdisc!

There's a nice set of quotes from it here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119115/quotes

BobO'Link

I'd rather have anamorphic and 2.0 sound... but then I'm "old school" when it comes to sound stages. I can't stand "surround" sound mixes. Most just do not sound "right" in relation to the image on the screen. Now, if someone wants to make a 360 deg. screen to go with the sound I'll re-evaluate the situation...

Manzana

Me too. Anamorphic is more important to me than upgraded sound, but at least Fierce Creatures got some slight improvement. I think all movies should include the original unaltered soundtrack and then they can provide surround remixes galore. There's no excuse for them not to always provide the original soundtrack (as well as always do anamorphic transfers) except for cheapness/laziness. I think when studios do this they are being like Rod McCain in Fierce Creatures who said quality has never worked for him.

BobO'Link

NYCMan

All 4 Film Favorites on sale for $8.99 at Target this week: 'Matrix' set, 'Superman', 'Ice Cube', 'Blade', etc. Also those MGM classics sets and some new (to Target) 6-movie sets, including a 'sports movies' collection and this one, which I've brought home:
http://rocknrollghost.com/2010/10/22...80s-movies-mgm
Also saw three 4 movie sets I hadn't seen before: one was 'The Cooler', 'Suicide Kings', 'Made' & 'The Limey', another was 'Stir Crazy' & 3 others, another was 'About Last Night', 'St. Elmo's Fire', 'Jagged Edge' & 'Against All Odds'. All listed as WS on back of case.

Living Deadpan

I picked up the (relatively new) Oliver Stone collection.

The thing with these WB 4 Film Favorites is... a lot of them carry over the older DVD editions (A Nightmare on Elm Street), but some of them do feature the bonus-studded remasters (Dirty Harry). You can only tell by examining the features listed on the back of each individual one. I bought the Matrix 4FF a while ago because it was the most economical way to get the series for Rifftrax, so I didn't care that the sequels didn't have any bonus features. But Blade, for instance, I don't think the 4FF has the New Line Platinum versions.

Have you seen the MGM/Fox "Classics Quads"? Some of those have oddly grouped titles!

NYCMan

I believe 'Blade' titles have whatever was available on the feature disc of original 2-disc versions. Have an unopened copy.

Also, a heads-up: Mill Creek has various Touchstone (Disney) double and triple features containing titles from the late 80s to the late 90s. Horror, comedy, family, etc. Couple notable ones ('Disorganized Crime' is terribly underrated), especially for those showed interest in this thread.

Lastly, anyone have this? https://www.echobridgeentertainment....r_Series_76669

Living Deadpan

Actually, you're right on that:

What threw me off is the misprint, titles 2-4 don't match up with their respective special features! This back cover claims that Guillermo Del Toro does commentary for Blade 3 (and, conversely, that Blade 2 is bare-bones)!

Yeah I noticed some of those, including the Hellraiser sequel "favorites" (is Bloodline or Inferno really anyone's favorite Hellraiser film?). Imo, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is an undervalued, overlooked masterpiece.

I'm not raising any hopes, but... is there any chance that Echo Bridge is upgrading The Prophecy to anamorphic widescreen? Or, more likely, are they simply carrying over Dimension's fullscreen letterbox? I'm guessing the latter.

NYCMan

Mill Creek=Touchstone ('An Innocent Man', 'Another Stakeout', 'V.I. Warshawski', etc.)
Echo Bridge=Miramax ('Hellraiser' and 'Children of the Corn' sequels, etc.)
But yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the latter, too - not like either company is doing upgrades here, though Creek's 'Ernest' 3-pack (procured by this turkey yesterday at Target for $3.99) looks admirable upon first inspection.

Also picked up 3-pack of 'American Ninja'/'Rage of Honor'/'Revenge of the Ninja' from the infamous $4.99 bin at Best Buy. All films on one disc, not a flipper.