welcome to hell
April showers brought Waylan Flowers and Madame out here on the East Coast (and no I'm not gonna explain that one.....). And so begins another mighty issue of the all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-bullshit Fountain. This month brings movie reviews a plenty (well...maybe just one or two), the return of the notable quotables (which we haven't seen in quite sometime), and a new feature entitled "How'd You Like That Cooked" (this will cover rumors and other crap cooked up on the internet about various movies).....but first let's talk about...
the boob tube
Now that the 1996-1997 TV season is over....let's look back (and ahead) and see what happened (and what's to come). We'll do this network by network...show by show....and start at the top of the heap with NBC.
The Peacock network dominated the year with their "Can't Avoid TV" promos which pushed their flailing and stupidly moronic knock-off comedies. Monday Nights' Mr. Rhodes and the transplanted from ABC Jeff Foxworthy Show brought yawns of a different kind to America. Tuesdays were bolstered by the returning (but starting to wane) Mad About You, the always funny Frasier, and the mildly amusing, but'll grow on you Caroline In The City. These show sandwiched the surprisingly engaging Something So Right - a 90's version of The Brady Bunch with mixed families. Naturally NBC didn't renew this winner for the 1997-1998 season. Wednesdays saw an early death for The John Larroquette Show and a near death experience for Newsradio. Surprisingly, Wings survived the odds and ended a nine year run and even more surprisingly Men Behaving Badly got renewed for a second season (they must have paid a SHITLOAD of money for this pathetic concept. Thursdays saw new shows Suddenly Susan, The Naked Truth (another ABC transplant), and Fired Up all do their part in bridging time between the juggernauts that's Friends, Seinfeld, and ER for those that don't know). Fridays highlight remained Homicide. Saturdays saw the "Thrillogy" of Dark Skies, The Pretender, and The Profiler. Two of the three were worth anything. Third Rock From The Sun and Boston Common held Sundays as best they could (Common even became funny with the addition of Roger Rees, but it was a day late and a dollar short). Mid-season replacements included the amusing Just Shoot Me and the not quite so amusing, but it won't kill us Chicago Sons. Oh yeah...The Single Guy floundered on a couple of different nights (with several new cast additions) and Dateline filled up every other available timeslot. (Yes...some of you are going "What about Law And Order?"...well it's still there...but I watch the reruns on A&E instead of the new ones on NBC....it's my drama version of Wings on USA).
Next season on NBC looks like this (new shows are in bold):
MONDAY is "Ladies Who Helped Thursday Night But Probably Can't Stand On Their Own": Suddenly Susan at 8/Fired Up at 8:30/Caroline In The City at 9/The Naked Truth at 9:30/Dateline at 10
TUESDAY is "The Best Night We Currently Got For At Least Two Hours": Mad About You at 8/Newsradio at 8:30/Frasier at 9/Just Shoot Me at 9:30/Dateline at 10
WEDNESDAY is "We Couldn't Think Of Anywhere Else To Put The Aliens Night": The Tony Danza Show at 8/Built To Last at 8:30/Third Rock From The Sun at 9/Working at 9:30/Law & Order at 10
THURSDAY is "MUST SEE TV OR ELSE WE'LL THROW OTHER CRAPPY SHIT FILLED SHOWS AT YOU": Friends at 8/Union Square at 8:30/Seinfeld at 9/Veronica's Closet at 9:30/ER at 10
FRIDAY is "Go Out And Do Something Instead Of Staying At Home Like A Couch Potato Night": Players at 8/Dateline at 9/Homicide at 10
SATURDAY is "Nowhere Man Connection Night": The Pretender at 8 (this show FELT like Nowhere Man)/Sleepwalkers at 9 (this show stars Bruce Greenwood...star of Nowhere Man)/The Profiler at 10 (this show was created by Larry Herzog...creator of...guess what)
SUNDAY is "Crap Night"; Dateline at 7/Men Behaving Badly at 8/Jenny at 8:30/NBC Sunday Night At The Movies at 9
I'm not going to do rundowns of the new shows. The one to catch is Sleepwalkers. The others are all shitty sitcoms with fading stars (Tony Danza, Kirstie Alley, Jenny McCarthy).
Over on the #2 network CBS there was a whole lotta nothing going on. Murphy Brown added Lily Tomlin and saw Garry Marshall and Paul Reubens return a few times to keep the show funny. Dave's World managed to hang on one more season before being put out of it's misery. The Nanny got more crass and more funny. Chicago Hope finally started to find its footing after another tumultuous season beginning. Two Cheers cast members returned to TV with one half of a former Hollywood couple (Ted Danson with Mary Steenburgen and Rhea Pearlman with Malcolm McDowell) and they both died long slow deaths. Cosby returned and for some reason Everybody Loves Raymond (thaaat's riiight....so do I though). Next Season looks like this:
MONDAY: Cosby at 8/Everybody Loves Raymond at 8:30/Cybill at 9/George & Leo (Bob Newhart returns) at 9:30/Brooklyn South (hey look Steven Bochco made a cop drama) at 10
TUESDAY: JAG at 8/Michael Hayes (David Caruso returns to TV after a long successful film career) at 9/Dellaventura (Danny Aiello falls onto TV after a long successful film career) at 10
WEDNESDAY: The Nanny at 8/Murphey Brown at 8:30/Bryant Gumble News Program (self explanatory) at 9/Chicago Hope at 10
THURSDAY: Promised Land at 8/Diagnosis Murder at 9/48 Hours at 10
FRIDAY is "We Stole ABC's TGIF Lineup Night": Family Matters at 8/Meego at 8:30 (Bronson Pinchot returns to TV...although I don't think he ever left)/The Gregory Hines Show at 9/Step By Step at 9:30/Nash Bridges at 10
SATURDAY: Dr. Quinn at 8/Early Edition at 9/Walker, Texas Ranger at 10
SUNDAY: 60 Minutes at 7/Touched By An Angel at 8/Movie at 9
ABC became #3 (or #4 if you ask FOX...but they're not a real network) and with good reason. Their hit shows started to suck, they still don't know quality and what to do with it, and you couldn't get them to change their ways if you held a gun to their head. Murder One miraculously was given a second season which was akin to a death sentence. It eventually went out the way it came in (with a whimper filled with solid writing and acting). Roseanne ended her run by ripping off Dallas and St. Elsewhere in an attempt to explain a painfully unfunny season. Coach also ended it's run, but like NBC's Wings most people thought it had been canceled a long time ago. Arsenio returned to TV in an expensive show that flopped and was NOT renewed at all....not even as a mid-season replacement. And Ellen finally came out of the fucking closet to a slew of stupid publicity (the entire town Roseanne takes place in has been gay for years!) The only hit show was Spin City which currently has a stay of execution (but on a new night).Mid-season's run of David E. Kelley's The Practice gave Kelley a hat trick (with Picket Fences and Chicago Hope), but it's been relegated to Saturdays where Twin Peaks died eons ago. ABC had renewed Lois And Clark for two seasons a year ago, but it dropped so far in the ratings, they'd rather piss away the money than air the damn show. And what happened to Muppets Tonight from two seasons ago? ABC held three episodes and ordered 13 more. As of this date, they have yet to air and are not on tap for fall. Next season reads like this:
MONDAY: Timecop at 8/Monday Night Football at 9 (we'll see what happens in this slot when football season's over)
TUESDAY: Soul Man at 8/Over The Top at 8:30 (Tim Curry on TV)/Home Improvement at 9/Hiller And Diller at 9:30/NYPD Blue at 10
WEDNESDAY: Spin City at 8 (here's a mistake waiting to happen)/Dharma & Greg at 8:30/The Drew Carey Show at 9/Ellen at 9:30/Prime Time Live at 10
THURSDAY: Nothing Sacred at 8/Cracker at 9/20-20 at 10
FRIDAY: Sabrina at 8/Boy Meets World at 8:30/Genie at 9/Teen Angel at 9:30/20-20 at 10
SATURDAY is "You Can Tell We Like These Shows Cause We're Airing Them When Nobody's Fucking at Home And If They Are They're Watching NBC or CBS Anyway Night": C-16: FBI at 8/Total Security at 9 (a Steven Bochco drama with Jim Belushi)/The Practice at 10
SUNDAY: Wonderful World Of Disney at 7/ABC Sunday Night Movie at 9 (which really means two movies back to back...one just happens to be either animated or family oriented)
Grace Under Fire and Painful Harm Comes To Pets And Children While Grown Men Get Kicked In The Crotch (otherwise known as America's Funniest Home Videos) will return when on or more of the new shows die quickly (or an old show dies slowly).
Fox is the only network whose Fall Schedule makes any sense. Married With Children ended a run long enough to put it in the ranks with Cheers and MASH. Sliders returned yet again and became a one note joke to see what movie we can base a planet on (Jurassic Park, Interview With A Vampire, Night Of The Living Dead all come to mind), but it won't be back again. Millennium has yet to be the show it's been advertised as (a cross between The X-Files and the movie Seven....so far it's just the latter). King Of The Hill joined The Simpsons to make up the funniest animated hour on TV (and that would include putting Friends and Seinfeld back to back).
MONDAY: Melrose Place at 8/ Ally McBeal at 9 (another David E. Kelley lawyer show...four well written shows could be pushing it)
TUESDAY: Movie at 8
WEDNESDAY: Beverly Hills 90210 at 8/Party Of Five at 9
THURSDAY: Rewind at 8/Between Brothers at 8:30/413 Hope Street at 9 (Damon Wayans produced this teen crisis center show)
FRIDAY: The Visitor at 8/Millennium at 9
SATURDAY: Cops at 8/America's Most Wanted at 9
SUNDAY "If We Could Find Something Of Quality For 7pm We'd Have The Greatest Night On TV In History": World's Funniest..... at 7/The Simpsons at 8/King Of The Hill at 8:30/The X-Files at 9
Even though UPN and The WB aren't full networks yet, I'll talk about them as I can. UPN is trying hard. Their best rated show is Star Trek: Voyager which is gold just cause of it's title, but the show sucks (see the new column about what's going on here). The Sentinel is fun. The rest of their line up is adequate for a startup network. They will be expanding to Thursdays mid-season with a two hour Sci-Fi movie block and the rumors are running hot and heavy (Nowhere Man, Doctor Who and Star Trek: Excelsior all seem to be coming to this, but I'd doubt them all right now). The WB is even less of a network...all sitcoms and crappy dramas. The only high point here was the mid-season addition of Buffy The Vampire Slayer which should be shunted to Fox on Sundays at 7 (IMHO). They even axed Brotherly Love (a guilty pleasure of mine) which they had stolen from NBC. The fall looks like this for both:
MONDAY WB: 7th Heaven at 8/Buffy The Vampire Slayer at 9
MONDAY UPN: In The House at 8/Malcolm & Eddie at 8:30/Good News at 9/Sparks at 9:30
TUESDAY WB starting mid-season: Dawson's Creek at 8/Three at 9
TUESDAY UPN: Clueless (stolen from ABC) at 8/Moesha at 8:30/Hitz at 9/Head Over Heels at 9:30
WEDNESDAY WB: Sister, Sister at 8/Smart Guy at 8:30/The Jamie Foxx Show at 9/The Wayans Brothers at 9:30
WEDNESDAY UPN: The Sentinel at 8/Star Trek: Voyager at 9
THURSDAY WB: No programming
THURSDAY UPN: Thursday Night Sci-Fi Movie at 8
FRIDAY WB: No programming
FRIDAY UPN: No programming
SATURDAY WB: No programming
SATURDAY UPN: No programming
SUNDAY WB: The Parent'hood at 7/Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher at 7:30/The Steve Harvey Show at 8/Unhappily Ever After at 8:30/The Tom Show at 9 (yes....Tom Arnold returns to TV)/Ocean Drive at 9:30
SUNDAY UPN: No programming
UPN also has a backup show called Ruby starring David Faustino (he found work quickly after Married With Children's demise) and the voice of Whoopi Goldberg as a puppet.
Well there you have it. This is what you can look forward to next fall on TV. A whole lotta nothing....or the same old nothing....depends on how you look at it.
brush up your shakespeare
Over the last year or so, we've gotten a deluge of movies based on Shakespearean plays. I'm going to take a look at a few of them:
Hamlet - never before has Shakespeare's greatest play been done on the screen in it's entirety. And frankly there were good reasons for this. Kenneth Branagh stars, directs and wrote (and got an Oscar nomination for this one....shouldn't that have gone to Shakespeare?). It is a grandly visual film, but quite frankly it's so slow that it almost comes to a screeching halt in a number of spots before picking up again for an action packed ending. Cameos abound here and most of them are just gimmicky (like Gerard Depardieu who plays Reynaldo, Polonius' manservant, who has like six lines all of which read "yes my lord"....what a waste of talent). At 4 hours and 2 minutes, this is a Hamlet that should not have to be.
William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet - now here's how Shakespeare needs to be done for today. Cut the text to it's most important passages, jazz it up with some cool techno funky type music, and keep the shots short and sweet. Great story, great film. The film stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Claire Danes, Paul Sorvino, Brian Dennehy, and Pete Postlethwaite. This will make a great Shakespeare double bill with Richard III (see review below).
Twelfth Night - I got to see this performed in Central Park years ago with a great cast (Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Stephen Collins, Fisher Stevens, John Amos, and Gregory Hines). It's a funny play once you get into it. That cast made things more accessible. This cast (Ben Kingsley, Mel Smith, Richard E Grant, and Helena Bonham Carter) make things drag for a while before the film starts to get even remotely funny. Miss this unless you really need to see it. Someday there'll be a better version (I hope).
Richard III - like Baz Lurman's Romeo & Juliet this is how Shakespeare should be done for the big screen today. A large "name" cast with the text cut to its minimum and the story moved to a different time and place. Here it's 1930's England under fascist rule. Ian McKellen makes a truly horrifying Richard III. The supporting cast includes Annette Benning, Robert Downey, Jr., and Nigel Hawthorne.
Looking For Richard - this makes a nice companion piece to the above film. Al Pacino directed this "documentary" about the attraction we have to Shakespeare. He's sprinkled it liberally with scenes from Richard III and interviews with various famous actors and Shakespearean scholars. An interesting film at least.
secret....agent man
Mike Meyers has finally found something to sink his teeth into without resorting to using characters he developed on Saturday Night Live. His newest film, Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery, is one of the goofiest films ever made. And that's definitely not a bad thing. This film is everything Spy Hard should have been (hell...it's everything Casino Royale should have been). Meyers plays Powers, a superspy from the '60's, who is cryogenically frozen after his arch-enemy Dr. Evil (also played by Meyers) freezes himself. Both men get defrosted in the '90's and have a hell of a time adjusting to changes. Elizabeth Hurley plays Miss Kensington, Austin's new partner and daughter of his former lover Mrs. Kensington (played by Mimi Rogers). Where the older Kensington is a product of the swinging '60's, where a woman could easily love a nebbish as nerdy as Austin, the younger Kensington is a product of the '90's (and can't stand Austin's bad teeth). The film is rife with dead-on Bond jokes (in fact the plot is almost a rip-off of Thunderball - could this be yet another remake of that tired story?). We have a giant Asian henchman known as Random Task, a femme fatale with the sexually suggestive name of Alotta Fagina (okay it's not very suggestive...in fact it's pretty blunt), and Dr. Evil (who looks like Donald Pleasance's Blofeld from You Only Live Twice) even strokes a cat (a hairless one....as the freezing process and revival has caused Mr. Bigglesworth to lose all his hair). If you're looking for a film that's purely entertaining and a whole lot of shagging fun, you could do worse than see this one.
how'd you like that cooked?
Welcome to a brand new feature where I'll be posting various rumors and facts (depending on how you look at them) that pertain to upcoming movies, upcoming TV show episodes, and anything else that falls into this category. So without further ado....here we go:
Tomorrow Never Dies - this is the 18th James Bond film and it stars Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yoeh, Teri Hatcher, Jonathan Pryce, Judi Dench (M), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Samantha Bond (Moneypenny), and Joe Don Baker (returning as the CIA's Jack Wade). Pryce plays a media mogul who'd rather destroy Hong Kong than see it turned over to the Chinese. Hatcher's his wife Paris who knows Bond from her past. Yoeh is a Hong Kong policewoman helping Bond. Roger Spottiswood directs. Now for the rumors: REM is doing the theme song (NOT), Kate Bush is doing the theme song (NOT), Duran Duran is doing the them song (maybe.....????), Bond commits suicide and/or murder (????), Brosnan will only do two more Bond films after this (yes....he stated it on The Tonight Show). The movie opens on December 23 (maybe United Artists would like it earlier)
Godzilla - has started shooting in NY. Stars Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria.....comes from the team that gave us Stargate and Independence Day
Superman Lives - Tim Burton directs Nicholas Cage as the new "electric" Man Of Steel (from the current comics), Patrick Stewart as Brainiac, Jack Nicholson as Lex Luthor, and Michael Keaton in an extended cameo as Batman. The script is by Kevin Smith. Smith did write a script that supposedly is incredible, but it had nothing to do with the current comic book. Burton and Cage are signed. Burton hired someone (Akiva Goldsman???...the person who scripted Batman's last two outings) to rewrite Smith's script. Christopher Reeve will have some role in front of or behind the camera. IMHO this film has "SUCKS BIGTIME" written all over it
Star Trek 9 (Star Trek: The Next Generation Movie 3) - Patrick Stewart IS already signed (remember he's the one who signed last for First Contact). Michael Piller is writing the script. Some of the Deep Space Nine cast will have large parts (????...script isn't written yet). The film will be shot in IMAX (nope....but there will be a separate Trek film in IMAX with some or all of the four shows casts).
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - 1997-1998 season is its last. Worf and Dax will marry. Sisko and Kassidy Yates will marry.
Star Trek: Voyager - Jennifer Lien (Kes) is leaving the show. Garret Wong (Harry Kim) is leaving the show. A Half Borg female will be joining the crew. The last two are unconfirmed rumors, but all three would help improve this show. Janeway and Chakotay should hook up again and the Doctor should go crazy and take over the ship for at least an episode.
Batman: Gotham Nights - is the name of the animated show when it returns in September. Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing. There'll be a new Robin. It'll be the same or a bit lighter (we'll know for sure when the damn thing airs). There will be 21 new episodes alternating weekdays with Superman and on Saturdays after the Man Of Steel.
Batman 5 - to be called Batman Triumphant, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell as Batman and Robin. The villains will be Scarecrow (Michael J. Fox or Howard Stern depending on what you hear....both are false) and Harley Quinn (Jenny McCarthy or Sandra Bullock depending on what you hear) and/or Mad Hatter (Mel Gibson.....the only sane casting choice rumored about)
UPN's Mid-Season Sci-Fi Movie Thursdays - there will be a movie every Thursday, but half will be theatricals that UPN has gotten their hands on. The other half will be original sci-fi films. The big rumor is that Universal will make a second Doctor Who film as a test for a series and UPN will put it here (don't count on it.....but Philip Segal's offices are now on the Paramount lot...and Universal's option doesn't run out until the end of the year). UPN has also promised Nowhere Man a few telefilms so they could go here, but Bruce Greenwood and Larry Herzog are busy with new shows. And the long rumored "Adventures Of Captain Sulu" show could wind up being tested here (I hope not)!
an old fashioned hollywood musical of a different kind
Last year, Turner Animation released a very simple, yet fairly entertaining cartoon called Cats Don't Dance. Nobody saw it. It will be coming out on video in August (and yes...it's at an affordable price...if you're interested, but I'd suggest renting before buying). The story concerns a cat named Danny (voiced by Scott Bakula) who goes to Hollywood to live his dream of becoming a singing and dancing Hollywood star. When he gets there, he meets a number of other animals who have all been beaten by the system and have given up their dreams. He reinvigorates them, but they are unfortunately on the wrong side of Hollywood's sweetheart Darla Dimples (lover of children and animals...NOT). Darla and her behemoth of a butler, Max do their best to get all the animals kicked out of showbiz. But of course Danny and his friends triumph in the end. It's a fun film with fun songs and it hearkens back to old time Hollywood musicals like Singin' In The Rain (the film is even dedicated to Gene Kelley). This is about as good as animation gets if it ain't from Disney, so if you like this sort of thing, you owe it to yourself to catch it.
someone left the cake out in the rain
Before I get to the nitty gritty of this review, let me state up front that The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a fun entertaining, roller-coaster ride of a film that you'll find a fun way to spend two hours at a movie theater.
That said, let me explain why I don't like this film as a film. Speilberg is going through the motions here and it shows. Sure you're on the edge of your seat most of the time, but you've been there before (like in Jaws) and with a better story and more rounded characters. The problem this film has lies with it's source material. Not the novel The Lost World upon which it is loosely based, but the original Michael Crichton novel, Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park is arguably Crichton's best book. It's a gripping story propelled by well rounded characters. The book was made into a movie (directed by Speilberg, written by Crichton and David Koepp) where the basic plot and characters were retained, but they were drained of all dimensionality. Lawyer bad...grandfather good....kids in way....scientists in awe, but knowing this is a bad idea....this is how the characters became in the film. Now, while the first film was a lot of fun, it was not the book. And there was no real reason it shouldn't have been the book. It had a great cast and a masterful director. For whatever reasons, the film was disappointing (to me), but it made a shitload of money. This is Hollywood terms means "Let's make a sequel". But Crichton needed to write a book first. His book The Lost World is a sequel to the movie more than a sequel to the book (Ian Malcolm - Goldblum's character - dies in the first book). But more than that it's sloppy writing from a great writer (so was Twister). Crichton didn't have a hand in the screenplay. David Koepp wrote it alone, but you know he a Crichton had breakfast before either started writing because there are so many similarities. And there are so many interesting concepts in both book and film, that it becomes even more disappointing that some aren't pushed and used to great effect (the safari hunter Roland Tembo - movie - chameleon dinosaurs - book - the whole concept of just what a "Lost World" is - both). Here we get what is essentially a reptilian remake of King Kong that isn't as deep or as exciting (and yes the T-Rex is brought to the mainland to be oooohhed and aaaahhhed by stupid humans who'll end up be trampled) crossed with a strange mix of the original book (Hammond's nephew somehow is exactly how Hammond acted in the original novel...we also get to meet Compys, a very mischievous, yet dangerous breed of dino that was all over the original book). I could go on and on about how ultimately disappointing this movie is because of what it could easily have been. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm here: "This is a overblown, badly executed idea in a long sad Hollywood history of overblown, badly executed ideas". Unfortunately, Malcolm's reference implied that his would be the last. We have a whole summer ahead of us filled with disappointing crap like this.
watch this space
Next month I will be starting a new column in which I give in depth analysis to movies than have been released on video with extra footage. Why was the footage cut? Why was it inserted in? Who's idea was it? And why are most of these available only on laserdisc? Expect answers to all of these questions next month as I kick off this column with a review of Ransom whose laserdisc release contain about 18 minutes of extra footage. This will be followed up by Scream (9 minutes extra), Dead Poets Society (15 minutes extra), Pretty Woman (15 minutes extra), JFK (17 minutes extra), and Natural Born Killers (4 minutes extra). After that I'll tackle some other "extended versions" (like Superman, Needful Things, and Dances With Wolves.....a loooonnnnggg way away cause I'm dreading the research on that one). I will not be covering films covered elsewhere (specifically things in Video Watchdog like Dune, Highlander, The Abyss, Aliens, Legend, and Blade Runner), but that may change even further into the future.
digital venue dissected
Well, I've finally had the opportunity to examine DVD first hand in my own home. The results are mixed at best. Picture quality was sharper and brighter than laserdisc, but only mildly and only truly noticeable on my 80 inch ProScan TV. Of course it blew VHS out of the water. The sound quality was a bit lower than laserdisc. I do not have a Dolby Digital set-up, but the Dolby Pro-Logic didn't sound as loud or as bright as laserdiscs. I made comparisons on several of the Warner titles (Batman, Interview With A Vampire, and Lethal Weapon to name three) and they all had the same results. The "supplementary" features left a lot to be desired. The production notes and filmographies for cast members were interesting, but the "If You Liked This, Try Watching...." Sections reeked of stupidity and bad advertising (they old showed you cover art for the suggested titles). There is still so much inconsistency in this format, that I can't recommend it yet. There are a lot of kinks to be worked out before I plunk down $500 bucks for a machine. The jump between laserdisc and DVD just isn't great enough to be justified, especially since four major studios are still sitting the game out (Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Disney) in spite of any internet rumors you hear to the contrary. Some questions to be pondered: why does MGM/UA put the widescreen and pan&scan versions on one side of a dual layered disc and Warner use two sides (one layer) when they're supposedly the same company? Why does Warner put out pan&scan only versions of films that have letterboxed versions of laserdisc? Why can't Warner offer a pan&scan version on films longer than 135 minutes by putting the widescreen on one dual layered side and the pan&scan on the other dual layered side? Why does Columbia/TriStar only put one version or the other on a one-sided disc instead of offering both? Why doesn't Columbia/TriStar put any supplements on their discs other than using the not very useful unless you're deaf or don't speak English subtitling and dubbing features? Why are Lumivision and Simitar even bothering when their product is so inferior it could kill the format alone? Why am I still going on about something like this when I have better things to do?
never say goodbye
Well that's the end of another issue. Even though I said the notable quotables would return, it hasn't....but it will. Next month more summer movie reviews, some video reviews, an in depth article on Batman in all his incarnations with a review of the new film (but not one of the new animated film Sub-Zero unless I can get an advanced copy.....I had been contemplating holding the June issue until mid-July to include this, but the release of Sub-Zero's been pushed to October...so that's no longer an option), the long awaited review of Raymond Benson's Zero Minus Ten (I haven't finished it yet), a review of some Doctor Who books, the Ransom comparison and the usual dreck and crap.
Be seeing you,
Joel Fenster
Lord Of Time
