criterionforum.org

That's a fair point, I suppose my issue is just that it feels like they haven't been valuing commentaries as a form nearly as highly for the last few years- though I suppose that could be just as easily that the price tag on them has risen for one reason or another.

I'm very curious to see how it will fare compared to the comparatively very cheap UK BD, since the only additions seems to be the uncompressed audio (VS DD 2.0 on the UK BD) and the Del Toro appreciation.

My only nice-to-have wish for this release would have been a featurette on the music of Watership Down, particularly on the "Bright Eyes" segment, which is one of the most poetic sequences I've seen in any animated film. An interview with Art Garfunkel, similar to Yusef/Cat Steven's contribution to Harold and Maude's bonus content, would have really made the package close to perfection.

Does anyone know if the Criterion solves the awful color flickering on the right side of the frame that starts at about 5 min in the movie and is about 20 min long ? It's extremely annoying on the UK disc.

tenia wrote:Does anyone know if the Criterion solves the awful color flickering on the right side of the frame that starts at about 5 min in the movie and is about 20 min long ? It's extremely annoying on the UK disc.

Found out by myself : unfortunately, it doesn't solve this stability issue.

Not sure if I should be cringing or not yet, but the BBC has announced that a CGI adaptation of Watership Down is in the works.

Just please... please, no musical numbers or slapstick rodent sidekicks.

You don't mind if the rabbits wear cute overalls and newsboy caps, do you? If not, you should be okay.

Oh, and Vin Diesel does the voice of Bigwig.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 56061.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a (sorta) defense of the parents (they still could have turned it off or at least looked into the film if they weren't aware of what it was before letting them watch it), I let my daughter watch it with me when I got the disc and I had forgotten just how brutal the film actually is. I did remember it was violent, and I remembered the moments that traumatized me as a kid (the gassing, the snare, the vision, how "off" that Denholm Elliot sequence was) but, yikes, I somehow forgot about the bloodbath at the end and some of the other brutal moments throughout.

But I still had an idea of what she was getting into and I'm not going to freak out because ultimately it was on me. Plus my wife and I figured it was good for her to learn how brutal it can be out there for animals (or anything really), and what people do to them (I doubt she really understood any of the political context behind the story so it at least worked that way for her). She got a little upset during some scenes but in the end she liked it and has asked to watch it a few times since.

(Admittedly by this point I had pretty much given up on "protecting" her, though, because a few months before this someone had left the TV on downstairs and the Coppola Dracula was on. Of course, she had been sitting there watching it for who knows how long. Still, I did shut that one off, much to her disappointment.)

Channel 5 did do a bit of a funnily cruel thing of having Bigwig's snare trap struggle and apparent death occur before cutting to some adverts, then back for the resolution to it a couple of minutes later! That's the problem with advert breaks - that in a particular film, or timed just right, they can provide their own layer of subversive commentary!

I suppose this gives me a chance for a crotchety 'kids today' rant (though perhaps its more appropriately 'parents today'?), as I remember Watership Down being a staple of the afternoon schedules in the early 90s, and it was shown over the Easter weekend at least once before back in 1996! I remember the bit that always stuck with me at a young age was the crossing the road sequence as living in a semi-rural area there would constantly be the upsetting sight of the bodies of animals who just didn't make it across lying semi-squashed in the road. In some ways Watership Down is a good preparation for sights like that!

Anyway Channel 5 are premiering (79 years after it was made) Disney's Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs in the same timeslot next Sunday, which is good, wholesome, completely unscary fun for the whole family!

OK, admittedly Easter is just Chocolate Bunny Day for many, but the film doesn't seem such an outrageous choice for a holiday to do with the Crucifixion and Resurrection. I assume there was some mention of those events in family-attended church services this weekend.

I saw chocolate crosses at a Wal-Mart (from Hershey no less) which I found incredibly perverse when considered from just about all perspectives, from a.) it being an important Christian symbol, so in that regard it seems a bit blasphemous (but I'm not religious to begin with so maybe I'm over-reaching, but I'm sure it's at least "sacri-licious") to b.) Romans nailed people to them. So, yeah, I think the holiday is lost on most people and don't really understand the more brutal bits behind it.

And to go back to Dracula, chocolate crosses seem impractical in warding a vampire off. They'd just need to wait for them to melt from the warmth of the person's hand before moving in for the neck!

Once again, I have never heard of a person who needed counselling or therapy and otherwise had a difficult, messed up life because they watched a movie as a kid. Heard of plenty in that situation because of their families, tho'.

Agreed. My concern, though, is usually just about possible nightmares that might come from them watching something, because then it's just going to be an awful night for everyone. And for the record, the only thing I recall giving my daughter nightmares was old-school Scooby Doo cartoons, which is really weird considering some of the shit she's watched.

But if the parents are still horrified their kids watched this they have no one to blame but themselves really in the end, especially in the age of the internet and IMDB when they can easily look up a film. And if they're letting them watch anything without any thought, then I don't know what to say about that.

I didn't see Watership Down until I was an adult, so I don't know how I would have responded to it as a child. When I was young, graphic violence never fazed me—in the original RoboCop, the scene where

Spoiler

the guy covered in toxic waste gets hit by a truck

was one of the coolest things my then eight-year-old self had ever seen—but something like Snoopy Come Home left me a blubbering mess.