Electric Shadow

Planes, Trains on Blu?

A few days ago, Paramount announced a new DVD special edition of John Hughes' Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with no matching Blu-ray. This disappointed me greatly, as Paramount's recent Blu-ray port of Ferris Bueller's Day Off is fantastic. Whether Hughes had died yesterday or not, I should certainly hope that Paramount quickly announces plans for the same edition to be released on Blu-ray. If they don't, they're making a huge mistake going into a very important holiday season for the format. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a "buy, don't rent" title for a large number of people that will be picking up players in that same quarter of the year, and it would be the no-brainer among first additions to a Blu library. For that matter, I found the only major Hughes movie currently on Blu-ray aside from Bueller is Home Alone. No Weird Science, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, or Pretty in Pink are to be found. Not to be unsentimental, but Universal and Paramount could sell new Blu-ray users copies of all these movies in a couple months' time without breaking a sweat. Some thoughts on the Bueller Blu, as I noted a couple months ago: "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 at this point. 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 and plastic-looking."
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Che DVD Eh


Canadian outfit 101 Distribution is releasing both parts of Che on Region 1 DVD tomorrow. The imports are $27.99 apiece. Even if those were Blu-ray prices, I'd still balk. The rumored Criterion editions could at least be announced, right? All I want is a date to look forward to with bated breath. Amazon is shipping both, Part 1 here and Part 2 here if you just can't wait.
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Disc Roundup: Week of 7/28



Release of the Week (tied) When it came down to it, I really couldn't choose between two releases that seem to have flown under the radar of many this past week. Repulsion is a big deal, yes, but both Sita Sings the Blues and Big Man Japan are just as deserving of praise and one's viewing time. Sita Sings the Blues (DVD & Free Download) Sita Sings the Blues is one of the best movies of 2009 that few have seen outside festivals. It stands little to no chance of being nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar for reasons completely divorced from the film's quality. Divorce itself is at the heart of the movie. Nina Paley's husband went to India for work and broke up with her in an email. The resulting animated musical movie juxtaposes the Indian epic of Ramayana and Nina's marriage. The visuals are gorgeous, the story heart-rending, and the creator truly worthy of admiration and support. It's a work of genius in every sense one can exaggerate that word. Even with all its intriguing beauty, the movie itself is only half the story. Music clearance issues that Nina's website does a better job of explaining than I could are the culprit behind the movie's very "non-traditional" distribution model. Long story short, she reluctantly went into massive debt to clear the music rights and decided to give the movie away for free. Her website actively points viewers to various completely cost-free ways to watch it. It is still possible to financially support the film by buying shirts, pins, and now DVDs. The key is that no one's making you or threatening to sue you for hundreds of thousands of dollars if you don't. How novel. Nina's own thoughts about and active hatred for copyright (a concept invented by the English I might remind) are intriguing to say the least. I would encourage anyone who utilizes any of the free viewing methods to buy something and help pass the movie on. This week was the official release of the Amazon-buyable or Netflix-queueable DVD. Big Man Japan (DVD only) I loved Hitosi Matumoto's brilliant take on not only superhero movies but also Japan's "giant monster battle" movies. The "final shot" in Magnet's Six Shooter Film Series, it also stands as one of the best disc releases among its peers. Shot in faux-documentary style, the movie follows the sixth in a family of supermen who grow to enormous size when shocked with electricity and defend Japan against giant monsters that appear out of nowhere. "Big Man" himself has always been a government-backed agent of their Ministry of Defense, but he isn't terribly popular with the general populace. They post signs and spray graffiti defaming him, and he keeps trudging on with the job he was born into with no alternative, past or present. He has an estranged wife and daughter, and a part of me really hopes there's a Big Girl Japan at some point. The movie's nature doesn't lend itself to endless sequels, but a single followup could be really done well. The transfer is about as good as one can get with DVD resolution, and for the time being I'm unaware of any Blu-ray plans. The extras are more extensive than one would expect of an east Asian import. The Making of Big Man Japan [1:08:08] picks up six years ago in 2003, during the initial story meetings for the movie. Allow me to repeat: Big Man Japan has an hour-plus Making-of doc. The Making-of is subtitled the whole way through, as is the alternate version that includes Commentary and its own custom subtitle track. Also included are some Deleted Scenes. New Releases (Blu-ray & DVD) Green Lantern: First Flight (Direct to Blu-ray & DVD) The best comic book movies that WB/DC Comics have been making that don't involve Batman are all animated. I'll be taking a more in-depth look at this one in the coming days, but rest assured that the voice cast is solid (with Law & Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni as the Green Lantern). The story is very true to the comics for those who care, and the reasons it was rated PG-13 don't make it unfriendly territory for kids under 13. There are single disc DVD and deluxe 2-disc DVD & Blu-ray editions to choose from. The 2-disc packages include Digital Copy via an insert. Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 (DVD & Blu-ray) Harvard Beats Yale is one of the best-reviewed and most under-viewed documentaries of last year. Kino released it this week and many missed it. Fire up your Netflix queues, folks.

An American Affair (Direct to DVD) Gretchen Mol plays the ex-wife of a CIA spook who's been in an ongoing affair with President JFK. Cameron Bright, now a teenager, plays her peeping tom neighbor. Noah Wyle plays Bright's dad, a writer. The movie starts in early 1963. You get where this is going. I didn't care too much for the early-on tack they take in implicating the Cubans as integral to the Kennedy assassination, but the movie is about more than just that. It's something of a meditation on adolescence, innocence, and corruption. I'm recommending friends pop it into their Netflix queues because I think they'll be surprised. Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of North America (DVD only) I haven't had a chance to touch this one, a Viking movie set to black metal music, but will be giving it a spin soon. I'd never heard of it until the press release arrived. Fast & Furious (Blu-ray & DVD) I'm not a gearhead in any respect, but I enjoyed this flick well enough. The chemistry between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker is great, but Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster don't actually have much to do. At the end of the day, they set things up for at least one more sequel. The most significant extra on the two-disc DVD and the Blu-ray is Los Bandoleros [20:23], a short that sets up the movie. Written and directed by Vin Diesel and shot on location in the Dominican Republic, it's really quite enjoyable. I liked it much more than the feature itself. There's a five-minute Gag Reel that's kinda so-so. Also included are a Feature Commentary with the director and a few featurettes, mostly about stunt sequences and driving. There's a Digital Copy on both the DVD and Blu-ray 2-disc editions. The single-disc has only the Commentary and a couple featurettes. Dragonball: Evolution (Blu-ray & DVD) Filed under "so bad it's not so-bad-it's good" by everyone I knew who had seen it, this one really crashed and burned. Devoted fans of the anime Dragonball Z (like my wife) thought a live-action adaptation was a doomed idea conceptually. Personally, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of adaptations that are so laughably bad as this one, but this one isn't even at the level of Street Fighter. I should also spoil for everyone that the word "Evolution" in the title does not have anything to do with the movie. They could have just called it Dragonball. Ashley and I suffered through this so that those reading could know that there are much better ways to spend 85 minutes this week, like sleeping. It grossed under $10 million domestically, and made its budget back (just barely) overseas; however, I hear there is talk of a sequel. Yes, I'm serious. The Blu-ray transfer looks great and shows off the goofy-looking makeup and effects at their best. Extras on the Blu-ray and DVD include 8 Deleted Scenes, a Gag Reel, a Stunt Work featurette, and two Fox Movie Channel presents pieces, one on star Justin Chatwin and the other focusing on crafting a scene in the movie. There's also a music video, almost missed that. The Blu-ray exclusively features a Digital Copy and a BD-Java Scavenger Hunt game called Goku's Quest, which is really just a click game that runs concurrent to the movie. Bart Got a Room (DVD only) I think I missed this one at the Austin Film Festival last year. Whether it was then or not, I missed it all the same. I intend to rectify this as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. Miss March (DVD & Blu-ray) I haven't seen this one and don't expect I ever will. I'm told fans of sketch group The Whitest Kids U Know were very disappointed. New to Blu

This is Spinal Tap The only time I've seen Spinal Tap look nearly this good was a beat-up print when I programmed it as part of a Midnight series in college. All the extras from MGM's previous DVD edition are carried over. New extras on This is Spinal Tap (on a separate DVD) include The Tap performing "Stonehenge" at Live Aid in 2007 and some promos for Stonehenge Decoded done as a faux interview with Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest).

12 Monkeys All of the extras on 12 Monkeys carry over from the most recent DVD edition. The transfer is splendid and it sounds clearer than ever. A River Runs Through It I haven't had a chance to glance at this one, but all reports are good. Inglorious Bastards The original inspiration for Tarantino's Basterds previously hit DVD. Here we get the same features plus a better transfer. New to Region 1

Repulsion (Blu-ray & DVD) One of Polanski's long-requested titles absent on DVD, Repulsion gets the royal treatment from Criterion. Reviews all around the web have praised this as yet another solid entry in the Collection. As always, I recommend this Criterion as a blind or long-awaited buy for collectors and cineastes alike. Amazon currently has the Blu-ray for $19.99. Imported TV Torchwood: Children of Earth I never watched this show regularly, so sue me, but I'm making my way through this miniseries and am enjoying it a lot. More on this one in the coming days. Torchwood Season 2 Life on Mars (UK) Season 1 (DVD only) The better-than-the-US-one UK original is on DVD. Worth a look. TV New Releases

Dollhouse Season 1 (Blu-ray & DVD) Another one I'm catching up on, Dollhouse gets better as the first season goes on, but that's not to say it isn't quite excellent from the beginning. Why on earth Fox has this in a death slot is beyond me. Joss Whedon masterminds and Eliza Dushku stars in something of a mystery thriller about an underground organization that provides its clients with programmable humans whose memories are erased after each "encounter." It's thought-provoking, dark, and very unique among network TV shows. The set includes two unaired episodes: original Pilot "Echo" and "Epitaph One." Audio commentary is included on select episodes, some Deleted Scenes are thrown in, and five featurettes round things out. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 (Blu-ray & DVD) Battlestar Galactica Complete Series Set (Blu-ray & DVD) This set is sure to be one of the major-selling behemoths of the year. Once I got behind on this show, I gave up and decided I'd wait for the complete series set. Little did I consider such an endeavor would involve weeks of my time. Jim Breuer: Let's Clear the Air Jim is known to many as goat boy or "that stoned-lookin dude from Half Baked," but he's a lot more than just that. He's a family man first, and not a stoner at all. He just has legendary circles under his eyes that make him look baked all the time. This is his most recent standup special, where he opens up a bit about who he really is and reflects on virtually his entire career. There's a Photo Shoot featurette and a Fireside Chat with Jim's dad included. Is it me, or does anyone else think it's weird this is the only standup special released during Funny People's opening week? Catalog TV

Early Edition Season 2 This is often said about TV series, but I can assert with some authority that there's no way in hell a network would greenlight a show about the morning paper telling the next day's news anymore. Give us 20 years for newsprint to be good and "retro," then knock yourselves out, writers. I never watched this show when it was on, but my wife said she did and loved it. The thing I like most about Early Edition is that the show works based on one gimmick and it doesn't get stale, like Quantum Leap years before. The Green Hornet VCI Entertainment released a pile of Green Hornet serials I haven't had a chance to look at yet. They're the only outfit even doing shows like this. The Donna Reed Show Season 2 Ah, 1950's female steroetypes are alive and well on DVD. The first season is now on Hulu as well. ---------------------------------- Well, this week's installment came together a good deal later than I had hoped, but this coming week's Disc Roundup is already well on its way to completion. I've been light on free streaming and VOD titles, so I'm playing a bit of catchup there. I'm also splitting that content out into its own weekly column (The VOD Report) due to volume in both the physical and streaming worlds. The Disc Roundup will still hit later in the week, with VOD coming earlier.
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Defining Funny

Now that I've seen the movie, I couldn't disagree more with the writers and sites painting Funny People as one of the primary ingredients in a bad summer for Universal. These individuals are inventing a story for themselves to perpetuate. It's all bullshit spin designed to drive their ad-views and comment sections. Be prepared for a movie that's 2.5 hours in length that resembles very little in Sandler's repetoire, and you'll be fine. The movie earns its runtime, even if the pacing slows in the last act. Various armchair directors have cited arbitrary numbers of minutes that "should have been cut," as if editing a movie were based only in numerical metrics. Those recommendations are about as precise as saying "let's drop one out of every 24 frames, sound like a plan?" It felt as if Funny People could have used a few little nips and tucks throughout, but I'd rather err on the side of length than on chopping content. While I enjoyed Funny People a great deal, I'll agree with the haters that it won't be for everyone. Part of the issue is the length. When confronted with a 146-minute runtime, a number of friends confided that they immediately filed Funny People under "wait for home video." Even two hour runtimes put people off these days. The American public has become accustomed to everything fitting in a nice, neat 100 minutes, and anything that doesn't feels "weird." The reason people will dislike Funny People is that those who love Adam Sandler for The Waterboy and Billy Madison generally can't stand Reign Over Me or Punch Drunk Love. Likewise, fans of Judd Apatow's previous movies won't immediately know what to do with this movie, which is a more mature, evolved thing than 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up. No matter what you do, some people will turn up their noses at a filet when they asked for a fatty cheeseburger. They don't want to savor anything, just give 'em something that goes in and then goes right back out. The loud-breathing kid sitting next to me two nights ago who couldn't stop saying "woooow" and "duuuude" is the manifestation of this confusion. He's one of these guys who are not interested in growing and bettering themselves, but rather, would much prefer to be wealthy and famous for no good reason and get laid all the time. He may have a wonderful personality, but there is no chance in hell this kid ever gets laid. I'll call him DudeWhoa. DudeWhoa and many like him are assuming that, since Funny People stars Sandler and is about comedians, that he's going to get a hybrid of a Dane Cook standup special and Billy Madison: The Later Years. He came expecting to repeat-quote his way through the movie, but it's impossible to do that with Funny People. Aziz Ansari's Randy is extremely authentic to the quotable-but-worthless comics this kid's generation loves. I've gritted my teeth on open mic nights I've both participated in while watching these morons perform. Ansari has undoubtedly endured this as well, because in his short presence, he embodies everything about hack comics that I want someone to choke out of them. The context added by a simple "people actually like this stuff?" from Seth Rogen's Ira made it difficult for DudeWhoa to laugh at Randy and not set off a signal that he's an idiot. I could hear it in his grunting though: he really badly wanted to lose it laughing at Randy's killer jokes! After a while, DudeWhoa seemed to go on the offensive, blurting out "laaaame" and "psh yeah, profound...whatever dude." Even after I told him (I didn't ask) "how 'bout you shut the fuck up," he kept dramatically exhaling like he was stuck at Macy's waiting for his mom to try on jeans. His final thoughts on the movie as the credits rolled was a simple "Duuuude what the fuck, I mean seriously." That was the end of the sentence. He sat there for a couple more minutes and then exited, talking loudly the whole way out the door.
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Night of the Creeps on Blu too


You heard it here first: cult favorite Night of the Creeps is coming to Blu-ray on October 20th in addition to the already-announced DVD. Features are identical to the DVD with the exception of BD-Live and Blu-ray Rewards access. Full feature list (as already got out there) is as follows: Audio Commentary with Members of the Cast Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Fred Dekker Deleted Scenes Alternate Ending - Theatrical Version Original Theatrical Trailer Trivia Track 6 Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes: Birth of the Creeps - Writer/Director Fred Dekker discusses his influences and early filmmaking experiences and how NIGHT OF THE CREEPS evolved into his debut feature film. Cast of the Creeps - Actors Jason Lively, Tom Atkins, Steve Marshall, and Actress Jill Whitlow talk about their experiences on the film, and how they have dealt with the film's enduring cult success over the past 25 years. Creating the Creeps - Make-Up FX Creators David B. Miller, Robert Kurtzman and others discuss the extensive make-up creations in the film, and how they brought the slithering sluglike "creeps" to life. Escape of the Creeps - A detailed look into the film's post-production and why the film was barely released to theatres with Writer/Director Fred Dekker, Composer Barry DeVorzon, and Producer Charles Gordon. Legend of the Creeps - Final words from the cast & crew on the film's enduring cult popularity plus interviews with the film's biggest fans. Tom Atkins: Man of Action - A detailed look at the career of Tom Atkins with testimonials from filmmakers he's worked with over the past thirty years. Footage from the June 2009 cast reunion screening at The Original Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
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12 Monkeys and Spinal Tap in HD

Both of these Blu-rays, which street tomorrow, feature vastly improved transfers, particularly on Spinal Tap. New extras on This is Spinal Tap (on a separate DVD) include The Tap performing "Stonehenge" at Live Aid in 2007 and some promos for Stonehenge Decoded done as a faux interview with Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest). The rest of the extras on Tap and all of the ones on 12 Monkeys carry over from the most recent DVD editions. Both are highly recommended, worthy upgrades. More tomorrow on these and others.
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Technical Issues

Posts from the last few days have been unexpectedly, bizarrely edited outside my control. Now that I've got things sorted out, things are back to normal. Stay tuned for some This is Spinal Tap and 12 Monkeys Blu-ray impressions from me later.
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Emo Potter IMAX3D

I saw the IMAX3D version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night, and I'm not on board with the "best in the series" reviews I saw up near its time of release. Before I get into what I thought of the movie (which I waited to see until now), I should mention a couple things about the IMAX presentation. The trailers start in 3D and the 3D portion of the movie is completely front-loaded, and probably composes a fair portion of the first half hour. Once you take the glasses off, you never put them back on again. The sequences not in 3D that you'd expect to be in 3D? Quidditch, battles, and other action-filled stuff that makes you wonder why you have space goggles sitting in your lap. I haven't read the books at all, so apologies to those whom that offends. The pace was glacial, mostly owing to only being able to cut so much from the book and the movie still serve the purpose it needed to:  bridge the gap from Order of the Phoenix and set up dramatic conflict for both halves of Potter 7. There were plenty of enjoyable bits, but it didn't knock my socks off like Harry Potter and The Magic Touch of Cuaron did. Half-Blood Prince was well-directed and pitch dark compared to the previous ones, which I liked. I kept waiting for it to stop feeling like an adaptation as much as a movie.
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Test

House That Blu Built

http://gizmodo.com/5324436/a-peek-inside-a-blu+ray-factory http://www.news.com.au/technology/gallery/0,23607,5057861-5014321-1,00.html
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Digital Roundup: Week of 7/21


Release of the Week Coraline (DVD & Blu-ray) This Blu-ray features one of the best transfers I've seen all year, as I said in my previous review. Here's some more detail on the extras: The Behind the Scenes [HD 35:53] covers most aspects of the production, with the notable exception of the score. Most of the runtime of the featurette is devoted to all the painstaking work and design that went into making the movie happen, from tiny buttons and zippers to the armies of stop-motion puppets. Likewise brief and to the point is the Voicing the Characters [HD 10:46] bit. The reason they both go by so quickly is that the bulk of both topics are part of the U-Control Picture-in-Picture featurettes that play during the movie. You can choose to have one of three things running at all times (Storyboards, Behind the Scenes, or Voice Sessions) and push a button on the remote to activate another one. The most annoying thing about this is that I can't have it "auto-play" both the BTS and Voice Sessions. Also included are some Deleted Scenes [HD 8:37]. Creepy Coraline [HD 5:03] is a quick bit with Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman talking about fears that Coraline might be "too scary" from its initial form as a bedtime story to the completion of the movie. I think it wise of Universal to consolidate things by including the Digital Copy of the movie on the same disc as a standard DVD of the feature. The DVD 2-disc edition lacks the U-Control stuff but does have the BTS featurette and Deleted Scenes in standard def. New Releases (DVD & Blu-ray)

Watchmen: Director's Cut (DVD & Blu-ray) The primary differences between the DVD and Blu-ray editions here are twofold: the Blu features the Picture-in-Picture Zack Snyder commentary and BD-Live extensions of various sorts. The Maximum Movie Mode (as the PiP is called) is ok, but didn't set me on fire. The second disc includes three featurettes. The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics [HD 28:46] is more for people unfamiliar with the source material than those who have their first printing issues vacuum-sealed and graded. Real Super Heroes: Real Vigilantes [HD 26:17] felt a bit of an odd fit, since I don't think anyone expected Watchmen to serve as some sort of call to arms for would-be real-life vigilantes. Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World [HD 16:49] has a physicist talking about just how much of the world of Watchmen is physically impossible at this point, or would have been in 1985. There's a Digital Copy on both the DVD and Blu-ray 2-disc editions, along with a $10 off coupon for the massive Ultimate Collector's set coming in December. Fans of the material who really want to own that mega-set and who can't go without buying it now may carefully consider whether to go Blu-ray or not. Either way, you get the $10 coupon, and you're forgoing the higher resolution and Maximum Movie Mode, which is ok but nothing to scream about. The Director's Cut is also available on iTunes and On Demand services nationwide. Echelon Conspiracy (Direct to Video) A lot of people may leap to the conclusion this DTV wonder was ripped off of Eagle Eye, but it actually completely pre-dates the LeBoeuf-starring "that was it?"-inducing thriller. The movie actually takes place during the Bush presidency, and comes off as some sort of liberal agitprop against warrant-less wiretapping and Big Brother-ization of the NSA. I love liberal propaganda, but this is a great example of how Republicans do "political/spy thriller" better than Dems in the same way Repubs are terrible with comedy. Shane West is some sort of brilliant "computer dude" who smirks a lot and gets caught up in some sort of "conspiracy" revolving around something called "Echelon." Ving Rhames is "FBI Dude" and Ed Burns plays "retired FBI guy who gets dragged back into everything." Martin Sheen plays the blatantly evil, Bush/Cheney-supporting NSA chief as well as the script allows. The female "lead" is little more than a waif who sleeps with West and promptly falls madly, boy-crazy in love with him for no good reason. The movie is watchable, but feels like a big-budget movie of the week. Re-Dips 300 They've finally gotten all the features in one place from the DVD, HD-DVD, and just previous Blu-ray. Anyone who's waited to buy all the sweaty men fighting in HD can finally pull the trigger. New to Blu Midnight Express I should be getting my hands on this one soon. It comes in the digibook packaging that's become all the rage with "prestige" releases. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry Okay, I'll admit it: I actually enjoyed this movie, and though no one would have believed it a year ago, it's more progressive than Bruno. The Blu-ray includes a Director's Commentary and one with him, Adam Sandler and Kevin James. Worth a rental. New to Region 1 (DVD only) Made in U.S.A Two or Three Things I Know About Her Two Godard films from Criterion that I've never seen and will catch up with as budget permits. The Empress and the Warriors More Dragon Dynasty swordman stuff from the Far East. I'd give it a second glance for rental or purchase if it were on Blu-ray. Imported TV

From the second season of The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh Seasons 1-3 2009 has been an excellent year for imported TV program(me)s from England. The I.T. Crowd, Gavin & Stacey, and Pulling are the ones that come off the top of my head, and this is another biggie. Rightly compared to surrealist Sid & Marty Krofft creations, The Mighty Boosh primarily concerns the lives of two zookeepers and a pile of misadventures that regularly include musical numbers and truly unpredictable narratives. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that I can finally catch up with the whole series, but it's a lot to get through. Each season is split across two discs and contains featurettes, Commentaries, Outtakes, and Deleted Scenes. The original Pilot is on Season 2. All three seasons are highly recommended, and no, one need not be high to enjoy the show. TV New Releases

This American Life Season 2 (DVD only) I'm a devoted fan of This American Life, one of the best shows still on the radio. Even though I had seen clips before, I didn't catch the first season of the Showtime-aired TV show. Combining two favorite things of mine (the radio show and documentary filmmaking), I had a ball with this thing. The second episode, "Two Wars," (pictured above) features an Iraqi having conversations with people, and the resulting chats are fascinating, the depth of ignorance and refreshing insight alike. Two interactions with soldiers in particular will stick with me for quite some time. It's priced to sell (less than $15) and includes the This American Life LIVE show, an extended episode, and a pair of commentaries. It's available on Netflix Watch Instantly, but of course that lacks the extras. Additionally, I don't want to connect to the internet to watch this when the mood strikes. Pushing Daisies Season 2 (Blu-ray & DVD) Cancelled before its time, but still cancelled. I'm told it looks great in HD. I'm waiting for a $$-saving two-pack of both seasons to drop in price. Monk Season 7 (DVD only) The insert on this denotes that this summer's will be the final season of Monk. I knew it had been on for a while, but seven years? Good for Tony Shalhoub! Psych Season 3 (DVD only) I haven't spent any real time with this show at all, but I enjoy the promos for Psych while I'm watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Prison Break: The Final Break I never watched this show, but apparently they shot it near where I grew up. Catalog TV

The Lucy Show Season 1 Apparently, this has been the most vocally-requested show in CBS/Paramount DVD's history, and it's full of extras. Even though Lucy & Desi were divorced, they still worked together on her new show until the beginning of its second season. Lucy plays a widowed single mother of two, who's joined on all sorts of hijinks by her forever co-star Vivian Vance, who plays Vivian, a divorced mother of one. There are piles and piles of little interviews, promos, outtakes, and specials spread across its 4 discs. It misses the chemistry of the two couple dynamic so many best know Lucille Ball for, but she manages fine on her own.

Hotel Season 1 Aaron Spelling's nighttime show from the year I was born is very indicative of its age, but I'm struck by the broad array of guest stars they had. James Brolin headlined the show, flanked by Connie Selleca as his assistant and Anne Baxter as the old lady who owns the St. Gregory Hotel, which is where most of each episode takes place. The show follows the lives, loves, and other quirks of the people who work and check-in at the hotel. Guest stars in the first season included Eva Gabor, Mel Torme, Scott Baio, Erin Moran (in a separate episode), Morgan Fairchild as a hooker, Heather Locklear, Martin Landau, Donald O'Connor, and a ton of others. I'm not certain that network TV has the balls to try a show like this one anymore, honestly. It's not my style, but it's extremely well-paced, shot, and written. Die-hard fans can finally have all 20 hours of this show's first season, including the movie of the week that served as its Pilot and first episode. I'd had more than enough after the first episode, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who miss this show for one reaosn or another, since it doesn't air syndicated anymore from what I can tell.
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Wuxia Blus

Miramax (Disney) has just announced Zhang Yimou's Hero, The Legend of Drunken Master (Drunken Master II, that is), Woo-ping Yuen's Iron Monkey, and the Takeshi Kitano Zatoichi for Blu-ray release Sept. 15th. They'll be in a box set and also available separately. SRP on the box set is $104.99, with the individual discs at $44.99 each. As always, they'll definitely retail at less than that. From my initial read, the only new feature is on Hero ("Close-Up of a Fight Scene"), with others carried over from the original DVD releases. I hope this indicates a wave of more East Asian releases on Blu-ray coming from Miramax, whether martial arts or not. I'm glad I held out for a domestic release of Hero on Blu-ray rather than import. For those who don't know, here's a link defining wuxia (yes, I know it doesn't really apply to Drunken Master).

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Considering Coraline

Universal's Blu-ray of Coraline (available tomorrow) features one of the best home video transfers of the year, hands-down. The movie is undoubtedly in the running for one of the Best Animated Feature slots among a potentially tough field (UP, Ponyo, A Christmas Carrey, 9, The Princess and the Frog). If Universal wants Coraline to be a player in that race, they should get copies of this Blu-ray to Academy voters now to lay some groundwork. As I understand it, the rules for the category allow for up to five nominees, but they've only done three since its inception.

Click image to enlarge (high resolution .PNG taken from DVD)
The Behind the Scenes featurettes are what will etch this movie into Academy voter memory for the end of the year. Both the 35-minute piece and the snippets interspersed throughout the movie using the U-Control Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature sell the amount of elbow grease that it took to make this. Most of the runtime of the featurette is devoted to all the painstaking work and design that went into making the whole movie happen, from tiny buttons and zippers to the armies of stop-motion puppets. The PiP bits focus on individual set pieces and puppets as they appear during the film. There's a separate featurette and set of PiP bits covering the voice actors' work, which are all well and good, but the real meat is in the BTS material.

Click image to enlarge (high resolution .PNG taken from DVD)
Coraline had the best theatrical 3D of any animated feature I've seen this year. Monsters vs. Aliens' 3D is negated by the vacuous movie contained in it, and UP's 3D only added some extra depth, but it wasn't designed from the beginning with 3D in mind. The Coraline Blu came with 3D glasses I approached with trepidation. Previous home video attempts at 3D have failed miserably.

Click image to enlarge (high resolution .PNG taken from DVD)
The anaglyph 3D glasses gave me a headache, but I'm assuming I needed to be sitting further back from the TV. Colleagues who've watched the whole thing all the way through report no pain or discomfort. What I did see through Coraline's pink/green glasses for fifteen minutes or so was much better than the red/blue 3D on releases like The Polar Express before it. The dimensionality was impressively similar to the polarized 3D I saw in theaters, but it's still far from perfect. If Universal can squeeze Coraline in for a second 3D run in October, I think they could make some decent scratch on it, simply because you can't yet replicate it at home. The Blu-ray also includes some Deleted Scenes and a Director's Commentary with Henry Selick. Composer Bruno Coulais joins the commentary 1 hour 35 minutes in for about five minutes total. The movie is worth owning, but note that the Picture-in-Picture stuff is only on the Blu-ray, not the DVD.
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Henson Company Blus

Blu-ray's 91% jump in sales announced recently is obviously driving the quantity of catalog releases hitting this fall. Sony has just announced Jim Henson's Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal for Blu-ray release on September 29th, including new features. Suggested Retail Price is $27.95, so expect it to cost less the week of release. I hate copying and pasting press release info, but the extras pretty much speak for themselves as described below.

"These fantastical films sparkle in high definition with an array of exclusive Blu-ray special features including commentary with fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, who collaborated with Henson on both films, behind-the-scenes featurettes and deleted scenes. On The Dark Crystal, fans can play "SkekTek's Crystal Challenge" Trivia Game and save themselves from the scientist's evil efforts to drain their living essence. Additional Blu-ray exclusives include a Picture-in-Picture "Storyboard Track" and "The Book of Thra," a feature that allows fans to learn about and collect their favorite characters and objects from the movie. "On the Labyrinth disc, fans can get the inside story behind Labyrinth in the "The Storytellers" Picture-in-Picture track which includes all-new interviews with Cheryl Henson and others from the cast and crew." "Labyrinth "The Storytellers" - Picture-in-Picture Exclusive Making of Documentary: Inside The Labyrinth Commentary with Brian Froud Journey through the Labyrinth: Kingdom of Characters Journey through the Labyrinth: "The Quest for Goblin City" Dark Crystal Commentary with Brian Froud Picture-in-Picture Storyboard Track The Book of Thra: Dark Crystal Collector SkekTek's Crystal Challenge Trivia Game Original Skeksis Language - Test Scenes with Introduction by Screenwriter David O'Dell Deleted Scenes The World of "The Dark Crystal" Reflections of the Dark Crystal: "Light on the Path of Creation" Reflections of the Dark Crystal: "Shard of Illusion"
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Most Wanted: The Pirates of Penzance (1983)


Kevin Kline as the Pirate King
Believe it or not, Video On Demand was instrumental in the downfall of the Kevin Kline-starring Pirates of Penzance. By many accounts, this screen adaptation of the Joseph Papp-directed 1980 Broadway staging was really excellent. The entire cast reprised their roles with the exception of Estelle Parsons, who was replaced by Angela Lansbury. The Broadway performance was recorded by the Broadway Theatre Archives and came out on DVD in 2002, but the feature film adaptation is still nowhere to be found.

Even boasting a cast including Kline, Linda Ronstadt (both of whom won Tony Awards in 1980), pop singer Rex Smith, and Lansbury, Penzance couldn't have made much money on only 92 screens. Multiplex owners revolted when MCA Universal decided they were going to make the movie available via the SelecTV on demand cable service day-and-date with its theatrical release. The movie was considered a massive failure, but gained a following thanks to the rise of home video and parents hungry for family-friendly titles. Despite a few lyric changes made for American comprehension and the somewhat hokey nature of the piece as a whole, it's far from an embarrassment. At the very least, a DVD release would be in order, right? It'd be a brilliant move for a forward-thinking company like Universal to make it available for VOD services as more set-top options appear. Kids and parents alike get bored with all the CG-animated garbage, and this one could prove quite popular and profitable if it could actually be rented or purchased.
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09 Best in Discs

Biggest Brouhaha Let The Right One In subtitle fracas Best Mea Culpa Universal catching a flaw in Inside Man blu-ray soundtrack and pushing back release. http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/07/half_time.php http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/02/first_2009_rund.php
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Revenge of the Toys

I felt sick opening the plastic wrapping of The Transformers: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Edition complete series set. A flood of memories from my childhood I must have repressed out of guilt overwhelmed me. I grew up watching the cartoons as a kid. Good God, the debt I plunged my parents in to for those toys. They're all still locked away in plastic sarcophagi inside a closet or storage unit somewhere in North Texas. The release of these box office-imploding first one and its sequel feel like those robot toys came to life and started taking over, spreading Reaganesque, over-simplified "us versus them" feelings back to thrilling life. From what I've read since the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, that's something the critical community at large hasn't quite articulated, whether to avoid reader backlash or due to Bay-bashing distraction. I must disclose here and now that my following observations are not any sort of critique of the movie. They couldn't be, since I have yet to see either live-action Transformers movie. I don't expect to correct that any time soon. The reason the general public is telling critics to go stuff this or that by spending their dollars on the movie is more culturally embedded than our American need for explosions. From what I am told, the movie opens with Optimus Prime helping the US Army track down the evil Decepticons who've gone into hiding, "smoking them out," if you will. The War on Terror (aka War on Drugs 2) parallels have been far from hidden since the first installment. Now it's more apparent than ever that the American public is hopelessly applying Cold War and (God help us) WWII rhetoric to a very different threat. Reality isn't giving Iraq War supporters and apologists what they want, but reviving Reagan Era franchises sure as hell does. It doesn't matter that the symbolism doesn't line up one to the other. There's a stark division between the good guys and the bad, and that's all that matters. "These evil, scary robo-bastards out there are bent on destroying our way of life and very existence. They want our Jesus and our hot women. They must be stopped at all costs, and damn it all, it's possible to get every last one!" That absolutism is what sells Fast Food America on it. The real world is coated in different shades of grey, with no way to look at an insignia and definitively identify someone as "ok" or "dangerous."
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Digital Roundup: Week of 7/14


Disc Release of the Week The State: The Complete Series One of the most long-awaited catalog TV releases has finally arrived, after delay upon delay upon delay. This one sketch comedy series launched the careers of the stars of Wet Hot American Summer, Reno 911!, Stella, and countless other original, interesting movies and TV shows since. One of the things I and others of my generation loved it for was how gleefully inappropriate the subject matter was, along the lines of other successful sketch shows like Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Kids in the Hall. Like those shows, the sketches The State put together age really well. Some sketches were so controversial that they never re-aired. One from the first episode made Budweiser really angry because it depicted binge drinkers as depressed, angry people. The new controversy surrounding The State comes from the re-scoring of some sketches for DVD. They were cheap to shoot with famous songs back then, but they were never cleared for home video, so replacement cues had to be done. The millions of dollars it would cost to use the original music will never fall on MTV's doorstep, so this is the most definitive release anyone can hope for unless the music industry goes completely copyright-free. Each Season is contained on its own disc, with Commentary on every episode done by different members of the group along with some vintage interviews and outtakes. The interviews are culled from what seems like the same session, just chopped into easily-digested bites. The outtakes don't run more than ten minutes on any given disc. The Bonus Disc is where the bulk of the extras lie. First off is the original Pilot and a giant heap of unaired sketches from the Pilot and Seasons 1-3, all of which feature full commentary tracks. There are even outtakes from the unaired stuff. Next up are a series of special appearances the cast did, including a favorite of mine from The Jon Stewart Show. They also did MTV's "Shut Up & Laugh, Panama City," "Spring Break Safety Tips," and an MTV Christmas Party video. The Promos included are miniature sketches disguised as commercials. The show has never been available legally, and the extras have never appeared anywhere. Let's all hope the cast gets residuals from DVD sales and act like good consumers and buy it, shall we? Reissue For All Mankind Criterion has remastered and re-supplemented one of my favorites of their early DVDs in both Blu-ray and DVD. The new transfer is glorious, from what I've been told. DVD Only

[REC] Spanish horror done well and remade under the title Quarantine. Haven't looked at the disc, but from all reports it looks and sounds good. Worth renting if not buying to send the purchasing message that people want to watch this title. Grey Gardens HBO's Emmy-nominated dramatization of the Maysles doc Grey Gardens, which is also now a musical called Grey Gardens. Malkovich Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich. It's supposed to be really well-done. Horsemen Skipped it by virtue of not knowing it existed. Van Wilder: Freshman Year Direct to DVD They made a sequel with Kal Penn whooping up the Indian stereotype character of Taj, which made no money, so they decided to do a prequel. Not that the original was any sort of masterpiece, but they've betrayed the nature of what does work about it: that you don't need to know the specifics of Van Wilder's seven debauched years that came before. People were interested in how Darth Vader became Darth Vader, but no one gives a shit about this "universe," so guys, stop trying to squeeze blood out of the turnip. Apparently someone from MTV is in this too and the campus ROTC organization is the bad guy. New to Blu Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Only available in a box set with Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, I've heard good things about this transfer and should be seeing it soon. More then. The Towering Inferno Let's hear it for 1970's paycheck blockbusters starring people who were working beneath their quality grade! Haven't looked at it, but would like to at some point. Catalog TV The Transformers: 25th Anniversary Matrix of Leadership Edition Complete Series Mail Order Only through Shout! Factory This set will hit major retailers, online and B&M, later in the year, and it's the best treatment the show has ever gotten on home video. Previous releases have featured flawed audio tracks with added sound effects and horrendous video transfers of various episodes. In addition to all 98 installments of The Transformers, the commercials, and PSAs, the package also includes a couple of magnets and a collectible booklet listing all the episodes with summaries. I grew up with this show. It originally premiered when I was a year old, so I saw the big rerun go of it they did later in the 80's. There are toys secreted away in some plastic tub somewhere in my parents' house that I haven't seen in years. And no, I don't have any interest in buying new toys from either the movie or the ones from the original shows that pushed my parents into more debt than I could comprehend at that point. I wasn't particularly interested in watching every episode of the show when it arrived, but I couldn't wait to look at the featurettes, of which there are nearly two hours included. That being said, I did hunt down a few episodes I had either forgotten or never saw. In particular, the one called Thief In The Night (just like a Christian propaganda film) would never get made today. I've still got to get through some of this and should have a full review up sometime this weekend. G.I. Joe Season 1.1 This is the first chunk of what's teased in an advertisement inside the Transformers set: a G.I. Joe mega-set that includes the entire series and all 78 costumes worn by Cobra Commander and Snake Eyes. Kidding about that last part. I've been watching and live-tweeting episodes from this set partly for comic relief. The more socio-political programming I see, the sicker it makes me to think most of my generation was conditioned with this stuff. This set includes the three miniseries (5 episodes each) that relaunched the toy line and the first 7 episodes of the first season proper. Extras include the "Knowing is Half the Battle" PSAs that have been unavailable since G.I. Joe: The Movie went out of print, the original 1963 Toy Fair presentation, and some commercials with the kids' faces blurred out. New Release TV

Leverage Season 1 (DVD only) This show makes me want to actually pay attention to TNT, a network that has more than a passing familiarity with Drama (according to them). Timothy Hutton plays an ex-insurance industry investigator who is hired to work alongside the people he used to try to catch: thieves of various stripes. Nate (Hutton) got out of the corporate racket when the company he worked for deemed the treatment his terminal son needed to be "experimental" and let the kid die. Beth Riesgraf (mother of Jason Lee's kid Pilot Inspektor), Aldis Hodge, and Christian Kane play his new "teammates." I'm only really familiar with Kane from his acting in Secondhand Lions and Friday Night Lights. All three are fun to watch work. Gina Bellman, a favorite of mine from UK sitcom Coupling, plays a grifter who's a better actress off-stage than on. The show gets everything up to speed in lightning fashion in the first episode, and uses a great comedy/action dynamic overall. There is Episodic Commentary on the whole 13-episode season from the three Executive Producers and sometime writers and directors, who include Dean Devlin. Deleted Scenes are on each disc for episodes they pertain to, and Disc 4 has four Behind-the-Scenes featurettes and a short done for iF Magazine where Beth Riesgraf plays a crazed version of herself. Mad Men Season 2 (DVD & Blu-ray) The reviews for this show are so over the moon, I feel like the uncool kid at school for not having seen more than a few minutes of the first episode. I'll catch up, I promise. BBC Earth: Wild Pacific Capitalizing on the hours and hours of footage compiled by the BBC for their Planet Earth series, they've done a look at the Pacific Ocean that clocks in just seven minutes shy of 6 hours. I'll have something more in-depth on this once I have a chance to give it a look. On Demand

New Orleans Mon Amour Watchable on FilmBuff VOD channel on some cable providers. I missed Michael Almereyda's New Orleans Mon Amour at SXSW when it played there. I'll have some more on this one next week. Fresh from the Cinema The Edge of Love The Haunting in Connecticut I had no time for either of these movies. Apologies if that bothers anyone.
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Missed Fracture


Like most of America, I missed Fracture in theaters. It's really a very capable courtroom/procedural howdunnit. It likely inspired an "I'll catch it on cable" from those who saw the trailer. Most people are accustomed to things procedurals like Fracture on TV, not as much in the cinema. It came out on DVD & Blu-ray back in the middle of June, and I'm only just catching up with it. I'm a sucker for courtroom thrillers, which I blame on all the time I spent doing Speech & Debate in school. Anthony Hopkins plays Ted Crawford, a genius mechanical engineer whose wife (Embeth Davidtz) unapologetically cheats on him. He shoots her, and does a near-perfect job of covering it up. Ryan Gosling plays hotshot Assistant District Attorney Willy Beachum, who has rarely lost a case. Willy is ready to jump ship from public service to corporate law when he's stuck prosecuting the Crawford case. No matter how hard he tries, Willy is trumped by Crawford at every turn. In stock component terms, this movie is very much The Lawyer Gets a Soul combined with The Madman Genius Commits a Crime.

Hopkins' niche talent for playing sinister geniuses may make this movie look like a retread. No, it's nothing like Silence of the Lambs, but it is on the same order as Instinct: very well-crafted and well-acted. David Strathairn plays Gosling's boss, Rosamund Pike his boss-to-be/lover Nikki, and Bob Gunton shows up as Pike's father, a judge. Cliff Curtis does solid work in this as he did in Crossing Over. There's not as much for him to do here, but he's still good. I wish more people saw the movies he's in.

The combination of Hopkins and Gosling was already enough to get me to put it in my "someday" stack. The thing that really compelled me to look at the disc was the pair of Test Screening Alternate Endings at around eleven minutes each. They're very closesly-related versions of one another, with neither woking as well as the final one. There is no Commentary present nor a Behind-the-Scenes featurette to reveal how the cut of the movie evolved. The only clues are in those vastly inferior previous endings and the collection of Alternate and Deleted Scenes. A couple scenes are alternate versions of an inferred love scene from the final version are included, which don't work as well as what was finally used. The extended/alternate introduction to Willy is likewise not great. The scene with Willy carrying Nikki downstairs characterizes her as more of a little girl in a lawyer's body than Pike's performance otherwise indicates. Had it been left in, Nikki would have just been some girl from The Hills who slept her way through law school. Director Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear) is great with courtroom drama material, and this is no exception. I think it's really almost impossible to rewrite the rules of the genre without blending it (courtroom horror or stop-motion animation, anyone?). The movie is worth a watch, whether renting/Netflixing or purchasing.

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Blu Without Borders

Now that more people are jumping on the Blu-ray bandwagon, the question of how to play import discs has become a hot topic. With catalog titles and even select new releases popping up in Europe before the US, serious enthusiasts want to be able to stick a disc from anywhere in and just play.

Orange=A, Green=B, Purple=C. Image from Wikipedia.
A ton of discs, regardless of country, aren't locked by region in the first place. The problem is, it seems like all the ones collectors and cineastes want most from Region B are. Conversely, I don't think I've yet seen a single Blu-ray with region encoding from China or Hong Kong. I actually considered buying some HK discs like Red Cliff (Parts I & II) until I saw they were priced at nearly $40 each and found out Magnet/Magnolia would be releasing them domestically after the mashup/shavedown release they'll be putting in theaters later this year. I've seen both thanks to a friend who bought them, so it's not like I'm dying to see them. It's nice to know I have the option with Asian releases. Some of the European Blu-rays confirmed to be locked include the German Fight Club, French The Crow and Brotherhood of the Wolf, and the UK pressing of The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Most prominent to H-E is that Blu-ray.com's reviewer has confirmed that the recently-released UK Blu-ray of Che is in fact Region B-locked. I'm not the only one who's itching for a Region A pressing of Che. So how does one get around this roadblock? Software unlocks are a no-go, since the necessary firmware updates for Blu-ray players kill these or make the player completely inoperable afterward. DVD Beaver's Gary Tooze highly touts the hardware-modified Momitsu BDP-899 from HKFlix, including positive comments from users. There's a pretty thorough rundown in a post on the VideoHelp forums, but what started me out concerned was that the first guy on the above-linked page didn't test Blu-ray, just DVD. User posts on the DVD Talk forums suggest that as mostly-flawless as the Momitsu player is, it still isn't perfect. Multiple people cite issues with discs getting stuck in the drive. The workaround fix involves unplugging the player and plugging it back in, but that doesn't always work. So yes, one could get this $370 modified player, but you could also just buy a Region B player for over a hundred bucks less (~$250). I don't think it's unreasonable to be paranoid that firmware updates might still brick the thing, or worry that it could have issues with newer discs and features. I'm all for importing and finding ways around region exclusivity, but that's too big a gamble for my budget. If I could account for any Region C-only discs, the idea of the Momitsu would be more appealing, even in the face of varied reports of disc-trapping and freezes. My verdict on Region-locked import Blu-rays: either a) buy a Region B player or b) wait for prices to drop and reliability to be rock-solid on the region-free front.
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