A Bottle in the Gaza Sea DVD Review

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is one of the best independent films I have seen all year. Released in 2011, the French production addresses the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in a real, profound, and incredibly moving way – with a story that should help to unite people together. This film is remarkably brave, original, and well-made and it is an overlooked gem of world cinema worth sharing with others.

The film’s core storytelling revolves around two young people from different backgrounds who are brought together with a long-distance friendship which helps to shape and transform their lives.  Tal (Agathe Bonitzer) is a 17 year old Israeli girl who moved away from France, along with her family, to Jerusalem. She attends school and in a state of dread with regular bombings surrounding her daily life. Her family tries to live as best they can, but the war causes hardship.

Tal refuses to accept that hatred and war somehow must exists between Israelis and Palestinians. She writes a letter filled with her own hope and expresses her feelings that hate is something that should not have to be the only way between Israelis and Palestinians, slips the letter into a bottle, and sends it out to travel across the sea. The bottle finds its way to Gaza, and is read by a young group of Palestinian friends, one of whom is Naim (Mahmud Shalaby), a 20 year old boy who becomes interested in the letter and sends a sarcastic reply to Tal using her mentioned e-mail address.

It isn’t long before what begins as a sarcastic and uncaring response to a deeply felt letter turns around and becomes a long-distance friendship; a friendship where Tal and Naim grow to care for one another as people. The exchanges become more and more frequent and the discussions range from philosophical to personal and even friendly conversational. At the same time, Naim struggles to accept his friendship with Tal after a horrific moment in a bombing changes his life. Meanwhile, Tal desires to continue their friendship, and doesn’t give up on the two of them even despite some fellow naysayers who fail to completely understand where she is coming from: the friendship means a great deal to them both, but can the pair make sense of the world surrounding them and the history of conflict they both disapprove of and desire to change

This film is written by Thierry Binisti and Valerie Zenatti, and Binisi directs. The production is a French/Israeli co-production. I am astonished by the filmmaking. A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is one of the best films I have seen all year, independent or otherwise. The film takes a difficult subject matter and handles it incredibly well, and it manages to do so by remembering to focus first and foremost on the characters in the story, who are drawn to one another despite established feuds which play no real role in their awareness or knowledge of each other.

The performances were amazing. I was engrossed by the characters and felt as though they were truly becoming close friends. The script worked in perfect unison with the performances as the words would flow seamlessly, beautifully, and transcendently. Agathe Bonitzer and Mahmud Shalaby are exceptional and the film wouldn’t work anywhere near the level on which it does without the two of them offering their best with the film.

The directing was somewhat reminiscent of a documentary film approach, which makes sense given Binistri’s background in making an incredible amount of television documentaries. The approach works remarkably well throughout the film. The artistic style utilized certainly was something that benefited the entire film’s approach, which feels authentic and creatively rich.

I was deeply moved by A Bottle in the Gaza Sea and I found the film to be one which was an undeniably remarkable attempt at making an intelligent, emotionally resonant, and important story into an equally worthwhile film. Based upon a award winning novel written by Valerie Zennat, the film explores the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in a genuine way that should encourage discussion.

The film is one of the best examples around of how a film can explore these kinds of issues in a multicultural approach and be both entertaining and great insight for audiences of all walks in life. The film won the Best Film award at the Festival of Young Filmmakers at Saint Jean De Luz, which is an award it is certainly deserving of, for it is exceptional in virtually every way.  Audiences should embrace cinematic journeys of such worth and need. This is indeed a great cinematic achievement that deserves accolades of praise, both for its exceptional qualities in filmmaking and for the powerful message of love and friendship crossing across all barriers; overcoming immense obstacles and conflicts.

The DVD:

Video:

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is presented by Film Movement on DVD with a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation which preserves the original theatrical exhibition. The picture is an impressive and notable presentation of the film, with good detail and clarity. The film has a filmic look with good grain levels and a notable color palette which complements the whole production. Laurent Brunet offers exceptional cinematography which capably helps enhance everything about the film’s intended look.

Audio:

The film is presented with both 2.0 and 5.1 sound mixes. The 5.1 sound mix is nothing that exceptional, but it does offer great ambiance and a slightly more enveloping experience. It actually works best with regards to presenting the music score by Benoit Charest, which is absolutely lovely and dramatically involving. The dialogue is clear and easy to understand.

Extras:

The main extra is the selected short film by Film Movement. The short, entitled An Oasis on the Hill, is an exceptional 10 minute long documentary film about an Israeli village in which Jews and Arabs get along together and grow up in a peaceful environment. The waiting list to even possibly move into this village is substantially long, showing a level of demand and interest amongst parents who want to raise children in a peaceful and compassionate environment.

Final Thoughts:

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is one of the best foreign language films to be released this year, and it deserves an audience. The film taps into the conflict of Israeli and Palestinian people by being capable of reminding us that sometimes we tend to forget why our conflicts even began; with elements capable of tearing people apart, but that overlook the basic core value humans share of longing for connection with one another — and this is precisely why the filmmakers of A Bottle in the Gaza Sea have made such a remarkable film.

Highly Recommended.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.

THE PROGRAM

For the past few years, the post WrestleMania pay-per-view, Extreme Rules has always served as rather disposable middle ground between past feuds and storylines yet to come. The 2013 event is no different in this regard, featuring two direct WrestleMania rematches, a few matches designed solely in the fallout, and only two, sadly disposable matches meant to set the stage for the months to come. It wouldn’t be so bad if the outcomes weren’t so telegraphed and tired, namely the WrestleMania rematches, which this year serve one purpose: let the losers save some face. It also doesn’t help that one of the WWE’s biggest draws, C.M. Punk was absent from the event and Dolph Ziggler was sidelined by an injury.

In terms of completely disposable and forgettable, the match thrown together to account for the recovering Ziggler, fits the bill, pitting two poorly utilized wrestlers, Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger in a number one contender’s match that also haphazardly tied to Swagger’s pro-American/anti-immigrant storyline that only treads water thanks to Zeb Colter as an effective, old-school mouthpiece. The match is mildly entertaining, but the end result is meaningless in the long term. Equally meaningless is the match between Randy Orton and Big Show, which feels like a tired rehash of numerous such encounters, precipitated by a lazy betrayal by Big Show at WrestleMania. The placement of the match, frankly feels like filler between two of the card’s bigger showpieces.

In the middle of road lies a WrestleMania rematch between Chris Jericho and Fandango, a strap match between Sheamus and Mark Henry that would have been more exciting sans gimmick, and the launching of Dean Ambrose forward in power by putting him over Kofi Kingston in a match for the US Title. This match coupled with the entertaining Shield (Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) vs. Team Hell No match for the tag titles, continues the slow-build of the Shield as force within the company, although the end outcome is a bit mystifying. In hindsight, the match also sets up Daniel Bryan’s path towards the main event by finally breaking a required link with Kane in the tag division.

Last but not least, John Cena and Ryback turn in a decent Last Man Standing match for the WWE title; again this is a match with an obvious outcome, but truth be told, Cena gets a chance to shine against Ryback, who with each passing month grows less impressive in terms of in-ring ability and character. The ending is handled much better than I expected, with a huge gimmicky finish that signals the merciful end of the feud coming at the next month’s event. Finally, the WrestleMania rematch between Triple H and Brock Lesnar. Anyone who actually thought Lesnar would leave a loser after the logically inept conclusion to his WrestleMania match against Triple H is either lying or doesn’t fully comprehend pro-wrestling. The match is your standard brawl and even though Lesnar goes over to maintain his remaining mystique, the booking of Triple H as an unstoppable force in 2013 is more than a little sad. As is the case so often, the main event match sums up the event in a nutshell: mildly entertaining filler.

THE DVD

The Video

The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer sports brilliant, rich color reproduction of the event itself. Detail levels are not as strong as something sourced from a modern HD broadcast should be, possibly due to some minor compression artifacts that seems to be the standard for WWE DVD releases (it’s much better than a few years back).

The Audio

The Dolby Digital English 5.1 audio is a solid, albeit non-mind-blowing experience. Commentary is front and center, but never mixed to overpower the sounds of the arena, nor do the mics focused on the in-ring action feel off-balance. A few matches in, and the sound isn’t as immersive as being live (simply due to the constant commentary), but there’s nothing to detract from the experience.

The Extras

The extras consist of an entirely disposable pre-show match between The Miz and Cody Rhodes as well as a post-show highlight package.

Final Thoughts

A true “filler” event in every sense of the term, “Extreme Rules 2013” doesn’t contain a single match worth re-watching and knowing the outcome of a few storylines set-up here (namely the Triple H concussion fiasco), chances are in a year no-one will remember much about the event at all. It’s solely a disc for those who can’t have anything less than complete collection. Skip It.

THE PROGRAM

Even after a month, the unfulfilling, entirely mediocre meal, Extreme Rules provided was still leaving a bad taste in my mouth, even as a very casual WWE fan (long story short, I followed pro-wrestling obsessively for nearly two decades and only watch now for the occasional glimmer of brilliance). Fortunately, Payback served as a palette cleanser from leftfield, offering seven matches that for the first time made sense, whether it was forging a new path ahead or merely tying up loose ends in a way to please fans who suffered through countless dead-in-the-water feuds. While the 2013 Payback event won’t ever go down in the records as a hallmark in WWE programming, it is a very small step towards the remainder of the 2013 year being something to look forward to.

Thankfully, the lesser of all the night’s matches occurs right out the gate, with Curtis Axel capturing the Intercontinental Title in a triple threat match against reigning champion Wade Barrett and The Miz. It’s a classic, mid-card TV-level match thrown on a pay-per-view solely to elevate the status of a new star, Curtis Axel (son of the late, great Curt Hennig). From there, history would dictate the modern WWE Divas match is destined to disappoint, but AJ Lee and Kaitlyn bring their A-games in the match for the Diva’s Championship, giving fans a glimpse of female wrestling that we haven’t seen in the WWE since the days of Trish Stratus, Lita, and Mickie James. I’d go as far as to say it’s the most entertaining match on the card outside Punk vs. Jericho.

The remaining mid-card is high-quality filler with one noted exception. Dean Ambrose and Kane entertain the crowd more than adequately, despite the expected outcome, before Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler square off for the World Heavyweight Championship in a better than expected match up, that does leave a sour taste in the mouth due to the double-turn at the conclusion of the match. Thankfully, before that has much time to sink in, the long awaited return of CM Punk to the squared circle is unleashed, with Punk getting a huge hometown pop and getting down to business with Chris Jericho. Jericho, despite likely never being a main event player ever again, is a great choice for Punk’s return and the two put on a very entertaining match, that is more co-main event than mid-card.

Following Punk and Jericho’s match-of-the-night bout, The Shield takes on Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton, in what set the stage for a possibly career making turn in Bryan’s career at Summerslam. At the time, this match felt like filler, but Bryan really gets a chance to shine against a team that has been a dominant , nigh unstoppable force since debuting nearly a year ago. It wouldn’t be a modern era WWE event without a John Cena match, and the reigning WWE Champion finally gets to shake the stink of Ryback in what will hopefully be their final main event pairing, a Three Stages of Hell Match. The match is brawl through and through, with the crowd pleasing finish coming off as equal parts cheesy and satisfying, signifying the coming de-push for Ryback and positioning Cena, who would desperately need to take time off in the coming months for surgery a chance to set the stage to pass the baton to Daniel Bryan as the top face in the company.

THE DVD

The Video

The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer sports brilliant, rich color reproduction of the event itself. Detail levels are not as strong as something sourced from a modern HD broadcast should be, possibly due to some minor compression artifacts that seems to be the standard for WWE DVD releases (it’s much better than a few years back).

The Audio

The Dolby Digital English 5.1 audio is a solid, albeit non-mind-blowing experience. Commentary is front and center, but never mixed to overpower the sounds of the arena, nor do the mics focused on the in-ring action feel off-balance. A few matches in, and the sound isn’t as immersive as being live (simply due to the constant commentary), but there’s nothing to detract from the experience.

The Extras

The sole two extras are a discussion of the vent by C.M. Punk and Paul Heyman as well as a recap of the feud between The Shield, Team Hell No, and Randy Orton. Sadly, the pre-show match between Damien Sandow and Sheamus is absent, given it ran a solid 10-minutes.

Final Thoughts

As expected the Punk/Jericho contest is the inevitable crown jewel in a very solid event. The Cena/Ryback main event was basically pleasing and definitely not something we’d get on TV anytime soon, while the remaining card all gave the fans their money’s worth and kept storylines moving. In hindsight, “Payback 2013” serves a point of interest in the direction the 2013 WWE year would take and is an entirely solid offering. Recommended.

THE FILM 

The Munich-based imprint Edition filmmuseum, with its region-free DVD releases of hard-to-find art-film titles from around the world, is fast becoming a premier source for great, less-discovered work available, at long last, for home viewing. After having made available rare selections from Wilhelm and Birgit Hein and James Benning through previous, indispensable releases, the label has now compiled a two-disc set dedicated to New German Cinema outlier Werner Schroeter, a renegade’s-renegade director who worked, by design, even further outside of the mainstream distribution/production system and conventional aesthetics than compatriots like Fassbinder and Wim Wenders. What we have in this mini-compilation is a focused, sharp representation of the gamut run by Schroeter’s fevered vision, at once hyper-stylized in conception and raggedly breathless in execution: On the archly avant-garde, virtually non (or at least anti-) narrative end, there’s 1970’s Der Bomberpilot, while 1978’s Nel Regno di Napoli (The Kingdom of Naples) is as close as Schroeter gets to telling a story in the way it’s most commonly understood that movies do.

Der Bomberpilot does, in fact, have a “story” — the postwar struggles of a trio of women who, under Hitler, had been a successful traveling musical-revue troupe of singers and dancers. Now, forced to live in ignobility and through a downward spiral of personal desperation and tragedy, the three women concoct a delusional, insane plan to make a revisionist, “feminist” return to the spotlight in the U.S. of A. But this story comes to us already warped into the disjunctive form of fragmented, mad delusion: Voice-overs from the women describe their situation and fill us in on the details as onscreen moments of breakdown, suicide attempts, fantasy, drudging reality, and shamed loss create a melange in which the line between the “real” story and what the women frantically imagine or project is permanently blurred and mutable. The post-synched soundtrack — replete with the aforementioned voice-overs, obsessively repeated, shrilly sung tunes from the Reich, and barely-matched dialogue for the rare dramatic scene — butts up against the images, which are in their turn confrontationally unpolished: grainy, hand-operated 16 mm takes of a luridly-colored, exaggerated pageant of snippets from the characters’ real and dream lives — for the most striking example, there’s the daydream of Carla, former star turned humiliated, Heidi-attired bakery clerk, that she’s being rowed regally, funereally down the Blue Danube — for a parade of tattered, defiant symbolism, disturbing and discordant dreams presented for our interpretation. It’s an extremely disorienting but enthralling experience, the poker-faced “amateur” aesthetic of Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey or early John Waters used to convey the backwash of histrionic downfall and unspeakable guilt drowning postwar (West) Germany. It works remarkably, trenchantly well; one senses that, in Schroeter’s view, this is exactly the treatment warranted by his country’s dark past and confusedly fallen present, and he wields the tools of his medium in such a way as to elicit our hearty agreement.

Nel Regno di Napoli, Schroeter’s own voyage to Italy, has the appearance of something much more straightforward, hewing closely to a postwar timeline (actually marked and measured by emblematic intertitle cut-ins announcing the year, accompanied by radio bulletin-like narration updating us on the historical/social/political context) as it tells the story of little Vittoria (played as an adult by Cristina Donadino), born to a poor family in a rough neighborhood of Naples at the end of the war, whose fate, as she grows from impoverished girlhood to “success” as an airline stewardess in the 1970s, provides our dramatic compass through a living, clear-eyed history book, encompassing a whole microcosm of Neapolitan life in the turbulent, industrializing decades after the war: A brother, Massimo (Antonio Orlando) earnestly and diligently devoted to the promise of a better, fairer future for the oppressed workers held out by the Communist Party; a pretty, naïve, ill-fated French prostitute; the Spanish War veteran who becomes their local C.P. leader, and his wife, more pragmatic and lurking in the ideological gray area by buying rationed necessities on the ultra-capitalist black market; the turncoat bourgeois attorney who sells out his working-class neighbors for his tacky, impossible dreams of the good life; and the operatically evil heiress/factory boss lady (Ida Di Benedetto) whose clutches Massimo fights to neutralize, but whom Vittoria ultimately just wants to escape any ideologically-impure way she can. The handmade, spontaneous quality of Der Bomberpilot is still part of Schroeter’s palette here, as is lurid, exaggerated pageantry, but those tactics are the judiciously-apportioned spice in a more aesthetically expansive, dramatically motivated/unified collage of images and sounds. Raw, immediate, apparently spontaneously-taken shots (redolent, if not due to Schroeter’s heightened tone then because of the setting and the period, of Italy’s most famous cinematic export, Neorealism) segue into movements and compositions striking in their deep, wordless conveyance of what it means to be a working-class postwar Neapolitan: In a gorgeous wide shot, the adult Massimo, destitute after imprisonment for his peaceable political activities, is tiny against a gray, sooty, imposing backdrop of factories and polluted sea; Vittoria and Massimo’s very ill father, reduced to working at home as a struggling cobbler, is taken in by a smoothly traveling camera that moves slowly in on, then past him, through his window to the vast, timeless expanse of Mediterranean just outside his poor workshop. Nel Regno di Napoli is Neorealism and melodrama jarringly but effectively combined, placed in the service of historicizing and politicizing its riveting, saddening story. The individual experience within a class, the class’s experience within a history — the affecting, incontrovertible insistence that the personal is the political — has rarely been achieved with such strange, eccentric, assured and enchanting verve as it is here.

These two films are only iceberg-tips, a small sampler of the places Schroeter’s cinema is ready and able to take us. But, as carefully preserved and presented in this unexpected, treasurable edition, they’re a beautiful introduction to the parallel cinematic universe conjured up by this intrepid rebel with a movie camera. It’s a place where the most exquisitely stylized, self-conscious artifice and sophisticated intelligence coexist (if not peacefully then at least in a very fruitful, irresoluble dialectical seesaw) with the technically regressive, and primitive. It’s like Wagner played “wrongly” but so very rightly as a self-aware, self-immolating punk-rock symphony, shards of incendiary cinematic glory bursting forth like sparks from Schroeter’s willful, sublimely agitating induction of the friction between the beautiful illusion of the silver screen and the ugly, inescapable realities of a history, society, culture, and politics he, as a necessarily agonized, overwhelmed European (and, quite specifically, German) artist of the second half of the 20th century, knows all too well.

 

THE DVD’s Note: These region-free/region-0 discs will not play on region 1-locked players, for example those manufactured for North America by Sony. Video:

These transfers of Der Bomberpilot and Nel Regno di Napoli preserve both the original aspect ratios of the films (1.33:1 for the former, 1.66:1/widescreen for the latter) and the rougher, rawer textures of the films themselves, which one senses were never “pristine” looking to begin with and appear with some signs of the immediacy and chaos of their making as well as, perhaps, some wear to the materials (with flicker and very rare scratches/debris to the frame), though never more than is easily excusable, or even sort of an authentic part of the underground-movie experience. One trusts that Edition filmmuseum has taken archival-level care in any restoration of the best materials available to them, and the films both look good and retain their character, with no compression artifacts (no aliasing, no edge enhancement/haloing that I could discern on close scrutiny) and certainly no overuse of digital smoothers to rob the image of its celluloid-like grain and vibrancy.

Sound:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 track of each disc takes all due care with the films’ original mono sound (in German with optional English or French subtitles), obviously presenting all dialogue and music with as much resonance, clarity, and depth/range as the carefully preserved soundtracks allow for. There are audio oddities in the films (the intentionally post-synced/mismatched soundtrack of Der Bomberpilot, or the self-consciously scratchy source music used in parts of The Kingdom of Naples), but there is never any distortion or imbalance that can be readily attributed to the transferring of the audio onto digital media.

Extras:

—To Live and Die in Naples (87 min.), an audiovisual essay completed in 2010 by Gérard Courant, consisting on the sonic level of an audio interview conducted by Courant with Schroeter at Cannes in 1978 (where The Kingdom of Naples was being presented), and on the visual level of illustrations — stills, clippings, photographs, text — relevant to the discussion, which ranges from German cinema as a whole to Schroeter’s influences and methods of working, from moment to moment. The visual elements are an okay touch, but this would have worked just as well as an audio-only bonus; regardless, it’s an enlightening visit with the affable but brutally honest Schroeter and his complex, difficult processes of looking at the world and responding through his art.

—“Werner Schroeter at Osterreichischen Filmmuseum” (15 min.), a Q&A conducted between the audience and Schroeter at the podium after a 1978 Vienna screening, and captured on black-and-white video. Again, it’s interesting and revealing to see the director in action, describing (without “explaining”) his film and his intentions for it to the sometimes obviously baffled spectators, who may still leave no less baffled, but with more rich food for thought.

–A selection of stills from the shooting of The Kingdom of Naples.

–A trilingual illustrated booklet with essays on Schroeter, a nice-looking, well-designed affair whose only drawback is the fact that the essays in different languages are not translated into the others; if you read English but not German or French, you get a (well-informed and well-written) 2012 magazine piece by Bradford Nordeen about a MOMA Schroeter retrospective that year, but not the essay in German by Fassbinder about his filmmaking comrade-in-arms, or Gérard Courant’s 1982 piece for a Cinémathèque Française publication.

 

 

FINAL THOUGHTSTwo strange, indeed bizarre, utterly disturbing and intoxicating works from the far ends of the spectrum of German filmmaker Werner Schroeter’s filmography, 1970’s experimental/avant-garde Der Bomberpilot and 1978’s nominally narrative/dramatic Nel Regno di Napoli (The Kingdom of Naples) are essential additions to the DVD libraries of any and all New German Cinema (Wenders, Fassbinder, Schlondorff) aficionados. Not that Schroeter is any more easily categorizable than his compatriots in that movement (more united by their moment and by economic/production conditions and means than aesthetically, at any rate); as these two films — for all their differences both equally drenched flamboyantly in the underground, homemade, labor-of-love spirit of an inveterate outsider/independent artist — richly attest, Schroeter could never “fit” easily into anything, whether it’s a movement or a new wave or the history of cinema itself. What he does share with his fellow practitioners of New German Cinema — a lingering, tortuous post-Hitler trauma and an impatience verging on disgust with postwar West Germany’s moribund, denial-prone culture and society — manifests itself with such an original urgency here, whether through the lushly, poisonously overripe fantasy-parable of Der Bomberpilot or the eccentrically but pointedly historicizing, melodramatic-Neorealist maneuvers of The Kingdom of Naples, that they easily smash through any ready-made molds to abrasively dazzle our eyes and insistently blow our minds. Thanks to Edition filmmuseum’s restorative/curatorial efforts, these too-long inaccessible portals into Schroeter’s ultra-stylized yet deeply visceral vision are now readily available to all, a new, wholly unexpected cinephilic adventure that for those (like yours truly) who hadn’t yet been initiated into the cult of Schroeter, will make an indelible mark and leave you hungry for more. Highly Recommended.

For a long time I’ve driven past storage facilities and wondered just what was in them- possibly something extremely rare that I would love to have myself but whose current owner packed away, not wanting it around but not wanting to get rid of it either, or worthless junk that nobody in their right mind would want even if it were given to them for free I already answered the question a bit myself, as a couple months ago I started renting my very own storage space after my apartment became overcrowded with stuff that I could no longer keep there but did not want to part with (mainly lots of VHS and Beta tapes, records that I don’t have time to listen to, and video game systems I don’t have time to play or room to keep hooked up. I was also just given a 35mm film projector from a closed theater, which went straight into the storage unit as I couldn’t possibly keep it in my apartment.) It’s been handy to have a place to stash this stuff and keep it out of sight and out of mind until the day I move to a home big enough to keep them around, but the first thing I was made aware of was the importance of paying my rent, because the storage facility will take possession of everything I’m keeping there if I don’t.

This is the whole premise of “Storage Wars”- each show is introduced with the words “When storage units are abandoned, the treasures within are put up for auction!” Each episode, which runs about 20 minutes without commercials, visits a different storage facility in Southern California where husband and wife team Dan and Laura Dotson run an auction of the surrendered units. The rules are simple: they’ll open the doors for potential buyers to see what’s inside, but nobody is allowed to go in the unit or see what is inside any closed boxes until after they’ve bought it. Most bidding is based on what could potentially be inside the unit, and results vary from finding items worth several times more than what was paid for the storage unit to coming up with practically nothing of value at all.

Although the auctions seen here draw a large number of people, the show focuses on its “stars” who appear at each one. Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante own a large second-hand store in Orange and hope to find items to sell there, usually attending the auctions together but sometimes one goes without the other and is later scolded about how much money they spent. Dave Hester is an auctioneer himself looking for things to re-sell- his trademark is yelling “Yuuup!” to signal his bidding and wears a baseball cap with that word on it. Barry Weiss is in it more for the thrill of the hunt and finding stuff he can’t live without- I could see myself being a lot like him in a few more years which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing. He’s often seen going through his loot wearing gloves with graphics of skeleton fingers on them. Then there’s Darrell Sheets and his son Brandon, who keep a warehouse full of items to sell at swap meets (a favorite place of mine.) Usually Brandon is there just to help his dad load the truck, but sometimes he puts up his own money for a storage unit he has a good feeling about.

This 2-disc set is comprised of 13 episodes picked by the participants as either their best or worst scores. Each show is preceded by a minute-long intro with them describing what good or bad things we’re about to see. In the shows themselves, we get to see the participants driving to the auctions and giving their thoughts on the area they’re in and what they might find there, then each unit is auctioned off with a look from the outside and speculation, and the winning bidders then go through the units and show what trash or treasure they’ve ended up with. Many of them also head out with their more unusual items to have their value appraised by someone more familiar with them, and are either elated that they’re worth several times what they paid for the entire storage unit or extremely disappointed that something they thought was very unique and valuable is only worth a few dollars at the most. Each show wraps up with a “final score” of how much money everyone potentially gained or lost.

They say one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and there’s plenty of that on display here. Among the highlights of items that are uncovered are an accessory used for making candy from the 1930s, paintings from a little-known but respected artist appraised at $300,000, TWO Darth Vader carrying cases filled with mint-condition Star Wars figures, safes filled with valuable coins, shoes worn by Shelley Duvall in the movie Popeye, and (one of my favorites) a 1930s Reddy Kilowatt lamp. The biggest busts include a unit filled literally top to bottom purchased by Barry who finds absolutely nothing of value inside, a safe containing just paperwork, and a sofa thought to date from the Victorian era but turns out to be a reproduction made in the 1950s of very little worth.

Being one who frequents flea markets (mainly to look for obsolete electronics, records and videos but also enjoying passing by the odder stuff) it was interesting to see where some sellers might have obtained their wares from and I definitely enjoyed seeing the winning bidders uncover what was left buried in storage by someone else. All the participants are unique characters and I wondered how some of them came up with the thousands of dollars to gamble on this venture. Given what I had seen of other “reality” shows, I was relieved that there was little to no fighting or bickering (whether real or staged) amongst the buyers, instead focusing mainly on what they acquired and the money they could potentially make from it.

Picture:

All episodes are shot on HD video in a 16×9 ratio with a rate of 24 frames per second. On standard DVD it looks adequate, though I wish companies weren’t so afraid to release material like this on Blu-Ray disc where it could be seen at its full resolution. There is a lot of post-production blurring of things such as company logos, artwork or faces of people that could not be legally cleared to appear, which oddly I find more distracting than the older practice of covering things up with a black bar. (Jarrod is seen getting excited about a “gangster” painting in a unit he’s won, but it’s blurred out when he shows it to us.) Either way it makes me more curious to try and see what is being covered up- I noticed many people with black tape over their clothing to hide other names or graphics that would likely cause clearance problems. Dialogue that may be poorly recorded or otherwise difficult to understand has been subtitled right on the video.

Sound:

Audio is in 2-channel Dolby Digital, with most of the location sound in mono with a stereo music score that runs almost constantly through each show. The music mostly riffs on Western movie themes while occasionally delving into spy-movie territory- it definitely livens up the action and punctuates particularly good or bad finds with a drum beat. Profane words spoken on camera are bleeped out, which I found pretty bleeping annoying.

English and Spanish subtitles are included. (Dave Hester’s “Yuuup!” is simply translated as “Si!”)

Extras:

The only thing really counted as an “extra” on this set is the “Never-before seen intros by the Storage Wars cast for each episode!” Other than that, the first disc opens with promos for Duck Dynasty, Swamp People and Mountain Men.

Final Thoughts:

“Storage Wars” brings you most the joy of looking through junk without getting dirty or losing money. Dangerously, it could get me to seek out some storage auctions myself in the future (hopefully when I have more money and more space!) I’ve read some allegations that parts of this show are rigged, but even if that’s true at least it isn’t as painfully obvious as things I’ve seen on other “reality” shows, and the producers do the right thing by focusing on the stuff and not staging fights. It still isn’t enough to get me to relent and subscribe to cable to see the latest episodes (as good as this show is, it doesn’t belong on what was originally the Arts and Entertainment Network), but I’ll at least check out the other DVD releases that have been put out and hope that my own storage unit doesn’t end up on the show.

Volumes One, Two, Three and Four of the complete “Storage Wars” series as well as the spin-off Storage Wars Texas have been reviewed previously.