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DVDs, the Doctor, and Everything
Jan. 2nd, 2002 10:55 pmI headed down to Best Buy today to see if the new Buckaroo Banzai DVD was in. After all, The Fast and the Furious came out (officially) today; why shouldn't B.B.?
But as it turned out, Best Buy wouldn't be getting it until Friday. But as it happened, I still didn't leave empty-handed. I parted with about 2/3 of my Christmas gift cartificate money for some Dr. Who DVDs. I got the 3-disc Peter Cushing movie set, plus the special edition of The Five Doctors, which I'd always enjoyed. I'd not known Peter Cushing had ever played The Doctor; I'd hoped for something good, something I could take home and show Dad as an example of what an excellent show it was. I've watched the first one so far, and, well, once again not reading reviews before I buy comes around and bites me. It's not, well, bad, but it's not all that great either, even by Whovian standards. It was the first-ever color (or perhaps I should say "colour") Dr. Who of any sort, which probably explains its incredible popularity when it came out. Unfortunately, that's about all that explains its popularity; after the second movie tanked at the box office, they didn't make any more. The background was altered substantially--the Doctor was not a time-travelling alien from Gallifrey, but an eccentric old grandfatherly inventor who put together a time-and-space machine in his back yard. The story was rather childish (simplified, I understand, from a much more mature TV miniseries version), the TARDIS set looked nothing whatsoever like the hexagonal console we know and love from later years, and the Doctor (who is actually called "Doctor Who" in these versions, which rankles slightly) tottered around doing not much of anything save for acting grandfatherly.
Oh well. There's always eBay. And I have much better hopes for The Five Doctors, of which I'm listening to its soundtrack jukebox now. This was always one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, reuniting as it did five of the original doctors (and four of the original cast members, the first Doctor's actor having died a couple of years earlier) and sundry adventuring companions in a romp through the innards of Gallifrey that remains with me to this very day. I still remember when my brothers and I would get up on Sunday mornings and wait anxiously by the TV set, tuning in the public TV station from the Arkansas network to get our weekly dose of Doctor Who in movie form. We saw all or most of Baker, Davison...then Pertwee, then the still-existing Troughton episodes as the station bought up earlier seasons. But, alas, soon Dr. Who became too expensive for the feeble little public TV network to afford, and they stopped carrying the show altogether. And I've been deprived of my Doctor...until now.
I read, earlier, some good things about this DVD thanks to links from The Digital Bits. They've really gone to great lengths to restore and revitalize the ancient footage--even adding new effects and footage and remixing the sound for Dolby 5.1. There's commentary, various extras such as the music in jukebox form (it would have been a "separated score," but there was apparently so much silence musicwise in the body of the film that it would have been pointless to do it that way), and bios of the various actors. Anyway I look forward to viewing this one. Also, I've found that there seem to be a lot of episodes of Doctor Who downloadable via Morpheus, and I've been working on filling my hard drive a little there.
I decided that it would also befit me to catch up on some movies I had missed for one reason or another when they came through the theaters. Since I've got a DVD player now, I can do that with no guilt, right? I mean, no missing footage from lack of letterboxing, decent sound, good picture on my 19" monitor...so anyway, I rented Grosse Pointe Blank, Rush Hour 2, and Tomb Raider. Had to go all the way across town to the Kearny street Blockbuster to do it, as the one nearer by didn't have GPB. I just finished watching GPB, and found it quite funny--the dilemma of a professional hit man who returns to the small town where he grew up to attend his high school reunion. People ask him what he does, he replies, "I'm a hit man," and they're all, "Yeah, right." Hee hee hee. I'll probably watch Rush Hour 2 tomorrow after work, since it's due back Friday, then Tomb Raider on Friday perhaps.
Still haven't heard back from Aaron on what he thinks of my résumé. Hope he gets back to me soon.
But as it turned out, Best Buy wouldn't be getting it until Friday. But as it happened, I still didn't leave empty-handed. I parted with about 2/3 of my Christmas gift cartificate money for some Dr. Who DVDs. I got the 3-disc Peter Cushing movie set, plus the special edition of The Five Doctors, which I'd always enjoyed. I'd not known Peter Cushing had ever played The Doctor; I'd hoped for something good, something I could take home and show Dad as an example of what an excellent show it was. I've watched the first one so far, and, well, once again not reading reviews before I buy comes around and bites me. It's not, well, bad, but it's not all that great either, even by Whovian standards. It was the first-ever color (or perhaps I should say "colour") Dr. Who of any sort, which probably explains its incredible popularity when it came out. Unfortunately, that's about all that explains its popularity; after the second movie tanked at the box office, they didn't make any more. The background was altered substantially--the Doctor was not a time-travelling alien from Gallifrey, but an eccentric old grandfatherly inventor who put together a time-and-space machine in his back yard. The story was rather childish (simplified, I understand, from a much more mature TV miniseries version), the TARDIS set looked nothing whatsoever like the hexagonal console we know and love from later years, and the Doctor (who is actually called "Doctor Who" in these versions, which rankles slightly) tottered around doing not much of anything save for acting grandfatherly.
Oh well. There's always eBay. And I have much better hopes for The Five Doctors, of which I'm listening to its soundtrack jukebox now. This was always one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, reuniting as it did five of the original doctors (and four of the original cast members, the first Doctor's actor having died a couple of years earlier) and sundry adventuring companions in a romp through the innards of Gallifrey that remains with me to this very day. I still remember when my brothers and I would get up on Sunday mornings and wait anxiously by the TV set, tuning in the public TV station from the Arkansas network to get our weekly dose of Doctor Who in movie form. We saw all or most of Baker, Davison...then Pertwee, then the still-existing Troughton episodes as the station bought up earlier seasons. But, alas, soon Dr. Who became too expensive for the feeble little public TV network to afford, and they stopped carrying the show altogether. And I've been deprived of my Doctor...until now.
I read, earlier, some good things about this DVD thanks to links from The Digital Bits. They've really gone to great lengths to restore and revitalize the ancient footage--even adding new effects and footage and remixing the sound for Dolby 5.1. There's commentary, various extras such as the music in jukebox form (it would have been a "separated score," but there was apparently so much silence musicwise in the body of the film that it would have been pointless to do it that way), and bios of the various actors. Anyway I look forward to viewing this one. Also, I've found that there seem to be a lot of episodes of Doctor Who downloadable via Morpheus, and I've been working on filling my hard drive a little there.
I decided that it would also befit me to catch up on some movies I had missed for one reason or another when they came through the theaters. Since I've got a DVD player now, I can do that with no guilt, right? I mean, no missing footage from lack of letterboxing, decent sound, good picture on my 19" monitor...so anyway, I rented Grosse Pointe Blank, Rush Hour 2, and Tomb Raider. Had to go all the way across town to the Kearny street Blockbuster to do it, as the one nearer by didn't have GPB. I just finished watching GPB, and found it quite funny--the dilemma of a professional hit man who returns to the small town where he grew up to attend his high school reunion. People ask him what he does, he replies, "I'm a hit man," and they're all, "Yeah, right." Hee hee hee. I'll probably watch Rush Hour 2 tomorrow after work, since it's due back Friday, then Tomb Raider on Friday perhaps.
Still haven't heard back from Aaron on what he thinks of my résumé. Hope he gets back to me soon.