Rating: 
Summary: Awwww, Come On.....
Review: This movie is in black and white.
Do you know what this means?
There is less data to digitize for compression when mastering a DVD. So the whole movie would have easily fit on one side of a two layered disc, otherwise known as DVD-9. There is just no excuse. This kind of decision was deliberatly made since you just do not see this kind of mastering anymore. Every major DVD since 2000 has been Dual-layer. This is bad, but don't blame Universal. Look what they did for Rob Cohens' Daylight, Dragonheart and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Top drawer DVD's. Not only should this have been a two disc set, with commentary, trailers, photo gallery, featurettes, and dynamic menus, it should have been $3 less that what I paid for it. Splitting a movie across two discs, whether separate or in a flipping arrangment, is just insipid. This is an issue that even non-cinephiles appreciate, because it means revisiting the days of getting up to hit eject. Try again Steve...
Rating:
Summary: Disgracefull packaging
Review: Universal should be ashamed of themselves. To package one of the greatest and most important films of all time in a cheap, non-sealing cardboard folder that provides totally inadaquate protection from dust and damage to one side of the two sided disk is simply disgraceful. Like others who have expressed themselves in this forum, I feel as though I've been ripped off.There, I feel better, but I'd feel even better if Universal were offer a free replacement package that provided adequate protection for the disk. One the subject of the disk, the transfer is first rate. I don't mind that the film is split (presumably so that they could provide the image quality they did), but I would have very much preferred that it be on two separate disk. It seems to me that two-sided disks are more subject to handling damage than are one-sided ones.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible DVD package for a great movie
Review: Loved the movie. I've been waiting a long time for this DVD. BUT! The DVD package is horrible. Very cheap "folder like" packaging. The little manual that comes with the DVD keeps falling out. AND the dvd is a flipper! Side A contains the half the movie, side B contains the rest of the movie with worthless bonus material! I am very dissappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: An Important Document. Deserves A Better DVD.
Review: "Schindler's List" is one of those special films that comes from the heart. Only "The Passion Of The Christ" has reached the kind of cultural cinematic impact this movie has had. Now it finally arrives on DVD and as a film it looks fantastic in the digital format. It is a stunning work of art that is full of hope, truth and history. "Schindler's List" is the kind of film that reminds us of the dark corners of human history and how hope and love can indeed overcome. As a movie it is a masterpiece of dramatic filmmaking. Steven Spielberg stuns us with his capacity to direct something more deep and important than "Jurassic Park." He takes us back to a time when the world went mad, when the shadow of evil fell over a nation and a good man began a plan to become rich and ended-up saving lives. However, I don't really need to tell you the plot. I am here writing a review of the DVD. As a DVD this movie deserves more. It's puzzling that it's been split in two on one disc and how the extra features are very poor. "Voices From The List" is the most important segment, a fascinating collection of testimonies from Holocaust survivors. This is important information people need to hear. However, there is no director's commentary, no trailers, no Behind the Scenes featurettes. Any movie lover and Spielberg admirer will look in confusion at why this very important movie was so poorly packaged. Surely Spielberg is planning to release a better version later on, though I don't see why he didn't release it now. As a film this is a timeless, important movie. As a DVD, you know they could have done better.
Rating:
Summary: Flipper...? Shame on you $pielberg
Review: I can't believe he'd do this. If I even thought there was still a chance that some directer's would allow a flipper, I would not have opened the package to this one, so I could have returned it. One of the best movies ever though. Now I have to go write him a letter insisting on a Special Edition with a $19 rebate offer for people who were suckered into this version. :( Rent this one, unless you want to own a type of DVD that was phased out years ago.
Rating:
Summary: 2 for the package, 5 for the movie
Review: Schindler's List is truly one of the few modern movies that is classic, that truly shows what film-making should be. I have waited for this movie to be released on dvd. The movie is great, a film that everyone should see, once you can open up the special edition. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how open the plastic case. I almost broke it twice. The gruff that some are making about it being a flipper disc, well it reminds me of playing records. There is a certain nostalgia in having to flip it over, but trepidation in scratching the new dvd in removing it from the case. You receive some interesting paraphenalia: a book of pictures from the film with background material about Spielberg making it; a pamphlet that states the same information in said book with an envelope for fund-raising for the Shoah Foundation; a piece of the actual film, though how limited red-coat girl is left for the gods; and included with the movie, the soundtrack. So basically, you're spending 60 bucks for a $19 dollar movie and a $15 dollar soundtrack with some fluff thrown in. Buy both instead of this. I now wish I did.
Rating:
Summary: LOUSY DVD FORMAT WITH WEAK EXTRAS
Review: I am reviewing the DVD, not the film. Here we have one of the best films of the 1990s, and Spielberg makes it a flipper. In 2004, the fact that we have to turn this DVD over is moronic, and Spielberg knows better. The extras are mediocre. Just think what he could have done, with a documentary on the Holocaust. Why it took so long to get this DVD in print is beyond me. And the container is cardboard, and gives no listing of the chapters. The so-called container that holds the inserts is open at the bottom so the inserts fall out. The DVD concept is one of the marvels of technology in the last decade. And Spielberg, who prides himself with being technologically advanced, gives us a DVD that could have been made in the early 1990s. So sad that such a great film gets such a lousy presentation.
Rating:
Summary: Swindler's List among the best movies
Review: Schindler's List (I affectionately call it "Swindler's List" sometimes) has great acting in a great semi-fact-based story. Liam Neeson's acting was "Oskar" nominated, but Ralph Fiennes was super as Goeth, and Kingsley was excellent as well. Some great cinematography too - the candle smoke cutting to the train smoke, for one (somewhat like TE Lawrence blowing out the match then cut to desert sunrise, or "2001" bone to spaceship cut) and any of dozens of other haunting images. Schindlers's List has some excellent dialog. Some examples are when Schindler talks to Goethe about "power", or Stern talking about the list being "absolute good", or Schindler crying because he could have saved more people by giving away his Nazi pin or other personal items. Sentimental? Maybe. Many Spielberg movies are too sappy for me, but this was not. Gloss over low-lights of Schindler himself? Probably. Doesn't really matter, though. Not many "better" movies out there.(...)
Rating: 
Summary: 5 STARS FOR THE MOVIE, BUT 0 STARS FOR THE FORMAT!!
Review: WAITED FOREVER FOR ONE OF MY FAVORITE AND TRULY EMOTIONAL MOVIES TO COME OUT ON DVD. HOWEVER, I AM QUITE SURPRISED AND VERY DISAPPOINTED THAT DIRECTOR STEVEN SPIELBERG WHO IS MAYBE ONE OF THE BEST KNOWN CINEMA PERFECTIONISTS DID ONE THING THAT SHOCKED THE HELL OUT OF ME. THE DVD HAS TO BE TURNED OVER AND YOU HAVE TO LITERALLY GET UP OUT OF YOUR CHAIR, STOP IT AND TURN THE DVD OVER TO PLAY THE REST OF THE MOVIE AND SEE THE BONUS SELECTIONS. THIS MADNESS UPSET ME SINCE I HAVE A DVD HOME THEATER SYSTEM THAT HAS THE CAPABILITY OF A CAROUSEL WITH 6 DVD SLOTS YOU CAN USE. I ALSO THINK THE STUDIO MADE A REAL "BOO BOO" ON MINE SINCE BOTH SIDES SAY SIDE "B" ON EITHER SIDE WHICH MAKES IT CONFUSING ON WHICH SIDE IS TO BE PLAYED FIRST. I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR BACK FROM ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS THIS MISTAKE ON THEIR DVD. I THINK I ORDERED THE WIDESCREEN BUT WAS SENT THE FULL SCREEN WHICH TO ME SOMETIMES MATTERS. IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE ON TURNING THE DVD OVER ON THE FULL OR WIDESCREEN VERSIONS. IS THE SPECIAL EDITION WHERE YOU GET THE DVD, THE ORIGINAL CD SOUNDTRACK AND THE PLEXIGLASS COVER DIFFERENT? I MEAN DO YOU STILL HAVE TO TURN THE DVD OVER OR DO YOU GET TWO DISCS IN THE SPECIAL COLLECTOR'S VERSION? I WOULD BE CURIOUS TO KNOW THIS IF ANYONE WANTS TO TELL ME THIS.
In any case, getting back to the movie, the movie is still powerful, the acting is superb and you can watch it over and over again and you will cry at the anguish these victims of pure bigotry and semitism suffered. No people should ever have to suffer such cruelty. I am Jewish and proud of it. But no matter who you are or what your faith is, everyone and anyone should watch this movie to remind you that these injustices are just a moment away. Just look at what is happening in the world today? Religion makes fools of men..... and murderers as well....Bravo to Steven Spielberg but there should have been 2 discs on this very important and powerful movie, so not to break the continuity......Thanks for reading my critique...
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg's masterpiece touches hearts and minds.....
Review: Even though Steven Spielberg had made some of the most successful -- and profitable -- films in movie history (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, the Indiana Jones series), he was always perceived as a master craftsman but never as a "serious" director capable of making a grown-up film. This is an odd perception, considering that in addition to such crowd-pleasers as Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. (along with the plethora of projects he has been involved with as executive producer -- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the Back to the Future trilogy), Spielberg had directed such serious fare as 1985's The Color Purple and 1987's Empire of the Sun, which deal with such weighty topics as race and the effect of war on children. One film, released in late 1993 -- the same year that Jurassic Park set worldwide box office records -- changed that perception forever: Schindler's List. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German philanderer, member of the Nazi Party, and war profiteer whose desire to make money from Hitler's European war slowly but irrevocably morphed into a desire to save over a thousand of his Jewish labor force from the Nazis' genocidal "Final Solution," Schindler's List is a powerfully moving film. It not only never flinches from the inhumanity of Hitler's willing executioners -- there are all sorts of terrible things going on in here, including torture, manhunts, mass executions, and random acts of cruelty -- but it also touches on the central belief felt by Spielberg himself that decency and righteousness can triumph over even the most implacable tyranny and hatred. Working from Steven Zaillian's adaptation of the fact-based novel by Thomas Kenneally, Spielberg chose to film Schindler's List in black and white because most of the documentaries, records and photographs he had seen were in black and white. As a result, whenever he does use color, especially in the key "Special Aktion" sequences where Schindler (Star Wars: Episode I's Liam Neeson) catches a glimpse of a single scarlet-clad girl as the Jews of the Krakow Ghetto are ruthlessly rounded up by SS troops. Spielberg draws the audience's -- and Schindler's -- attention on this single little girl by inserting the coat's red color into the otherwise stark shades of gray, black and white that dominate the film (which is the most expensive black and white movie made, displacing Darryl F. Zanuck's 1962 war classic The Longest Day). Spielberg also chose to shoot Schindler's List on location in Krakow, Poland, where most of the movie takes place, painstakingly recreating the look and atmosphere of the period. A full scale set of Plaszow Labor Camp was built near the site of the real one from existing maps and blueprints, and a few scenes were filmed outside the infamous Auschwitz death camp. Neeson's top notch performance is matched by those of Ralph Fiennes (SS Commandant Amon Goeth), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern), and Caroline Goodall (as Schindler's long-suffering wife Emile), as well as Jonathan Sagalle and Embeth Davidtz. Fiennes in particular is outstanding as the homicidal and capricious SS commandant of the Plaszow labor camp, who thought nothing of picking up a rifle and using unwitting and unfortunate inmates for morning target practice. Schindler's List won popular and critical acclaim, winning seven Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Music (by long-time collaborator John Williams), Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, and Art Direction. It is not only a fine example of filmmaking at its best, but it also serves as a memorial to the six million victims of the Holocaust, as well as a tribute to a flawed but righteous man who gave up his fortune and risked his life to save a handful of his fellow human beings from history's greatest criminal act. The DVD presents Spielberg's 196 minute masterpiece on one double-sided disc in a digitally enhanced widescreen picture and 5.1 digital sound. The audio and video content are excellent, although fans of extra features may bemoan the lack of "the making of" behind-the-scenes featurettes present in other Spielberg-directed movies on DVD. Instead, there are the dicumentaries "Voices From the List" and "The Shoah Foundation Story." Nevertheless, the recently-released Universal Studios Home Video DVD is a worthy addition to any serious film lover's collection.
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