Welcome to a new year of DVD Diggers. I hope you’ve gotten over your hangovers by now and are able to read this week’s take on DVDs and other entertainment.
This week marks the 22nd installment of Diggers, which is a bit anticlimactic. Personally I’d love to know that I marked off the new year with the 20th installment, or the 25th episode or something exciting like that. Oh well - “blah” as they say.
Truthfully “blah” is about how I feel right now. I managed to start 2005 with a doozey of a cold that’s taken away my ability to think. As a consequence, I’ve also started the new year behind, instead of totally caught up as I had originally planned. I’ve got reviews tying me down that go weeks back, from “Boy Meets World” and “Home Improvement” that I previously mentioned, to “The Terminal” and “Meet the Parents” which were either sprung on me, or nobody else in our glorious DVD bullpen wanted. Ah, such is the life. Instead I’m just sitting at home, sick, without much ability to focus, sucking down orange juice and watching Lord of the Rings. At least the next few weeks are practically the graveyard for DVDs coming out. With the holidays gone, we get wonderful releases like Little Black Book and Troy which tanked in the theaters, meaning I have time to catch up before big stuff starts coming out again.
New Years Resolutions
So with all that talk of being behind, my first new years resolution is to stay on top of reviews better, and deliver information in a more timely manner. Either that or blame things on Josh. “I’m sorry Mr. or Mrs. Obsessive Compulsive Fanboy - I would have had that review for your favorite Pauly Shore movie up days ago, but Josh wants us to sit on it.” Yeah... that sounds good. (He doesn’t actually read this column, does he?)
Seriously though, New Years is as good a time as any to set some new standards, or “resolutions” if you will, so here’s what I’ve been plotting out for our DVD section.
1. Less Television Shows - You guys don’t know it, but television series are a pain to review. They require four to five times the amount of time to watch as a movie’s DVD, but with the same result as far as a review goes. There’s no real extra payoff towards covering a television show, at least no more than there is with any other review, but there’s a lot more required in covering it. Instead expect “TV on DVD” to become a regular fixture again here at the Diggers, informing you of upcoming releases you might be interested in. That’s not to say we won’t cover the occasional series, especially if it’s something you might like to see us talk about, or if it’s something with Shatner or Hasslehoff in it... and of course there are the series like “Quantum Leap” or “Northern Exposure” that we just couldn’t pass on, right?
2. Less “Unrated Version” reviews - Sorry folks, it’s become painfully clear that the “Unrated Version” release is nothing more than a gimmick for a lot of movies. While some films use an extended director’s cut of a film to accomplish telling the story the way the director originally intended it (Lord of the Rings or Daredevil) most films that offer an “Unrated Version” (The Girl Next Door and the upcoming Harold and Kumar go to White Castle) are just trying to get more attention to their film by adding in boobies and butts. While we at Cinema Blend have nothing against boobies and butts, these films have no real merit, and typically just result in us bashing the DVD producers for releasing an “Unrated Version” that doesn’t add to the film in any tangible way. You’re tired of hearing these complaints as much as we’re tired of making them, although we haven’t seen nearly enough boobies and butts.
3. Less “Lucas Bashing” - I’ve personally been exceptionally bad about sticking it to George Lucas when another movie does something superior to the way Lucas has done it. We’ve all been a little crushed as George has continued to cash in on his franchise with quick painful stabs to the galaxy far far away we fell in love with as kids, whether it’s raping the old films by changing them, or the release of the abortions he refers to as the new trilogy. I’ve given him enough flack for his time, and it’s time to let bygones be bygones and move on.... What’s that? Oh, right. Revenge of the Sith comes out this year. Well... we’ll hold off on this resolution for at least another year.
And if you notice the site breaking these resolutions I’ve set, remember two things - most fat people are still fat by the middle of June, and I was heavily medicated when I wrote this.
Welcome to 2005.
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