Electric Shadow

Digital Roundup: Week of 6/16

I'm going to give this new format a spin and do one longform capsule review column each week highlighting DVD/Blu-ray/VOD/streaming releases and do individual pieces on titles as time and merit permit. I'll be breaking things down by category as well. Also, just because something comes out, I'm not necessarily going to include it if I don't feel compelled to. Without further ado... Release of Week The Seventh Seal: The Criterion Collection Criterion's update to one of their first releases is pretty comprehensive. They've kept the existing features, added a new (better) subtitle translation, and of course re-transferred the video and audio for Blu-ray. There's a new intro from the director recorded in 2003, and a new afterword by Peter Cowie (Criterion's go-to Bergman guy), who did the original commentary. Also new are an archival audio interview with Max von Sydow and a 1998 tribute piece done by Woody Allen. Available here and as a separate DVD release (detailed further down) are 83-minute doc Bergman Island and career retrospective Bergman 101. The original release is one of the first Criterion discs I bought, and I fully intend to upgrade at full cost to myself on this one. New Releases (DVD & Blu-ray) Friday the 13th I didn't expect to enjoy the remake of a series I never really paid attention to in the first place. It's got a couple good lines and is much less intent on doing the kind of torture porn work that's dominated horror for a number of years now. It took IMdB's help to place Danielle Panabaker as the girl from Sky High. The thing they did most effectively was keep me guessing as to when the first act was over and who was actually the lead of the movie. The true staying power of the series will be dependent upon how good a job they do on the sequel they're trying to get going as we speak. Extras include a couple featurettes, one of which is about how they reimagined Jason (The Rebirth of Jason Voorhees [11:24]), and the other is more of cast and crew members talking about their relationship with the original franchise (Hacking Back/Slashing Forward [11:41]. Also included are some Alternate and Additional Scenes [8:19] that includes an alt. version of Jason getting "the mask" (glad they ditched it). The 7 Best Kills briefly run down the behind the scenes of 7 of the deaths in the movie. There's also a Picture-in-Picture Trivia Track that plays during the movie should you choose. It includes behind the scenes footage, text trivia, and interview snippets. The extra that interested me the most was a look at 9 minutes of Trick R Treat, which I saw nearly two years ago at Butt Numb A Thon. The big pain in the ass is that it's only accessible via BD-Live. Internet-connected players are only really common among PlayStation3 owners, and not just putting it on the disc means barely anyone will really see it. I'm saying this as a big supporter of Trick R Treat, one of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time. A Digital Copy of the "Killer Cut" version of this movie is also included. Morning Light Roy Disney put together a team of novice sailors to compete in the annual Transpac sailing race. Patrick Warburton narrates the first bit, which is a horrible tease, because it's the last you hear from him. The two featurettes, Stories from the Sea [28:32] and Morning Light: Making the Cut [41:52] should actually be viewed before watching the feature. I actually found the latter pretty watchable, the former not as much. The Making the Cut thing you almost have to see before the movie so you don't confuse all the shaggy-haired anglo guys that make up the vast, vast majority of the cast. There are a couple girls, one black guy, a Hawaiian guy, an Australian, and around 20 easy-to-mix-up white guys. The movie plays out like a reality series without the hours of padding to make it seem longer. It also lacks commercials, which is great if you like reality TV. Even though I'm interested in sailing, this one wasn't really for me. Still, it was much better than the hours of reality TV I've allowed myself to get sucked into over the years. Worth seeing on a big beautiful HDTV on a lazy afternoon. Catalog New to Blu-ray The Diary of Anne Frank: 50th Anniversary Edition One of the cleanest, most fulfilling releases of the week is the movie that started the term "Holocaust Oscar Bait." A great deal of the acting may come off as overly theatrical to modern audiences, but the movie is still better than the majority of overwrought Holocaust dramas that followed it. Previously part of the Fox Studio Classics line of cost-reduced but feature-rich DVDs, they've kept all the previous extras and added about an hour and a half of new stuff. Carried over are a Feature Commentary with George Stevens Jr. and Millie Perkins (the director's son and the movie's star), feature-length doc Echoes from the Past [1:30:07], an excerpt from George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, Millie Perkins' Screen Test, Fox Movietone Clips, Trailers, and Galleries. Totaling just under an hour and a half is a series of seven all-new featurettes (in HD), which can be gone through all at once via Play All functionality. One additional featurette beyond those I have to ask people skip. Under no circumstances should anyone subject oneself to Fox Movie Channel Presents Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman. I've never been on the Rothman hate bandwagon until now. His flubbed TelePrompTer lines and lack of enthusiasm are only the beginning of it. I've never pined more for Robert Osborne from Turner Classic Movies to save me. In fact, Osborne is mentioned in one of the featurettes. Over three hours of extras are on here, so there's plenty to watch. A great disc, just avoid Rothman. Beautiful monochromatic high-def for sure. This is the clearest I've ever heard Alfred Newman's score, too. Miracle & The Greatest Game Ever Played If you still have the DVDs for either of these, get rid of them now before they have no resale value. The rapid motion and CG work in parts of both movies reflect a major jump in image quality over upconverting the existing discs. There's much less blur and visible CG seams than before. The Greatest Game Ever Played is unfortunately not as widely-seen as Miracle, which many now consider the best movie about hockey we'll see for some time to come. Bill Paxton got some great work out of Shia LeBeouf and a cast full of grade-A character actors. Likewise, the actors are so naturalistic in Miracle that you assume they're all just hockey jocks pulled off the street. Both very well done, formulaic and predictable. Those last two adjectives aren't necessarily pejoratives when preceded by the former. Both discs have Feature Commentary tracks and a pile of featurettes and outtakes and so on. Dr. Strangelove: 45th Anniversary Edition I love this movie, it's one of my very favorites. I'm positive it'll be re-released in 5 years because a 50th Anniversary label is irresistible to anyone in marketing anywhere. No offense to Sony, but I won't buy this again until it's on Blu-ray in 1.33:1 Academy ratio. I refuse to concede Kubrick posthumously, from beyond the grave, decided to ok this 1.66:1 ratio that's carried over from the most recent DVD. I'm perfectly fine with my 1.33:1 DVD from years ago. There's a grain issue that Jeff has raised, which I won't jump on one way or another since I haven't examined it for myself on my own setup. Again, this disc does not exist for me until it's square again. There's no excuse to give in to reverse pan-and-scan. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything here, sorry. Ghostbusters People are crying foul over grain issues on this release, citing it as near-unwatchable. Again, I haven't had a chance to look at it myself, but I will say the stock this was shot on originally was never going to look like Zodiac. The fact this and Strangelove are both Sony releases does make me more suspicious. It could really be absolutely no big deal and a whole bunch of people wanting it to have retroactively been a much cleaner, prettier movie when it was shot. More and more rumors float around about studios intentionally throwing substandard transfers on stores shelves, and it really isn't outside the realm of believability. I probably wait until it's randomly on special for $10 and pick it up no matter how muddy it is. If it's as bad as reputed, I might skip it altogether as well.
Friday the 13th: Part II & Friday the 13th: Part III 3-D
These movies look better than they ever have for many people my age who only ever saw them on bootleg tapes recorded off HBO or "backed up" from rental VHS tapes. The featurettes are in HD as well, which is great. Part III comes with two pairs of anaglyph 3-D glasses. After seeing these movies for the first time, I'm even more convinced a remake was no form of sacrilege what so ever. The movies themselves look and sound great, and I'd consider these definitive home video versions of both. I'm not certain what else the could add that would really would justify a re-dip other than commentary tracks, but the featurettes on these discs and the 4-6 DVDs cover a lot of trivia. When it comes to catalog horror, these are rock-solid high-def upgrades. New to DVD
Bergman Island An 83-minute condensation of a nearly three-hour made for Swedish TV doc. Snips must have come mostly from the second part, which dealt exclusively with his theatre career, because I learned more about the director and his influences here than I did in a course about him in college. Also included on the disc is Bergman career retrospective moving picture gallery Bergman 101, which surprises with a lot more info than I expected. If you aren't so much in to The Seventh Seal but want to dig deeper into Bergman's career, this is a no-brainer. I like that Criterion made it available as a separate spine number. A more in-depth review is on its way tomorrow. The Outlaw One of only two movies Howard Hughes directed (H. Hawks was originally set), this movie could've gone unfinished and it'd still be highly sought-after. The movie was cut to pieces by the censors, but still remains pretty salacious for its time. This was on DVD previously, but this is the first time the original, B&W version has been available fully restored and complete. The Colorized version features a video commentary with star Jane Russell. Chess in Concert I really wish I could get this on Blu-ray not because I want to be able to see individual hairs on Josh Groban's chin, but because the lossless HD audio track would be phenomenal. This is currently difficult to find in stores, so you're likely better off just ordering from Amazon. DVD Double Dips
Friday the 13th: Part IV The Final Chapter This is the one where we're introduced to Tommy Jarvis, who becomes Jason's fated nemesis for a few flicks. As with all the Friday the 13th reissues, there are new featurettes and commentaries. On top of that, here you've got the Lost Ending and extended scenes. A major upgrade all around from the previous edition. Friday the 13th: Part V A New Beginning The second installment in the "Crystal Lake Massacres" phas of the series. Jason returns from the grave for the fifth time, what a surprise, right? Again new featurettes interlock with those on previous reissues and compliment a new commentary and improved audio and picture. Friday the 13th: Part VI Jason Lives Jason is back and so is Tommy Jarvis, along with (tell me if you've heard this) better picture and sound, new featurettes and commentary. What I should say here is that the new commentaries are really worth checking these out on their own if you're a fan. If you've gotta own these discs, buy them, but otherwise you'd likely be fine renting or Netflixing them for the new extras. It's a shame they teased 2 & 3 in Blu but not these, though I'm sure they'll eventually go Blu. TV New Releases Burn Notice: Season 2 Many people jumped into this because they knew Bruce Campbell showed up in it. It turns out the show's a lot of fun on its own and continues to add to USA Networks' stable of compulsively watchable original series. They've smartly packaged this with the first season in a value-pack. Extras include select episode Commentaries, Deleted Scenes, a Gag Reel, and a series creator featurette. Saving Grace: Season 2 Holly Hunter is in a show on TNT I wasn't aware existed until now. I'll watch just about anything Hunter is in, and as unappealing as this sounds to me, I'll still give it a shot. She's a police detective who inadvertently kills someone when she gets tanked one night. There's a guardian angel character and so on. It's still around, so the themes of redemption and the dark corners of the country seem to have connected. Extras include some featurettes. TV New to Blu-ray
Lost: Seasons 1 & 2 I've never watched a single episode of Lost, but I'm considering it now not out of peer pressure, but because I liked the new Star Trek movie. I'm willing to give anything Kurtzmann and Orci touch a shot, and I'm way late to the table on this phenomenally popular show. I like the new Season Play feature ABC has added to their TV Blu releases that keeps track of exactly where you left off...like TiVo for discs. Why did no one ever think of this before? Extras are identical to the DVD releases of both seasons. Apparently I have months and months before the fifth season starts, so I have time to catch up. John Adams The hugely popular HBO miniseries joins many shows the pay-net is rapidly converting to the Blu side of the aisle. If anything, the pricing is lower than when these sets came out on DVD and they're in 10 times higher resolution than they were previously. Streaming Free Troll 2 (Hulu) You can now watch the Best Worst Movie of all time. It's so terrible, it's hilarious. Hopefully by this time next year, you'll be able to watch the documentary that's about the cult following that has exploded out of this film. Non-english-speaking Italian filmmakers directed actors with little or no training or experience in a movie with creature effects so bad they're laughable but endearing. Watch it with limited commercials for free on Hulu by clicking here.
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Accentuating Consistency

The thing I liked most about Valkyrie was that they left everything consistent. Everyone spoke in English with their native accents because technically they're all speaking the same language. Some had a beef, I didn't. So what happens when there's more than one lingua going around? Defiance handled this amiably by having Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber make even more heterosexual women melt in their seats by speaking actual Russian in addition to their accented English that represented Yiddish.

What bothered me most while watching it was that I didn't feel riveted to my seat at all. Don't get me wrong, I was interested the whole time. I was there for it, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd felt the same types of beats in the same places before. If the pace hadn't clipped along the way it did, it would have lost me, but not for lack on interest. I have to blame any lack of engagement on my part on the glut of WWII/Holocaust movies that hit screens each year. I'm not asking for less of them, but could someone dedicate himself to watching only those movies and tell me which ones to see first so I don't get burned out? The story of the Bielski Brothers is an important one, and I'm surprised it took until now to do a movie. The Nazis invaded and killed their family, and these farmers became reluctant saviors of over 1200 Jews. I guess that's the thing: you go in by virtue of advertising knowing they save a ton of people. It's good to learn about, and boy is it compelling with respect to the acting on display. They gave Daniel Craig something to really sink into emotionally in contrast to Bond, Liev Schreiber got to be a goddamn action hero (Wolverine doesn't count), and Jamie Bell really had a chance to bridge the gap between "young" and "adult" for once. This will turn into a laundry list if I mention every last amazing blink-and-miss female performance in this thing. I'll say this: watch for the lady who pleads for death and keep in mind she was freshly off playing Lady MacBeth in Lithuania's National Theatre Company. She's in the movie for about a minute and a half. This is also likely the first place people will see the work of Mia Wasikowska, who Tim Burton's made famous by casting as Alice. She'll be in Amelia later this year and festival circuit-goers could have seen her in That Evening Sun. I've said my fair share of snarky things about Zwick's work, but I've always liked Glory, melodrama and all. Dances With Samurai was fine in parts, and I skipped Blood Diamond entirely. I have some things to say about The Siege later today. I feel quite strongly that Zwick's career has been building to no project more perfect for him than this one. I've got no real vested interest in him or the material professionally or culturally beyond your average moviegoer, and I'm no easy lay. Zwick made the best film out of this material that could have been made. Anyone who disagrees with me on that point probably wishes they had directed it themselves and thrown in some more explosions or giant robots or didactic narration or something. That being said, Defiance falls into a similar potential trap as Valkyrie for over-analytical mass movie-consumers like movie bloggers: it's technically a really awesome history lesson. If The History Channel made dramatized "re-enactment" specials this good, I'd watch The History Channel. I know a number of bloggers I read tossed their review discs on while doing something else and just three seconds into the opening were tweeting about how bored they were with it. I think people who are actively interested in seeing the movie will enjoy it a lot and come away wanting to learn more. Those of us devouring movies buffet-style are more prone to giving this a pass. I'm glad I gave it a chance. The extras (all HD) on the Blu-ray include Defiance: Return to the Forest [26:05], which is your run-of-the-mill Behind the Scenes thing; Children of the Otriad [13:42], where the children of the Bielskis and their descendants talk about how they learned pieces of the story growing up; and Scoring Defiance [7:00], which is pretty self-explanatory. Also included is a short series of photos taken of the remaining Bielski Partisan Survivors [1:58] by director Zwick. I listened to the entire commentary, which Zwick flies solo on, and it's a great listen. The man respects his craft and his audience, and it comes across nicely. I tried to do something else while listening: laundry, cleaning, no go.
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Homicide and More Go Criterion


William H. Macy and Joe Mantegna in Homicide (1991)
I got my September Criterion press release late last night and there are a few reasons to be excited, the first being that David Mamet's Homicide is finally coming to DVD the second week of September. No Blu-ray is fine for now as long as I can finally just have the damn thing. Mantegna, Macy, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Pidgeon, and the entire supporting cast knock it out of the park. Extras are to include Commentary with Mamet and William H. Macy, a piece on recurring Mamet actors, as well as a Gag Reel and TV Spots.

In addition to the long-requested crime film is Alexander Korda's That Hamilton Woman, starring Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Alleged to be Winston Churchill's favorite film partly due to the fact he wrote some of its speeches, Hamilton Woman is drenched in thinly-veiled propaganda. Olivier plays a Royal Navy officer and Leigh the wife of a British Ambassador during the Napoleonic Wars. They both play married people having affairs, which wasn't hard for them to "act" at the time. Extras include a Commentary by Ian Christie, an Interview with Michael Korda (dir.'s nephew), and Alexander Korda Presents (vintage promo for the movie).

Vivian Leigh in That Hamilton Woman (1941, Lady Hamilton in UK)

Tatsuya Nakadai in The Human Condition (1959)
Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition, originally scheduled for this month, got pushed back when better audio elements were found. It's nine and a half hours long, and was originally released in 3 parts. That'll count some out right off the bat. It's based on a six-volume Japanese novel chronicling the wartime experiences of a young man who goes from labor camp supervisor to soldier to POW, wrestling with corruption at every step and questioning human nature itself. Star Tatsuya Nakadai was also in Yojimbo and Ran.

Extras include a rare Directors Guild of Japan interview with Kobayashi done by Masahiro Shinoda (Double Suicide), a "video appreciation" of the movie & director by Shinoda, and an all-new interview with star Nakadai. The English subtitles are also apparently greatly-improved. This is easily the one this month I'm most intrigued by. All three titles are DVD-only and hit on Sept. 8th.


Clement's Gervaise
A week later (9/15), the next wave of Essential Art House DVD titles arrive, three of which are brand new to disc: Marcel Carne's Le jour se leve, Rene Clement's Emile Zola adaptation Gervaise, and Anatole Litvak's Mayerling. The other three are The 39 Steps, Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann, and Throne of Blood. To the uninitiated, these discs carry no extras, just the movie in highest DVD quality possible with liner notes tucked inside. Two previously-released DVD titles are getting the Blu-ray upgrade, and they're about as radically different as two Criterion discs could get: Godard's Pierrot Le Fou and The Complete Monterey Pop, which both come out on Sept. 22nd. All told, it's a pretty solid month.
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Getting Back Up to Steam

I've been toppled for the better part of a week by illness verging on pneumonia, but have tried to get something out there every couple days. I'm still pretty much bed or couch-bound for another day or so, but I can finally type for an extended period of time without risking knocking the computer to the ground in a coughing fit. Posting new Criterion announcements from the middle of the night shortly and posting this week and the past couple weeks' worth of disc releases in digest form (Digital Roundup). I planned to get the first two weeks of the month up last Thursday, but that's when everything went to hell in my respiratory system. Back soon.
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Pelham Aftermath

After seeing Tony Scott's Pelham 1 2 3, I got home and threw Inside Man on the Blu-ray player. What is it with Denzel Washington in hostage negotiation movies? The Siege came out on Blu-ray last week too. Aside from Independence Day, it's the one movie whose sales were most definitively helped by 9/11. There's no pretty way to say that, so there it is. Denzel became the guy standing up for American ideals and it's suited him well. He gets butts in seats. Anyone remember the last time a movie he headlined outright bombed? Didn't think so. Third place behind second week of a movie themed on a blitzed night of excess and a new Pixar movie isn't shabby at all. I enjoyed Pelham as much as I did because it felt like an adult movie made for adults. Is it the most jaw-dropping, pulse-pounding, hack-critic-baiting thrill-ride of the 21st Century? Hell no, but neither was State of Play. They're movies of a feather, in that they don't have some kind of couldn't-see-it-coming twist to them, but rather, they provoke discourse and discussion. Instead of "holy shit, could you believe what happened" there's some intellectual stuff to talk about, some allegorical dots to theoretically connect in a million different ways. Travolta's villain is over-the-top, but the critics who went nuts on him have obviously never met a Wall Street guy. You take the average drunken idiot you hang out at parties with on the weekends and give him that kind of bankroll, he's fucked up all day every day of the week and adding "motherfucker" to every sentence he can. I'm not one of those opposed categorically to remakes as a rule (just bad ones). You take something like Pelham, add some modern relevance and some extra dashes of uniqueness, and I'll go with it. There are those who want to take the easy way out and claim the holy sanctity of the original from 1974. The majority have either only just recently watched Pelham One Two Three because they were born two decades after it came out, or they haven't seen the new one yet. People who come out still not seeing eye to eye with me on the new Tony Scott movie can rest easy knowing the original stands to get better treatment and should be seen by thousands upon thousands more than it would have. You can watch the whole thing on Fancast for free, and it could make it to Blu-ray catalog release a lot faster now as well, hopefully as some sort of two-pack with this remake.
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Two Sides of the Chick Flick Coin

I got through both He's Just Not That Into You and Spring Breakdown relatively unscathed. I skipped HJNTIY in theaters, and didn't have the chance to with Breakdown, which played Sundance and went direct to DVD/Blu-ray. Whereas the former plays up the desperation of modern women to remain competent through all their boy craziness, the latter was a refreshing "chick" alternative to the slew of T&A-centric STV junk made exclusively for guys.

Breakdown isn't going on my best of 2009 list, but it deserves a glance, if only for Jane Lynch's gut-busting performance as a senator very similar to Kay Bailey Hutchison, controversially (in GOP circles) passed over by McCain last year for Sarah Palin. "K.B." is expected to be appointed Vice President so long as her assistant (Parker Posey) can keep K.B.'s introverted, renaissance faire-going daughter (Amber Tamblyn) from partying and slutting it up at spring break on South Padre Island. Posey is flanked by her introverted, mom jeans-wearing college pals played by screenwriter Rachel Dratch and fellow SNL alum Amy Poehler. Dratch is engaged to a man played by SNL head writer Seth Myers who belongs in Bruno's entourage more than a hetero relationship. Poehler's character carries over body image issues from her college days and adopts her "gangsta bitch" persona at one point, which thrilled me. Poehler was the reason I could stand Blades of Glory, so sue me. There are more out-loud laughs in this movie than many that actually see wide release. It also features the holy grail of "chick flick" rarities: a "who needs these fuckers?" attitude regarding men. Spring Breakdown stands as yet another example of how finding worthwhile entertainment requires more work than ever before. I really did not expect to like this movie nor did I have much interest in seeking it out. Had they put Jane Lynch on the cover, they'd probably sell more of this title. She's become a "that lady" thanks to bit parts on primetime sitcoms and bit parts in 40 Year Old Virgin among others. I'll put it this way: my mother-in-law would see her face and recognize her, unlike the people on the cover currently. Regardless, Breakdown will get some decent word-of-mouth provided some people actually see it. Included on the Blu-ray are a Digital Copy, Gag Reel [2:03], some Additional Scenes [2:51] that feature more Jane Lynch, and a Feature Commentary with director Ryan Shiraki and writer Rachel Dratch.

He's Just Not That Into You, on the other hand, floats a "you'll be fine not worrying about men" message early on, but falls into by-the-numbers sexism pretty quickly. The women who don't end up with a man are saddled (beast of burden imagery intended) with The Lonely Woman face, not sure how they'll go on living. No female empowerment here, move right along. Ken Kwapis made the most of what he had to work with, as did the actors. That being said, it's not universally badly-acted, and some of the more histrionic moments actually play more authentically than one might think at first. Jennifer Connolly's "I hate liars" rant aimed at Luis Guzman and later Bradley Cooper in particular felt pretty honest. Extras include The Baltimore Blade [HD 29:03 total], which is a set of 6 mini-interviews with the actors in-character about where their lives went after the end of the time the movie "documents." These were done on the set during principal photography and more than anything prove Ben Affleck and Justin Long are the best of the cast when it comes to riffing. This is a half hour of your life you can save. 6 Words That Make Up a Film [HD 11:04] is your standard "how the movie happened" featurette. The Director Stages a Scene: Duet for Telephones [HD 4:02] is a mini-clinic on how to choreograph a phone scene, which Ken Kwapis did quite well here. The Deleted Scenes [HD 25:17] w/ Optional Commentary notably feature a whole lot of Scarlett Johansson, but mainly it's content revolving around a subplot with her mom that was wisely sliced. Had they used as much of Johansson as originally intended, she would've been a sub-lead more than the "oh, she's in it" part she ended up with. It's interesting to watch with the Commentary on with Kwapis defending Johansson, but it'd be terribly boring otherwise.

Both titles were released last Tuesday 6/2.
Click on the box art to order from Amazon.
A portion of the purchase goes toward supporting disc reviews featured in this column.
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Tony Awards Wrapup

Neil Patrick Harris' digs at Jeremy Piven in the middle and later the Golden Globes during the closing credits of the ceremony last night were easily my favorite moments of the evening: Shrek: The Musical looks utterly dreadful, despite its amazing cast (Sutton Foster, Chris Sieber, Brian D'Arcy James). The stagehand overheard saying "I'm going, I'm going, I'm going" while running a mic out to the singer of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" deserves a medal. That performance was nearly ruined by the 100th body mic glitch of the night. I don't like the "remixed" version of the number regardless. I don't like wishing injury on anyone, but following their (lip-synced) performance, it's somewhat darkly poetic that a piece of scenery nearly decapitated Poison's Brett Michaels. I'm glad Billy Elliott: The Musical composer Elton John shouted out Next To Normal (the most intriguing show based on performance). Alice Ripley's acceptance speech was a bit unhinged, but at least it woke me up. I am sad to hear this morning that reasons to be pretty is closing June 14th. See it while you can, Newyorkers, and join the ongoing firestorm surrounding Jeff's reaction to seeing it. In his defense, oh quick to be offended, reverse the gender roles in what he says on his letter grading scale. Tell me that doesn't apply to the guys of the world for you, hetero women, and I'll call you a liar just as quickly. If anyone chooses to rebut Jeff's post without selectively misquoting and re-interpreting his piece as a declaration of men deserving women who lay at their feet, I'm willing to listen. Want to know why people are up in arms about what he wrote? It's more blunt than people are used to hearing things through their self-imposed barriers of delusion. Humanity is allergic to the truth. The way we think and act in the real world frightens the everloving shit out of us. Human beings are superficial, fickle, and impulsive mammals prone to self-interest above all else. We don't care about preservation of our species or objectivity when it comes to mates nearly as much as instant gratification and pleasure.
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1, 2--Waitaminute

I didn't see The Taking of Pelham 123 last night due to a fatal glitch. The sound on the right side started going garbled, and eventually sounded like a speaker was blown (it hadn't). After lending as much expertise as I had in the projection booth (resetting the audio processors, isolating the channel and shutting it off), we were still stuck. They started and stopped the movie so many times I lost count, but after the fifth or sixth, around half the radio station promo audience left. They shouted "asshole" and "fuck you" at the poor publicist. They're apparently a DLP-only theater, and the "analog" equipment is rarely ever maintained. Fellow press attendees confided they always have problems showing prints there. When all was said and done, the theater management was blaming the print, but I was blaming the proprietors of the Galaxy Highland 10 for not having a staff capable or knowledgeable enough to show a fucking film print. As quick as many would be to blame the theater, or the theater would Sony ("must be a bad print" my ass), this is something that is emblematic of the jerky changeover happening as more theaters go digital. It could have been something as simple as cleaning the optical reader that scans the audio, or it could have actually been the print, fine. What I'm saying is that we're in a limbo between two exhibition standards that's bound to cause some more upgrade frustration at the shit-tastic mall theaters where most people see movies. Did I mention one of the fratty jocks leaving the screening told his botoxed date "pshh, whatever, fuck 'em...I'll just Torrent it"?
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I Felt a Little Lost

Land of the Lost is a fan's passionate fever dream adaptation if there ever was one. Having only caught the remake series when I was a kid, I have to say I liked this much more than the series I got, but I don't think I was the intended audience for this. Me and all the kids out there whose parents saw the show it's based on are in the dark. I have no desire to see it again, but that isn't to say it doesn't have redeeming qualities for a very particular viewership. What they've come up with is really bizarre...I think in a good way. It's not as apparent as I'd like in the trailers just how inappropriate this is for kids. The humor is par for the course for a Will Ferrell-headlined, PG-13 comedy. It's no worse than they could be watching on primetime TV, but this isn't kids' Saturday Morning stuff. Fans of the original show who I talked to afterward had very strong opinions one way or another. Either they thought it was a disaster or they felt it was uniquely made "just for them," condensing the entire series into one movie. The thing not everyone could agree on was the alterations made to the characters. Holly and Will are not Rick Marshall's kids, they're a graduate student from Cambridge (England) and a redneck who operates cave exhibit. It's kind of weird for Holly to be Rick's love interest instead of his daughter. Did I say weird? I meant creepy. I can almost explain my way out of the new "configuration" of the leads. They now describe The Land of the Lost as where the past and present meet the future, so it's some sort of interdimensional dump. Technically, the original show could have been about a parallel universe Rick, Will, and Holly who were related. In other words, they cover continuity about as well as the new Star Trek movie does. Then again, Sid & Marty Krofft's admiration for the banjo in Deliverance expressed in the EPK featurette on the new box set of the original show could mean something else... Take into account that Universal passed out hats, Chaka backpacks, and two drink tickets to everyone at the screening here in Austin on Monday when you read local coverage. Personally, I trust Jenn Brown over at Slackerwood as the voice of a fan, since I don't fall into that category. I don't think she's posted a review yet. Her points here about pre-screening happy hours gets a full agreement from me. As I was saying the other day, this movie is going to get massacred by no fault of its own. It's opening on the second weekend of a Pixar movie and it's up against The Hangover, which has a huge buzz train going, on top of the fact it's a kids' TV show adaptation that isn't for kids. Before I'd seen this movie, I knew it had an uphill climb. The dumbest thing Universal has done was make the Tonight Show clip from Conan's first program that of Will Ferrell dumping urine on himself. That didn't win them any more business. The movie isn't much more than a diversion. You either have to "get" this as a tribute piece to something you don't understand, or be a big, forgiving fan of the original to feel like it's worth the money. I could see myself having gladly waited to see the dinosaurs on cable rather than pay for it, had I not seen it for free.
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Pelham and More

Gotta dash out the door to a screening of The Taking of Pelham 123, which Jeff seems to have had a lot of fun with. Not a "full review" worth of fun, of course, but a quickly dashed set of thoughts about worth. I picked up Dr. Horrible on DVD for a slim $10 and am going to be working into the night on various things, including a couple interviews.
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Crackerjack Road Disc

One of the Great But Ignored of last year (along with Che), Revolutionary Road was released on home video Tuesday to little fanfare. The movie is a stark contrast to the empty, disposable summer junk food flooding screens this summer. Hopefully that means more people will finally see what I consider one of the best acted, scripted, and directed films of last year.

A friend recently rewatched American Beauty and commented about the "theatricality" of the movie, in my mind criticizing a degree of pretension and surreality to the movie. I know others who similarly dismissed Road as high melodrama, and I don't think any of these people have had much of a life. Most are bloggers in their early twenties, and, god save us all, some in their late teens. I'm not saying movies should only be reviewed by those who Millenials would deem "old" (over 30 or 35), but you shouldn't trust a review of Revolutionary Road written by someone whose most traumatic life event to this point is not getting a car for their sixteenth birthday. The fear that has prevented so many of the bloggerati from connecting with this picture or letting it sink in is a that it could somehow relate to their now or future lives. Either they're in a committed relationship that has had major ups and downs or they want to convince themselves they never will be. No one wants their own dirty laundry aired, let alone a movie make them wonder just how bad they might have it. Speaking from the perspective of a kid who grew up in the 80's, when we were all being fed Reaganist optimism, Revolutionary Road brings to life many of my generation's worst nightmares. All of us spoiled little brats were being spoon-fed that we'd all grow up to be Maverick from Top Gun or Ariel from The Little Mermaid, that everyone would love us and everything would work out. Other hate-spewers have come at Road from the tired "oh, but the book is so much better" track. The book is always better, even if it wasn't. This is an endless, pointless argument. It takes a great deal of self-training to not let one's own personal interpretation of a book influence how effective they think a movie is. I pity my friends who rush to grab a book that they haven't read yet in the months before seeing a movie. They might as well wait a couple years to watch the movie! Write a book to movie comparison as a term paper, but leave me out of the discussion. Upon rewatching the movie and looking at the extras, a couple things came to mind that didn't initially, specifically regarding Zoe Kazan. Seeing her reminded me of another period film in which she gives a strong supporting performance (Me and Orson Welles, rumored for release this fall). Also, a quick soundbite she shared during the Making-of piece revealed a very thoughtful and perceptive young actress. She's the granddaughter of Elia Kazan and daughter of Robin Swicord, who wrote Benjamin Button. Michael Shannon deserves the "holy shit, who is that guy" award, but Kazan is the under the radar up-and-comer, mark my words. No one paid attention to Dylan Baker or Kathy Bates during awards season, but they deserve some kudos as well. Kate and Leo are magnificent as everyone's already said. Revolutionary Road is a classic film about married life that succeeds because it is not shackled to page-by-page adaptive fidelity as much as the universality of the themes present in the original work. Watching the Deleted Scenes [HD 25:17] reveals just how honest Mendes was with himself in making decisions in the editing room. Without those trims, there would be more of "the book" in there, but it would have been to the detriment of the film being the lean and brutal masterpiece it is now. The scenes feature worthwhile Optional Commentary with Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe. It nicely compliments the Feature Commentary with the same participants. Deakins-lensed movies should always look this good on Blu-ray. The transfer is crisp and sharp...it's absolutely perfect. You see every imperfection in characters' faces and individual stray strands of hair. Rich contrast and color we should all expect on every hi-def release. Lives of Quiet Discomfort: The Making of Revolutionary Road [HD 29:03] isn't long enough to satisfy me, but it's not EPK fluff by any stretch. There are some good nuggets here and there, from how quickly production ramped to how they managed some tricky location shoots. DiCaprio, Winslet, and others also make coherent, interesting observations on their characters and the story, which is not the norm on other similar featurettes out there. The movie itself and DVD/Blu-ray are highly recommended for rental or purchase. I'll be covering other new releases soon in the newly-condensed "Digital Roundup," which will be complimented by standalone reviews as I get them done.
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The Sleaze, The Repressed, and The Weirdo

As I said to an acquaintance after the screening, The Hangover is a movie that will benefit from "you've gotta see this movie" word of mouth, but it won't be a major repeat-business movie. It can't be. It's great the first time because you're retracing the bizarre, ridiculous steps of a forgotten stag night and learning more at each step. I can't imagine it being nearly as entertaining on a second go-round once you know everything.

Director Todd Phillips returns to the stock triptych of The Sleaze, The Repressed, and The Weirdo. The one guy hates marriage openly (Bradley Cooper), the other is stuck in an abusive relationship (Ed Helms), and the oddball (Zach Galifinakis) acts like he's from a parallel universe. I couldn't keep their names straight, and I swear I had nothing to drink beforehand. One was Stu, one was Phil, and the other....Alan? The groom's name was Doug, right? This isn't really a problem, since it's established early on that these guys are more Quantity A, B, and C than actual people. They're generic people you don't get emotionally invested in, but could see having a nutso night of mischief with for a thrill. They keep the story specifics lightweight too: two best friends and the bride's brother lose the groom the night of the bachelor party and can't remember anything the next morning. The movie is full of one-liner throwaways and sight gags, going all the way to the last frame of the movie. They all work like gangbusters in the instant they happen, but don't leave you feeling you've seen the greatest comedy of the year or your life once all's said and done. In spite of that, it gels well enough that I can recommend friends see it theatrically and not wait for video. The Hangover is an experience that works best communally, not late some lonely night on HBO. If there's one thing to celebrate about The Hangover, it's the assured emergence of Zach Galifinakis as a face the public will know and a name people will try to spell right. Zach's stand-up is stridently unconventional compared to the majority of comics around the country. He's not interested in bitching about his wife, small penis, or addiction to pot and videogames. His style of discomfort humor works best been seen as well as heard. I hadn't heard of him before seeing Michael Blieden's The Comedians of Comedy a few years ago, and I've been hooked on his work ever since. As a side note, this movie also ensures CHUD's Devin Faraci will be incorrectly identified in public as "that guy with the beard from that movie" for years to come. Zach's the biggest reason the movie keeps you interested, because it's impossible to be sure what's going to come out of his mouth or other orifices at any given time. Cooper and Helms were fine, but it doesn't feel like they were given as much room to breathe as Galifinakis. Heather Graham plays another stock character, the hotbodied hooker with a heart of gold. "Jade" feels like the flipside of her character in Swingers while still serving the same general purpose in the narrative. Ken Jeong has about as much to do here as he did in Role Models. His first entrance is abrupt and memorable, and the fey Chinese gangster schtick works thanks to the brief doses it's limited to. Any more would've driven me up the wall. Tyson does a solid job with a couple good lines, serving roughly the same purpose here as Lou Ferrigno did in I Love You, Man. His "acting" chops make me glad the Broken Lizard guys couldn't get him for the still-unreleased Slammin Salmon and got Michael Clarke Duncan instead. It surprised me that it took as long as it did to actually get to the Hangover portion of the movie. I can't help but think the movie could have been a bit more gut-busting and effective by just getting on with things already. The movie also plays better if you go in really blind, having seen no trailers or ads. Regardless, it's going to destroy Land of the Lost (which I'm seeing tonight) this weekend and should have a couple more weeks' legs on it beyond that. More on that tomorrow.
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Telling Spider-Man Debate

Devin at CHUD and Drew at HitFix took a time-out from a spirited debate on Twitter last night to write up lengthy articles asking "Why is Spider-Man White?". They are both coming from roughly the exact same thesis, and as someone or another said last night, they're the Armageddon to the other's Deep Impact.
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Westerns on Blu for Cheap

I was tipped off to an insane deal on Amazon today: The Searchers for $8 on Blu-ray. It's hovered at around $12 for a while, but this is a no-brainer. Even if you don't have a player yet but know you'll be getting one, it's eight dollars. I did some more digging and found great prices on a collection of other excellent westerns worth owning. Based on pricing and genre similarity, I'm calling this my first Arthouse Cowboy custom box set. For a total of $55.45 (no sales tax in US), you can add the following 6 titles to your Blu-ray library (box art links to Amazon):

The Searchers $7.99, The Proposition $9.99, The Wild Bunch $11.49

Unforgiven, Rio Bravo, Pale Rider $12.99 each
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Deals: More Blu Under $15

The Getaway $12.99 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MV90J4?ie=UTF8&tag=hollelsearthc-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B000MV90J4
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Up Flat versus Deep

The terms 2D and 3D, when applied to how they used depth of field in the two versions of Up, is a bit disingenuous. It's more accurate to describe them as Flat and Deep. If you're expecting 3D that leaps out at you, like Coraline or My Bloody Valentine 3D, this isn't anything like that (thankfully).

I've seen Up both ways now (original pre-Cannes writeup here). I plan on seeing it again at some point theatrically, and I won't be disappointed if I can only see it Flat. I liked that I could see greater detail at greater depths in parts of the picture, but it did not substantially transform the experience for me. Honestly, I think I prefer it Flat, if only for not having the too-small glasses caving my head in from the sides. After my Deep viewing of it, I commented to my wife that I ought to engineer my own custom 3D frames. Up is great to watch either way, and I think they may have made a misstep not looking at more comprehensively merchandising it. Little figurines would go over huge. They may not think so yet, but plenty of people would gladly put Carl and Russell on their desks at work. Particularly because it plays so well for older audiences, it could have stronger legs than Disney has projected. Other 3D stuff will fail through the rest of the summer, Jonas Brothers-style, and Up will get those screens back. Dinosaurs or no, Ice Age 3 isn't going to get over the hurdle of Fox forcing theaters to pay for their own 3D specs.
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Weinstein Company Lost and Found

Over the last two Tuesdays, The Weinstein Company has released two movies on DVD that barely anyone could have seen in theaters even if they tried: Fanboys and Killshot. Fanboys was put on barely any screens but actually added more playdates as weeks rolled on. Killshot didn't even get that chance, going no wider than 5 screens total.

I finished watching Killshot a few minutes ago, and for a movie that got delayed over and over and over, with no visible confidence behind its earning potential, it isn't half bad. It isn't quite half good either. It reminds me of the barely skin-deep action thrillers my dad would rent three of for the weekend when I was a kid. Mickey Rourke's massive Oscar push alone could have made this a profitable January or February dump in a true limited run, but January 23rd came and not even critics in major cities could find it. The movie follows Rourke's Armand "The Blackbird" Degas (Bird for short), a Native American contract killer for the mafia who kills anyone who sees his face when on a job. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Richie, a cocky, faux-southern-accented young guy who reminds Bird of someone from his past. Rosario Dawson plays Richie's emotionally-abused girlfriend. Diane Lane and Thomas Jane play an estranged married couple who come closer together when Bird starts hunting them after a botched job. They're put in protective custody by the FBI, but we all know that doesn't stop cold-blooded killers like Bird in this kind of film. Hal Holbrook is in there for a blink-and-miss performance too.

Killshot has a long, labored production history dating back to 1995 when it was floating around in development. It ended up one of the select projects Harvey took with him in the Miramax/Weinstein divorce. Multiple sets of stars were considered for Bird and Richie, from Viggo-Timberlake to de Niro-Tarantino. The movie was originally finished in January of 2006, and eventually all traces of Johnny Knoxville's corrupt cop character were cut out of the movie. He would've made a more authentic Richie, in my opinion. I like Joe Gordon-Levitt, but it's not his fault he was miscast here. No Deleted Scenes or extras (not even a trailer) are featured on the DVD, but it's worth watching as "so badly done you'd have to see it to believe it" survival thriller. There are glimpses of coherence in the trailer that never made the final cut. They apparently cut Knoxville's character (a bad guy) because test audiences "didn't find him likable." Je-sus. The most objectionable thing on display is this dedication plate at the end:

I saw Fanboys at Fantastic Fest last year, and I don't know anyone who saw it theatrically outside critic friends. The movie's ok, and it was easy for me to give it a pass since I had a friend dying of cancer at the time. When you have something in real life going on like that you can relate to, you cut a movie like this some breaks. I'm not saying it's the greatest movie of all time or one of my favorites of last year, but it has a very focused, sentimental mission that it achieves well enough. The movie is an effective, if narrow-market, look at fanboy culture, a celebration of things that fans of all sorts love. I like Star Wars and Trek a lot, but I'd say my biggest fanboy obsessions are Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin films. I'm not into dressing up like a Stormtrooper for Halloween, but I can understand that. I do like very much that the movie is about growing up and moving on, whilst retaining reverence for what you loved as a kid.

Ethan Suplee playing a redneckier Harry Knowles than I know in real life.
I consider this DVD release to be an abject failure in a couple regards because it teases honest, blunt "here's what really happened" and doesn't deliver. That's why this is a rental and not a purchase. I'd like talent involved to get residuals, but I don't think I could support buying this and giving Harvey a bigger chunk of the pie. The movie went through post-production hell, with Weinstein at one point cutting out the fact the one friend is dying of cancer. He essentially deleted the motivation for the road trip to steal Star Wars Episode 1 from the movie. The Deleted Scenes [7:50] are fine, one including the old version of a scene that ended up with Danny McBride in a role William Katt played originally. Three or four featurettes are different sides of the EPK cube. The Truth About Fanboys [5:48] has a very deceptive title; Star Wars Parallel [5:19] is kinda flat; 4 Fanboys & 1 Fangirl has an unfortunate title that is reminiscent of 2 Girls & 1 Cup, which I still refuse to watch; and The Choreography [3:40] is a short bit about the one dance sequence in the movie. The first three are culled from the same run of interviews. Disturbances in the Force [11:40] is a set of behind the scenes webisodes that, again, have nothing to do with the controversy going on. The Feature Commentary, which I listened to while working on some other stuff, is almost shockingly devoid of juicy info. They even put an "opinions expressed" disclaimer in front of it like this:

The Disclaimer crawl.
The chat track features director Kyle Newman, screenwriters Ernie Cline and Adam F. Goldberg, and actors Dan Fogler, Kristen Bell, and Sam Huntington. The most interesting part of the track is Kristen enthusiastically pointing out it's not her bare ass and recounting her meeting with "Pimp Daddy" (my description) Billy Dee Williams.
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Up 3D tonight

Saw the 2D without credits weeks ago, and am eager to see this again. Before even seeing the 3D version, I urge all to see it flat. This will hopefully out-do Night at the Museum 2, but it may be close, with all the holdover anti-environmentalism activists from WALL-E. My long-gestating Anthropology of Pixar piece is hitting tomorrow or Friday. I may go late into the night catching up on one of my favorite releases of the month, the A Thousand Years of Prayers/Princess of Nebraska.
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Universal Reds Go Blu

No, they haven't announced a program like Warner Bros. Four Universal catalog releases hit Blu today that were previously on HD-DVD. I never did HD-DVD, so I'm sourcing the following information from archival reviews on other sites. At face value, Children of Men (2006's Real Best Picture), Cinderella Man, Field of Dreams, and Seabiscuit appear to be the same in terms of content as the dual-layer HDDVD-30's they replace, but with the extra 20GBs of disc space a dual-layer BD-50 affords. U-Control is out, but BD-Live is in. I've gone through all of Seabiscuit and am catching up on the others. Seabiscuit looks fantastic. I wish the extras were anamorphic instead of StretchyVision (reverse pan-and-scan). I have so much to cover at this point, I'll have to catch up with these as time permits, but Children of Men is at the top of my list. I'm glad these are coming out even in an atmosphere where things aren't so great economically, because by the time Blu-adoption really starts en masse, these discs will be reasonably-priced, right? Inside Man was due out yesterday too, but has been delayed a week to June 2nd due to an audio issue on the original pressing. I've got an advance review copy replacement disc that arrived yesterday. Props to Universal for the pre-release responsiveness.
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Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection

The best thing Paramount has done for this release is putting together a team that knocked the reboot out of the park. I got this one later than usual, but now that I've finally gotten through the whole thing, I'm pretty impressed. I can confidently say that Paramount has done about as much as they can to make the original, non-Director's Cut versions of the Kirk & Spock Star Trek movies look as good as they can. I have to qualify my previous statement with "at this point," since we've seen another example last week in Lionsgate's Terminator 2, where different encoding technologies can cause strikingly different resulting pictures as users have hotly debated on the Home Theater Forum. From my 5.17 post about the prior week's Paramount releases: "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 don't want anything to scare off people eyeing it for purchase, these movies look amazing. The original effects in The Motion Picture look as beautifully lousy as they could. The Wrath of Khan looks better than ever after a full restoration, and The Search for Spock is the most notably improved in terms of cleanup of all the movies. The Voyage Home occasionally looks like PAL video, which will look odd to some US, NTSC-trained eyes, but existing elements may have made a PAL master the best available. The Final Frontier looks better than many would say it deserves (with a little of the PAL effect), and The Undiscovered Country (my favorite of them all) looks gorgeous. Sundry things I like most about the set are the unified menu structure (common categories for featurettes) and packaging that clearly denotes new features. With the exception of the Starfleet Academy...things...on each disc (more on them in a moment), I find all of the featurettes generally worthwhile. As much time as I have spent with the set, I haven't listened to all the commentaries or rewatched all the carried-over featurettes from old releases, but I've watched all the new stuff and have bits here and there on holdovers.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture I looked up from doing some dishes to find that the first 30 minutes of this movie bored my wife to the point of sleep. By the time they got to the starship porn of Scotty & Kirk flying over to the Enterprise, she was done watching it. I really can't blame her. I've long agreed with Harlan Ellison's nickname for it, "The Motionless Picture." I've been a Trek fan most of my life, but I'm not a blind worshipper. There's a reason this movie is virtually ignored ever after in series canon. The new Commentary with Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and Darren Dochterman is lively and informative. Frankly, it's more entertaining than what's being said on the screen for me at this point. The most interesting thing about this installment is that the story of its making is steeped in the revival of the franchise. When it was made, there were a ton of contingency plans in case Star Trek: Phase II came into being as a second TV series, including casting decisions. The Longest Trek: Writing The Motion Picture [HD 10:44] digs into this and all the uncertainty surrounding this ten years-on movie adaptation of a cancelled TV series. The Special Star Trek Reunion [HD 9:37] is made up of a few of the many, many fans who made up the big crowd scene where Kirk addresses people as if Caesar. Some helped save the show from cancellation (Bjo Trimble, among others). One of them is James Doohan's son Christopher, who mentions having a "larger role" in "the new Star Trek movie." I don't see anything credited on IMdB...what happened? I didn't bother getting a timestamp on how long Starfleet Academy: The Mystery Behind V'Ger is. It's the kind of thing you expect to find in an exhibit of Star Trek: The Experience, where an actor is dressed like a Starfleet crewmember, describing very earnestly how some piece of series history happened. I avoided all subsequent installments. This is the kind of thing that make you go "geez guys, this makes Star Trek a nerds-only thing." It did make me wonder why we haven't heard any Aussie or Kiwi accents in any Trek that I can recall. Also included are 8 minutes or so of Deleted Scenes as well as previously available featurettes.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan As I wrote about here, I was in the bait-and-switch audience that thought we were seeing this and got treated to the new movie over a month out. Subsequently, a "make-up" screening of Khan happened at the Ritz. I'd never seen it on the big screen, and I'm glad I finally did. I was more happy that it was Ashley's first viewing of it. This Blu-ray is the vast majority of people will get to seeing a pristine print of Khan. Ricardo Montalban passed recently, but not so soon that they couldn't get Khan director Nicholas Meyer to record a short Farewell: A Tribute to Ricardo Montalban [HD 4:44]. Even though Meyer's words are clearly scripted, I don't know if anyone could have realistically held it together going off-the-cuff. He's quite sincere in his admiration and respect, rightly noting that the many who love Ricardo for Khan never knew him for his full potential. There's a new Feature Commentary with Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto, who exec produced the fourth season of the loved and hated Enterprise. Coto is best known as a fierce devotee of the series who oversaw tying the prequel series in to the beginning of the Original Series. As with the series itself, he's also loved and hated by fandom. Collecting Star Trek's Movie Relics [HD 11:05] covers Trek's most avid collectors who seek out props and whole sets that they house in massive rooms. These guys must be independently wealthy. James Horner: Composing Genesis was my favorite of the featurettes on this one, shedding some light on Horner's thematic intentions in a score many know almost as well as the movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock This is the one movie in the set that shows the greatest evidence of picture quality improvement aside from Khan. It looks stunning. Detail is great, especially when it comes to depth of field in outer space scenes. Ashley mentioned that Search for Spock got so dark and tragic in places she was glad it ended on the slight up note that it did. As with other titles, over two hours of extras are carried over from the 2-disc DVD. New to Blu-ray featurettes are more plentiful on here. ILM: The Visual Effects of Star Trek [HD 13:50] covers more than just this movie, as other new featurettes on the set do. Spock: The Early Years [HD 6:22] is a short interview with the actor who played "Cave Sex with Saavik" Young Spock. The Star Trek & The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame piece has a title that indicates exactly what it talks about. I got distracted while watching it and missed the last few minutes. It's not terribly engrossing. Most notable is the new Feature Commentary with Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, who both started with Star Trek during the days of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, going on to later create the wildly popular Battlestar Galactica reboot. I've never seen Galactica (I'll get to it), but I know the best years of DS9 were under Moore. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm very eager to as soon as I have time.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home For part of my childhood, this was the only Trek movie I had on tape. As a result, I can still remember much of the movie verbatim. As with all of them, I watched it through with Ashley with no commentary on the first time, and even I forgot exactly hen certain bits happened in sequence. Speaking of, the Feature Commentary with Orci & Kurtzmann (2009 Trek writers) is the most enjoyable "fan" commentary track I've listened to in a while, with Roberto (as I recall) saying this was the first Trek he saw in theaters as a kid. Their affection for Voyage Home is genuine, and their keen, articulate minds thankfully don't allow them to slide into "oh dude that was awesome"'s separated by fifteen minutes of silence at a time. Star Trek: The Three-Picture Saga [10:13] is hands-down the most worthwhile of the new-to-disc extras, covering the building nature of the narrative in II, III, and IV. They also mention the biggest plot hole in the series: Chekhov wasn't on the Enterprise for the original appearance of Khan. Speaking of Russian Davy Jones, Pavel Chekhov's Screen Moments [HD 6:09] gives Walter Koenig a few minutes to be grateful for the additional scenery he got to chew in the fourth movie. The Star Trek for a Cause [HD 5:40] piece is a glorified Greenpeace commercial, which considering the subject matter of the movie, I can roll with. Again, the two plus hours of original SE bonus features are included as well.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier The most underrated 1 hour, 45 minute episode of the original series also happens to be the first Trek movie I saw theatrically. My dad took me, expecting it to be great. My dad's English wasn't quite as good as it is now, twenty years later, so I was doing a lot of hushed translating. By the time my Cuban father caught on that it was about a charismatic, bearded revolutionary leading people on a fool's quest, he was done with watching it and took a nap. I'd poke him when he'd snore, but otherwise it made for a pretty serene viewing of a movie I didn't think was that bad at the time. I still don't think it's worthy of the outright hatred directed toward it. There's no way expectations could have been any higher after the II-III-IV trilogy. Ashley was surprised that people hated it so much, in the same breath acknowledging the others were better. The Okudas, Reeves-Stevenses, and Daren Dochterman provide new Feature Commentary again here, as they did on The Motion Picture. It's like they got Odd-Numbered duty, relieved on Search for Spock by Ron Moore. Star Trek Honors NASA [HD 9:58] is a quick bit about how the franchise and the organization have influenced each other. It was a little heartbreaking to see James Doohan so feeble in Hollywood Walk of Fame: James Doohan [3:10]. The slapstick bit he has in the movie that's ruined in the trailer is one of the first things I think of when this movie is brought up. It's better than I remembered it. I can't help but wonder what Shatner's Director's Cut looked like and what this one was really like behind the scenes.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Nicholas Meyer made the most interesting, enjoyable, and rewatchable pre-reboot Trek movie of them all. It seems like everyone loves Khan all night and all day, but this one's my favorite. It's aged better than the others too, thanks to higher quality production values and more current visual effects. Meyer's Commentary track here (from a previous edition) is still one of my favorite Trek series yack tracks. The carried-over extras (again, a couple hours worth) are good, but I particularly liked the new To Be or Not To Be: Klingons & Shakespeare [HD 23:04]. David Warner's line about reading "Shakespeare in the original Klingon" makes me smile every time. The featurette is a pretty meaty look at a regional theatre group staging Hamlet in Klingon. The only other new extra aside from the Commentary with Larry Nemecek & Ira Steven Behr is Tom Morga: Alien Stuntman [HD 4:57], a look at a guy who kept getting work (allegedly) because he made sure his costumes had his name stitched in them.

Star Trek: The Captains' Summit The biggest exclusive for fans of the original series and/or The Next Generation is the seventh disc in this set, which features a 70-minute roundtable discussion between both series' captains and first officers that is moderated by Whoopi Goldberg. Talking about it too much would spoil it, but I can at least say that the mustache Patrick Stewart wears in it (grown for his role in Macbeth) looks odd at first but you get used to it over the course of the thing. Final Thoughts and BD-Live Blu-ray tech-specific features include BD-Live and a hyperactive variant of the pop-up info track called Library Computer. It's as if the script of each movie became sentient and could Twitter-style spit out a link/blurb on every term, person, place, or ship that is discussed. I could only take it for so long. I admire whoever's job it was to implement that. They've also added a "make your own trivia quiz" feature called Star Trek IQ, where you upload the quizzes to BD-Live. The set's producer, KingMedia, has done a great job. There are literally days of good material to watch or listen to here. Fans who've pored over the prior releases still have a mountain of new extras and commentaries to comb through, and the movies look dramatically better than I've ever experienced most of them. The picture quality nitpicks are just that. When one sees these titles in motion and not in frozen screencaps,the difference is remarkable.

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