It was worth buying this Box Set for the menus alone. Each menu plays clips from the movies while framed by full-coloured blood dripping over the images in the best of HAMMER traditions!! . All this to the strains of Harry Robinson and David Whitaker's evocative music.
Countess Dracula and Vampire Circus contain the original trailers running at about 3 minutes each. For somebody who knows the films so well, seeing the Trailers gives a whole new perspective on the films.
The voice-over to the Countess Dracula Trailer is quite campy and calling the movie an "Important Historical Hammer Movie" is stretching it a bit far I think. Personally, I always thought it was a bit of good ole' frolicking fun with some nice heaving bosoms thrown in for good measure!!
All these 3 DVDs are at a snip for 15.99 pounds (Why doesn't the Pound sign work on Windows 98 by the way?)
All you Hammerheads out there, what are you waiting for?

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK Great isolated score from the genius John Williams

Pre-ordered ATTACK OF THE CLONES for next Monday

Gae
NP Theme from Dracula A.D. 1972 (Mike Vickers) It may have sod all to do with Dracula (unless he enjoys a JIVE from time to time) but its groovy 70's funk no less!!

I did buy...

2 for the price of one....

You Only Live Twice

and...

Yes, my friends, it is in my possession. I've already fashioned it onto a chain and I'm wearing it around my neck as we speak.

I've seen em Gae, it's just that they'll have to wait awhile until cash flow is better

Timmer, I know the feeling...

I have finished watching disc 1, and I love the added scenes (for the most part). I do see why they were cut from the theatrical release, but it's nice to have them back in.

The music Shore wrote for the "Midgewater Marches" is excellent.

AOTC
LOTR 4 disc
Spiderman
Monsters Inc.
Star Trek III Special Edition
Star Trek II Special Edition
Harry Potter
Beauty and the Beast
Sum of All Fears
Scooby Doo - my wife bought it, not me
Starship Troopers - Special Edition

And found these for great prices:

LOTR:FOTR 4 dvd's

SUPERSTARLET A.D. - from Troma... this was a great package that Troma put together for the film - which is a loose combination of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES meets BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Beautiful super women in undergarments hunt de-evolved Cavemen with machine guns in post-apocalypse Memphis. I realize how it sounds, but it's much better than you'd think. And, I'm a bit biased, since I actually got to work on the film - and all the stuff on the Director's Commentary is ALL TRUE.

The big event was obtaining a laserdisc player from work, which was being thrown out for some reason - it works perfectly, so I went out to start an LD collection:

MUSIC FOR THE MOVIES: BERNARD HERRMANN - have seen VHS copies for years and managed to snag this on LD ... currently looking for the other films in the series...

BARBARELLA

This movie for me is a C-. The car chases are, without a doubt, the best parts of the film (but why the Audi and old BMW? ) The rest of the movie fails to keep my attention. I think half of the characters were unnecessary along with 90% of the gun shots. Shoot 100 rounds first, ask questions later (or just forget the questions.) Couldn't we at least have had a little bit of background on these characters that we were watching?

Slight spoiler: The final car chase goes on too long. It was highly unrealistic, even for a movie. After that amount of time, at least one of them would have been wiped out. Poor motorists attempting to share the road endlessly wipe themselves out while the two invincible cars plow their way through.

My favorite car chases remain the Freightliner wrecker vs. dirtbike race in Terminator 2, the "Vienna" chase from Peacemaker, and the stuff in Bullitt. I might place the Ronin disc back in my player to watch the chases again, but it will be some time before I spend another 2 hours of my life watching the entire film.

The disc contains both full-frame and widescreen versions. I haven't bothered with the full screen version, but the widescreen side looks as if the encoder's sharpness setting was turned up one notch too high and presents some jagged edges at times. Not a bad job, though, for a two hour film on a single layer. The audio sounds nice and attacks from all sides, though I'm wondering if any of those engine sounds really came from the cars they were depicting.

For extras we have an alternate ending (totally useless) and a commentary by director Frankenheimer. I only listened to about five minutes of the commentary and got tired of listening to him say, "Ok, this is the set... and the real place... set... real... set... real... look at that cut to the set, wasn't that great?"

If you like car chases, this might be an alright movie to pick up for $10. If you're looking for a great action flick, this isn't it. Pick up the Ultimate Edition DVD to Terminator 2 instead.