Leone's West

I have to admit that I looked forward to a documentary, or interviews, regarding Leone's influence on Quentin Tarantino. Sergio Leone is Tarantino's favorite director, and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is his favorite film of all time (or so says a sticker on the front of the new Special Edition DVD). However, there aren't any interviews with him - just a few with Eastwood, Wallach, and Schickel, the film historian who provides a commentary track on this and ONCE UPON A TIME IN America.

Overall this is a decent documentary but nothing special. I was disappointed in the fact that it seems to repeat itself. It's OK but as the highlight of the SE DVD, it's quite mediocre. I rarely upgrade my DVDs, and already own the original DVD release of UGLY... so I expected more when I bought the Special Edition.

It's not bad. The documentary is fine, and overall the DVD is worth a purchase. The sound is better. I didn't notice much difference in film quality, but the sound is less grainy with 5.1 surround sound. However there really could have been so much more done with this DVD...MGM is horrible at Special Editions -- they pretty much release all their DVDs on SE, but for some reason fail to create anything of substance. As with THE USUAL SUSPECTS and TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., there seems to be a lot on the surface, and there even IS a lot, but the quality itself somehow seems shallow...as if they're just trying to draw in lots of customers, which I guess they are.

I also tend to hate the packaging on MGM DVDs, although this one was pretty good.