BILLY JACK (1971, Blu-ray released January 12, 2010 – MSRP $24.98)

I watched Billy Jack for the first time a couple of days ago. It’s one of the strangest film experiences I’ve ever had.

Billy Jack was the passion project of actor and first-time writer/director Tom Laughlin. He struggled for years within the Hollywood system to realize his dream of bringing this story to the big screen and then, even when the film had finally been produced, he had to fight for it to be screened. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into creating this story of a loner ex-green beret defending a group of innocents from the persecution of a bigoted town. And the result is a film that’s become a cult classic.

I entered into the screening thinking I was going to see a kind-of martial arts version of First Blood. Instead, I was witness to one of the strangest, most peculiar mixtures of film and theatre elements ever put in front of a camera. On the surface and during its strongest moments Billy Jack is just that – a man fighting for what’s right. Kicking ass and taking names. Speaking softly and carrying a mean roundhouse kick. But the narrative takes some peculiar twists and turns and leads into long, tiresome and confusing stretches of improvised theatre games and sing-alongs that don’t serve the story at all. It all seems a bit indulgent and very out of place. But these moments, while odd, are also strangely compelling. They’re like a car wreck, in a way, causing the viewer to ‘rubberneck’ from scene to scene, unable to tear their eyes away from the disaster onscreen.

I enjoyed Billy Jack, despite, or maybe because of its flaws. So much so that I’ve tracked down copies of Born Losers, the film that preceded it and The Trial of Billy Jack and Billy Jack goes to Washington, its two sequels. I haven’t been brave enough to crack into any of them yet but I’m sure they won’t measure up to the oddity of this signature seventies film.

The Billy Jack Blu-ray is a revelation, relative to any version that’s been previously available. The old Warner edition of the film was framed at a 4:3 aspect ratio and, from what I’ve seen online, was not a pretty sight. This restored version returns the film to its native 1.78 shape and has cleaned up a lot of damage present on the source. It looks way better than a film of this budget and age has any right to. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track sounds pretty decent but it’s not going to knock your socks off.

There are a handful of great special features here, most compelling of which are the dual audio commentaries featuring writer/director/star Laughlin and his wife/co-star, Delores Taylor. Both tracks cover a lot of the same ground, the second recorded more recently with Laughlin’s son moderating. But if you’re a die-hard fan you’ll want to give both a listen. An entertaining and informative 15-minute documentary and a collection of vintage television ads round out the disc.

I was elated when I heard the announcement of the new, remastered edition of Martin Scorsese‘s Gangs of New York Blu-ray but there remained the question of how much of an improvement that disc would be over the original, brutally flawed release. Well now, thanks to the AVS Forum‘s Xylon we have the answer. Check out these screenshot comparisons for proof!

Xylon seems thoroughly impressed with this new, remastered Blu-ray. From his posts on AVS Forum:

“When I was watching this last night I was just flabbergasted how much of the picture quality … has been lost and altered in the original version. At the same time I am thinking about other Blu-ray/HD DVD titles that has been infected with with the same PQ issues namely DNR and EE. From Patton to Dark City to Gladiator what if they were done right the first time? Could it be that they can look as good as this? Our answer to that is of course! And why not? … Excessive use of DNR (Digital Noise Reduction), EE (Edge Enhancement) and poor recycled old masters has no place in our modern home theater.”

I couldn’t agree with Xylon more. And his screenshots speak for themselves. This new edition of Gangs looks fantastic! I hope this is a sign that the studios are beginning to come to their senses are realize that their catalogue films deserve the best treatment possible.

Via: Land of Whimsy

THE SIMPSONS: THE COMPLETE TWENTIETH SEASON (2008-2009, Blu-ray released January 12, 2010 – MSRP $59.99)

While never being a rabid fan of The Simpsons, I’ve always enjoyed the show and try my best to catch new episodes when I can. More often than not I’m stuck with the syndicated reruns which seem to play non-stop on some channel, somewhere along the digital dial. I was delighted to get my hands on this Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season Blu-ray set, as I had only managed to see around half the episodes last year. What a treat!

It was so nice to have a chance to catch up on all the episodes I missed. The series holds up surprisingly well after a couple of decades. It might not have the bite or social relevance it once had but it delivers more than it has any business delivering after so long on the air. There’s a part of me that would like to see the series grow beyond it’s initial set-up, allowing characters to age, come together or move away from one another – send Bart to college, let Maggie walk and speak, bring a new child into the Simpson house. But at the same time, that growth quite often sounds the death knell of a series and the jumping of the proverbial shark. In that light, I’m glad to see that the Simpsons has stayed the course and remains one of the consistently quality comedies on the air!

The twenty-one episodes of the season are all complete and present, spread over two Blu-ray discs and looking and sounding pretty good. The first disc contains the nine holdover episodes from Season 19 that ran in 2008, produced in standard def and at the old 4:3 aspect ratio. Don’t be surprised by the black bars on either side of your screen when you watch those bad boys. They are no doubt up-converted from their native 480i for the Blu-ray 1080p presentation and as such look the part. There’s a lot of banding and aliasing of the sort you’re used to seeing in upconverted material. In this case, considering the source material, the presentation is completely acceptable.

The second disc is where all the real treats lie! The final twelve episodes of the season, the brand new ones were created and broadcast in high-def and feature a vast improvement in image quality. The 4:3 aspect ratio is gone, replaced by a beautiful wide 16:9, most of the banding and aliasing issues have been taken care of and there’s a whole lot more detail present on the screen. And hey, the studio even re-animated the opening in high-def, representing the more modern, tighter designs of the characters for the first time! All in all, the Blu-ray set looks as you would expect when dealing with lower-budget television animation and doesn’t disappoint.

What is disappointing, however is the severe lack of special features on The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season Blu-ray disc set. Where previously issued DVD sets were jam packed full of commentary tracks, deleted scenes, featurettes and galleries, The Simpsons first appearance on Blu (aside from their feature film) is devoid of any extras, save a very brief 4-minute trailer for Morgan Spurlock‘s 20th Anniversary Simpsons special. (Oh, and the menus are hand-drawn by Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Kind of neat.) With these anemic offerings, I can’t help but feel that there will be a bigger, better, more robust boxed set on the horizon.

Casual fans will be pleased by this set, finding the entire season on only two discs which means it takes up very little shelf space. Hardcore fans will cry out for the extras they’re used to getting on the DVD season sets.

Well, will you look at that! It turns out Sherlock Holmes is being released on Blu-ray on March 30th! Who Would’ve guessed?! Check out the details below:

SHERLOCK HOLMES
(March 30, 2010 – MSRP $35.99)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

* WB Maximum Movie Mode (TRT Feature Length)
o Director Guy Ritchie Walk On
o PIP
o Focus Points
o Storyboard Comparisons
o Still Gallery Timeline

* Sherlock Holmes: Reinvented
* Deleted Scenes
* BD-Live
* LCS
* My Commentary
* DVD and Digital Copy

“Missed it by that much!” – Maxwell Smart, Get Smart

Huh. Yeah. That new Apple iPad is full of potential. I really want to want one but it feels like it’s just missing the mark by a hair. And that hair is going to keep this writer from buying. At least for now.

I’m not going to run down all the details of the iPad. I’m sure you’ve read an article or watched a newscast that’s covered the tablet in-depth. If not, watch Apple’s overview video above. That should do the trick.

…

You see? It’s not a smart-phone and it’s not a laptop. Apple claims it’s a whole new category of device. I get that. And I think the devices it’s directly competing with are the Amazon Kindle (a dedicated book reader) and the netbook (crippled, mini-laptops). But the iPad doesn’t offer the easy-on-the-eyes ePaper screen of the Kindle, making eye-strain a probable issue when reading ebooks. And it doesn’t have the ability to multi-task or the extensibility of a mini-laptop. The iPad only has one port and it’s not standard. If you want to plug anything into it, you’ll need a handful of adapters.

So, it’s not the best eBook reader and it’s not the best mobile workstation. At the end of the day, it just comes across as a big iPod Touch or iPhone, right?! Another window to consume media. Well, here’s where Apple missed the boat. They focused on functions that we see everyday on our phones, and functions that other, cheaper devices do better. They spent their keynote speech demonstrating the devices ability to read text and create spreadsheets. They should have shown us new things. Things that this device can do better than anything on the market. Like comic books. Like magazines. Any two-bit e-reader can handle text. There isn’t anything on the market at the moment that can allow a comic or magazine as printed to resonate with a reader in digital form. The iPad can do that. It can display full, large coloured pages as they were designed. As they were meant to be read. And I’m certain it will, through applications like ComicZeal, Comixology and iVerse.

But more exciting to me is the potential for this device to become something new in my home. Like, for instance, to become my media controller. I can envision myself sitting on the couch, leaning back with my iPad, scrolling through all my music, movies, TV, books, comics, magazines. The access is all there in my hands. But I imagine some of this content living on my Macbook Pro hard drive, on an external HD networked through my Airport Extreme or on another dedicated media device like Apple TV or PS3. I should be able to find a movie, no matter where it’s living in my house and click play on my iPad. And when I want to share it with others in the room, the iPad should be able to move the film to my 40″ LCD display, whether through a media centre like the Apple TV or directly through a wireless DLNA connection. All of these things are possible with the hardware built in to the iPad.

When I say that the iPad misses the mark, it’s really in relation to our expectations of the product. We were hoping for something revolutionary and transformative but were shown more of the same. Only bigger. In hardware terms, it fails to make the grade by not including a more universal port (like USB) and a webcam to video chat. I’m not sad that it doesn’t include a Blu-ray drive. I think it’s ridiculous to expect a thin, handheld device to contain a spinning optical drive. I got over carrying my discman around with me about fifteen years ago.

In terms of the software, the sky is the limit. Anything is possible. So, to my mind Apple really missed out on impressing its consumers and critics by failing to provide an example of the potential of the product, leaving it up to application developers to dream of new directions for the product. It could be so much more if Apple will only allow it to be. If they have the vision to take it there.

Will I buy an iPad this year? I’m still undecided. Do I hope it succeeds? Absolutely. I look forward to owning an iPad that proves itself to be more than my iPhone. And more comfortable on my lap and in my hands than my Macbook Pro. And if it manages to somehow become interoperable with my Blu-ray player so much the better!