Mark Haines

The Wild West Collection
$9.98
When I found the Legends of the West 8 Movie Collection on DVD it looked like I had found a gem. While none of the titles in the collection will be confused with The Searchers or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, there are some decent (if somewhat obscure) movies in the set. From low budget American made Westerns from the 70's to Spaghetti Westerns this set has some decent titles (and a couple lesser titles as well).

So I picked up the set hoping that BCI/Brentwood made sure that the quality of the prints and encoding/mastering was at least passable. After BCI's job on legitimately licensed titles over the last 5 years I thought that was at least a strong possibility.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, this set is barely watchable at all. Washed out color and contrast on most titles is the first problem. Pronounced compression artifacting is another major problem, along with slightly muffled sound. Putting the 8 movies on 2 double sided discs is part of the problem.

Title by title this is the scorecard...

Johnny Yuma - Non Anamorphic widescreen, non-progressive (showing combing or interlacing), washed out color and contrast, serious compression artifacting, somewhat muffled sound.

Joshua - Non Anamorphic/Non-Progressive widescreen, color and contrast are marginally better than Johnny Yuma, but again there is significant compression artifcacting and muffled sound.

The Gatling Gun - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, washed out color and contrast, serious compression artifacts, muffled sound.

The Legend of Alfred Packer - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, strong compression artifacts, muffled sound.

Find A Place To Die - Non Anamorphic/Non-Progressive widescreen, serious compression artifacting, muffled sound, dark print, poor contrast & color - VERY hard to watch.

Big Bad John - (Not even a true Western as it takes place in modern Day) - Full Screen TV movie, better color and contrast, but still showing serious compression artifacting. The sound on this one is also better than the rest - significantly better.

The Grand Duel - Anamorphic Widescreen, but non-progressive. VERY washed out picture with pronounced compression artifcacting. The sound is, again, muffled.

China 9, Liberty 27 - Full Screen/Pan & Scan, non-progressive, washed out color and contrast, seriously muffled sound, and the most pronounced compression artifacting in the set. Almost completely unwatchable.

BCI was shut down at the end of 2008 by their parent company, and many people lamented their loss as they had built up quite a catalog of legitimately licensed titles that were mastered/authored with great care. This DVD set goes against the grain of what BCI had become over the last 5 years - a company that released high quality DVD's of hard to find titles.

If there is a title on this set that you cannot find anywhere else that you have wanted to watch for years then that would be the only reason to buy this set. The quality is very, very poor.

3 stars for the movies (some good, some bad, most in the middle), and only 1 star for the quality of the prints & mastering.

Dead Center [VHS]
$92.98
Imagine La Femme Nikita becoming Le Monsieur Nikita, and getting the b movie treatment (with a capital B) from none other than the king of cheap film-making Menahem Golan, and you get some idea about Dead Center.
It is not about disappointments, since I knew what I was letting myself into when I watched it, but then again B movies are an interesting genre in themselves and can be quite entertaining in a sort of 'empty your mind and just go with the flow' way..But there is a difference between B and A as in Awful. But then again Golan is as I mentioned renowned for making cheap films without any artistic value whatsoever. This is done with three easy steps,
Firstly, get bad actors whose abilities and talents will not cause De Niro or Pacino any sleepless nights.
Secondly, use the same screenplay from other movies and just if possible change the names and locations.
And thirdly,just throw your lot in the video market hoping that the attraction of the Ramboesque ideals and values are still alive and kicking with some viewers.
Dead Center has all these elements and more..it is simply too boring for words,(with the exception of the gorgeous and sexy Rachel York who is a good actress and singer in her own right, and whose talent is totally wasted here).
The ending of the film is probably the lamest and most ridiculous one I have ever seen (with the sole exception of a Brazilian film called Giselle where everyone sleeps with everyone else and when the filmmakers got stuck they ended their movie just suddenly and with no prior warning or background with a nuclear holocaust).
So I strongly advise you to avoid this film at all costs, not that I hope many will be interested anyway..

MEDIA FACTORY SHOW TV #27
$5.00

Same Old Man
$0.99