Ultimate Dolph

Picked up the Aussie release today very cheap, if anyone has the French widescreen copy they want to lend or upload somewhere I can try to merge in the English track from the Aussie disc for a homebrew English friendly widescreen disc!

Sec wrote:I can try to merge in the English track from the Aussie disc for a homebrew English friendly widescreen disc!

Successfully done if anyone is interested.

Today would be the day to watch SWEEPERS, since April 4 is International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, a UN sponsored day to raise awareness of the menace of land mines, millions of which remain in war zones and former battlegrounds, killing and maiming between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually.

Here's the trailer... IN WIDESCREEN! (1.85:1 original aspect ratio)

I just watched Sweepers last week.

Where did you find the trailer in widescreen? Also, it looks like the colors have been altered.

Custom-made from the French widescreen DVD, then synced with English audio thanks to our member 'Sec'

Colors are as on the French DVD, which has been mastered directly from the 35mm internegative (I bet the German and Japanese ones also have different color tones, it's pretty common since distributors usually do their own color grading, even the US one is done based on the studio preferences and probably not the cinematographer's). This is only the trailer anyway, the feature looks a bit different and warmer...

I don't like the blueish look of it at all. It looks a bit cheesy, especially on a movie made in the 90's.

I like the warmer tones on the DVD I have.

Angolan singer Waldemar Bastos won 2nd place in "World" music category of the International Sonwriting Competition for his song "Sofrimento" which is the beautiful song played in the main titles for SWEEPERS.
http://www.songwritingcompetition.com/winners

https://soundcloud.com/waldemar-bastos/ ... -at-232757


Lyrics translation

Why so much pain / why so much hate / When we are brothers / And sould offer a hand? / Look at the suffering / Look at the torment / Coming from within / Our land is dying / Look at the suffering / Look at the torment / Coming from within / Our land suffers too much / Look at this mother / She has no more tears / She has nothing left to lament / Our land is dying / Angola is so great / So rich and so beautiful / Let there be a place for all of us and those who love it (bis) / Long live Angola / Long live Angola / Long live Angola

God, this was a terrible film. And what kind of idiot trailer shows us the climax and spoils the baddie death.

ShawnWatson wrote:God, this was a terrible film.

Really? I don't get that, I know lot of people rate it pretty badly but I don't see where it's so terrible. Ieven like it fondly and forgive its flaws. Sure it's silly at times and badly re-edited but way above many DTV's. I'd kill for another SWEEPERS right now, as most projects these days don't go near the originality or production value of SWEEPERS. I must say though that most saw it in 4/3 whereas France was the only place to release it widescreen (and it shows some scope). This had between 2 to 3 months of filming can you imagine? If they didn't rewrite and re-edited it this could easily have been the BLOOD DIAMOND of its time.

And what kind of idiot trailer shows us the climax and spoils the baddie death.

Nu Image of course, "1998 cru" (growth)... To be fair at first I didn't recognized Bruce Payne (so much bigger than in PASSENGER 57) when I saw the trailer, nor did I expect him to be the bad guy...

Even in 1998 someone screaming 'Johnnyyyyyyyy' in extreme slow motion was ridiculous. What were they thinking?

As I said it's not without flaws but surely this is 5 seconds in the 97 minutes movie so that can be skipped and forgiven for the other good points of the film...
(remember the movie has been re-cut and butchered by Nu Image - and Danny Lerner was the second unit director)

There are many way worse and less forgivable Dolph flicks out there.

I agree with Jox. The movie has a nice story, cool locations and the cast is overall good (Claire Stansfield was gorgeous back then, Bruce Payne wa still charismatic), even if you can fill the butchering on some scenes.

Ansolutely. When a friend watched this a while ago he said he was pleasantly surprised that suddenly there was a Dolph movie that had a really good story. And yes, Claire Stansfield was good! The only time I saw her again was in a bad movie with Lorenzo Lamas where she tried to look shorter. I guess that was the problem: too tall for a woman because they wouldn't allow that she looked taller than the hero.