House on Haunted Hill
I watched this classic Vincent Price movie tonight. I just got the DVD in the mail. It's a special early release of the soon-to-be released DVD with running commentary by Mike Nelson of MST3k. The "special" means it was autographed by him and features a different cover and insert. I also have the late 1930's anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness and Night of the Living Dead (1968) featuring Mike Nelson commentaries, as well. There's also the Legend Films release of Carnival of Souls, but I haven't seen that one. It should also be pointed out the movies mentioned above have all been colorized. But the original B&W transfers are also included so we can all still enjoy the subtle nuances in the cinematography of Reefer Madness. As for this movie, it's roughly 435 times better than the 1999 remake with the endlessly annoying Chris Kattan. He's about one notch away from being as deadly as Adam Sandler. I wonder if their tenures on SNL ever overlapped. If so, I'd be surprised if any skit in which they both appeared didn't end prematurely due to the stage suddenly collapsing under the weight of their combined wretchedness. Between Sandler's grating 'baby-talk' and Kattan's super-fey gallivanting and his little femmy dance routine, the cameras would probably overheat and explode or something. I'm still surprised the combination of either of those two and Rob Schneider never had a similar effect. And don't even try to defend Sandler by saying "oh, but Punch Drunk Love was pretty good." I doubt it. I've seen Little Nicky, and I have the deep emotional scars to prove it.
posted by Clint at Thursday, August 04, 2005
7 Comments:
I hate, hate, hate the idea of colorizing anything, but I guess the fact that the black and white transfers are on there is comforting. Besides, House on Haunted Hill should be enjoyed in black and white. Its just spookier and cooler that way. Besides, anything that has Vincent Price in it is nearly perfect anyways. As for the remake, I never saw it. Apparently I don't need to if Chris Kattan is in it. I would ask why he was cast, but that is an infinite loop of insanity I don't even want to touch.
As for Sandler and Kattan, Kattan is worse. The only time he was decent was in the Roxbury skits, but even that was a short lived gimmick. Sandler was decent at first, but ran his one trick pony into the ground. Punch Drunk Love was the weakest P.T. Anderson movie out of them all. It was the first one I just didn't "get."
I feel the same way when it comes to colorizing films. I thought most people did by now which makes it puzzling that there's still a market for colorized anything. I remember seeing "It's a Wonderful Life" colorized on TV back in the 80's. That's one of the best movies of all time, and colorizing it is a sin. There's a difference between classics like that and "Reefer Madness," though. They had fun with the process by coloring the reefer smoke green and purple and stuff. It's become a film that people just laugh at, anyways.
And for the record, I watched them all in B&W before listening to the commentary on the colorized versions. I suggest doing it that way.
Yeah I've heard a lot of people give me the "But what about Punch Drunk Love?" when defending Sandler, but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it. His inclusion on an project is an automatical blackmark.
Here, here!
The movie had potential, but in all fairness, it wasn't completely Sandler's fault.
I think colorizing is fine in the case of gimmicky stuff like Reefer Madness. Its just that I hate revisionist dvds. It was what it was. Not everything has to be in color, or modernized for the MTV generation.
In the commentary, Nelson jokes around with the colorizing process. A character opens the fridge, and he's like "Hey wait a minute. What color did they make the ham?" Then there's the professor guy in Reefer Madness who Nelson says "really is black and white in real life - the guy has no pigment." The only way I'll watch the color versions os for the hilarious commentary.
Read this. I'll cut and paste Legend Films' explanation from their website. I'm still not convinced. But, to each their own, I guess.
"Legend Films is a studio specializing in restoring and colorizing classic films for DVD, HDTV and theatrical release, as well as performing color-effects work for Major Studios and Filmmakers. Our proprietary new 48-bit technology allows for colorization of films in HD or film resolution and achieves a quality and richness of color never before seen. Legend believes that color adds to the marketability of a title for today’s generation of buyers, and opens up the world of classic films to whole new audiences.
"Legend completely restores the soundtrack and creates Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound where appropriate. Legend also produces the DVD, designs the packaging and menus, and creates all value-added materials, including interviews and commentary from the original cast and crew when possible. We are a company comprised of both film preservationists and experts in digital video effects all of whom are sensitive to film purists, because like them, we are all vintage film lovers too and respect the integrity of the original black and white films. Therefore we always include the restored original black and white version on the same disk with the color version.
"Legend Films was founded in August 2001. We are based in San Diego , CA with production operations overseas. Please email us with any questions or comments."
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