For all my faults, Dogma is the first Kevin Smith film I've actually
got round to watching - so I've still got the Jersey trilogy (Clerks,
Mallrats and Chasing Amy) to work
through - and it's an entertaining one in part, but at times it does tend to
have the characters ramble on a bit and there must be more words-per-minute
spoken in this film than any other.
The picture quality is very good, the only downside being a slight tinge of
fuzzy artifacts that are only spotted when viewing up close. The film is
presented in its original anamorphic widescreen ratio of 2.35:1.
The average bitrate is a fairly steady 6.66Mb/s (was this done on purpose
given the aspect of Hell?), often peaking over 8Mb/s.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 with plenty of multi-channel sound effects
from simple scene-change swipes to the buzzing of Azrael's helpers.
Extras :
This release has been rather badly timed. Just as VCI are releasing the
same near-featureless version that Columbia did last May, the Americans will
be striking back before long with a Special Edition containing audio
commentaries, documentaries, deleted scenes, out-takes and something featuring
the "Buddy Christ".
Playing this disc on a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM, I found that all of the extras
have been FUBAR'd by stretching whatever was given to them and squashing it
down vertically to within a 16:9 ratio - sort of the opposite of the benefits
that an anamorphic presentation begins.
Hence, the two brief 4:3 TV Spots are 16:9, the two 16:9 Trailers
are 2.35:1 and the 22-minutes of Cast & Crew Interviews featuring
Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino and Salma Hayek are all 4:3 footage
squashed into 16:9 - why??
I had the TV set correctly and any 4:3 footage on any other disc doesn't
present such a problem with my Dxr2 set the same way (accommodating anamorphic
widescreen pictures where appropriate and without buggering up 4:3 footage),
but playing this in a
Playstation 2 posed
no such problems.
We could use more than 20 chapters that this disc provides and there are
only subtitles in English for the hard of hearing. The menus are silent with
a hint of animation.
Overall, fans of Kevin Smith will no doubt want to rush to get this, but
how can I recommend a DVD which will be far superceded soon? It was due to
be released just eight days after this one, but thanks to
Simon
from the DVD UK mailing list for confirming that it's been delayed -
indefinitely but it isn't expected to be too long away.
Thanks also to Karl Flaschke from VCI for the info that they
tried to obtain the rights for the content that is set to appear on the
Special Edition but were unable to do so.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
