Electric Shadow

linkWANTED

The Moon's Our Home (Seiter, 1936) The Mating Season (Leisen, 1951) Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956) House of Secrets
(Green, 1956) Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959) Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960) Summer and Smoke (Glenville, 1961) Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu] The L Shaped Room (Forbes, 1963) The Chalk Garden (Neame, 1964) You're a Big Boy Now (Coppola, 1966) The Whisperers (Forbes, 1967) Skidoo (Preminger, 1968) Tropic of Cancer (Strick, 1970) I Never Sang for My Father (Cates, 1970) Sometimes a Great Notion (Newman, 1971) Pete 'n' Tillie (Ritt, 1972) Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974) Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (Richards, 1975) American Hot Wax (Mutrux, 1978) Hot Stuff (DeLuise, 1979) Scavenger Hunt (Schultz , 1979) Resurrection (Petrie, 1980) Twice Upon a Time (Korty & Swenson, 1983) The Glass Menagerie (Newman, 1987) King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993) Dadetown (Hexter, 1995) SubUrbia (Linklater, 1997) The Fortune () 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould September 30, 1955 (James Bridges) Reunion (Jerry Schatzberg) Hardbodies (Mark Griffth) Homer (John Trent) Willie and Phil (Mazursky) The Comic (Reiner) Fraternity Row (Tobin) Interlude (Kevin Billington) Inferno (Starring Robert Ryan, Directed by Roy Ward Baker) Naked Dawn (Edgar G. Ulmer) The Group (Sidney Lumet) Dust Be My Destiny The Walking Stick WUSA Laughter in the Dark It's My Turn" from director Claudia Weill Supercops - Gordon Parks Rolling Thunder - John Flynn Survive! - Rene Cardona Jr. The Happening - Frank Pierson The Seven Minutes - Russ Meyer Abby - William Girdler The Man - Joseph Sargent Move - Stuart Rosenberg The Crazy World Of Julius Vrooder - Arthur Hiller The Oscar - Russell Rouse The Choirboys - Robert Aldrich Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Hummpe and Find True Happiness? - Anthony Newley The Evictors - Charles B. Pierce False Face Three and Four Musketeers Trapeze (Carol Reed Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (Polonsky) Richard Williams' The Thief and the Cobbler. Restored. Would blow minds on BluRay
Read More

Drained

The last few days have been exhausting. Having trouble sleeping on top of that. Decided I'm just going with the Star Trek Collection as one gigantic post at this point. I've got a Catlow writeup with screencaps coming later [edit: Warners has asked me to hold on to this until closer to Catlow's new street date...June 24th], but otherwise, today will be quiet 'round these parts. El Dorado ain't happening until tomorrow at earliest, since Man Hunt and Valkyrie arrived today.
Read More

Cleaning Up Liberty Valance

The most striking thing about Paramount's new Centennial Collection DVD of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a dramatic improvement in image clarity and contrast. By comparison, the original transfer is an under-lit, badly-done scan. Note in the screen captures I've included below: the old disc had a terrible matte job that's off-kilter.


Previous 2001 Paramount DVD of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (top) and the new 2009 Centennial Collection DVD (bottom). Captures taken by me, please credit if you use. Click on the images to view in larger size.
The old 2001 disc, which will now be relegated to the 25 cent bin at your local DVD shop, only had the Theatrical Trailer as an extra. Even that looks better on the new one. The feature takes up the first disc on its own, with two commentaries. The Feature Commentary is done by Peter Bogdanovich with interspersed archival recordings of John Ford & Jimmy Stewart. There's a Selected Scene Commentary that includes archival audio of John Ford, Jimmy Stewart, and Lee Marvin with an intro by Ford's grandson Dan. I've listened to pieces of both, and I can tell you right now that film students will be plagiarizing these tracks before I finish writing this. The major standout is a 7-part The Size of Legends, The Soul of Myth [50:52] featurette, viewable in chapters or all at once. There's a Still Gallery with Lobby Cards and production stills aplenty too.


Previous 2001 Paramount DVD of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (top) and the new 2009 Centennial Collection DVD (bottom). Captures taken by me, please credit if you use. Click on the images to view in larger size.
This movie will look even better in the inevitable Blu-ray upgrade. No plans or release date for that currently exist, but the sooner a Liberty Valance Blu-ray exists, the sooner people's dads start buying Blu-ray players. As it stands, this DVD edition is still fine for Western fans like me or those buying presents for John Wayne/John Ford devotees. This is one of three notable Western DVD releases this week, along with an upgrade on El Dorado and the first DVD release of Catlow, starring Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna, and Leonard Nimoy (as the villain). Why no one seems to be covering this release or the others this week is beyond me.

Click on the box art to order from Amazon. At the time of this writing, it's $14.49.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
Read More

Intentionally Off-Putting Cavalcade

I've never been a fan of Family Guy, but I'll watch it from time to time, mostly because it's on and nothing else of interest is. This happens any time Letterman's a repeat. I occasionally find episodes or individual bits funny. The non-sequitur gags the show is rabidly loved and derided for makes up this "spare idea drawer" project. Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy is a youTube-hosted series first sponsored by Burger King and now Priceline.com. Getting through the whole first "season" took a great deal of patience and elicited a lot of groaning from me during its 54-minute runtime. The clips are fully uncensored on disc, whereas the first 12 eps weren't originally. Extras are limited to a Red Carpet Premiere [HD 4:21] and a set of progressive Still Galleries that show the process from rough to finished models. There's a promo sticker on the package that gives you a free iTunes download of the first episodes of Futurama, Family Guy, and American Dad. If you love Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane, you'll love this. If you don't, you are going to hate this with every fiber of your being. If you're like me, you'll likely forget you watched it the day after. Features are the same on DVD & Blu-ray, the only difference is picture and audio resolution.

Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
Read More

Taken Blu

I was surprised to find myself choked up going through the supplements on this one. I missed the movie in first run, so I watched the Theatrical Cut included on the dual-layer, BD50 disc and will probably cue up the Extended Unrated Cut Digital Copy on my iPod at some point.

The Blu-ray features both cuts through seamless branching. The Extended Harder Cut (as it is in European releases) is only a couple minutes longer (93 minutes versus 91), so I'd wager the differences are snips here and there of violence. One of the attendees of the premiere put it best saying he was glad to see a French film at the pace and with the styling of an American one, and that's the best way to describe it. The aforementioned Digital Copy (also on the 2-disc DVD) is only the Extended version, not Theatrical. Included extras are two Feature Commentaries, one with Director Pierre Morel and his dual cinematographers and the other with screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen. Le Making-of [HD 18:24] is just that, and gets the job done, but a more interesting production extra is found in Storyboard-to-Screen: "Inside Taken" [HD 11:05], where key action scenes are viewed in final form and behind the scenes. Black Ops Field Manual (exclusive to the Blu-ray) is the becoming-standard PiP popup fact track, including geographical info and trivia. Avant Premiere [HD 4:48], a taping of the French premiere event is the kind of thing I usually skip, but in the first few seconds, Natasha Richardson showed up on screen and I almost dropped the remote. The thing friends and family who pay attention to Hollywood said after she passed was "how can he keep working?" A lot of people retreat into their work to assuage grief, and many actors are no different. Seeing how Neeson carried himself before the accident and after is indicative of how decent and humble a person he is, and that's why people will go see whatever he's in, be it a genre movie or a period drama. With regard to the disc, it's well-done and worth grabbing. I hope no one who reads here would consider the bare-bones single-disc in the first place.

Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting the disc reviews featured in this column.
Read More

Hayter and Co. to Judge

David Hayter's Dark Hero production company is presiding over this year's Austin Film Festival Sci-Fi Screenplay competition. Aspiring screenwriters still have a couple days to enter, with a late entry deadline stretched all the way to June 8th.
Read More

Later Today

Coming by midday are reviews of Taken, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartooon Comedy, and (hpefully) the first installment of my Trek box set review. I'll be posting on Warner's Catlow and Paramount's excellent (but not Blu) do-over of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance after I clear the backlog of last week's releases. Depending on time I may get this week's Paramount catalog Blus up too...we'll see.
Read More

Half of Charlie Sheen

I admit somewhat reluctantly to indulging in Two and a Half Men on CBS from time to time. I catch an episode here and there, but don't make a big effort to catch every single time a new one is on. It's a bit of a sad enterprise, wishing I were watching Charlie Sheen doing something more...interesting. Watching Major League recently made me wonder what Charlie Sheen would do if he were headlining movies and not a TV show (one of the highest-rated on) these days. I think the main reason I watch is that I'm constantly amazed at how much they get away with in "Family Hour" on a major network. The fifth season hit DVD last week (5/12) in a nice, sleek, single-DVD-sized amaray case with three discs inside. The featurettes include Two and a Half Men at 100, shot during the taping of the sydication-bringing 100th episode, where they talk about how the show and the "Half" in the title have grown. More interesting to me was The Lore of Chuck Lorre: Must Pause TV, in which producer Lorre talks about how he has (and hasn't) gotten away with some really naughty stuff in the vanity cards that are gone in a blink at the end of each show. Two and a Half Men - Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard is all about the crossover that made me wonder last season, where the writers of CSI wrote an episode of this show and vice versa (that Bonus Episode of CSI is included too). The result was one of the best episodes of either show and one of the cheapest (but effective) semen jokes in the show's history.

Read More

Snow White goes from Platinum to Diamond

Disney announced today via press release that the new Blu-ray of Snow White is launching their Diamond Collection line, which is going to take over its previous branding as Platinum for the Blu-ray and DVD release. This Diamond Collection isn't replacing Platinum, but supplementing it, understandably so in this case where a prior Platinum release exists. More significant in the announcement is that they included some of the supplemental features that hadn't been previously announced. Here's what they teased (emphasis mine):

Hyperion Studios - Audiences are digitally transported to 1937 to discover first-hand the Hyperion Studios, the original studio Walt Disney himself built and where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was conceived and developed. Viewers will virtually walk the halls of this historic landmark experiencing life at Hyperion Studios back in the 1930's. This amazing "Backstage Disney" feature contains newly dimensionalized archival photos, animator recordings, archival transcripts and rare footage of Walt himself revealing how Disney's gifted filmmakers crafted the very first animated feature. This sounds very much like the tour of Sleeping Beauty's castle on that DVD/Blu-ray, but this is much more interesting to me as this is more Film History than Theme Park History. Magic Mirror - Using the latest in Blu-ray technology, the iconic Magic Mirror guides the audience through the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Diamond Edition features with ease serving as the "host" for an incredibly immersive experience. The Mirror will recognize viewing patterns, knows where the audience has left off and will even suggest where to navigate next. This marks the first use of artificial intelligence in a Disney Blu-ray release and provides viewers the control to personally create a customized Snow White experience. The disc will "talk" to you about data the player has collected regarding how many times you've watched, when you've left off where, and so on. Read the Terms and Conditions when you get the disc and see if any of that info is transmitted back to Skyne--er, Disney. DisneyView - Disney's pioneering animated feature is brought to the modern era of widescreen high definition viewing by allowing the user to expand their viewing experience beyond the original aspect ratio of the film. Utilizing Disney Blu-ray technology, acclaimed Disney artist Toby Bluth was able to 'draw' beyond the borders of classic full frame cinema and fill the otherwise dark edges of the screen with beautiful custom imagery, giving audiences a new view of their animated classic favorite. This is the one people will howl about. Snow White was a 4:3 Academy ratio movie, and now all these parents out there are buying big wide 16:9 HDTVs. Instead of stretching the picture to get rid of those "horrible black bars," they've drawn in borders. Before purists start screaming, it's an option, not a forced feature. About Toby Bluth - Disney artist Toby Bluth tells how the movie inspired him to create the superb DisneyView art. No one start crying about how Toby Bluth is the Devil incarnate. He's Don Bluth's brother. This is his website. Mirror, Mirror On The Wall - Through BD-Live, this mirror can find the secret princess inside each viewer with a series of questions, then create for them a personal message from their favorite princess who will call them on the telephone. "Honey, why the hell is Princess Aurora trying to sell me long distance??" What Do You See? - To win this exciting interactive game, players must untangle scrambled images. Memory: now with the power of Blu-ray Disc! Jewel Jumble - Players put jewels from the Dwarfs' mine in the proper order to win this game. Uhhh, Columns from the Sega Genesis? Scene Stealer - Allows viewers to upload a personal photo and experience life as one of the Seven Dwarfs--on-screen in the actual film. Remember the Wedding Crashers online game that allowed you to paste your face on one of the guys in the hunting sequence? It's that, but for the whole movie. You too can be as Grumpy or Dopey as you want. Hopefully there's a screening process, or we'll see a ton of screenshots of Doc with a penis for a face.

Ignore the Platinum in this image and expect lots of "cutting edge" comments.
Snow White: Diamond Edition arrives in a two-Blu, one-DVD Combo Pack set (like Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio) on October 6th, with a DVD version following seven weeks later.
Read More

Red Cliff Recut

John Woo's Red Cliff has been picked up by Magnolia/Magnet for US distribution with a catch: the version going to theaters is the condensed 2.5 hour version instead of the full two-part, 4 hour thing. This isn't unexpected, since that's the version Woo's people were known to be shopping around, but it's a shame nonetheless. Didn't Che do really well in limited Roadshow engagements? Isn't that treatment owed to the highest grossing mainland Chinese film in history? Won't the same people averse to reading subtitles wait for video anyway, regardless of length?

Viewers in the US can see the whole thing VOD or on disc only. I know plenty of people, myself included, who've seen it on import Blu-rays during the long wait for someone to pick it up in the US. The cost is prohibitive (something like $40 a Blu) to import, so I borrowed rather than buy them myself. As a purist, I'm glad I got to see the full thing first, but I'll still go see the shorter cut if only to see most of Red Cliff on the big screen. I wish I could see the whole thing that way.
Read More

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
Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
Read More

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.

click on the box art to order from Amazon.
a portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
Read More

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.

Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
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"
Read More

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?
Read More

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.

Alick on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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
Read More

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.
Read More