Region 4 Winners and Losers

    This movie was released on DVD in Region 1 recently. The Region 1 disc is quite similar, although I judge the R1 transfer slightly inferior in a few places.

    The big difference between the two lies in the commentary (see my discussion in the extras section) — the Region 1 has this cutesy feature with a pop-up Fame logo so you can press Enter and invoke short video clips. A cute feature, but inconvenient. I like the less fancy but more convenient presentation on this disc. I also wonder if the slightly inferior transfer in places is due to compromising the video quality to permit the interleaving of the other segments.

    The Region 1 disc also has a couple of additional extras that sound more impressive than they are:

• Behind the Scenes: 6 pages of text about the development of the movie (pretty much covered in the other extras)
• Cast and Crew: a one page list of a few cast members (missing many), and a one page listing of crew (only the writer, producers, and director)

    Yeah, you'll really miss those if you choose the Region 4 disc!

    All the other extras are the same on both discs.

    The Region 1 disc is in a snapper case. I expect the Region 4 disc to be in a transparent Amaray.

    My recommendation is to get the Region 4.