Barbed Wire, DVD Matting, and Lying

My partner and I decided to snuggle on the couch with a hot dish (we're Midwestern bred), some sodas, and a classic movie last night to have a cozy Friday evening at home (we're also past the age of going out). The film we chose was the cinema verte neo noir gem, BARB WIRE, starring the very serious method actress Pamela Anderson. This 1996 erotic thriller was.....not good. In fact, we made it about 40 minutes in before I couldn't take any more and we threw in the towel.

As I was watching though, something struck me as very odd. This DVD was put out by Polygram USA Video in 1999, clearly before the company went through a series of mergers and became obsolete. That being said, me picking on them is the equivalent of picking on the fence outside my window, but I did want to point out why this DVD became a bee in my bonnet last night.

So in the menu, one gets a choice as many DVDs at the time offered-- standard or widescreen? Meaning, do you want to watch this 1.85:1 or 1.33:1?



Let's look at this picture for a second. The DVD menu is suggesting that if you watch the Widescreen version of the film, there is more image to the left and right than if you watch the Standard version of the film, which looks like it is pan and scanned here.

So we choose Widescreen and the titles start. During this wonderfully executed title sequence of boobs flying all over the place, I notice that in a few shots, the top of the frame seems like heads are missing.



My initial thought is "Hrm, a DP probably wouldn't have framed it like that when he was shooting....perhaps this was shot 1.37 and matted? But that doesn't make sense because the DVD said the fullscreen version was pan and scanned...." So, later that evening in a bout of indigestion I took a look at the fullscreen/standard version of the movie and look at what I found:



Aha! It was shot 1.37 and matted for widescreen!!! But this was just the title sequence, so maybe the rest of the DVD was pan and scanned from the 1.85 version. It's a possibility, right? I did a little more digging. Well.....






And....

So here's the deal. Clearly this isn't a pan and scan version of the movie, so why is the DVD menu saying that it is? AND the disclaimer before the film is warning the viewer on the fullscreen/standard version that it's been modified from its original version in that it's been formatted to fit their square TV screen? What bull dropped that on the barnyard floor? It hasn't been reformatted-- it's just been transferred without the mattes on the top and bottom of the frame. This is so misleading and gives people the wrong idea about how fullscreen and widescreen works. So, Polygram Home Video, RIP and thanks for playing, but you totally took your viewers for a ride with this one didn't you?

DVD Popularity, or Lack Thereof, in 1997

21 years ago, the technological life of consumers was changed forever: the birth of the DVD-Video. 


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Different sources list different titles as the first to be released on DVD. A Google search listed TWISTER in 1997 as the first commercial release, yet on this site the first releases are listed as on December 20, 1996: POINT OF NO RETURN, BLADE RUNNER, ERASER, and THE FUGITIVE. Over the years, we have seen the format grow to include our favorite films, heard controversies by critics on review sites like www.dvdbeaver.com, seen it grow into formats such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and now, of course, seen it start to dwindle and fade away as streaming becomes more mainstream. 

People were instantly attracted to the number of special features that were once limited to laserdiscs, its compact nature which made it much cheaper than laserdisc, the clarity of image and sound compared to VHS, and as time went on these other formats were left behind. And yet, as hard as it is to believe, not everyone got on board the DVD Popularity Train when the format started making its way into stores and eventually consumer living rooms. Here were some early arguments people had with the format.


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1) "I DON'T WANT TO SEE BLACK!"

The plus side to DVD was that it was beginning to standardize presenting films in their intended aspect ratios as they would have been seen in theaters. Few people owned a 16x9 television set when DVD came out, so most would see these films in their letterbox formats on their square 4x3 tv sets. While today, a 2.35:1 aspect ratio film presents a thin black line on the top and bottom of a16x9 TV, when DVD first came out, two thirds of the screen (above and below the image of the film) would be black. While it is nice that DVD allowed for the entire film frame to be seen, on the average TV at the time the image would now appear quite small. Also, many people still hadn't grasped the concept of seeing a rectangle in a movie theater vs. a square when they were in their homes and thought that there was more magical image above the frame line that didn't exist. They didn't understand that the image was getting cropped to the left and right of what would fit on their TV.

Of course, if you read this blog's PORKY'S article, you would have learned about the open matte 1.85 films, which did have a 4x3 image that was now being matted for DVD. Here's another example-- the fullscreen vs. widescreen versions of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, available on Sony Home Entertainment:

Years later, people are still arguing about how their DVDs for CARRIE and PORKY'S are censored because their is less nudity than on their old VHS tapes, not understanding that the nudity was always cropped from the widescreen image. Thankfully, by the turn of the century, 16x9 TVs were becoming more commonplace, people were understanding how aspect ratios worked, and things calmed down.

2) "I CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND VHS"


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I get it, the first reaction I would have too is "Are you vision impaired?", but believe it or not, this was a legitimate argument for many consumers at that time. The average TV still operated with tube technology-- the image it produced was soft, yet bright, so that whether you were watching network TV, HBO, a laserdisc, or a VHS tape, the image was similar. Of course, with a VHS recorded in SLP mode or that was a dub of another tape, one would see anomalies, but if one was looking at a consumer VHS vs. a consumer DVD on the average 1990s TV, the difference in quality was only slightly different due to the technological limitations of the TV....and most certainly not worth repurchasing one's entire home video collection. A good sounding Hi-Fi track could suit the needs of the small speaker on a 1990s TV the same way that a DVD could. In fact, because the VHS tapes were mixed specifically for those TVs and DVDs tended to be mixed more for 5.1 surround systems, chances are the average consumer would have a better audio experience with the VHS than the DVD.

3) "TOO FRAGILE"

VHS was an incredibly durable format-- beyond the Hi-Fi track going, which we discussed earlier. If there was a section that was damaged by a machine, there would be a few seconds of bad video (still viewable in most cases), and the tape would chug through and get a better signal. Usually, it does not take more than a minute for VHS to clear itself from audiovisual issues, which tend to be no more than some green and white dropout lines scrolling over the screen and the audio fading in and out.


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Hence, people were a little rougher with VHS tapes. They didn't need to obsess keeping them in their sleeves, worry about dropping them, etc. DVDs on the other hand were much more fragile due to not just the technology, but the size. A smudge of a fingerprint could make a DVD freeze. A 1/2" scratch, if it is deep enough, could ruin an entire 20 minutes of program for the viewer permanently. And one couldn't simply sit through and still make out what was going on during this bad portion like they could with VHS dropout lines. Now, the entire disc would stop working and the consumer had to hope that turning the machine off and on again would resolve the problem, which would then result in them needing to start the program over and skip to where the problem existed and hopefully to where it resolved itself...which leads into our next problem people had with the format.

4) "I CAN'T START WHERE I LEFT OFF"


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Today, most DVD players can resume where one leaves off on a disc when they turn their players back on after powering it off, but this was a feature that was only on more expensive DVD players when the format was first introduced. This means that if someone watched half of a movie and wanted to return to it at a later time, they would have to find where this moment was, either by skipping through the chapters in the film or by using the menus, which were hard to navigate. This leads us to our last complaint.......

5) "HOW DO I WORK THIS DARN THING?"

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Today, we live in an age where technology is much more a part of our lives than it was back in 1997. At that time, only 36% of Americans had a computer in their home according to the US Census. VHS tapes were pretty self-explanatory in how they worked. By putting a commercial tape in a machine, it would start automatically. There were a handful of buttons one needed to operate a commercial tape-- Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, Stop, Pause, and Eject. Then came DVD with its FBI warnings that one couldn't skip, its menus that required a little bit of a technological background to get around, and the many different features of a disc (sound, subtitles, different versions) that required navigation-- all a bit much for a population that hadn't necessarily all been exposed to a home computer on a regular basis. For people who didn't want to "see black" and wanted to watch the film full screen (a 1.33 aspect ratio for 4x3 TVs), many times two sided discs were available, one with the full screen version, one with the widescreen. Whether side A or B had a specific version was never standardized, meaning the customer was obligated  to squint and look at the tiny writing on the disc to determine which side they wanted to see. This being said, if a film was longer, in the early days of DVD both sides of a disc were used to fit the entire program on it (i.e. ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES).


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It may seem puzzling for people today that there was a time when people thumbed their noses at the DVD format. After it took off it very quickly wiped out the VHS market and forced studios to go through a restoration and remastering process of their libraries to get the films ready for the new format. It standardized how the consumer watched movies until Bluray and streaming began taking over. As the days of DVDs wane and we begin to look at this format nostalgically, let us not forget to tip our hats to those who noticed the flaws and suffered through the early days...and hope that they have now embraced DVD as we all have.

2017 Annual Dusk Til Dawn Horrorthon

Fall is such an interesting time to be in Los Angeles. We don't get the autumnal changing of leaves, different varieties of  corn andapples don't blossom into our supermarkets like they do in the midwest, and flannel shirts don't run rampant due to the lack of weather changing. We do however, take our Halloween season very seriously. The repertory film circuit is the perfect example. Screenings of horror classics run regularly throughout the month of October, and two theaters, the New Beverly Cinema and the Aero Theater (part of the American Cinematheque) do their own all night horror film marathons! The Aero's Dusk Til Dawn Horrorthon, now celebrating its 12th year, has become a staple in the rep film circuit, and how could anyone resist?

Seven films are run, this year's lineup being An American Werewolf in London, Popcorn, The Tingler, Hack-O-Lantern, Shocker, Brainscan, and Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. All films were presented on beautiful 35mm prints, with the exception of Death Bed, where only a DCP was available. When I say beautiful, I mean every print had minor scratches, rich color, and rich sound to ensure audience members would be popping out of their seat at just the right moments as the filmmakers had intended. American Werewolf in London, the print that showed the most wear, was a Polydor print from its European release and there are better prints available from Universal Studios (such as the one shown at UCLA in 2013 as a double feature with the 30th anniversary of Thriller) but it would still fall in the Good condition as the scratches were limited to the first few minutes of the reels. The Tingler had some splices during dialogue in it, but it was still as enjoyable as the others with very few vertical lines and a sharp black and white contrast from when it was printed. The print of Shocker was so great that it could have been used as a DVD transfer-- not a single scratch on it and comparable to what one would see on a DCP of a new film.

This year, to avoid tickets selling out in less than 10 minutes as they have in the past, the theater did NOT announce when tickets were going on sale, giving more people time to purchase. As the theater filled around 7:15 (festivities begin promptly at 7:30 to ensure people are let out at a reasonable hour), people pulled out their blankets, pillows, libations, and candy, getting ready to snuggle with some horror classics. Each film began with Grant, the master of ceremonies, energizing his audience, throwing candy and DVDs into the crowds, and bringing out classic characters that were created especially for the event. Candy Randy runs throughout the audience throwing fun size packs of candy, and Corn Gorn is a man in a Gorn Star Trek costume who runs around with a giant corn on the cobb.

Then begins the filler entertainment, which can be silly and a bit repetitive but was well reigned in this year. Silly commercials, videos of Star Trek and TJ Hooker, and a bizarre music video by porn star turned disco star Dennis Parker, for example, will run for about 20 minutes to get the viewer engaged with the screen for the next horror film. As the films run, the audience might scream, cheer, boo, or even heckle the screen during silly parts of films, such as Hack-O-Lantern, which was so terrible it was entertainingly humorous, or Popcorn, an over-the-top film that was about a horror-thon that goes awry when people start getting murdered. In this film, for example, when an ugly college kid tries to disgustingly flirt with the protagonist, a guy near the front of the theater yelled "Swipe Left!", a reference to the dating app Tinder, which sent the audience into hysterics. Instead of chiding the audience for this when it could potentially get out of hand, by the time Shocker started, a head volunteer yelled "No heckling this one guys, this is Wes Craven," which was prompted by applause by the same audience as they agreed the mood was about to change.

The staff at the Aero were so generous to open their home to audience members at a price that they could afford but by no means gave the theater a profit: a mere $25 not only paid for my admission for seven films in a row, but also ample amounts of pizza, candy, coffee, and other snacks. During slower parts of the films, volunteers came through the aisles offering "Soylent Pizza", which was really just Little Caeser's pizza, to patrons. When an unfortunate flood hit the concession stand a few hours into the marathon, the staff managed to call a company to fix the problem, and reopened concessions within a reasonable time. Leaving the theater it looked like a war zone, with wrappers, popcorn, cups, and lids tossed all along the seats and aisles, but everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. Thank you again to the American Cinematheque for giving its community of Angelenos an evening that they will always remember.

You can check out more events by the Aero and its sister theater the Egyptian at www.americancinematheque.com.

The Magic of Home Movie Day

There are many things I love about being a media archivist, but one of my absolute favorite annual events is Home Movie Day. What is Home Movie Day might you ask? Well, it is just that-- an event where people all around the world can bring their home movies on an array of formats (depending on what type the venue supports) and have them run before an audience, almost like a show-and-tell. Local archivists generally host it and can give patrons information on how to store their films properly, have them digitized affordably to a format they support, and also help them with repairing the movies depending on the kind of format they come on.

Historically, Home Movie Day was annually hosted on 8/16 because before VHS, home movies were generally shot on 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm film. As time has gone on, VHS has become more and more rare in people's homes and harder to play back, so institutions have started to include this and other supporting formats such as VHS-C (a VHS cartridge that held a mini VHS inside of it and fit into a standard VCR) and Hi-8. The date has also become flexible so that cities that want to participate don't feel restrained to participating on a specific day and can allow people all over their communities to join in on the fun.

Los Angeles Home Movie Day is hosted in different locations every year. This year (2017) it will be held twice. Once was last Saturday (10/7/17) at the Linwood Dunn Theater inside of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Vine Street location. The other will be this coming Saturday (10/21/17) at the University of Southern California Archives Bazaar. While the event last week was limited to film formats due to the venue, the Archives Bazaar will include video formats.

Still not convinced that this upcoming event is for you? Let me give you a rundown of how Home Movie Day worked last week and has historically in Los Angeles. When a patron enters the venue, he or she is given a piece of paper to fill out with general information, including their name, what their home movie contains, and what format it is. Their home movie is placed in a queue based on when they arrived and taken to a team of volunteer archivists. If the home movie is a film, the team winds through it, checking for any rips, tears, deterioration, etc., that may prevent the film from being run, and then has it passed off to projectionists inside the theater who are then in charge of running it.

When it becomes the patron's turn to have their film or video run, they are given a microphone to narrate over the film and share what is being seen. This can be an array from Christmases to weddings, to trips to Vegas, to barbecues in the backyard. Some people remember what they are seeing, some people found the film in their Nana's attic. Some even bring films that they've gotten on Ebay or at thrift stores! As long as it's someone's home movie, it is welcome. There are tears from time to time, some in sorrow at seeing a loved one that has passed, others laughing when there is footage of Grandpa Weissberger doing the chicken dance at a party. Historically, this event provides something for the community as well, however.

The images captured in a home movie capture a natural moment in time. There are no sets, no props, no staged performers (unless you count the amateur ballet recitals of your mother when she was 5). The moments are a historic portrayal of life at a certain time in our history, whenever it may be. And while people get a kick out of seeing footage of the 1964 World's Fair or Knott's Berry Farm before it was a big tourist trap and beehive haircuts next to jello mold salads loaded with carrot, the main thing people seem to love is watching the interactions of family members and realizing that while the moving image has been around for over a century, the love of family remains universal in all the images shared.

Please check out your local home movie day. You can find your local one here: http://www.centerforhomemovies.org/hmd/ and it goes without saying that even if you don't have a home movie to bring, you are in for a treat of an afternoon.

Elvis Sandwich

This month I took on the Elvis sandwich: layers of peanut butter, banana, and bacon on bread, then grilled to....perfection? Well, just watch and you'll see what I mean:


https://youtu.be/f9SBlyKrWj8

Mediocrity in the Film and Video Archive and Restoration World

Earlier this week, I attended a screening of DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME at the Nuart Theater after hearing rave reviews, both by colleagues in our field and by critics. I was excited to see a film that had been grabbing people's interest about a fascinating story of film discovery, directed by Bill Morrison, whose other famous film DECASIA was quite memorable. After the lights went down and the film started, I began to lose interest quite quickly. It became clear that this was simply a reworking of DECASIA-- while the film was supposed to be about Dawson City, and could have been quite charming, the entire first hour (after which point I left) was told though zooming images, small text on the screen, and shots of old Yukon films, a portion but not the majority of which were found in Dawson City buried under an old hockey rink. With the exception of the first five minutes, there were no interviews, there was no dialogue, and the soundtrack was very avant-garde and in many ways a pretentious accompaniment to these hum-drum images that flatly glossed over the screen, personal opinion of course.

I left the film an hour in, came home, and watched a blu-ray of DUMBO which was recently released and I had not checked out yet. People seem to have had an annoyed reaction to this, which I think is a little unfair...I wanted to like DAWSON CITY but felt that it did not meet the expectations I had, and that is okay. It was mentioned too that my critical opinion of this film was an example of my 'trolling nature'. This not the case at all, and I want to take a few paragraphs to discuss why this bothers me. I feel that in our small industry of "media archivists/preservationists/restorers/repertory theater presenters/home video distributors", we have reached a frustrating level of mediocrity. I am not counting Morrison's film in this category because clearly many people liked it and I missed something, which is fair, but the idea of having a critical opinion of a project or presentation in our industry is shot down so often by our colleagues without fair justification.

The source of this could be from many different places. Fear of a lack of support preventing other projects from happening could be one of them. For example, in 2009 the UCLA Film and Television archive ran a very lovely print of DARK PASSAGE as part of their Bogart retrospective. Five years later, the Noir City festival decided to run the movie, and stated that they could only get hold of a fair quality print as no other good prints were available, according to Warner Bros. Now, the print that they claimed was 'fair' was actually better than they said but it was not the quality of the UCLA print. I knew more people knew that in the audience, but no one was opening their mouth to say so. After a few repeated instances of this scenario I began to, and was shot down by colleagues: by criticizing the quality of prints publicly, I was pointing out the flaws of 35mm presentation, and people who were rooting for DCPs to take over the industry were gaining points. It was necessary for me to turn a blind eye to the occasional bad 35mm presentation because our collectively not doing so could potentially halt 35mm presentation in the future with films that should truly be seen on 35mm instead of digitally.

This critique is understandable based on the flawed work of digital restoration artists saturating our field today that people are just as timid about pointing out. In the past, I have commented blu-rays such as the Warner Bros. release of EASTER PARADE or Disney's BAMBI are ridiculously oversaturated and resemble nothing like their Technicolor origins, in comparison with the various prints and home video releases of the films released over the years. A friend stated that making comments like this could not put me on good terms with these archives, and because these projects are so expensive and other vendors are involved, it was a touchy subject and therefore it wasn't fair of me to point out these flaws as often as I do. Doing so could jeopardize the future release of other vintage films by these companies.

These arguments of external vendor work on films determining how a presentation is going to look didn't just start with the DCP days, it goes back to the early 2000's. An example: In 2012, the Academy Film Archive did a series entitled "The Last 70mm Festival" at which over a course of a number of Tuesday evenings, 70mm prints were run with Q&A sessions and short films preceding the features. One of these was THE SOUND OF MUSIC. This film was made in lucious 4-Track Stereo specifically designed for 70mm presentations, but as the vendor "Thank You's" were happening, it was mentioned the print featured a 5.1 surround sound mix by Audio Mechanics. The question that ran through my head was naturally, "Why?" The answer was just as simple-- the vendor created a new sound mix for a DVD release, and that was what was restored, not the original mix, ergo that was what would be laid onto the 70mm print. I was also told that because of the politics involved in getting a 70mm print made, it was best to 'just be happy' that I was seeing it in 70mm.

There is another level to this that is not being discussed, and that is our level of camaraderie in the industry-- this 'one for all, all for one, let's go save movies' attitude that has developed over the years and discouraged people from being critical of poorly done work. While colleagues pat each other on the backs for a job well done and refuse to ask 'How can this be done better?' or 'What is lacking from this presentation?', the potential of quality is being destroyed, mainly by the cost of needing to redo it properly. When the Warner Archive Collection first took off, the original releases were horrendous; in the case of some, worse than their VHS counterparts. Because nobody with professional leverage piped in to say "These are terrible," and instead simply said "Thank you for releasing these on DVD," those films will probably never be released in a proper form. If they do, it will likely cost a fortune, as these projects always do.

When CBS Home Video first released "I Love Lucy, Season 1" on DVD, the sound mix by Chace Audio was HORRENDOUS. A comparison of unrestored vs. restored clips exists on each disc, and one can clearly hear that the unrestored audio has a broader level of frequency (with a slight hiss) than the restored audio, which has no hiss or crackle but now is so processed that everyone sounds like they're lisping. Because of a lack of criticism of this sound restoration, when it was released a second time, years later and in a slimmer casing, the same sound mix was used. It wasn't until the Blu-ray release that a proper sound mix was done that compared to the quality of the other seasons that had been done properly and as a result the client had to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get what they should have been given in the first place.

Speaking of CBS Home Video, when the 1965 version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's CINDERELLA was released on DVD for the first time, the program was edited and came in a washed out form, again in a form that was worse looking than its VHS counterpart. It clearly came from a worse source, filled with dropout, a flat image, and dull sound. Because it was not mastered properly the first time around, when the 50th Anniversary release was scheduled a new remastering was done from another source. With the increase of a 2" video transfer price from 2002 to 2015, clearly more money was spent than needed to be if the project had just been done properly to begin with. Not enough people had complained about the quality of the DVD, however, and 'were just glad it was released on DVD instead of VHS', and the end result was too much money being spent on something that should have been done properly in the first place.

Now is the time to make a difference in our field of work-- be critical. Swim against the waves when everyone blindly praises work. It is not 'trolling', it is not 'antagonizing', it is not 'seeking attention'. It is ensuring that what we do as a future generation of "film and video archivists/preservationists/restorers/repertory theater presenters/home video distributors" is of solid quality. Now is the time to step up and ask what can be done to ensure that the flubs mentioned above do not happen as regularly as they do. Instead of simply patting our colleagues on the back and praising them, in fear of losing them as a potential business contact or in fear of pissing off a studio, or in fear of drawing attention to the flaws which could potentially stop other projects from happening....ask why a decision was made, and open a discussion about what could have been done to make it better. Mediocrity in our field cannot end until this happens.

Music Replacement at Ridgemont High

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH holds dear to so many Americans as a portrait of high school in the 1980s in the US, not necessarily on a scholastic level, but on a social level. Following a group of students over a year of high school, piggybacking on the shoulders of films like Grease a few years before, FAST TIMES has endured its status as a cult classic on VHS and Cable TV. The television version added many scenes to the film which according to the film's screenwriter and director are now lost due to a purging of the Universal Studios vaults of all deleted scene material in the 1990s. In addition to this change, however, came a modification of the film soundtrack.

Popular music in film and TV shows can be costly. Those who work in the industry know that shows such as The Wonder Years, WKRP in Cincinatti or Happy Days on DVD or Netflix need these alterations or the cost to release a film on home video, TV, or streaming would be very expensive. In the 1980s, the same game was being played for VHS releasing. Universal Pictures rescored parts of films such as SIXTEEN CANDLES, WEIRD SCIENCE, and our example here: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. In 1987 and 1990, the home video releases had made the following changes to the film, comparing runtimes to the 2004 DVD which reinstated all of the original music:

00:07:15-00:08:52: Tom Petty's "American Girl" has been replaced with generic music in the first scene that features Ridgemont High School.





00:25:47-00:26:40: The Christmas montage leading into Stacy and Linda discussing how Stacy's been dumped by Ron replaces Darlene Love's "Winter Wonderland" with a Christmas song my Shazam wouldn't recognize that starts "There was a bit of mistletoe, and a field of falling snow, on this little Christmas time......". If anyone knows it, please comment on what it is......







00:44:08-00:45:36: As Spicolli and Jefferson's brother are driving around recklessly, Sammy Hagar's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" with generic rock music. Yes....infuriatingly, the title song to the film has been replaced with generic music. This replacement music with the dialogue is sampled at the beginning of the song "Dalyla" by the Phunk Junkeez, which can be heard here.






00:46:18-00:46:52: In the very next scene, as students are walking through the halls preparing for the Ridgemont vs. Lincoln game, Donna Summer's "Highway Runner" has been replaced with a generic rock music cue.





00:47:45-00:49:43: During the football game, "Fast Times (The Best Years Of Our Lives)" by Billy Squier has been removed and replaced with an unknown song.



00:50:07-00:50:33: As Stacy and Linda are sunbathing, the song "Don't Be Lonely" by Quarterflash, playing on the portable radio, has been replaced with a generic song, now with male vocals as opposed to the female vocals of the Quarterflash song.





00:51:06-00:53:09: When Mark and Damone come by uninvited and start horse-playing in the pool, followed by Brad coming in and telling them to keep it down, leading up to brad spying on Lynda, Don Felder's Never Surrender has been replaced with an unknown song that sounds similar to it.







01:27:03-01:27:44: After Stacy and Linda discuss how Stacy wants romance more than sex, when Stacy spots Mark across the way at the movie, the Timothy B. Schmidt remake of "So Much In Love" has been replaced with an unknown love song similar in theme.





01:30:49-01:36:48: The text epilogue of all the characters followed by the end credits replaces Oingo Boingo's "Goodbye, Goodbye" with a similar sounding unknown song.







There you have it, all the changes made to the initial 1987 and 1990 home video releases of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. The end credits for the home video have been altered to remove the songs that were taken out for home video, but the replacement songs are all uncredited. In addition, the titles are reformatted toward the end so that they finish when the song finishes. 1996 would mark a new home video release of the film that, according to IMDB, reinstated all of the original music except for Tom Petty, Timothy B. Schmidt, and Oingo Boingo. The film's soundtrack does make the picture, however, and having the original soundtrack reinstated for the DVD gives the viewer the full experience of the film that had been missing for many years. Interestingly enough, director Amy Heckerling didn't care for the original soundtrack of the film. In the DVD commentary, she is constantly criticizing it, saying that the country-rock songs of Jackson Browne, etc., were originally put in by studio execs, but she wanted more of a new wave and punk soundtrack, more representative of teens of that time but that the studio felt would alienate other viewers. Who knows, maybe Heckerling would have preferred the replacement VHS music?