Thank God It's Friday

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I was disappointed at the low budget look to this DVD. The packaging is pretty cheap looking. The menu is even worse. No picture from the movie at all! Just some cheap looking graffic of a film and a reel, and the options to Play Movie, select subtitles (English and Japanese(?!)).

As for the movie itself, it looks like they may have matted the full screen print or not used a full widescreen print, because the T in Thank and the Y on Friday are almost off the edges of the screen. You'd think they would have left some room on either side.

The picture quality is pretty good. The intro title sequence looked grainy, but the rest of the movie looks nice and clean. The audio, however is disappointing. They put it on the disk as a 5.1, and sadly I don't have a 5.1 setup, so I can only hear the two channel stereo separation. It sounds like they put some kind of reverb on the audio to make it a kind of fake stereo. The intro title music sounds like the instruments were separated, just like on the VHS, but the rest of the music has this weird slight reverb to it. I'm wondering if they just bounced a two channel stereo mix onto 5 channels using reverbs.

As whole, presentation of the DVD is pretty cheap. If I were you, I'd wait until you're seeing them for $5 used on ebay or amazon because that's where they'll turn up once the audiophiles hear the poor mixing. If you've already got the VHS, just get a DVD burner or recorder and transfer it. You're not getting anything much better with this DVD release.

Disco Funk

I got mine last week and have watched it several times. Hmmm.....
the overall packaging is lousy, the picture quality is good, and I have 5.1 sound and that music is terrific!

Disc and shipping from Amazon was les than $20 US and worth it, IMO.

Saw Thank God It's Friday when it first came out at some theater on Hollywood Blvd.. There were 10 people in the audience. I hated it. Bought the DVD on Saturday and watched it again after all these years. Then I watched it a 2nd time and a third time. I like it now. Its easy to watch and the music is good. Its great to see Donna perform.

This movie is the best indication on how disco was here in LA. I used to work at that club (ZOO) when it was called Cabaret-The club was torn down for a shopping center. This movie brought back many memories. I knew some of the dancers in the movie and Marc Paul Simon, who worked for Casablanca.

I thought the transfer was good for a Sony DVD. Clean and sharp. Good color. I think they did change the aspect ratio. As for the sound, I don't think the movie was made using the Dolby process, I'll have to crank it up this week-end to really listen. I loved it-----

This TGIF DVD is what they call a “bare bone” release, no extras of any kind, not even a decent menu to speak of, and worse of all they didn’t even include chapter selection or scene indexing , a perfect feature for a music driven DVD like this.

The Video quality is excellent with very nice colors but definitely not reference material, some dirt specs here and there and irregular ‘flashes’ found around the 45:03 and 1:21:20 minute mark that looked like mastering defects to me turned out to be nothing more than a failed Post Production attempt too create a strobe light effect, posters in a different forum apparently remember this “effect” during the original theatrical run.

Judging from the cropping of the sides during the opening title sequence it is obvious that this is not the original theatrical aspect ratio release, never the less this 16x9 aspect ratio presentation in all likelihood is the best we’ll ever see for quite a while, as it is very doubtful that demand will ever warrant any re-visiting of this title in the near future.

The over all sound quality of this release is the best part just lacking a bit of drum kick punch for my taste, unfortunately those without a proper 5.1 setup we’ll have to depend on the Stereo mode “down conversion” quality of their players as this DVD also lacks a 2CH Dolby Digital English track, opting instead for an awful Portuguese language dub Track.

But by far the best effort was saved for Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” and Love and Kisses’ “TGIF”, if you are a fan the 5.1 mix of this two tracks along is worth the price of this DVD, both this 5.1 mixes are excellent with all the main vocals placed right in the center and the strings on the L/R fronts and surrounds; The deep voice found in Love and Kisses’ “TGIF” (played almost completely during the opening sequence ) is anchored right in the center, with the girly chorus pushed to the sides and surrounds with the short lead vocalist verse ( “is the right time and place”) again planted on the center speaker, Constandinos part ( “I saw you babe for the first time”) floats by the left side between the Center and LF speakers while the Latin percussion breakdown can be clearly heard floating between the RF and Center speakers, very nice Sound Stage effect in deed.

My only small gripe with this version of TGIF was only verified after comparing against the Soundtrack vinyl version, during the TGIF intro there is a different instrument used right after they say “Friday” that now sounds more like a cheesy Casio synth/keyboard, apparently this synth sound was later purposely buried in the mix in favor of the trumpets found on the regular soundtrack release and they never bother to do the same for the movie release, but other than that, the 5.1 surround mix of TGIF is very impressive.

The “Last Dance” version found during the closing credits definitely wins the price for best sound quality in this DVD, Sony clearly invested some time here to work 5.1 magic into this Oscar winning best song, with the exception of minor volume fluctuations during some sections this particular mix is definitely a must have for any fan of this song, the surrounds are incredibly loud and busy during the soaring strings portions and Donna’s voice was never more sharp and clear