MovieChat Forums > Looker (1981) Discussion > Looker DVD Specifications!

Looker DVD Specifications!

posted 18 years ago by savini-2
3 replies | jump to latest

Hi. I found this on the Home-Theater-Forum.
Sounds great. I can't wait to get the dvd.
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I just had a chance to look at the disc tonight, so I'll give you all my thoughts.

VIDEO:
As good as it probably could be. The 2.40:1 anamorphic image is good, if a bit soft (probably more to do with the film stock than the actual transfer). Completely acceptable and quite a lot of fun to finally see in widescreen. Unfortunately, the widescreen image brings out many flaws in the actual filming, like boom microphone shadows, etc. Also, in reel two, for almost a full 20 minutes, there is a weird white dot that appears in the upper left of the film image that, strangely, seems to fade out during dark scenes and come out (annoyingly) during brighter scenes. The dot does not really move and just hangs there, in the picture. It looks as if it was some sort of optical artifact on the image but it "shouldn't" be, because it appears in many scenes in which there are no optical dissolves, fades, etc. It does, thankfully, go away after reel two is over, so maybe it was a weird printing error during the 35mm IP creation? One other thing I noticed was, right at the start of the end credits, before they "roll" upward vertically, you can see, at the VERY bottom of the film frame, a few pixels worth of the white text for the end credit scroll just sitting there, waiting to move up.

AUDIO:
The audio seemed fine. It was a standard two channel Stereo Surround track. No 5.1 remix here, but the audio gets the job done.

EXTRAS:

First things first... no extra TV footage included. The version of the film is the regular theatrical cut as far as I can tell, running a little over 90 minutes.

There is an "Introduction from Michael Crichton", produced, so it says, by Laurent Bouzereau. It's a few minutes long and comes off more like an aborted interview segment from a making-of featurette than it does an "introduction", but it's fine just the same. The weird thing is that it's presented in 4x3 letterbox, which is odd. The interlacing on this segment looked pretty grim on my Toshiba HD-A1 player. It probably could've been anamorphically enhanced, I would think, but it wasn't for whatever reason.

There is an audio commentary by Michael Crichton which was actually fairly entertaining. At first, I was dreading it a bit because of the monotone voice of Crichton... after about 5 minutes I was wondering if I would ever make it through the entire thing only because his "voice" was almost putting me to sleep. But, there are a lot of great production anecdotes to be had here, as well as some interesting observations by Crichton, so I was able to stay awake. There ARE frequent dead spots, but they never last more than a minute or so before he starts chatting again. He talks about things like how the DP would cook for people (he was a gourmet chef, too) he liked "that day" dinners in his trailer (if he didn't like you during that day's shoot, you'd just eat with everyone else and not him) ... how the first murder sequence was a pain to shoot because the set designer made a room full of mirrors... how the movie was originally going to be at Fox... how CONGO was in pre-production during 1980, but they couldn't make it then because gorillas were going extinct, how actress Susan Dey lamented shooting in the nude, etc. Some of his more fascinating discussion revolves around the technology implied in the film that has all become commonplace today... like the "card" readers in the doors, the full-body scanners (which are now used every day to motion-capture), the way advertisers test their commercials, and the whole plastic surgery phenomenon which is so common today, etc. Very much worth a listen.

The only other extra is the Original Theatrical Trailer, which is anamorphically enhanced, but looks pretty ragged. Also, I noticed the end titles on the trailer aren't in the proper NTSC "safe" action area. Tisk, tisk, Warner!

The menus are standard "static" non-animated ones, with a cool piece of music from the movie in the background on the main page.

All in all a good DVD of one of my favorite guilty pleasures from the 1980s. I am so happy that Warner put this out and, if you are a fan, you definitely need to pick this up.

Kindest Regards,

Don May, Jr.
President, Synapse Films
http://www.synapse-films.com
Synapse Blog: http://www.synapsefilms.blogspot.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/synapsefilms
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Have a nice day.

My DVD-Collection: http://www.intervocative.com/dvdcollection.aspx/napoleonwilson

[–] cad8080 18 years ago

Just got the DVD (from Kim's Video in NYC....always gets them early!)

The transfer looks good (I didn't see the dot the reviewer mentioned) and the sound is excellent.

However, the issue with the beginning of the credits IS there, and a bigger problem as well....the audio in the last 10 seconds of the film is not from the original print.

In the original movie, overlaid over the repeat of the announcer's voice right at the end is James Coburn's voice with reverb repeating "Now that's power...now that's power...Wave of the future...wave of the future..."
In the DVD, the last scene ends with the announcer's voice.....but no James Coburn!

How did this slip through?? The original disembodied voice effect was memorable enough for several critics (including Pauline Kael) to mention it in their reviews of Looker....one reviewer even went so far as to say it was a rip-off of the Marlon Brando reverb at the end of "Apocalypse Now"!

[–] cad8080 18 years ago

Anyone else notice this?

[–] maturity 18 years ago

Maybe the studio added that crap without Crichton's approval and he took it out for the DVD release. He doesn't say anything about it in his commentary, so I'd suspect that this is how he intended it to be seen.