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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful movie... but what's up with the DVD?, June 18, 2001
I love this film. Its emotional impact is roughly similar to that of watching a car accident in slow motion -- it's horrifying, and you keep hoping that what you see as the inevitable isn't going to happen, but it does, and you can't look away...This is not a hilarious comedy, despite what the back of the box may lead you to believe. But it is definitely worth one viewing. Or several. I'd be lying if I denied that a lot of my enjoyment from the film comes from the amazing twisted chemistry between Joe Dick and Billy Tallent. They're wonderfully dysfunctional together. It didn't hurt that I already knew Hugh Dillon from his band the Headstones and Callum Keith Rennie from Due South, either. That was, in fact, how I found out about this film. But I digress. Note to people who are interested in this film because Quentin Tarantino's name is on the box: he didn't direct it. His only involvement with it, as far as I know, is liking it enough to get it a US release. I love this film, but the DVD is bad. First off, the only extra is the trailer. That's very disappointing, especially since I read an interview where the director talked about how he wanted to do a commentary track with Hugh Dillon and include four or five deleted scenes. Even the Canadian VHS release had a music video. Also I know there was a making-of special that could conceivably have been included. And they could've even added Bruce McDonald's music video for the Headstones' "Cemetery," as it's a great song to sing over the closing credits -- you'll see why. I would recommend not looking at the images for the chapter stops until after the film. The final one, "Salute," (sic) spoils the ending. But my main problem with the DVD is that over half of the titles that are supposed to appear onscreen in white are missing. This includes the names of the bands onstage at the Vancouver show, the word "Git-tah" during Billy's solo at the Vancouver show, the song titles at the Edmonton show, and pretty much all of the time/date references. That lack messes up a lot of the movie. For example, right after Joe tells them to be at the van at 6 am, and you see shots of them waiting, there should have been numbers indicating 6:15, 7:00, 7:30, etc, to show that they finally left four hours later. Also, one of John's monologues makes a comment about how a certain time, I think, 3 am, relates to something. The something, when it happened, was not marked as 3 am, and thus, we lose that foreshadowing. Plus, in general, it would be nice to know when the events in the film happen. I know these words and numbers should be there because they were there in the Canadian VHS release. Oh, one particularly bizarre loss of text: I think it was the Calgary show. On the VHS tape, as they come up on the city, the words "Calgary, Alberta" appear onscreen, timed with a sound effect. The words stay on screen a couple seconds, then are replaced with two repeated Chinese/Japanese characters. On the DVD, the sound effects are there, the characters are there, but the English text is missing. How odd. The picture is much brighter on DVD than on my VHS tape, which is nice, and all the black and white interviews are now sepia-toned or blue. I don't recall the VHS release having this, but I could very well have really funny color settings on my TV. I am editing this review to mention that the part with the gun in the "music, no coke" conversation is still there. I had misremembered when it was. So there probably are no editing differences. My verdict is: if you already own the Canadian VHS, don't throw it out. But if you haven't seen it, buy the DVD. I'm just a slightly obsessed fan, and you probably won't notice any of this. The film itself is still superb.
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DVD ~ Angela Jones
DVD ~ Jessica Booker
DVD ~ Robbie Lee
DVD ~ Hari Rhodes
DVD ~ Bruce McCulloch
DVD ~ Evelyne Kraft
