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Airplane!
DVD Review by Yanman |
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"Surely, your not serious? I'm serious, and stop calling me Shirley!" As a movie reviewer people are constantly asking me, "What is your favorite movie?" If pressured into answering this rather difficult question, I usually state that I have a favorite in each genre of film. And number one on the list of comedy films is the mega-hit, Airplane!. Voted "One of the top ten funniest movies ever made" by the American Film Institute, Airplane is the satire film that all others are measured against. Some may call it silly, others call it just plain stupid, but most people like me, that have been watching it since its initial release agree, it is comic genius. "The cockpit, what is it?" In the 1970's the disaster movie was king, we blew up, destroyed, mangled and had every kind of natural disaster possible. So it should come as little surprise after Airport (1970), Airport 75, Airport 77, and Concord: Airport 1979 that someone would create a parody of these disaster films. Airplane! is more then just a disaster parody however; it has set the bar for ever parody since. Films like Hot Shots, Top Secret, Naked Gun, and the latest Scary Movie all owe their existence to the very original Airplane! Mostly slapstick, Airplane! follows the crew and passengers of a flight doomed by food poisoning. When the pilot (Peter Graves), the co-pilot (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), and even the navigator all get deathly ill from eating the tainted fish, an ex-fighter pilot passenger (Robert Hays) is called on to land the plane. Can he get over his problems in the war, his ex-girlfriend stewardess (Julie Hagerty), and his obvious drinking problem, and bring this plane safely to the ground? "You ever seen a grown man naked?" While audio and video quality is not of the utmost concern with a movie of this type (Jokes are funny no matter what), DVD is certainly the best way to view this film in the past 20 years. Video is presented in anamorphic widescreen in the original aspect ratio, and ranks at average on our scale. Some dirt, spots, and artifacts are evident and the color appears a little washed out; this may be the best that you can do with a twenty-year old movie however. The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but is still rather flat with most of the sound radiating from the center speaker. "I guess I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue." Extras include, oops strike that. The extra here is, a group commentary with producer Jon Davison and writer/directors Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker. This is a fun extra, but the guys lose their steam mid-movie, and from then on the comments are pretty boring. Are there more extras lying around somewhere? If there are, dig them out Paramount, we want a special edition. "There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?" We have been waiting for this DVD since the creation of the format. While we would have liked to seen a more complete treatment, with better video, sound and more extras, we are happy to finally have this one in our collection. If you can't find any other reason to watch, do it just once for the zipper!
This DVD was reviewed on Yanman.com's Reference Theater #1, using a Toshiba SD-5109 DVD player, Toshiba TW56X81, and M&K 750 THX Speakers. Panamax protects all systems at Yanman.com. |
Airplane! Most people agree, it is comic genius. Staring: Robert Hays Directed By: Jim Abrahams Running time: 87 Min Bonus Materials
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