Might I just ask where in tarnation IS everyone? We need some Saturday night fever, baby.
Since I'm not going to get around to watching the full movie of Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, I will give my first impressions.
Oklahoma! I would say the Todd-AO transfer is a near disaster - it's dark, it's got constant flickering, and it's not that sharp. I would say the Cinemascope transfer is much sharper, but still dark, and I just don't find the Cinemascope version of the film interesting or compelling. And despite the major problems with the Todd-AO transfer, that image has so much depth and life at times it's almost breathtaking - one can only hope that at some future date Fox gets its act together and does a proper transfer, and while they're at it, get rid of the Samuel Goldwyn logo at the beginning. So, for me, the Todd-AO transfer, with all its problems, is the only version I'll be watching - the performances are better, the direction and cutting is better and, of course, it's got the overture and intermission and exit music.
The Sound of Music, which has gotten much negative press from the usual suspects, looks pretty damn good to my eye, but then I never thought there was a problem with the last DVD, which the same usual suspects tried to say was one of the worst-looking DVDs of all-time. Obviously, those anal boobs have never seen any REALLY awful-looking DVDs. They went on and on about "edge enhancement" something I never saw on the DVD. And, of course, these selfsame anal boobs are now saying this transfer looks a little softer (it doesn't, really, but they're saying it anyway) - well, duh - they took all the edge enhancement off the transfer this time, stupidly listening to the anal boobs, and when you do that the image is softer - as someone recently explained, you HAVE to use a little edge enhancement on every DVD transfer, otherwise the image will invariably be soft. It's the amount used that's the trick.
