Death Race 2000 - Special Edition | Paul Bartel

Death Race 2000 - Special Edition | Paul Bartel | Its not all about the points

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Death Race 2000 - ...

	Death Race 2000 - Special Edition Paul Bartel Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 2005 average customer review:based on 92 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good Movie Low budget

This movie I had always heard about but never got the chance to catch it. Now I know where Toxic Avenger got the scoring pedestrians from. The original road rage Death Race 2000. I was watching and was wondering just when was the death going to kick in then it happened and it didnt stop. Great movie! Sylvester Stallone was pretty funny in this movie as he portrays Machine Gun Joe Paturbo ( I think thats how you spell it). David Carradine portrays Dr. Frankenstein and you think he's a freak at first but he is David Carradine so he's going to be weird anyway but its cool in the movie. They tied everything into this movie patriotism, road rage, liberty, humor and alot of naked women. Which is always a plus. But anywayz its a great movie especially if you liked the scoring from Toxic I check out the originators. I bought the box set and Pirahna came with it as well good deal but I dont know about those other two movies but this and Pirahna guaranteed satisfaction.

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Its not all about the points

Possibly the best movie ever made. Sly Stalone, the man who brought down communist Russia in Rocky III and the Nazis in Victory. No sport is beyond his acting reach. Not to mention an old Shalolin Monk by the name of David Caradine, nuf said.

Spend the money whatever small amount it is and get this flick.

CNN style reporting sells this flick

A very far out there movie with the guy from Kung fu and the guy from Rocky, among others in a futuristic race across the country. Along the way they kill pedestrians, police, hiway workers, anyone on the road or sidewalk.

The real trick here is the live CNN style reporting. Years before Ted Turner Thunk up CNN, this movie sells reports like Anderson Cooper or Geraldo Rivera!

try this one!!!

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Wow, it IS in WIDESCREEN...but the "Special Edition" SUCKS!

Initially, this review of mine had the title "Fullscreen...again!" because I had read in the press release that it was going to be in fullscreen. But hey, it's in widescreen after all (not a great widescreen, but it's something). However, while the transfer may be nice, this "Special Edition" isn't "special" at all!

DR2000 is one of my fave films of all time, and I always hoped for a great Special Edition release to do it justice. This is a GREAT film - action-packed, funny, tightly directed, great stars, not a bad or boring moment in the entire film. But this SE is a MAJOR disappointment.

First, the featurette. It SUCKS. The featurette doesn't get into hardly anything any fan of the film doesn't already know, and even that information is very minimal. Most of the featurette seems to only consist of scenes from the movie itself! Someone will say something, then you'll see a scene from the movie. Then someone else will be seen saying something, and you'll see another scene from the movie! Sometimes you'll see scenes from the movies in between lines! That's how bad this is. You don't see any photos of anything behind-the-scenes or on the movie set. No production photos, absolutely nothing. You don't see or hear anything on the construction of the cars. Heck, Roger Corman can't even remember the names of who did the cars. You don't see any deleted scenes - and there are deleted scenes from this movie. I've seen photos of scenes not in the film - where are they? How about telling us a little about them? Really, this featurette just SUCKS. The only redeeming thing about this featurette is that you see the guy who played Nero the Hero talk a little. He's the only decent part of the featurette. He even says a few good things too, he actually should have done a commentary track.

Ah, the commentary track, by Roger Corman and Mary Woronov, who played Calamity Jane. Guess what? Yes, the commentary track SUCKS. It's downright embarrassing. Both Roger and Mary both freely admit they haven't watched the film in many years and it really shows. When they are actually talking about Death Race 2000, they get things wrong. Just two examples - Corman says "watch for the airplane" much earlier than it really appears, and Mary says about Frankenstein's navigator "this is where she almost falls off the car" (referring to when she was fixing the car's engine in motion) way AFTER that scene already appeared!

The commentary is just horrendous. When some great insight can be given about a cool scene on screen, they are often talking about soemthing completely unrelated. Frankenstein and Machine Gun Joe's big fight in the garage? They don't talk about it. They talk about Mary instead! Frankenstein's speech to his navigator about who he is, a very key scene in the film? No, they talk about how black the room is! That's how it goes for the entire film. At one point they even go on for minutes about the economics of today's gasoline prices. Yes, that's correct. That's how almost the whole commentary is.

Mary in particular is very annoying at times. She finds so many things hilariously funny, you would think they were commenting on a Marks Brothers film. While the film is indeed humorous at times, it's not a straight-ahead "comedy" like so many think. It's a satire. It's funny at times, but you laugh with it, not at it. It even has a few messages. But it isn't a "comedy," let alone a hilarious one. Mary is annoying.

Both the commentary and the featurette completely ignore so many things that would have been fun to discuss. How about like Machine Gun Joe's "F" lever that spills oil on the road (who's idea?). Where are all the cars now, the ones that were not blown up? Which cars were dummies when they were blown up? How did the box office do? How was cable's effect on the film's popularity? And how about discussing the profoundness of the political messages in the film? It's heavy stuff, completely ignored!

Even the mistakes are ignored. Frankenstein's mask still on in the hotel room (which loked like a gym and had gym doors, story?). Frankenstein saying his taste buds were wiped out in "the crash of '97" after it has already been established that never happened to this Frankenstein? None of the goofs are discussed either.

The print is a nice print, but people should know they are once again getting a "cropped" print in some scenes, to hide some mistakes. You won't see the crewman in Machine Gun Joe's car "peeling out" on the fisherman's head, or the cars and busses in the backround before Joe runs over the guy on the ladder, because that's all been cropped out of the picture.

The original trailer is included, and it even has a small scene not in the movie, when Frankenstein says to his navigator, "This is a...death race." How about a little insight on that? No, of course not.

And oh yeah, being forced to watch trailers when you pop the DVD in really sucks too.

So really, this is a very poor "Special Edition" of this film. No photo gallery. No production photos. No poster gallery. No deleted scenes. No discussion of deleted scenes. An abysmal featurette. An abysmal commentary track by two people who didn't even bother to brush up on the film a little beforehand. They had a great chance to do some justice to this excellent film, and they blew it.

5 stars for the film, 0 stars for the Special Edition.

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Classic B Movie

This is one of the classic B movies of the 60's and 70's. The movie was filmed on a minimal budget and you can see that in the designs and special effects. If you like a movie to have a message Death Race 2000 addresses the future of violence in America. You just have to remember the movie was filmed 30 years ago. Or you can just ignore that and enjoy a spoof about a car race. The interplay between the characters is hilarious, and the road race sequences are fun.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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