EW on Wonka; "Shameful" (1 Viewer)

[Trace Downing]

This week's Entertainmant Weekly reviews the Willy Wonka DVD.
Although the grade on a whole they gave a B, they did have this to say about the transfer...
"Sadly, this 30th anniversary DVD isn't quite the kid-in-a-candy-store experience it should've been. Even though the remastered image is better than any rental tape, it's a shameful full-screen transfer; it would have been great to see director Mel Stuart's chockful-of-color compositions as he intended...."
The second DVD was Fox's Batman:The Movie...grade C+, mainly at the smarmy commentary by West & Ward.
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Ta-ra-ra boomsy-ay
Did you get yours today?
I got mine yesterday.
That's why I walk this way!
[Edited last by Trace Downing on August 20, 2001 at 07:01 PM]

 

[Carlo_M]

I've never read EW before but this might just get me to pick up a copy. I wonder if the editors really knew what was going on here, or if they caught wind of the internet backlash against the FF transfer...

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Either way, EW mentioning it is fantastic news for us. I'm glad they took a few sentences to mention it.
J6P loves EW!

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Scott
Check out my Movie Reviews at Epinions. Help support my debilitating DVD addiction!
AOL IM: TheAngryJew29

 

[Michael Reuben]

I've been reading EW for years, and the guys who write and edit the video reviews strike me as hardcore enthusiasts. EW was one of the first mainstream publications that I remember commenting on DVDs. It wouldn't surprise me at all if those guys monitor HTF and similar forums, but I'm willing to bet that their reaction to the Wonka disc didn't need any prompting.
M.

 

[Lewis Besze]

I guess we forgott about Ty Burr's comments regarding WS.
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"You Hungarians always disagree"

 

[Bob Graham]

And the irony here is that EW is owned by...Time/WARNER!!!

 

[Michael Reuben]

quote: I guess we forgott about Ty Burr's comments regarding WS.[/quote] In truth, I did. They were so out of step with the usual EW DVD observations that you have to wonder what he was smoking that week.
Do you happen to remember what title he was reviewing and exactly what he said? It's been a while.
M.
[Edited last by Michael Reuben on August 20, 2001 at 10:28 PM]

 

[Kenny Goldin]

Good news! Anything that gets the message out gets

from me.
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Jay and Silent Bob in
CLERKS

 

[Dwayne]

Do you happen to remember what title he was reviewing and exactly what he said? It's been a while.

I believe he was reviewing Gladiator. Basically, it boiled down to him wanting his whole 4:3 screen to be utilized. Fucking pathetic.
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-Dwayne
"And vidi films I would."

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I'm real surprised by this. EW is traditionally geared at the masses, not serious film enthusiasts. No serious film enthusiast would ever rate O Brother Where Art Thou as the Worst Movie of 2000.
Jeff

 

[Michael Reuben]

No serious film enthusiast would ever rate O Brother Where Art Thou as the Worst Movie of 2000.

That was Owen Gleiberman, as I recall. I often disagree with him, but it's hard to dispute that he's a serious film enthusiast. He does like to take provocative positions (as when he rated Natural Born Killers as the best film of 1994).
Just because someone takes a position you think is wrong -- even ludicrously wrong -- doesn't make them any less of a film enthusiast. There are opinions posted here every day with which I vehemently disagree, but I don't doubt the sincerity of the people posting them.
M.

 

[AdrianJ]

I believe he was reviewing Gladiator. Basically, it boiled down to him wanting his whole 4:3 screen to be utilized. Fucking pathetic.

This reminded me of when I was in Target looking at their DVDs. A son (around 18) and his father came in and picked up a copy of Gladiator. Upon noticing the Widescreen banner on the DVD, the put it back on the shelf commenting that they couldn't play it because they didn't have a widescreen TV.

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Adrian Jones

 

[Trace Downing]

It's exactly bacause of Ty Burr's comments about Gladiator a mere 9 months ago, that this week's issue is so impressive. Many people here have been converts to the virtues of OAR, why can't EW?
C'mon, should they really be punished forever if they see the light now?
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Ta-ra-ra boomsy-ay
Did you get yours today?
I got mine yesterday.
That's why I walk this way!

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I think it's great that this was mentioned in a huge mag like EW, but i'll never buy this mag again because of a big "Fuck You" email I got from Ty Burr a few months back about the Gladiator dvd.
I e-mailed him a nice little letter telling him how displeased I was with his view on the Gladiator dvd aspet ratio, and a couple of days later I got a response if you want to call it that. It was just a series of letters and numbers pressed at random! Up until that point, I bought EW every week, needless to say, I stopped right their. So I have no love for them, but to have our probem with Warner addressd in this high profile mag is awesome!
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Warner Bros. is officially dead to me.
[Edited last by John Williamson on August 22, 2001 at 10:24 PM]

 

[Iain Lambert]

John, I'm not asking you to print a private email here, but you say it was a random stream of letters and numbers. Do you just mean that he ranted incoherently, or did it actually look gobbledigook? Its just that it might be that his reply was perfectly polite, but was unreadable due to some mail encoding error.
Just a thought.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Lain, Mr. Burr's e-mail to me looked like this...
hjdgwekj8cu34uj68gtldfs,ligu94386ioklghei88yt43knf mvjfeituolg,gn,njweyrinhflskfjoteutokvn.,,jekorut4 utiiohglksdlvnehtyriohyeprjgkfdklnblhiu xnig78567igjl;erjt9596ejppo99ulkgtkllldfnblkhnlgor iuyihgldf.b,ndlfskgpoyu4'pwkemelkgbjtjhu[6yi[hkg;lj
I think he made himself quite clear.