My Latest Laserdisc Buys ......

just got the 8 LD set Beatles Anthology off of Yahoo Action Japan for a steal.

[Uncle Jay]

Finally snagged "World Gone Wild" on Laserdisc...a post-apocalyptic 80's gem with an awesome cast of Bruce Dern, Michael Pare, Catherine Mary Stewart and Adam Ant. I can finally rid of my VHS copy.

Not on DVD yet...but it just screams for a Blue Underground release, maybe Bill Lustig will answer.



-UJ

[rhett]

I still don't have a player and don't know if I ever will, but that didn't stop me from buying my first LDs over the weekend. Picked up a few films I really enjoy in one of those "ahh, what the hell moments":

The Thing
Alien
Risky Business
First Blood

I still do actively check out my pawn shops for them...one day I'll pick one up on the cheap and see what all this old school fuss is about!

[Dave]

I hope that was The Thing Signature Edition w/special features. Probably not!

As for the fuss, for someone (you) that went VHS-DVD-Blu-ray, you will be disappointed. Remember that LD is only a small step above VHS...

[Paff]

Originally Posted by Dave

I hope that was The Thing Signature Edition w/special features. Probably not!

Same with Alien!

So did nobody get any discs for Christmas?

I went to the electronics area of Osaka during the winter break and was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of stores that had a few hundred second hand LD's for sale all at $3 each. Picked up about 30 odd including They Live, Dark City, Casper DTS and Jaws: special collection.

Didn't get any discs, but I did give some away as gifts.

Gave my Mom and Stepdad the double feature disc set of George Pal's Atlantis: The Lost Continent/The Power (the former she's been trying to get see for a while since it's not on R1 DVD) as well as some other old movies (like Tom Jones and The Philadelphia Story) on LD that I picked up cheap.

Gave my brother an LD of the 80s/90s rock band Living Colour as he's been listening to that band a lot lately.

(oh yeah, and I gave them all LD players couple years back.)

I guess I got myself It Came From Hollywood. Been searching for that title for-freakin-ever!

[SaxCatz]

Originally Posted by Dave

As for the fuss, for someone (you) that went VHS-DVD-Blu-ray, you will be disappointed. Remember that LD is only a small step above VHS...

If LD is "only a small step above VHS" then Blu-Ray must only be a micro-step above DVD.

[SaxCatz]

Last weekend, I picked up Time Bandits and Bride of Reanimator for a grand total of $5.
Time Bandits isn't appropriate to the forum, so I won't discuss it here.
---
Bride of Reanimator is a fun flick. In typical sequel fashion, it is utterly inferior to the original; it is, however, definitely a good helping of good ol' fashion fun with a more modern dash of gore. There are also at least two instances of reasonably good stop-motion (such as the eyeball-finger creature) that I definitely appreciate (I still prefer good stop-motion to all but the absolute best CGI.) In contrast to the decent gore and stop-motion effect, there are also some truly poor green screen effect (bat wings on a flying severed head???) that are laughable at best.
The transfer is god awful. Obviously from a VHS master, detail is lacking, the image is noisy, and often the black-levels often TOO deep to the point of being oppressive and making it difficult to follow the action on screen. IMDB notes that this is a pan and scan transfer- it may be, I don't have a widescreen DVD for comparison- but judging from the framing, it seems possible that this is actually an open matte transfer. I have high expectation for an Image Entertainment horror release from 1991, but this disc is very poor. This is one of the worst discs in my collection- with only the color depth being an improvement over my DiscoVision-era Dirty Harry release (nothing can be worse than my defective MGM pressing of 2010 with its Side B being completely by crosstalk more than 1/3 the image height.)
Despite my reservations, I do not own this title on DVD and, as such, feel it was well worth my $2.

JAWS:Signature Collection-finally picked this one up after bidding on numerous copies of it over the past few months. At one point, I was bidding up to $45 (which would have been $57 after the S&H) on one unopened set, but that didn't end up meeting the seller's reserve. I picked this one up near-mint (with the novel, soundtrack cd, and the FULL documentary) for $28 shipped..

Bought a 'lucky dip' box of about 150 LDs for $150 off of Yahoo Auction.
Some of the Highlights include:

Evil Dead 2 with the blood red disc
The Thing Signature Collection
Night of the living dead 25th anniversary edition
the Howling collector's edition
Flesh for Frankenstein criterion
From Dusk till Dawn director's edition
The Keep
Natural Born Killers PSE

It also had quite a few other horrors in there
Vampire Journals
Castle Freak
Meridian: Kiss of the Beast
Lifeforce
Shrunken Heads
Carnosaur
Xtro
Doctor Mordrid: Master of the Unknown
Pit and the Pendulum
Basket Case
the Dark Half

[SaxCatz]

Originally Posted by bullruckle

Bought a 'lucky dip' box of about 150 LDs for $150 off of Yahoo Auction.
Some of the Highlights include:

...
The Keep

Lucky dip indeed! That one disc goes for more than half of what you paid for all 150 disc!

[SaxCatz]

"The Mutilator" (1985) for $2.
Someone's loss is my gain.

[Uncle Jay]

Spent $40, but I finally snagged a Japan Import of an 80's gem called "Night Force," with Linda Blair and the legendary Richard Lynch!



-UJ

[Dave]

Originally Posted by SaxCatz

If LD is "only a small step above VHS" then Blu-Ray must only be a micro-step above DVD.

How so?

VHS = 250 lines of resolution.
LD = 425.
DVD = 480.
Blu-Ray = 1080.

Blu-Ray has greater storage capacity and countless other advantages over DVD.

LD has greater resolution and multiple audio channels, but otherwise that was about it when comparing it against VHS.