DVDown Under - May 1999 Archived News

31st May 1999

What's coming from Buena Vista, MGM and Warner til August 1999
Goto the Studio Releases page for Specific Details on what's coming up from these 3 companies until august 1999...some good stuff there....you'll be pleased to know that the Region 4 version of Warner's You've Got Mail contains DVD-ROM goodies, running commentaries and , lots more.

JUNE SPECIAL DVD Case Covers only $1.00 EACH
For the Month of June we are offering the DVD Case Covers for only $1.00 each...please goto DVD Station for FULL DETAILS

PS Blade WILL be out in a few days

26th May 1999

Fox is coming this September
It's seems the original 20CFox International Press Release was true....Twentieth Century Fox are to also Launch DVD in Australia starting THIS SEPTEMBER!!!!!...The first DVD will of course be James Cameron's Titanic, followed in November with Courage Under Fire, Die Hard 1 & 2, The Seige and Speed 1 & 2.... With this information on just being announced in Oz, details are sketchy, so no disc features, packaging types or prices, are known......I am told that a press Release will be coming (most likely early July 1999)..
Also, with the New 20CF studios opening in Sydeny soon it is unclear as to whether the first batch of DVDs will be authored and duplicated here or overseas...at any rate it seems the plan is do them in Oz

More Bargains on the Alien Legacy

Chris Till dropped an email with the following to say

.....In fact the cheapest price is at 800.com for $59.94US. If purchased at Reel and price matched to 800.com, you could then use a $10 coupon (stacks of $10 and $5 coupons available at the moment). This brings the total down to $49.94US. Reel's shipping for this one 4-pack is $13.90US, bringing the total up to $63.84US. So is approximately $96AUS.

But if you were to make your purchase at Reel via Brands For Less, then you can rebate your shipping charge. As such within a few weeks you would receive a cheque for the shipping amount, $13.90. Once deposited, the actual total for your Alien Legacy pack has ended up being approximately $75AUS.

This is a $32AUS saving on what was indeed an already great price, which you could then spend on two more titles (almost any DVD can be obtained from either BestBuy or BuyVideos for $14.99US, so pricematched and use of a $5 coupon brings the total to $25US). After the shipping rebate, price matching, and coupon use two DVDs would set you back approximately $35 - pretty much the (extra) savings made on the Alien Legacy Pack.

Hope this helps,

Chris Till

phew....and thanks for the alien updates everyone

25th May 1999

Great News About Lost in Space
After the rumour of a running commentary for our DVD release of Lost In Space...i have today been told (from an official source) that Roadshow have secured the rights to the following goodies
Director and writer commentary, deleted scenes, the music video to Lost in Space, the Trailer and the Space Doco
Of course no date hase been set for this DVD, but I think it'll be worth the wait (unless you thought the movie sucked:-)

More on Muriel
The new print which will be the transfer used for the DVD is going to be taken from the film negative, (a TRUE 16:9 telecine transfer)
As for the audio it will be in Dolby Digital 5.1, however, at the is stage it is not known whether the surrounds will be mono or split stereo....it's all dependent on the source material..

Even better Price for Alien Legacy DVD
I received an email from a reader today (prior to ALL ozemail's WOW accounts screwing up so now i have been email-less for about 4 hours... the withdrawls, the withdrawls), that DVD North have an even better price for the Alien Legacy pack of $CDN83.89 (plus $10 to ship it to OZ)....The strange thing is the canadian Retail price is down as being $CDN102.99, whereas the USA price is $US109 singly, each of these DVDs is down as retail being $CDN27.99, selling for only $CDN23.04, whereas the USA retail singly is a standard $US29.95....so with the canadian dollar being similar to ours, I can't understand how any of these prices can be right....but they do say they are canadian...(thanks to Bryson for pointing out the Alien Info)

24th May 1999

Coming soon from Roadshow....Subtitles
Roadshow are finally to add subtitles for the hearing impaired to their DVDs...the first Confirmed DVD to utilise this feature will be Wag the Dog (which incidentally will have a running commmentary...woo-hoo)...and future releases will also have subtitles unless the material does not exist......this is great news as only just this weekend a friend of a friend came over (who happens to be totally deaf) and i showed him some DVDs using subtitles and after this thought I'd drop and email to Roadshow asking them about this...so they are really on the ball now :-)))

Coming Soon from Roadshow.....Remastered Long Kiss
It's been reported around the traps that VRS were looking into remastering LKGN as everyone well knows it is NOT compatible with DVD-ROM drives........well the request for a re-master has been approved (only just today).....no date for the new release has been set, all that is really known about this title is that the soon-to-be defunct MPEG5.1 track will not be on the new version (as is the case will the lastest batch of roadshow DVDs).....HEY what about Turbulence....is there no justice!!!!!! :-)

Coming Soon from Roadshow.....Muriel's Wedding & Shawshank
Again, as reported around the traps Muriel's wedding and Shawshank are scheduled for release from Roadshow.....The interesting piece of news is that unlike all current Roadshow DVDs...Next week a TRUE 16:9 telecine Transfer of Muriel will commence (rather than Raodshow sourcing it from Digital Betacam from an overseas jobby)...AND after this, a New Dolby Digital 5.1 remaster (not remix) will be created....being an aussie made film and totally mastered here, I'd hope Roadshow would have access to some real goodies for this one (I'm thinking a bloopers real??, new interviews, running commentary, the alternate ending, isolated music track....mmmmm ABBA in DD5.1 :-)))
As for Shawshank it's coming from overseas, and after all the cufuffle that went on with this title in the USA, it's great to see we're getting it here...(although it's been around Region 2 in a few forms now for some time)

DVD Price Comparisions
With Roadshow's Blade being released next week now (beginning of June 1999) i thought I'd shop around to see what prices some of the on-line retailers had for this sucker (no pun intended...well actually i did mean it..sorry)...and also what other goodies they have on offer for pre-ordering it..So here's what we've got (in Alphabetical Order)

On-LineRetailer	Price	Extras	Standard Postage Prices
Digital DVD Shop	$29.00	No	1 DVD $1.20 // 2 DVDs $2.50 // 3 DVDs $3.50 // 4 DVD $4.50 // 5 DVDs $5.00 // 6 DVD or more $6.50
DVD Rent	$30.20	No	1-3 DVDs $1.20 each 4 or more $1.00 each
Ezy DVD	$32.95	Free BLADE Sunnies	1 DVD $1.50 2 or more $1.00
The Video Shift	$31.50	(Our 10% disc incl)	Free

Around the Net
I spent a bit of time surfing the net this weekend (and that's different than any other weekend because??)..anyways....I dropped by DVD Review and found their excellent Halloween Production Diary...it details the process that Anchor Bay have gone to (and are still going thru) with their upcoming to-die-for release of Halloween out on DVD.....for Horror fans this is sure to be one the most eagerly awaited DVD releases this Millenium (seeing as there's little over 6 months left...scary thought)
The other juicy bit i came across was the price differences for Fox's Alien Legacy pack (which contains ALL 4 movies on DVD)...the best place to get this from is most definitely DVDboxoffice....they are selling the 4-pack for $68.93 (or about $AUD107)..and with FREE shipping Worldwide...this is a truly great deal......

21st May 1999

It's UNCUT, R-Rated and from Buena Vista??
With the scary thought of Censored Buena Vista DVDs Face/Off, Con Air etc it seems they have pretty much come to the party with the June Release of The Rock....It turns out that the version we will get here is to be rated R18+ as it contains the additonal footage CUT from the Theatrical and Video Versions that received the original MA rating those few years ago...Some of the "Objectionable scenes" were to do with the Chemical Meltdown sequences..SBS's The Movie Show made a big deal over this as both hosts are strongly against any form Of censorship.....So the only cut this film will get is half way thru the DVD when you have to FLIP the sucker over to watch the rest...

A Juicy Roadshow Rumour
Steve K has posted some great news on DVD Net about Roadshow DVDs, and not long after reading this I got "another one of those anonymous rumour type emails" (from a trusting source though) to say that Roadshow's upcoming Lost In Space is going to very likely include the director's running commentary plus lotsa extra goodies (hence the delay in release)...With New Line's region 1 version being a stellar DVD...i'd expect our Region 4 version to also kick arse....fingers crossed it's all true

20th May 1999

Sharpline Arts
I received an E-mail today (as i beleive many other DVD Sites would have as it wasn't directed soley at this site) from the above mentioned company in the USA, as they produce supplementary material on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD, and their email outlined their involvment with 20th Century Fox's upcoming Alien Trilogys and Universal's The Last Starfighter......thought some of you may be interested in reading what they had to say:-

May 19, 1999

Dear Video Reviewer,

When it comes to Special Edition video releases, the attention tends to center on the presentation of the feature films. However, as diligent producers of supplementary material we wanted to take the time to introduce ourselves and our contributions to the upcoming DVDs of ALIEN (Fox, June 1st) and THE LAST STARFIGHTER (Universal, June 8th). We are hoping that when reviewing these titles you will be able to acknowledge Sharpline Arts as the production company responsible for the many additional features.

Over the past decade the combined talents at Sharpline Arts have produced some of the most popular and comprehensive Special Editions ever released, beginning with the benchmark Laserdisc editions of ALIEN and ALIENS for 20th Century Fox. This year, the studio brought us back to assemble an even more impressive package for the 20th anniversary of the original ALIEN. Available with both VHS and DVD gift sets will be our original 68-minute documentary, �The ALIEN Legacy,� which features our own all-new interviews with the filmmakers and rare outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage. In addition, for the DVD we produced a running commentary with director Ridley Scott, an assembly of deleted scenes, and an isolated soundtrack featuring Jerry Goldsmith�s musical score. We also re-designed and expanded our extensive ALIEN production archive with new graphics and art work.

For Universal�s THE LAST STARFIGHTER we produced a 32-minute documentary, �Crossing the Frontier: Making THE LAST STARFIGHTER,� an engaging chronicle of the first feature film which relied entirely on CGI visual effects. The show is hosted by Lance Guest, the star of the film, and features interviews with many of the filmmakers as well as the leading effects artists at Industrial Light and Magic. In addition, we produced a running commentary with director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb along with an archive of production photographs.

Our goal with projects like these is to assemble exclusive features and present them in a manner which honors the filmmakers� efforts while being as entertaining as possible. In our prior projects, including 'The Thing' (Universal, Sept 1998),we established high standards for these presentations and with the press acknowledging the importance of bonus materials, the studios are more likely to produce more special editions.

For more information about our work, please visit our website at www.sharplinearts.com, or give us a call at 818-500-3958 if we can be of any assistance. Thank you for taking the time to consider the tremendous effort behind the production of Special Edition features.

Sincerely,

Michael Matessino
Creative Supervisor

19th May 1999

CEL Music DVD Slick Scans
I've scanned in the front covers to some of their upcoming DVDs found at the DVD Slicks page.....Unfortunately, they have been taken from a CEL brouchure, using a Digital Camera to capture the images......(the scanner is out of commision today)...There are a couple of other titles not previously mentioned.....will have to find out if and when we do get them....

The Video Shift have been giving their site a face lift, so if you've noticed an absence of the latest DVDs...fear not.....in a few hours it should be all updated.....I've had a sneak peek and it looks pretty good......you have a shopping cart tally the very bottom of the screen so you know the exact overall cost.....

All the Buena Vista DVDs and Warner's late arrival of A Perfect Murder are now out there to buy

PS Don't forget to vote in the Buena Vista/Censorship Poll...

12th May 1999

New and Improved DVD Slicks Scans
Sorry if you had a hard time reading the Polygram Slicks.....they did look pretty crap didn't they.....well I've sorta-kinda fixed them up and have added a seperate Details shot so you can see the actual features box properly now.....just goto the DVD Slicks page for the links

CEL Music Drop a few titles
Due to licensing problems CEL Music are not going to be releasing the following titles on DVD...Charade, McLintock, and Invaders from Mars...the remaining 18 movies are still coming though......expect them to be released between the 24th and 31st May....oh yeah, two OTHER titles have been added to their list....Killer Volcanoes and Killer Twisters.......and ALL upcoming DVDs are NTSC imports..

More Magna Pacific DVD titles coming
Coming soon from the latest Distributor to region 4 are

Thief of Bagdad ( 3 time oscar winner)
Trinity & Beyond: The Atomic bomb movie doubled with Atomic Film Makers
& Black Mask (starring Jet Li which is incidently getting a USA theatrical re-release)

NEW POLL ADDED
WIth the upcoming releases of Buena Vista DVDs in OZ, and the fact they are coming from UK transfers....a poll has has been created to get feedback on where you stand with DVDs that may be censored....(ie Will you buy them or won't you)..so please click the link above and cast your Vote.

PS Digital DVD Shop have added links to the movie trailers for some of the DVDs they sell...very groovy indeed.....but i guess there's no point linking any Star War trailers til about 2006 now hey :-(

PPS..Who's going to be buying the Anchorbay special Edition of Halloween....me me me me!!!!

11th May 1999

Columbia's Mask Of Zorro now to be released with VHS sellthru
CTS have decided to hold off releasing this simply stunning DVD (well at least by Region 1 standards) until around Christmas '99 (along with the VHS sellthru)...the reason for this is that CTS are working on a Special Edition and would prefer to release IT in OZ rather than the Standard Edition....The Region 1Special Edition is expected late this year also

ALL Orders now shipped via Registered Post
As of today, we are going to be using REGISTERED POST for all orders of DVD Case Covers, Amarays, Clear DVD Cases.....This will allow for package tracking and insurance of goods posted, as it is NOT covered under Australia Posts regular Air Mail......it will also mean that you will have to sign for your order to get it...
For Any price changes (to Postage only), please goto DVD Station...Any sent Orders that have been post marked PRIOR to Wed 12th May WILL NOT incur the price difference for Registered Post...thanks......Matt & Paul

PS...Please REFRESH your pages to show the latest price update

9th May 1999

FREE SHIPPING @ Digital DVD Shop

For a limited time Digital DVD Shop are now offering FREE SHIPPING on any of their DVD range...This only applies to the Regular Unprotected Option.

Polygram DVD slicks
Some the slicks of upcoming Polygram DVD have been scanned, Trainspotting, Spiceworld: The movie & Sleepers....These DVDs will be housed in the Large CD Jewel case (like the Warner Vision music DVDs), and also feature the New disc specifications, which is by far the best and most detailed specs i have seen on the back of a DVD slick....good one Polygram...

DVD Slicks

6th May 1999

The Latest Roadshow DVD Screen Shots
Here's some screen shots from Lost In Space and Good Will Hunting

Good News about Lethal Weapon 4
You'll be pleased to know that the DVD version to be released in OZ in only a few days times has had some previously censored carnage restored.....it's the sequence in which Jet Li is skewered on the pole and lifted in the air....Some of this was cut from the theatrical version to accomodate an M15+ rating.....and this extra bit of grue gives it the MA15+ status..

5th May 1999

Buena Vista and Warner DVD Slicks
Some nice peoples at Warner were kind of enough to scrounge up and send me all 17 DVD slicks of the upcoming BV and Warner DVDs for May...
So after spending the last few hours scanning/reducing/fixing/uploading and linking the images...they are ready to rock'n'roll...

I was pleased to see the inclusion of the words 16:9 Transfer on the back of the Buena Vista slicks....and curiously, Warner's Lethal Weapon 4 is rated as an MA15+ film.....the cinema and VHS release were both M15+ only...hmmm....i was told the other day that the version of LW4 in the UK was censored a little (gee...what a surprise)

Click HERE to goto the DVD Slicks Page

Please email me if there are any problems accessing them..

Coming Tomorrow :- Lots more slicks and a few more Roadshow DVD Screen Shots.....

4th May 1999

Latest DVD Screen shots from Roadshow
Here's another first look at some Screen Shots of upcoming Roadshow DVDs....This time it's Halloween: H20 and Jackie Brown
Click HERE for more Roadshow DVD Screen Shots

Brand New Harman Kardon Gear for Sale.
Are you in the market for some great HT gear at a pretty good price.....then drop by DVD Station for What's hot on the Harman Kardon Front....Remember, All of these Components are ONE OFFs....

3rd May 1999

Columbia and Universal June DVD Specs
I managed to scrounge up some info on what we'll see on the Universal DVDs as Distributed by Columbia-Tristar, as well as the features of the June Columbia DVDs

Columbia-TriStar Release Schedule
Universal Release Schedule

Harman Kardon HT Gear posted tomorrow
Will have to post the specials tomorrow as i've run out of time..sorry....
I will mention that one of the Receivers on offer is the HK AVR18RDS....RRP is $799.....now discounted to $669..
it has Dolby Pro-Logic built in AND also has a 6 channel input for an external Dolby Digital, DTS or MPEG decoder.....power is rated at 35 watts to ALL channels (20hz to 20 KHz)......all equipment comes with a 3 year Australia Wide warranty......more goodies to come tomorrow...just email us if you are interested in this unit...All of the Eight HK Components left to sell are ONE OFFS (as it's a Dealer sellout)

2nd May 1999

Buena Vista May DVDs delayed - CONFIRMED!!!
Yes it is true, received Official word yesterday that ALL Buena Vista DVDs and A Perfect Murder have been DELAYED until the 17th May.....so A Perfect Murder misses its Date & Day with VHS Rental release

Oh my god some NEW reviews!!!!
Yes after 4 1/2 months (the last review being Godzilla), I've finally gotten off my butt and scribed some new reviews....these 2 of several more DVDs to come, were very gratiously given to me by DVD Australia...who import the Simitar and some Fox Lorber DVD Titles..first 2 reviews of the ranks are DRIVE and FACE THE EVIL
Drive is a really cool movie, and Face the Evil is well....think Die Hard in an Art Gallery and you'll get the gist..

Digital DVD Shop Extend their $29 Special due to popular demand
Just got word that Digtal DVD shop are extending their $29 special for a bit more and have the following titles on sale at this terrific price :- (so IGNORE the Ends APRIL thingy..should be updated soon)

$29 Titles at Digital DVD Shop
Long Kiss Goodnight, Flatliners, Scream 2 , Excess Baggage, Dark City, Jumanji, Gattaca,
The Assignment, Replacement Killers, The Wedding Singer, & Wild Things

Coming Tomorrow
- Review of Strip Search, Boys will be Boys, Scorned 2, and the Worst DVD i have ever seen and heard, American Streetfighter...leaves Dune for DEAD i tell ya!!!

- Ex-Dealer HARMAN KARDON SELLOUT.....DD ready reciever - AC3 reciever - Pro-logic amps, CD players, etc.....full details on MONDAY...at DVD Station

PS...Our Buena Vista DVDs are coming from UK transfers.....