Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Movies for HT demo?

This might have been asked before, but I couldn't find it in a search...

What movies do you recommend to demonstrate surround sound? Any of the Matrix or Lord of the Rings movies are great. I just watched I Robot and it was so-so sound-wise. What do you pull out when you want to show off your system?

-Brian

Great sound effects in War of the Worlds.

The Incredibles; Master and Commander; Batman Begins; Spider-man; The Phantom of the Opera.

I am also looking forward to next weeks release of Chronicles of Narnia which will have both Dolby Digital and dts.

Try the remake of "Flight of the Phoenix". Spectacular crash sequence fairly early in the movie, with great deep bass effects. Also "House of Flying Daggers" and a relative oldie, "The Bourne Identity."

Regards,

I've always liked showing Star Wars Ep 123, LOTR Trilogy are always good. There's a great part in the Return of the King when the Oliphants start to charge and the Riders of Rohan charge right into them. Thats probably the best I know of acctually. They also have great musical sequences as well. I Bet King Kong will be great too. I'll find out about that later in the week.

I see these kind of threads all the time on other forums too. One movie I never see anyone mention is The Hulk. IMHO, not only were the special effects above par but the soundtrack had some great moments, oh and Jennifer Connelly

Movies I like to demo for surround as well as low end are:
The Hulk (tank scene)
U-571 (depth charges)
Finding Nemo (mines, ship sliding and Darla tap scenes)
The Matrix (lobby scene)
The Mummy Returns (surprisingly good soundtrack for most of the movie)
Ice Age (scat and the glaciers)
WoTW (street breaking and the death rays or whatever they're called)

Pearl Harbor (the whole movie shows off effects and dialog well) to me this is one of the best effects/soundtrack movies out there. It covers all the bases as well as being a great movie to watch! As much as I hate Ben Affleck (not as much as I hate Tom Cruise, lol), his acting is probably the best he's ever done in this movie and I actually enjoy him in it, never thought I'd say that

I really appreciate all the suggestions. I picked up Sound & Vision Magazine's HT tune-up DVD which was very helpful. Pretty simplistic in the beginning with the equipment advice but the tutorials on the calibrations was very good.

Anyway, this DVD includes several Dolby trailers and DVD-A samples. Very cool.

-Brian

Figured I might add my .02c's worth.

Desperado -- bar scene
Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon -- awesome fight scenes
Equilibrium -- awesome fight scenes towards the end

But hey, that's just me. I really enjoyed watching all three movies...though out of the three, I have watched desperado multiple times.

See ya.

Gladiator and Black Hawk Down are two that come to mind for me. For a subwoofer show War of the Worlds is pretty much the reference these days.

Have mentioned it before:

Open Range - Thunderstorm at beginning (great surrounds)
Saloon scene (great LFE)
Gun fight near end (some of everything)

Hey, it's a western...

Plus it's a good movie...great for both sides of the family (male and female).

WhatFurrer

i really enjoyed this one......

Just saw another good one couple nights ago --> Chicken Little. The sky crack-opening sound on QS8s above my head sounded like the alien spaceships just crack-opened my attic !

If you're trying to impress someone who may have a typical WAF situation, with more than one vewier to involve; then a good one would be "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"

That's a good one, and dts as well

I admit that I have yet to get my Axioms hooked up (HT finished in 5-6 weeks, hopefully), but on my living room 5:1 set-up, a great sequence was in

Monsters, Inc. - the chase scene on the doors.

Great surround - a lot of back and forth in the left and right surround - and LFE

I find the DTS track on 5th Element a very nicely balanced sound track with good surround effects. I finally got my system re-established this week after 2 months of wall repairs and paint, and got hooked listening to this movie for the ump-teenth time when I just intended to check system operation was back to normal.

King Kong is a very good disc. Its cool when kong breaths you can feel it, and all the little sounds all around you when they are in the jungle on the ship, or in the city. Its a great movie too! oh i totally forgot about the 5th Element. Good call on that one!

Here's one more to add to your list:

The Haunting (1999)

The LFEs are really spectacular in this movie!

Just got done watching War of the Worlds. WoWWWW my 500 was a rocking my house off its foundation almost. I had to turn the volume down as I was worried the drywall was going to start falling apart.

I was a bit disapointed by the ending, pretty lame.

We rented Episode I this weekend. Our local rental store has a deal where you can get a 'gallery' (older) DVD for free - 1 a day, so we've been having fun catching up.

One of the things that amazed me about this movie was how weird many of the scene transitions were. The graphical 'wipe' was odd enough, but with the surround sound it was really strange in places. Several times a ship would fly out and over your head, which was pretty cool. Then a second later the scene changed and the same ship was flying _back_ into the scene from a different direction. It felt odd because they didn't seem connected at all.

Oh well, it was fun to be able to listen anyway!

-Brian

Thank you for the recommendations, Alan - House of Flying Daggers was astonishing. I say this even though the DVD was scratched and we ended up not being able to watch the whole thing (going to try again with a new rental place). But the stones on the drums and the bamboo forest were amazing!

-Brian

War of the Worlds for sub. One of my favorites to demo to friends that doesn't get much mention is We Were Soldiers. Love the helicopters panning around overhead and how sometimes the sub thumps with each round fired from Mel's M16 (only some scenes do this). I also like the intro scene to Behind Enemy lines when the F18 is engaged and eventually shot down. I think if could have been mixed much better; but it's still darn good.

Thx for the House of Flying Daggers recomendation... last night we rented it and IMO that is the best movie out there to show off your surrounds. Excelent movie.

I just it rented today, going to watch tonight

After watching House of Flying Daggers, I would have to agree it is a remakably well done for surround sound, visually it is stunning also.

I finnaly watched The Incredibles last nite too. I was really impressed with the overall sound quality of that movie (in DD EX even).

Love threads like this, finding out what else to watch that makes my system sound good.

I watched Phoenix last night (checking them off my list!) and I could have sworn in the cabin with those folks! Amazing. The rest of the movie wasn't much to write home about but there were some cool effects.

-Brian

My fav has always been Star Wars 1 Pod racing scene. Recently my wife put on Titanic and the scene when all the people were in the water really freaked me out! It was like they were in the room !

Black Hawk Down had a few good sound scenes ,like the bullets wizzing sounds ! Love that!

Bumping this thread a bit. As a budding NASCAR fan, we rented Days of Thunder last night - haven't seen it in years. Now I remember why. Sound was pretty good on the track but the story is just absurd. Even my wife who has been to one, and ONLY one race said, "oh come ON! They'd red flag after something like THAT!" Hee hee

Also interesting how old it was - open helmets, no HANS device, etc.

-Brian n8wrl

-Brian

People tend to choose films with loud and booming tracks... although improtant and a great "WOW" factor: I feel that sometimes the softer moments of a great mix can really show off system.
Try, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS = this film was re-mixed from mono into 5.1. It also decodes excellently into 6.1 or 7.1 There's a scene on disc1 where John Derek is talking to Debra Paget amongs the slaves. In 6.1/7.1 the sounds of other slaves digging and chippng away at stone can be heard in the rear. Also in that film on disc 2 during the Passover cries of the dying are heard in stereo in the surrounds. Back on disc1 you will hear sounds of people yell, moaning "MOSES" in the wind when Moses is exilded into desert, at night.
In THE EXORCIST: THE VIERSION YOU NEVER SAW you will hear excellent rear to front panning when Ellen Byrnstern brings home Father Karras to look at ther daughter. The sould of rasping breating can be heard in the right surround and it pan forward as they walk up the stairs - creepy. Also in that same film during the exorcism, just after the priests take a break Father enters the room alone to see a vision of his mother sitting on the bed. Sounds of wailing and crying are heard in stereo in the surrounds.
In THE SOUND OF MUSIC dialog and singing is panned across the front soundstage making a very realistic performance.
The TOWERING INFERNO, new delux edition has extremely wide open music in the front.
Films with a wide frontal exchange of effects are the GODZILLA film produced in the 90's available from Sony/Tristar. ALthough 5.1 they too decode great in 6.1/7.1 , try GODZILLA, MOTHRA, KING GHIDORAH: ALL MONSTERS ATTACK - There's plenty of boom, frontal panning and great side/surround stereo panning to the front. Great fun.