Michael Ironside Books

I think Total Recall is a classic movie. I was extremely excited when I saw it had been released on Blu Ray, and I immediately bought it. Overall, I think the upgrade was nice, and of course I liked the movie itself.

This is cool comes with a metal tin that holds your DVD. I got this & cause of the tin. Get it, better then the DVD in the Normal DVD case.

This is a Blu-ray disk, but "Total Recall" is NOT a high-definition transfer! The picture quality is at best as good as a regular DVD, but is often very grainy with faded colors and much worse that a DVD picture. This is a complete rip-off and greedy Lionsate should be ashamed of themselves for pawning off this shoddy, low-quality transfer as hi-def Blu-Ray. What a disappointment. "Total Recall" would be beautiful in hi-def, too bad Lionsgate is too CHEAP to do the job right.

I always wondered how they made old movies into high def and the short answer is that don't. The movie was slightly (very slightly better than the DVD upconverted version).

No special features, no reason to buy the Blu-Ray version. Just buy the DVD version for a fraction of the price and it looks the same.

Great movie though :)

I noticed many 1 star reviews for this movie and I was disappointed as I already ordered it. The deal is this, people are calling it a poor transfer with lot's of grain, which is probably true...but the big problem is that they are saying in many cases that the dvd is better. I have both, I compared them side to side (although I didn't have to). Besides some grain the movie looks AWESOME. Not as good as a newer transfer like a transformers or across the universe but awesome nevertheless. You have to ask yourself if a little grain really bothers you considering that the resolution is incredible? The truth is the detail is ten times better then the dvd! There is grain, but it is not anything to worry about unless you are some sort of purist. Personally, I don't care, as many movies in the theater have serious grain (Sometimes intentionally on behalf of the director). For the price, this is totally worth it, I am also going to buy Stargate despite the bad reviews.

The War of 1812 has been called many things, among them "useless," pointless," and "without significant result." The authors of Ironsides! The Ship, the Men and the Wars of the USS Constitution tend to disagree with those assessments. It is their view (and that of this reviewer) that the War of 1812 helped to define the United States as we now know it.

Ironsides! isn't just about a single ship or a single conflict. It covers the early formative years of the United States, its Army and its Navy from about 1795 to about 1815. It contains information as diverse as wooden warship construction and rigging, recruiting, the Quasi-War with France, officer procurement, fighting on the inland lakes, gunnery drill, fleet dispositions for anti-slavery patrols in the antebellum period, shipboard routine, and the transition of the US Navy from sail to steam.

The basic thesis of Ironsides! is that the United States ventured into building a navy to protect its interests abroad because diplomacy and trade just were not working against revolutionary France or the pirates of North Africa, and the "tribute" (also called squeeze or protection money) they demanded would bankrupt an already thin treasury. The War of 1812, the conflict where Constitution became famous, is treated first as a trade dispute (which it was) and as a struggle over American sovereignty and their freedom to trade with anyone they chose. Absent from Ironsides! are extensive references to the other issues, which included the impressment of sailors and the still-unsettled northwestern border of the United States.

The work is divided into five parts: The Ship, The Men, The Wars, The Rest of the Story, and Appendixes. Each of the first four parts contains a number of individual essays by one of the three authors. well-researched and engagingly written. Essays on wooden warship management, the roles of officers, gunnery and gunnery training, the land war of 1812, politics and Constitution overhauls are loaded with rich nuggets of information. The history of the entire US Navy up to about 1815 can be traced through the pages of Ironsides!

While the main text is excellent it is somewhat short. The first four sections take up only 175 pages, half the book. Each essay is well enough done, but they do leave out critical details (such as the logistical nightmare both sides faced on the Niagara front) and in general are short on analysis. Still, factual errors are rare enough not to be notable except to scholars and true aficionados of the period, and some issues like the motivations of Britain in 1812 in issuing the Orders of Council are simply different interpretations of very complex subjects that historians have quibbles about in symposia.

The appendixes are worth the entire cost of the book. These are based on the primary record, including selected letters between Constitution's captains and the Navy, deck logs, personal journals, the text of laws, naval regulations and more. The bibliography is extensive if not exhaustive, and nearly all the sources can be had, somewhere and for a price. If readers want more detail on Constitution they can look into A Most Fortunate Ship by Tyrone Martin; for more on the formative years of the US Navy Ian Toll's Six Frigates is a good bet. There really isn't a great deal other than the standards out there on the War of 1812 and the Barbary Wars that this reviewer has read and can comment on.

This edition is a reprint of Old Ironsides: An Illustrated Guide to USS Constitution. Fireship's edition the same text and, according to the jacket and inside frontispiece, only the organization and layout has changed. If so they might have done better with closer editing and proofing. Typographical errors and missing words are a frequent annoyance. But in this kind of work, written possibly at different times by scholars working essentially on their own without an editor (presumably) then putting the essays together just before publishing it is practically inevitable. While the stand-alone essay format instead of contiguous flowing chapters is a good way to make this kind of broad-ranging subject work, it can lend itself to technical challenges.

Despite the typos, Ironsides! is a worthwhile effort. If you have only limited time in your schedule or space on your shelf to cover the early years of the US Navy, the War of 1812, the Barbary Wars, USS Constitution or wooden ships at the end of the Age of Fighting Sail, Ironsides! fulfills all those requirements.

John D. Beatty, is a Wisconsin writer and researcher of military history and was a contributor to the Garland Encyclopedia of World War II in Europe. He has worked in US Army Military Intelligence, holds a BA in American Military History from American Military University, and is a Master's candidate in American History at AMU, and American Public University System school.

HD makes this movie so much better. It was good before but HD makes its better

I am not gong to review the movie as everyone has seen it and I only bought it for the HD-DVD aspect.

Like a lot of older re-released high def movies, the studio did not take extra steps on the re-release to take advantage of the greater capability of HD-DVD. The result is that neither the visuals nor the sound knock your socks off like the do in a full-on HD-DVD release. If you have the DVD version, no need to upgrade. If you don't and want the movie, you might as well get the HD release, but buy it used for less than $15 (delivered)...or just get a used DVD for $5.

I love this movie and so when i had the chance to get it in HD for dirt cheap i took the time to get it. The HD version is chrisp and clear and the sound is very sharp. Get this movie as it should be a must for anyone who collects HD DVDs :D

Based on the true story of the ill-fated last voyage of the Andrea Gail which sailed out of Gloucester, Mass in '91 off into the North Atlantic only to fall victim to the "Storm of the Century". The '00 film `Perfect Storm' depicts the tragic event in dramatic style featuring a strong, likeable cast, superior special effects and a memorable soundtrack. If there's any fault to be found in this re-visioning of the last days of the Andrea Gail is would be the overly romanticized manner in which the crew is depicted. At times it was kind of like watching `The Magnificent Seven At Sea'.

Rating: Overall `Perfect Storm' is an enjoyable watch with lots of familiar faces and fine performances; -3 ½ Stars-.

Not that it was a bad movie, or lacked drama and good characterization, but there were enough technical inaccuracies to cause this mariner trouble.

First of all, let's ask some questions:

Why were the outriggers out and the paravanes down when the seas were in the 80' to 150' foot range (as depicted; more if you consider the last wave)? Why did the crew wait so long to batten down the wheelhouse windows? They knew the storm was coming. They knew how bad it would be. Why didn't they make proper preparations to meet it?

Why wasn't the crew in the wheelhouse? I've been in some bad blows, and when it gets really bad, everybody usually hangs out in the wheelhouse with their survival suits within arm's reach. When it's that bad, and the boat has to turn around in monster seas, riding out the turn in the fo'c's'le or galley is the last thing anybody wants to do.

Why would anyone think they could remount a SSB antenna in a 50 knot wind when the smallest whip antenna is about 23'? If the antenna doesn't rip your arm off, how are you going to splice the coax? And why not just lay out an emergency long wire antenna on deck?

Speaking of which: I thought the Andrea Gail had a long wire antenna and not a whip antenna. I believe that in the photo of the Hannah Boden, which Linda Greenlaw states is a sistership of the Andrea Gail, you can see a long wire antenna running aft from the masthead to the goal post.

By the way, Greenlaw states in her book that her boat, the Hannah Boden, was 100'. Sebastion Junger, the author of the book, stated on a pre-movie hype news program that the Andrea Gail was 80'. I tend to believe Greenlaw over Junger regarding LOA. And I tend to believe it had a long wire antenna. You'd think it would given its range of operation. Also, if the boat was 100' , the wave at the end would have been about 200'. My understanding is that the largest non-seismic wave ever recorded was 112', measured scientifically in the North Pacific by researchers aboard the USS Ramapo on February 7th, 1933.

Also....

Where can I get one of those blow torches that stays lit in 50 knots of wind and spray?

Don't get me wrong. I liked the movie. I liked the effects. I thought the film makers did some good things. But I don't think the movie paid homage to the crew of the Andrea Gail or commercial fishermen. I think Junger's melodramatic overspeculations of the sinking (not to mention his speculation about what it's like to drown) are an insult to the thousands of fishermen and other seafarers who've lost their limbs and worse in much less spectacular ways. In truth, the vast majority of commercial fishing accidents and sinkings aren't caused by gigantic Hollywood waves. They're the result of separate incidents and seemingly insignificant details stacking-up and falling like a house of cards.

With all due respect to the people of Gloucester and the friends and family of those who died on the Andrea Gail, and to the film makers and the actors, I humbly submit a different cause and effect scenario with regard to the sinking.

In my opinion, had the crew been given the time depicted in both the book and the movie, the ending might have been quite different. Those men were experienced and capable fisherman who had previously handled anything the sea had thrown at them. What probably happened was they started home with a freighted boat. It got rough, very rough, and the vessel started taking on water, probably from some insidious place in the stern, e.g. the rudder box or shaft seal. They didn't know she was taking on water until it was too late, at which time the vessel rolled and sank before they could launch the raft, get into their survival suits, or trigger the EPIRB. How many times has it happened that way? A freighted boat. A slow leak. Bad weather.

-seabgb

HD makes this movie so much better. It was good before but HD makes its better

I am not gong to review the movie as everyone has seen it and I only bought it for the HD-DVD aspect.

Like a lot of older re-released high def movies, the studio did not take extra steps on the re-release to take advantage of the greater capability of HD-DVD. The result is that neither the visuals nor the sound knock your socks off like the do in a full-on HD-DVD release. If you have the DVD version, no need to upgrade. If you don't and want the movie, you might as well get the HD release, but buy it used for less than $15 (delivered)...or just get a used DVD for $5.

I love this movie and so when i had the chance to get it in HD for dirt cheap i took the time to get it. The HD version is chrisp and clear and the sound is very sharp. Get this movie as it should be a must for anyone who collects HD DVDs :D

Based on the true story of the ill-fated last voyage of the Andrea Gail which sailed out of Gloucester, Mass in '91 off into the North Atlantic only to fall victim to the "Storm of the Century". The '00 film `Perfect Storm' depicts the tragic event in dramatic style featuring a strong, likeable cast, superior special effects and a memorable soundtrack. If there's any fault to be found in this re-visioning of the last days of the Andrea Gail is would be the overly romanticized manner in which the crew is depicted. At times it was kind of like watching `The Magnificent Seven At Sea'.

Rating: Overall `Perfect Storm' is an enjoyable watch with lots of familiar faces and fine performances; -3 ½ Stars-.

Not that it was a bad movie, or lacked drama and good characterization, but there were enough technical inaccuracies to cause this mariner trouble.

First of all, let's ask some questions:

Why were the outriggers out and the paravanes down when the seas were in the 80' to 150' foot range (as depicted; more if you consider the last wave)? Why did the crew wait so long to batten down the wheelhouse windows? They knew the storm was coming. They knew how bad it would be. Why didn't they make proper preparations to meet it?

Why wasn't the crew in the wheelhouse? I've been in some bad blows, and when it gets really bad, everybody usually hangs out in the wheelhouse with their survival suits within arm's reach. When it's that bad, and the boat has to turn around in monster seas, riding out the turn in the fo'c's'le or galley is the last thing anybody wants to do.

Why would anyone think they could remount a SSB antenna in a 50 knot wind when the smallest whip antenna is about 23'? If the antenna doesn't rip your arm off, how are you going to splice the coax? And why not just lay out an emergency long wire antenna on deck?

Speaking of which: I thought the Andrea Gail had a long wire antenna and not a whip antenna. I believe that in the photo of the Hannah Boden, which Linda Greenlaw states is a sistership of the Andrea Gail, you can see a long wire antenna running aft from the masthead to the goal post.

By the way, Greenlaw states in her book that her boat, the Hannah Boden, was 100'. Sebastion Junger, the author of the book, stated on a pre-movie hype news program that the Andrea Gail was 80'. I tend to believe Greenlaw over Junger regarding LOA. And I tend to believe it had a long wire antenna. You'd think it would given its range of operation. Also, if the boat was 100' , the wave at the end would have been about 200'. My understanding is that the largest non-seismic wave ever recorded was 112', measured scientifically in the North Pacific by researchers aboard the USS Ramapo on February 7th, 1933.

Also....

Where can I get one of those blow torches that stays lit in 50 knots of wind and spray?

Don't get me wrong. I liked the movie. I liked the effects. I thought the film makers did some good things. But I don't think the movie paid homage to the crew of the Andrea Gail or commercial fishermen. I think Junger's melodramatic overspeculations of the sinking (not to mention his speculation about what it's like to drown) are an insult to the thousands of fishermen and other seafarers who've lost their limbs and worse in much less spectacular ways. In truth, the vast majority of commercial fishing accidents and sinkings aren't caused by gigantic Hollywood waves. They're the result of separate incidents and seemingly insignificant details stacking-up and falling like a house of cards.

With all due respect to the people of Gloucester and the friends and family of those who died on the Andrea Gail, and to the film makers and the actors, I humbly submit a different cause and effect scenario with regard to the sinking.

In my opinion, had the crew been given the time depicted in both the book and the movie, the ending might have been quite different. Those men were experienced and capable fisherman who had previously handled anything the sea had thrown at them. What probably happened was they started home with a freighted boat. It got rough, very rough, and the vessel started taking on water, probably from some insidious place in the stern, e.g. the rudder box or shaft seal. They didn't know she was taking on water until it was too late, at which time the vessel rolled and sank before they could launch the raft, get into their survival suits, or trigger the EPIRB. How many times has it happened that way? A freighted boat. A slow leak. Bad weather.

-seabgb