I had been anticipating 2008 for the plethora of special 50th anniversary editions I expected to be rolling out of the DVD departments. As those who know me at all, they know my DVD collection is akin to the volcano at Kileaua, equally expansive and dangerous. Anyway, I also have this bizarre OCD aversion to the snap case DVD sets. You know the ones I mean. They used to be the rage from Warner Bros and New Line when the technology was new. It was cardboard with a plastic snap on the right side. Anyway, they don't fit comfortably with the regular keepcase (read: plastic) DVD cases that are the general norm. Well, certain titles are reaching their golden celebration this year: the Best Picture winner Gigi, Separate Tables, Auntie Mame, Some Came Running, South Pacific, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, The Old Man and the Sea, The Big Country, the previously blogged-about Vertigo, Houseboat, Desire Under the Elms, Damn Yankees, Teacher's Pet, Indiscreet, The Young Lions, A Night to Remember, et al.
Anyway, I was looking around on various websites and have come to horrific discovery that Warner Bros will not be releasing a special edition of Auntie Mame on DVD. No. They are reissuing it as a "double feature" paired with The Shop Around the Corner. Now I have nothing against The Shop Around the Corner, it's a delightful romantic comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan and is an earlier adaptation of Parfumerie (which became She Loves Me for Broadway). Now aside from the fact that both films are earlier incarnations of favored 60s musicals, what is the thematic link that requires a release together? It would make more sense if WB release Auntie Mame with Mame and The Shop Around the Corner with In the Good Old Summertime and You've Got Mail (both of which are remakes of the same story owned by the company). I'm disappointed and don't intend on picking up the new release. I don't enjoy my movies clumped together randomly like this. Chalk it up to my OCD.
The good news is, there are plans for 2-disc restored and remastered editions of Gigi, An American in Paris and A Star is Born (Judy Garland's) in the next year or so. And also Blu-Ray editions, too. Oh well. Thus endeth my minor rant...
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
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2 comments:
Release it with ANYTHING besides the dvd of Mame. Please. Anything.
Haha, well I certainly wouldn't want that myself. But I was just making a point about the thematic cohesion for putting releases together like that. Say for instance, Universal released a double set of "Anne of the Thousand Days" and "Mary, Queen of Scots." That's the sort of connection that I can understand.
Ideally, they'd give us a 2-disc edition and one of those 3-disc boxed sets they make, with the lobby cards, posters, commemorative book, possibly soundtrack. All the goodies. Perhaps if I'm annoying enough, they'll make one just for us. ;)
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