This re-construction of the hacked up mess that was 'The Big Red One' is the pet project of film critic, Richard Schickel. I have other DVDs with Schickel doing commentaries. He's okay. He knows his film history, but I always find his comments sort of on the surface. He doesn't achieve the depth of analysis that I like when I listen to someone like Christopher Frayling. And, since this is his project and he loves Sam Fuller, he's a bit blind to the merits of the film itself. In my humble opinion, except for David Lean, film directors working prior to the 1990s make better films from short, tight, concise scripts than sprawling, boring, never-ending Epic screenplays and Mr. Fuller is no exception. This film simply has too much in it... Sam's actual experiences in WWII, from N. Africa to Sicily to France to Belgium to Germany to Czechoslovakia. Way too much. Spread too thin, Lots of short choppy scenes. Think about "Private Ryan". They land on the beach, they get the mission, they go 50 miles inland, they find Ryan, they defend the bridge... end of story. You know? Less is more.

One of the great 50s films transferred well with good sound. Perfect commentary by film historian Dana Polan. Like film historian, Christopher Frayling, Polan speaks about what we're seeing and the situation at the time the film was made.. the 50s mileau, the studio system at the time, the director, the actors, the crew, the locations and the script. This is the kind of commentary I love the most. It's by an educated observer who is removed from the film and can appreciate it for what it is, what it was when it came out and what it has become since then in the age of the DVD and how it fits into the Film Noir genre.

I love Orson Welles' films. I like hearing Peter Bogdanovich talk about them, because he's such an inside authority in the industry, but in this one he never once refers to any scene that we're looking at. He goes on forever about his experience meeting and chatting with and questioning Mr. Welles, which is informative but not what I want from a commentary. My favorite DVD commentary that I have, is Christopher Frayling, a film historian and theoritician, ananlyzing, in depth, every scene and moment in Leone's "For a Few Dollars More". More information than I could take in, in one viewing. That's not Bogdanovich's style. Still it's better than some director doing a 'commentary' on his own film and kissing everyone's (%$&) in hopes of getting a future job. Those are my least favorites.

My only real problem with this game is the near-impossibility of figuring out how to raise the level of expertise of my golfer. I have 4 Tiger Woods games, for PS2, now, including 2005 where you just make money and buy expertise. Simple. I just don't get it with 2006. Money doesn't do the trick anymore. I've made over $5 million dollars with my little guy and his expertise level is still mediocre. There's something there that I'm missing.
Anyway, besides that, the 2006 version carries on well from 2005, which is probably my favorite one. 2006 has the new feature: all the golfers now talking, but they quickly get as annoying as the tedium of Fairway Faraday's jokes (a joke can be funny about 3 or 4 times, but not after 300 times). I usually turn all talking off or way down low. What I love, in this version, is the new putting feature. You can now vary the strength of your putt, with your backstroke. Before, it was always... on/off, putt now, click, done. Now there's some subtety to it, like in the pitches. Speaking of which, I like the pitch stroke better in 2005 because it rolls a good length. This one rolls a foot and stops dead.
But, it's fun playing on some new courses, even though the tournament isn't exactly gradual in toughness. I played through, and won, the early tournaments and then the 4th or 5th one was the hardest course in the game, the Greek Isles. That was a bit jarring. But, I like the fact that you can take a 'guest' out on the tournament with you (one of your invented characters). Now it's not so lonely at the top.

This book gives, generally, the story of this band. Written by 2 rock journalists, it's written like a rock journal. Bits and pieces and snippets of information or interviews taken from some journal... like a rock skipping over a pond, no depth. I get the feeling that they never interviewed Angus or Malcolm once and that they just took everything in the book from rock journals. It feels like an 'unauthorized biography'. On the other hand, it's thorough and well-ordered. It would take years of library work to gather together all this material on my own. So, it tells the story of the Young brothers and their band... just don't expect any detail about anything.

Excellent game. I bought a used copy and it arrived in good shape and has played as consistently as possible in the ol' PS2, which is a buggy-sort of unit that locks up and freezes and shuts down every so often, through no fault of the golf game. Can't wait to get the PS3 unit soon.

Essentially, I was looking for a version of Psycho with a commentary, since I already have one with special features only. This one has a good commentary by Stephen Rebello who wrote a book on the making of Psycho, so he's got a lot to say. My totally biased opinion is that there wouldn't be a "Psycho" without Orson Welles "Touch of Evil", made a few years earlier. The beautiful black and white photography and the mixture of Janet Leigh as victim and a crazy "night-man" in a lonely, isolated motel. I believe Hitchcock saw this scene and Psycho grew out of that. This is, however, only my opinion. Mr. Rebello mentions "Touch of Evil" several times in his commentary but just doesn't go near the path I wanted him to take so it remains my own opinion, I suppose. Anyway, the special features on the second disc are good. The "making of Psycho" and "In the Master's Shadow" (interviews with contemporary directors influenced by Mr. H) are on my other DVD, but the Psycho installment of the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview is different from the other ones I have. They talk on the phone and mainly about Psycho.
If you don't have Psycho at all, this is the one. If you have one already, it's still worth it for the commentary. Also... beautiful, sturdy packaging. Overall - excellent.

Beautiful package! A treat for any hardcore Leone fan. And... it has flaws. Flaws that maybe lower it from 5 stars to 4.
Flaw 1: Why not either a package with all of Leone's films (he only directed 6, after his Swords and Sandals training films) or, at least, a package with all the westerns. I'm assuming they left "Once Upon a Time in the West" out because these 4 are all U.A. films and "Once Upon" is Paramount.
Flaw 2: Not having Christopher Frayling do the commentary for "Good, Bad and the Ugly". Whenever Richard Schickel has an insight that I never knew before he usually credits it to reading Frayling's books. He's pleasant, but this was a real missed opportunity. I know that Frayling wasn't available at the time to do the commentary but he actually offered to do an alternate one before they actually released this set and they refused his offer. No one knows Leone and the Italian film industry and the American western like Frayling.
Flaw 3: Minor flaw... inserting the 7 excised scenes from the Italian release back into "Good, Bad and the Ugly" and having Clint and Eli finally record their dubbing. They sound older and there's a difference in the voices... more reverb or something. These scenes make the film unwieldy and, in my opinion, they should have stayed in the Special Features, under Deleted Scenes and they still don't explain how Angeleyes ended up as a Sgt. running a Union Army POW camp.
That's it. That's all the flaws. Watching the Clint Trilogy and "Duck, You Sucker" and all the special features and commentaries was a pure joy. And, of course, I ordered "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Once Upon...America" separately to complete my own set. Now I just have to find a copy of "The Colossus of Rhodes" and I'll be happy.

I'm sure everybody's seen these movies. This is a great set, great picture, great sound, lots of commentaries on each of the 4 films. The best part of this set is just to watch the 2nd disc of each movie, back to back and see the whole "making-of" saga unfold. Ridley Scott's "Alien" seemed easy-to-make, compared to the struggles of Cameron and Fincher. Of course, Ridley always makes the 'near-impossible' seem easy. He's so well-prepared and has such great, inventive, pre-CGI ideas that save so much money and keep the studio happy. Yes, those are really his hands, inside those washing-up gloves, fluttering inside the plexiglas egg that Kane is about to stick his foolish face into.
Cameron's "Aliens" was a fight from day one. James is a perfectionist who knows everyone's job, on the set, and can do it better than them all. His movie sets would run smoothly if there were simply 100 Jimmy Camerons surrounding him. Cameron has a hard enough time with crews in America, but plunking him down into a typical British crew in Shepperton who have their tea break at 11 and a liquid lunch later on and stop for the day at 5... well, you can just imagine the conflicts. "Let the sackings begin!"
David Fincher's first film, the 'trial-by-fire', "Alien 3" was a fight between him and the studio all the way. This is a typical Hollywood story (like the story of Coppola and The Godfather). The clever studio hires the brilliant young director to basically do as he's told and save a bunch of money for them... but, the reason he's brilliant is that he has a definite artistic vision and he sees the project a certain way and he is extremely stubborn about doing it his way and not listening to the studio, no matter how many suits are standing around on the set watching him and wagging their fingers everytime he wants to take that one extra shot to get it just right. This 'making-of' was the most interesting of all of them because of what Fincher was up against coming into this film and the studio pulling the plug on him later and him washing his hands of the whole thing, once it was done. He's the only director who's missing from the extensive commentaries and interviews, which is a shame. But, at least, the 'director's cut' of the film has the restored beautiful exterior scenes which show how the doctor finds the barely-alive Ripley washed up on the shore.
Monsieur Jeunet's "Alien Resurrection" seemed to be a piece of cake for everyone involved. In his commentary he implied that he felt privileged to be shooting a huge Hollywood movie, he loves the 'Alien' series and he was there to give the studio what it wants. His attitude made for a smooth-running set. A lot of people dismiss "Alien 4" but I like his visual style. His D.P., Darius Khondji, brings that beautiful "City of Lost Children" look to this film. I even like most of his humor and sense of parody. I don't really like the ending or the new creature he came up with, but the story of the making-of this film is fascinating.
The Bonus 9th disc is one of those "let's amaze them by giving them 9 discs instead of just 8" sort of things. A truly archival disc containing a lot of written extras from the laser discs of the first 2 'Alien' films then just endless trailers from all of them. They did stick in some photos, drawings and video clips to break up the mountain of reading in the laser disc information, but it mostly seems like more work than it's worth.
On the whole, as a movie fanatic and collector, I'd say I'm happy with this set. After going through the whole thing I feel that I won't want to see another face-hugger or chest-burster for as long as I live... or at least not until next year when I go through the whole box again.