Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Excellent purchases!

I picked up 1408 in the 5.00 bin at Wal-Mart. I've never seen it, but I recall liking the short story well enough. (I'm sure this will be pretty different.)

Latest haul from Amazon (sadly missing Destroy All Monsters ):

I love Alligator

^I would love this news of a new B&N Criterion sale if I hadn't already spent this few weeks petty cash budget on...





I've been waiting for this set for two years. That's how long I've been a Laurel and Hardy fan (thanks TCM!) and that's how long I've been frustrated that the great majority of their catalog, the ones everyone agrees are the best films from their peak period, have been MIA on DVD. This DVD set is 10 discs, and has all their talkie shorts and most of their features from when they were with the Hal Roach studios (aside from 3 features that ended up in the hands of different studios, and those are already on DVD). It also has half a dozen foreign versions, remakes for other countries where Laurel and Hardy memorized their lines phonetically!

Now all we need are their silent era shorts and everything will be out there.

^Well, I'm only 2 discs in, but I've popped in all the discs and surveyed the set:

While their hasn't been any remastering done (UCLA is currently undertaking the complete L&H remastering project and it'll take years) these are the best transfers taken from the best prints available, considerably better then the UK set. The original title cards have replaced long-standing replacement titles cooked up for reissues, TV and video, and several shorts have the option of watching them with the original early-'30s music tracks or the reissue soundtracks from later in the decade (where they pasted wall-to-wall music). Sometimes only the reissue tracks remain, and where that's the case it's mentioned in the extensive liner notes. A few of the films have multiple commentaries because the L&H experts behind them gathered so much info that they had to run through the film twice to get it all in.

The contents of the set are all the Hal Roach talkie shorts and features (besides Fra Diavolo, Bonnie Scotland, and Wooden Soldiers which are under different rights holders and widely available). Half a dozen expanded foreign language versions are included. The extras disc has a featurette where Jerry Lewis, Tim Conway, Dick Van Dyke, and Penn and Teller are interviewed about L&H, a survey of locations (showing how they appeared in the films and how they appear now), three other Hal Roach shorts that L&H cameo in, and a three original trailers.

The packaging has stirred up some controversy: a book style case (featuring the extensive liner notes I mentioned) where each page is a cardboard sleeve containing one of the ten discs. None of my discs came scratched, and I'm pretty careful with my discs anyway so I seem to be able to take them in and out (each several times so far) without scratching.

It's pretty sweet.

Just bought the Iron King complete series set from EBay. Next on my list is either Robot Red Baron or Spectreman.

Mouth you are wrong man...the most important film in that list is The Land that Time Forgot!!

(Gonna watch this one after the 'bama/LSU game)



(I already had the earlier one, AND the odds are that I wouldn't really go through the special features...i so rarely do)


Under $60 for the whole kit and kaboodle.