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98 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great movie, Horrible DVD., 20 Mar 2005
I should start by saying that I've never paid much attention to talk of good and bad 'prints' of movies, and always regarded it as a bit of movie snobbery. Until now, I've never purchased a DVD that left me seriously unhappy with the quality of the image.
I'm afraid this DVD (by Prism Leisure Corporation) changed all that. Quite simply, it's dreadful. Ok, it's a budget DVD, but frankly, if someone offers you this DVD for *free* you should politely decline.
Blue Velvet is one of my favourite movies. I bought this DVD as an upgrade from my aging VHS version. But after 20 minutes of trying to watch the DVD, I ejected it and went back to my old VHS.
In this version, the colours are washed out and muddy; the contrast is terrible; the image is far from sharp. In the dark scenes (and there are a lot of them) you'll frequently find yourself staring at a black screen. In short, watching this DVD is like seeing the movie on a seriously sick TV.
Really, you should give this a miss. Watch it on tape, or on the (much more expensive) special edition DVD (which I've now discovered is much much better and does the movie justice).
I can't believe that I'm writing a 1-star review of Blue Velvet!!
For the movie, five stars, easily. But because of the quality of this DVD, I'm knocking off four of them (and would knock off all five if I could). The movie is stunning, powerful, harrowing. This DVD is just harrowing. Avoid it like the plague.
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DISTURBING, BEAUTIFUL, HORRIFYING, BIZARRE & SURREAL, 6 Jan 2003
Set in the quiet picture postcard logging community of Lumbertown, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a somewhat naive and squeaky clean college boy, finds a severed human ear. Shocked and disturbed he reports it immediately to the police whilst, with the help of his girlfriend (Laura Dern), he begins his own investigation, which soon leads him into stumbling into the seedy and violent world of abused nightclub singer Dorothy (Isabella Rosellini) and drug-sniffing psychopath (Dennis Hopper). This is the first movie in which David Lynch really showed us all his cards and united themes and imagery, now familiar to millions through the likes of Mulholland Drive, Wild At Heart and Twin Peaks. Although 16 years old, David Lynch's Blue Velvet has lost none of its shock value. It is still deeply and uniquely disturbing, at times incredibly surreal and utterly compelling viewing. Beautifully filmed and directed by Lynch, its aesthetic value is often deliberately at odds with the subject matter and it is a work of dark genius. It also features superb acting performances all round. In particular, MacLachlan, Rosselinni, Dean Stockwell and Laura Dern shine, but it is Dennis Hopper's magnificent performance as a drug sniffing twisted psychopath that most people will remember. Bizarre and frequently haunting, beautiful but frequently surreal, this is a movie that will stay with you for a very long time and really is a must see!
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86 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terriffic Film Let down By Apalling DVD, 12 Jan 2001
By A Customer
David Lynch's dark masterpiece "Blue Velvet" surely qualifies as one of the greatest films of the 80's; possibly Lynch's best. Its themes of lust, murder, kidnap, mystery and voyeurism are interwoven with suberb imagery and terrific performances. Dennis Hopper's portrayal of the deviant Frank Booth must rank as one of the greatest screen villians of all time; He practically bursts off the screen and steals every scene he's in. "Blue Velvet" is so successful because it's one of those rare films that seems to exist all in a world of its own, and as a result it is a film to watch again and again. All of which counts for nothing if you purchase the Region 2 DVD edition of the film. The picture and sound quality are possibly the worst examples you'll ever have to endure. To compound this fact, the initial Disc was only available in full-screen. The film was shot in the 2.35:1 format, which means you are losing almost 50% of the picture if you can't watch it in widescreen. The newer version of the british disc claims it's in widescreen, but its only a 16:9 presentation, which is essentially a fake widescreen version with black bars stuck over the top and bottom of the screen. The extras on the initial disc are pathetic; a rather dull portrait gallery is all we get. The picture is so bad that it looks like a scrim has been placed over your t.v. screen. The region 1 version is framed correctly at 2.35:1, and has a Dolby Pro-logic soundtrack, but I haven't been able to watch this version. In short, if your player is multi-region,check that disc out. The storage capacity of DVD is such that we could have had a stunning widescreen presentation loaded with extras, but instead we end up with a version 10 times worse than outdated old VHS. "Blue Velvet" Is a film worthy of 5 stars; the disc gets 1 star simply for existing. Avoid.
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