Blue Velvet

Rating:
Summary: excellent DVD, seminal film
Review: I was pleased to find the picture and sound are both of a very high quality on this DVD. The animated menus are a treat, and the secret extra feature is a nice bonus! An essential purchase for fans of the film.

Rating:
Summary: Finally on DVD and Worth the Wait!
Review: David Lynch's masterpiece has finally made it to the home format of choice and the results are spectacular. Compared to VHS, laserdisc and television broadcasts, the anamorphic DVD is a revelation. The muddy colors and terribly cropped compositions are replaced by a brilliant, detailed transfer and enveloping, sharp surround audio.

Now the viewer can be properly introduced and drawn into Mr. Lynch's eerie, beautiful world. Just beware... like the main character, Jeffrey Beaumont... you may be changed forever.

Get it now and remember... "don't you look at me!"

Rating:
Summary: US dvd great!
Review: Blue Velvet! While there is not much in extras on it, i am glad to see another lynch movie on dvd finally. the one extra besides the interactive menus is a theatre trailer. not a very sharp transfer, but better than nothing. now to the movie...first off it is presented in its beautiful 2.35 x 1 ratio. it had been hard to watch the film in standard knowing the original ratio was letterbox. the transfer looks great! colors are sharp and contrast well through out the film. no screen shake or digital pops, and a film (non digital) feel at times. the sound is pretty good to, which is always important with lynch films. good surround effects, that were mixed and delayd well. On a 1-5 rating scale, five being the best, i give the disc an overall rating of 4. on picture: 4, sound: 3, extras: 1, and on the film itself a 5! A great piece of filmaking art only Lynch can bring us. Man i wish this dvd had i commentary! now i will focus my prayers on that rumered Eraserhead criterion collection dvd project. if anybody else has any comments i would love to hear what you think!

"In Heaven everything is fine, you got your good things, and I got mine."

Rating:
Summary: Finally...
Review: There really isn't anything more to say about this film that hasn't already been said, so I'll limit my comments to the quality of the DVD itself. First, I never saw this in theatrical release, so seeing it on DVD in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 was almost like seeing it for the first time...almost. The transfer is excellent and the sound is more than adequate, considering they didn't go back and remix it for 5.1 surround. You won't find any "goodies" on this disc (unless you consider the theatrical trailer a goodie) like director commentary or deleted scenes, but it's not like Lynch to reflect upon past work, so that's no surprise. If you've never seen this film, this is the way to see it. And you will either love it or hate it. For every 5 star review, you can easily find a 1 star review (you won't find many 3 star reviews of this film). If you've only seen it on VHS, like I have, you're in for a treat; the widescreen presentation here only enhances the film's already hypnotic and disturbing quality, so what more can you ask for? I can only hope the DVD release of "Wild at Heart" isn't far behind.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite film
Review: for those of you who have mentioned that this film has no plot, take your own advice and dont watch films like blue velvet. stick to movies like armaggeddon and let bruce willis spoon feed the plot to you. David lynch follows his own formula that is driven by his unique vision that no stright forward plot could follow. This film deals with a THEME: the evil that dwells beneath the most beutiful of surfaces. The ants in the begining suggest the rage, tension and evil unrest that exists bebeath a perfectly mowed american green lawn. This can be seen allegorically mirroring the bigger picture of the reality of our world despite what its crust reveals. Therefore many seemingly out of place haunting sequences are put in by lynch as paintstrokes in his cinematic painting that tie into the overall theme. Lynch is a true artist that does not compromise his art for public demands.

Rating:
Summary: Widescreen DVD...here at last!
Review: I'll be brief...I am a big David Lynch fan, and when he's good it's mesmerizing, whilst when he's not so good, it's still worth a look. "Blue Velvet" is an exotic, aquired taste, but quintessential Lynch. This MGM DVD looks stunning, and after years of pan and scan VHS murk, the widescreen presentation is pristine. Watch it and see how much of the director's visual world we have been missing all this time. The surround sound mix is very spacious,and atmospheric. However, the "collectible booklet" is a farce....a sheet of paper folded in half, with some boilerplate cast info does NOT qualify as a prized extra. This disc is worth having because the film looks and sounds better than any previous version for home viewing.

Rating:
Summary: Why this is so bad.
Review: In the word of film David Lynch's work is hailed as some of the best. In past year he has gained much critical success for his work. Unlike "strait story" EraserHead and the Elephant man. The film blue velvet dances with greatness and they burns. For instance the opening the "physical aliment" that befall a character that has little to no significance are horribly acted. Then the camera Suddenly pan to bugs fighting none of which really fits into the latter story about a boy who finds a moldy ear. Sounds confusing and pointless well it is. Words like hunting dark and disturbing are used by credits to describe the good in this film. Brazil is haunting confusing and disturbing. However unless you like a 13 second sexual orgasm with a man huffing O2 and shouting mother this is plainly mundane and bad. The plot has more holes then the moon has craters. Dialogue gaps are often simple dealt with using dramatic silence. What Lynch see "Eraserhead" or "the Strait story" Want bad movie see "Blue velvet" or "Lost highway." This one is at least better than the latter. The dramatic dialogue break is much better than sex as a filler. But do a good thing a steer clear.

Rating:
Summary: The worst DVD encoding - ever!
Review: I have seen the UK version of this DVD, the quality is terrible, as bad as the oldest VHS, chroma bleed and noise destroyed that DVD. I can only hope that the US encoders do not use the same ratty old VHS to master from that the UK people obviously used. This is complete shame as this is one of Hoppers' great manic moments, the tension present in the film is ever present and awesome. 5 stars for the film, none for the UK encoding

Rating:
Summary: Blue Velvet - a refined taste
Review: As the previous review so vehemently indicates, Lynch is not for everyone. Blue Velvet is obviously not for children or those whose minds have been programmed to tolerate only Hollywood formula movies. If you sit down to watch movies with a little checklist of expectations, by all means, see American Beauty. It's a good movie. You won't be disappointed by lack of plot, and there are many sitcom-style characters who experience a change, and numerous clever dialogues that you have heard before in slightly different variations, such as Happiness and the Ice Storm. American Beauty is even in a way influenced by Lynch's film. For those who enjoy original, artistic, high-risk mysteries, see Blue Velvet.

Rating:
Summary: Oh GOD...
Review: Well, "Blue Velvet" was probably the WORST movie I have ever seen, hands down. The plot was idiotic to say the least, some of the characters' actions made absolutely no sense! The sex scenes disturbed me, primarily because the whole movie seemed nothing more than a bunch of random characters and plot pieces put together around graphic sex, nudity and violence. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with all of the above, as long as they are PARTS of the plot, not a SUBSTITUTE for it (one example of the former being the incredible "American Beauty"). The only reason why the movie was dark was because the VERY stereotypical "villain guy" was so extremely one-dimensional! I really don't think there's a single crime left that he did not commit in this movie! Murder, gang violence, rape, drug trafficking... you just name it! And to add to his image of "pure evil", he also cursed like a sailor and had some weird breathing device that made him look crazy. Stereotypical? You just wait! The lady in distress was a much worse stereotype... She was a singer in some bar, had a weird accent I couldn't put my finger on and constantly exploded with phrases like "No, don't leave me!" and "No, don't hurt him!" As a matter of fact, I don't think she's said anything else during the course of the movie. The lead character was simply a moron, to put it lightly. I still don't know how one could find a HUMAN EAR in the grass and then simply pick it up and put it into a lunch bag. I'm not even talking about his plan to get into the "lady in danger"'s apartment, which was simply laughable (and, by the way, I still don't understand WHY he wanted to get in in the first place). And one more thing: do not watch this movie with your kids around, a certain sequence of scenes in "Blue Velvet" seemed to be taken straight out of a low-budget porn flick. "Blue Velvet" is not simply a bad movie. It is a movie to STAY AWAY from. And if you're really into dark movies, I'd recommend "American Beauty" ten times over this. But please do yourself a favor and do not waste your time and money on "Blue Velvet"!