Casino: 10th Anniversary Edition 14th june (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

Too bad if that is true, because I don't think any special feature trumps a good commentary AFAIC. But, I've held off on Casino for so long because I did not want to pay over $20 for a bare bones disc so this is a guaranteed purchase for me. Hopefully the featurettes will be of high quality though.

 

[ChristopherBlig]

Usually the featurettes are high quality for a Scorsese film even if they don't have a commentary as King of Comedy has proven, however I guess music clearance issues killed the chance to make it a true replacement with no trailer included on the 10th Anniversary. Little sidenote: the length of the trailer matches with it's aspect ratio. 2 minutes, 35 seconds, the same can be said for Cape Fear

Other than that, I'm looking forward to it's release.

P.S. can someone get a confirmation with the exclusion of the trailer

 

[PaulP]

What was the music in the trailer?

 

[ChristopherBlig]

Can You Hear Me Knocking and Gimme Shelter, both original versions from The Rolling Stones

 

[Dave H]

According to DVD Empire, this is going to be a dual-layered, dual-sided disc (ala Schindler's List.)

 

[Paul.S]

Gordon et al.:

Call me skeptical/cynical but "Newly Remastered Picture" may mean the equivalent of what Warner did on the Heat SE, namely a new encoding of the same transfer from 10 years ago.

By the by, titles amongst Universal's recent flurry of SE announcements overlap significantly with titles they've announced for HD DVD release in October.

As much as I love Casino, not unlike Paramount's supposed announcement next week of a Titanic SE, I'm not happy about some of the studios' obvious rush to exploit catalog title revenues on standard def DVD before moving to hi def. Universal announces their first HD DVD slate at CES in January and noooow we're finally seeing in some cases not-so-special SEs of 12 Monkeys, Apollo 13 and Casino . . .

I think I'll know more come the fall about what I am and am not going to open my wallet and double dip for on standard def. I sense it is going to be very little, as I suspect and hope we'll see, say, Casino on HD DVD in less time than it has taken U to release a standard def SE.

And what about a freakin' DTS track? There was a DTS LD of this movie.

"In other words when you need me you need me, but when you don't need me it's none of my business,"
-p

 

[Dave H]

Yeah, I know what you mean, Paul. I watched The Matrix on HD-TNT tonight and was blown away. It just made start to seriously consider if it's even worth buying SD DVD re-releases anymore.

 

[Harold Wazzu]

Looks like another pass for me, passed on Heat and now this.


Totally agree, studios are milking good films for every cent before they are replaced by superior HD versions. That's one of the reasons why I refuse to buy many of the "SE"s that are coming out.

 

[PaulP]

In my view, any HD version that come out, will not be replacements. I'm not planning on geing HD any time soon, at least not before either format has won and been accepted. I still watch my DVDs on my computer with a 21-inch 4:3 monitor and that's fine to me.

And Casino wasn't shot in HD, so how huge a difference will there be? Not a lot, I'm sure. Yeah HD is great for the newest special-effects films, but since I tend to watch very few of those, HD is still far away for me.

 

[Simon Howson]

Casino was photographed on film in Super 35mm. Even given the defficiences of that format, it is still superior to current HD video. So there is the potential for a HD video transfer to contain more resolution that is present on the film that can't be accomodated by a standard DVD transfer.

(The fact the film was shot by Robert Richardson just makes me sad that it wasn't anamorphic... apparently Richardson tried very hard to convince Scorsese to shoot Casino in Panavision, a wish that wasn't granted, but perhaps made up for by the wonderful anamorphic cinematography of Bringing Out The Dead).

Goodfellas was also shot in Super 35, but for the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Looking at the DVD I get the impression that the inter-positive used was a sound aperture interpositve i.e an element creative from optically reduction printing the conformed camera negative.

It would be better if Super 35 films were transfered from either contacted printed silent aperture elements, or from the negative itself (obviously very risky). My point is one defficiency of transfering Super 35 films to video is that the element used is often created by an optical printing step which is not desireable. Films that have under gone a digital intermediate are different, but this isn't the case for Goodfellas or Casino.

The fact Goodfellas was shot in Super 35 means there is more useable resolution on that negative, it is dissapointing that it doesn't actually get used, and in fact is distorted even more because the transfer is uncessarily made from a second generation element.

 

[Paul.S]

PaulP:

You're confusing (high def) video and film. Film as a medium is inherently "high definition." This is not to be confused with the video formats, say, George Lucas used to shoot Episodes II and III.

Simon:

Be careful there. Thanks for the information about the photographic processes on Goodfellas and Casino, but in the context of "anamorphic" DVD it tends to confuse people. In other words, some people don't understand that anamorphic photography is an analogous yet completely separate process fom anamorphic telecine. And a high definition transfer and HD DVD or Blu-ray presentation of a contemporary movie will have higher resolution (1,080 lines of resolution versus the 480 we're looking at now) regardless of whether the movie was shot Super 35 or not.

-p

 

[RobertM.Fleming]

very very disappointed that this new edition is going to be a Flipper disk. havent they ran out of those damn things yet?

 

[Paul.S]

Yeah, Robert, that is kinda lame, huh?

And the image of Ace in the menus has him wearing clothes that I don't think he ever wears in the film . . .

-p

 

[WillG]

Does anyone know if, at least, the film itself will be on only one side and the extras on the other. It wouldn't be that bad if that was the case.

 

[PaulP]

It's definitely film on one side, extras on the other. There's no "Play Movie" or anything on the Side B menu.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

DVD Beaver comparison of the French TFI vs. the old R1: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare10/casino.htm

Note the different 2.40:1 extractions from the 1.33 Super-35 frame. The TFI contains less information; basically, it's a zoom-in job.

And, boy, the over-saturation on the R1 is crazy. They better have remedied that for this new release.

This new 10th anniversary edition of Casino is a definate "do not order until reviews are in", if ever I saw one. Why it isn't a 2-disc is beyond me. Flippers just piss off too many people these days.

 

[Paul.S]

Gordon:

Thx for the post/info.

Indeed, amongst other things, this SE has me very curious about--not unlike the sopohomore weekend box office of a pic sometimes being the most telling--what the second slate of Universal HD-DVD titles is going to be.

-p

 

[Gary Nash]

At the risk of upsetting the purists -

Any chance they'll fix the opening shot when the car detonates ?
The cut from live action DeNiro to the dummy is pretty jarring - I'm sure this could have been morphed to create a seamless transition. If not at the time of release, it can certainly be achieved now.

Taking the opportunity to correct obvious errors such as this should not be missed. It's not as contentious as some of the Star Wars "re-imagining" that has taken place and would remove an annoying error from an otherwise top-notch movie.

Remember that Warners fixed 'The Fugitive' to remove the head of a crew member that peaked in at the top of the frame. The reasoning behind that decision seemed pretty sound.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

2-disc sets piss ME off. I'll buy this just BECAUSE it's a 2-sided disc.
Universal hasn't been printing any label at all on side 2 of their discs though, that looks really cheap. Hope they change that by the time this comes out.
Added- I want the movie exactly as it played in the theater- I was a projectionist when Casino was out so I noticed that awkward edit every day. A glaring error yes, but that's how it was on the prints so that's how I want it at home. I'm sure they would have fixed it before release if they had noticed it.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Hmm... okay. Why?