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2001 will be the year to beat as
far as DVD releases are concerned. With last fall
alone bringing us one amazing two-disc release of
long-awaited favorites after another and sales of
players and titles both skyrocketing, it has truly
been the year in which the medium came into its
own. Not only did great classics like Ben-Hur,
Lawrence of Arabia and On the Waterfront
see the light of day, plenty of enjoyable popcorn
movies also graced our home theater screens and
showed us how quality extras and reference-level
audio and video can add to the movie experience.
It was difficult enough narrowing down our shortlist
to five titles for specific categories and ten for
Best Release, but your votes have continued to pour
in during the past weeks, and they have all been
counted, weighed and re-counted; now here are the
final results:
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Best
DVD release: Se7en - SE
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Previously available
on a resolutely unimpressive bare-bones
DVD release, David Fincher's masterful
chiller was revisited this year in a
gorgeously packaged two-disc set, featuring
a new reference-level video transfer,
superbly redesigned audio in Dolby Digital
5.1 and DTS, and many great extras including
several audio commentary tracks. Narrowly
beating out The Godfather DVD Collection,
Se7en SE picked up 26% of the
vote and walked away with the DVD Release
of the Year award for 2001!
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The Godfather DVD
Collection (22%)
Fight Club / Terminator
2: Ultimate Edition (11%)
The Terminator / The
Stanley Kubrick Collection (9%)
Star Wars I: The Phantom
Menace (5%)
Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (3%)
The Silence of the
Lambs / Lawrence of Arabia (2%)
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Best movie: The Godfather
Trilogy
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Beaten by a slim margin
in the Best DVD Release category by David
Fincher's Se7en, Coppola's essential
gangster trilogy still held its own in
the Best Movie (premiering on DVD) category,
walking away with an easy 47% of
the vote.
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2001: A Space Odyssey
(19%)
Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (14%)
The Silence of the
Lambs (9 %)
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Best image quality: Se7en
- SE
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As is beautifully demonstrated
on disc 2 in this fantastic set, an entire
new telecine was produced from an original
interpositive for this DVD edition of
Se7en, and the results were nothing
short of amazing. This DVD left its fellow
nominees in the dust, walking away with
over 66% of the vote!
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Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (11%)
2001: A Space Odyssey
/ The Mummy Returns (8.5%)
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Best sound: Star Wars
I: The Phantom Menace
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Some annoying use of
edge enhancement made the video transfer
of the first Star Wars movie to appear
on DVD a disappointment to many fans,
but the astonishing Dolby Digital 5.1
EX audio mix may be the best to appear
on DVD yet, and makes the absence of a
DTS track forgivable. Easily beating out
all the competition, Star Wars I
walked away with an astounding 54%
of the vote.
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Terminator 2: Ultimate
Edition (20%)
Se7en - Special
Edition (11%)
Star Wars I: The
Phantom Menace
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Best menu
design: Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
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George Lucas's sci-fi
prequel got some serious competition in
the Best Menu Design category from fellow
nominees Terminator 2: UE and Fight
Club, but the beautifully animated,
planet-themed Star Wars menus, this title
still walked away with a convincing 34%
of the vote.
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Terminator 2: Ultimate
Edition / Fight Club (29%)
Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs (5%)
Terminator 2: Ultimate
Edition
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Best extras:
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace /
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition
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In a year absolutely
loaded with fantastic feature-packed Special
Edition releases, the Best Extras category
resulted in the stiffest competition and
the closest votes. This finally resulted
in a draw between two superb two-disc
sets, with equal votes going to Star
Wars I: The Phantom Menace and Terminator
2: Ultimate Edition. Both releases
offer unique vivid insight into every
phase of the production, and each ended
up with an even 29% of the readers'
votes.
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Se7en - Special
Edition (17%)
The Godfather
DVD Collection (13%)
Star Wars I: The
Phantom Menace
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