There's something about 'Crank 2'

"Crank 2: High Voltage," starring Jason Statham, was given three different releases on Sept. 9, 2009:
- Single-disc, double-sided DVD edition,
- Fully Charged two-disc DVD edition with special features and a digital copy and
- Fully Charged two-disc Blu-ray edition with digital copy.

The DVD editions of the movie work fine without a hitch. However, there is a problem with the "Crank 2" Blu-ray that consumers need to know about.

It is possible that when you put "Crank 2" into your Blu-ray player, this will happen:
- You will see the loading screen, which represents a lightning bolt warning sign.
- It will disappear.
- It will come back and you will start to hear the Lionsgate opening sound.
- Then you will start seeing the previews through a small window where the loading graphic just was.

That means basically you will be able to watch the movie through a small window.

There are a couple things that will come to mind and no, your disc is not defective. And no, you do not need to update the firmware on your Blu-ray player. Well, I don't know if you need to update it, but that's not the problem.

It appears that it has something to do with your player's memory.

PlayStation 3 users shouldn't have this problem because the PS3 has a built-in memory already.

Standard Blu-ray players have a port for either an SD card or a flash drive. All I did to fix the problem was plug in a USB drive into the back of my player and the movie plays without a problem.

Since this issue with the Blu-ray disc exists, Lionsgate should have mentioned this on the back cover or included a paper insert to inform the consumer. Lionsgate should have also included the DVD edition with the movie instead of a digital copy. That way, you can still watch the movie (not in HD) without an external memory installed.

Basically, if you buy "Crank 2" on Blu-ray, make sure to buy a flash drive with it if you don't already have one.

I have read that the Skynet Edition of "Terminator 2" has a similar issue. However, I have never had a problem playing that on my Blu-ray player without a flash drive or an Internet connection.

Despite the issue, the video and audio quality of the movie is good. Like the first movie, it's an over-the-top action movie that's funnier than anything, so getting it in HD is something to seriously consider.

All of the features from the "Fully Charged" DVD are here. A bonus of the Blu-ray is a picture-in-picture commentary with the directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

So is the Blu-ray worth it? Yes, if you have a flash drive in your player or have no problem buying one. Yes, if you have a Playstation 3.

If that's not your situation, don't bother. Buy the DVD. With the Blu-ray, you'll be watching the top of Statham's head most of the time at best.

The "Crank 2: High Voltage" Blu-ray is available on Amazon for $15.99. The single-disc DVD is also $15.99 on Amazon. The two-disc Fully Charged DVD is at Amazon for $19.98.

Best Buy's current sale has the "Crank" Blu-ray for $7.99 and the "Crank 2" Blu-ray for $12.99.

Come and see how good 'Anchorman' looks!

"Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" has never looked better with the new Blu-ray release that smells of "Rich Mahogany."

There really isn't much to say about the video and audio quality. It's not a movie that is going to wow anyone in HD, but it does have a great picture and audio. You can clearly see the bags under Burgundy's eyes.

The theatrical movie, unrated movie, and "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy" are in HD.

I haven't gone through all the special features yet, but rest assured that you are getting more than what was on the original DVD release.

I plan on checking to see if the features on the "Breaking News" Best Buy exclusive disc are on here. "Breaking News" was a bonus disc that came with the movie when it originally came out on DVD in 2004.

Watching this Blu-ray was my first time seeing "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy."

If you are like me and had never seen it and tried hunting down the out of print DVD, you will be disappointed. It is merely a montage of deleted scenes put together in an attempt to make a quasi-sequel.

If you treat it like a sequel, lots of things don't make sense.

As far as what's included that's not on the disc, the booklet entitled "The Many Months of Burgundy" is funny. It's a small date book with random notes of Burgundy's thoughts. It's not something you will read cover-to-cover, but more flip through and chuckle at.

Here are some alternate sign-off lines Burgundy wrote in here:
- "You stay classy, San Diego... or else!" which is too ominous and
- "Stay classy, San Diego. And for those of you who don't, well then, burn in hell" which is too harsh.

The trading cards aren't anything special. They have standard profile pictures of the characters on the front. There is various information about each character on the back ranging from height to favorite movie to a short biography. The characters included are:
- Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell),
- Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate),
- Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd),
- Brick Tamland (Steve Carell),
- Champ Kind (David Koechner),
- Ed Harken (Fred Willard),
- Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn),
- Frank Vitchard (Luke Wilson),
- Chip McGee (Tim Robbins),
- Arturo Mendes (Ben Stiller),
- Steve Graff (Jack Black) and
- Jess Moondragon, San Diego's original anchor.

For a full list of special features, see my last post.

Overall, the Blu-ray is definitely a worthy upgrade for "Anchorman" fans.

As of now, you can only buy Anchorman, "The Rich Mahogany Edition" at Best Buy for $24.99. It will be released elsewhere later.

Anchorman is still available on DVD with a widescreen unrated edition and a full screen theatrical edition. There's really no reason to get the theatrical edition. The unrated version of the movie added more funny lines and isn't much more inappropriate for young viewers than the PG-13 version. Plus, the unrated edition is less expensive.

'Anchorman' coming soon to Blu-ray

There appears to be a significant release of "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" coming to Best Buy exclusively.

Best Buy is going to receive an exclusive two-disc Blu-ray "Rich Mahogany Edition." This will be the first time "Anchorman" will be on Blu-ray. It will probably be released in other stores later, but for now, it will only be available at Best Buy. Various websites state that it will be released on Aug. 31. However, Best Buy's weekly ad says it will be available on Aug. 29.

I would be more inclined to trust the Aug. 31 date, since that is a Tuesday. DVDs and Blu-rays are normally released on Tuesdays. But since Best Buy's weekly ad says Sunday, I will check it out in the morning to see for myself.

Special features, according to Blu-ray.com, are:
- Commentary with Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Lou Rawls, Andy Richter, Kyle Gass, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate,
- Deleted and extended scenes,
- Bloopers,
- ESPN Sports Center Audition – Ron Burgundy,
- "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy",
- Feature Introduction by Will Ferrell and Aaron Zimmerman,
- Raw Footage "Good Takes,"
- Music video: "Afternoon Delight,"
- "Afternoon Delight" recording session,
- Public Service Announcements,
- Awards Speech,
- AMC Loews Happy Birthday,
- Interviews: Rebecca Romijn, Jim Caviezel, Burt Reynolds,
- Cinemax: The Making of Ron Burgundy,
- Reel Comedy: Anchorman,
- A Conversation with Ron Burgundy,
- Cast Auditions,
- Table Read,
- Rehearsals,
- Playback Video,
- Commercial Break and
- Trailers.

It will also come with a book called "The Many Months of Burgundy" and 12 trading cards.

Fans' eyes should have gone wide upon reading "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy" listed. I know mine sure did. "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy" is a short film about him. It was previously available on DVD in a two-pack with "Anchorman" when the original DVD came out in 2004. So if you bought the movie by itself (like me) or bought it years later, you missed out.

Also with the DVD's original release, Best Buy had an exclusive bonus disc. There's some speculation online that all those features will be mixed into the Blu-ray.

With the special features all there, this would appear to be the ultimate edition of "Anchorman" and a real treat for fans. A review will come later to confirm this. But my hopes are high.

Never sleep again....

To prepare fans for the then-upcoming remake, New Line gave us a new Blu-ray edition of the Wes Craven's original "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

Those that are Freddy fans know the story by now. Fred Krueger (Robert Englund) was released from murder charges on a technicality, so the people of Springwood burned and killed him. Krueger, however, came back to kill their children in their dreams.

This Blu-ray release has a spectacular picture. The film never looked better. The black levels are black and the white levels are white. The Infinifilm DVD that came out in 2006 was a step up from the previous DVDs, and now this Blu-ray is two steps above that.

One can't ignore the audio quality as well. Freddy never sounded creepier.

If you'll notice, the cover art for the Blu-ray resembles the Infinifilm DVD cover art. So that means all the features are there, right? That's not always true. There are many examples of where that's not the case at all, but I can discuss that in a different blog entry.

Here, we are treated to most of the features from the Infinifilm edition.

Special features include:
- Ready Freddy Focus Points (alternate takes and filmmaking tips while watching the movie)
- Two commentaries
- Three alternate endings (Scary Ending, Happy Ending, and Freddy Ending)
- Three featurettes ("The House That Freddy Built: The Legacy of New Line Horror," "Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street," "Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven's Nightmares")

The back cover mentions that also included is an interactive trivia track. However, while browsing through the features, I couldn't find it. That's a shame, but it's not a big loss. Since I bought the DVD, I only remember playing it once.

The picture and audio quality alone make this a worthwhile upgrade, especially if you never owned the Infinifilm DVD. The lesser special features have been dropped, but nothing of great importance.

I just hope that we will get the same great treatment for the rest of the series.

The Blu-ray is available on Amazon for $16.99. DVD users can pick up the Infinifilm DVD for $12.49.

Also available is a new edition of the entire series box set for $35.49. It includes all seven "Elm Street" films and "Freddy vs. Jason." I haven't checked it out myself but it sounds like the best in-print set of the whole series. There are a couple "4 Film Favorites" DVDs available too, for less money, but they are on double-sided discs. Decide for yourself how you feel about those.

He rode a 'Blazing Saddle'

Mel Brooks was the king of parody. He tackled many genres and made his own brand of satire with films like "Young Frankenstein" and "Spaceballs." One film I don't hear much from others, though I rate it as one of his best, is "Blazing Saddles."

The western follows a black railroad worker, Bart, who is sent to become the first black sheriff. He doesn't know that this was all a plan to make the town vulnerable so the diabolical Hedley Lamarr can run the town's people out of town and make way for a railroad.

The video and audio quality of the Blu-ray is the best it has ever been. The 1974 film, made in Technicolor, isn't ever going to look like a new movie. If you want to show off the technical specs of your HD-TV and your Blu-ray player, there are more recent movies that will do that. However, the Blu-ray disc is definitely a step up from the DVD.

All of the special features from the previous 30th Anniversary Edition DVD are present on the Blu-ray in standard definition.

They include:
- Additional scenes,
- Scene-specific commentary by Mel Brooks,
- Two documentaries ("Back in the Saddle" and "Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn"),
- Black Bart: 1975 Pilot Episode of the proposed TV series spinoff and
- Theatrical trailer.

Fans of "Blazing Saddles" should definitely pick this up, as it is a good upgrade from the 30th Anniversary DVD. There are no new features to speak of, but the video and audio quality of the movie is a step up.

Amazon sells the Blu-ray disc for $10.49. I saw it at Walmart for $10.
If you are a DVD user, Amazon has the 30th Anniversary DVD for $5.49. Walmart had it for $5.

Introduction

It's time for me to blog again. I haven't been covering college news in a while so my other blog has been left unattended to.

So with the movies I've been watching on Blu-ray and DVD lately, I decided to start blogging short reviews as I see them. These aren't going to have the technical details of each disc. Most people probably wouldn't know what AVC is, for example. So I'm going to post reviews that are simple to understand for practical usage.

A little about me, I've always loved movies. I didn't buy many videos in the VHS era because of how fragile they were and how you could always record movies off TV and get the same quality.

I didn't get into laserdisc. The discs were too big and awkward. Laserdisc didn't feel like it was going to be the next big format.

When DVD rolled around, I bought into it heavily. I see it as the first acceptable format for movies. Not only are the discs more durable than VHS, but they brought in widescreen as the standard and included special features. I always watched the "behind the scenes" specials on TV and it was great to be able to own them with the movie.

And now Blu-ray is taking over.

There were several reasons I didn't buy into Blu-ray at first.
- Blu-ray and HD-DVD were at war with each other. I wasn't going to buy one format and watch it lose.
- I already invested so much into DVD. I didn't want to see it go away in just nine years.
- I didn't see much of a difference in quality.

If you feel the same way about the quality, I challenge you to watch only Blu-ray discs for a week (on a HDTV) and then watch DVDs. You'll see what I mean. The upgrade isn't the same leap as VHS was to DVD, but it's still a big leap.