Sands of the Kalahari
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haristas — 14 years ago(May 01, 2011 08:35 AM)
Amazon already has them up for pre-order, with the DVD discounted to $17.49, and the Blu-ray at $20.99. I've waited a long time to watch this movie in a good Panavision transfer and can't wait for this to arrive, especially on Blu-ray.
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Big G-2 — 14 years ago(May 05, 2011 08:49 PM)
I've waited all that time, so a few months won't destroy me!
Heck, this is the movie that made me realize baboons maybe aren't as nice as I saw them depicted in KIMBA, THE WHITE LION (with Kimba's pal Daniel Baboon in particular!) -
KillerKane — 14 years ago(June 01, 2011 03:10 PM)
Oh goody! Will there be any special extras? I'd love a commentary track with surviving members of the cast and crew. Imagine Stuart Whitman, Nigel Davenport, Theodore Bikel, and even Susannah York (who left us so young) talking about how hot it was in Namibia, or their experiences with the racial policies in Apartheid South Africa, or working with Stanley Baker and Cy Endfield. If only.
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hobnob53 — 14 years ago(June 02, 2011 07:54 PM)
As far as I know, no extras. Olive Films' releases of the Paramount films they've leased are of excellent quality but offer no extras at all, except for scene selection. If it turns out there is anything, we'll post the info.
While some commentary is interesting, I've found a lot of it trite and inaccurate. Depends on who's interviewed. Your suggestion sounds good, but I doubt there'll be anything on this disc. But the only truly important thing is having the film itself, no? -
Sandoz — 14 years ago(June 08, 2011 06:33 AM)
While some commentary is interesting, I've found a lot of it trite and inaccurate. Depends on who's interviewed
I agree with you in regards to newer films that have been released shortly after their theatrical runs; the principals doing the commentary are so glad-handingly in "schmooze" mode and bending over backwards to talk about how "great" and how much "fun" it was working with everyone in the production that, aside from technical information, nothing is learned about the behind-the-scenes event.
However, with older films (like SOTK), commentaries can be much more informative: usually for older titles, the people still alive from the film don't pull as many punches and tend to say what they actually thought about being in the film. And if no-one from the film is available, we'd at least get an "expert" talking about the film that usually have some semi-informative stories or data to relate about the film, however pedantic.
All IMDb users are equalbut IMDb Pro users are more equal than others. -
hobnob53 — 14 years ago(June 10, 2011 02:24 PM)
Well, as I said, it depends on who's interviewed. I agree with you that recent commentators may have their egos in play, though that has happened on older films as well.
But I've heard many so-called "experts" on older films' commentaries who have been sarcastic, ignorant, or so downright uninformed as to be paralyzingly stupid. Two examples: I listened to the DVD of the 1955's
Soldier of Fortune
, whose commentary was by some professor of film. He made an amazingly stupid statement in which he claimed that, after making this film, Clark Gable did a western called
The Tall Men
, which, he stated, was subsequently retitled
The King and Four Queens
. No, it wasn't:
they were two entirely separate movies, nothing in common at all except they were both westerns (with completely different plots) starring Gable
. (He also kept insisting that during the Cold War Americans referred to China as "Maoist China". Huh? No one
no one
ever
referred to what back then we universally called "Communist" or "Red" China as "Maoist China". An absolute idiot.) As a second example, Oliver Stone did the commentary for
Executive Suite
(1954) and hadn't gone more than a minute or two before misidentifying one of the film's stars (Louis Calhern) as someone not even in the movie! At that point I quit the commentary altogether if someone can't get something so basic right, by definition his observations are pretty useless. Minor mistakes are one thing and happen often, but this kind of poor and ignorant commentary is, unfortunately, not rare.
So, as I said, some commentary can indeed be very informative and interesting. But way too much of it is just awful and loaded with misinformation, usually uttered by smug people who think they know everything. It's hit and miss, and the age of the film doesn't seem to make much difference as to the quality or accuracy of its commentary. Good commentary can be interesting, but basically I don't care much whether a disc has any or not. But I know of some people so obsessed with commentary that they won't even buy a disc without it!