The Spirited 11th Hour ...

[Mike S]

Saw Deadpool. Thank god for fan service as I enjoyed my servicing.

Its really, really funny and doesnt take itself seriously.

Stay thru the credits.

Edit: Thank god Disney had nothing to do with this film.

Edit 2: Stan Lee's Cameo is very appropriate.

It has to be one of the better movies i have seen in the past year. The credits (and after) was the icing on top.

I know what movie I'm seeing this weekend Thought of going to Hail, Caesar! because it's the same guys who did Big Lebowski.

 

[Andrew C]

I know what movie I'm seeing this weekend

The Choice?

 

[Mike S]

The Choice?

 

[PhotoDave219]

I know what movie I'm seeing this weekend Thought of going to Hail, Caesar! because it's the same guys who did Big Lebowski.

I wanna see Hail, Caesar! but that might have to wait for DVD

 

[Quinnmac000]

I know what movie I'm seeing this weekend Thought of going to Hail, Caesar! because it's the same guys who did Big Lebowski.

Both are good but I personally thought Deadpool was a much better film.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

It has to be one of the better movies i have seen in the past year. The credits (and after) was the icing on top.

Highlight of my week. So much more refreshing that the MCU.

Really? I was really looking forward to it but thought it was way over-the-top sophomoric. The vulgarity for vulgarity's sake was more unnecessary than half of the sex scenes in Game of Thrones.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Really? I was really looking forward to it but thought it was way over-the-top sophomoric. The vulgarity for vulgarity's sake was more unnecessary than half of the sex scenes in Game of Thrones.

Ok.

 

[VJ]

In fact, there aren't any HD titles devoted to the short films; add to this, the DVD releases of the short films have gone out of print in most cases. The treasure trove of True Life Adventures hasn't been released in HD (I believe some may be available to stream), and many of the better live action films have been passed over. (How has 20,000 Leagues not gotten a Blu-ray release while we're on round two of some animated movies?)

Sorta related, sorta not, but this paragraph jogged my memory about something. Disney put up select episodes of Disneyland and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (with some in HD for the first time ever) on services such as Amazon and iTunes recently but here's the caveat: they're only for rent. Makes me wonder if it's just testing the waters for a more comprehensive release down the line a la Walt Disney Treasures but this time on Blu-ray. I sure hope so!

Disney's been teasing us with HD clips of classic Disney TV episodes for about the past year or so, as well as showing newly HD-remastered prints of episodes at the Passholder-only Wednesdays with Walt events at Disneyland when they were going on. It just makes me sad that they aren't choosing to let anyone buy these episodes as of yet.

 

[flynnibus]

As for consumer products, that's what I've been involved in for nearly two decades and their consumer products division virtually produces nothing and oversees the largest licensing arm in the world. It prints money and they basically don't produce directly (rather indirectly through third party manufacturers as the vast majority of us in the business do) other than some lines of products at the Disney Store, theme parks merchandise, and some video games.

But so have companies like Hasbro.. reducing what they actually produce themselves and become more and more 'producers' as in the 'organizers, funders' and less about production itself. If their main value is brands and rights... why buy all the baggage of the old toy company and instead just focus on finding and buying the next MLP or Transformers?

 

[flynnibus]

I do want to add, that I agree with Share Buybacks after an acquisition that may have put record numbers of shares out into the market. However, I do not agree with buybacks that occur when your stock is near or at it's lifetime peak to appease financial journalists or wall street analysts who want to trigger artificial price increases.

I think DIS was fair in doing some buybacks after the Lucasfilm purchase, but that should not have continued as the stock was speculated up into the 100's.

If you want to rebalance in that way... don't issue the stock in the first place. Why pay twice for the same thing?

Maybe if companies didn't pump out new shares like crazy and actually sold shares or redistributed vs new issuing non-stop... they wouldn't need to constantly spend billions to buy back stock.

 

[TalkingHead]

I suspect much of this is going to be loaded into some version of Disney Movies Anywhere or the future DisneyLife OTT subscription service. I don't personally agree with that approach, but I could see them loading this video content there and only doing bare bones blu-ray releases in the near future. I've become less of a fan of the Warner Archive collection since many (not all) of those releases are really poor quality transfers. I mean you can get better copies of old materials from a torrent than from their archives.

I loathe the idea of the subscription service, but I could see that being the route they go. Speaking of, does anyone know the specifics of the Disney-Netflix agreement? A lot of older Disney movies have disappeared from Netflix in recent months. I understand the concept of cycling titles, but it feels like the Disney material on Netflix continues to diminish.

Not to go too far off topic, but Warner Archive has done a nice job with the HD transfers of their 30s-40s B/W titles. I can't vouch for their DVDs, but those Blu-rays have looked good.

And -- to bring it back to Disney -- most of the animated films look good-to-great on Blu-ray (as long as you don't want to see film grain -- for animated films, I can see the argument for and against it). It's just the limited amount of material that gets released which bugs me.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

This isn't about ESPN or the fiduciary metaphysics of stock buybacks, but I'll put this movie rant here anyway.

As frustrating as I find WDW management to be, I think I'm even more mystified by Disney's Home Entertainment decisions.

We're all familiar with the "Disney Vault" conceit (limited time releases, drive up demand, hype, etc.). What I don't understand is how specific decisions are made about these releases.

Take for example, the Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray -- first released in 2008 and then allowed to go out of print before being re-released in 2014.

Note that both releases have the same picture and audio quality: for English speakers, there's nothing new from 2008 and 2014 with the actual feature film.

What is missing from 2014's Blu-ray are some of the supplemental features from the 2008 version, namely some segments discussing and visualizing the Sleeping Beauty Castle walkthrough at DL and, more importantly, the (Academy Award-winning) short film Grand Canyon that was released in theaters with Sleeping Beauty during its initial run.

The only way to get the short film is to buy the older, out-of-print Blu-ray (which, incidentally, is often cheaper than the new release with lesser features).

The same thing has happened with the recent Blu-ray re-release of Snow White. Same picture and audio as the older release.

But -- absent from the newer release -- the original Blu-ray had an extensive feature on Hyperion Studios including HD versions of Steamboat Willie and several Silly Symphony cartoons like The Skeleton Dance, Flowers and Trees, Music Land, and The Old Mill. I'm fairly certain none of these is included on the recent release.

In fact, there aren't any HD titles devoted to the short films; add to this, the DVD releases of the short films have gone out of print in most cases. The treasure trove of True Life Adventures hasn't been released in HD (I believe some may be available to stream), and many of the better live action films have been passed over. (How has 20,000 Leagues not gotten a Blu-ray release while we're on round two of some animated movies?)

I realize that the market for some these releases is smaller than the market for some of the full-length animated titles. But why hasn't Disney adopted an approach like Warner Archive which makes lesser-known titles available for a premium price? I thought premium prices got Mickey all hot and bothered. What gives?

TL;DR: In the last several years, Disney's handling of its older films has actually gotten worse, if that's possible.

I've been saying the same things for years. The issues with bonus content go back to the laserdisc releases of certain titles and how that material never found its way to DVD, let alone Blu-ray. There's even more content found on the 2003 DVD release of Sleeping Beauty not found on either Blu-ray release. When you compound this problem with lazy packaging (no inserts, disc art etc), it makes paying that often premium price (compared with other Blu-ray releases) not very convincing. As someone who owns both the 2001 DVD and 2009 Blu-ray release of Snow White, there was no way for me to justify buying the new disc.

It appears that Disney Movie Club will be the equivalent of Warner Archive, where older titles like Escape to With Mountian and Blackbeard's Ghost get put to Blu-ray. The picture quality of these discs are quite good (sometimes shockingly so, given their previous poor DVD transfers), but once again, no bonus content - either new or carried over.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Just to tie in the conversations of DVD bonus features and ESPN, that featurette made for Cinderella's 2005 DVD may be the biggest piece of BS ever put out by home entertainment. What a shameless and irrelevent bit of synergy that was. Glad it got dropped from the 2012 re-release.

 

[VJ]

Looks like Willow started a trend.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ars-Phantom-Menace-skirt-dines-Manhattan.html

 

[Mike S]

Looks like Willow started a trend.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ars-Phantom-Menace-skirt-dines-Manhattan.html

Of all the things Star Wars one could wear, she chose that?

 

[Cesar R M]

Yep, the Warcraft animation looked awful... all-CGI characters can be done well; see Avatar and I'd also argue John Carter, but this looks terribly unpolished.

<edit> there are better places to be talking about this kind of stuff.

I hope they fix that, because the teaser trailer looked really bad.
Lets not to forget that Blizzard entertainment is well known to have some of of the best cinematic sequences in their games.
pulling a carp movie will seriously undermine their reputation.

 

[Cesar R M]

Saw Deadpool. Thank god for fan service as I enjoyed my servicing.

Its really, really funny and doesnt take itself seriously.

Stay thru the credits.

Edit: Thank god Disney had nothing to do with this film.

Edit 2: Stan Lee's Cameo is very appropriate.

it finally reached my cinema. Will see it on sunday.

Darn you dave, I now have high expectations!

specially after being crushed badly by Ryan Reynolds horrible written characters in both xmen and green lantern. even if reynolds himself wasnt the culprit.

 

[Cesar R M]

That won't happen for awhile. So many issues with wireless networks, you may get speed, but not consistency and interference issues are only going to get worse.

Agree, not to mention the gaming segment will still stay with fiber optic or cable.
Latency is a huge thing in most games.

 

[Cesar R M]

Highlight of my week. So much more refreshing that the MCU.

as fresh as guardians of the galaxy vs the rest of MCU?

 

[Cesar R M]

Looks like Willow started a trend.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ars-Phantom-Menace-skirt-dines-Manhattan.html

I.. hu... I dont understand her whole package.
face and head, looks like she was going to a luxury dinner restaurant. Chest to tummy, she looks like she was going to sleep or a rapping contest. Tummy to feet.. like she was going to a starwars convention.