The Three Stooges - Stooged & Confoosed (Colorized / Black & White)

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Summary: Stooged & Confoosed
Review: Another reviewer wanted to give less than one star to a colorized Stooge collection. I totally agree. These wonderful shorts were shot in black and white. They are from a certain time in cinematic history. To "color them in" is a travesty. What's next? "The Wizard of Oz" without its opening and closing black and white sections? Stooge fans, unite! Let's vote with our wallets and tell Columbia to leave well enough alone.

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Summary: Colorized Version Of Stooges Definately Worth A Look
Review: As many have said in previous posts, the early colorization process back in the 1980's was more of a novelty than anything else and after a few minutes of viewing a colorized black and white classic, it became too distracting to watch. The colors bled into one another, especially with the fast motion of the colorized subject and more importantly, it just didn't look natural. Even eye color had a flesh tone to it.
This is NOT the case with the new Three Stooges DVD release "Stooged and Confused." I just finished watching this DVD and was pleasantly surprised not only by the sharpness of the prints themselves, but also with the new colorization process. Apparently, the staff at Columbia Pictures researched original stooges scripts, props and other historical documents in order to come up with the most likely colors that were used in the Stooges films. The result is an impressive and realistic looking finished product. It isn't perfect,(the flesh tones tend to be a little too enhanced at times) but it looks for the most part like these stooges comedies were originally filmed in color. I wasn't distracted one bit by watching these colorized versions, something I couldn't have said when viewing earlier colorization. This new colorization process "ChromaChoice" actually seems to add depth to the picture you're watching.
Some purists will say that these films are best viewed as they were originally presented, in glorious black and white. Well, that option exists on this DVD, you can choose to view in either B/W or color.
I am a BIG Stooges fan and was glad to see something positive being done with what these gifted comedians left us with.


Rating:
Summary: Give it a chance!
Review: Everyone is giving this one star reviews simply because these are colorized? I could understand if you could no longer see the black and white versions, but the color versions are OPTIONAL! You can check it out, and if it doesn't look good, watch the black and white version! And by the way, the five stars I'm putting up is for the collection of shorts, all four which I have on video and have watched tons of times for years. To see them in color, while not better than the filmed black and white, is interesting to see from a filmmaking point of view and to see them in a way never seen before unless you were actually on the set of filming! And I am a film purist in that I feel that a film should be presented with the originally intended color or black and white picture, original aspect ratio, and original mono or stereo mix. However, I'm always up to try a black and white film colorized and a mono film given a 5.1 surround track... as long as I can still watch and listen to the film the way it was originally meant to be presented... and that is the case here with Columbia. They're giving people a choice to watch some of the best Curly shorts in their original black and white or the new colorized editions. Give it a chance people!

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Summary: still looks fake
Review: I apreciate the hard work put into this, but it still looks fake. It's much better than the early colorization attempts but, it still doesn't look right. Some of the colors don't seem right and the blacks and greys are still in black and white. It doesn't seem like attention was payed to reflected color. The only good point is that this would be a good way to get younger people / kids intrested into the Stooges

Rating:
Summary: Amazing in color
Review: I think it really looks like it was filmed in color. I think COlumbia did a great job. You people who think they didn't must be colorblind. It really is neat and you can tell a lot of care went into this. The only draw back is only including 4 episodes.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but . . .
Review: I'm a big champion for the colorization of old black and white film, so I have to give credit to the makers of this DVD for giving discerning viewers the choice of how to watch their Stooges. However, this stuff is just too violent.

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Summary: Stooges Pass With Flying Colors
Review: I'm not sure what all the negative hoopla is about surrounding the OPTIONAL viewing of these colorized Stooge shorts, but this devout Stooge fan bought this DVD mainly out of curiosity. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

I'm not sure how the ChromaChoice process works, but a great deal of hard work and attention to detail obviously went into this project. As a seasoned film buff and dedicated Stooge fan, I have only praise for the high quality color picture that has been produced here.

Like others who appreciate classic films, I have no desire to view a colorized version of "Casablanca," "To Kill A Mockingbird," "The Maltese Falcon," "D.O.A.," "The Third Man," "Citizen Kane," or any other film that uses B&W to create a mood or atmosphere.

Let's be honest folks. The Three Stooges shorts were shot in B&W for budgetary reasons. The boys themselves would be the first to tell you that they were hardly trying to create a film noir experience! As a matter of fact, they would probably be quite flattered that their work was still generating this much interest 70 years later.

As others have pointed out, it would be nice if Columbia Pictures would also concentrate on converting the remaining shorts to DVD. With each passing year, they are missing out on an extremely large market of Baby Boomers who grew up with the Stooges - and are not getting any younger.

Congratulations to ChromaChoice on the amazing color process. If I did not know otherwise, I would think that these shorts were shot in color. The process is that convincing. See for yourself. This process is more than a novelty and just may introduce the Stooges to a new generation of viewers who change the channel when B&W appears on the TV screen.

My advice is to sit back and enjoy.

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Summary: Colorization is back and so is the Three Stooges !!!
Review: In the early '80's,technology abounded as some of Hollywood's greatest film classics were given a new controversial,if not groundbreaking process now known all over the world as Colorization.Legendary producer Hal Roach was an early pioneer and innovator of Colorization.In 1983 when the Colorization company was formed,Roach shocked and suprised many film buffs when he used the process on some of Hollywood's greatest films such as "It's A Wonderful Life",the Frank Sinatra film-noir thriller "Suddenly","Night Of The Living Dead",the "Topper" films,Laurel & Hardy's "Way Out West",and the original "D.O.A.".Media Mogul Ted Turner also took colorization to the mainstream when he colorized "Casablanca","The Maltese Falcon","Yankee Doodle Dandy","King Kong","Christmas In Connetticut",and other Hollywood classics to name quite a few.Fast forward 21 years later as Columbia Pictures are bringing back the colorization process and this time,they're bringing none other than the Three Stooges !!! "Stooged and Confoosed" is one of the two Stooges DVD's that Columbia is releasing as part of a high-definition colorization project developed by West Wing Studios.This DVD contains not only the newly created and remastered color versions,but also includes the original,restored black & white versions as well.There are four shorts on this DVD,most of which are classics from the "Curly" era that includes "Violent Is The Word For Curly" (1938),"No Census,No Feeling" (1940)(this short is not to be confused with their 1934 film "Three Little Pigskins" as it involves the Stooges playing football.),"You Nazty Spy !" (1940),and "An Ache In Every Stake" (1941).These are all great Stooges comedies and I'm happy to say that the color in these versions is 100 % amazing and a HUGE difference from the god-awful '80's incarnations of the process.There are no distracting halos around objects like the original,earlier colorized films and pale,washed-out colors on everything ! Other than the four shorts,there is also a great 8-minute featurette on how the colors were created and also how they used references from props,antiques,and other things.While the colors are not exactly three-strip,they look sharper,clearer,and very good to watch and appreciate the original integrity of black & white as they were chosen by the filmmakers.But the real showcase of the DVD is the ChromaChoice process in which you could switch simultaneously between the b&w and color versions at any time using the angle button on the DVD which I thought was really a clever and very cool idea !!! I myself am not a huge fan of colorized films,especially the "classics",as it ruins the integrity of the directors/actors' vision,but there are some non-important films that I enjoy colorized like the Laurel & Hardy films and now the Three Stooges as well since I grew up watching them mostly in b&w and in color versions as well.I highly recommend this DVD for any Stooges fan and I hope there will be more DVD releases like these to come in the near future as they spend their heart and soul restoring and creating colorized versions for these fun and great films !!! A small company called Legend Films is going to release the four public domain Stooges shorts restored and colorized as well on DVD in February 2005 and I too will buy it and review it,but for now,enjoy the Stooges in beautifully created living color from Columbia !!! If you're not a fan of colorized films,especially the Stooges,then don't buy this.

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Summary: Annoying Toggle Icon
Review: It is a great idea to be able to toggle from black and white to color, but it would be much more enjoyable to watch if there wasn't the camera icon on the upper center screen throughout the whole DVD. I have two DVD players and both of them show this annoying icon and there is no way to get rid of it. Great idea for a Three Stooges DVD but not enjoyable to watch at all with that spot on the screen. I have done a little research on the net and found out that it does this on several models of DVD players.

Rating:
Summary: INCREDIBLE!!!
Review: It's amazing how awesome the colorization is on these new Three Stooges shorts. It's like seeing them for the first time! I checked the black and white versions alongside the colorized versions, and there is absolutely NO comparison! It's the best colorization I have seen yet. I'm very glad they are perfecting this process, because the Stooges deserve it! I just can't wait for more to be done. (The new black and white remasters are incredible by themselves, and it's nice that they offer both versions for such a low price! GREAT!!!)