What is the prime cost? Bandwidth? Price of the discs? Time? I gave over $100 the first time, but maybe there are some changes he could make that would cut his costs.

For the same reason Criterion is the best production company ever!! (quoting Beaver)

I like his site and hope that he stays around for a long time so film fans can resort to his information but I also, like you, have some strange feelings regarding the manner certain evaluations are being made. There are tons of examples when Criterion is not the best option for a certain film and either the better version is never mentioned or at the end he is always leaning towards Criterion. That and the fact that a number of his early reviews dismissed certain releases because they were cropped yet in recent months with Criterion cropping left and right and a number of other issues that are being neglected (the famous color issue with Melville's films comes to mind) makes we look at his work in a less favorable manner.

I do however hope that he adopts a sound financial policy that allows him to stay active.

Ciao,
Pro-B

i don't know, pro-b. it was gary and his site that brought criterion's tendency to over-crop their transfers to my attention. and as a member of his listserv, i know many of the comparative write-ups are done by other contributers. and putting all that aside, gary clearly means for the screencaps to speak for themselves. otherwise, bandwidth wouldn't such an issue for his site.

That is precisely my point!! There is inconsistency when it comes down to cropping (and other issues as well). I also noted the fact that Criterion's involvement with color adjustment is most troubling. I hardly think that there is anyone that would start blaming Criterion that they are failing to deliver or simply criticizing for the sake of it. Most certainly I am NOT one of those people as what this Company means for the R1 market (and beyond) can not be matched by anyone else's output. So, simply be consistent when reviewing...don't force your bias!! And if there is a technical issue just state it. I always go back to Melville and his Criterion releases as I COUNTED the days till the discs come out. Criterion dropped the ball big time, and I mean, even a blind man can tell that they "adjusted" colors left and right!!!

Anyway, I value Beaver's work, I welcome his presence as he works for the same idea: bringing qulity cinema and quality releases together! And I truly mean it: I hope he stays around!!

Best,
Pro-B

What do you expect? The site's name is dvdBEAVER after A man's gotta have priorities you know.

Thanks. That was my point. Either factor it into your business model legitimately and have an annual funding drive, or use ads. Or let your audience decide in a poll.

Frankly, I find the site to be nearly unnavigable, so I don't visit it much. With all of the readers, I'm surprised no one has volunteered to help him create a database backend for his content...

So be it. I was just making a suggestion.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed it. It is creepy and it's unnecessary.

It's a great site, and I've used it quite often. It's an invaluable tool. I wouldn't mind subscribing to the site because it is extremely helpful, but the way he goes about requesting donations leaves a bad taste in mind. He's vague about the costs and his business model even though he appears to delight in being a bad businessman even going so far as to knock other sites (including this one) for accepting ads and reviewing mainstream fare. He has refused to detail any of the costs, donations, etc. I'm not suggesting that he's doing something shady, but if he's as bad a businessman as he proclaims, he should have someone helping him who knows what he/she is doing or he should be more upfront about the details and stop being so secretive about it.

I completely agree.

me too

What better way to judge the transfer's accuracy with skintones? (only half-joking)

So it's not "creepily lecherous" for the filmmaker to include these scenes? (One could argue that female nudity is rarely essential to the plot of a film in the same way that Gary's screencap of that nudity is not essential to his review of the film.) To me, your comment smacks of American neo-Puritanism and hypocrisy. Dozens of horror-genre fanboy sites focus on screencaps of all manner of gore and human suffering without attracting the least bit of criticism. Should art history textbooks ignore such paintings as Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Gaugin's Tahitian nudes, and Picasso's cubist Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon in favor of the millions of paintings worldwide that do not include nudity? Gary mostly reviews arthouse films which are more likely to include non-pornographic nudity (contrast his approach from that used at The Blue Room). To me, any frame of film is fair game for a screenshot. Now, if he uses five screenshots for a DVD review and they all focus on female nudity, whereas the film itself has only one brief scene of fleeting nudity, then perhaps one could make a case for selective lechery.

Since when does appreciation of art equate with lechery???

Pro-B

This has nothing to do with appreciation of art. He is assessing the merits of the print on a particular disc. He can choose five scenes from any part of the disc, but he will inevitably choose a still with female nudity even if there's a copious amount of male nudity or the nude scene is a few seconds of the film's running time. If there's only male nudity in a film, it's more than likely that Gary's five chosen stills will not include a still of male nudity. The double standard is bothersome. This is not about puritanism or hypocrisy. When you go to a fan boy site, the Celebrity nudity databse or you read Joe Bob Briggs' reviews, you know what you're in for. They have a particular purpose, and they offer a service for those who are interested in particular nude scenes. Gary's purpose is alerting the customer to the quality of a disc so the constant use of female nudity to illustrate print quality is troubling.

I appreciate your distaste for American neo-Puritanism, but your comments are entirely misdirected. As a first amendment lawyer who represents artists and museums and fights censorship for a living I probably believe in what you're saying even more strongly than you do. Personally, I think your response smacks a bit of pedantry, but that is probably just due to the imperfect communication tool that is the Internet.

I don't know anything about horror sites, so I won't comment on those, but as cmleidi says, this has nothing to do with an appreciation of art. I don't even know how you could make a plausible argument that it does. Look at enough of Gary's screenshots and you will see that a hugely disproportionate number of them include female nudity. You concede that there is a limit--five out of five screenshots--so I suppose our disagreement is simply over when that limit has been breached.

There is a tendency among liberal elitists to think of everything in terms of censorship and the dumbing down of culture. As a liberal elitist, I recognize that this has nothing to do with either of those. As someone who spent a couple of years as part of what might be termed a "sexually liberated community" (think orgies), I believe strongly that our society needs more nudity, more sex, and above all more comfort with sexuality--not less. But that doesn't mean that I don't think that a seemingly introverted middle-aged man whose primary form of sexual expression appears to be posting naked pictures of women under the pretext of comparing screenshots is a lech. Come on.

the amount of bullshit, presumption and scapegoating in this thread is... humbling.

I donated last time around (though I don't visit often, the comparison reviews are second-to-none), but I've been going less and less in the past few months. The reason? The horrifically cluttered design of each and every page. Seriously, the content is great but DVD Beaver is a real eyesore.

This "financial crisis", though unfortunate, would make this as good a time as any to trim the all the fat from the site----or at least cut away a few pounds. Hopefully the site will pull through, as Gary really provides a unique service to his readers.

So let me get this straight: if there were more male nudity Gary's screencap choices would be less "bothersome" or "troubling"? First, I would argue that even in the 21st century, male frontal nudity is still relatively rare (Vincent Gallo's prodigious appendage notwithstanding) compared with the female variety, so that double standard extends far beyond Gary's site.

Second, as a regular reader of DVD Beaver, I haven't noticed as much "inappropriate" nudity as you and others have (perhaps I'm just less sensitive or even desensitized to it: through the years it's been my habit to leave the bathroom light on when I shower, and more than once I've inadvertently caught site of my "naughty bits"). For example, in Gary's review of Jacques Rivette's La Belle noiseuse, of the eight screencaps, only three show Jane Birkin in the altogether (a fourth shows an artistic representation of her backside). Given that Jane is naked for a large portion of that film, I would conclude that the screencaps are representative and not exploitative. As for Pasolini's infamous Salo, out of six captures, there's nary a breast, buttock, or pubic hair in sight. In the review for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (another film with significant nudity that excuses star Daniel Day-Lewis), only 1 of 8 captures shows nudity. Gary might even be providing a public service in choosing screencaps with nudity: the prudes among us can save the $20-30 they would otherwise have spent on a DVD featuring "troubling" displays of the unclothed human body.

Finally, when you write that "Gary's purpose is alerting the customer to the quality of a disc," that is merely your limited interpretation of the purpose of Gary's site. Gary could answer better for himself, but I don't think there's a single "purpose" to his site, which goes far beyond a comparison of screencaps. Since Gary concentrates mostly on reviews of foreign, indie, and arthouse films most likely to contain non-gratuitous nudity, perhaps those viewers with delicate constitutions should avoid it altogether.

The nudity bothers me too, but not because I'm some "neo-Puritan" lol. I don't dare use the site at work because of it. That's where I do the majority of my browsing. I couldn't give a rat's ass about "proportionate" amounts of nude screenshots or other irrelevant rantings regarding one's "appreciation" of art and such. It's just a poor choice of screenshots, period.

So essentially, DVDBeaver is losing my viewership because of the screenshots chosen. And I have noticed it before this thread.

I also agree ther site is very poorly designed. This also keeps me from reading it often. In fact the only time I do even go there is when a comparison is specifically linked in an HTF or DVDTalk thread.

The content is great, and IMO it's a real disservice to present it in such an unflattering manner.

As a First Amendment lawyer, perhaps you could explain your distinction of what makes Jacques Rivette an artist and Gary Tooze a "lech"? Also, I'm intrigued that you would--without knowing him--describe Gary in such unflattering language that could conceivably be be construed as libellous?

I would still like to know why the selection of any given screencap to represent a work of art is more or less offensive than any other? Are they not all of a piece? It's interesting that people have such narrow expectations of DVD Beaver (admittedly an unfortunate site name given this topic)...

That we're having this debate in the forum of a website that prominently features The Blue Room makes me want to laugh out loud. Does the presence of The Blue Room at DVD Talk make Geoffrey Kleinman a "lech" or just a savvy businessman???

I'm not one of the people calling Gary a lech, but are you suggesting the screenshot selections are a coincidence?

I mean, really, are you saying captures serve another purpose other than quality comparison?

If the answer is yes, please enlighten us.

If the answer is no, then unless shots of nude people afford some greater ability to compare picture quality, there's no other good reason for reviews to contain nudity.

I mean out of all the scenes in the movie......you get the point.

Plus last time I looked DVDBeaver was not marketing itself as an "adult" site.
If you're suggesting Gary picks those screenshots to generate more traffic, well at least that I could understand if not condone.

I don't think anyone would argue that Gary's web site is itself art. So that would rule him out as an "artist" in this case. And as for Jacques Rivette, who's to say that "artist" and "lech" are mutually exclusive? I can think of many, many artists who are essentially dirty old men working out their sexual frustrations through their art.

Pro-B just went down in credibility as a film buff whose opinion I have respected to just another joe-6-pack, and I'm sure he'll be tossing and turning all night long because of it.

Wow, is that supposed to be a counter argument? Pretty pathetic if you ask me. Comparing this site having a "Blue Room" to the type of screen caps DVDBeaver is producing is just utterly laughable!!! Not that I realy care either way, but illennium is just mopping the floor with you in this argument.

Please, lets not feed the trolls.

I wrote that "he will inevitably choose a still with female nudity even if there's a copious amount of male nudity or the nude scene is a few seconds of the film's running time."

It was Emmanuelle Béart not Jane Birkin. Emmanuelle Béart was naked for a large portion of the film.

You're right. You've convinced me that is his intention. He chooses stills with female nudity to save the prudes from shelling out $20-30 dollars because prudes/those offended by nudity will continue to frequent a site that consistently uses nude stills from a film.

I don't see anyone objecting to nudity. I see some people objecting to how that nudity is used on the DVDBEAVER site, and that's a very different thing. What purpose do these stills serve?

Although I disagree with his argument, people are allowed to have opinions and express them. It's a discussion board, after all.

FilmFanSea is hardly a troll. In fact, he is someone whose contributions to this forum I often find invaluable and for whose knowledge of cinema I have deep respect. (Incidentally, the same goes for pro-bassoonist.) Which makes it all the more disappointing for me that I would sense what seems like obvious condescension in his tone towards me and especially towards cmleidi. Again, FilmFanSea, if I am misreading your tone then I apologize. But I've read over your posts several times before responding and that is how they read to me.

I think the problem is that there's a bit of unnecessary caricaturing and generalizing going on. As far as I can tell, there are no prudes actively involved in this discussion. To imply that the only reason that someone would find what DVDBeaver does troubling is that one is a prude or is uncomfortable with nudity or sexuality, as FilmFanSea seems to imply with his mention of The Blue Room, is to attempt to explain away a nuanced situation via one's own coarse, misguided notion of how the world works: prude versus non-prude, conservative versus liberal. We get it: you have problems with American social norms. Guess what? We're not part of that problem.

The bottom line for me is that if Gary is okay with being labeled a pornographer, then that's cool by me. I'll gladly add DVDBeaver to the list of porn sites I visit . But passing it off as somehow artful, like some do with thinly-veiled softcore garbage like The Lover and Betty Blue, is pretty weak, and I reserve my right to roll my eyes and throw around the l-word (A legal note: libel refers only to false statements of fact; opinion and statements that are clearly not factual in nature are fully protected by the first amendment).