Criterion Collected: October 2012 Release Slate

Here are October's Criterion releases, one per week I might add. Modify your household budget accordingly.

2 October 2012
#147
In the Mood for Love (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
Blu-ray Upgrade

The theatrical poster for this Wong Kar-wai film hangs in my office. It has been one of my most-desired HD upgrades since Criterion started releasing Blu-rays, with the initial run including his Chungking Express. A sumptuous romantic film, the artistry of the images onscreen match the fire of the emotions at play.

The Blu-ray adds some features (Two new interviews with critic Tony Rayns, one about the film and the other about the soundtrack) and deletes some (The music of In the Mood for Love, presented in an interactive essay//Essay by film scholar Gina Marchetti illuminating the film’s unique setting//Photo gallery//Biographies of key cast and crew). The booklet has changed too. All variances are in bold below.

Supplemental features (note the change in booklet contents for the Blu):

• High-definition digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bin, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• @ “In the Mood for Love,” director Wong Kar-wai’s documentary on the making of the film
• Deleted scenes with director’s commentary
• Hua yang de nian hua (2000), a short film by Wong
• Archival interview with Wong and a “cinema lesson” given by the director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
• Toronto International Film Festival press conference from 2000, with stars Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai
• Trailers and TV spots
• The music of In the Mood for Love, presented in an interactive essay, on the DVD edition
• Essay by film scholar Gina Marchetti illuminating the film’s unique setting on the DVD edition
• Photo gallery on the DVD edition
• Biographies of key cast and crew on the DVD edition
• Two new interviews with critic Tony Rayns, one about the film and the other about the soundtrack, on the Blu-ray edition
• Plus: A booklet featuring the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film, an essay by film critic Li Cheuk-to, and a director’s statement (DVD edition); a booklet featuring an essay by novelist and film critic Steve Erickson and the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film (Blu-ray edition) 

9 October 2012
Eclipse Series 36
Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures
The Man in Grey (dir. Leslie Arliss, 1943)
Madonna of the Seven Moons (dir. Arthur Crabtree, 1945)
The Wicked Lady (dir. Leslie Arliss, 1943)

Mainstream British cinema of the 1940's moved away from melodrama with the exception of one studio who let their camp flag fly. Criterion has chosen three of their best-known films, all of which were quite successful. This came despite the trend toward realism in films like those found in the recent David Lean Directs Noël Coward boxed set.

Included here are James Mason's breakthrough performance (Man in Grey), one of the most over-the-top films of the era (Madonna, a personal favorite melodrama), and Margaret Lockwood as a loose woman archetype who steals her BFF's man (Wicked Lady). Oh no they didn't? Oh yes they did. I can't wait.

16 October 2012
#628
The Foregiveness of Blood (dir. Joshua Marston, 2011)

An Albanian family is torn apart by a blood feud, a tradition that allows a family to avenge the killing of a relative by killing one of the murderer's relatives. The story is told about not the violent act that ignites the events of the story, but the repercussions and aftermath.

Director Marston (a talented American indie guy) shot on location in Albania, had the full endorsement of the Albanian government, and shot the whole thing in Albanian. Marston previously directed Maria Full of Grace. With Foregiveness, he recently lost a battle to get it considered (let alone nominated) by the Academy for Best Foreign Language Film, a story recounted on a recent episode of KCRW's The Business.

The extras would appear to flesh out what interests me most: the real-life events and culture that the narrative is taken from. Whether you enjoy the movie or not, the process behind an ambitious, ballsy production approach like this is fascinating.

Supplemental features:

• New high-definition digital transfer, approved by producer Paul Mezey, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring director and cowriter Joshua Marston
• Two new video programs: Acting Close to Home, a discussion between Marston and actors Refet Abazi, Tristan Halilaj, and Sindi Laçej, and Truth on the Ground, featuring new and on-set interviews with Mezey, Abazi, Halilaj, and Laçej
• Audition and rehearsal footage
• Trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film writer Oscar Moralde

23 October 2012
#629
Sunday Bloody Sunday (dir. John Schlesinger, 1971)

First reported by my pal Ryan at CriterionCast months and months and months ago, this title is finally here. I can imagine it took some time for them to nail down the five new interviews on the disc. I prefer an abundance of Criterion's interviews to a commentary track any day of the week.

Supplemental features:

• New high-definition digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Billy Williams, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New video interviews with actor Murray Head, Williams, and production designer Luciana Arrighi
• Illustrated 1975 audio interview with director John Schlesinger
• New interview with writer William J. Mann (Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger) about the making of Sunday Bloody Sunday
• New interview with photographer Michael Childers, Schlesinger’s longtime partner
• Trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay and screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt’s 1971 introduction to the film’s screenplay

October 30th 2012
#634
Rosemary's Baby (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)
*Release of the Month* 

Polanski's wildly successful Hollywood debut finally gets the HD treatment that collectors have wanted for some time.

If there is a single better Blu-ray extra this year than a "new interview with producer Robert Evans", I'll eat my hat. That it's alongside new interviews with Polanski and Mia Farrow is a coup. This disc looks like it could be one of the best of 2012, pound for pound.

Supplemental features:

• New high-definition digital restoration, approved by director Roman Polanski, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New interviews with Polanski, actor Mia Farrow, and producer Robert Evans
• Komeda, Komeda, a feature-length documentary on the life and work of jazz musician and composer Krzysztof Komeda, who wrote the score for Rosemary’s Baby
• 1997 radio interview with author Ira Levin from Leonard Lopate’s WNYC program New York and Company on the 1967 novel, the sequel, and the film
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Ed Park and Levin’s afterword for the 2003 New American Library edition of his novel, in which he discusses its and the film’s origins

Odd is the jump from #629 to #634. Where are #630, #631, #632, and #633? This isn't some sort of scandal or anything, and I doubt we'll ever know what the deal is, but it's fun to speculate for oneself. (UPDATE 6pm:Ryan at CriterionCast has one bit of speculation that's floating around...Pasolini's Trilogy of Life)

Godzilla and Pacific Rim Destroy Hall H

By the grace of one of the guys at Legendary, I just got into the Warner Bros panel in Hall H. I missed the PACIFIC RIM footage presentation, but got in for the Q&A. Hearing Guillermo del Toro sincerely, passionately connecting with a fan is always a wonderful sight to behold.

Then they showed a clip from Gareth Edwards' GODZILLA, and I'm happy to admit that I wept openly. If PACIFIC RIM blew everyone's minds, this is going to disintegrate them. The director of MONSTERS was the right choice. More to come in an Ain't It Cool writeup.

48fps is Charlie Chaplin's Fault (Sort Of)

 

Is it me, or do we forget innumerable progressive achievements throughout the history of cinema?

This is especially the case with the discussion of High Frame Rate photography and exhibition. Most of the chatter has centered around the pending release of The Hobbit at 48 frames per second, a rate that doubles the standard accepted for over 75 years. Some would say this is a cheap gimmick, or even a nefarious plot of some sort by the studios and billionaire directors and the Illuminati and Xenu and Stalin.

Let's back up and take a cleaner, less sensational look at things, Spider-friends.

What we consider to be "cinema" runs at 24 still image frames per second in front of our eyes. In the days of silent films, they ran at 16-18 frames per second. The difference in the number of frames is what makes our association with what "old" movies look like at a glance. The jumpy, jerky look of silents is unmistakeable. To some, it causes instant revulsion, as it connotes something that they refuse to watch, whether for dissimilarity to what they're accustomed or out of perceived inferiority. If only those many knew what they were missing out on, but that's another column for another day.

The more frames, the smoother the image, and the more pleasing to the eye. The mandatory move to 24 frames was due to the soundtrack for sound films needing those additional frames to properly sync. Instead of 60 feet of film going through the projector per second, 90 feet hurtled through, assaulting early 20th century eyes with a more fluid, luxurious picture than they thought possible. They probably would have done more frames per second, but they ran the risk of the projectors shredding the film. The use of 30 frames per second was right at the bleeding edge in the early days, but it would only come into mainstream use later, predominantly in videotape-based photography (think of BBC teledramas like I, Claudius, or modern Asian soap operas).

The 24 fps flicker effect is what we came to associate with the cinematic aesthetic. It was a warm balance between the real world and the still life of individual frames, but not too far in either direction.

The problem of celluloid tearing itself apart in the projector assembly is no longer a problem in the digital age, where most film exhibition is (lamentably) done off of hard drives. The elimination of this limitation led tech nerd, pro-3D directors like James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and various others to decree a push toward 48, 60, and even 120 frames per second cinema.

Even before these directors and digital, brilliant minds like Roger Ebert and Douglas Trumbull advocated exhibition processes like Maxivision 48 (Ebert) and ShowScan (Trumbull). Processes like these required loads of equipment upgrades in principal photography and in the exhibition world, and from what I've read, it would appear that the death of their widespread adoption was that neither end of the business wanted to move first and risk that the other end wouldn't come through. Both processes benefitted from radically improved clarity and as a result, focal depth. Your eyes had less work to do when they were supplied with all of that additional visual stimuli, and the work of a master cinematographer could simply wash over you.

Fast forwarding back to the recent past, the CinemaCon announcements from Cameron, Jackson, and company a couple of years ago riled many cinema fans who speculated that they were somehow shoving something down our throats. What could be characterized as innovative, pioneering filmmakers touting bold new experiments was instead met with suspicion and the sharpening of pitchforks.

Many lashed out at the "profiteering millionaires" in controlled bursts when feature articles or interviews mentioning the topic would pop up. The simmering rolled to a full boil following the screening of 48fps footage from The Hobbit at CinemaCon three months ago.

I was part of the flood of those reactions, and at the time, I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I remain leaning toward the hopeful side, even with the announcement that tomorrow's Hobbit presentation will only feature footage in 24fps.

I'm not bothered at all by that decision. My educated guess is that they don't want to make the mistake once again of showing the unfinished, unrepresentative version of a very different cinematic aesthetic to a room full of people predisposed toward hypercriticism. I think that is very wise. The biggest issues I had with the CinemaCon demo was that the virtually finished (color corrected, filtered, etc), fuller sequences that played like scenes actually worked great for me. The bits that played like traditional sizzle reel stuff played against the benefits of the tech they were showing off. It's crazy not to show off a new technological product in the properly curated, finished-quality form for which it is designed. This is the same as composing a movie for 3D if it is to be released in 3D, from boarding to shooting and editing. This is why movies like Hugo and Prometheus look so outstanding in 3D: the right work was done, soup to nuts.

I look forward to Warner Bros hopefully doing something like those Avatar Days that Fox did, where people could get their eyes wet with Avatar's overwhelming (in the good way) 3D. The portions of that Hobbit reel that worked really left the room speechless. I can only imagine what the right 20 minutes would do to the skeptical, including an undetermined quantity of holdout theatre owners.

Since that morning in April, I haven't had the opportunity to watch any more HFR content, but I have thought a great deal about it.

Any time I've watched a movie or TV show, I notice motion blur and strobing more actively than I did previously. The effect of eye strain when watching both 2D and 3D content has become infinitely more pronounced. In recent interviews I've conducted, I've made a point to ask visual artists their thoughts about HFR. I find that most of their opinions are optimistic and curious. Pietro Scalia (editor on both Prometheus and The Amazing Spider-Man) sounded very eager to play with it when we spoke in Aruba a couple of weeks ago. He saw it as a new set of tools to play with, not a mandate.

The audience, it would appear, is much more anxious and unsettled by the idea of change than the people whose livelihoods it immediately affects. I may be overreaching there, but from the limited sampling I've done, the artists want to jump in that sandbox.

There's something to be said for trying new things in the cinema. In the past, doing so has brought us sound and color, along with countless other advances in the photographic process. We've gotten marvelous things like deep focus, large-format exposure (70mm, 4K), and visual effects.

Those special effects have gone from miniatures and matte paintings to in-camera optical tricks to computer-generated composite wizardry, and all sorts of things in-between, including stereographic 3D. It is not universally a good thing, but like all visual effects, it's all in the application.

It took me until last week to realize that the sorts of things we find ourselves thinking are brand-new bastardizations or perversions of the art have been around for decades.

While combing through Criterion's recent Blu-ray release of Chaplin's The Gold Rush, I realized that, in a way, the push toward HFR and upconverting to the higher standard started 70 years ago. Believe it or not, Chaplin made a decision tantamount to George Lucas' discarding of the original theatrical editions of the original Star Wars trilogy.

The Gold Rush was first released in 1925. It was an enormous hit, and made tons of money. By the time he released The Great Dictator in 1940, even Chaplin, the holdout, had embraced the onset of talkies. The notion of repertory screenings of movies after their original run was a new idea gaining traction, but in 1940, no one would dare release a silent film. Chaplin therefore recut Gold Rush, removing all of the title cards and adding narration and dialogue that were performed as if he were telling the story and there just happened to be images to go along with it. It's the style that the Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons ripped off wholesale (and quite successfully).

The addition of sound required the film to be sped up to 90 feet or 24 frames per second. When all was said and done, the movie was 16 minutes longer, featured various alternate takes or reshoots entirely, post-converted to 24fps, and added a completely different mood to the picture as part of the added soundtrack. From that point, and for the rest of his life, Chaplin would consider the 1942 version his definitive cut.

So naturally, he destroyed every copy of the 1925 version that he had or could find. He "pulled a George Lucas" before there was a George Lucas to accuse of that.

The story of how the 1925 version was miraculously salvaged and restored is told in featurettes on the Blu-ray, but suffice to say that from 1942 until 1993, no one could have seen the original classic film. When the restoration was completed in 1993, Chaplin's children made it clear that they only allowed the reconstructed version to be completed as a curiosity for the sake of historical record.

I know I'm not alone when I say that I'm very, very glad that they did the right thing. I prefer the 1942 version, and it's the one that I rewatch most often, but I don't know if that's because I objectively prefer it...or because it's the one that I always knew until the 2003 DVD allowed me to see both versions. For new viewers, I would unquestionably urge them to see the '25 and then the '42.

When I contemplated '25 vs. '42 the other day, I think I would have still preferred the one that could justifiably be called a post-converted, re-imagined bastardization.

I wonder how the final products of refined HFR cinema will fare with the audience, both the natively-shot and possible "up-conversions". I wonder if we'll see the same effect that happened with Gold Rush. I wonder if filmmakers will adopt a mixed approach, using an adapted "Variable Frame Rate" methodology (ok, Tony Scott has been doing that for years).

I'm just glad that we're still trying new things, and that more amazing advances could still be on the horizon.

Sage Stallone: Gone Too Young

Drew McWeeny, as is often the case, remembers someone notable in a tender, curious and above all respectful way:

I never got a chance to see the short he directed five or six years ago, and I hadn't seen him or spoken to him in probably a decade when I heard the news today.  I was immediately hit by a wave of regret, because I always assumed I'd have a chance to reconnect with him at some point.  He was one of those guys who could pick up a conversation years later like no time had passed, and who always seemed to be getting one step closer to figuring out his place in the world.

Sage Stallone was 36.

Westbound

Since I haven't really slept since the beginning of Thursday, this counts as my promised daily entry.

I've spent the whole day preparing to leave for something of a surgical strike on San Diego Comic-Con (my first time!). I'm managing/co-hosting an Ain't It Cool News screening of Solomon Kane tonight (Friday, 9:15pm), and one for Lawless tomorrow (Saturday, 11:59pm). People will definitely flake out, so if you're in San Diego, badged or not, come on down per the info in the linked posts.

Later today: a Criterion Collected post about what Charlie Chaplin has in common with George Lucas. Maybe another, we'll see. Also later today (hopefully), Monty Cristo's Musings #2 over at Ain't It Cool.

A Bygone Breed

I introduced my wife to The Last Boy Scout last night, since she enjoyed her first look at the Lethal Weapon series so much. We blew through that two-years-delayed Blu-ray collection a few weeks ago. I grew up on action movies (both the excellent ones like Boy Scout and the direct to video diaspora). As much as I remember the best ones fondly, I find that I haven't rewatched many of my favorites in years and years. Things like that run through my head when I'm in front of the $5/$6/$7/$8 Blu-ray rack/bin/table at the store. I wish there were some sort of extras at all for this movie and others like it (commentary, featurette, whatever), but alas, the new concept of an "extra feature" is a second movie like Last Man Standing. HOnestly, if the "extra is an underappreciated Walter Hill movie I've only seen on cable...maybe that just as good, if not better.

Regarding Comments, Attribution, and Search Boxes

Last thing first: in about 15 seconds, I added a search box to every page of the site. This is thanks to the magic of my hosting and CMS solution. This has been a dream so far. If only I could batch edit posts...

For the longest time, Arthouse Cowboy didn't have commenting enabled because the Movable Type backend of Hollywood Elsewhere was too delicate a thing for me to monkey with very much for fear of incurring the wrath of El Jefe Jeff. I liked not having to comb through the loads of comment spam that Jeff would deal with every day on the site's front page. I liked just posting my stuff. Then I added comments to every post, and I felt like some posts (like this one) felt lonely with no comments.

I decided that I want to selectively enable/disable comments on a post-by-post basis relative to the content. In particular, when I post links to other sites, appending a little commentary of my own, I may disable in the interest of driving you to that other site to comment on the conversation.

That reminds me of how much I hate that most of the movie/TV/entertainment writing out there is just crass aggregation at this point.

I coined "The Blogger Centipede" as the name for a SXSW panel that I was supposed to moderate a couple of years ago. The whole reason I wanted to do the thing was to dig into how the entertainment blogging game has turned into a first-to-post, fastest-to-repost, ULTRA-MEGA-EXCLUSIVE race that drives me and many others nuts.

Many "major" sites across the net are virtually undistinguishable and lack an individual voice that was once their pride and selling point. They may have enormous traffic numbers, but those stats can be a very fleeting thing. Say what you will about Harry at Ain't It Cool, but his site and his posts still carry his unmistakable mark.

To this day, I get ragged on by colleagues for ever having written at Hollywood Elsewhere, their hatred of Jeff Wells is so great. Whatever differences of opinion or personality incompatibilities people (myself included at times) may have with him, he never pretends to be anyone but Jeff Wells.

I wish we valued individuality the way that we once did. I wish it weren't considered acceptable practice to paraphrase someone else's story, citing unnamed "sources" (when actually swiping the story), and then include a nearly-invisible attribution link at the bottom.

That last thing happened in a pretty high-profile way the other day when Instapaper creator Marco Arment caught and reported a massive iOS App Store corruption bug and reported it on his site, Marco.org. Countless major tech news sites ripped him off, and dear dark lord Cthulu...he called every single one of them on it on Twitter (example). He discusses the whole App Store corruption thing on this week's episode of Build and Analyze, a show I listen to every week.

There was a time when I tried to shoehorn my content into the various shapes that were popular or successful on every other site on the net. It was always too much work for content about which I cared so little that I hated doing this thing that I'm supposed to like.

Thanks to the couple hundred of you that have been reading since yesterday. Tell your friends if you think they'll dig what I'm doing.

Criterion Collected: 50% Off Sale at Barnes & Noble

I posted early this morning over at Ain't It Cool about the twice-annual B&N Criterion sale starting late last night. I've got some mostly-finished pieces I'll be posting here about movies like Chaplin's The Gold Rush and other recent releases from The Criterion Collection.

Here's a link that takes you to the series of Criterion posts I wrote over the years at Hollywood Elsewhere. Many others are not properly tagged. Here's the Ozu series that I started a couple of years ago and am re-starting soon. The index rolls in reverse chronology. Here's the first installment, which does a serviceable job of introducing the man. I never got to Late Spring, which recently became the first Yasujiro Ozu movie to get the Blu-ray blessing in the States.

The more I look at those, the more I want to sit down and plow into cleaning things up in focused clumps.

I-35 and The Bandit

I've driven the stretch of highway between Dallas (where I grew up) and Austin (where I've lived since 2007) more than any other in the country. I was reminded of Smokey and The Bandit the last time I drove it, wondering why no one has made a similar CG-free car chase movie designed less around style or flourish, but rather, simply about the fun of the classic auto chase.

Ernest Borgnine (1917-2012)

Ernest Borgnine had a hell of a run, with over 200 credits in his filmography (between movies and TV). My friend Eric Vespe has done a fantastic job eulogizing him over at Ain't It Cool.

Among other titles, people remember him most vividly from Sam Peckinpah's death-of-the-west epic The Wild Bunch, the men-on-a-mission classic The Dirty Dozen, and his heartbreaking performance in the title role of Marty. He was a leading actor, a character actor, a fun cameo appearance, and everything in-between. The guy started working and never stopped. His work ethic is admirable, but the result of it is why people are sad he's gone. He played the big roles with as much energy as the guest appearances alongside characters like Thomas Magnum and Walker (Texas Ranger). He came from a generation of actors that really busted their asses like it was a job, not slacking through the day on the way to their next tabloid photo op.

In recent years, he also came out in favor of a particular recreational activity, and became one of its strongest advocates. The Internet thought this was hilarious.

I'll get together some sort of playlist or "gap-filling" guide tomorrow, since I only just read about this and need to hit the sack. Here's a quick rundown of the best bang for your buck if you want to check one of these three out. Whenever a guy like Borgnine goes, I like to revisit their stuff, but not get ripped off paying for something that looks/sounds like crap.

Unfortunately, the DVD and instant streaming transfers for Marty are terrible. Waste your money at your own peril, but you can rent it in SD on Amazon for $3 (you can rent in HD on an XBox 360, PS3, Roku, or any other Amazon Instant Video-capable box...but not a computer). It may look like garbage, but the performance is wonderful no matter how you slice it. I first watched it on VHS, so the worse thing would be to not have seen what I consider Borgnine's best performance.

The Dirty Dozen Blu-ray is only $8, but the transfer is 2007 vintage (the early days of Blu), and could use work. It isn't terrible by any means, but it's a bit overdue for a revisit. The extras, which include the sequel and a pile of documentaries, make it worth if you're into that sort of thing. If you just want to spin up the movie, it's a $4 HD rental from iTunes.

Of the three, The Wild Bunch fares best on Blu-ray, with a solid video & audio transfer and a pile of extras. It's $8 for the Blu, which I'd spring for rather than the $4 to rent it in HD from iTunes for a single view of just the movie.

There's a fancy new Blu-ray of the Joan Crawford-headlined, Nicholas Ray-directed western Johnny Guitar coming out in August (the pre-order is a steep $25 at Amazon). I've been waiting for that one a long while.

We'll be waiting longer yet for an actor to have the kind of lengthy and varied career that Borgnine did. Check out Eric's obit above for some great clips.

Back in the Saddle (Again)

Welcome or welcome back!

My appearance on tonight's episode of The Comic Shack on 5by5 prompted a sooner-than-I'd-planned relaunch of this thing.

This column abruptly ended its run at its original home, Hollywood Elsewhere, just as I left Apple to work for the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin. I currently write a weekly column for Ain't It Cool News, a gig that is a little surreal for a guy who started reading that site in its infancy.

The old header artwork from the Hollywood Elsewhere version of Arthouse Cowboy

There are loads of abandoned Big Ideas that I had planned for the column back in 2010. I started an insanely ambitious career retrospective on Yasujiro Ozu, and I wanted to do one on Michael Powell. I also had ideas for podcasts and all sorts of other things that never came to fruition...mostly because I was trying to do way too much all around.

There was always "later". Then my dad had a massive stroke that has rendered him unable to speak. Then my brother died of a cancer that he beat the shit out of before it took him. Then I read and listened to loads of things that Merlin Mann has written and/or said. Then I finally had enough of having excuses for everything, and started focusing on how to spend my time the right way. I finally started answering "what do I really want to be and do?".

Now, I'm just doing it. No more excuses or "reasons why". No more "I wanted to, but...something came up". No more grand plans that never materialize due to unrealistic ambition.

This ongoing journal is a major part of that. It's been an enormous, gaping hole in my creative life, and I'm glad I have it back to myself.

My entire Hollywood Elsewhere back catalog of over 900 posts is here. I'm sure loads of them are all kinds of screwed up in terms of formatting. Fixing them up is an ongoing "spare time" project.

The Ozu series? It's getting "remastered" and re-posted here in its own specialized index, with the original versions of articles remaining in their original form and chronology. In case you don't know who I'm talking about, Yasujiro Ozu is still one of the greatest directors that cinema has ever known. Reducing him to "that Japanese director who never moved the camera" is neither correct nor clever.

The Michael Powell series is in what I'd call "pre-production". I need to watch and read a lot more before starting on that.

I'm taking a fresh pass on the Soderbergh career retrospective that I wrote under the header of "Soderberghopolis" for Badass Digest.

I want to do series on other artists, all of which can happen simultaneously and creep along at a snail's pace as I have time. These series are all conceived with the idea of revisiting, filling gaps, and further solidifying what I know about the people whose work I love in the world of talking (and not-talking) pictures. When I dig into filmographies, I like to do it chronologically, and I’d rather do more of that than constantly over-promise and under-deliver.

My Criterion Collection column, "Criterion Collected", will live here. I finally named it when I was with Badass Digest, but I own the name outright (since I was never paid or contracted for any of my writing there).

I kicked around various formats for a column dedicated to Blu-ray (hardware, software, and so on), and I think I’ve cracked it. Those posts will go under the heading of “Blu-Grade”, a term that I think that I coined.

"Monty Cristo's Musings" will live on Ain't It Cool, which is the only place I use that AICN-traditional codename. The articles will be linked from here, sometimes with a little bit of extra something or another for those of you who only follow this RSS feed.

The biggest reason for kicking off this new iteration of Arthouse Cowboy is that, regardless of where I do anything else, I need a centralized home base for what I write about the moving image.

I've spent a few months preparing and doing dry runs so that I can make this a true daily journal. There will be days I really write a piece, and yet others when I excerpt something I've read that I think is worth a bit of your time.

I'm going to put something new here every day, simple as that. Expect no frequency promises otherwise.

Thanks for reading in advance (and in retrospect).

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Blu-ray Review

Originally posted at Badass Digest. Reprinted here with my own permission. 

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD hits Blu-ray and DVD with the punch of a Kung Fu chopfest on November 9th. I’ve spent the last couple of days devouring every last one of the features on the Blu-ray.

If you’re familiar with the special edition Blu-rays of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the features on Universal’s Scott Pilgrim disc are in the same ballpark.  Four commentaries and over five hours of other extras are in store for you here, ready to devour your free time whole.  

The Movie

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is boy-meets-girl and boy-fights-her-exes-to-the-death story adapted directly out of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 6-volume series of “Scott Pilgrim” graphic novels.  Scott meets and falls for Ramona Flowers while he’s dating a 17-year-old (he’s in his twenties, by the way).  Scott negotiates the thin ice of dealing with Ramona’s past lovers the way that anyone would:  with his fists…and super powers fueled by anger and insecurity.  Scott has his own trail of lovers behind him, a few of whom show up in the film too.

I hadn’t read any of the comics going in, and that didn’t present any issues for me, unlike various comic book movies that I could mention (and I’m a comic book kinda guy). Scott Pilgrim is one of the more engaging coming-of-adulthood movies I’ve seen of late.  On top of that, I’m having trouble coming up with a comic book movie that adapts the nature of its source material better.

The film moves at a remarkably fast pace, which I gather put off people in the theoretical world of various critics’ reviews more than it did in actuality.  It encourages “re-readings” the way that a good book (comic or no) does.  Scott Pilgrim is the amalgamation of a John Hughes movie, a manga-style comic book, and the referential touchstones of the pre-1995 videogame industry.  In short: it’s irresistible, provided that spins your gears.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Box Office

Director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) found a killer cast, worked directly with the original author/artist, and pulled off a hyperkinetic live-action comic adaptation that fans (male and female alike) were salivating for in advance.  So, why didn’t it explode at the box office like other comic book properties?

The marketing really felt squarely targeted at the geek set, but with a property this geek-tastic, I don’t see how that could really be avoided.  I don’t think it was helped by the off-the-charts hyperbole of various geek-centric blogs that covered it coming out of Comic-Con, which all but labeled it the second coming of filmmaking.  Believe it or not, that can put people off.  It did very firmly became the “geek” movie of that weekend.  Were the more mainstream audiences that embraced Fuzz and Shaun put off?

I have a feeling that the movie-going world’s equivalent to undecided voters weren’t so much put off by this, but they had much more mainstream, targeted options and chose to see The Expendables, Eat Pray Love, The Other Guys, or caught up to Inceptionin week five.  You had the “old school action dude movie”, the “lady gets laid movie”, “the dumb-as-bricks guy comedy”, and the “event of the summer” movie stacked on top of each other before people even got to poor little Scott in their stack of options.

If you ask me, Pilgrim opened on one of the most crowded, competitive, and impossible weekends of the year thus far.  The fact that it made $1o million bucks is pretty impressive in context, but in the world of “must be number one”, that doesn’t mean anything, and it became a “box office disappointment”.  It never had a chance to build an audience, and once you open in 5th place, there’s no turning back.  I feel confidently that the story would have been radically different had it opened back in May or June, just after school let out for the summer.  Hey, what do I know, right?

The Look and Sound

The video and audio hold up really nicely, considering the insane amount of supplemental material on the disc.  Most people didn’t pick up on the fact that the aspect ratio changes radically from moment to moment in the film, from the stated 1.85:1 to what looks like full-on 2.35:1, and all sorts of others, including VistaVision.  Contrast is good throughout, and detail is very crisp.  The audio track is DTS-HD Master Audio, and like the video track, it reproduces the theatrical experience nicely.

The Supplements

 TRT 5:29:07 (not including Commentaries)

Most of the extra material is exclusive to the Blu-ray, but they crammed quite a bit onto the single-disc DVD as well.  I’m noting what’s Blu-ray only so that you’ll be further guilted into getting a badass new big screen set and a Blu player.  And yes, I did go through every last one of the extras listed below.  Badass Digest thinks you go all the way or you go home.

Deleted scenes with Optional Commentary by Director Edgar Wright [TRT 27:12]
Knives meets Scott
Knives says Goodbye
Alternate Stacey Phone Call
Scott Asks Ramona Out Extended
Scott and Ramona in the Park 1st version
Scott and Ramona in the Park 2nd version
The Morning After the Night Before
Crash and the Boys Extra Song
My Name is Matthew Patel
Scott and Ramona Extra Bedroom Scene
Ramona’s Hair Extended
NegaScott the First
Bass Battle Original Ending
Pizza Pizza Extended
NegaScott the 2nd
Roxy Fight Original Cut
Second Bus Montage
This Fight is Over
First Hipster Fight Extended
Dream Desert and Extra Life Original
The Alternate Ending
Boy is that a ton of deleted material, isn’t it?  After watching all of it both ways, I’d recommend watching it with the commentary first, which is not something I ever recommend with full-on features.  That context really brings it all together.  Many of these bits are extended or would have created slightly different versions of scenes.  The last one, The Alternate Ending, features Scott making a different decision right at the end.  Unlike Pretty in Pink, I prefer the one they went with here.

Scott Pilgrim vs the Bloopers [9:42]
There are tons of line flubs to be found here, along with all 33 attempts Michael Cera made at getting that Amazon.ca package in the trash can behind him.

Documentaries (Blu-ray only) [TRT 1:08:41]
Making of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World [49:32]
Music featurette [16:27]
You Too Can Be Sex Bob-Omb [2:42]
The Making-of crams a lot of info into less than an hour, and it never gets dull.  TheMusic piece spends a healthy amount of time with the people from Metric and Broken Social Scene, who heavily contributed to the movie’s soundtrack.  Beck is nowhere to be found, unfortunately.  Regardless, it’s a solid look at the role of these über-talented musicians’ contribution to a movie so heavily driven by their music.  The “You Too” thing is just a snippet of Mark Webber being shown how to jam on the guitar.

Alternative Footage (Blu-ray only) [TRT 19:12]
Alternative Edits [12:21]
Bits and Pieces [6:51]
The Alternative Edits piece includes drastically re-edited sequences, rather than the slightly extended bits found in the Deleted Scenes.  Bits and Pieces strings together a bunch of alternate line readings to hilarious effect, including Brandon Routh’s Todd Ingram telling Scott Pilgrim exactly how he’s going to “go down”.

Pre-production (Blu-ray only) [TRT 1:27:32]
Pre-production footage
Animatics
Rehearsal videos
Props, rigs, and sets montage
Casting tapes
Hair and make-up footage
Apologies for not getting exact runtimes on the individual parts of this section, but I had to just keep trucking through all this stuff.  This hour and a half nuts and bolts string of animatics, tests, and videos is mostly free of any narration or frankly, much of any talking.  This is the kind of “how it was done” stuff that we’re seeing more of on some Blu-ray releases, but not nearly in this depth.

Music Promos (Blu-ray only) [TRT 19:10]
Music Videos (Garbage Truck, Black Sheep, Threshold, Summertime) [9:45]
OSYMYSO Remixes [9:25]
The music videos are clipped out from their placement in the film itself, but are expanded.  This is the most direct way to hear Brie Larson’s version of “Black Sheep”, which I’ve been trying to get a single of since the movie came out.  “Summertime” was originally just over the end credits, so it’s accompanied by video here for the first time.  The Remixes are done by Osymyso, aka this guy.

Visual Effects (Blu-ray only) [TRT 19:24]
VFX Before and After [14:37]
Roxy Fight/Ribbon Version [1:11]
Phantom Montage: Hi Speed Footage [3:47]
VFX Before and After is where they really and fully pull back the curtain on the various composite digital effects, from Chris Evans throwing Michael Cera at a building to the various fights and explosions of coins.  Mae Whitman, who plays Roxy, used a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon during parts of the fight where she was using a razor blade tipped whip.  They dropped in the razors later, and in the minute-long clip, they drop the narration and just show a portion of it all in one go.  The Hi Speed bit is great for aficionados of  the layers upon layers of ultra-high framerate footage that gets shot for use in multiple layers of a finished shot.  I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think thatPilgrim could be up for a visual effects Oscar.

Soundworks Collection: Sound for Film Profile (Blu-ray only) [5:43]
The sound editing and sound effects editing categories always confuse people come Oscar time, and they’ve never done a particularly good job explaining that difference at the awards themselves.  This piece manages to at least emphasize the importance of a very precise approach to sound design and effects choices.  Ditto the above Oscar speculation re: sound editing and sound effects editing.

Trailers [TRT 18:43]
Theatrical
TV Spots
Video Game Trailers
They include all the Theatrical spots (which were great) and the TV spots (which put my wife off wanting to see the movie).  They even included the trailers from the game.  The TV Spots may be an interesting case study for Advertising or Communications majors looking for a project.  Could the focus of those spots have been altered to more effectively produce results?  I think it’s an open question.

Adult Swim: Scott Pilgrim vs. The Animation (Blu-ray only) [3:48]
This super-short animated story really makes you wish that Adult Swim would greenlight a beginning to end animated adaptation of O’Malley’s books.  It takes place years before the movie, but it bridges the gap as well as you can in four minutes.  Available online, but good to have with everything else all in one place.

Scott Pilgrim vs. Censors: TV Safe Version (Blu-ray only) [4:09]
There are few things more enjoyable in the universe than the absurd over-dubs used to replace “offensive” dialogue in movies so that they can play on cable during prime time.  I won’t spoil what bits of dialogue every last one of these replaces, but among my favorite phrases dubbed over the theatrical dialogue are: “Oh my bod”, “All guilty and smurf”, “With how I—poooop!”, “That’s it you Oscar Grouch! You’ll pay for your crimes against humanity!” (that one kinda gives it away), “I’ve dabbled in being a witch”, “but I’m part owl”, “He’s a creep, you’re a snarf…”, and “Totally bad owls”.  You’ll re-watch this one multiple times.

Blogs (Blu-ray only) [TRT 45:46]
They posted a bunch of video blogs throughout production, all of which are archived here, with no buffering required.

Galleries (Blu-ray only)
Production Photos
Edgar’s Photo a Day Blog
Johnny Simmons’ Photos
Ellen Wong’s Photos
Mark Webber
Theatrical Posters
Fictional Posters
Bryan’s Flip Charts
Storyboards
Conceptual Art Gallery
Graphic Novel Comparison Gallery
Mecha-Gideon - The Original Boss Battle
Usually, the still galleries on a DVD are the biggest waste of time imaginable.  Not so here!  In particular, the Fictional Posters for Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) movies like Let’s Hope There’s a Heaven made me chuckle the most.  Mecha-Gideon includes the sketches for what was originally supposed to be the final “boss” of the movie: a giant robot.

Trivia Track
Not only does it pop up with the titles of every single song performed in the movie, but there’s a host of info that either confirms or clarifies things mentioned in the commentary tracks, or presents brand-new info.  It’s worth popping on whenever you’re listening to one of the yack tracks.

Commentaries
So, there are four commentaries on this release.  Mainlining them one after another like I did probably isn’t advisable, but they’re all worth listening to.  In both of the cast commentary tracks, there are multiple instances of “I never noticed that!” and little details that they clue one another into.  There’s quite a bit of goofing around, and none of them get stale.

Feature Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Edgar Wright, Co-Writer Michael Bacall, and Author Bryan Lee O’Malley
One of the things I’ve liked about previous tracks that Wright has participated in is that he really gets what keeps people engaged and what inspires naps.  The first track here should be considered the “writers” track, and my favorite bits came from O’Malley as the creator of the universe. Wright and Bacall bounce off one another well.

Technical Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Edgar Wright and Director of Photography Bill Pope
People usually place directors more immediately than cinematographers, so to save you the IMDb time, Bill Pope shot Darkman, Army of Darkness, and both the Matrixand Spider-Man trilogies, among many other films.  Topics discussed include boys’ versus girls’ attention span in fights, drunk barflies having snowball fights, and the proper way to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger on a commentary track.

Cast Commentary with Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, & Brandon Routh
Routh shows up a little late and at one point muses on his great nemesis:  the color green. Schwartzman shares thoughts on wearing women’s underwear, and Winstead reveals a pretty serious spinal injury she suffered while shooting, much to the surprise of her co-stars.

Cast Commentary with Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Kieran Culkin, and Mark Webber
Even though the participants start out saying that this is the “no one will listen to it commentary” (and bring that back up throughout), it’s really quite good.  Plaza and Culkin discuss their woulda-been torrid affair, Culkin gets into his insatiable man-kissing spree, and everyone contributes the worst Schwartzman impersonations in recorded history (along with a couple semi-passable ones of Wright).

Final Thoughts

I’m immediately driven to echo the sentiments I put out in this space for my review of the Criterion release of House:  if you pirate a release like this instead of buying or renting, you’re only sending the message that you don’t want studios to fund content like this.  In addition to that, this is one of the most stacked new releases of the year thus far, and it compares admirably to Wright’s previous special editions, which similarly have hours of content, none of which anyone would dare accuse of being fluff or filler.

The Scott Pilgrim Blu-ray hits the street on November 9th 2010.  Support the site by ordering it at Amazon here.

Criterion Collected: HOUSE (1977) Blu-ray Review

Originally posted at Badass Digest. Reprinted here by my own permission. 

In his Fantastic Fest 2009 intro to the film, Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson told everyone that Nobuhiko Obayashi’s HOUSE would rock their world so hard that it would bend reality enough to reverse their gender. He was absolutely correct.

The Movie

As enjoyable as the movie is, it’s difficult to describe to a friend without spoiling moments throughout.  I’ll do my best to stay spoiler-free.  The protagonist, a girl nicknamed “Gorgeous” by her friends, is upset about her father remarrying.  She packs up her six best friends, who all have very archetypical nicknames (“Kung Fu”, “Mac” as in “Big Mac”, and “Melody”) and heads off to her auntie’s old house in the country.

Gorgeous’ auntie is very frail, and has a big fluffy cat named Blanche.  What none of the girls know is that “auntie” is a witch who feeds on the flesh of young “marryable” girls, and that the cat is her evil little helper.  What follows is an amazing bizarro ride replete with just about every in-camera, non-computer-aided special effect in the playbook.  The effects in House really brings the phrase “good ol’ days” to mind.

TRAILERTRAILERTRAILER

Toho Studios gave carte blanche to commercial director Nobuhiko Obayashi on his first feature.  The movie is equal parts survival horror and surreal, absurdist black comedy.  It’s difficult for me to feel satisfied with plugging it into even that unique a box.  The studio had no idea they were going to get what came out the other end, and they expected it to die a quick death.

Much to their surprise and horror, young people flocked to it and embraced it fully.  Toho yanked it from theaters a couple of weeks in rather than fuel a change in the content paradigm in the movie industry.  They actively withheld it from public viewing for years, but the disc’s supplements tell that story better than I can here.

The Poster That Devoured the World and a Contest

The now-iconic “orange cat face” poster (also the cover art) for House was designed based on Obayashi’s production art by Nashville artist Sam Smith, who also happens to play drums for Ben Folds.  In a rare move for Janus Films and the Criterion Collection, they made a t-shirt out of it too, which has gone to multiple re-printings (just as the poster did).

They even made wall decals, which are now all gone, with the exception of a small stack of them that I’ve secreted away at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin.  I plan to make them all disappear by Halloween.  The best comment on this post may just get a surprise in the mail, now that I think of it.

Smith is also the designer of the poster for Kaneto Shindo’s Kuroneko (1968), which Janus Films is currently touring across the country.

The Look and Sound

House is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, so don’t you dare turn on the “Smart Stretch” setting on your HDTV.  Compared to my recollection of the print we saw at Fantastic Fest a year ago, the Blu-ray looked appropriately film-like, with realistic levels of grain throughout.  The colors are vivid and the contrast is especially good.  The Mono sound mix is nice and clean, with little to no discernible hiss.

The Supplements

The extras are few in quantity, but they’re more than I could have hoped for on a three decade-old movie that I never thought I’d see subtitled in an official U.S. home video release.

Constructing a “House”
This featurette includes interviews with the director, screenwriter, and Obayashi’s daughter (also House story scenarist).  In particular, the bits on the way that Toho buried the film are fascinating.

Emotion (1966)
This is an experimental short from ten years before House was made.  I’m glad Criterion is continuing to include early short films that would ordinarily never be seen.

Video Appreciation by Ti West
The director of House of the Devil speaks briefly about how influential the film is on him, and how it did many things that haven’t been bested to date.

Final Thoughts

House has emerged as a new option for when you want a midnight movie that your friends haven’t seen.  It’s a movie that I’d want to have on my shelf rather than rent from Netflix and likely never send back (I bet it’ll be on Very Long Wait for some time to come).

Before it hit DVD today, various friends told me they’d downloaded it.  Plenty of writers avoid even touching the piracy issue, but this is one of the best examples of how it affects access to unique titles like this one.  Criterion doesn’t have their own section at Walmart, unlike the mega-studios, and downloading a movie like House and refusing them the accompanying revenue from renting or buying it only serves to prevent titles like it continuing to pop up in the Collection.  I can’t remember the last time I saw another studio put out something as unique, weird, and fantastic as House.

House hit the street today.

$28.50

Robin Hood XXXXIV: The Director's Cut

Universal announced an Unrated Director's Cut of this spring's Robin Hood earlier today. It got lost in the shuffle after Lionsgate's Apocalypse Now press release landed in my inbox. This new cut from Ridley Scott is 15 minutes longer. I never saw Russell Crowe is a Bloke Wot is Called Robin Hood, but I hope that the longer cut adds depth and texture to it in the way other Scott "long cuts" have.

Apocalypse Restored to 2.35

The best part of today's announcement of the Blu-ray release of Apocalypse Now (19 October) is that the Theatrical Cut and the "Redux" version are both in 2.35:1, the movie's original aspect ratio. Our long 2.00:1 nightmare, begun by the otherwise-brilliant Vittorio Storaro, is at last over--on this picture, at least.

The press release in my inbox says there will be two versions: (1) the 2-disc Two-Film Set, which contains the 1979 and Redux versions, old extras and some new ones, and (2) the 3-disc Full Disclosure Edition, which duplicates everything in the Two-Film Set and adds George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr's Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, more extras, a 48-page booklet, some pieces of art and so on. October is becoming an expensive Blu-ray month for cinephiles.