Tag Archives: DVD

Fight Club Compared: Blu-rays vs iTunes HD vs D-VHS vs DVD vs Laserdisc

Caustic, nihilistic and controversial, Fight Club successfully adapted Chuck Palahniuk’s transgressive fiction novel, it’s a credit to screenwriter Jim Uhl’s excellent adaptation that the voice of the original novel is heard so clearly, and at the same time the film proved to be an enormous success. Though much credit is also due to the excellent sound and editing: so much in this film depends on hitting exactly the right tone.

Based on a reader suggestion, I decided to take a look at the various home video versions of Fight Club that are available.

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Spirited Away - Blu-ray

Spirited Away – Japanese Blu-ray Review

Spirited Away, in my opinion at least, is Hayao Miyazaki’s magnum opus, and having only been released on Japanese Blu-ray a few months back, I decided to give it a quick review. ‘Spirited Away’ (千と千尋の神隠し ‘Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi’) was released in 2001 to universal critical and commercial success. A heroes-journey tale of a timid girl whose family is sucked into a magical world, where she must struggle to save both herself and her parents. The original Japanese (and other Asian-region) DVD releases had several issues most noticeably a strong red/pink tint, as well as window-boxing the image substantially on all four sides. The US DVD release largely addressed these issues, although the image was a little red.

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20000 Leagues Under the Sea - title

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – iTunes HD Review

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is a classic Jules Verne novel, adapted by Disney into the 1954 feature film, staring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre, directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Earl Fenton. Since the film is not on Blu-ray yet (note: in 2019 Disney Movie Club released a Blu-ray version of this movie – I’ll cover this at the end), and has apparently undergone a restoration at 4k, I thought I’d take a look at the 1080p iTunes HD version that appears to be the new restored version. Continue reading