Electric Shadow

HD Guide: Now & Then 1 (Magnolia/Boogie)

I'll be running these Now & Then pieces as part of the HD Guide as I have the opportunity to show how disc packaging is both evolving and stepping backward in other respects when it comes to design.

The most notable design difference between the original DVD slipcase editions of Magnolia and Boogie Nights and this Tuesday's (19 Jan 2010) Blu-rays is artistry. The Blus include all of the same extras, but lack the old-school, "LP feel" of the DVDs. I don't miss the bulk, but the "wow" factor of before has been deleted. I can definitely support the HD upgrade in sound and video, however (both are glorious and color-rich, I might add).

The primary culprit is the nothing-special standard Blu-ray plastic cases.


The original Platinum Series case that was a major standout in its day. PT Anderson had a direct hand in designing these just as David Fincher did on the Seven one that reproduced the killer's journals.

The one missing feature that didn't make the shift to Blu-ray on Magnolia is the Gag Reel that was hidden in the color bars option.


The essay written out on the inner flaps of Boogie Nights' deluxe set is nowhere to be found on the Blu-ray. Otherwise, all of the on-disc features remain, not including easter eggs. I like having all the extras on one disc and in a smaller, thinner package, but I have to admit that I miss the printed material. At least put it on the disc in digital form, y'know? This is a trend seen also evident on the Clerks Blu-ray, which lacks the excellent booklet included with the Clerks X set.



The HD Guide is an ongoing series focusing on the evolving world of HD in the home: getting started, understanding the lingo, and appreciating the best (and worst) discs that are out there.
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Tapped Out

A friend and coworker died night before last, which derailed me yesterday and today to say the least. Posting will be sporadic through the weekend but should pick back up as usual on Monday. I had anticipated having the Discs of 2009 series completed this week in addition to a small pile of other things, but it just isn't in the cards.
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Criterion in Spring

April brings Criterion Blu-ray & DVD editions of Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie, the director's cut of Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil, and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. A DVD-only edition of Sidney Lumet's The Fugitive Kind (an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending) will include a new video interview with Lumet and Three Plays by Tennessee Williams, an hour-long set of three one-acts that Lumet directed in 1958.

Vivre sa vie includes historian commentary, a vintage interview with Anna Karina, a piece on the source material (a book called La prostitution), a vintage TV expose on prostitution, and an interview with a film scholar, among other things. Summer Hours has a nice complement of features for such a critically-acclaimed, but definitively arthouse-taste film. Ride with the Devil includes the aforementioned director's longer cut, dual commentaries, and a video interview with the under-appreciated Jeffrey Wright. I'm most eager to see the transfer on Vivre sa vie after their recent work on the Wages of Fear disc. Black & white from a similar era and source quality sounds sublime to me. I really wish that Fugitive Kind were also hitting Blu, but it will eventually as DVD fades. I've never watched Ride, but have been a longtime supporter of Ang Lee's work, especially when the final cut is his cut. My first viewing of Summer Hours will be on my TV, and I sincerely regret having missed it this year. There's no word of an April set from Eclipse (I'll update if that changes). Janus/Criterion's fifth Essential Art House offering (the movie & no extras) includes Brief Encounter, 8 1/2, Ozu's Floating Weeds, Jules and Jim, Pontecorvo's Kapo, and Loves of a Blonde.
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Disc Wanted: Le Magnifique (1973)

Jean-Paul Belmondo has been on my mind of late. I just recently purchased Criterion's Pierrot Le Fou Blu-ray, and I re-watched Breathless just the other day for the hell of it. Over a month ago, I saw a gorgeous 35mm print of Le Magnifique, a spy spoof that makes negates the need for those that came after. It was originally shown as a double-bill with Doc Savage: Man of Bronze. The Belmondo spy movie was consistently the much more popular of the two. Belmondo plays Bob St. Clair, man' man and spy's spy. He's ultra-chauvanistic and can't be killed. World governments call him in when they have a crisis as their one-man "fixer". (or Sinclair, depending on how you listen to it) Belmondo goes through copious cartons of cigarettes in Le Magnifique as he does in Breathless and Pierrot. Here though, they make a point of showing his signature habit gives him serious health problems. The man can't run to the end of a street without nearly having a heart attack. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070354/ http://www.amazon.com/Magnifique-René-Barrera/dp/B00005TNF5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262912113&sr=8-1 I was and am a fan of the pulp novels of Doc Savage - Kenneth Robeson's 200-novel odyssey. I was and am a fan of the films of George Pal - having been awed and amazed by The Time Machine (1960), War of the Worlds (1953) and When Worlds Collide (1950) on TV in the 1970s. So when Doc Savage - The Man of Bronze was released, produced by Pal, I had to see it! (I'm talking London, in 1975.) Astutely tuned in to the tongue-in-cheek nature of this whiter-than-white hero movie, the British distributor paired the film with this French spoof of James Bond movies. I'd seen the star, Jean-Paul Belmondo in thrillers on TV (like The Burglars) and knew that he was an actor who performed many of his own stunts, from library books on the history of stuntwork. It was because of Belmondo's range as a both a dramatic actor and a comedian, a glamorous star and a stuntman, that made him huge in France and even some of his movies were even dubbed for international release. Le Magnifique, ambitiously retitled How To Destroy the Reputation of the World's Greatest Secret Agent, is a real treat - there's nothing else like it. Besides spoofing the smugness of the Bond image (the guy's so vain he carries a comb in his swimsuit), the gadgets, the casual violence, the way he woos women... it's also one of those films that shows the fictional creation at the mercy of its author - as we cut from super-smooth Bob Saint-Clair enjoying the sun (and Jacqueline Bisset), to the struggling writer Francois in his tiny Paris apartment, trapped only by pouring rain. His alter-ego can shoot four men out of a tree with a single bullet, while he can't even get his electricity fixed. But as a hapless author, at least he can write the people he hates into his story, and then despatch them however he likes. Like Billy Liar (1963), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Tarsem Singh's The Fall (2006), we watch the fantasist and the fantasy. The characters' stories start to run a close parallel as we discover that the heroine of his latest book is also his upstairs neighbour. But will she be as impressed with a middle-aged hack in a cardigan... The story is a delight, the many scenes of Bond spoofs are spectacular, funny and astonishingly bloody, as director Philippe de Broca also targets Sam Peckinpah's exaggerated slow-motion death scenes. These were obviously heavily cut in the cinema, to suit a children's double-bill, but the DVD has everything intact, including a head shot that pre-dates Scanners... The excessively bloody take on the Odessa Steps scene from Battleship Potemkin has to be seen to be believed... The comedy sub-plot of the author vs his boss is quite broad, as is the depiction of 'pulp novels versus literature' subplot, from a time when even paperbacks were frowned upon. But it's very different from the movie spoofs which happily cashed in with their version of Bond (like the Derek Flint and Matt Helm films) rather than this very savage lampoon on spies and movie violence. There's even a gag that reappeared in Top Secret (1984), of someone crushed in a car into a metal cube, but still alive. Top Secret takes it further (a spoof spoofing a spoof?) but Le Magnifique has a car-crusher built into the back of a lorry! Impressive, if such a vehicle really existed. Lobby card image from the Cinedelica website Belmondo is superb, looking the part of a super-sexy super-spy, as well as the author struggling with his deadlines and smoker's cough. I'd love to see more of his thrillers and comedies - of course, he's still acting today. As is Jacqueline Bisset, who was soon to be mega-famous as eye candy in danger in The Deep. She'd already been in the notable Airport, Truffaut's Day For Night and Bullitt. An international cast in a French/Italian co-production ineviatbly means that there's no version of this film where one of the major characters isn't dubbed! Much like the spaghetti westerns. Belmondo talks French, Bisset English and Vittorio Caprioli (as his bullying boss) is Italian. The French DVD, from Studio Canal, has a choice of English or French audio, and though I'm not a fan of dubbing, the English dub is still very funny, Bisset's voice is her own, and the actor voicing Belmondo is a treat. Inevitably, Doc Savage couldn't really match the antics of Bob Saint-Clair, but it was certainly a top-value double-bill. I'd still like to see the film in French, but only the out-of-print American DVD from Image Entertainment, had subtitles for the French audio version. If you just want the English dub, all of the current European DVD releases appear to include it. Respect also for Claude Bolling's witty soundtrack, which was released on CD in Italy a few years ago. For a taster, the French trailer is currently on YouTube.
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The Leno and the Conan Should Be Friends

(While I was drafting this piece, I noticed that Jeff posted something with similar sentiments, but I'm going further and pitching the "win" situation for both The Chin and The Hair.) I find the "Team Conan" or "I'm With Coco" or whatever movement patently absurd...not in spirit mind you, but in productive potential. It sprang out of nowhere after seven months of many not paying attention to The Tonight Show even though these people love Conan and what he represents. If you consider Jay Leno the bad guy because a) you don't find him entertaining, b) because he's trying to salvage a job out of self-preservation, or c) you love Conan O'Brien...you're missing the point.

Frankly, I prefer Conan's style and subtance better by far, but Jay isn't the bad guy because he's trying to hang on to his job or, for that matter, because you may not like him. This isn't a populist revolution being lead by El Conan. This is a network turning its talent on one another to avoid being classified as the bad guy (which they are in this case). It's "Conan versus Jay" because that what NBC wants everyone to think that it is. It's "just business, you understand" as usual, where "the needs of the company" are the fall-back for why NBC has botched what they've botched. The calculated decision at the top is that either one of these guys, left to their own devices when outright fired, could destroy them and raise the stock of another network. If they cut Jay loose, he takes the longest track record in late night, a self-righteous audience, and a ratings bleed with him. If they snip Conan, he takes $60 million, a self-righteous audience, and a ratings bleed with him. The situation is a net negative no matter what happens, so why not set the talent and their followings against one another to offset whatever ratings the "bad guy" who leaves takes with him? Neither one of them was going to be happy with The Jay Leno Half-Hour Comedy Hour and The Midnight Show with Conan O'Brien. That solution was a push tactic on NBC's part. If you put the burden of decision on the talent with their jobs and reputations on the line, they'll inevitably get petty. That started to happen last night as both hosts diverted their bull's eyes more directly on one another instead of NBC. Jeff Zucker couldn't possibly hope for more than Conan and Jay damaging their own brands enough that whichever one leaves or stays doesn't matter. The trump card for O'Brien and Leno, both wronged by NBC, is to both dump NBC and go somewhere else. There should be a big musical number starring them and their teams uploaded to Funny Or Die or YouTube. It should spoof "The Farmer and The Cowman Should Be Friends" from the Fox-owned Oklahoma! and be the ultimate "Fuck you!" to NBC, who's screwed them both. Conan would announce he's going to Fox and Jay that he's going to ABC, who would move Nightline for him. It's known that there is or has been interest for them respectively at both networks. NBC needs Leno much more than he needs them, and I don't know that he's as on-board with being the destruction of the brand as Jimmy Kimmel alleged two nights ago. That would leave NBC with the option of rebuilding The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon or Carson Daly and a massive talent boycott. That's the only possible win-win for both "rivals" who could be stronger allies. Conan's entire staff uprooted and moved coasts. Jay got pushed out of late night entirely and can't be happy that NBC's allowed him to be pitched as the perceived bad guy. They've both been used and abused, and they need to get on the same page. Together, they could re-shape late night TV on their terms, not those of NBC.
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Discs of 2009: Best DVD Transfers

I'm excluding all titles that had an equivalent Blu-ray edition in 2009, but that still leaves a heaping helping of outstanding DVD-only transfers from last year. I couldn't allow myself to invest in some of these that are ripe for Blu-grading in the next year or the one after. My main request, common amongst all of these releases, is "when can I have this in 1080p on Blu-ray?" Black & White

Best of the Best The Human Condition: The Criterion Collection I covered this release in no fewer than seven different articles on Arthouse Cowboy (linked chronologically, with the core review under "fewer"). It's one of the very best overall releases of the year and deserves credit as one of the most remarkable black & white DVD transfers upon which I've laid my eyes. "Adapted from an epic 6-volume novel over 3 films, Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition is considered one of the great achievements in Japanese film history. Criterion has successfully restored the entire picture with astounding clarity."

Best of the Best Lonely Are the Brave This is one of my very favorite films. It's one that I could easily watch on repeat for a day, and I'm glad it's actually on DVD. I reviewed it here. Best of the Best The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance & El Dorado These titles, along with all of Paramount's Centennial Collection discs, have undergone complete remastering. I only wish I could just buy 'em on Blu-ray. The following, from my review of Liberty Valance, is also true of El Dorado. Comparison shots from old version to new can be found in the linked Valance piece. "The most striking thing about Paramount's new Centennial Collection DVD of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a dramatic improvement in image clarity and contrast. By comparison, the original transfer is an under-lit, badly-done scan."

Best of the Best Man Hunt It's a crime that I can't loan a Blu-ray of this out to friends. This restored Fritz Lang paranoia thriller is still a really solid piece of work.

Best of the Best The Exiles From my review, which includes more screencaps: "MacKenzie started hanging out with a group of Native Americans after college. They were a mix of people born on and off the reservation. MacKenzie interviewed his friends and then employed them as actors in something of a dramatized re-enactment of their real lives with the interviews as voice-over. This blurring of documentary and narrative is fascinating for a few reasons beyond the stunning, inky nighttime photography of the Bunker Hill district of L.A." Best of the Best Gaumont Treasures One of the most important releases when it comes to preservation of film history also manages surprisingly excellent picture quality for some of the oldest films in existence. It received Release of the Week honors back in September and is unquestionably one of the Best Releases of 2009. Beau Geste This week saw the Manufacture-On-Demand release of Universal's The Last Remake of Beau Geste, and I can only hope that the transfer on it is as good as what's found here. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Of Time and the City, Kino's Murnau Collection, That Hamilton Woman Color

Best of the Best Trail of the Lonesome Pine & Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves From my screencap-centric post on the Universal Backlot titles: "The few seconds of this pan constitute one of the best examples of how great of a transfer Universal got out of this 73-year-old film."

Best of the Best The GoodTimesKid This is an excellent transfer done for a non-mass-audience title shot on stolen film stock. It was a Disc of the Week back in August. Best of the Best Planes, Trains, and Automobiles I am assuming the Blu-ray on this one will wait until next holiday season so that they can really make sure one goes home with every last person who walks into a store during that dread time of year (for shopping). Catlow A mostly-forgotten Yul Brynner western that features Leonard Nimoy in a nude knife fight, this one looks fantastic. I reviewed it last May. Ashes of Time Redux I would love to see Sony release a Blu-ray that offers seamless branching of both versions of this movie on the same disc. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Z, The Odd Couple, To Catch a Thief, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Chinatown I've heard Criterion's Z is marvelous. Paramount put the other "Centennial" titles Television Animation

X-Men Volumes 1-4 This was probably the best-produced, acted, and scripted kids' cartoon that I saw growing up. It helped single-handedly revive the X-Men brand with kids. It looked good on original airing, but these DVDs make it look better and brighter than I remember it. Max Fleischer's Superman (1941-42) This is the greatest animated version of the Man of Steel to date. Television

Paul Newman at the beginning of Bang the Drum Slowly, Jack Palance insisting he "coulda been the heavyweight champion of the world!" in Requiem for a Heavyweight, Mickey Rooney searing in intensity in The Comedian, and Piper Laurie/Cliff Robertson getting into a row in Days of Wine and Roses
Best of the Best The Golden Age of Television From my review: "The video transfers of the programs are the best ones available of the kinescopes made for re-airing the program in other timezones. The quick and dirty explanation for what a kinescope is to the uninitiated is that it's like setting up a camcorder to record whatever is playing on your TV. In this case, they had a film camera set up to record the live feed monitor in the studio. The frame warps at the edges as well as at random points in the middle of the frame. These were never recorded for archival purposes (videotape wasn't invented until 1957), so the quality is not what cineastes are accustomed to from Criterion. I'm just glad that the needs of airing at different times in different places accidentally preserved them at all." Best of the Best One Step Beyond Season 1 A title finally rescued from public domain hell: "There are super-cheap, super-shite public domain versions of this show on DVD that are low-quality, incomplete, and out of order. CBS has properly remastered and restored this paranormal TV fiction classic five decades after it originally aired. Just ten months before The Twilight Zone hit, host & director John Newland's show began its first year on the air. Different than Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond dealt specifically with paranormal cases substantiated to have actually happened. Like Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, and the Alfred Hitchcock Hour/Presents, One Step Beyond is still thrilling to watch thanks to a solid creative team in front of and behind the camera."

Best of the Best Disney's Zorro Seasons 1 & 2 From my review back in November: I've seen both the previous discs and these new ones, and the production quality on the new sets is definitely vastly improved, but there looks like there's a bit of an uptick in bitrate on the new ones too. Take that for what you will. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 4 I love this program but haven't touched these discs yet. Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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Discs of 2009: Best Blu-ray Transfers (TV)

TV in HD is a tricky thing, as I said in my HD Guide entry (from earlier today) on the matter. The good news is that TV shows on Blu-ray offers wonderfully consistent and high quality results, and this year has seen a nice spread of new and catalog titles hit. Catalog

Best of the Best Star Trek: The Original Series Seasons 1-3 I expect that this will be the standard-bearer for catalog TV remasters for quite some time. From my review of Season 1: "A few years ago, they completely restored the original series episodes in the process of adding new effects shots and audio for HDTV airing. Here they have included both versions, accessible via seamless branching. George Lucas looks like more of a selfish idiot than ever for being opposed to doing the same thing to his original Star Wars trilogy." Best of the Best Rome: The Complete Series From my HD Guide entry on HBO Blu-rays: "The biggest deal, for me, was finally seeing my favorite modern (22 hour) Roman epic in HD for the first time. In the interest of not getting myself into trouble, I set a strict limit of 20 minutes to taste-test it. I first popped in the DVD (for a then/now comparison) and gave it a good 15 minutes. The moment I got really comfortable, I jumped right up. In went the Blu-ray. About an hour later, I realized I was running hopelessly late for the day." The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: The Prisoner, Band of Brothers I've never seen McGoohan's Prisoner, and I finally feel compelled to, based primarily on the recommendations of this set by friends who were severely disappointed by previous transfers. New Release

Best of the Best Nature's Most Amazing Events, Yellowstone: Battle for Life The BBC's Earth series is the gold standard thus far for titles people can pull off the shelf and be wowed by. From my review of Yellowstone: "The 1080i video track and DTS-HD Master Audio track will greatly exceed the quality of presentation available on a HD cable provider. No, you didn't read that wrong, this is a 1080i transfer rather than 1080p (probably in the interest of squeezing it onto one disc). Trust me, it still looks great." Best of the Best John Adams, Generation Kill From my HD Guide entry on HBO Blu: "The new generation of shows, like John Adams, Generation Kill and True Blood, have been shot with HD presentation in mind from the get-go. HBO is actually making the "BonusView" (pop-up trivia) option on these titles moderately interesting (glad someone is!)." Best of the Best The National Parks: America's Best Idea The transfer from Ken Burns' preferred source (16mm) looks starkly different than the 4K HD digital jobs from BBC Earth. Preference in film stock and what one is used to will be Burns' biggest enemy going forward. As a 16mm transfer, this series looks amazing (though dark in places by design). The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Mad Men Season 2, Pushing Daisies Season 2, Fringe Season 1 I would have loved to get a look at any of these, but I just didn't. Everyone I know who's bought them thinks they look fan-tastic, Fringe especially. Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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HD Guide: TV in HD

Your local cable provider more than likely offers some selection of HD channels. If you use an access box instead of just plugging in direct from the wall, the key is to make sure you already have the HD-ready version of the cable box. Of course, you'll also need an HDMI cable. The thing that none of these providers want to own up to is the fact that most (if not all) of their content isn't true 1080p HD. 1080i (interlaced) is about as good as it gets, and even that isn't very likely. Watching these shows on Blu-ray gives you better picture quality than their original airing. My favorite offender for this is Hallmark Movie Channel HD. Most of their stuff looks more like a VHS-quality transfer that drops every third frame of video. The Best Networks The major broadcast networks do a pretty good job all-around these days, aside from the non-1080p picture. The really shaky ground is under the cable nets. Thankfully, some of them make you glad you have your upgraded monitor. HBO, Animal Planet, and TLC program the most consistent high-quality video programs and have made an effort to get older non-HD programs up to snuff. Building a TV Blu Library Planet Earth is the easiest recommendation to make to anyone who's recently plunked down for an HD system. It's hands-down the hardest set to hate that's currently out there. HBO series (Rome, Band of Brothers, and Generation Kill among others) are another safe bet, as are CBS/Paramount's marvelous Star Trek: The Original Series sets. The quality you'll see is far beyond what you saw broadcast originally or now. Provided BD-Live finds its way to a faster-loading future, the idea of downloadable featurettes and features could add a fair amount of incentive to buying these sets, but we'll have to see. Fans of Series Rejoice ABC at the least has enabled a Season View option on LOST and other shows that allows the user to auto-play every episode on a disc and pick up at the exact moment they left off (the player remembers for you). I can't tell you how many shows I picked up on DVD that I went a couple of weeks without watching and completely forgot which episode I left off on and ditched. More data area also theoretically means more episodes on each disc, so there'll be less disc-swapping. The jump to HD also means that DVD sets of existing shows will see their prices drop through the floor as Blu-ray versions become available. The HD Guide is an ongoing series focusing on the evolving world of HD in the home: getting started, understanding the lingo, and appreciating the best (and worst) discs that are out there.
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Disc Roundup (Movies & TV) 12 Jan 2010


8 1/2 screen capture from DVD Beaver's review
Catalog Blu-ray Upgrade of the Week 8 1/2: The Criterion Collection Top New Releases of the Week The Hurt Locker (Blu-ray & DVD) Review The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray & DVD) Review Moon (Blu-ray & DVD) Catalog New to Blu-ray Cliffhanger Last Action Hero Billy Jack Direct to DVD Wrong Turn at Tahoe New Release (Blu-ray & DVD) In the Loop Fame Halloween 2 Post Grad I Can Do Bad All By Myself The Burning Plain New Release (DVD only) Big Fan Departures Passing Strange Amreeka By the People: The Election of Barack Obama The Reluctant Saint Downloading Nancy Goliath Onimasa The Drummer Frontrunner a l'aventure Like Stars on Earth Universal Vault Series (Amazon.com-Exclusive DVD Manufactured On-Demand) 40 Pounds of Trouble A Bronx Tale A Good Man in Africa The Black Shield of Falworth Blue Collar The Brass Bottle The Chalk Garden Death Takes a Holiday Dragnet (1954) Gambit Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain The House of the Seven Gables The Incredible Shrinking Woman Kitten with a Whip The Last Remake of Beau Geste The List of Adrian Messenger The Perfect Furlough Pure Luck Resurrection Ruggles of Red Gap Shout Shoot Out (1971) Spawn of the North Stick Tell Them Willie Boy is Here

TV New Release of the Week The Simpsons Season 20 (Blu-ray & DVD) TV New Release (DVD only) BBC Robin Hood Season 3 Top Gear Season 11 Top Gear Season 12 Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut a Bitch Jon & Kate Plus Eight Season 5 Make It or Break It Season 1 Volume 1 10 Things I Hate About You Season 1 Volume 1 TV Catalog (DVD only) ER Season 12 Becker Season 3 Transformers Season 2 Volume 2 Disc Roundup is posted each week and updated as reviews are posted on individual titles. Unless otherwise noted in the linked reviews, assume that screener copies of titles reviewed were provided by the respective studio.
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Discs of 2009: Best Blu-ray Transfers (Black & White)


Best of the Best The Seventh Seal: The Criterion Collection I've never seen a print of Bergman's best-known work, and have since ever subsisted on the original Criterion DVD. The thick, inky blacks and stark whites have never been as splendid as presented here. Best of the Best Last Year at Marienbad: The Criterion Collection When I reviewed this back in July, I was sent the DVD, which looked just fine. I've since gone on and purchased the Blu-ray on my own and am satisfied putting it in the same field as the other Criterion successes on this list. Best of the Best Wages of Fear: The Criterion Collection This is lovely and deserving of the not-so-grainy acclaim given to it by Jeff last year. Best of the Best The 400 Blows: The Criterion Collection I would love to see the rest of the "Antoine Doinel" films released at this quality. I long-considered picking up that box set, and would gladly get them one at a time if they need to spread them out. Best of the Best The Third Man: The Criterion Collection At my own peril, considering my editor's unending hatred for this transfer, this is one of the creme de la creme of vintage B&W masters. The wide gap between Jeff's take on it and many other, myself included, is puzzling to me. As I said in the Blu Controversies and Fiascos post: "I can't defend what Jeff saw on his display, but I can disagree as to who is to blame for his experience and that of others. I'm not alone in defending Third Man, but I am trying to come at it from a more reasonable stance than those treating him like an unknowledgeable jerk (which he's absolutely not). None of us are the bad guy. As usual, the consumer is the one getting screwed over." "The enemy is not one side or the other, but HDTV and blu player manufacturers who didn't standardize any sort of auto-equalizer for different types of content. There are newer sets that do this auto-calibration, like the HG10 series, but the feature should be industry-wide. You really have to be an obsessive tinkerer with some sort of formalized training in HD monitor calibration to get good separate presets for everything from B&W to Technicolor to modern content. As we see more B&W titles hit Blu-ray, we'll inevitably continue to have a lot to argue about in this regard." Best of the Best The General From a brief review I posted last year: "It's definitely the best home version of the movie I've watched. The depth of detail throughout the portions I've watched are up there with WB's new Wizard of Oz 8K transfer, aside from some scratches and dirt. The additional visual data make the picture appear close to three dimensions deep." Gojira From a Disc Roundup back in September: "After a great deal of comparison watching, the new Blu-ray offers a great deal more clarity than what is to be assumed going from DVD to Blu-ray. The image is not particularly grainy, not so much due to DNR, but the fact that the existing elements are far from perfect. Some may instinctively leap to complain about picture quality as they did on the DVD, but this is about as good (if not better) than release prints came out thanks to scratches and dirt that were on the original soft-emulsion negative before and after adding optical effects. Cutting rooms were notoriously difficult to keep clean, and when you mix the wear and tear adding "analog" effects can add, this is really what the best restoration prints of Gojira look like." The Diary of Anne Frank This is the cleanest and most crisp (but grainy) transfer of a classic movie that birthed the Holocaust Oscar Movie genre. It's a Wonderful Life From my review: "...includes the colorized version on a separate Blu-ray disc, so I thankfully never have to touch it. The original trailer is included in the best shape possible, and as has often been the case on catalog titles, it's a great comparative piece to how lovely and sumptuous with detail the Blu-ray picture is. It, like Gump, includes a $10 rebate for owners of previous DVD editions. This is a wise move for studios that want people to switch to Blu-ray." Clerks From my review of the Kevin Smith Collection set: "The transfer is actually an improvement over the DVD, so the joke about "how is Clerks going to look better in 1080p?" is misguided to say the least. The previous discs suffer from lack of contrast that the Blu-ray has in spades. The most important thing is to make sure your monitor is calibrated for black & white picture with lots (and lots) of grain." The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Raging Bull, Repulsion, Wings of Desire, A Christmas Carol Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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Bobcat le Auteur

Before I get into the extras on the World's Greatest Dad DVD, here's a bit from I'm re-running from my original review: "Robin Williams and Daryl Sabara are paired magnificently here, with Sabara surprising me the most with his portrayal of the world's worst kid. Kyle (Sabara) is the living embodiment of the mallrat mutants that make people not want to leave the house anymore. Everything is "gay" and "stupid" to him, and he has no concerns but his personal obsessions."

The brilliant Daryl Sabara, playing much more immature and toxic than he is in real life. It takes a brain to play a sleaze well...
"Lance (Williams) is stuck with this cromagnon in a boy's body for his son, a beautiful girlfriend who doesn't want their relationship to be public, and diminishing attendance in his Poetry class. Lance is an aspiring writer who's never gotten noticed or published in a big way, and he's trapped on all sides until something terrible happens, offering him an escape at a cost. This inciting incident doesn't happen until a ways into the movie. Perhaps it's been spoiled for you already, perhaps not. Either way, I refuse to specifically spoil the tragedy that befalls Kyle's dad. It's hilarious for only an instant, quickly turning heartbreaking and soulful." "That is the very moment many will discover that Bobcat Goldthwait is a truly gifted director and storyteller. With no qualifications, I feel that after this and Stay (retitled Sleeping Dogs Lie), he's one of the most talented auteurs we have discovered in the first years of this century. I'm convinced that had he let any studio or backer muscle him around, the movie would not be so wholly satisfying. The fact he stood his ground is a rarity in an industry of complacency and kiss-asses." The DVD & Blu-ray features a few deleted scenes (but more notably outtakes) among other things. The best piece in there is the behind-the-scenes featurette that runs about 20 minutes. The catch some nice moments from the final day of shooting in particular. The commentary with writer/director Goldthwait is really excellent. He mentions this, but you can tell that he listens to a lot of commentary tracks himself. A music video and an HDNet featurette round things out.
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Discs of 2009: Best Blu Transfers (Vintage Catalog)

For the purpose of this list and for future reference, vintage titles are mathematically "older than 30 years". The titles listed here all came out pre-1980 and are in color. The next entry will cover Black & White transfers from any era. I've broken the below titles into 1960-1980 and Pre-1960 for comparison's sake. 1960-1980

Best of the Best Pierrot Le Fou: The Criterion Collection I bought this just recently for possible inclusion here, and it's taking top honors among its peers. A full review is forthcoming, but after giving it a spin the other day, Raoul Coutard's sumptuous photography put the idea of how wonderful Band of Outsiders and other Jean-Luc Godard movies could look in HD. Best of the Best Playtime: The Criterion Collection I likewise bought this, my favorite Monsieur Hulot movie, for consideration here. Just as with Pierrot, I'm happy to report that it exceeds expectations. Gimme Shelter: The Criterion Collection As with Monsoon Wedding, Criterion's restoration gurus have worked wonders with 16mm source material here. Grease This is one of the most startling improvements I've seen, likely due to the muddy TV mastering that's been running for a couple of decades. Easy Rider From my review: "The most beautiful thing about Sony's new Blu-ray transfer of Easy Rider is the rich color palette only hinted at in the previous DVD edition. The browns and reds don't bleed together, and the landscape can be seen in enough new detail that it isn't just there, it pops. The finer detail on the characters both at rest and in motion is gorgeous, from articles of clothing down to spokes in wheels. I've never seen Easy Rider projected (which kills me, honestly), but the natural grain in the image makes it look like a newly-struck print. One of the reasons I love the Blu-ray format is that it allows me the opportunity to get as close to seeing a print of so many classic films as I very well may. Repertory or "revival" screenings are really on the decline and have been for years." Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory From my review a couple of months ago: "Warner Bros. is batting a thousand this year on Blu-ray upgrades of catalog titles, and this is another great example. The master appears to be the same as the HD-DVD on this single-layer BD-25, but with some minor additional spot cleaning." Being There If only all of Hal Ashby's movies got this kind of treatment. With the slump in catalog title sales since the recession, we may have to live with DVDs instead of Blus for a while. Saturday Night Fever The preponderance of low lighting situations have always made VHS and DVD versions of this movie extremely dark. This transfer shows that there really was contrast in the original photography instead of shadows and murk. Rocky II If they pulled any more grain out of the picture on movies as old as this one and the first Rocky (which was out on Blu before the "Undisputed Collection" hit), 70's Stallone would look as plastic in the face as modern Stallone does. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: The Complete Monterey Pop, Woodstock, The Man Who Fell to Earth, For All Mankind*, In the Realm of the Senses, Midnight Express, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Inglorious Bastards, 3 Days of the Condor, Gigi *For All Mankind's footage is all 1960's vintage, even though the movie was rleeased in the 80's Pre-1960

Best of the Best Wizard of Oz Oz fans have been poring over every home video and repertory revival screening for a few decades picking out the improvements each step of the way. The flying leap forward of this year's 70th Anniversary restoration and remastering is bigger than that going from VHS to DVD. Warner Bros. wisely invested the pile of money and amount of preparation to really make this one shine. Best of the Best North by Northwest In addition to being a personal favorite, this Blu-ray is one of the best available in terms of presentation. Like Oz and the two below, it truly reveals the value in a home HD setup reproducing a theatrical viewing experience. "I agree with Jeff, this is like watching a fresh print in first run. In a year of remarkable HD home video transfers, I didn't think I'd be as stunned as I was within the opening minutes of watching Warner's North by Northwest Blu-ray...I've never seen the film this clean and clear, and with little evidence of any Digital Noise Reduction at all. The red color-shift issues on the previous DVD edition are completely gone, and the level of detail is just jaw-droppingly good. Some of the best examples include the costumes and depth of field in interior locations, but above all the sequence in the cornfield, from the dust swirling to the dead stalks of corn is the best showcase." Best of the Best Gone With the Wind As I said in my recent review: "WB's Gone With the Wind Blu-ray, their second ultra-deluxe collector's edition of the year, is a tremendous achievement in picture and audio quality. The color depth and picture clarity rivals or exceeds my estimation of the outstanding Wizard of Oz set from earlier in the year. I'm far from a devoted fan of the narrative. The history of the production and the cinematography are what I'm head over heels for." Best of the Best An American in Paris I remember very clearly how completely impossible it was to find this disc anywhere in Austin, Texas of all places during its week of release. I had no choice but to mail order it from Amazon. It's among the first ten or fifteen Blu-rays I added to my collection, and it stands as one of the most impressive transfers. The dream ballet in particular is just jaw-dropping. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: South Pacific Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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Understandable Needy-ness

I've spent the better part of a week figuring out how to phrase what I'm going to say about Jennifer's Body without being perceived as sexist, mean, or irresponsible. Here goes.

The handful of people who've defended JB since its initial release are applauding what it represents rather than the half-baked, alternately bland and over-spiced dish that came out of the oven. Most specifically, defenders love the idea of a horror movie that doesn't involve a lot of rape-with-no-escape scenarios, female torture fetish situations, and loads of stalked n' murdered women. I like that idea too, but the disparate ingredients used here are like some Iron Chef contestant went nuts trying to be original and stuck whole sardines in a chicken pot pie. A friend once said that when women complain to him about horror movies always being about killing young women, he said, "we'll stop taking you to movies about killing you when you stop taking us to movies about you marrying us where you are played by an anorexic blonde." I'm far from a gorehound, but I agree with him to an extent. I feel that a horror movie can be about killing boys and not drag and make you want to do yourself in, but this time around they missed the mark. The Blu-ray features two commentaries: one with director Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody (the Theatrical Cut) and one with just Kusama (Unrated). I haven't had the time to go all the way through them, but the first chunk of the double-team one is very sparse and no more enlightening than the overlong movie itself. I haven't so much as touched Kusama's solo one. Also included are deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, behind-the-scenes video diaries, a gag reel, and (believe it) extras dedicated specifically to Megan Fox.
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Zhivago Digibook Blu

David Lean's epic romance that stars Omar Sharif will hit in a Blu-ray "digibook" on 4 May 2010. New extras include all previous DVD special edition extras plus the retrospective Doctor Zhivago: A Celebration and an eight song CD sampler from the score. After North by Northwest, I have extremely high expectations from this one.

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The African Queen at Last (For Real!)


Finally available somewhere other than a Best Picture marathon on TCM.
One of the long-standing, most-requested classics will finally hit Blu-ray and DVD on March 23rd after a six-year restoration process. There was a false-start rumor in June of last year that it would hit in October of 2009, but that date came and went. From the press release: "Romulus Films--one of the film's original production companies--provided access to the original three-strip negative at a London facility where the film was carefully scanned and digitized. The separate elements were then transferred to Los Angeles and painstakingly recombined and inspected frame by frame to ensure that every detail aligned and that any dirt and scratches were removed." "To ensure that the restored picture matched the filmmakers' original vision, Paramount arranged a screening of an MPAA archive print for the film's original cinematographer, Academy Award winner Jack Cardiff [editor note: now deceased, I called for more of his work on disc last April], whose comments were recorded live during the screening. That same archival print was later screened alongside the newly restored version so that the restoration team could ensure that all of Cardiff's notes had been addressed. The result is a vibrant, warm picture that reverentially recreates the film as it was originally meant to be seen." The African Queen will be available in both standalone DVD & Blu-ray editions as well as super-deluxe, limited-edition frills versions. No Warner Bros. "you have to buy the bells and whistles box" business here. Both DVD & Blu versions include the new doc "Embracing Chaos: Making The African Queen", which focuses on how Cardiff's cinematography on Queen impacted the rest of the industry at the time. It includes interviews with Martin Scorsese, Tony Huston, Richard Schickel and others on top of plenty of archival footage and Cardiff family home movies. The Limited Edition box includes "the Lux Radio Theater broadcast of The African Queen, a reproduction of Katharine Hepburn's out-of-print memoir The Making of The African Queen or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, a Senitype film frame collectible reproduction and postcards with images from the film." Mark this one on your buying calendars. Paramount is quoting pricing as follows: $19.99 U.S. (DVD), $26.99 U.S. (Blu-ray), $34.99 U.S. (DVD Box Set), and $43.99 U.S. (Blu-ray Box Set).
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Discs of 2009: Best Blu-ray Transfers (Animation)

When friends new to Blu-ray ask what's best to start with, I tell them "animation" every time. 2009 was a great year, with plenty of new, catalog, and classic titles dropped on the format. I've decided to split these into Traditional Animation and CG Animation categories, since not all CG animated movies are 3D, nor are all traditional-style animated flicks "2D". Traditional Animation

Best of the Best Coraline From my review lo so many months ago: "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." Best of the Best Pinocchio No one expected Pinocchio to look this good until they cracked open their Blu-rays earlier this year. My earliest memories of it are a black clamshell-clad VHS tape that I considered among the scariest movies I'd ever seen when I was in elementary school. The colors have never been this vivid or bright, nor has the fine detail ever been this clean. Best of the Best Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs Another tremendous cleanup job by Lowry Digital, this makes me wonder how good Cinderella is going to look. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: Akira, Fire & Ice, A Charlie Brown Christmas How the Grinch Stole Christmas I've heard no end of good things about Akira, but I can't pretend to have seen this new master of it. WB never sent review material on Charlie Brown or Grinch, and it simply wasn't in the budget to buy them. I'm told by friends that the transfer is so crisp on Fire & Ice you can see the specks of dirt in the cels. CG Animation

Best of the Best Sita Sings the Blues Since undergoing a knucklebuster of a copyright fight with the rights holders of some nearly 100-year-old music that's integral to the movie, director Nina Paley has made this movie fully free to download with the simple request that you help support her, the artist. Her website is full of merchandise that the discerning buyer can purchase for themselves or a loved one. Though not conventionally distributed, you can obtain the full HD version of the movie and compress it only as much as is necessary to squeeze it onto a dual-layer Blu-ray disc. The resulting picture quality is absolutely breathtaking. It's most unfortunate that Sita is not among the field of contenders for Best Animated Feature. Best of the Best UP, A Bug's Life, and Monsters, Inc. It doesn't make much sense to separate these considering their common source and degree of quality. These, along with WALL-E and Ratatouille, are the easiest no-brainer recommendations to make to someone starting a Blu-ray library. The digital-to-digital transfers are so good because they intentionally delayed the titles in different instances for quality assurance (a la Criterion). As a result, there's not an ill thing that can legitimately be said about these masters. Best of the Best Waltz with Bashir One of the best films of last year melded animation, documentary, and a foreign conflict. The mixture makes it all the more palatable for people who are normally resistant to one of the three components. This is another bang-up job from Sony. Battle for Terra I liked this movie a great deal more than it appears my contemporaries did, but it's not as absorbable for adults as say a Pixar movie or a Henry Selick movie or an animated classic one grew up watching. Just because you're a geek doesn't mean that every cartoon caters to you specifically or at all, so calm down. I sure loved Fern Gully when I was a kid, but the movie that I saw then and the version that I would see now as an adult wouldn't match up, I don't think. Terra's from-the-digital-source transfer is as good as you can get without the 3D. Ice Age 3 The movie is terrible, but one sequence in particular was just gorgeous: a dream sequence in which Simon Pegg's character faces a giant Baryonyx dinosaur in a torrential downpour. That one scene is the finest work Blue Sky has ever done. The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, 9, Bolt, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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Discs of 2009: Best Blu Transfers (Recent Catalog pt.2)

There were so many excellent transfers of titles from 1980-1990 that I had to split them out to their own separate post. From here on, I'm going very concise on these so that I can finally be done with the wonderful, marvelous year that was 2009 in DVD & Blu-ray releases. For those who've asked, there will be a summary post that is just titles in list form with no commentary.

Best of the Best The Last Emperor: The Criterion Collection Director of Photography Vittorio Storaro demanded a modified aspect ratio (2.00:1) instead of the original 2.40:1 for this release. I'd ordinarily complain, but the color grading and contrast are such a drastic improvement over previous DVDs that I'll fall back on my worship of Storaro and Bernardo Bertolucci. Best of the Best Do The Right Thing A rich, hot transfer of one of my favorite films (and the Obamas' first date movie) is the best I've ever seen it. Best of the Best Kagemusha: The Criterion Collection As I said in my August 2009 review: "The picture is the closest I've seen to a film print on my television, with what I'm deeming a 'Whole Grain' level of detail. I'm not a fan of Digital Noise Reduction and never have been. This transfer is clean, raw, and vivid." An American Werewolf in London A reference-quality example of dark, early-1980's photography and the marvelous practical effects work of Rick Baker. Field of Dreams A movie that I've had difficulty watching since my father had a stroke, the transfer here replicates the presentation of the film the first time it "elevated" me watching it with my dad. Night of the Creeps The most unlikely but wonderful restoration/re-release of the year is also one of the crown jewels in Sony's HD mastering crown. The Last Starfighter From a the 18 August 2009 Disc Roundup: "I've seen complaints online of digital scrubbing, edge enhancement, DNR, and so on, but I didn't pick up on anything that particularly bothered me. My mantra on this stuff is "consider the source material," and I'm at a disadvantage due to the fact I never saw a print of this movie projected. I'll be damned if the Blu-ray doesn't impress anyone who's known this movie on VHS for most of its life, though. The CG shots are remarkably clear and crisp, and the live-action stuff looks up to par when compared to what a relatively recent print I saw of Flight of the Navigator looked like." Logan's Run See above on all counts. The cover art makes it look like a pilot for a new "SyFy" Channel series. I had never seen this movie before, but had a relatively fun time with it. I'm not certain what anyone would get out of remaking it, but if Bryan Singer wants to do it, then let him. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan I saw a newly-struck print of this shortly after reviewing the Blu-ray, and I was stunned by how alike they were in grain structure and picture quality, from effects shots to action scenes to conversational scenes. Big Trouble in Little China Last year, I lost a good friend to cancer. He introduced me to this movie in college. I've loved it since and treasured it even more so since his last days. I've never seen this on anything but DVD, but Fox did a magnificent job on this disc. Labyrinth & The Dark Crystal From the 29 September 2009 Disc Roundup: "Sony has really outdone themselves with the transfers on these two Henson Company classics. I've never seen either one of these movies projected, just VHS copies and DVDs, and they both look jaw-droppingly good. Sony is handily maintaining its reputation as one of (if not the) best Blu-ray houses in town, as well they should, having invented Blu-ray in the first place." Say Anything Another top-notch Fox transfer, I said in November that despite a horrendous piece of cover art, "the transfer is solid and the audio is stellar." The Highly-Regarded But Unseen: The Last Metro, El Norte, Silverado, Starman, The Princess Bride, Groundhog Day, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Amadeus, Stop Making Sense, and Gremlins Discs of the Year is a look back at the year in disc releases and trends, from the best to the worst.
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10 Things 10th

It's a terrible disservice to 10 Things I Hate About You that ABC/Disney has turned it into an ABC Family Channel series that pales in comparison to the perfect storm that is the now 10-year-old movie. It's a great deal more disappointing that the screenwriters of this movie are now scripting things like The Ugly Truth.

The best parts of the half-hour 10th Anniversary retrospective featurette on the Blu-ray are the significant amounts of vintage interview footage (with a wonderfully prescient Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the oh-so Hollywood way in which director Gil Junger says "the first time I met Heath Ledger, I knew right then 'Wow... Movie. Star.' " Ledger's entrance on-screen is met with somber reflection by the commentary participants. The marketing, for better or worse, is all centered around Ledger and never-before-seen footage (audition & interview footage in the retrospective). The movie stands up these years later, and the Blu-ray will offer kids who were in elementary school when it came out the opportunity to see it at quality on-par with what I remember from my high school days. Amazon has the Blu-ray for $19.99 and the DVD for $12.99 (both have identical extras).
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Meatball Surprise

I didn't grow up loving the book that Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs is based on, so I have no standard for comparison there. When I set it up against the various CG-animated studio movies I've suffered through in doctors' offices and waiting rooms of all sorts, this movie is like finding chilled glacier water in a desert.

Inspired casting all around (especially Mr. T) combined with young, risk-taking directors makes for a lot of fun that hits the ground running and doesn't stop. I wish I'd seen it in 3D now. The "Making-of" and the "Voices of" featurettes are more engaging than what you usually get on kid-friendly releases. The extended scenes, development scenes, and progression reels are actually pretty cool . The commentary includes star Bill Hader and directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, and and it's warm and fun throughout. Great to do housework to on a Saturday. The biggest pain in the ass on this title is that to use the Digital Copy it advertises, you have to own both a PS3 and a PSP. On top of that, you can only watch the digital version on the PSP. I also hate that the DVD copy included has both widescreen and Pan & Scan versions of the movie on it. What is this, 1998? Amazon has the current Blu-ray version for $24.99, but just as this one was announced, the 3D Blu-ray standard was ratified by the Blu-ray Disc Association (I think that's what they ended up calling it). Sony announced a tentative release of a 3D Cloudy Blu-ray for this summer. The polarized 3D TVs will still cost, oh, $15k on average, but if you want to walk into a Sony Style store and watch the whole thing, you'll probably be able to do so. I hope that means they'll do a theatrical re-release so that I can see the version discussed on the commentary, which apparently they "went nuts on with the 3D".
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Disc Roundup (Movies & TV) 05 Jan 2010

Disc Roundup is going through a substantial paring-down in 2010 so that I can focus on individual title coverage and get these posted in a more timely fashion. Since I don't get my hands on every disc in advance of release, I'll come back and add a link to individual reviews of titles once they're posted.

Movies New Release of the Week Lorna's Silence (DVD only) New Release Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Blu-ray and DVD) Review The Final Destination (Blu-ray and DVD) Review 50 Dead Men Walking (Blu-ray and DVD) Trucker (DVD only) Loren Cass (DVD only) Catalog New to Blu-ray 10 Things I Hate About You 10th Anniversary Edition (also DVD) Review The Green Berets Dogtown & Z-Boys Riding Giants Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Television New Release of the Week American Experience: The 1930's Catalog Release of the Week Super Friends! Season 1 Volume 1 Catalog Blu-ray Upgrade of the Week Battlestar Galactica Season 1 New Release Chuck Season 2 Big Love Season 3 The Philanthropist Complete (UK) Catalog Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures Complete Disc Roundup is posted each week and updated as reviews are posted on individual titles. Unless otherwise noted in the linked reviews, assume that screener copies of titles reviewed were provided by the respective studio.
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