No comments about Jamaica: The Ultimate Tour.

1 comments about Globe Trekker: Ireland.

1. I've long been a fan of the Globe Trekker travel series. Each one has its own trekker, apparently chosen for just that journey, with a great sense of adventure and humor, a willingness to go off the beaten path and take adventure (and misadventure) as it comes.
   
   As I begin to make my own plans for my personal trek to Ireland, it was a no brainer to turn first to Globe Trekker. I plan to view many other similar videos, read various books (and down a few pints in contemplation), because my approach to travel is to do my research first, then leave the guides behind and throw myself into the adventure. This Trek's travel guide, Ian Wright, is a terrific intro to an Irish journey. He has the brogue, the humor, the silly grin, the willingness to bumble, wince, earn blisters, down pints, down more pints, get lost, grumble at endless rain, and make friends with locals to show us not how tourists get by, but how the Irish live.
   
   Beginning his journey on the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland, he then explores Belfast. The Irish pubs are all you would wish them to be. He sports his first creamy Guinness moustache in a 150-year old pub (and I make note to find this idyllic place for my first truly Irish Guinness), slurping down oysters on the shell with lemon alongside. Next, he hitchhikes and rides trains along the coast south, to Dublin, then Cobh and Kerry. The eye glories in the Irish landscape of bogs and endless green, mountains wrapped in mist, stony cliffs dropping straight into the sea. Ian visits the Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone for the gift of gab... and comes up speechless. He visits Celtic ruins and makes pilgrimages and enjoys boat rides to more islands, fishes with an Irish fisherman for mackerel, and dances a jig with Irish maidens.
   
   And drinks more Guinness. If this travelogue is at all accurate, this beautiful island has nothing else to drink from coast to coast but Guinness.
   
   I'm packing my bags.

5 comments about Globe Trekker: Vienna.

1. I have had a life long love for the city of Vienna and the country of Austria! I got this product thinking it would be a good way for me to remember all the trips i have taken there and all the sites in Vienna. When i got the DVD i was not at all disappointed. The narator of the Program Ian Wright is very funny so he adds some real fun to your tour of the city. The program also takes you to a WWII concentration camp outside of vienna so you get more then just the city. I would highly recomend this DVD to any who already knows and loves vienna or to someone just starting to discover this magical city!!



2. I purchased this item before our trip to Vienna and found it very useful in identifying potential sights to visit. Some of the sights covered in the video were not listed in the travel guide books I've read. For instance, a day trip to the Mauthausen Memorial (a death camp from Hitler's regime) is something included in the video yet not mentioned in the travel guide books. I would recommend the video as a brief introduction to Vienna and surrounding districts.



3. I don't know if you will appreciate this when you see the video, but this is one heck of a wild travel video. You think everything is "normal" because you are watching a Globe Trekker episode, but this is far from that. This is NOT a tour guide to Vienna. The promoters of Vienna couldn't possibly have this in mind. I applaud the Globe Trekker people, and Ian in particular, for showing us this side of Vienna.
   
   What am I referring to? A lot of time on this video is dedicated to mass murder and racial hatred. I doubt that the Viennese want to be known for that.
   
   They want to be known for their crappy classical music, which drives me up the wall for the most part and is incredibly overrated. Those waltz tunes are horrible. This music is pure trash. And the big boys of classical music, Beethoven and his ilk, are also unbelievably overrated. This stuff isn't as great as it's cracked up to be. The only "right" answer is that it is the best music of all time, but I have ears too, and I have taste too, and most of this stuff isn't very good. Pachelbel's Canon is great. But most of classical music is mediocre or worse. It's annoyingly derivative and grating, not to mention pompous. Most of classical music is lousy music for rich snobs and wannabes. Dvorak's 9th is an exception, a great bit of music, particularly the second movement, awesome. There are some gems in classical music, but the genre is pretty bad. I like some of Mozart's chamber music. I HATE Austrian waltzes. Rich morons preening and prancing around to garbage.
   
   I love how Ian spent so much time explaining how Austria enthusiastically welcomed Hitler and smashed Jewish gravestones. Someone I used to know visited Austria and said if somebody started banging a drum down the center of a main street, the Austrian people would come marching out of their bars and start killing Jews again. Ian mentions how the current Austrian regime is racist and right wing, the enemy of the influx of immigrants to Austria. After all, the Austrian people are superior to the rest of the pigs in this world, notwithstanding their enthusiasm for mass murder of the innocent.
   
   It's not me bringing up this topic. It is Globe Trekker. They take us inside a concentration camp for a closeup view. And this, on a travel video about Vienna. I love it. They take us to a Jewish cemetery and show us the bullet holes in the gravestones, the places where Austrians took axes to the stones.
   
   Then Ian shows us the horrible, disgusting food these people eat. They eat sausages infused with cheese. Oh my god.
   
   Actually, I think Austrian food is better than that. Weiner shnitzel is really good, sort of a veal parmigiana without the parmigiana. They are good with dumplings. Austrian cuisine isn't half bad. I just can't take the bratwurst, the fatty greasy heart attacks on hot dog buns. I think the American hot dog is about the right size, and we can do without that piggish and drippy bratwurst.
   
   But the Viennese people, the Austrian people, really had better watch a tendency to think they are better than the rest of us. Their recent history doesn't point in that direction, and neither does their medieval history. There's nothing to be proud of, guys. Hatred and snobbery aren't cool.



4. While it gives good information about Vienna, it was goofier than what I was looking for.



5. Have traveled to Vienna, fond memories but with this DVD the classic City of Music was reduced to "hippies" sitting around playing on carved vegetables. The places visited were important but the narration was difficult to understand and the flippant attitude of the narrator was very undignified. A video that to me reflects the social culture of lack of civility. Possibly respect for Mozart's piano would be in order not the narrators attempt at humor or silliness. Respect for the graves of the famous in the cemetery, not an Elvis impression. Very disappointed. The whole video is more about the narrator than about Vienna. Sorry I cannot recommend it.

No comments about King Ludwig II's Castles.

1 comments about Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown - Episode 27: Brussels, Belgium.

1. This video gave us some good ideas about what to do in Brussels this spring.

1 comments about Pressure Cook.

1. Maybe it's because I am an Italian who's roots are from NY, but Ralph Pagano and his humor keep me(and my 12 year old son) coming back to watch all of the episodes. He gets dropped off in all sorts of remote lomocations around the world and has to earn money to get back home. If he doesn't earn enough money he has to eat some local "delicacy" as punishment(rodents, HOT peppers, ants, maggots, etc.).

1 comments about 2007 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally - America's Greatest Festivals.

1. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3G45RPNTCRKX2 The Unofficial History of Harley Davidson Motorcycles]

5 comments about Hidden Hawaii (Large Format).

1. IMAX always delivers great movies with even greater scenery. This movie focuses on the scenery that is nearly inacessable to the normal person. It takes you all the way from the edge of volcano at 10,000 feet, to the depths of 4,000 feet under the ocean to watch the newest island being formed.

   Hidden Hawaii does show the hidden aspects. It shows you the Silversword flower that only grows in Hawaii, and also the Alula plant that clings to the steepest and highest cliffs. This movie will surely not dissapoint.

   The only downfall of the movie, like most IMAX movies, is that it is rather short. It's a great 35 minutes, but I would have loved more.




2. I am a huge fan of IMAX films on DVD because they all seem to produce a picture quality next to High Definition. This was not the caase with this DVD.Out of all the IMAX films I have seen I have never written about poor picture quality and never expected to. However, this is absoultly the worst transfer to DVD that I have seen for any IMAX fi. It is grainy and blurred at times, and comes nowhere close to the quality I am use to with IMAX DVD. This is the ONLY IMAX DVD I have seen that in my opion is not up to standaard with IMAX film-to-DVD transfer. I am not into the techcal aspects of film transfers but all I can say is I was completly surprised to find grain on this one.Also, the technical aspects states that this is available in "widescreen" and it is not.Regardles of widescreen or not, ALL IMAX films (besides Hidden Hawaii) have a high deffinition quality to them and are the best looking picture quality on DVD available.



3. I have a large collection of IMAX DVDs. I enjoy them because the video quality is usually stunning. Playing them on my 65 inch screen normally produces a very fine picture. I dont know what happened with the transer on this film, but it is poor at best. Black and shadow areas are filled with artifacts and the overall picture quality is very grainy and rough appearing. The company responsible obviously chose to go the cheap route on the video tranfer. Also, I agree with the previous reviewer about the cliff climbing botanist. Too much time was wasted on this guy climbing a cliff without a line or safety helmet. The whole sequence may have been staged. I cant believe anyone would be so dumb and reckless to do this without some basic protection. This DVD will not be a keeper in my collection.



4. This is the most boring IMAX presentation I have ever seen. It is painfully slow moving. I couldn't play it through. It is only 35 minutes but it seemed like 2 hours. I couldn't make it anywhere near the entire 35 minutes.



5. I don't see captions on my DVD, but the subtitles are adequate (although no musical description, sounds, etc.). The annoyance was that I had to turn the player OFF when I realized captions weren't showing because simply stopping and restarting the player didn't take me all the way back to that menu.
   
   At any rate, it's pretty close to the kind of Hawaii DVD I was looking for--lots of scenics of flora and fauna. I could have stood more plant and flower pictures, but, then, I guess most of them aren't hidden. :D
   
   I really wish I'd gotten the set with the Alaska production, too.

2 comments about Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed.

1. When I selected the DVD Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed, I anticipated a visual tour of Italy's major cities. Instead, it is the story of a goup of people challenged to achieve personal goals. The DVD focuses on the personal struggles and objectives, which frankly I am not interested! The cinematography is beautiful, and Isabella Rossellini's voice is charming, soothing, and will put you to sleep.



2. Do not buy this video if you wish to be shown the Colesseum, etc. etc. - all of the tourist attractions, it is not that type of video. It is more about capturing the mood of the country, some of its background, and the prospects for the future.
   You will meet a man purusing his dream of becoming a gondolier in Venice; a volunteer rescue worker in the Italian Alps; we follow a member of the Missoni family preparing for their new collection; a horse jockey who hopes to participate in Siena's palio (a 90 second horserace which brings the neighbourhoods of Siena to a fever-pitch); a young Roman girl who hopes to be the country's first femae race car driver; and a young Sicilian man who is a free diver, hoping to become professional. Along the way we are told about the state of the Catholic church in modern Italy, and other vignettes of information about the country that we learn while we look in on these people's lives. And of course, Isabella Rosselini's voice is wonderful, I love it.
   
   So you will not be told where to go and what to see in this DVD. But you will have a better sense of the country and its people, what makes them tick, where they came from, where they are going. For me that was fascinating. I did find the scene of Siena's palio a bit upsetting actually (when they say it is a dangerous race they mean it). In my mind all I could think was 'is it really worth it to risk your life for a horse race?' but this is something that is obviously very important to them.
   
   I did not make this purchase expecting to get a tourist's tour of Italy. I borrowed it from the library first. Then I bought it knowing what I was getting. It is a DVD that I will enjoy having in my collection.

No comments about A Musical Journey: Sicily.