Ocean's 13, anyone else get the dvd?

[SteveB]

Girlfriend came home with the SD version tonight and we watched it. Story was pretty good, much along the lines of the other moves.
It seemed to me that the color on the dvd was all over the place. In the beginning of the movie the picture was so dark we could barely see anything. I brightened the picture and it was ok for a little while. In some scenes everything was red tinted. In another they were standing by a blue wall and the blue was way too bright. Scenes shot outside were too bright and when they were back inside too dark.
Anyone else experience this?

[Wayde]

I'll rent the dvd tonight and review it. I couldn't justify buying the hd dvd but I considered it. The cover had a bunch of guys looking up from a poker table and it put me right off.

I'm quite tired of the whole "poker" craze. I know, it's a cool game in the abstract and a real mixture of will, guts, smarts etc. I've heard of its merrits ad nauseum.

I just don't see the mysticism that many associate with poker. I don't know how it is where you guys are but up here in southern Ontario, Canada it's like a religion. Every bar and restaurant has a "poker night" that fills up with guys who play and argue its finer points as if they're discussing the merrits of Kierkegaard or some other deeply philsophical perspective on human nature. It sickens me quite frankly.

Wow, a poker rant in an HT forum... talk about off topic. My appologies.

I may be biased against movies featuring lots of Poker...

But I LOVED the new Casino Royale! Go figure.

[Sonnie]

In the case with Ocean's... the robbers are robbing the robbers, not that anyone gambling doesn't deserve to be robbed, but anyway, it does give me some satisfaction.

I almost rented this yesterday, but figured I'd wait until I took a few other movies I have back to the rental place and pick it up then. I really enjoyed the first couple of these, so I'm thinking I'll like this one.

[robk_11]

I don't know why but the whole ocean's eleven, twelve, etc. puts me off. clooney, pitt, and damon sitting around saying "look how cool we are" just annoys me. they should take lessons on how to be cool by watching the new bond dude in Casino Royale.

[Big Worm]

Going to give the HD-DVD a rental. I thought 11 was good. 12 I did not like. So we shall see with 13.

[Scuba Diver]

I will be renting in this weekend. I will tell you what I think after viewing it.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

The HD-DVD disc looks pretty good. The SD disc looks pretty bad.
I enjoyed the movie.

[thxgoon]

I enoyed it. Al Pacino is a great addition to the cast of theives. 11 is one of my all time favorite movies. It's got great camera work, dialoug and a story that was well put together. Ocean's 12 bored me to death. It seemed like a return to sex-lies-and-videotape Soderberg. 13 was enjoyable though it has some great moments and the whole cast has a chemistry where you know that they are having the time of their lives and it's fun to watch.

[Rodny Alvarez]

E-A-G-L-E-S wrote:

The HD-DVD disc looks pretty good. The SD disc looks pretty bad.
I enjoyed the movie.

That was the worst quality picture I've seen on a movie (SD).


Overall the movie was pretty good!

[Sonnie]

Yep... I watched it yesterday and it was an interesting movie... I enjoyed it, but I agree, the picture quality was pathetic.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

I've read some people saying that there may be an outside chance that they are now doing this on purpose to get people to HDM....seems way fishy, but could it be true?

[Sonnie]

I'm not going to be the guinea pig...

[Richard W. Haines]

I agree the standard DVD didn't look good. The movie was watchable and mildly
entertaining but for a 122 minute feature, I was surprised there was virtually no character
development. Unlike the other movies, I had a hard time counting the 13 people involved in the
caper. Some members have few lines and little to do. I also agree that the leads seemed to be walking through this film without any emotion and just posing to look cool. No romantic interest other than the attempted seduction of Ellen Barkin who was too old for the role. They created
a new word for the film, "Gilroy", which is a fictional aphrodisiac. I surprised they didn't
try to market some cologne with that name as a tie in.


There were few close ups of the leads probably to hide the fact that they are middle aged now. Brad Pitt is 44 and still lacks a 'defining role' which is important for movie stars. On the other
hand, Carl Reiner looked pretty good for 85. Still doing his fake accent schtick that dates back
to his days with Sid Caesar. The film had choppy editing which seems to be in vogue now. It makes it hard to follow the story. The split screen sequences didn't help either and there seemed to be no point to them.

The villain in this film is Al Pacino who continues to overact and shout every other
line. It's hard to believe he used to give very subtle performances decades ago
in "The Godfather" and "Serpico". The trouble is, overacting doesn't really make
him seem threatening and without a threat, the story lacks suspense. The team
seems to pull off the heist with few hitches or any real obstacles in their path which
makes it too predictable. I guessed immediately that they didn't take the real
diamonds and were going to remove them later. Also, the fake nose on Matt
Damon is rediculous and wouldn't fool anyone.


The suppliments which gave an architectual history of Las Vegas were interesting.
Most of the hotels and casinos from the Rat Pack days have been torn down.
Reminded me of New York City which used to have many movie palaces and Roadshow
theaters but all have been demolished and replaced with megaplexes.


Regarding the poker craze comment, one thing I always find amusing is
poker games that take place in the Wild West. I've seen in a number of
movies and TV shows with the players engaged in five card draw. This is
inaccurate. The first poker game and the only one they played in the
Wild West was five card stud according to a poker site I logged onto.
So if you see a Western and there's no face up cards on table, it's historically inaccurate...asuming the producers cared about such things.

In general, I'm not that interested in watching people play card games
on screen although I did like "The Cincinatti Kid", primarily because it
was a character study. McQueen and Robinson were good in it.
"A Big Hand for the Little Lady" was also amusing although I guessed
the plot twist early on. Less successful were Dean Martin in "Five
Card Stud" which at least got the game right.

[Scuba Diver]

My wife rented it for us and I agree it was a joke. The story line was ok at best and the picture was awful. I though something was wrong with my player or projector. I am sure this was done for effect right?... Right?.....

Either way, It does make me wonder if they bothered to preview the film at any point of the production?
I was not impressed.

[Big Worm]

Finally had to rent this locally in SD since Netflix never sent me the HD-DVD version. The movie was very good. The best one of the 3 for me.

Now the SD version. Wow that looked horrible! The worst picture I have seen in a while. I guess I should have waited for the HD version, but I really wanted to see this movie. I will have to put it back on Netflix and wait for it to compare.

[Wayde]

i hated it too.

The picture was the worst I've ever seen on HD DVD. The color was bumped up so high I had to turn the color almost completely off. It was close to total greyscale, if there was one or two color the faces were just saturated with red. There were some scenes that looked passable, particularly outdoors.

[thxgoon]

I remember the theatrical print having that color saturation as well. It looked a little gaudy IMO.