Prospero's Books
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Movie Reviews of Prospero's Books
Movie Review: Great movie; not a great DVD
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this from ''classics_vhs_dvd" and am rather disappointed at the image quality; the data is highly compressed (only 3.1GB for the whole movie!) and there are visible compression artifacts and audio hiss; no chapter markings, menus, or subtitles. A real shame for such a visually detailed film!
It looks very much like a ripped copy burned onto a DVD-R, though the seller claims this is how it was originally released. (Which seems likely to be true; I see a lot of complaints online about the quality of various DVDs produced by Allied Artists Classics.)
It's better than nothing, and no higher-quality version seems likely to come along any time soon... but it's sure not what I was hoping for.
Movie Review: a total ripoff of Shakepeare's "The Tempest"!
Summary: 2 Stars
Seriously, though, this movie is uneven. The daring and unconventional visuals of the first half -- incredibly -- give way to a stilted, boring second half. Greenaway might have been able to pull this off for 15 minutes, but it groans at 120 minutes.Movie Review: Great Movie - Terrible DVD
Summary: 1 Stars
Prospero's Books is one of the most remarkable films I've ever seen, and this DVD is no way to see it. Not only is this DVD not widescreen (and this movie, with its liberal and wonderful use of digital compositing must be seen widescreen to appreciate the compositions that Greenaway was creating), but the video and audio quality are terrible. The audio is best described as muddy. The video is best described as an over-compressed, bad transfer from VHS. Ironically, a local video store had a tape of Prospero's Books available for many years, and it was widescreen. So this DVD is actually worse than the VHS version I've seen. There's no excuse for that at any price, but for almost $80 this DVD ought to be flawless and filled with amazing extras. It is not. Beginning with the terrible compression artifacts in the opening text, I watched about 15 minutes of this DVD in horror, then dug up my LaserDisc copy of the film and compared them. Both are cropped, rather widescreen, but at least the LaserDisc transfer had better sound and cleaner video. If you can bear to watch VHS, and can find the widescreen version, that seems to be the only way to see this movie unmangled (apart from the massive loss of quality caused by VHS itself), outside of a movie theater. With great disappointment I returned the DVD to Amazon. To Amazon's credit, they provided a full refund. Thank you, Amazon.
At this point, I can only hope that someday soon there'll be a high-quality BluRay edition of this film. But I've waited for a high-quality edition of this film through three generations of technology and have yet to get it (with the LaserDisc and DVD versions being nothing short of embarrassing), so whoever owns the distribution rights to the film must not give a rat's ass about it. And that doesn't inspire optimism about future releases.
Movie Review: Quality of Prospero's Books DVD
Summary: 1 Stars
Peter Greenaway's films have been poorly served up by the DVD industry. This one, released theatrically in 1991, stars John Gielgud and was scored by by Michael Nyman. I'm not commenting on the film itself. (But it is a masterpiece, IMHO.)
Here I'm commenting on the DVD edition of "Prospero's Books" released by "AAE Films, Inc." on 18 September 2009 and currently retailing on Amazon for about US$72. It has no UPC#, which suggests it's not a standard US DVD release.
Between 2007 and 2009 I bought, from Amazon and other DVD retailers, four DVDs released by "Allied Artists Entertainment." I threw all four of them away after one viewing (really after watching the first 10 minutes). I'll never again purchase a DVD released by Allied Artists Entertainment," "Allied Artists Classics," or "Allied Artists," even if it's a true classic unobtainable from any other source.
As others have noted, this film really deserves Criterion treatment,but that's unlikely. Instead studios around the world continue to release onto the DVD market endless excrement, or as in this case, *offensively bad* and *outrageously overpriced* editions of great films. Amazon has recently begun marketing some classic films (e.g "Dreamchild") on demand, using DVD-R recordable media, for reasonable prices. The results are not outstanding, but better than nothing. Amazon should do the same for "Prospero's Books."
Movie Review: Do NOT Buy this!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I just purchased this product and it is as others have noted a TOTAL SCAM. I am lodging a complaint to AMAZON as well as this review. The COPY of this movie being sold here is a dub from a poor quality VHS tape...they can't even keep the frame from skewing. Don't even think you are going to enjoy this on a Hi Def monitor...no way. It is all so much more infuriating because I love this film and really want a copy AND I DIDNT CHECK THE REVIEW FIRST...LESSON LEARNED