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Target has gone overboard with Steelbooks, and most all of them are terrible (figures, they go from being a unique idea - to just a way for the studios to endlessly repackage and get people to buy the same shit over and over). Anyway, Anchor Bay didn't quite understand the concept:

Weird on many levels.
Especially how the title becomes Bogart In A Lonely Place

The second coming looks like a pretty laid-back affair.

If that banner translates to what I think then that couldn't be any further from the truth (I actually saw that in the theater, too).

It means Tom Selleck is fiiiiiiiine

I can see their synopsis of this film as:
"After Higgins' death at the hands of Godzilla in the Hawaii disaster of '87, Magnum goes undercover to Japan as a professional baseball player looking for revenge and... love"

Selleck is six feet four, so by that scale the Japanese ballplayer next to him is four feet tall, tops. Wacky!

I just rewatched the film about a week ago. It's still fun, but no masterpiece, and features one of Jerry Goldsmith's worst scores ever....

Maybe somewhat unfair since this appears to be some sort of soft-core material.
But the title sucks, and the colors and girls hardly appealing.
Shoddy Japanese dvd covers seems to go out of their way to look shoddy.

I was curious enough to watch the trailer. They finish it up with a very "erotic" shot of the main star bashing a guy's head in with a huge, cartoonish mallet.

I'd much rather watch that than finish out that Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack I foolishly bought recently out of sheer curiosity. And the cover of that one's pretty bad too:


Wait, I'm Deanna Durbin?! Gaaah!

dx23 wrote:

In defense of The Phantom of the Opera, at least they used the original poster artwork.

Cheeky!

Will someone tell William Hurt to get his legs out of the way, I'm trying to watch TV here!

mfunk9786 wrote:

After seeing the film today I can only assume she's staring off into her own navel.

I guess the awful title inspires equally bad covers:

&

Sheesh.

I find that putting critic ratings (star form or not) is perhaps the worst/ugliest decision any company can do with a homevideo cover. I know they want to sell it to a certain audience, and some might pick it up, thinking "wow, like 10 critics gave it at least a 4/5" (though do all of those critics actually use that rating scale?) - but it is so painfully tacky and I doubt anyone, after having purchased it, would ever be happy with the way it looks (I suppose you could show if off to a reluctant friend, saying something like "look at all them stars it got"). I guess the idea is that "well, we save all of you the trouble of looking up the critical reviews before purchasing, by shoving them in your face with a ton of stupid stars." I guess I'd rate pull-quotes on the cover as a very slight improvement over stars (and one of those fake Cannes awards banners about equal). Just come up with something creative, leave the critical BS on the back of the cover (or on a sticker / slipcover) and let the movie sell itself.

All of that said, with the rest of the cover looking that awful, I doubt the stars would help any blind purchase.