Lilo & Stitch is my own new barometer for whether or not a person has a soul.

That's an exaggeration, and there are a couple people on these forums who didn't care for the movie -- that's normal. That's not what I mean.

I mean those who completely don't get the film and therefore hate it with a passion. Like Roeper. Like the other reviewers that said it was worse than the Black Cauldron. I'm interested in why this film completely divides people into total love or complete hatred, as if they had seen the Country Bears trailer over and over for two hours.

So here's my test.

Al Lutz.

Love it, or hate it?

Will he review it as a film, or as yet another mis-step in the gargantuan megacorporation that he believes he could run better, and then they'd all see!

Can he put aside all the sniping at Cinderella II and DCA and Disney Studios Paris and whatnot, and just review a movie?

I don't think he can.

I predict that his review,( to come in the next day or two, right?) will call Lilo & Stitch a loud, unfunny waste of time, and a complete bungle for Disney. He will say the movie has no heart, no humor, no third act, no originality and is a shameless rip-off of Shrek (which he didn't like either). He will say that Disney is flailing about with no direction, and has resorted to potty humor and inappropriately violent images in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

He will proclaim that audiences sit in silence or rush to the exits within the first ten minutes to demand a refund. He will call the characters completely unlikable and homely. He will say the watercolor backgrounds look cheap and lifeless. He will say that Mr. Bubbles was a rip-off of Pulp Fiction and Lilo a rip-off of Sally Van Pelt. He will think the Elvis songs were poorly chosen, and that Lilo was violent and hateful.

I really think this will be the review.

Or if he likes it, he'll say the following.

A great film, too bad the suits at DCA made a crappy show for it.

Any bets?

Originally posted by Kuzcotopia
Lilo & Stitch is my own new barometer for whether or not a person has a soul.

That's an exaggeration, and there are a couple people on these forums who didn't care for the movie -- that's normal. That's not what I mean.

I mean those who completely don't get the film and therefore hate it with a passion.

You have got to be kidding. You're doing this based on what a person thinks about one specific film?


So here's my test.

Al Lutz.

Love it, or hate it?

Will he review it as a film

Why do you assume that he's going to review it? He doesn't do reviews as part of the DIG, and MousePlanet has already posted a review.

Originally posted by cstephens


You have got to be kidding. You're doing this based on what a person thinks about one specific film?

Why do you assume that he's going to review it? He doesn't do reviews as part of the DIG, and MousePlanet has already posted a review.


Well I said I was exaggerating. Did you think I was really serious about the soul thing? Bzzzzz... sorry Al, you have no soul? Sorry, no afterlife for you, Kuzco said!

I was kidding. But I am interested to see if Al will review it, after he trashed it based on rumor awhile ago.

Here's an Al quote from the DIG:


The advance buzz for this summer's new animated motion picture from Disney "Lilo & Stitch" coming from cast member screenings has not been too positive. ...


...It's too bad that Lilo & Stitch seems to be a clunker of a movie as far as the advance screenings have been going. Of course this has me all the more curious to see it.



Yes, for him to poop on! So where's his review? Is he going to eat crow? Is the number one film in the country really a "big clunker"? (It passed Minority report on Monday, oh well, the number one film until Friday).

Al does review movies. He takes pot-shots at almost every one reviewed in the Home Theater section (he seems to think he represents the Advanced Home Theater). He reviewed Shrek, Star Wars Episode I, Star Trek. He reviewed Funny Girl for crying out loud!

But here is a film that most of the people posting love and love with a passion. Oh, not so nice if he were to poop on it, huh?



He trashed this film online, sight unseen. He should review it. It deserves at least that.

You gotta be kidding with this thread Kuzco.... Al loves 90% of the Disney movies that have come out recently -- I have to agree with him that Atlantis, Dinosaur, and all the direct to video crap were total klunkers, but he likes the rest of them.

All he posted were advance rumors (not his own review) -- and yes, SOME people didn't like Lilo and Stitch. I happened to love it, Ebert happened to love it, Roeper didn't. You really think Al will trash the movie simply for the sake of trashing something that lots of people love? Or simply because it's produced by Disney? I don't think so.

Well, I am kidding, but he did seem ready to trash it, almost gleeful with that quote. He said if it was bad he wanted to see it more. That sounds like someone trying to find fault.

I know, I know, it's become his job.

I guess I don't know his position on the other Disney films. I too think that Atlantis and Dinosaur were klunkers, so I'm not a Pollyanna either.

I guess I was wondering if Al, even AL, especially AL could set aside the name of the company who made this movie, and just watch it as a movie.

And I see this movie as being so great, that maybe it has the power to SOMEHOW... arrghh I don't know...

**Transcend** what has become the standard view, the one THOUGHT in nearly everyone's mind when watching ANY animated film from Disney anymore.

The Thought is:

Has Disney totally lost it? Will there ever be another Lionkingmermaidbeautyaladdin in my lifetime? Is Disney out of the slump? Is it getting better or worse?

I wonder, is this movie good enough for that to be forgotten for an INSTANT by Al?

As it was for me.

Originally posted by Kuzcotopia
Al does review movies. He takes pot-shots at almost every one reviewed in the Home Theater section (he seems to think he represents the Advanced Home Theater). He reviewed Shrek, Star Wars Episode I, Star Trek. He reviewed Funny Girl for crying out loud!

If I recall, all of those reviews were DVD reviews, so given that, I wouldn't expect to see Al's review until the film comes out on DVD.

Better find a chair, because it'll be a bit of a wait.

Originally posted by Kuzcotopia
Al does review movies. He takes pot-shots at almost every one reviewed in the Home Theater section (he seems to think he represents the Advanced Home Theater).

Just to straighten something out here, Al probably has one of the finest home theatre systems possible. (Yes, I've watched movies on it and it is too awesome for words.) A system like that really puts DVD releases through their paces and if there are any technical problems with a DVD, the system will quickly bring it to light. Al's background includes extensive technical experience in the audio/video areas.

Most cine- and audiophiles like knowing how well a DVD has been made and they want to know what the upsides and downsides of each release is before they buy. Especially when movie companies release several different versions of the same movie on DVD. It's just a little bit of consumer advocatism.

Hope that clears this little detail up.

Mahalo,
Sheila

I will second Sheila's remark there. I have also seen Al's audio/video system (actually an older one as he upgraded it recently) and he definitely maintains the state-of-the-art. Having discussed DVD and home theater with him extensively (we probably have more common views and interests there than we do about Disneyland), I have no doubts whatsoever about his qualifications for providing an "advanced home theater" evaluation of DVD releases.

In his career in the music industry, he did quite a bit of consulting work for Dolby Laboratories. I know his name shows up in the disc credits for at least one DVD in my collection.

-Jeff

As I read his writings, I can see where he is coming from on the technical details. I especially like his comments on the Fantasia/2000 box-set.

I guess I just wish he would write the complete reviews of DVD's sometimes, rather than popping in and sometimes completely disregarding what the writer of the actual review says.

The first one I saw where he did that was the Mary Poppins DVD.

http://www.mouseplanet.com/hometheater/MaryPoppins.htm

Kevin Krock gave it five out of five for both audio and video, while saying it was a bit slim on the extras. Kevin wrote a very reasonable review that covered all the bases. Then one paragraph before his conclusion, Al Lutz comes in with a column he calls "The Advanced Home Theater" and proceeds to completely contradict everything that Kevin said. Then Kevin comes back and says it is a must-have for every family.

I don't know either of these people personally, and they are probably good friends....

But it seemed to me that Al created that part of the column to poke his head in when he didn't trust Kevin's expertise in reviewing DVD titles. I know that if I had an editor do that to me when I worked in a newspaper I would have asked him to pull my article.

And the title "The Advanced Home Theater" seemed pretty self-serving: "Sure, Kevin's review is good enough for some slobs, but those "Advanced" viewers should pass up Mary Poppins despite the fact that Keven gave it 5 out of 5 for both sound and picture, and told me that every family should buy this. What does Kevin know anyway? He thinks THX stands for Totally Honking Xubwoofers!"

My advice to Al would be to write full reviews AND let Kevin poke in with his own contradictory messages from time to time. Stuff like:

"THE MEDIOCRE HOME THEATER
Don't listen to a word Al says. He has no life! Only huge geeks paint the wall behind their tv neutral grey and install sound-absorbing sponges in the corners of their room. Buy this dvd, no matter what Al says!"


Something like that!

But that's not my point.

My point is.... arrrrghhhh.....

If he's so advanced, why doesn't he write the whole article, or not write it at all? Or write a whole seperate article?

Wait, no! That's not the point either!

My point was, why did he trash Lilo & Stitch without seeing the movie?

THAT's my point.

Not that I'm always privy to other people's brains and what they're thinking, but to me, Kevin does an outstanding job of detailing what the general and intermediate/advanced viewers would be interested in knowing about a new DVD release.

The Advanced Home Theatre section is for those folks who are, well, advanced in their knowledge and appreciation of DVD technical production and specifications.

I do not see Kevin or Al's reviews to be mutually exclusive, rather more complementary.

Does this help here?

Sheila

Jeff-- I've seen the new system (and as you know, the old system.) I'm not nearly as into this stuff as you, Al, or my Kevin are, but it looks awesome. Here's my astute observation: The TV is even bigger. Tee-dah. But it does make it even more impressive (or easier to see interesting stuff either in backgrounds of certain scenes or little flaws on the screen.)

Kuzcotopia- Sheila and Jeff did a good job with their posts and I agree with their comments. DocKrock might pop in and make a comment himself but he's rather swamped right now so I'm going to add a comment--

Also, re: Al occasionally reviewing DVDs himself-- He has done that in the past and actually, he's currently working on reviewing some DVDs. Kevin is the Home Theater Editor. He writes most of the reviews himself but sometimes, for various reasons, he asks others to write specific reviews or others have offered to write reviews.

If Kevin's comments are helpful to you, I'm glad, because I happen to know how long it takes him to write just one of those reviews. If you don't have an advanced home theater set up, really, it's probably not a big deal to just skip over Al's comments. He highlights them in a shaded box so it would be pretty easy to jump down to Kevin's conclusion after Al's comments. If you do have an advanced home theater system and you regularly disagreed with Al's opinions then you already know not to make your purchase decisions on Al's comments.

Like I mentioned to Jeff, I'm not really not the audio/videophile that he, Al, and Kevin are. Occasionally Kevin comments about stuff that I don't notice on our home system. But even I can sometimes see some pixlating (is that the word?) on Al's system that just doesn't show up on ours. I could see why Kevin's reviews might not work for advanced home theater systems.

Adrienne K

Kuzcotopia, I agree with you to a point--Al's reporting of negative buzz surrounding Lilo and Stitch may have been a minor misstep on his part (haven't seen the movie myself, so I have no opinion on its quality). Then again, always take what you read online with an enormous grain of salt.

That being said, I do think Al is a fair man and would be happy to recant his former misgivings if he likes the movie. He has changed his mind before. Example: Before DCA opened, Al used to refer to the Grizzly River Run rather disparagingly as the "bear raft ride," and often reported rumors about technical problems, such as leaks in the flume. However, he was rather glowing in his praise for the attraction after riding it himself--this from a man who doesn't care for raft rides (as he stated in his review of DCA).