'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[Maltic]

I came across the top-rated review on amazon.co.uk for War of the Worlds (2005) bluray edition [2010], one of the better releases from the early days of the format... lots of grain and diffused light

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 star film, no star blu ray transfer(sadly)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 October 2016
Verified Purchase
Just to be clear. The 5 stars are for this film. I love it and despite reading quite a number of bad reviews for the blu ray version I figured that the larger percentage of people thought it was better. So I decided to try the blue ray. Be warned. The transfer to blu ray is dreadful! Grainy as people have commented previously, not so much the interior shots, but awful with the exterior shots. I do not believe in anyway that the film was "meant to be grainy". I have a dvd copy and the picture quality is sharp, colourful and pristine!!
...
Of course people will always draw their own conclusions and people,s perceptions are as varied and different as the universe is endless. But for what its worth it is a dreadful transfer to blu ray. I plan to upgrade to blu ray on Lord Of The Rings, Hobbit, Harry Potter, King Kong 2005, Volcano, Independance Day, etc, but will be far more cautious. The Back To The Future trilogy on blu ray is a prime example of how it should be done and can be done. Now that kind of quality on War Of The Worlds would have been amazing!!:)

They had DNR'd the hell out of BTTF when they were released in 2010 (this has been rectified for the recent 4k release, as I understand).

Maybe reviews of this kind have been posted before. I'm new here, bear with me. And, of course, apologies to the pro-waxers out there...

[tenia]

Here's a hint: the writer had 'Tesla: Five Man London Jam; as the 8th best Blu-ray release of the year.

Considering the amount of stuff he reviewed in 2020, his best of is one of the most bonkers I've read in years, especially his 4K one. He's also the guy who doesn't only have 1 top 10 but actually has 3, including one that goes up to 11.

I came across the top-rated review on amazon.co.uk for War of the Worlds (2005) bluray edition [2010], one of the better releases from the early days of the format... lots of grain and diffused light. They had DNR'd the hell out of BTTF when they were released in 2010 (this has been rectified for the recent 4k release, as I understand).
Maybe reviews of this kind have been posted before. I'm new here, bear with me. And, of course, apologies to the pro-waxers out there...

This kind of Amazon reviews are litterally why I started writing my own reviews. They clearly originate from people who are putting Amazon reviews just because they have access to it, not because their knowledge has any added value to the reader. I've recently read an Amazon review of the Arrow release of The Last Starfighter that despite giving 4 stars claims the awfully electronic-looking Universal release is "the noticeably better looking edition". Why ? Because the Arrow release has "a lot of video artifacting, a whitish speckling particularly on lighter background colors and that was most noticeable when the movie is paused on a light background."
Meaning this guy is mixing film grain up with "artifacting" or something he views as being a defect, ie he has no clue at all of the utmost basic thing of what he's writing about. Yet, he does write about it.

[Big Ben]

I grew up watching this every Easter and now that I can't turn on a tv without seeing some form of degeneracy (((Thank You Obama))) I can watch this dvd without having to see the shame of my species.

Yikes.

[Red Screamer]

A GOOD MUSICAL BUT BIT SLOW DISC ID GOOD SOUND GOOD PRINT GOOD BUT NOT TO GOOD FOR STORY . SONGS NOT TO BAD IN PARTS

[Michael Kerpan]

> BUT BIT SLOW DISC ID

I wonder what THIS means -- and what musical this might be.

[domino harvey]

Typo, they meant “Disc is good”

[Boosmahn]

One Blu-ray.com user's thoughts on Soul, posted on the announcement for the 4K Blu-ray:

Get Out without self awareness.

Their comment is at a 20% rating. When I first saw it 30 minutes ago, it was at 0%!

[cdnchris]

I can't do any of the mental gymnastics required for that statement to make even a fraction of sense.

[furbicide]

I grew up watching this every Easter and now that I can't turn on a tv without seeing some form of degeneracy (((Thank You Obama))) I can watch this dvd without having to see the shame of my species.

Yikes.

Let me guess ... Pink Flamingos?

[Big Ben]

I grew up watching this every Easter and now that I can't turn on a tv without seeing some form of degeneracy (((Thank You Obama))) I can watch this dvd without having to see the shame of my species.

Yikes.

Let me guess ... Pink Flamingos?

Close. The Ten Commandments.

[furbicide]

Ah yes, who could forget these words inscribed upon the tablets from the mount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTOWIMJkKpc

[Red Screamer]

Joyce wrote “Ulysses” in the form of a movie and that's probably why so many people, including Joyce himself, thought it should be made into one.

[ex-cowboy]

Just found this on imdb:

"Sad film
But the story is nonsense and quite sterile

The saving grace is the hot call girl whose legs, hair and waist make her worth a million bucks. This is a foreign film but available on DVD which my friends owns"

[domino harvey]

“Foreign film with a prostitute“ is the least helpful differentiating factor ever!

[bottled spider]

Not an amusing example, but a perplexing one: I just bought Hilary Hahn's recordings of Schoenberg's & Sibelius' violin concertos, and the blurb on the back of the CD has the strangest pull-quote:

... The Daily Telegraph cheered, "This is as good as it gets!... Hahn didn't merely play the notes, she passionately engaged with them."

It might be an accomplishment for a student to merely play the notes without errors, but the bare minimum one expects of even a semi-professional is that they engage with the music, not just play it correctly. Talk about damning with faint praise. But that's what they selected for the CD cover. And isn't The Daily Telegraph a tabloid anyway? Or am I mixing up publications?

[furbicide]

Depends which one you mean! The Australian Daily Telegraph is a Murdoch-run tabloid (about on par with The Daily Mail in terms of ethics and journalistic rigour) but the UK one is a broadsheet, and I suppose relatively respectable as far as right-wing newspapers go.

[ex-cowboy]

“Foreign film with a prostitute“ is the least helpful differentiating factor ever!

Apologies, it was for Like Someone in Love

[Swift]

A letterboxd review to make you feel old -

I think maybe older people enjoyed this one more from living at a time when this standard of production was commonplace, but being someone who grew up with the mcu and the star wars sequels and star trek films I expect big blockbuster films to look good. and this does not look good.

SpoilerShow

X-Men (2000)

[Never Cursed]

It's interesting to see how even someone as young as that reviewer (going by what they are saying, even younger than myself) perceives a difference between the standard mode of 90s-2000s blockbuster filmmaking and the scaled-up, hyperbolized version of that that is the Disney monolith

[Dylan]

Maybe this has been posted here before, but I found myself looking at the Yelp page for Columbia Pictures today and the only review of the studio on there (from late 2018) is a real doozy.

Some isolated quotes:

"the widescreen dvd format you crammed down the american consumer is from hell - where did you come up with such a stupid idea ???? !!!!!"

"talked to a large dvd distributor & he said they do not make full screen dvd "s anymore - why the hell not ! you ruined my day"

"i paid top dollar to watch ghost rider 3 times @ the movies ! the you have the nerve to sell this crappy widesreen version ! the head librarian who buys thousands of dvds a year said she will never buy a widesreen dvd again - they are worthless !!!!!! i smell a class action lawsuit"

[Big Ben]

The optimist in me wants to believe that's just clever satire. The pessimist tells me that yes there is absolutely someone this angry at the lack of a Fullscreen DVD of Ghost Rider.

[MichaelB]

I particularly like the way that he posted his name and address in the deluded expectation that he’d be sent a fullscreen replacement that most likely doesn’t exist.

[knives]

This one just seems weird to me for the film it is about.

got ducking gnarly had to turn it off

SpoilerShow

Circle of Deceit staring Bruno Ganz