Monday, May 17, 2010

Review of an unnamed DVD

Tuesday night, new releases. Seemed like a good night to hit the old video queue. I picked up a couple of movies (the identities of which have been hidden to protect the innocent) and headed home. Got things ready to go and sat down all comfy like. The movie in the machine was whirling about and I almost started it. Almost, because there was an old episode of The Office playing that I hadn't seen. So I figured, what's thirty minutes going to hurt?

So I watched the office, oblivious to the waste of a disc that spun merrily in the machine. When the show ended I clicked it over to the appropriate channel to watch the movie, only to find it had already started. Great, I thought. One of those stupid automatic starting discs. A hassle to be sure, but common enough of an issue to not truly get upset about. I simply clicked to the menu to restart.

Menu: Play movie.

Simple enough, except that the machine put it right back to where it was when I clicked menu. I somehow always manage to forget this fact. Back to menu I went. The obvious thing was to go to the chapters and start it again through there.

Menu: ...Erm?

No chapters. What the heck? I ran over the options again. Yup, just two choices, and chapters wasn't one of them. What kind of a DVD doesn't have chapters? Since the dawn of of the format every cheap .99 cent bin disc has had chapters. This was a major release I was trying to watch. Simply ridiculous. The only thing for me to do was to take out the disc and turn it off and on. My player has a memory feature so this is the only way to restart it.

The DVD kicked back in playing the previews. Sometimes I like to watch the trailers, but I was pretty frustrated by that point. I clicked the menu button. Denied. The DVD wants you to see Clint Eastwood's greatest hits collection. The fast forward only worked to an extent. Go too fast and once it hits the end of the preview it starts over. So I slowly made my way, fast forwarding and stopping to let it play towards the end of each preview. I began to hate Clint Eastwood. Seeing his grand collection just reminded me how average and boring of a director he is. Should have stuck to being a bad ass with a monkey. That was your true calling.

An hour and thirty-two minutes later (five minutes) I've made it through to the menu.

Menu: Play FRICKIN' MOVIE!

And it did.

It's worth noting that I rather love the movie. An enjoyable action blast. Pity the DVD was so dreadful. I don't want to scare people off from buying it, because the movie is worth it, and undoubtedly the version I rented was a stripped down version of what you can buy. So I won't speak the name of the movie here. I will simply refer to it by the first name of the lead character.

Next time Sherlock, take a little more time on the way the film is presented. Thank you.

The movie: Awesomeness out of Suh-weet!
The actual DVD itself: 11 out 11 hells.

12 comments:

  1. I hate it when the 'fast forward through the previews rejected' thing happens.

    AAARRGGGHHH!

    Those self starting DVDs do have there place in this world though...ever sit through 20 minutes of potty time with Elmo previews just to get to the 'play movie' button so your girl can watch her ABC's?
    I much prefer to put in the disc and walk away.

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  2. I recently had the same sort of experience. It rocked my world. Betty no like.

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  3. The worst thing about being forced to sit through the trailers on a disc is that they say things like "Coming July 2007" or "This Christmas" which is no good at all when you're rewatching the movie in 2014.

    I don't mind not skipping the copyright and FBI warnings, but all trailers and the piracy crap should always be skippable.

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  4. I work at a video rental store and I have an explanation for why your DVD did that!!! A lot of the times, video rental places get in "For Rent Only" copies of movies. These copies don't have the special features or anything cool on the menu. They also make you sit through all of the previews. So that was probably what situation you were in.

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  5. Guano, I know, I hate those stupid piracy ads. Ever see The It Crowd? They had the funniest spoof of those on the show.

    Abbie, I figured it was something like that. It was just very irritating. I mean seriously, even a stripped down version should at least have chapters.

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  6. God I hate that about movies! Why can't they just let you skip all the crap and get right to the movie. And no chapters? That is just horribly lame.

    Glad to hear it was a kick ass movie though!

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  7. ooo I hate that memory feature on the DVD player. Sometimes I have to put another DVD in there to confuse it b4 I put the one I want to watch in it.

    Was the movie you watched Kazaam?

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  8. I heard Robert Jr. was pretty kick ass in this nameless feature.

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  9. Oooh....I hate when that happens.

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  10. This nameless movie was probably my favorite of the year. (Didn't see Avatar. Or even most other films for that matter.) And TS, I bought the film and it did the same thing. No wait, sorry, I rented it, but it still did the same thing. Actually, I don't remember if it did or not. That was a while ago. But I can tell you this: That's exactly how it went in the theater. No fast forwarding previews. The movie started without my permission. And what's worse, I had no volume control. So I feel your pain.

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  11. I have only encountered this on a few rare occassions, but each one is more annoying than the last

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  12. I have to watch the previews.... I don't know why.... It's just a habit that I can't break.... lol.... I don't mind Clint that much....

    The piracy ads are bad.... But what kills me are the anti smoking ads.... Grab a can of 'Splode! Such a bad commercial.... I want to smoke just to spite the commercial....

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