Electric Shadow

Paramount 5.12.09 Catalog Blu Releases

Based on the volume I'm covering now, I'm condensing things into digest format with the exception of notable individual discs. It makes more sense and is more manageable. Note that I'm not including a full writeup of the Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection here, since I've only recently gotten them. I do have a couple of things to say about it as a preface to the multi-installment review I'm working on finishing in the next couple days. The biggest thing going around on this release has to do with Digital Noise Reduction. Fuel was added to the fire as review copies were delayed in getting out to the press, which some theorized to be an indication of Paramount hiding something. Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits is better qualified and has a better setup to examine this kind of thing than me, which he did in a recent installment of My Two Cents. I should note here that a delay in disc replication to keep up with demand and meet street date was the culprit behind the late discs, not a conspiracy. In short, those with ultra-high-end setups with screens the size of a house may notice a softer look to these releases than would be ideal, but the vast majority of us on screens 52" and under won't. Frankly, the production values many of the movies were shot with resulted in soft focus and jagged edges around matte paintings and optical effects. As a Picture Quality expert friend put it on his way out the door to Fry's the other day, "DNR or no, $60 is more than worth it." I agree with him and will get into the specifics as soon as I can make it through the mountain of features. Wayne's World & Wayne's World 2 There are bits of dirt in the transfer, but I'll be damned if this isn't the best both of these movies have looked on disc. There's a great deal of background detail I'm only seeing for the first time here. I wore out tapes of both Wayne's Worlds going through school, and even I can acknowledge how dated they are. Not many people are going to laugh at the Grey Poupon joke anymore. Regardless, one can imagine many a two-pack of these titles going out the door with new Blu-ray players this holiday season. Extras are carried over from the previous editions, including an Extreme Close-Up featurette [23:14 and 14:06 respectively] that you'll watch once (both taped in the same session) and Director's Commentary on both, but neither is terribly engaging (Spheeris' on the first a bit more so than Surjik on the sequel). It'd be interesting to hear a track from Spheeris ten or twenty years from now that lets her loose on how difficult Mike Myers allegedly was on-set (which is why she declined to direct the sequel). Is it me, or did they put the trailer on the first one but not 2? Anyone know why? Major League It's fun to watch Charlie Sheen do something other than a sitcom (one I watch as a guilty pleasure from time to time). Speaking of sitcoms, I also noticed Neil Flynn (the Janitor from Scrubs) in a one-line part here as a construction worker for the first time. I forgot how much of a throwaway, shallow, cheeseburger of a movie this is in a good way. Cerrano still bothers me as an example of a "Cuban voodoo man," one of the many ridiculous caricatures that people think there's nothing wrong with. The most time-worthy of the carried-over supplements is the Feature Commentary with writer/director David S. Ward and producer Chris Chesser, which sounds like color commentary from an afternoon baseball game but is actually pretty interesting. I suppose the A Major League Look at Major League [SD 14:27], Bob Uecker: Just a Bit Outside [SD 12:43] featurette and the Alternate Ending [4:18] aren't bad either. I skipped the Tour of Cerrano's Locker [SD 1:36], as short as it is. Black Sheep This one's a bit odd in that there are no special features at all. If you love this "adjective-rich critical quote" comedy, you don't care anyway. The picture is vastly upgraded, as is the sound. I guess this past Tuesday was Penelope Spheeris Day in the catalog department at Paramount. Without a Paddle The only reason I could see myself buying this one is if it came in a two-pack with Deliverance for less than Deliverance cost on its own. 13 Additional Scenes (with Optional Commentary), Director's Feature Commentary, a Director and Cast Video Commentary, and some Interstitials and a Featurette or two makes for a lot more than I'd expect this movie deserves. A friend told me the other day "it's on TBS all the time, it's not THAT bad," but I remember the trailer. Save Seth Green, who I enjoy in practically everything he does, I couldn't come up with a reason to watch this for free when it came up as an advanced screening in college. I've already dedicated more words to it than I feel comfortable with.

For the record: (if you like it) Buy, Buy, Buy, Rent when you need some Farley, and You don't care if I like it anyway
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Blueller

I have never been the world's biggest fan of this movie, but I have friends who worship it. I didn't hate Bueller, it just never lit me up like a Christmas tree at the mere mention of it. I've come around on it, mostly because most teen comedies have nothing to do with fun anymore. Most of them aren't even comedies.

in his own words, what Ben Stein wants to be remembered for (screencap from DVD Beaver's writeup)
Similar to the other two catalog releases from Paramount last week, Ferris Bueller's Day Off has jumped to Blu-ray, carrying over the supplements of the Bueller...Bueller Edition that hit DVD in 2006. The movie itself looks and sounds better than it ever has, which should be the bare minimum expected. What has impressed me most with the catalog titles is that they haven't overdone the DNR or edge enhancement as far as I can tell. There's an appropriate amount of grain in the picture such that it isn't too clean. The featurettes total a couple minutes over an hour. Getting the Class Together: The Cast of Ferris Bueller's Day Off [SD 27:45] is the longest title I think I've ever seen on a featurette. Nice little piece that breezes by. The Making of Ferris Bueller's Day Off [SD 15:30] is ok as well, but I'd like to have had it incorporated with the aforementioned piece in addition to Who is Ferris Bueller [SD 9:10] and The World According to Ben Stein [SD 10:50] with Vintage Ferris Bueller: The Lost Tapes [SD 10:14] as a button in a Play All-style feature doc. Maybe I'm just lazy. 'Who is' explores the character, though I don't know how deep he really is. The 'Ben Stein' bit is probably my favorite of the bunch, setting aside his association with that ridiculous Expelled documentary and continued affection for Nixon (Stein wrote the oft-misquoted resignation speech). The 'Vintage' bit is mostly Alan Ruck & Matthew Broderick screwing around during on-set promo work for the film and ranks second favorite of the bunch. I don't expect there to be a more definitive version of this title, and I don't think we need one. The SD extras didn't auto-switch to 4:3 (the ratio they were made to fit) on my monitor, and even though it could be my player, I doubt it. Ironic that so many of us fought so long for Anamorphic widescreen transfers on DVD only to now see the age of reverse pan & scan begin. We have old ported extras that are auto-stretched to fit our pretty flatscreens. I'll push three buttons to have the pleasure of the picture and sound upgrade on display.

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Connecting with Gavin & Stacey

The third entry in a series of UK TV shows I enjoy that most fellow Americans haven't heard of, Gavin & Stacey (starring Mathew Horne and Joanna Page) is loads better than US sitcoms of similar stripes. The titular characters, he English (from Essex) and she Welsh, meet by coincidence over the phone while working for companies miles and miles apart in their respective countries. After striking up an ongoing teleflirtation, they decide to meet in person for the first time at Leicester Square. Yes, the romance setup is meet-cutesy, but the dialogue and humor are foul-mouthed (or minded) and sharply-honed. The stuff they get away with on BBC3 would never make it unneutered onto US broadcast TV.

Gavin, Smithy, Stacey, and Nessa
They each bring their best friends Smithy and Nessa (James Corden and Ruth Jones) along for the trip, and all their lives start changing from there. Of the cast, American audiences are likely most familiar with Joanna Page, who played the film set stand-in Judy in Love Actually. Horne is best-known in the UK for a recurring part on the sadly cancelled Catherine Tate Show and also played a part in Lesbian Vampire Killers (as did Corden), which I avoided at SXSW. Corden and Jones, who co-wrote and created the show, have achieved what few writers do, by writing cracking* roles for themselves and spreading the good lines around generously. Corden is best-known for his part in The History Boys. Ruth Jones has been in a bunch of TV, including Little Dorrit, recently on DVD from the BBC as well.

Corden and Jones at the BAFTAs, where the show won programme of the year and Corden won a Comedy Performance award for playing Smithy
For me, the standout among the cast that makes me lose it with every other line is Alison Steadman as Gavin's mum Pam. Steadman is best known to many Americans as Mrs. Bennett from the 1995 Ehle/Firth Pride & Prejudice. She's been in plenty of other things that readers should look up on IMdB. Rob Brydon, a regular guest on the wonderful and uniquely British TV (read: literate and thought-provoking) panel show QI (hosted by the brilliant Stephen Fry) turns in an enjoyable performance as awkward Uncle Bryn. As usual, I could go on about everyone individually but then this review would go on far longer than anyone wants it to. As with Pulling, the thing I disliked most here is that now I'm stuck waiting for the next season with no alternative. Also in contrast to many US TV releases, the extras are worth the time of day. How It Happened [25:00] is a rather self-explanatory title for a featurette that tells the story of the genesis of the show. Ruth Jones being Ruth Jones is nice to see after nothing but Nessa for nearly three hours. There's a genuine camaraderie to this cast you don't sense in many shows these days. It's an old-fashioned quality that says more about the content than any critic could add, really. The Outtakes [5:07] are brief but fun, and Behind the Scenes at Leicester Square [3:07] gives a few minutes witht he principals on-location for the most expensive shoot they had in the first season of the show. There's Episode-Specific Commentary on episodes 1, 3, and 6 with Corden & Jones as well as Director Christine Gernon. The most entertaining "extra" are the English subtitles that are highly recommended for ears not accustomed to English & Welsh accents.

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Gavin & Stacey: Season One hit the street last Tuesday (5/5) and should be on your list of UK Shows to Catch Up With ASAP (See also: Pulling, The IT Crowd) *slang for things Americans might alternately call "awesome," "fabulous," or "hot"
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The Variable IMAX Experience

IMAX has rolled out a lesser product than their brand implies and are charging the same price for it. The image below, taken from an article on LF Examiner, illustrates the vast difference between what AMC and Regal cinemas are calling "IMAX" screens at the behest of IMAX themselves. Make sure you don't get suckered into substandard presentation by checking this list at LF Examiner before buying tickets. Real IMAX is denoted as 1570, whereas Fake IMAX is denoted as "D."

The unmistakably huge difference between IMAX 1570 and IMAX D
Aziz Ansari has posted not one but two pieces on this and it's been discussed around the web today, setting comment sections aflame, including Jeff's post from earlier. IMAX's decision to not rebrand these IMAX D screens for what they are dilutes their brand, but they have been doing that for a while in ways the public has let them get away with. Before I went off to college, I never had a negative experience at the IMAX in Dallas at Fair Park, at the time the only one in the area. Once I got to school, the Challenger Center IMAX in Tallahassee was a significant disappointment. The screen has a tear or crease in it that interferes with the viewing of anything, and the projector is vastly under-lit. Clouds of dust blow around, and the entry/exit door opens directly into a hallway outside, producing tons of noise whenever someone goes out for any reason. As much of an improvement as the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum IMAX in Austin is, it's still imperfect. The projector lens is rarely free of dust (who knows if it's ever cleaned), and the location of the exit presents a more disruptive experience than most theaters. You enter underneath the auditorium seating, as in many museum-bound IMAX theaters, and the exits are directly behind the back row. Kids leaving slam the push bars like they're trying to knock someone down in the schoolyard. Daylight floods in during matinees, ruining the integrity of the viewing experience. Did that destroy my ability to enjoy The Dark Knight in IMAX when I saw it there last summer? No, and I wouldn't trade having seen it on a screen that big for anything, but I would have preferred a more pristine experience for the premium price. If they've transformed into "selling an Experience," they need to clean up what they've already got going. I don't expect things to be perfect, but being complacent in this case is tantamount to telling people it is all well and good to talk during the movies. I've been spoiled, living in Austin. I'm used to bright, crisp, dust-free projection at all the original Alamo Drafthouses in town, and the IMAX D Experience sounds to me like the quality of the Alamo presentation being brought to other theaters, which in itself is a good thing. The problem is that the branding is horribly misleading. IMAX=70 foot screen, period. When a filmmaker shoots on huge IMAX stock, what's the point of going to that quality and resolution if you're going to show it on a shrunk-down screen? It's like watching Blu-ray on a 7-inch tube TV from 1985.

I never thought I'd tout Cinemark's standards for any reason
Since I left home nearly ten years ago, Cinemark has added a full size 1570 screen to one of their multiplexes out in Plano (one of Dallas' major suburbs). They physically remodeled their facility significantly to accommodate the gigantic screen and do things the right way. Recently, the AMC 30 in Mesquite, near where my parents live, has added one of the IMAX D screens, where my mother and younger brother saw Star Trek last Friday morning. In her estimation, it was definitely a high-quality presentation with great sound, but it was not nearly as immersive as the giant 70 foot screens she had seen before. Granted, "it was easier to not lose your balance" ascending the steps and it didn't give her the "dizzying feeling" she would occasionally get watching True IMAX with her bifocals; however, "it was like they took a regular screen and made things a bit sharper and clearer." She wasn't sure why there was a difference in ticket price than usual since it wasn't "Real IMAX" in the first place. Be vocal and comment on Aziz's original blog post. I'd love to see him tear the IMAX CEO a new one on TV. Anyone else?
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Two Blu Doses of Travolta

The Grease and Saturday Night Fever Blu-rays (released last Tuesday by Paramount) represent a definitive upgrade over the DVD editions they replace. I've never seen the color depth so rich or heard the soundtracks this clear and crisp on either movie. It's only a coincidence that John Travolta stars in both and that they feature music heavily, but it's interesting to see the consistency between the two given they were made a year apart.


Grease image cropped from Blu-ray.com, Saturday Night Fever image cropped from DVD Beaver
The resolution and clarity are vastly improved as one would expect from Blu-ray at this point, but the real standout is color. In particular, the animated opening of Grease is impressive right off the bat, and all the disco scenes really pop in Fever, not nearly as muddy as before. Any critic who tells people up-converted DVD is "good enough" compared to Blu-ray should be strapped down and have their eyes forced open Clockwork Orange-style in front of side-by-side monitors showing these movies next to their previous versions. The extras on Grease and Saturday Night Fever are identical to the previous "Rockin Rydell" and "30th Anniversary" DVD editions. All of the Grease ones are upconverted SD, which I'm fine with, honestly. It would have been nice if they'd done the Theatrical Trailer in HD at least. The weird thing is, Saturday Night Fever's supplements all got the 1080 upgrade. Frankly I'd have been fine with the extras in SD to improve bitrate on the feature, but can't fathom how if at all the picture or audio suffered. On Grease, the featurettes amount to just a hair under an hour of total material, including the retrospective The Time, The Place, The Motion: Remembering Grease [22:00], which is more concise and informative than the Feature Commentary. Structurally, it would have been nice if there were a Play All so that bits like the DVD Launch Party [15:00] and the Grease Memories from John and Olivia [3:00], The Moves Behind the Music [8:00], Thunder Roadsters [5:00], and the two "Grease Day" interviews with John & Olivia [2:00 each] didn't require fishing for the remote. There's also 11 Deleted, Alternate, & Extended Scenes [10:00] that are B&W only from the Paramount vault as well as some Photo Galleries I skipped. The Grease Sing-Along? It's called subtitles, folks. Saturday Night Fever, in contrast, has a cohesive, all in one go feature doc, Catching the Fever [75:00]. Director John Badham's Feature Commentary is worth the listen and compliments the doc nicely. Also included are three Deleted Scenes with Optional Director Commentary and a Disco Trivia pop-up track. The former is worth the time, the latter wasn't particularly eye-opening, but it's not the bore pop-up tracks usually are. In all, this bodes extremely well for other Paramount catalog releases from the same era to the present on Blu-ray, but I'm curious what things look like when we go further back. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (about 15 years older) is being reissued on DVD next week, but no Blu-ray...yet. I have a stack of Paramount Blus at home that are hitting the street tomorrow along with Ferris Bueller's Day Off (5/5 like the above), which I'm similarly impressed with. More on these soon.

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American Swing

In college, there was a used clothing shop in Tallahassee called Plato's Closet near campus, and every time the commercial came on, I couldn't help but laugh. The name was too close to Plato's Retreat, the swingers club run by Larry Levenson in New York City from 1977 through the mid-80's. "Trade in your clothes for cash," the commercial said, and they were only a phrase away from saying, "then join us in the back."

Plato's Retreat founder Larry Levenson and his future ex-wife
Plato's opened in New York before AIDS became an epidemic and before safe sex became the rule and not a 50/50 choice. American Swing documents the rise and fall of the club and its proprietor, in the bargain letting us see plenty of notable (Ron Jeremy) as well as relatively anonymous visitors from the club's heyday. Levenson's assertions about the transmission of disease and how safe and clean Plato's was was shocking and tragic. I wasn't even born when Plato's Retreat opened, but I can safely say that if I'd had the option in my college years it wouldn't have remotely been my kind of thing. As much of a "prude" as my editor called himself when reviewing this doc, I've been reminded of my own "prudishness" while watching Swing. That must be why I didn't get along with the more...polyamorous people I knew working in college, the ones who would get trashed out of their minds and screw in random pairings. It may well be the case that human beings as a species are not monogamous by nature, and based on observation I agree with that for the most part. If monogamy is abnormal, I'm fine with that, call me a mutant and move on. "The lifestyle" is something that just doesn't jive for me, so I found the documentary a fascinating look at something very foreign to my sensibilities. I felt filthy after watching it, but I appreciate my wife more than ever. Spout did a great interview with the filmmakers a couple months ago. It would have been nice to see something like this video recorded for the DVD, since the existing extras (a pile of Deleted Scenes) just serve to provide some additional background rather than explore why the filmmakers chose this subject. Fun as it is to find out more about how the older couple met, or in particular the Stewardess Story (which I think should've made the final cut), I wanted to hear from the guys behind the camera. It's worth adding to the Netflix queue rather than Watch Instantly for the Deleted Scenes. Sociologists and Anthropologists may want to own it for reference or classroom use, but it's not something I'd throw on the DVD player on a rainy Saturday.
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Most Wanted: The Devils (1971)

Next week's release of Angels and Demons brings to mind another movie similarly derided by the religious establishment: Ken Russell's The Devils. It's still not available on Region 1 DVD. There's a bootleg DVD floating around featuring the 111-minute uncut version, but I never trust picture quality on these, much less support them (it just delays or prevents a decent version).

Gorgeous French poster for The Devils taken from The Auteurs (go there for a larger version & the American Disclaimer version).
There was allegedly a DVD transfer made, a gold master struck, and a release date set, but it was then pulled from release. I first saw the film on a battered old VHS copy projected in a cathedral-like lecture hall during my Anthropology of Religion class in college. My professor, Bruce Grindal, said it is a movie that has always been impossible to find on home video. He added that all sorts of religious institutions and censor groups have helped prevent its availability since its release nearly 4 decades ago. The movie concerns itself with the Loudun Possessions of 1634, considered the largest mass possession in history. Godless heathen that I am, I don't believe any of the possession malarkey and expect this was a Crucible-like situation where the clergy and the nuns came to blows. Significant artistic license was taken in the portrayals of Cardinal Richlieu and Louis XIII, but what really gave the church and censor boards fits was the infamous Rape of Christ scene. Full of nudity and violence, it's the kind of thing that might still cause trouble with the MPAA. In a recent Home Theater Forum chat (3/24/09) conducted by The Digital Bits, Warner Bros. had the following to say: "[MichaelStreeter] Hi, congratulations - I love the WBArchives idea and it's really exciting. Any chance we'll see Brewster McCloud, The Devils or The Power on DVD? [warnerbros] How did we know someone would ask about the THE DEVILS :) All three titles are under consideration and are in various stage of approval. Cross fingers!" It appears to be more a matter of "when" rather than "if" at this point. I'm most interested in whether they're planning to release it as an Archive title or an extras-laden standard release. The trailer is viewable on YouTube here (embedding disabled to frustrate me). Below I have embedded the 6 parts of Hell on Earth: The Desecration & Resurrection of "The Devils", a 2004 UK TV documentary that ran on Channel 4. Nudity and foul language are included, so even the doc is NSFW. It digs into the production and decades of controversy surrounding The Devils better than anyone has written about it in just 50 minutes, give or take. The presence of this doc would be the reason to buy and not rent the theoretical DVD from Warner.
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The Spirit of Adventure

It's taken me some time to sort out what I think about UP, which I saw here in Austin a couple weeks ago. I saw the "flat" non-3D version, with the Partly Cloudy short attached to it, but without credits. It's long been known Pixar isn't planning on merchandising this movie within an inch of its life like their others, but the movie's so good they don't have to.

As deeply-felt as Pixar's previous films have been, and as often as the word "masterpiece" is thrown around, UP has achieved a new triumph in their storytelling acumen. Technological breakthroughs have defined Pixar to many who were introduced to them by Toy Story, the trendsetter for all the copycat attempts at CG animation over the last 14 years. The reason Pixar has persevered in the face of imitators is that they are their own harshest critics, and put just as much if not more energy into the story than the pretty pictures. Harry posted a reaction shortly after the screening I saw on AICN, and I agree completely that the movie has the adventurous spirit of the original '33 King Kong or The Most Dangerous Game. More interesting for me is that it's one of the best movies about coping with loss that I've ever seen. If anyone considers taking a date to this, they'd better be almost or completely certain they're out with "the one." Otherwise the deeply affecting love story that starts the movie and propels its protagonist could have unintended consequences on the outcome. It might seem an odd idea to some, taking a date to an animated movie, but this isn't Monsters vs. Aliens, this is like Studio Ghibli made Gran Torino. I made the Gran Torino link (old man, young Asian kid, life lessons learned) on a platonic level when I saw the first trailer, as did others. It touches on the father-son type relationship and other stuff thematically, but otherwise they're very different movies. The reason I mention Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli is that like Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, and others, you're not certain what strange and interesting thing will come next. I was planning to post something around the time Jeff left for Cannes, where UP and Partly Cloudy will premiere in 3D, but his piece about Russell this morning helped motivate me today. To put it bluntly, Russell is more complex than some annoying little roly poly fat kid.

To say that Russell is eager to please would be a massive understatement. He wants Carl to like him and approve of him so much it hurts. He's an overeating, junk food-inhaling kid due to things he has trouble coping with that are made clear as the film progresses. He's not overweight and inactive due to outright laziness and disinterest in being healthy. Russell is a modern kid brought up to learn plenty about the world outside having never really been allowed to explore anything. Without giving anything away, his arc as a character has a lot to do with how he wants to be more than what he's been. "It's ok to be overweight" is not the thrust of that arc.

The new short is fantastic as well. Partly Cloudly, directed by Pixar up-and-comer Pete Sohn, is a dialogue-free story about storks and where they get various babies from: clouds. Specifically, it's about one cloud that handles all the "dangerous" babies that should come with a Handle With Care sign. This is thematically the best pairing of short to feature, as appetizer to meal, that Pixar has ever done. The thing that Sohn does best here is in the effortless and efficient simplicity of storytelling. He gets the job done without dialogue, and the result is still memorable weeks later for me. A lot of his inspiration for becoming an animator came from the animated movies and shorts he could watch with his mother, who didn't speak any English. I'd love to see Sohn take the reigns of something big. I can't wait to see both again in 3D and then probably a couple more times in the cinema. Whereas WALL-E was brilliant but not the easiest movie to throw on the big screen at Thanksgiving, UP will be very popular on the DVD/Blu-ray aisle in addition to first-run in theaters.
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The Day I Got Sam Cohn on the Line

When I was in college a few years ago, I did a great deal of theatre work: acting, directing, and everything in between. At one point I was on the board of a non-profit theatre and probably spent days worth of my life reading scripts and finding interesting titles that hadn't been produced to death. One rainy afternoon, I was on a big Arthur Miller kick, and found there was one script that I couldn't locate on its own or in a standalone volume: Finishing the Picture.

Linda Lavin (l.) and Stacy Keach (r.) in the Goodman production of Finishing the Picture (2004)
Miller's final work, it was produced by the Goodman Theatre in the fall of 2004 shortly before his death. The play is interesting biographically for Miller, in that his last work was all about the disaster that was the making of The Misfits with then-wife Marilyn Monroe.

Ask anyone, you can't get a copy of it anywhere. It was never published. So I started digging for answers and eventually figured I should look up Miller's agency, since I wasn't getting anywhere otherwise. I had no idea who Sam Cohn was when I first found his name, but I did a fair amount of reading about him before I dialed the number. "Sam Cohn's office," his secretary answered. I briefly explained I worked with a theatre company in Florida and was curious about performance rights to or requesting an updated copy of Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture. "Hold for Mr. Cohn," she replied. This man is the hardest to get on the phone in all of show business, right? "Sam Cohn," he said. I repeated the spiel I gave the secretary, and about three beats after I said "Picture," he sighed and barreled through saying "the play is not available for performance and never will be." Given the estate's distaste for anything that had to do with Marilyn Monroe, I figured it was worth asking, "What about plans for publication? Even if it can't be licensed for performance--" "The play will not be published, not now, not ever. Good day to you." That's all I got or ever would get out of Sam Cohn. After more reading about who he was, I decided to send a thank you note for having taken my call. It might seem odd to some, but I felt some old-fashioned gesture of respect was in order. I don't like the idea of people assuming I'm like all the other guys who ring up on the phone and sound twentysomething. I didn't expect a response or confirmation that he received it, and I didn't get one, but I'll be damned if it didn't feel good to hand-write, address, and mail a letter to Sam Cohn. That said, if anyone reading has a copy or can get a copy of Finishing the Picture, I'd be eternally grateful. Email is linked
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Khan At Last

A few weeks ago, I thought I was going to see a restored print of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan. Everyone in the audience was thrilled with the surprise switch that was pulled on us, but there was plenty of "can we still see Wrath of Khan at some point?" It's on tonight at 9:40pm at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz downtown. Fantastic Fest badgeholders get priority and then it's first-come, first served. They reckon they can seat everyone, but get there early.

Pecs of Steel
Ashley and I are watching the "Space Seed" episode that Khan debuted in on Blu-ray before heading downtown. She's never seen the episode or the movie.
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Becket Blu on the Cheap

In one of the best catalog Blu-ray deals I've yet seen, Amazon has Becket for $15.49 currently, which is less than the DVD usually goes for ($15.99). Buying movies at this kind of pricing sends a message to distributors and studios, so open your wallet if this is your kind of release. Becket is the 1964 film adaptation of the play "Becket or The Honor of God," which focuses on the relationship between King Henry II of England and his confidant Thomas Becket. Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole star as Becket and Henry, respectively. Both were nominated for Best Actor, and the film was nominated for a total of 12 Oscars. In late 2006 and early 2007, Jeff focused a great deal on the limited run rerelease and the restored print & transfer to DVD of Becket, "in which O'Toole arguably gave the finest performance of his career as King Henry II." Act quickly to get this price on it from Amazon. Purchasing from the links in this entry helps support this column and is much appreciated.
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Pushing Pulling

And now for our all-too-frequent feature, "European TV shows no one has heard about that are much better than US broadcast TV." I'll work on a better title. Unfortunately cancelled after its second season, Pulling is the kind of show that wins awards and acclaim and stills ends up unfortunately cancelled. The humor is dark, the women's roles are complex and interesting, and the guys are mostly fundamentally flawed--much like real life, go figure.
Pulling follows three single women, one of whom starts the first episode engaged. Series co-creator Sharon Horgan plays Donna, who works an uneventful office job, Tanya Franks as Karen, a promiscuous primary school teacher, and Rebekah Staton as Louise, a naive cafe hostess. The co-creator and writer who does not also appear in the show is Dennis Kelly, who writes plays I'd be interested to read if they were published in the States. Pulling was the last comedy show produced and brought to fruition by Harry Thompson, who was a primary driving force behind the conceptual creation of Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G. Thompson also produced popular panel shows in the UK that exposed the public to Cohen, Ricky Gervais, and others not as familiar to dirty American audiences who I could pretend to know more about than I do. Here's Thompson's Wikipedia page. I think it's a discredit to Pulling to recommend it as Dark Sex and the City, as if it were some sort of alternate-universe version of affluent women getting into all kinds of hilarious jams and sometimes Very Special episodes. It's indicative of the relative state of women in the media that everything involving women has to be relative to that fucking show (which, full disclosure, I watched and enjoyed on and off). "It's like Sex and the City crossed with the evening news!" Pulling distinguishes itself from most TV these days by not reinforcing accepted sitcom stereotypes, irrespective of gender. Even many of the best American shows that are untimely cancelled still bend over for the same tired crap, featuring relationships like an idealized damsel in distress paired with a hopeless manchild. Nothing fully traumatic or lasting ever happens to people in these shows. They both stay the same and never show an inch of development. There is no jeopardy too trivial. Not that they're similar in any way other than narrative structure, but Pulling continues snowballing and raising the stakes for the three women at its center episode by episode as Eastbound and Down recently did with a completely different components. Flawed people making mistakes is a very interesting thing to watch, completely unlike Confessions of a Shopaholic. The primary thread I could relate to is the thrust of the first episode, in that heterosexual women worldwide are less likely to marry because, well...look at the options they have. The only thing that frustrates me is that now I have to wait for the second season to be released so I can plow through the rest of the show. The first season of Pulling is now available on DVD.
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DIGITAL: International Velvet at last

As far as I can gather, you can now own International Velvet for the first time on DVD. The catch is you get it in a cheaply-produced, single-layer transfer on a two-sided disc (National Velvet is on the other side). The roughly ten dollar multi-feature also includes Black Beauty and The Story of Seabiscuit. Amazon has it for $10.99, but Ashley and I got it at Target for a dollar less. Adding nearly a buck for tax makes it a wash, though. We got a $5 bin copy of Black Beauty a while back that's no better than the transfer in this flip-set. This just means we have a spare to give away or sell off, but it made me think how much I'd like to move up to a full HD transfer on Blu-ray.
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(Battle for) Terra

I reviewed Battle for Terra back at Fantastic Fest, when it wasn't yet in 3D and called Terra. The reviews and flat dismissals I've seen around the web for this movie are interesting in that they're all written by adults acting like this movie was made with them in mind.
Battle for Terra, by all predictions, stood to be completely slaughtered this weekend, but hopefully it'll see an uptick or some sustained business with families who've already seen Monster vs. Aliens until UP takes all its screens at the end of the month. For those with kids, I really think it's more worthy of your time than MvA and the wide swath of not-so-great choices moms and dads are usually stuck with. It's the type of movie that an eight year old will wear out on DVD and recall fondly in their adult life as something they loved when they were a kid, simplicity be damned. On a side note, I find it interesting that the Romulan ship in Star Trek (5/8) and the enemy ship here share more than a passing resemblance in design and "drill" weapon. As I said back in September: "I know people who just dismissed it from their must-see list or saw it and said "meh", falling back on something to the tune of "it didn't knock my socks off or anything". Does it blow the doors off of the CG or scifi genres? Honestly it doesn't, and I really don't think they were aiming to. They were going to tell a story that could really only be told this way independently. As expensive as I'm sure non-studio CG animation must be, it'd be nothing compared to trying to make this thing live-action. "Terra takes place on and around a distant planet to Earth and features an alien people who "swim" around through the air, hovering over the ground, but who are also fascinated with flying machines. They seem to have strict controls on technological development, for unclear reasons at first. "Humans come into the picture at one point, and my wife commented it was an interesting companion piece to WALL-E thanks to thematic similarities involving mankind forced into outer space as a result of making Earth uninhabitable. "There are spaceship laser battle sequences, and the influences of many other science fiction films is present, from Star Wars to Independence Day, but never to the point of ripping anyone else off. Others may make that allegation, but the closest you see to them ripping off ID4 is the fact there's a Quaid in the voice cast. "What I like most is that it does its own thing without trying to be the writer or director's "version" of someone else's vision. I dare say Terra does the spirit of Star Wars better than Star Wars has done in some time. It keeps the themes and plot progression simple. It is absolutely family-friendly and has a "don't just do as you're told when it feels wrong" message that has been missing from so many animated features aimed square at kids for so long. Then again, it has been in some of them, but it's aimed more at "be rebellious and stupid" instead of "do the right thing."
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476: Button Blu

Plenty of people online cried foul when word broke that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was immediately getting the Criterion treatment. Having gone through the extensive supplements on the Blu-ray hitting shelves this Tuesday, I can't imagine what would have resulted without their platinum touch.
Fincher's process is so exacting that any of his films deserves the most detail-oriented and comprehensive treatment possible, especially one that went through a 20 year development. The Birth of Benjamin Button feature documentary clocks in ten minutes longer than the movie at 2 hours 55 minutes, and it covers everything one could want: script development, the talent involved (at one time Frank Oz directing Martin Short), the choice of New Orleans, and the nearly invisible visual effects. Among my favorite anecdotes throughout the doc are the effects guys talking about Fincher's impossibly high expectations and one where Fincher talks about casting and apologizes to Darren Aronofsky.
I'd estimate that around or over half the running time focuses on the various stages of practical and CG work, and rightfully so. I found myself replaying each of the post-production chapters covering the replacement effects as soon as I finished watching the whole thing in one go. The consummate professionalism brought to the production value of this doc is why a studio single disc-only edition wasn't going to cut it. The movie's craft deserved better, and it got the best. Even if you didn't fall in love with the movie, the doc alone is worth purchasing the set. It's a high-end, 3-hour film school class on a disc. I could actually see myself re-watching it more than once.
most of the talking heads featured in The Birth of Benjamin Button
The individual chapters of the feature doc are also viewable individually, along with a couple featurettes not available as part of the Play All version. Tech Scouts [12:23] is just additional behind the scenes footage captured from various location scout trips. Costume Design [7:38] feels three times longer than it is in a good way. Costume Designer Jacqueline West takes us on a visual tour of all the great clothes in the movie and how the actors' performances and the costumes informed each other symbiotically at times. After going through all of this in addition to about half of the Fincher feature commentary, I'm dumbfounded as to why I haven't bought the Zodiac SE on Blu-ray as well. Fincher is more cognizant than many directors of the fact that no one likes commentaries duplicating info available elsewhere on the DVD and keeps things interesting. One fact related to the old guy who keeps getting struck by lightning frustrated me: the seventh lightning strike was cut from the movie and it's not available anywhere on the DVD as an extra or easter egg. Also included are Storyboard, Art Design, Costume Design, and Production Still Galleries. For me, the most important thing about Criterion jointly releasing this 165-minute movie with the studio is that quality-conscious Criterion have split the Feature and Supplements across separate discs. They even put the Theatrical Trailers on Disc 2. Only the movie and the various audio tracks (French and Spanish included) are on Disc 1 of both the DVD and Blu-ray, ensuring the highest possible audio and video bitrate. The deep blacks and rich contrast on display wouldn't look quite as decadent if the movie were crammed on the same platter (even dual-layer BD-50) as any or all the extras. I admired the movie's craft when I saw it in early December, and my wife's reaction at the time was that "it was ok, but I didn't get too invested because I didn't want it to really affect me." There are many in our generation who are more afraid of conscious vulnerability than anything else, and I suppose plenty of others had the same reaction. There were a few moments that got me upon my initial viewing, but it was when I saw it later on, after my father had a stroke and nearly died, that Benjamin Button really wrecked me. Fincher starts the Prelude of the Birth doc talking about how it's a movie about death that was greatly informed by the passing of his own father. It may be that to get the full impact of the movie, you have to have recently lost someone you never truly knew as well as you could, as Daisy's daughter does over the course of the movie. At the very least, the ability to summon that feeling of loss is instrumental to getting the most out of the movie, and not everyone wants to do that voluntarily. You've got to be there already or be really close. When you have that recency of loss, Button allows one to escape within that emptiness, imagining the remarkable life experiences you never did or will know about. The movie does not work for everyone, but I figure that's precisely why. EDIT: As of this writing, the two-disc DVD ($22.99) is only $3 less than Amazon's price on the Blu-ray ($25.99). The single disc is $15.99 but is just the movie and commentary track, no Birth of Benjamin Button. If you found this review helpful and plan on buying this title, you can click on any image in this article (or here) to order it at Amazon. A small percentage of your purchase goes toward supporting this column, and I'll link elsewhere if someone has a better price on a title during the week of release.
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HotDocs09: Best Worst Movie

Some of the best movies I missed at SXSW09 (which I have since seen) are playing HotDocs 2009 in Toronto this weekend, and everyone attending should make time for them all. I'll be adding a couple others later on. For those attending, I recommend using BSide's festival schedule tool that I used at SXSW. It's a life-saver. Best Worst Movie has been raved about from here to kingdom come by this point, but as these docs continue their life on the festival circuit, they need as much exposure as possible. The child star of Troll 2, a movie that was neither an actual sequel nor very good, picked up a camera all these years later to document the rabid cult following of IMdB's lowest-rated movie of all time. Michael Paul Stephenson's movie does not require you to already be a huge fan of Troll 2, and that's why it works so well.
marquee from one of many revival screenings
In fact, even to those who detest watching movies like Troll 2, Best Worst Movie is quite satisfying as an anthropological study of cult films: the making of them, the maturation of the cult, and the wake left by the movie. Folks who get soundbitten range from Alamo Drafthouse programmers to critic Scott Weinberg, and fans across the world. They also check back in with every notable member of the cast they could find, and one in particular kinda creeped me out.

practical effects at their best worst
The Italian director and production team responsible for the wretched shit of a script they had and movie they came up with are so deadly serious about their craft, it reminds me of docs like General Idi Amin Dada (watch free this month in the US here), where the great transgressor sees himself as the great philanthropist. To see such joy and relative fame come to people like George Hardy and at once embarrass them just as they are exalted is hilarious, fascinating, and tragic all at once. Rare for a doc, this one is universally appealing and extremely commercially viable. Someone will pick this up and make tens of millions on home video with it. People won't illegally download it out of respect, and they'll gift it to friends. Fans of Troll 2 will have to have it, and people who love movies and aren't in on the joke yet will have it introduced to them by this precision-cut documentary. This is a "holy fucking shit, let me go grab it off the shelf and show it to you" documentary. Catch it tonight at 845pm, Saturday at 1145pm (at the Bloor), and 2pm Sunday.
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Choose Next Criterion Blu & Free Docs


Louis Malle's Au revoir les enfants,
Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law,
Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock
In a poll that requires you to log in over at Amazon, Criterion is soliciting input for which of five films should go Blu-ray next. My personal vote is for Au revoir les enfants, closely followed in preference by Down By Law and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The choice of the former is for the glorious monochromatic potential, and the latter for my admiration of decades-old Weir.
This month's free-to-watch-online Criterion titles have just been posted over on The Auteurs. They're all docs, including a couple personal favorites (General Idi Amin Dada and Harlan County, USA), one of the definitive concert docs (Monterey Pop), a classic being re-released fully remastered for HD in July on disc (For All Mankind), and a couple I haven't caught up with but can now (Salesman and Burden of Dreams).
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Lord of the Road

Really? The State of Florida's legislature has ratified these new Jesus Christ license plates ("buy now and get Truck Nuts 50% off!"). When asked about how this might violate separation of church and State, Gov. Charlie "Heterosexual Gun-Lover" Crist repeats the same lazy "In God We Trust is on the money" crap that has been used for ages by righties. I expect them to release one with Buddha on it in addition to one for Ganesh and a limited edition Obi-Wan Kenobi. jesusplate.jpeg
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And Franken Makes 60

I never thought I'd see the day when Al Franken and a five-term Republican gave a black President a supermajority in the US Senate (pending the completion of the Everlasting Recount). What next, affordable healthcare that takes the shackles off millions of Americans who are dependent on their corporate employers to insure them? I guess Chris Matthews isn't running as once thought, but who was eyeing the primary originally, and will they still? I feel like I'm living a Rod Lurie movie. I'd say like The Contender in plot, but more Deterrence in thrilling effect. There may be something for making a cable drama of a senior Republican switching parties, an HBO miniseries or movie. Everyone who tuned in for Recount would watch it. In absence of that, I'd go rent or buy Nothing But the Truth and celebrate real political drama on film. Arlen Specter must have waited until today to help promote the DVD release of an excellent movie that never should have gone direct to video. Having not seen it, I'm assuming quality based on pedigree and word of mouth from those I trust on political thrillers. Now that I can get my hands on it, expect a review soon.
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Star Trek from the Beginning

The first season of Star Trek was cheaply-made and hastily shot, but its impact still resonates. Science Fiction on TV at the time was essentially limited to Lost in Space. The way it has matured to the point a series like the recently-concluded Battlestar Galactica can air at all, let alone for four seasons, is rather remarkable. The reviews of the upcoming reboot (mine included) seem to indicate Star Trek has finally taken a form that's appealing to the masses beyond the faithful, and this Blu-ray edition could easily find its way into the homes of new fans won by the new movie. CBS has pulled off a release that all future catalogue TV titles will be compared to from here on out. Most importantly , what they've done here is position the original, ground-breaking series the best they can for future preservation. This makes me wonder at what glorious work could be done on The Twilight Zone (coming later this year) and Night Gallery in particular among many others. Video & Audio A few years ago, they completely restored the original series episodes in the process of adding new effects shots and audio for HDTV airing. Here they have included both versions, accessible via seamless branching. George Lucas looks like more of a selfish idiot than ever for being opposed to doing the same thing to his original Star Wars trilogy. Using the Angle button on the Blu-ray remote, you can hot-swap from one version to the other mid-episode. Make sure you're running the latest firmware on your player, or you may run into issues as I did prior to downloading an update.

a crude snapshot from the Spacelift featurette highlighting the pre- and post-restoration difference
The audio options are also note-perfect. Included is a full DTS HD 7.1 track that includes the re-recorded score in addition to the original 2.0 Mono track. They've even included Spanish and French 2.0, which is often left off. Even if you aren't fluent as I am, swap over to Spanish a couple times to hear Kirk say, "Eh, Senor e-Spock" a couple times. If I had one item on my BD-Live wish list, it'd be that I could re-dub the episodes in spanish myself along with friends in true telenovela style and upload it to the "cloud." Maybe that can be done down the road, since that's the whole idea behind BD-Live. User-generated alternate audio and YouTube-hosted video could help BD-Live get popular. Now if only manufacturers made some WiFi-enabled, low-cost players. Extras There's a great deal of ground to cover here, with over 2 hours of standalone supplements. On top of those, select episodes are enabled as Starfleet Access, which translates to picture-in-picture video commentary blurbs and text comments interspersed throughout. Just like audio commentary tracks, you don't want to watch them before having seen the show on its own. There is a bit of recycled chatter seen in the wealth of featurettes elsewhere on the set, and there's a regular bit of "now I'm going to describe what is happening on screen right now." Episodes that have SA include Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Menagerie (Parts I & II), Balance of Terror, Space Seed, and Errand of Mercy. Most of the supplements have been repurposed from the HD-DVD release and the 2004 DVD releases, with a few cut that I don't miss: text commentaries, a missing Starfleet Access on The Galileo Seven, a pair of featurettes and a History Channel doc. The featurettes and doc may show up on a later set. Watch this space for a breakdown of the hidden easter eggs I can find and confirm in a separate post later in the week. Each disc in the set also features the "coming next week" preview trailers that originally aired with the episodes. There's some doubt as to whether these are exactly as aired, but who really cares? I don't. The featurettes on this set primarily feature Shatner, Nimoy, series writer DC Fontana, Associate Producer John D.F. Black, and choice bits with Nichelle Nichols and George Takei. I saw James Doohan and Walter Koenig in a couple too. Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century (HD 20:00) [Disc 1] They cleaned up the video and audio substantially for this release as noted previously. Here you get a look at the process of restoring from original negatives, cleaning up damage and dirt, and re-timing color and contrast. The side-by-side with what were previously the "best available" masters is breathtaking. On top of that, they go into how they re-recorded the theme and built the new effects shots for the Remastered version.

Reflections on Spock (11:52) [Disc 3] Leonard Nimoy goes into some depth on the duality of his existence as Leonard and as Spock. A nice, tight bundle of anecdotes. Life Beyond Trek: William Shatner (10:16) [Disc 3] William Shatner loves horses, his wife loves horses, and they own many horses. Why hasn't someone recently put Shatner into a western? Imagine Shatner as a sheriff or a ranch owner with a big mustache. To Boldly Go...Season One (18:52) [Disc 5] An overview of the episodes of the first season. Boundaries they pushed and limitations they rammed up against. The Birth of a Timeless Legacy (24:07) [Disc 5] This is more focused on the genesis of the series, covering the multiple pilot episodes, changes made to the cast, and including a fair amount of Gene Roddenberry interview clips. Sci-Fi Visionaries (16:30) [Disc 6] Hre they talk about how they brought in established names from science fiction to give the show Sci-Fi credibility. I can't be the only one who misses the presence of Harlan Ellison, who I would have paid extra to have seen here, since the set contains one of the greatest episodes they ever did, which he wrote (The City on the Edge of Forever). Instead, they focus a lot on The Naked Time, and at one point Associate Producer John D.F. Black talks about Ellison like they're ever the best of friends and then makes fun of him in the same breath. I'm not talking about the "aw you old son of a bitch" kind of thing, but where some anger and envy seeps into one's voice. It's the kind of thing where you wonder if he would say the same thing with Harlan in the room. Interactive Enterprise Inspection (HD 1:00:17) [Disc 6] This is most likely to only appeal to serious Trek fiends and children being introduced to this stuff for the first time. This thing as a whole runs a total of about an hour and lets you select different systems and features of the ship for it to talk about. Kiss 'n' Tell: Romance in the 23rd Century (8:23) More like "Chasing Tail in the Future." Kirk's many conquests take up a healthy chunk here, but they touch on other crew members, even Uhura, Scotty, and Chekhov. Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest (HD 13:22) Billy Blackburn was DeForest Kelley's stand-in and played various background characters including the Enterprise's navigator. Blackburn talks about the atmosphere on set and shares some Super8 footage he took throughout production. Star Trek BD-Live This is the kind of BD-Live integration I've been hoping to see since its inception. New content keeps old releases fresh, and linking them to the physical, definitive software release not only keeps DRM concerns in check but prevents the tendency of double-dips being necessary. When Paramount releases a new Trek sequel, they can flip the switch on new content for owners of the existing TV show sets. BD-Live requires both an active internet connection and a SecureDigital (SD card). The trick is that even once you've downloaded content to the SD card, you have to have Disc 7 of the set in your player and be connected to the BD-Live service to access it. I'll edit this to include coverage of the BD-Live featurettes later in the week as I'm assuming some other stuff might pop up once the box set has been released to the public. Check back Wednesday. The lingering issue preventing this from exploding in popularity is getting people's internet connection into the living room. As it stands, you have to go hard-wired in, as WiFi players are only just being demoed and won't be mass-market for I don't know, two or three years? Technophiles like myself are not fazed by this, but if studios want these features to proliferate to broad market titles like Planet Earth and others like them, there's no way around being hamstrung by broadband providers and hardware manufacturers. Final Thoughts The first disc in the set auto-plays the trailer to the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie coming out May 8th. Having seen it a few weeks ago and now having plowed through these discs, I feel confident we're coming up on a surging wave of interest the likes of which the franchise may have never seen. The reboot/sequel/origin story works, the home video version of the original series episodes is immaculate, and Star Trek is on the verge of becoming really cool in two weeks' time. Gone are the days that it cost near $150 for one season of this stuff. The current Amazon and BestBuy week-of-release prices are $64.99, which is a much better value than anyone is used to on Blu-ray or DVD. Proportionately, do you usually get over 8 hours of content on a $20-$30 feature film Blu-ray? They've been ratcheting the price down on this since the pre-orders went up, and I think wisely so. This could go a long way toward bringing down Blu prices across the board if other TV box sets follow suit. Talking to a friend yesterday, he's considering buying a Blu player for this set at this price even though he does not own an HDTV. Anyone who has affection for this show and have put off getting these shows on disc can feel safe pulling the trigger now and not feel burned. CBS wants this to be right the first time so that it really is a truly definitive release. I should hope other studios follow suit on other vintage titles. This is a top shelf disc with no compare in the TV department, and only a few in the feature film category stack up in terms of proportional value.
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