Chaw chaw HMR: How important

Chaw chaw

HMR: How important is it to market DVD to alternative retail outlets supermarkets, Starbucks, convenience stores, etc. compared to mass merchants such as Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Costco? Dunn: I still like the early Coca-Cola strategy: be an arms length from a consumers need. Simply, the more ubiquitous the distribution, the better you serve the consumer. We are definitely increasing our distribution base. In the last year alone, weve opened 3, 000 new doors, Christian bookstores, that were serving not only our faith-based fare but also appropriate all-audience, family and kids titles. The consumer dynamics in this country continue to evolve, and we are really pushing into high-end stores where people have money. HMR: Is Fox interested in working with Starbucks to distribute titles? Dunn: I dont have much to say about that. I believe Starbucks has talked with everybody in town. There are different levels of interest and different projects among the studios. Starbucks clearly attracts an upscale consumer with a certain level of taste, and that is very attractive. HMR: What kind of a second half of 2006 can we expect in home video? Dunn: We see a growth level of about 5% compared to last year. The strength of the product is really solid and complementary to the consumer. For instance, this year there are three very strong family movies Ice Age: The Meltdown, Cars and Over the Hedge compared to one last year, Madagascar. There was no Devil Wears Prada last year with a female-skewing demo yet also appealing to men. The moviegoing audience is responding. Exit surveys are telling us that people like the movies they see not only ours, but also some of our competitors, too. Simply, better movies make for a better DVD market. vBulletin v 7, Copyright 2000-2011, vBulletin Solutions, Inc. Oliver Stones PLATOON has long-held a special place in my heart. Not because of anything directly related to combat, Ive never come close to anything resembling the military and wasnt born until after the conflict ended, but as a spotty teenager in an all-boys boarding house it was one of a select handful of VHS tapes that we played ad nauseum throughout the early nineties. We all knew the film back to front, frequently peppered our conversations with quotes from the film and could recite Chris final reflective monologue note-perfect whenever necessary. I think now, looking back see what I did there? that we were drawn to the film for its poignant coming of age story and its male camaraderie, where a bunch of guys from different backgrounds and different parts of the country were thrown together and forced to live with each other in unbearably close quarters during their most formative years. It didnt matter that none of us were especially familiar with the history behind the Vietnam War, or than none of us was American, PLATOON resonated with us in a way few other films did. What I enjoyed most about going back to the film for the first time in years was both the great affection I felt seeing these characters again, but also seeing the bigger picture with an informed eye that Id probably not trained on it before. Stones film is set during that critical period of 1967-68, when the perception of the war was changing for those back in the US, and when the realization began to set in that the Americans might not be able to win after all. What makes this Bluray package so fascinating, therefore, is how deeply it delves into the historical context of the film, the effect the war had on veterans including, of course Stone himself and his military advisor Capt. Dale Dye but also how the film broke convention and depicted the experiences of regular infantrymen in a way that had not been shown before. This raw and unflinching perspective drew criticism as well as praise at the time of release, but most importantly is still held by many veterans to be, even 25 years after its original release, the most accurate portrayal of the Vietnam War ever committed to screen. For those unfamiliar with the plot, PLATOON follows a young idealist, Chris Taylor Charlie Sheen, portraying a thinly-veiled Oliver Stone as he arrives in Vietnam in 1967, where he has volunteered for combat duty. He is assigned to Bravo Company, 1 Infantry Regiment, where he must quickly become accustomed to living in the jungle, under constant threat of attack from the enemy as well as the overbearing elements around him. As he slowly integrates himself into the group it is evident that a power struggle is at work between hard-assed military career man Sgt. Barnes Tom Berenger at his very best and the more pragmatic Sgt. Elias Willem Dafoe. We follow the platoon as it patrols the jungle, inspects villages, interacts with the terrified locals, carries out attacks and all-night ambushes and deals with death and ethical dilemmas at every turn. As well as perfectly capturing the conflict as it was experienced on the frontlines, PLATOON also highlights the larger political and moral problems back home as America was becoming as fractured and disillusioned by the war as the soldiers were in Taylors unit. The film also showcased the acting talents of a number of young, emerging actors including Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Keith David, Forest Whitaker and John C. McGinley. Never before have I seen so many different shades of green as are vividly captured in this sterling visual presentation. For a film that takes place mostly in heavy foliage, struggling to pick out camouflaged cast members, PLATOON looks at its best deep in the jungles of The Philippines, where it was shot. The grain remains in the image, most notable during dimly lit sequences, such as those in the bunkers or the films opening sequence at a dusty airport, while the final nighttime battle, which was lit entirely by flares, looks exquisite. Any flaws in the image can most likely be attributed back to the original source and one can imagine the shooting conditions were often less than ideal suffice to say that PLATOON has never looked better, and probably wont look any better in the future.