MovieChat Forums > Irreconcilable Differences (1984) Discussion > DVD FINALLY AVAILABLE? WHAT A JOKE.

DVD FINALLY AVAILABLE? WHAT A JOKE.

posted 16 years ago by joelovesbabs
6 replies | jump to latest

Well, LIONSGATE literally dumped this movie on DVD, in a lousy group of movies called THE LOST COLLECTION, which this movie deserves much better than to be grouped with stinky turd turkeys like REPOSSESSED, MORGAN STEWART'S COMING HOME and HOMER & EDDIE.

The transfer looks like all they did was take a VHS copy and moved it to the DVD format. WHAT A DISGRACE. The quality is horrible; grainy, shaky and dark like the VHS tape. LIONSGATE even included a restricted preview of MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D on the DVD of a PG-13 movie, to make it more insulting.

A truly unsung film of 1984, and with the advantages of DVD we all expected more than this lousy FULL FRAME edition with a laughable trivia track that was copied from Wikipedia or the IMDB. It goes to show that it does not matter how good the DVD format is if you are not going to pay attention to what you are putting into it.

THIS MAKES ME SO MAD, SO MANY OTHER WORSE FILMS GET A BETTER TREATMENT, AND LIONSGATE DOES GOOD BY ITS CATALOG RELEASES, BUT THIS RELEASE IS AN INSULT.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL

[–] CineSight 16 years ago

I have to agree. Lionsgate did a totally lousy job here.

First thing you get when you put in this disc is a noisy, gory hard-sell for a series of horror films. Then another for a monster movie in which they make a point of saying the movie was remastered to its theatrical widescreen format. These previews are in very good picture quality...

Next comes cheesy menus more appropriate for a disco movie. Lazy authoring on the Scene Selection, requiring you to go from page to page manually rather than linking them all together in sequence.

Press Play and yeah, it looks exactly like a OLD copy of a badly mastered PAN AND SCAN VHS!

I think the folks at Lionsgate are absolute MORONS for throwing out this this deliberately crappy product. Clearly the old principle that "Anything worth doing is worth doing well" is totally lost on these people. What must they be thinking to release a product that is obsolete before it even comes out?

What on earth makes them list "FULL SCREEN" as a FEATURE? Screens are not square anymore. For many people who play this disc, it will NOT be full screen. Had they done a competent, fresh transfer this movie, in its original aspect ratio of 1.85, it would have filled today's newer screens, and not have been letterboxed any worse on older TVs than many current TV shows are.

NO EXCUSE for releasing such a shoddy product. I have better discs that cost $5 or less from no-name companies.

[–] cwy2009 15 years ago

The video quality is terrible, but I've seen worse. And I agree they used the same source for the VHS to make this DVD, and that explains the non-widescreen look. At least they put in subtitles, and I'm thankful for that because the audio isn't great either.

[–] MysteryinNH 14 years ago

I just got this DVD yesterday, and I too agree. WHAT A JOKE. This DVD is a complete insult. The beginning part of the movie when they are in Bink's car is so dark you can't even see it. PATHETIC. I've always liked this movie and I was really looking forward to getting it, but this is just trash.

[–] RTheManF89 12 years ago

You guys can relax now as Olive Films is now set to release a new DVD and Blu-Ray this February.

DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00AKGG6Z2

Blu-Ray:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00AKGG7F6

Oh, and on a side note, a message to the OP: Repossessed is a classic. :)

http://raremoviesftw.blogspot.com/

[–] sixpackrt 12 years ago

I have loved this movie since I was young and never bought the DVD as I had heard that it stunk. Lion's Gate can be real a holes. They do alot of dismissive releases. Another bad one was Hector Babenco's Ironweed. I'm SO glad I checked here or else I wouldn't have seen about the Olive release. SOLD, dude. Awesome. God bless 'em. One thing that I appreciated about this film as a kid was that while it looked like a Drew Barrymore vehicle it was actually more about the parent's marriage. I heard somewhere (maybe here) that it was based on Peter Bogdonavich when he left his wife for Cybil. Great film though. Looks as if I can retire my old Vestron VHS finally! Yes!

"I've seen things in this city that make Dante's Inferno read like Winnie The Pooh."

[–] Moviemadness2012 12 years ago

On the minus side, the Olive Films DVD and Blu-ray do not have any subtitles, which even the Lionsgate DVD has.