The Blu-Ray Blog

New Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray Package Art, Half-Price Sale

brenden — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:29:13 +0000

The new slimmer packaging for Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series

It was just over a month ago that we told you all about the reissue and repackaging of the Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray boxed set. This new box packs the same old content into a slicker, slimmer package that will fit on your shelf, as opposed to the last version which was so big and bulky that it could double as a house for your cat. It also now includes the straight-to-video film, The Plan, which was released after the original collection was issued. But you know all of this already, right? And you’ve probably already seen this updated package art, right? What you want to know is how to get this new edition of the BSG box set on the cheap. Well, let me tell you how…

Amazon.ca is the answer. That’s right, Canada’s very own Amazon store is selling the new Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray for the low, low price of $149.99 CDN (around $146 US!!) That’s a whole hell of a lot cheaper than the Amazon.com discount price of $209.99. Now, I don’t know what the shipping is from here in Canada down to you folks in the States but I’m sure even when you factor that into the cost, the Amazon.ca price will still come out on top by a long shot. There’s no guarantee that the price will stay this low (and if the US price is any indication, it’ll shoot back up before long!) so if you’re a BSG fan you might want to jump on this deal in the very near future!

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Repackaged Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray Announced

Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy Blu-ray Details

brenden — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:08:17 +0000

As we told you in our January post, Palisades Tartan is bringing Park Chan-wook’s brilliant Vengeance Trilogy to Blu-ray. While we were very excited to break this news, there was still some question about the contents of the set. It’s now come to light, a mere week before the discs are meant to street at Best Buy (who reportedly have the exclusive until June) that this will only be a 3-disc boxed set, not the 8-Disc set that was rumoured previously. In addition, the list of special features has been updated and includes the wonderful three-hour video diary “The Autobiography of Oldboy“, an incredible addition to the set. Updated details below:

VENGEANCE TRILOGY
(March 16, 2010 - MSRP $49.99)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance:

Audio commentary with director Park Chan-Wook and actor/filmmaker Ryoo Seung-wan
The Process of Mr. Vengeance
My Boksu Story
Crew interviews
Jonathan Ross on Park Chan-wook
Soundtrack and photos
Storyboards
Original behind-the-scenes feature
Trailer

Oldboy:

Audio commentaries:
- Director Park Chan-wook
- Park Chan-wook and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon
- Park Chan-wook and cast
Five behind-the-scenes featurettes:
- Making The Film - The Cast Remembers
- Production Design
- The Music Score
- CGI Documentary
- Flashback
Le Grand Prix at Cannes
Ten deleted scenes with optional commentary
“The Autobiography of Oldboy”: 3-hour video diary.

Lady Vengeance:

Regular and Fade-To-White versions (with Park Chan-wook introduction to the Fade-To-White version)
Audio commentaries:
- Director Park Chan-wook and actress Lee Young-ae
- Park Chan-wook, cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon and art director Choi Hyeon-seok
- Critic Richard Pena
Making-of featurette
EPK:
- Teaser
- Trailer
- Highlights
- Second making-of featurette
The Style of Lady Vengeance:
- Visualization
- Production Design
- Costume & Makeup
- Art
- CG
Deleted scenes with commentary
Park Chan-wook:
- Interview with Park Chan-wook
- Park Chan-wook, “Mr. Vengeance”
- Photography featurette
- Director’s Choice, A short film recommended by Park Chan-wook
Character interviews
- Lee Geum-ja
- Professor Baek
- Prisoners
- Families
Lady Vengeance in Venice
Get Together
Trailer
TV spots
Poster gallery

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy comes to Blu-ray in March

Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on Blu-ray

brenden — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:16:05 +0000

I’m an unabashed fan of Terry Gilliam’s work. I count Brazil amongst my all time favourite films. While I didn’t think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was his best work, I did really enjoy it and am pleased to tell you that you’ll be able to get your hands on a Blu-ray copy of the film very, very soon. From the looks of things, however, it will be available in Canada, the US and the UK at different times, from different studios. I’ve got the info for Lionsgate’s UK release and Sony’s US version but the Canadian Blu-ray, which I’m assuming will come from E1 Films has yet to be announced at all. We will, of course, update this post when we know more. UK and US details below:

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (US EDITION)
(April 27, 2010 - MSRP $34.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

Introduction by director Terry Gilliam
Commentary with Terry Gilliam
Deleted scene with optional commentary by Terry Gilliam
Behind the mirror
Building the monastery
“The Drunk” multi-angle progression sequence
Heath Ledger and friends
The Imaginarium of Terry Gilliam
Heath Ledger wardrobe test with optional commentary by Terry Gilliam
Interview with Heath Ledger
Doctor Parnassus around the world
Cast & crew presentation on stage
The Artwork of Doctor Parnassus
BD-Live
movieIQ+sync

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (US EDITION)
(March 29, 2010 - MSRP £24.99)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

Director’s Commentary
Director’s Introduction
Deleted Scene with Optional Commentary
Heath Ledger Wardrobe Test with Optional Commentary
Behind the Mirror Featurette
Building the Temple Featurette
Visual FX Feature with Optional Commentary
UK Premiere Featurette

Spielberg’s War of the World Blu-ray Announced and Detailed

brenden — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:27:53 +0000

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of H.G. Wells‘ War of the Worlds started out pretty great, if you ask me. It felt like it was going to be a ramped up version of Close Encounters, which is pretty far from a bad thing. However, after a solid half-hour or so of teasing with well structured scenes, with well written, well performed characters, the film seemed to me to devolve into cheap, modern action fare. I really wanted to love it but ultimately felt a bit let down by the film. That was a lot of years ago now. And I think I’m finally willing to give it a second chance. War of the Worlds comes to Blu-ray on June 1st! Details below:

(Fake cover art pictured above - I’ll replace it when Paramount gets us the real deal!)

WAR OF THE WORLDS
(June 1, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

· Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens
· Scoring War Of The Worlds
· We Are Not Alone
· Galleries

· Theatrical Teaser Trailer (HD)

Top 5 New Blu-ray releases for the Week of March 9

brenden — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:32:11 +0000

Man, I can’t escape those damn Oscars!! Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in…to writing about..them? (Sigh…I shouldn’t try to be witty or cleverly try to incorporate movie quotes into these intros, should I?) There are a couple of stand-out Hollywood titles here this week, both represented at the 82nd Academy Awards. Outside of those discs and an outstanding anime on Blu debut, this is a pretty barren week. It’s days like these that make me glad I didn’t decide to make this list a Top 10 every week.

1. PRECIOUS

Geez, after all the attention Precious is getting I’m really regretting not requesting a review copy of the Blu-ray disc. Every clip from the film seems to have some of the finest, most naturalistic performances I’ve seen in ages. Looks to be masterful work there. The Blu-ray has a lot of extras included on it, including a bunch of featurettes, a commentary track with director Lee Daniels and the screen test of the brilliant Gabourey Sidibe, star of the film. Precious won the Oscar for adapted screenplay and best supporting actress, Mo’nique.

Amazon: $23.99

2. UP IN THE AIR

I just watched Up in the Air. In fact, I chose to watch it over the Oscars (take that, MPAA!) And let me tell you, while it might not exactly live up to all the hype, it’s still a wonderful, if not predictable film. I’ll have a full review of the Blu-ray disc up shortly but in the meantime, this is the only disc on the list that I can unequivocally recommend. I only put Precious before it in the Top 5 list because of the two films, it was the one that took home the Oscar statues. Up in the Air was nominated for six Oscar awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress.

Amazon: $26.99

3. EVANGELION 1.11: YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE

I haven’t seen this disc yet and, if you read my previous post about the Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone Blu-ray, you’ll recall that I’m not a huge fan of the series. I can, however, tell you that over the last week or so, I’ve been privy to a host of comments about and reviews of this disc that lead me to believe it may be the best representation of anime on Blu yet! If you’re a fan of Eva, this is a must buy!!

Amazon: $19.99

4. PARIS

If you’ve ever been to Paris, if you’ve ever fallen in love with the city - its alleys and streets, buildings, history, people, food - this film is going to make you want to buy a ticket back, as soon as humanly possible. Paris might not be a perfect film but it is a kind love-letter filled with entertaining character portraits. And who doesn’t love Juliette Binoche?!

Amazon: $24.99

5. HACHI: A DOG’S TALE

Okay, honestly, the title of this film just put me off right away. Also, I’m not a big fan of Richard Gere. But Hachi: A Dog’s Tale does have a few things going for it - it stars Joan Allen (who you may remember from the last two Bourne films), it’s based on a true story from Japan (the dog’s name is actually Hachiko, after the Japanese symbol for good luck) and it’s directed by the extremely talented Lasse Hallström (of The Cider House Rules fame.) That’s good enough to make it on the list today!

Amazon: $24.99

AND…

In the “I’m sure some of you will love it but I hated the original so much I pray the sequel Blu-ray self-destructs” category:

BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY

I don’t want to give this film too much press here. Just adding the image of the disc to this release page irks me to some degree. You see, I really hate the original Boondock Saints. I feel like it was everything that was wrong with cinema in the 90s - men posing, unloading hundreds of bullets and doing a lot of violent things in slow motion for the sake of being “cool”, in a vapid and derivative circus of style-above-substance cinema. Note to director Troy Duffy, you’re not John Woo. Even Woo has learned to reign in his old-brand of stylized violence lately. Get with the times, Duffy!

I include the disc here simply because I know that some of you are fans of the original. I don’t know why, but to each his own. The rest of you should be warned that this sequel is more of the same, only ten years older and ten times shittier.

Amazon: $19.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

Universal Soldier: Regeneration Blu-ray Disc Review

Howard — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:18:57 +0000

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION (2009, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $34.95)

Out of the fridge and into the fray! Van Damme and Lundgren both return, in this age of recycling, in Universal Soldier: Regeneration to discover that times have changed for the better. Regeneration revisits the franchise without re-hashing. The third official installment of the Universal Soldier films showcases the talents of a father-son team capable of bringing a movie franchise back from the dead.

In the summer of ’92 I was old enough to see an R-rated films, but I didn’t see the original Universal Soldier when it came out in theaters. I would have watched this direct-to-video release, directed by John Hyams and shot by Peter Hyams, in the theater. Yes, the classic (see: older action stars) UniSols, short for Universal Soldiers, are back, but this time they have their mettle tested against a new (see: younger, up-and-comer) update and even perhaps try to find their place in a world they can’t quite remember. Van Damme and Lundgren can both still pack a wallop, and they show each other how it’s done, up close and personal like.

At a time when mixed martial artists are cropping up more in films (look for Rampage Jackson to sport the mohawk in the A-Team movie out this spring), it’s not surprising to see a couple of them thrown into the mix with of the all the nigh-unstoppable, killing machines running around. Rounding out the cast are Andrei “the Pitbull” Arlovski and Mike Pyle–known figures to UFC aficionados. It’s Arlovski that plays the newest, most dangerous and nameless NGU (Next Generation UniSol). The ground-and-pound technique of subduing an opponent fits right in with the savagery with which the UniSols dispatch their foes. Roland Emmerich, director of the original Universal Soldier film used some comedy to lighten the mood whenever he felt the need to relieve some of the tension, but Regeneration doesn’t pull any of its punches. The action sequences are all-action. There is no need of one-liners, or most of the time, any dialogue at all for that matter. It works. The acts speak for themselves and watching the UniSols face off with each other provides a lesson in staging and filming proficiently executed fight and stunt coordination.

A simple, yet subtly clever story unfolds without any big moral entanglements; however, the theme of control runs throughout the film and exists on several levels. We see the obvious control the military has over the UniSols, the control of humans over technology, the political control some possess as well as the struggle for self-control. An honestly picturesque, closed-down steel plant in Bulgaria serves as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant backdrop for the story of a politically motivated hostage taking by the NGU and orchestrated by his controllers. The looming and intimidating appearance of the location functions as a reminder of how a real danger of the past can persist, or soldier on, even. Did I mention there’s a bomb at the Chernobyl plant counting down to the explosive release of radiation if the hostage takers demands are not met?

The film was shot with a Red® camera, and while it captured all the immersive moments that make the viewer feel like they’re playing a first-person shooter, it lacked some image stability when panning quickly and blurred some actor movements. Other than that, the digital marvel that is the Red One, delivers all of the detail of the harsh environment and it delivers without an abundant use of CGI. The film was shot primarily using in-camera effects–Through creative editing and real stunt work, the director lets the toughness of the characters (and the performances of the actors) be what it must, brutal and final. For the most part, the Blu-ray handles the Red footage with aplomb, only exhibiting the occasional banding, wavering contrast levels and loss of detail.

What you will notice first in the DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks is the distinctive automatic weapons gunfire sound—It’s deep, in the lower register and sweetly comes through all of the speakers. The sound of blows struck in the hand-to-hand combat sequences, and there are a lot of them, land with more realistic and painful sounding thuds. All other sound effects pale in comparison and are, at times too quiet or don’t have enough oomph; however, the center dialogue track is clear and never overpowered.

On the extras front, we are treated to an engaging commentary track with the director and Lundgren, who discuss their experiences working on the film as well as others. Praised is the work of the stunt people on the film and it’s rightly deserved. It added an element of realism to a franchise one wouldn’t expect it from. Also offered is a featurette where John and Peter Hyams talk about making a film that could breathe new life into an old idea, modernize it with losing any of the elements that worked, tell a compelling story and make it more realistically exciting than it had been before.

Universal Soldier: Regeneration proves that it’s hard to keep a good or bad, regenerated, dead soldier…or film franchise down.

The 82nd Oscar Winners on Blu-ray

brenden — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:46:23 +0000

I hate award shows. I was almost able to avoid the whole Academy Award fiasco last night. Sadly, I caught the opening few minutes of this years self-congratulatory Hollywood travesty, like a stray botox-bullet to the face. I’ll no doubt spend the rest of the week recovering.

I caught up on all the Oscar award winners afterward and I can’t say I was surprised or delighted by much of the news. I am happy to tell you though, that most of the films that took home a statue are either already available on Blu-ray or have been announced to be released on the format soon. Are you more apt to pick up any of the following titles, now that they are Academy Award winners?

AVATAR - ART DIRECTION, CINEMATOGRAPHY, VISUAL EFFECTS

Available on 2D Blu-ray April 22nd (unofficial) and 3D Blu-ray sometime in November (also unofficial) from Fox.

THE BLIND SIDE - SANDRA BULLOCK - BEST ACTRESS

Available on Blu-ray March 23 from Warner.

THE COVE - DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Available on Blu-ray only in France and Germany with no domestic release pending from Lionsgate.

CRAZY HEART - JEFF BRIDGES – BEST ACTOR; ORIGINAL SONG – “THE WEARY KIND (Theme from Crazy Heart)”

Blu-ray announcement pending from Fox.

THE HURT LOCKER - DIRECTING; FILM EDITING; BEST PICTURE; SOUND EDITING; SOUND MIXING; ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Now available on Blu-ray from Summit.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - CHRISTOPH WALTZ – BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Now available on Blu-ray from Universal.

PRECIOUS - MO’NIQUE - BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS; ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Available on Blu-ray March 9 from Lionsgate.

EL SECRETO DE SUS OJOS - BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM (Argentina)

Blu-ray announcement pending from Sony. Available in Spain on March 17.

STAR TREK - MAKEUP

Now available on Blu-ray from Paramount.

UP - ANIMATED FEATURE; ORIGINAL SCORE

Now available on Blu-ray from Disney.

THE YOUNG VICTORIA - COSTUME DESIGN

Available on Blu-ray April 9 from Sony.

With thanks to Blu-ray.com.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:15:12 +0000

ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING (2009, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $29.98)

I’m fairly certain that Tony Jaa is not a real human being. If he were flesh and blood, there’s no way he would be able to perform the stunts, the martial-arts mash-ups and acrobatics on display in the spectacle that is Ong Bak 2. For gods sake, the man surfs a herd of elephants here! Who can do that?!

Ong Bak 2 is not the perfect Thai movie it wants to be, but not for lack of effort by all involved. Least of all Jaa, who is credited with not only the starring role but also as writer, director, producer and martial arts choreographer! Perhaps the man simply wore too many hats for this production to truly succeed on every level. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to love here, in this prequel to the original 2003 hit film. It looks fantastic with wonderful photography and production design. The acting is surprisingly good for an action film. And it goes without saying that the action is beyond top-notch.

Ong Bak 2 ultimately fails in the storytelling department. The film has all the ingredients of a perfect martial arts revenge story - boy sees parents killed, is trained by thieves in multiple disciplines, finds parents’ killer and exacts revenge - but drops the ball in its structure and character building. We understand what most scenes are supposed to mean to the story but the connective fabric seems to have been given a miss. There’s a lot more drama to be milked out of this story, if only anyone had spent the time to take advantage of it. But judging from the ending, which kind of just jumps out at you from nowhere, this film is only the first part of a tale that will continue in the upcoming Ong Bak 3.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning is stunning on Blu-ray. That’s not to say that it’s a perfect transfer and encode. But it’s quite often breathtaking, with its striking locations and use of colour. If you look closely, however, you’ll find inconsistent black levels and the odd occurrence of colour banding. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 makes up for anything lacking in the visuals. The film sounds great on Blu!

There are a ton of special features to dig into here and if you’re a fan of the film series or of Jaa I think you’ll be more than pleased. The English subtitled, 21-minute “Making of Ong Bak 2” is quite comprehensive and provides a lot of candid footage and interview clips with the cast and crew. Three “Behind the Scenes” featurettes deliver even more footage of Jaa and his team rehearsing, filming and assembling the movie. There are a further 25-minutes of interviews with the cast and crew, culled, for the most part, from segments of the “making of” docs. The disc is rounded out by an “HDNet: A Look at Ong Bak 2” introduction to the film, exclusive footage of the upcoming sequel, Ong Bak 3 and some trailers.

Wrong Side of Town Blu-ray Disc Review

Howard — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:42:40 +0000

Welcome Howard Martin to The Blu-ray Blog family in this, his first review for the site!

WRONG SIDE OF TOWN (2010, Blu-ray released February 23, 2010 - MSRP $29.99)

The worlds of wrestling and hip-hop collide on and in the Wrong Side of Town. WWE’s Rob Van Dam (RVD) and David Bautista are matched up with Ja Rule and Omarion in this action offering of a night-gone-wrong tale of criminal club-owners, dirty cops and some of the ugliest thugs-for-hire you’ll ever see.

This is definitely a movie where you put your brain on the shelf, sit back and enjoy the ride, but will this film appeal to non-wrestling fans? This is hard to say. I have a certain awareness of the WWE and it’s colourful personalities, who are definitely the focus of the movie; however, David DeFalco (Director) doesn’t quite have the film play to their strengths. I would have enjoyed seeing them facing off against their nemeses after a good name-calling, tongue-lashing session, but that’s just me.

Suburban family man, Bobby (RVD), reluctantly heads into the city for dinner, and for dessert, he ends up with a price on his head. The villainous club-owner, Seth, is willing to pay $100 000 for Rob’s capture and word gets out pretty quick. Every heavy in town wants to collect. Bobby needs help. Enter Big Ronnie (Bautista). Who doesn’t like a good tag-team team-up? Unfortunately, the action is a little slow and slow in coming, but features an impressive display of the Filipino martial art form Kali; it’s quick, intricate and beautiful in the way it flows. Bautista and fight coordinator/henchman, Marrese Crump, demonstrate their proficiency amidst bodies of felled bruisers.

I enjoyed the performance of the camera. Shot using a Red One®, the director captured crisp and clear images for a film shot primarily at night and under some low-lit situations. More and more we are seeing films shot with the versatile and relatively inexpensive digital option of Red® cameras. Its size and weight surely made the three-week shoot of what were clearly quick set-ups, in and around the Baton Rouge area, much easier. The Red® footage and a reasonable encode result in a Blu-ray that exhibits good, solid colour throughout, with some inconsistency in detail and contrast.

I felt that the DTS-HD MA audio track wasn’t used to its fullest potential. What we hear is adequate, but it would have been great to get right into the action–to get the tire squeals and bullets ricochets. The soundtrack itself is made up of both rock and hip-hop tracks, is never over the top and manages to compliment the scenes without distracting.

For bonus features, we are treated to cast interviews, including some behind-the-scenes tidbits with RVD telling us about set-life, his stunt performances and the difficulties of movement in costumes that don’t include a unitard. Also included on the disc are further demonstrations of Kali by Marrese Crump, Bautista and Oscar Lugo to Pronobozo track.

All in all the film is engaging enough for its running time of 85 minutes, and although Wrong Side of Town may not land the elbow from the top rope, it’ll keep you pinned (while the ref’s back is turned) ‘til the end.

Clash of the Titans Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:34:02 +0000

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981, Blu-ray released March 2, 2010 - MSRP $34.99)

I have such a soft spot for fantasy and sci-fi films of the late 70s/early 80s. I don’t doubt that they are responsible for my fascination with the trappings of nerd-dom, from gallivanting space adventures to heroic tales of flying men in capes. I count Clash of the Titans amongst the most influential of those films on my young mind. And I’m so excited to finally have it in my Blu-ray collection, warts and all.

Clash of the Titans is the last great hurrah of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, after years spent making movie magic for such films as the original Mighty Joe Young (with King Kong animation pioneer Willis O’Brien), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. It tells the story of heroic Perseus, son of top-God Zeus, who must save his beloved Andromeda from the monstrous Kraken, last of the Titans. Along the way he fights through a demonic horde of Harryhausen’s animated beasts, like the deformed Calibos and the gorgon Medusa, with only his wits and divine armaments to carry him home to his princess. It’s a pretty straight forward but spirited adventure that clearly celebrates the wonder of the Greek mythology it draws from. Modern audiences might find the story a bit corny and will definitely be turned off by the antiquated special effects but film and animation buffs, along with those who grew up in the 80s, will no doubt look upon Clash of the Titans quite fondly.

The visual presentation of the Clash of the Titans Blu-ray disc is a challenging one to grade. To most eyes, this transfer will look like a mess. Varying levels of contrast, detail and grain will provide most with a confusing viewing experience. These issues are most likely all source based. There’s no evidence that Warner has done anything but a top-notch job with the elements at hand - elements that were clearly wrung through the ringer in the process of creating the vintage, multi-composite and stop-motion special effects on a shoe-string budget. In short, what Clash of the Titans needs to meet modern expectations is a full scale restoration. And I’m not expecting that to happen in the short term. So, this remaster is without question the finest this film will look for years. I personally found it a joy to watch, even with those really rough spots.

The audio is pretty decent here, despite the fact that the DTS-HD Master Audio track is only two channels. Even without a newly-created surround track, Clash of the Titans manages to present a nice, wide sound field and a fairly dynamic presentation on the whole.

The Clash of the Titans Blu-ray comes to us in another one of Warner’s beautiful hardcover book packages. I love these things. Like I’ve said a number of times now, if I’ve got to have packaged media, I prefer to have it on my shelf with this touch of class. And Warner really delivers here. Sadly, I have to report that all is not heavenly in Olympus! The special features on the disc are quite spare, improving on the DVD with the sole addition of a 5-minute “sneak-peek” of the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake, slated to hit theatres April 2nd. The only other features, still presented in their original 4:3 standard-def, are short conversations with Clash of the Titans creator, Harryhausen. Now, to be fair, the 23-minute A Conversation with Ray Harryhausen is quite good, and serves, for all intents and purposes, as a sort of “making-of” doc. The Myths and Monsters feature is a collection of seven very, very short Harryhausen comments on the creation of each of his animated creatures form the film. It would have been much less annoying with a “Play All” feature so I didn’t have to click on each one to listen to the individual 1-2 minute clips.

1987 Animated G.I. Joe: The Movie coming to Blu-ray!!

brenden — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:30:56 +0000

Holy crap! I never thought I would be typing these words - the 1987, animated G.I. Joe: The Movie is going to be released on Blu-ray! It’s true, folks. And I have proof!!

The HD Room has been following Shout! Factory DVD producer Brian Ward on Twitter and caught him tweeting “So the print’s in excellent condition. Looks like we’ll be doing GI JOE: THE MOVIE on Blu-ray” and “…the end credits for GI JOE: THE MOVIE finally came in. Gonna have a complete HD transfer!”.

I decided to check out his Twitter feed myself and discovered further that the Blu-ray disc won’t be a bare bones affair, “At an audio commentary recording session with Buzz Dixon on GI JOE: THE MOVIE. That’s right. I said it.” In addition, it seems Ward is hard at work brainstorming further special features for the upcoming disc release.

The HD Room posits that we’ll see G.I. Joe: The Movie on Blu-ray before the end of the year. Here’s hoping Shout! is able to serve us up the original version of the film, where Duke stays dead! COBRA LA LA LA LA!!

Via: The HD Room

[VIDEO] Animated Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes Trailer

brenden — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:04 +0000

I admit. This has nothing to do with Blu-ray. I mean, I really hope that when the time comes, Disney will release this new, Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes animated series on Blu but I’m not going to hold my breath.

I don’t know how I’ve missed this trailer (apparently it’s been kicking around for quite some time) but when I watched it this morning I got so excited, I had to post it up on the site. Yes, I love superhero cartoons. Sue me.

Here’s what Disney has to say about their new show:

“The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (52 episodes) - a new Tween 9-14-targeted series produced by Marvel Animation for Disney XD and DisneyXD.com that will premiere fall 2010. The series stars Marvel heroes Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Giant Man and Wasp, who together form the Avengers. The series will be supported by a 20-part “micro-series” that will explore the back-story of each character and will rollout this fall followed by the series. After its US debut the series will then make its way around the world.”

Via: /Film

The Informant! Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:03:40 +0000

THE INFORMANT! (2009, Blu-ray released February 23, 2010 - MSRP $35.99)

The Informant! isn’t your everyday, run of the mill whistle-blower film. Oh no. Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Burns have crafted a masterful, dark comedy from the real-life drama surrounding an insiders attempt to bring down big-business Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and the ensuing fallout of the investigations and trials. No, really, it’s a comedy. It’s funny! That’s why there’s an exclamation mark!

That exclamation mark in the title and the happy, bright orange cover of the Blu-ray tell you all you need to know going in to The Informant!. Yes, it’s based on a true story where money was lost, people were hurt and eventually went to jail. But the way that Soderbergh and Burns handle the material borders on absurdist cinema. A doughy, mustachioed Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a former biochemist turned office monkey who disapproves of his companies underhanded dealings and goes to great lengths, over a 3 year period, to provide the F.B.I. with all the secret documents and tapes they need to bring those deals to light. In the process of the investigation, new facts about Whitacre himself begin to surface and the whole story takes a bizarre turn which throws his merit as an informant into question.

Damon is simply wonderful in this multi-layered, textured performance of a disturbed man who is, himself, something of a chameleon. His “unreliable” narration wanders with his train of thought and provides the perfect stylistic touchstone for us to understand that, while the story may be based in real events, the film is following a narrative track that’s at the mercy of an unstable mind. It’s visually stylish, with fantastic performances and a killer score by Marvin Hamlisch. As much as I loved Che, I have to say that I think The Informant! is Soderbergh’s strongest work yet!

Shot digitally on the HD RED camera, The Informant! looks pretty great on Blu. It’s a warm, rich image that occasionally suffers from aliasing and black crush. But don’t judge it too harshly as those and other perceptible imperfections are most likely attributable to the nature of the shots themselves and not the transfer. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track is modest and intentionally flat, outside of the crisp, dynamic score.

And speaking of modest, the special features on The Informant! Blu-ray are far from plentiful, but worth your attention! I found the Soderbergh and Burns’ commentary to be riveting, packed full of wonderful technical information about the shoot, production anecdotes and details about Kurt Eichenwald’s original book and its subject and their adaptation to film. The disc also includes four pretty great deleted scenes.

Recommended!

Original Tron updated for Blu-ray, coming in December?

brenden — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:15:12 +0000

While all the buzz around the nerd-nets recently has been surrounding Tron Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 hit film, AICN has uncovered some information about a possible Blu-ray release of the original feature!

It’s a fact that Legacy will be hitting the big screen on December 17, 2010, so it’s not such a stretch to assume that the original Tron will be released on Blu around the same time. From the sounds of it, production of an updated, re-mastered edition of the film has just been completed, overseen by Tron creator Steven Lisberger. From the AICN source:

“It turns out my buddy and I were sitting right in front of Lisberger and we overheard him talking about how he just finished over-seeing complete color-correction and major enhancements to the original TRON for BLU RAY! It sounded like he basically kept the movie the same (no CGI inserted) but corrected the colors throughout the entire film and enhanced everything. He said it was a dream to go back to something he made thirty years ago and correct it to look exactly how he would want it for the Blu Ray release (which he made no mention of when that would happen). Anyway, Lisberger never mentioned any of that in the Q and A and I thought you guys would want to know about it.”

As further confirmation that there is a new HD transfer of the 1982 film, Tron will be airing on HD Net in the USA tonight.

Expect a Blu-ray announcement sometime this summer!

James Cameron’s Avatar Blu-ray Preview, Release date

brenden — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:11:59 +0000

All right. I guess I’ve been avoiding a couple of things on the blog lately. Specifically, I haven’t posted any of the multitude of rumours about James Cameron’s epic hit film, Avatar coming to Blu-ray. And I’ve also been avoiding the whole 3D thing. While the two topics seem to be intrinsically attached, I’m going to try to focus on Avatar alone today. I’ve got so much to say about this whole 3D-in-the-home business that I think it warrants its own article.

So, let’s start with this weeks revelation - package art and release date. It seems that UK retail sources have received the above image of the Avatar special edition “Steelbook” package art along with a release date that will see the 2D edition of the Blu-ray hitting the streets around Earth Day, April 22nd. Now, there’s no debating that this is a real package shot. It might not end up looking exactly like this over here in North America but this appears to be pretty solid. I kind of have a hard time believing that Avatar will be released in April while it’s still doing really well in theatres! But this does line up with the date that James Cameron himself leaked a couple of weeks ago. For the record, Cameron has also claimed that we’ll be getting a 3D edition of the Blu-ray in November. A Fox spokesman has stated otherwise. So, either way, if it’s the 3D version of the Blu-ray you’re after (and it most likely isn’t, as I doubt anyone actually owns a 3D display or player at this point) you better be prepared to wait a little while longer.

Cameron has also revealed that the early release 2D edition of Avatar on home video will be a more bare-bones affair but will include over 10-minutes of deleted scenes (including the heavily reported CGI sex scene between the blue, digital versions of actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana) that will shed more light on the Na’vi people of Pandora. In an interview with MTV, he said, “It’s all wonderful stuff, but it was sort of bogging down the middle section of the movie…So there’s plenty for a value-added DVD experience on this film. Of course, we’ll have to go punch it all up and get it all mixed and stuff like that.”

Keep in mind that without an official announcement from Fox, all information regarding an Avatar Blu-ray release must be considered a rumour. We hope to hear something official very soon!

Via: Blu-ray.com

Top 5 New Blu-ray releases for the Week of March 2

brenden — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:08:37 +0000

This is a huge release week for me. One of the most important of the year. There’s not a lot hitting the shops today but a couple of films here number amongst my favourites. As always, your clicks matter. If you enjoy this weekly column and want to support it and the site, please make your purchases through our Amazon links. By doing so, you’re directly helping the The Blu-ray Blog stay alive…just like Johnny 5.

I can’t believe I just typed that…

1. PONYO

What more can I possibly say about the incredible Ponyo Blu-ray disc that I didn’t already cover in my review? This is an incredible film now available in a flawless, absolutely stunning Blu-ray presentation. If you’re not already a fan of Studio Ghibli and animation master Hayao Miyazaki this is the perfect place to start. If you’re already a fan, what are you waiting for? Get out there and pick up a copy of Ponyo on Blu-ray!!

Read my full review here: Ponyo Blu-ray Disc Review

Amazon: $24.99

Also available today: 3 more films by Hayao Miyazaki on DVD - My Neighbour Totoro, Castle in the Sky and Kiki’s Delivery Service.

2. CLASH OF THE TITANS

I love love love Clash of the Titans!!! Once upon a time I tried to make a giant papier mache head of Titans villain, Calibos. It didn’t turn out too well (Gimme a break…I was only 6 years old!) Needless to say, this is a much anticipated release for me. I haven’t seen the disc yet but I understand that, while being a very faithful film transfer and excellent encode, the quality of the source material itself leaves a lot to be desired. Expect to see a very healthy amount of grain and varying levels of detail on the Blu-ray, especially during the incredible stop-motion animation sequences by Ray Harryhausen. Despite its imperfections, you can feel confident picking this disc up as it’s probably the best Clash of the Titans will ever look on home video, barring a very expensive restoration.

Amazon: $26.99

3. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

The Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are has been a favourite book in my family for years and years. It became even more special when my sister named her son Max after the title character of the story (I was pushing for Maximus…it was 2000 after all, and Gladiator was a big hit at the time!) It kills me that I missed out on seeing Spike Jonze’s adaptation when it was in theatres last year but I’m excited to finally get a chance to check it out on Blu-ray. I haven’t received my review copy yet so I can’t speak to the quality of the disc itself but I can tell you that this thing is packed with special features, the coolest of which is the NFB produced Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life.

Amazon: $19.99

4. THE NEVERENDING STORY

Geez, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the Neverending Story that I’m not sure I’m fit to even comment on it! All I can tell you right now is that when I was young I enjoyed the heck out of the film. I also remember spending a summer up at our cottage listening to the (admittedly crap) theme song ad nauseum for two months on my old cassette tape recorder (I believe I had recorded the track by holding the microphone of the machine up to the speaker of our family stereo system while the song played over the radio…those were the days…) Oh, and the film (specifically that wolf-like Gmork!) still scares the crap out of my pal, Karl. ATREYU!!

Amazon: $17.99

5. 2012

I hate disaster movies. And, as such, I have no desire to see Roland Emmerich’s 2012. I include it here only because I realize that it’s a major studio release and a lot of people are interested in it. But honestly, if you can only afford one or two Blu-ray discs this week and you need to buy something new, you owe it to yourself to scan up a little higher on my Top 5 list. Do yourself a favour and pick up Ponyo. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. There’s a even a huge tidal wave in it, for you disaster flik fanatics!!

Amazon: $22.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

The Godfather: Part II Blu-ray Disc Review

karl — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:47:03 +0000

THE GODFATHER (1974, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)

I have strong feelings about The Godfather: Part II and I’m not sure where to start talking about them.

First, I guess I want to address the popular opinion that it’s a better film than its predecessor. It is not. It is inferior in many ways; the story is at times confusing and unnecessarily convoluted for the sake of adding ‘intrigue’; the characters behave insincerely, their actions often in service to the movement of the plot rather than their own hearts, and the ending is weak and unsatisfying.

At its best (and it’s very, very good), the film is a thoroughly engrossing look at the lives of a father and his son. Their journeys to manhood are paralleled through a series of flashbacks, each man defining himself, in his own way, through family. But times are changing, as Michael tells his mother, and the concept of family may no longer be what he thought it was.

The portrayal of Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II seems overly melodramatic to me, and that criticism is aimed not at Al Pacino’s performance, which is every bit as good as it was in the first film, but at the script. I get the impression that the entire story was orchestrated to culminate in Michael’s deplorable act at the end of the movie (I’m trying not to spoil anything for new viewers), which would be fine if that act was driven by any sort of believable motive. I can only surmise that Michael has been driven insane by the series of tragedies that have befallen him in his past, because nothing in his character justifies his eventual actions. It’s such an inelegant leap in reasoning that it makes the whole movement of the plot feel forced and unnatural.

As for the ending, I consider it weak only relative to the first film’s gut-punch of a closing scene. In theory, Part II’s ending makes sense: I want to see father and son on screen together after watching their stories unfold and play off of one another. But Marlon Brando’s not in this movie, and no amount of trickery is going to make up for that fact. His presence is required to make that scene work and without him it feels cheap and empty. I get it - they couldn’t get Brando and they did the best they could. But it’s still weak.

Whew. That’s a lot of complaining about what is, for all its flaws, an amazing movie. Where Michael’s story flounders, Vito’s story is magnificent; the scenes in old New York are riveting and every scene that Robert DeNiro is in is memorable.

The Blu-ray presentation is as beautiful as it was on the Godfather: Part I disc - everything is rendered in crisp detail, but the rich, velvety textures and deep blacks maintain the softness of film. We couldn’t ask for a better viewing experience than what’s offered here.

As with the previous disc, this one lacks almost all of the Special Features found in the Godfather Trilogy boxed set. All that remains is a director’s commentary track, which is a good listen, but if you’re a superfan and you want more behind-the-scenes stuff, you’ll have to go beyond these individual releases and buy the whole collection. In fact, even if you’re NOT a superfan but you just want to see the third movie you’ll have to spring for the boxed set because Paramount has no plans to release Part 3 on its own as they did for the first two. I guess I can’t fault their reasoning because, really, who goes out and ONLY buys Godfather: Part 3?

Nobody, that’s who.

Original 1984 Karate Kid and Karate Kid Part II coming to Blu-ray

brenden — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:23:39 +0000

80s flashback!! As much as I enjoyed the original Karate Kid back in the day, I have to admit that I’ve always been a sucker for its sequel. From the picturesque Okinawan scenery, to the lovely Tamlyn Tomita, all the way to the awesome theme song by ex-Chicago singer, Peter Cetera (‘The Glory of Love’!!), I always felt that the second part of the story was a step up from the first. And speaking of stepping up, check out that height difference on Daniel-san between the two films! Wow! That kid really shot up between the end of the karate tournament and his ride back home. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited to have a chance to see these two films again, this time on Blu-ray. And I’m not at all sad that Sony isn’t releasing Part 3 and The Next Karate Kid along with them. Those two films are just pale imitations of the genius of Parts 1 and 2! WAX ON!

THE KARATE KID
(May 11, 2010 - MSRP $24.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

Commentary with director John Avildsen, writer Robert Mark Kamen and actors Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita
Featurettes:
- Beyond the Form
- East Meets West: A Composer’s Notebook
- Life of Bonsai Featurette
- The Way of Life: multi-part Making-of
Blu-Pop

THE KARATE KID: PART II
(May 11, 2010 - MSRP $24.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

Original Featurette: “The Sequel”
Blu-Pop

[VIDEO] Wish List: Studio Ghibli Collection on Blu-ray

brenden — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:06:19 +0000

[See post to watch Flash video]

My Neighbour Totoro. Castle in the Sky. Kiki’s Delivery Service. These are among my favourite films of all time. And they are all newly re-released on DVD this week from Disney.

I think writer/director/animator Hayao Miyazaki is an absolute genius and, after years and years of having to import his films through dubious channels we’re very lucky to finally have them available to us on home video. But I think it goes without saying that, while I’m pleased to have them in my home on DVD, I’d much rather have nice, new HD transfers on Blu-ray. Especially after seeing what Studio Ghibli’s films can look like in high-def thanks to the brilliant Ponyo disc (read my full, gushing review here!)

All three of these Studio Ghibli films were previously released on DVD by Disney between 2003 - 2006. I compared the old discs with the new and discovered that all films are derived from the same transfers. Nothing new in that department. The feature discs themselves in each 2-disc set aren’t identical however, as there have been slight changes in trailers and menus. The greatest change you’ll find in these three new DVD sets is in the bonus feature department.

The second disc in each set features the bonus content and let me tell you, it’s a relative wealth of extras! Where the previous sets simply offered a storyboard-version of the film, these re-releases give you that and so much more. Utilizing the same design as the Ponyo disc, each bonus disc menu ushers you into “The World of Ghibli” which contains both the useless (but potentially fun for the under-5 set) interactive The World of Ghibli - Enter the Lands nonsense as well as The World of Ghibli - Behind the Studio - a series of short, candid interviews with Miyazaki, his composer Joe Hisaishi and producer Toshio Suzuki. The Hisaishi piece is, sadly, identical on each disc but aside from that, each little featurette is quite wonderful and almost worth the price of the upgrade for die-hard fans like myself.

Each bonus disc also features a film-related English subtitled sequence from The Scenery In Ghibli : Japan in Miyazaki’s Work / European Journey To Meet Miyazaki’s Work Blu-ray, which is an incredible addition to these US/Canadian DVDs!

All of the bonus features from the old DVDs have been carried forward, save for the inclusion of the credit-less opening and closing animation of Totoro.

Watching the Totoro, Kiki and Castle DVDs on my new Samsung LN40B750 made it quite clear that these films are not yet ready for Blu-ray. A lot of work is going to have to be done to get the films in shape for HD. Especially since we’ve now seen Ponyo on Blu-ray and know how brilliant these films can look in 1080p. If the rumours are to be believed, Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind will be making its way to Blu-ray this summer in Japan. I’ve got my fingers crossed that a North American release will follow quickly on its heels.

Ponyo Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:23:20 +0000

PONYO (2008, Blu-ray released March 2, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Yeah, I’m a a bit of an unabashed Miyazaki fan but the Blu-ray disc of his latest film, Ponyo has completely blown me away! I didn’t think 2-D, hand-drawn animation could look this good in my home!!

If you follow The Blu-ray Blog at all, I’m sure you’ve gathered that I’ve been waiting ages to get my hands on this disc. I’ve been following Ponyo (Gake no Ue no Ponyo, literally “Ponyo on the Cliff“) since before it was released in Japanese theatres in July of 2008 (writing about it for FPS Magazine too!) I’ve posted articles on the Japanese Blu-ray release, the North American disc and even a now-dated rundown of Studio Ghibli on Blu-ray. To say I’m excited to finally have Ponyo in my Blu-ray disc player is a bit of an understatement. And I’ve got to tell you, for the most part, I’m not let down by this release. Let me start with the good stuff.

The film itself is pure genius. As is everything creator Hayao Miyazaki touches. It’s very possible that I can’t be impartial here, as I’m such a fan of his work but Ponyo is wonderful, understated family entertainment that’s damn near perfect in every way. It’s essentially the familiar story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, given that special Ghibli touch that turns a simple fairy tale into anime magic. It’s crafted to appeal to very small children but loaded with adult themes (the environment is always concern in Miyazaki’s work) and touches that hearken back to the director’s previous works. Much like My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service before it, Ponyo leaves you with an enchanted, magical feeling, like you’ve just seen the world through the fresh eyes of a child - a flavour of film making that, in my experience, only Miyazaki seems fully capable of harnessing.

Like I said off the top, Ponyo is absolutely stunning on Blu-ray. I would go so far as to say perfect. Yeah. Ponyo looks perfect! I’ve never seen anything look this slick in HD. I can’t find a fault! The audio, on the other had, is an issue for me. While the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English dub does sound spectacular, nearly matching the quality of the video encode, what irks me is the fact that the original language track (Japanese) is relegated to a mere, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track! Luckily, it’s pretty decent DD but it doesn’t really hold a candle to the lossless DTS-HD. Sigh… One of these days, Disney, you’re going to see the light and understand that the people who buy these films on Blu-ray are the people who care about film and the quality of the presentation of the original material!

The discs special features are actually a lot better than I was anticipating. And they’re all in HD! I was expecting typical Disney-style kids-fluff here. And there is some of that, to be sure (the clumsy, interactive The World of Ghibli - Enter the Lands, which I’ll be happy to never endlessly click-through again!) but what surprised me is the amount of content that actually features Miyazaki discussing his work! The World of Ghibli - Behind the Studio is a series of short pieces that, when viewed in succession, run almost 45-minutes and feature a ton of behind-the-scenes footage of Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki himself, intercut with a lot of film and interview footage, some of which has been culled from the 12-hour long Ponyo Was Produced Like This - Hayao Miyazaki’s Thinking Process Blu-ray (a Japanese release without English dubbing or subtitles.) There is also a Ponyo-related 1080i, English subtitled sequence from The Scenery In Ghibli : Japan in Miyazaki’s Work / European Journey To Meet Miyazaki’s Work Blu-ray, which is an incredible addition to this US/Canadian disc.

If you’re a Miyazaki fan, as I am, and love to look at his artwork, even when it’s not moving, you’ll really enjoy the excellent picture-in-picture track on the Ponyo disc as it allows you to view all of the master’s hand-drawn storyboards as the film plays in the background! Amazing! Almost as good as a commentary track in this case. The Ponyo Blu-ray disc is rounded out with an introduction to the film by its American producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, previews of other Ghibli discs (sadly, all only available on DVD), trailers and BD-Live.

For a look at all the special features on the Japanese edition of the Ponyo Blu-ray read our previous article here: Studio Ghibli/Disney Ponyo Japanese Blu-ray Bonus Features, Release Date Confirmed

[See post to watch Flash video]

The House of the Devil Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:20:36 +0000

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2008, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $34.98)

It’s rare to see a modern film that so completely encompasses everything wonderful about a genre and style of another era without feeling like a send up or flimsy copy. The House of the Devil is that rare cinematic indulgence that manages to be a perfect tribute to the horror films of the early 80s while maintaining a sense of sincerity and originality. I loved it!

While watching The House of the Devil on Blu-ray, I couldn’t help but think that this is the film that Mark Borchardt was desperately trying to bring to the screen in American Movie - a well paced 80s throwback, nail-biter of a satanic-cult flik! It’s got everything he dreamed of packing into his cult-film - evil, robed satanists, pentagrams, sacrifices, buckets of blood. But unlike Borchardt’s clumsy, amateur efforts, it’s clear right from the start that the audience is in skilled hands here. Writer/director Ti West plays the film straight, setting a very believable tone early on and doesn’t give in to genre expectations until surprisingly late in the narrative. And by that time, those horror conventions actually come as a shock, even though we’ve been expecting them since the first frame. The House of the Devil may have the veneer of a cheap 80s throwback but look beyond the vintage music and high-waisted slacks and you’ll find that it transcends its predecessors in almost every way.

This film was shot dirty and cheap on Super 16mm so don’t be disturbed by all the grain you see up there on the screen. The Blu-ray edition of the film is rock solid and very accurate to the source material. Yeah, there’s a lot of grain but there’s also a good amount of detail and accurate colours in this attractive encode. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is, again, quite faithful to the modest source and as such isn’t going to blow your doors off.

The House of the Devil comes with a host of decent special features, best of which are the two commentaries, both featuring West. The first is a more reserved but pleasant chat with star Jocelin Donahue while the second, featuring sound designer Graham Resnik, and producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok is akin to listening in on a chilled-out nerd party. Really fun stuff! The Blu-ray is rounded out with a couple of featurettes, deleted scenes and some trailers.

The House of the Devil is also available in a limited edition VHS and DVD bundle, for those of you who really want to have the complete 1980s horror film experience!

[VIDEO] Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone Blu-ray Trailer

brenden — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:06:36 +0000

I’m not the biggest fan of Evangelion. More of a Macross and Miyazaki guy, myself. But that doesn’t temper my enthusiasm for the upcoming Blu-ray edition of Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone. There are some reviews of the disc kicking around the net already and from all indications, this thing looks and sounds brilliant! We can all see for ourselves soon enough as this first entry in the series hits the streets in a couple of weeks, on March 9th.

First Impressions: Samsung 40″ LCD HDTV - LN40B750

brenden — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:06:24 +0000

I bought a new TV last week. My Sanyo projector has been my only HDTV display for the last few years but seeing as how it’s difficult to enjoy/review Blu-ray films on it during the day (it’s in the living room!) and I’ve got a lot more titles to cover these days, I thought I’d step up my game with a nice, modest, LCD display. I chose the Samsung LN40B750. And so far, it’s kicking my ass!

I had to go fairly small. Around 40″ seemed ideal. The living room isn’t very big and the far wall is taken up by a window during the day and a projector screen at night so the the new HDTV would have to live on a wall a very short distance from our viewing area. Besides, if I need to see anything larger than 40″ I’ve got the 110″ of the projector screen so getting the biggest screen wasn’t an issue. It then became a question of brand. Seeing my sister’s Samsung LN46B610 solved that dilemma for me. When I showed up for a few days over the holidays I brought a big bag of Blu with me for my family to enjoy. My nephew immediately fired up G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra on the LN46B610 and I was blown away. So, there it was. I was all set to buy an LN40B610 when my old arch nemesis Future Shop decided to make me a deal I couldn’t refuse. And now I’m the proud owner of a Samsung LN40B750. And it is truly gorgeous!

The Future Shop delivery men showed up a few days ago and hauled my new TV into the house, carrying it with only one arm. That should give you an idea of how light this thing is. My girlfriend and I had it out of the box and on its stand in no time flat. A little HDMI from the old PS3 and we were in business! No setup required. Gorgeous picture right out the box. Before we set to watching a film, I shot on over to CNET to scoop their calibration settings for the LN40B750. They seem right on the money to me. I might tweak them sometime in the near future but these seem like a great place to start.

So, the picture is great. The sound is thin but no more so than you would expect from down-firing speakers on a screen like this. It’s certainly good enough to watch TV. And for anything more, I’ll use my audio setup. It’s got networking features that I had up and running quickly by yanking an ethernet cable over from the modem and plugging straight into the back of the panel. No calibration necessary here! We’ve got a bunch of Yahoo widgets to play with and the ability to stream content from our MacBook Pros straight to the TV (great in theory but I haven’t gotten it to work properly yet). The streaming, however, isn’t a big deal for us as we’ve taken to just putting TV shows we like onto a USB stick and plugging it into one of the two available slots on the side of the TV. So far, it’s been able to play every format we’ve thrown at it. No more need to fire up that PS3 to watch AVI files!

After these first few days with the LN40B750, I have to say I’m quite pleased. I most likely won’t be returning it to the shop, even though I have 30 days, no questions asked, to send it back whence it came. I’ll give it a few more weeks and write up a more thorough review.

One last note - this was a pricey set last year. But seeing as how Samsung’s 2010 models are about to hit the streets any day now you should be able to find the LN40B750 at a fair discount soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

Amazon: $1166.98

Spartacus announced for release on Blu-ray

brenden — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:15:11 +0000

Kubrick! Douglas! Gladiatorial action!! Spartacus has got it all. And now, thanks to Universal, we’re about to get it all on Blu-ray. Spartacus will hit shops on May 25th in a new 50th Anniversary edition that should best its HD-DVD counterpart in every way. Sadly, as nice as this edition looks, it’s still not going to beat out the previously available Criterion DVD, which features a commentary track by producer-actor Kirk Douglas, actor Peter Ustinov, novelist Howard Fast, producer Edward Lewis, restoration expert Robert A. Harris, and designer Saul Bass among a lot of other great stuff not to be found on the Blu-ray. I mean, I’m sure it’s going to look and sound better than ever but I’m going to want to hold onto my DVD for all those great extras. And the much cooler cover art!

SPARTACUS: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
(May 25, 2010 - MSRP $26.98)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

Deleted Scenes
Interview with Peter Ustinov
Interview with Jean Simmons
Behind-the-Scenes Footage
Vintage Newsreels
Theatrical Trailer
Production Stills
Concept Art
Costume Designs
Saul Bass Storyboards
Posters & Print Ads
My Scenes
BD Live

Top 5 New Blu-ray releases for the Week of February 23

brenden — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:22:11 +0000

Another week, another bank-breaker collection of new Blu-ray releases! Thankfully for my pocketbook, while there may be a lot of titles hitting the shops today, there isn’t a lot I feel the need to grab up. As always, we appreciate any Amazon purchase you make through our links. They help to keep this column and the site alive!

1. THE INFORMANT!

I’m not one of those crazy Steven Soderbergh fans. I’m not one of those art-jerks who’ll drool over everything the man touches (I thought Full Frontal was absolute garbage) but everything he’s touched lately seems to me to be quite brilliant. That goes for Che (which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago) and that certainly goes for his newest release, The Informant! (and yes, that exclamation mark is a part of the title.) I’ll publish a more thorough look at the disc later in the week but let me tell you right now, this is the best thing going today. It’s a cracking, fun little story, told with a ton of style, beautiful photography and the best Marvin Hamlisch score I’ve ever heard. And Matt Damon is not half bad in it either…

Amazon: $24.99

2. THE DAMNED UNITED

I can’t believe how much I really loved this movie. Like I said in my review, I loathe sports and I possess an even greater loathing for films about sports. The fact that I could enjoy it at all makesThe Damned United a pretty special movie, in my books. But ultimately, it’s less about the game than it is about the rise and fall of football club manager, Brian Clough, played brilliantly here by Michael Sheen. Watch the film for his performance, if nothing else.

Read my full review here: The Damned United Blu-ray Disc Review

Amazon: $24.99

3. JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is receiving a critical drubbing! I think I’m the only reviewer out there who has responded positively to the film. I’m not sure what people were expecting from it but as far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best direct-to-video animated fliks that DC and Warner have released thus far!

Read my full review here: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray Disc Review

Amazon: $19.99

4. ICHI THE KILLER

I have no idea what this film is going to look like on Blu, but Ichi the Killer is a bat-shit crazy good time and worth the risk. I’m going to place my Amazon order tonight, when I get home from the office. For $16.99 you can’t go wrong!

Amazon: $16.99

5. WARNER DOUBLE FEATURES

Well, the title kind of speaks for itself but let me explain. Warner Home Video has packaged up a bunch of films, some never before available on Blu-ray, into double feature sets - Blu-ray releases featuring two similarly themed or sequel films now available in one affordable case. I haven’t seen them all myself but out of the three sets I’ve watched only the Dirty Harry/Magnum Force featured each film on its own disc (both previously available elsewhere) with tons of extras. Both the Funny Farm/Spies Like Us (two Chevy Chase films!) and Presumed Innocent/Frantic (two Harrison Ford films!) sets are bare-bones, movie only releases, with one BD-50 disc containing both films. Pretty decent deal here for fairly quality editions of pretty great films!

Amazon:

Dirty Harry/Magnum Force - $17.99
Funny Farm/Spies Like Us - $29.99
Presumed Innocent/Frantic - $17.99
Analyze This/Analyze That - $17.99
Grumpy Old Men/Grumpier Old Men - $18.99
Miss Congeniality/Miss Congeniality 2 - $18.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

[VIDEO] James and the Giant Peach Blu-ray Trailer

brenden — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:48:58 +0000

I’m not sure how I missed this one last month. A trailer for Henry Selick’s (Coraline) stop-motion animated James and Giant Peach has turned up on YouTube! Disney has yet to announce the title so all that’s known about the release is what you can see in the trailer. However, it seems as if the Blu-ray disc is being marketed to take advantage of the upcoming Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland (Burton was a producer on Peach). It seems likely that we’ll see James and the Giant Peach on Blu-ray in a release that coincides with Wonderland, sometime in June.

The Damned United Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:17:18 +0000

THE DAMNED UNITED (2009, Blu-ray released February 23, 2010 - MSRP $34.95)

I’m not into sports. And I generally don’t really care for sports movies. But for some reason, I really found myself loving every moment of The Damned United, a little British film about the downfall of a popular football team and their new manager.

Okay, that’s really an over-simplification of the story. The Damned United is really the tale of manager Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) and it’s based on a true story. You see, Clough was the very successful manager of the small Derby County football club in England. But when the opportunity arose to work with his former rival team, Leeds United he couldn’t help himself. Clough jumped ship, leaving his small-time contract and his best friend/partner in the dust in favour of attempting to show up fan-beloved former Leeds manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney), whom he perceived to have slighted him at their first meeting. In the process, Clough loses everything and costs Leeds their crown. The film is more a stirring portrait of a man struggling with his ego than a simple sports movie and worth seeing for Michael Sheen’s incredible performance alone!

The Blu-ray disc is another shining example of what Sony can do with with the format. This thing looks spectacular. The photography is appropriately grey throughout but never drab. Every shot is well composed and the Blu-ray disc makes the most of it. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless audio track is fairly nuanced but effective.

There are a ton of special features on The Damned United Blu-ray disc including a very thorough and informative commentary track with Sheen, director Tom Hooper and producer Andy Harries that covers all aspects of creating the film. The Changing Game: Football in the Seventies is a great 20-miute primer on the game for those of us who really don’t follow sports and for sports fans ignorant of the history of the British clubs. I really enjoyed the 10-minute Creating Clough: Michael Sheen Takes on ‘Old Big ‘Ead’ featurette as it gives a stark and surprising look at what a talented chameleon the actor can be. A 16-minute “making-of” doc, nine deleted scenes with optional commentary, “Cloughisms” (Four TV appearance scenes shot to be dropped into the film), trailers and BD-Live functionality round out this exceptional disc.

[VIDEO] The Sound of Music (45th Anniversary Edition) Blu-ray Trailer

brenden — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:04:56 +0000

Fox has plans to release a 45th Anniversary Edition of their classic film, The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer! They haven’t revealed any details or a firm date yet but they have released this fantastic little teaser trailer which tells us to expect the disc around the holidays this year. Can’t wait!

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:29:53 +0000

JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS (2010, Blu-ray released February 23, 2010 - MSRP $29.99)

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an intelligent, well performed, well animated direct-to-video feature, is perhaps the crown jewel in the library of DC Comics‘ cartoon movies. It manages to tell a fun little superhero tale packed with action and character in an all-too-brief seventy-five minutes. Yet, as wonderful as it is, it’s almost overshadowed by the sheer bounty of compelling bonus features on the extra-packed Blu-ray disc!

Well, let’s start with a look at that feature film anyway, before jumping into all of those extras. Like I said, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is really well done. Sure, it could have been afforded greater depth and have more, well drawn out character moments. But this is meant to be a fun superhero cartoon. And it carries out its task with great aplomb. It provides an alternate Earth filled with evil versions of all of our heroes, allowing for the ultimate showdown of might and minds. As strong as Superman is, Ultraman is just as powerful. And as brilliant a mind as Batman has, Owlman’s evil intellect is every bit its equal. The two teams face off, with our heroes desperately trying to foil a plan that will ultimately destroy all of reality if it succeeds. With killer vocal performances from James Woods, Gina Torres, William Baldwin, Chris Noth and Mark Harmon (whose voice manages to give Superman more of a home-grown farm-boy lilt than ever before!), it’s a super-tight, super-fun hour of superheroing and quite a bit of a good time. I really enjoyed it.

And I think a good portion of that enjoyment came from the look of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The designs look great here and are, for the most part, pretty well animated with characters staying on-model for the majority of the films run-time. I have to admit, there are a few extraordinary action sequences in this thing that knocked my socks off, not to mention one of the slickest, coolest opening credit designs I’ve seen in recent memory. Kudos to directors Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery as well as Moi Animation Studio, who previously handled the animation duties for the Wonder Woman feature.

Helping the visuals along on the Blu-ray disc is the excellent transfer/encode from Warner. Wow! This disc looks awesome! Another stellar job from WHV. There’s a little bit of banding and aliasing (very similar to WHVs Halo Legends Blu-ray disc, released last week) but nothing that will distract from an otherwise beautiful visual presentation.

The audio, on the other hand, is the ugly stepchild of the Blu-ray disc. I mean, it’s not bad at all, really. It’s just another one of these compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks that Warner seems to think will cut the mustard. It sucks that they believe this old-school DVD quality audio is sufficient when we Blu-ray fans have come to accept lossless tracks as standard. I can, however, see why they would forgo a TrueHD track in this case, when they’re attempting to cram more bonus features onto the disc!

So, let’s talk about those bonus features. First, my lone disappointment. Once again, we’re left without a commentary track. And in this case, there’s also no “making-of” featurette. I think it’s a shame that so many people pour their blood and sweat into these things and don’t get any recognition in the extras included on the disc. Would it kill them to offer up a 15-minute featurette? Instead, we get another lame, self-congratulatory DCU doc, singing the praises of their recent line of comics and trying desperately to convince us that they’re worth reading. Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stick to these fun, non-continuity bound animated adventures!

That being said, the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray disc offers up a crap load of special features in the awesome department. This release marks the premiere of a new series of DC Comics animated short films which will appear as backup features. And let me tell you, it’s worth purchasing the disc just to get a chance to check out The Spectre short film alone. Produced like a vintage 70’s film, with Lalo Schifrin-style score and yellowed film-stock that has suffered faux-damage, The Spectre sizzles with style and mood and just about manages to best the Justice League film on a lot of counts. The disc also features the live-action pilot episodes for the Aquaman and Wonder Woman TV series’, which manage to look surprisingly decent in their new VC-1 encodes (strange, though, that the WW pilot from the 70’s is 16:9 in favour of its native 4:3). Rounding out the disc are a handful of “First Look” featurettes (including one for the upcoming Batman: Under the Red Hood) and the requisite bonus Bruce Timm Justice League episode picks.

Miyazaki’s Nausicaä to be the next Ghibli Blu-ray release?

brenden — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:31:14 +0000

Remember how we told you that it looked like My Neighbors the Yamadas would be the next Ghibli film to make it to Blu-ray? Well, it seems that Disney, Ghibli’s distributor has other plans. At the conclusion of an airing of the film on Japanese TV, the studio made the announcement that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind would be the next Ghibli film to hit Blu! And it’s apparently going to be released this coming summer in Japan.

Now, that could mean any number of things for us. For certain, a plan is underway to bring all the Ghibli films to Blu-ray. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment confirmed as much during the ceremony for the 2nd annual Digital Entertainment Group Japan Awards/Blu-ray Prizes where they earned the top award for their release of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (released December 8th in Japan.) What’s in question is the order that the catalogue titles will appear. And when and if we’ll see them on this side of the Pacific. Ghibli producer, Toshio Suzuki claims the next title up is Yamadas while Disney is claiming Nausicaä. To be honest, I’m happy either way. As long as the effort is being made to get Ghibli films onto Blu and the discs make their way here to North America I’ll be satisfied. I’m not holding my breath for a 2010 release though. If push comes to shove, I’ll import the Japanese releases. They may be expensive (think $80 US on average) but at least the discs include English subs and will play on my PS3.

Via: Anime News Network

Goodfellas (20th Anniversary Edition) Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:27:06 +0000

GOODFELLAS (20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) (1990, Blu-ray released February 16, 2010 - MSRP $34.99)

Goodfellas is twenty years old? Get the f*$& outta here! There’s no denying that this is one of the finest mob movies, if not one of the finest films that has ever been made. And the new Blu-ray from Warner, celebrates the anniversary with a new silk suit and haircut but, sadly the mobster inside remains the same. Um…by that, I mean that this is the same disc they released three years ago in a new package.

You don’t need me to tell you the story of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, do you? I mean, in the twenty years since its release it’s managed to become the ultimate depiction of the mob, inspiring damn near every subsequent mafia film that’s emerged in its wake. Not to slight the Godfather films in the least, but Goodfellas seems to have eclipsed the famous Francis Ford Coppola trilogy in the minds of younger generations. And that fame and level of import are only a few of the reasons that this 20th Anniversary Blu-ray release is a bit of a let-down.

This is the same Blu-ray disc that was released in 2007. The same transfer, the same extras. Same, same, same. If you already count Goodfellas among your Blu-ray disc collection, you won’t find anything new here. And that’s a disappointment. The quality of the transfer isn’t awful. But it’s not great either. It didn’t win any awards back in 2007 and it only looks that much worse now, when our expectations for what a good transfer can be have been raised so high. But a lot of the problem here isn’t necessarily the fault of the disc. The film could really use a restoration (for instance, there’s a moment about an hour into the film when a very distracting line runs down the entire screen) despite its relative youth. I’m sure, given the cost of such a job, we won’t be seeing an improvement here anytime soon. With that in mind, you can feel confident that this version of Goodfellas is best this film will look on home video into the immediate future. But enough about the problems of the disc set, let’s talk about what’s great here.

Lots. First of all, Goodfellas comes packaged in a beautiful hardcover book. I really love these things. Warner should reissue as many films as they can in nice “digibook” editions. I think it’s the classiest way to display a Blu-ray collection. Inside the little book, you’ll find two discs - the Goodfellas BD and Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film on DVD, a feature length documentary about mob movies that, until now was an exclusive addition to the Warner Gangsters Collection Vol. 4.

While they may not be exactly new, the special features on the Goodfellas Blu-ray disc are quite nice. Anytime you can get a Scorsese commentary track you know you’re in for a treat. And his commentary here is shared with author/screenwriter Nicolas Pileggi, producers Irwin Winkler and Barbara De Fina, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and cast members Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino and Frank Vincent. As excellent and informative as this cast and crew track is, you may prefer to listen to the Cop and Crook Commentary, featuring the real Henry Hill (the man whose real-life story is told in the film) and FBI agent Edward McDonald. An awesome and truly inspired inclusion!

Rounding out the extras on the disc are a handful of fairly good featurettes - a standard, half-hour “making-of”, a 14-minute piece examining the legacy of the film, an 8-minute look at real-life mobsters and a storyboard comparison. In addition, the second disc (the gangster doc DVD) includes half an hour of gangster related Looney Tunes and Merrie Melody cartoons. All bonus features are in standard definition.

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Goodfellas 20th Anniversary Blu-ray coming in February

Halo Legends Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:35:08 +0000

HALO LEGENDS (2010, Blu-ray released February 16, 2010 - MSRP $34.99)

I’ve never played Halo. Hell, I don’t even own an XBOX 360 (I’m sure you all know by now that I’m strictly a PS3 guy!) So I entered into my viewing of the new Halo Legends Blu-ray as a blank slate, having no preconceived notions about the franchise. It’s an anthology of short animated tales based on the universe of the game and as such, it has it’s share of hits and misses.

There’s a lot of talent at work on the short films of Halo Legends - Hideki Futamura (The Animatrix), Hiroshi Yamazaki (Karas), Koji Sawai (Patlabor), Daisuke Nishio (Dragonball Z), Yasushi Muraiki (Macross Plus, Vampire Hunter D), Tomoki Kyoda (Eureka Seven, Evangelion 1.0), Toshiyuki Kanno (Black Lagoon) and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed). I don’t know that much about anime but I do know that these are some heavy hitters. And the work shows for the most part. Each creator (or pair of creators in the case of Muraiki and Kyoda) has created a unique look at the world of Halo using the elements of the franchise that suit their styles best. Futamura examines the history of Halo, drawing out the details of the universe for those ignorant among us, much as he did in his short history of The Matrix in the animated Animatrix anthology. Muraiki and Kyoda use their skills at depicting high-tech mecha battles to illustrate some of the most exciting moments on the disc (check out a preview in the video clip below!). And Nishio takes advantage of his sense of the ludicrous, adapting Halo to the humorous styling of his Dragonball Z series. When it’s good, it’s really good. But sadly, I just found myself only mildly interested throughout the length of the film.

I’m not certain if it was the overall length of the piece, with all shorts combined into one two-hour film or a result of struggling through some weaker, colder entries that lack little sense of humanity and character or perhaps simply my absence of interest in Halo overall that kept me from loving this Blu-ray disc. While it has its moments, I can’t help but feel that this film is for game fans only. Some shorts are certainly strong enough to appeal to the anime crowd, with beautiful animation handled by studios like Toei, Studio 4°C and Production I.G, but overall Halo Legends is best appreciated as a supplement to the XBOX 360 adventures of Master Chief and his crack team of commandos.

The stories may only appeal to Halo fans but the visual presentation of them will blow just about anybody away! Halo Legends looks fantastic on Blu-ray. This may be the high-water-mark for 2-D animation on Blu-ray so far. It’s just gorgeous, with only slight banding and aliasing present to keep it from perfection. The audio, while powerful in and of itself, is sadly only presented in a compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t sound bad at all. There’s just no reason that Warner couldn’t have given the disc a lossless audio track. As good as the existing audio is, it could have been better in TrueHD.

I think I may have enjoyed the special features on the Halo Legends Blu-ray disc more than the main feature! There’s a ton of information here about both the Halo universe and the making-of the film. Each short benefits from a featurette focusing on the creators, the animation studio they work with and the process of bringing their vision to the screen. And just when you think you’ve learned enough, franchise development director Frank O’Connor and Halo Legends producer Joseph Chou sit down for a reserved but informative commentary track. A couple of trailers, A 22-minute featurette about the evolution of the game and a 24-minute overview of the story of Halo “so-far” round out the special features.

Alien Anthology Blu-ray set coming Christmas 2010

brenden — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:44:36 +0000

The Alien Quadrilogy Blu-ray boxed set that was revealed in European flyers last year may not ever make it to our shores. Instead, a recent trade ad (revealed on High-Def Digests forums) has announced that a collection referred to as the Alien Anthology will be released in the USA and Canada for the holiday season of this year!

The inference here is that the box set that we’re going to get might include more than just the four Alien films from the series proper. There’s a chance that it might include the dreadful Alien vs. Predator films as well! Here’s hoping that Fox gives us some choice, making the individual films available on separate Blu-ray discs for those of us who don’t want to suffer through the lesser entries in the series.

Top 5 New Blu-ray releases for the Week of February 16

brenden — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:19:27 +0000

Oh geez. I can’t afford this. Nobody can afford this. This is an inordinate amount of awesomeness for one week. Three Criterion discs, three classics from Studio Canal, a Scorsese, an anime anthology, Audrey Tautou and faux-vintage blaxploitation. How’s a guy supposed to pick a top five out of all this greatness?! Sigh…I’m going to cheat, that’s how.

1. 3 New from Criterion: REVANCHE, LOLA MONTÈS, HUNGER

Uh…yeah. Do I even need to type anything here? By now, you’re all well familiar with my obsession with the Criterion Collection and my need to buy every single Blu-ray disc they release. Essentially, these discs are the best of the best. Hand picked titles, both art house and Hollywood, restored and remastered to incredibly exacting standards. Home video releases as close to the original film versions as technology will allow. Sigh…

These three releases mark an incredibly strong week for Criterion. Both Hunger and Revanche are a part of the companies deal with IFC to distribute some of the best modern cinema has to offer. And Lola Montès, Max Ophuls‘ vibrant, stunningly beautiful final film, is bound to be a revelation on Blu!

2. 3 New from Lionsgate/Studio Canal Collection: RAN, THE LADYKILLERS, CONTEMPT

As if it’s not enough to have three new releases from Criterion this week, Lionsgate has decided to unleash its new Studio Canal Collection discs on us at the same time! Six film classics on Blu-ray in one week! This collection has sparked a lot of controversial conversation and consternation from collectors and film buffs (read all about it here and here) but in the end, is likely to provide us with more catalogue and foreign films on Blu-ray than we would see otherwise. I’m excited to check them out for myself.

3. BLACK DYNAMITE

This movie looks like so much fun! I’m putting it at number three this week on the merit of its trailers alone. I don’t know if I’ll rush out to pick up Black Dynamite on Blu-ray, sight unseen, but I’ll gladly borrow it from a buddy or give it a rental.

I don’t usually do this half way through a list but you’ve just GOT to watch the trailer:

AWESOME!

Amazon: $21.99

4. HALO LEGENDS

I find it tough to be disappointed with Halo Legends, a new anime anthology based on the hit XBOX 360 video game. I’ve never played the game and knew very little about the franchise going in. So, I consider my viewing of the Blu-ray a kind of education on the world of Master Chief. I had no expectations and therefore wasn’t let down by my experience. That being said, it is an anthology. And like all anthologies it has its high and low points. Some of the stories are compelling. Some of the animation is beautiful. And it’s for those moments that I recommend this disc to Halo fans.

Amazon: $19.99

5. COCO BEFORE CHANEL

I love Audrey Tautou. ‘Nuff said.

Amazon: $22.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

Blu-ray Exclusive Where the Wild Things Are animated short, Higglety Pigglety Pop! detailed

brenden — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:22:37 +0000

Yeah! We’ve finally got some details about Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s animated short Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, which will appear exclusively on the Where The WIld Things Are Blu-ray, to be released on March 2nd (as we reported in our previously article.) You can read the press release for yourself below but if you have any doubt about the skills of these animators just check out their previous film, the Oscar nominated Madame Tutli Putli embedded above for your viewing pleasure (and currently available on both the Animation Express Blu-ray and streaming on the NFB’s HD site).

THE CREATORS OF MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI
RETURN WITH THE ADAPTATION OF
HIGGLETY PIGGLETY POP!
OR
THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE

Toronto, February 16, 2010 – The National Film Board of Canada and Warner Home Video present a new live-action/animated adaptation of Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life based on the book by Maurice Sendak. A film by the creators of the Oscar-nominated short Madame Tutli-Putli, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, features the voices of Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker. Produced by Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay and Marcy Page.

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life will be featured as an exclusive short on the Where the Wild Things Are Warner Home Video Blu-ray out March 2. On February 28, the film will have its world premiere at the Festival International du Film pour Enfants de Montréal (Montreal Children’s International Film Festival) followed by a special presentation with the directors and the puppeteers. The NFB will distribute a DVD scheduled for summer 2010.

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life tells the story of Jennie, who once had everything. She had two bowls to eat from, two pillows, and for cold weather a red wool sweater. She even had a master who loved her. But Jennie didn’t care. In the middle of the night she packed everything she had in a black leather bag with gold buckles and looked out of her favourite window for the last time. Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life follows Jennie’s surreal, suspenseful and unexpectedly moving journey to gain new experiences and realize her dream of becoming the star of the World Mother Goose Theatre.

Since 1997 Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski have formed the artistic partnership called Clyde Henry Productions. The pair have created award-winning films, ads, illustrations, comics, and music videos. Their first professional film, Madame Tutli-Putli, produced by Marcy Page for the National Film Board of Canada, received international acclaim – over 50 awards to date, among them the Best Short Film and Rail d’or prizes at the Cannes International Film Festival and an Academy Award Nomination in 2007. Lavis and Szczerbowski are currently working with the NFB and Silo Corporation on a feature film project entitled The White Circus co-produced by Lago Film (Germany) and Apple Film Production (Poland). In 2008 The White Circus was selected for development by the Sundance Film Institute’s screenwriting lab.

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life is produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Warner Home Video.

Zombieland Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:04:49 +0000

ZOMBIELAND (2009, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $39.95)

If you don’t like a zombie movie, we can’t be friends. Slap an “…of the Dead” suffix on just about any film title and I’m there! Whether it’s high-grade Hollywood fare or low-rent, B-movie imports made on a shoestring and shipped over from Italy, I’ll watch just about anything with a staggering, lurching undead brain-eater in it. Joining the ranks of the best zombie action captured on celluloid is Sony’s recent Zombieland, a truly excellent adventure/teen-romance/zombie film captured on a truly excellent, feature packed Blu-ray!

Zombieland treats its characters with respect while lampooning the zombie-genre. This, in and of itself is a marvelous feat. The film follows a couple of survivors, a young man (Jesse Eisenberg) who has managed to stay alive thanks to a series of rules he’s crafted for himself and a gun-toting, RV driving bad-ass (Woody Harrelson) who’s only looking out for himself…and looking out for the last remaining Twinkies in the USA, before they pass their sell-by date. The two unlikely companions team up for a cross-country journey, eventually picking up a couple of young con-artist sisters who trust no-one. Zombie action punctuates the road-trip as the crew heads west toward an amusement park but the heart and soul of this thing is the relationships. Sure it’s funny, it’s filled with action and amazing gross-out moments but it is, at its core, a teen-romance film. And it’s wonderful! I can’t wait to watch it again.

The Blu-ray disc is, as almost everything Sony releases these days, pure gold, from a technical standpoint! Gorgeous reference quality video and a great DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless audio track. You simply can’t go wrong here. Zombieland looks like a million bucks with tons of detail, vibrant colour, accurate fleshtones and deep, deep blacks!

The Zombieland Blu-ray is replete with special features, most impressive of which is the well assembled Picture-in-Picture track, running alongside the film with lots of behind-the-scenes shots, interviews and factoids that end up making most of the other bonus content redundant. But just in case you’re not up for watching the PIP track, Sony has provided a commentary track with director Ruben Fleischer, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and stars Eisenberg and Harrelson. The disc is rounded out by a handful of “making-of” featurettes, deleted scenes, trailers, previews, BD-Live access, Movie IQ (that IMDB style cast/crew look-up tool) and a digital copy of the film. There’s also an unadvertised Playstation 3 theme downloadable from the disc, for those of you playing your Blu-ray discs through the best Blu-ray player in the world! (Yeah, I know. I’m a biased PS3 owner. So what?)

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Zombieland Blu-ray Announced and Detailed

[VIDEO] Studio Canal Collection Blu-ray Trailer

brenden — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:20:06 +0000

Here’s a great little promotional trailer for Studio Canal’s new line of deluxe Blu-ray releases. Those of you lamenting the loss of some of these titles from the Criterion Collection will want to pay close attention here. There are a few titles like Godard’s Breathless and Renais‘ Last Year at Marienbad, currently still licensed to Criterion which will clearly be the next DVD and Blu-ray discs on the chopping block. Also, keep in mind that as this is an ad for the European releases, we’ll likely never see the Hollywood titles in these editions on this side of the Atlantic. I don’t think Paramount would be willing to let anyone else handle the Blu-ray releases of major catalogue titles like The Elephant Man or The Deer Hunter in the USA or Canada.

For interests sake, here’s a list of all the titles I spotted flying by in the trailer:

The Elephant Man
Mulholland Drive
Pierrot le Fou
The Deer Hunter
The Ladykillers
The Third Man
Breathless (À bout de souffle)
The Graduate
The Go-Between
Senso
Ran
Contempt (Le Mépris)
Last Year at Marienbad (L’année dernière à Marienbad)
Belle de Jour
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
Peeping Tom

Whiteout Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:11:10 +0000

WHITEOUT (2009, Blu-ray released January 19, 2010 - MSRP $35.99)

Whiteout is the punching bag of 2009. Very few critics were able to find a kind word or two to write about the film. It sits at the bottom of the list of Rotten Tomatoes 100 worst-reviewed films of the decade after lingering in development hell since 1999 and being buried in the Warner vaults since 2007. But is it really that bad?

In a word, no. It’s nowhere near as compelling as the original comic book, despite telling the same story, and nowhere near as well-performed as it should be, given the talented cast. But it’s a quick watch with a solid mystery story to tell. Director Dominic Sena provides a fairly accurate, if not workman-like retelling of Greg Rucka’s tale from his Oni-published graphic novel. All the pieces of the puzzle are present but the final assemblage manages to emerge uninspired and a touch dull. It’s really a shame because the setup alone proves how gripping Whiteout can be in the right hands (cough…Rucka…cough). But it’s not bad. The story, at its core, is quite a good one. And if you’re into police procedurals (C.S.I., Law and Order) or whodunits you’ll no doubt find something to like here.

Kate Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, a U.S. Marshall about to complete her tenure at an Antarctic research station. Before she can hang up her gun and return home, a scientist is murdered, the first ever crime of the kind committed on the continent, and a shocking mystery begins to reveal itself. Stetko and United Nations agent Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht) must race to solve the crime and uncover the secrets long buried in the ice before they get themselves stranded at the station in six months of darkness with a killer on the loose. For my money, it’s Macht who ruins the film. Can this guy even act? He was kind of funny in The Spirit but his work in Whiteout seems like something you’d see on a community theatre stage. Even talented performers like Beckinsale and Tom Skeritt deliver lines like they’re just collecting a paycheck. It’s a shame really but the combination of limp-dialogue and poor, apathetic delivery means we never really manage to care about the characters. With a great setup like this and good story on top of it, there’s no reason that Whiteout couldn’t have been a knockout. As it is, it’ll provide you with an entertaining hundred-minutes of escapist, frigid cop drama.

Whiteout looks all right on Blu-ray. It’s not going to win any awards but it’s not bad. There’s some colour banding and wavering contrast to deal with but you won’t find any nasty artifacting or edge halos here. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless is the sonic equivalent of the image - decent all around but not brilliant by any regard.

There are a handful of special features on Whiteout, most of which are exclusive to the Blu-ray. The featurette highlighting the transition from comic book to screen is the best thing going on the disc. Spend a good 12-minutes with author Greg Rucka and illustrator Steve Lieber as they discuss their work and their feelings about the its cinematic translation. The disc is rounded out with a deleted scene, a 12-minute “making of” featurette and a digital copy of the film.

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Whiteout comes to Blu-ray in January

[VIDEO] Lost: The Complete Sixth and Final Season Blu-ray Trailer and Details

brenden — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:00:43 +0000

That’s right, the sixth and final season of Lost has only just started airing on TV and we’ve already got a trailer for the Blu-ray boxed set! These are crazy, crazy times we live in here, folks. While final details have yet to be released by the studio, we’ve been given a preview of the special features likely to end up on the final discs. Take a look:

LOST: THE SIXTH AND FINAL SEASON
(August 24, 2010 - MSRP $79.99)
Video: TBA
Audio: TBA

Special Features:

Previously on The Blu-ray Blog: Lost: The Complete Fifth Season Blu-ray Disc Review

Elizabeth and sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age coming to Blu-ray

brenden — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:08:41 +0000

I loved Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth when I saw it in theatres years ago. So much so that I picked up the DVD when it was released. I’m not sure what kept me from the cinema when its sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age was released but I’m so pleased to see that both films will finally be making their way to Blu-ray this April thanks to Universal. Details below:

ELIZABETH
(April 27, 2010 - MSRP $TBA)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

Feature commentary with director Shekhar Kapur
The Making of Elizabeth
Elizabeth Featurette
BD Live
- My Scenes

ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
(April 27, 2010 - MSRP $TBA)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

Feature commentary with director Shekhar Kapur
The Reign Continues: Making Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Inside Elizabeth’s World
Commanding the Winds: Creating the Armada
Towers, Courts, and Cathedrals
BD Live
- My Scenes

UPDATED: Paramount brings Saving Private Ryan, Escape from L.A. and K-19: The Widowmaker to Blu-ray

brenden — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:32:56 +0000

Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers have become a single entity in my mind. I have a hard time recalling what events, what story-points are covered in which film/show. Both the film and the series have the same creative teams at their core and feel very similar, from the way they were shot to the music behind them. That being said, I’m a big fan of both. And very excited to tell you about Paramount’s upcoming Sapphire Series release of Saving Private Ryan, timed to be released just days before V-E day.

The timing of the release is also advantageous in that it can ride the wave of hype surrounding HBO’s upcoming Band of Brothers “sequel”, The Pacific (premiering March 14th).

Kathryn Bigelow’s (The Hurt Locker) K-19: The Widowmaker and John Carpenter’s Escape From L.A. will also make their Blu-ray debut on the same day. I’ve got to say, I’m a bit sad that we’re getting the Snake Plissken sequel on Blu before a domestic release of Carpenter’s far superior Escape From New York. I’m not going to hold my breath for EFNY though, what with the rights being owned by MGM and that studio being currently mired in financial trouble. If I’m feeling desperate, I can always import Optimum’s Blu-ray release of the film from the UK, which I understand is a mild upgrade from the DVD.

UPDATE: Saving Private Ryan details added!

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN: SAPPHIRE SERIES EDITION
(May 4, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

An Introduction—Director Steven Spielberg discusses his interest in WWII and how it led him to make the film.
Looking Into the Past—Steven Spielberg explains the research done for the film, the evolution of the screenplay and his intentions.
Miller and his Platoon—Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and other cast members introduce the different characters and how the actors worked together.
Boot Camp—Memories from the cast about the intense boot camp they went through with Captain Dale Dye.
Making Saving Private Ryan—Steven Spielberg and his collaborators discuss the look of the film, the production design, the costumes and the photography.
Re-creating Omaha Beach—A look at how the filmmakers re-created this historical event.
Music and Sound—Discussion with the team that edited, scored and brought sound to the film.
Parting Thoughts—Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks share their final thoughts on the experience of making the film.
Into the Breach: Saving Private Ryan—A 25-minute documentary with the cast and crew.
Shooting War—Tom Hanks hosts and narrates this documentary on WWII combat photographers in Europe and the Pacific theater of war.
Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Re-Release Trailer (HD)

K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER
(May 4, 2010 - MSRP $29.99)
Video: 2.39:1 1080p
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Special Features:

Theatrical trailer (in HD)

ESCAPE FROM L.A.
(May 4, 2010 - MSRP $29.99)
Video: 2.39:1 1080p
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Special Features:

Commentary by director Kathryn Bigelow and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth
Featurettes:
- The Making of K-19: The Widowmaker
- Exploring the Craft: Make-Up Techniques
- Breaching the Hull
- It’s in the Details
Theatrical trailer (in HD)

Top 5 New Blu-ray releases for the Week of February 9

brenden — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:37:02 +0000

I’ve been writing this “Weekly Picks” column now for over a year now (on and off.) It’s time to switch things up. Instead of simply highlighting a random selection of the weeks new Blu-ray releases, it seems to me that it might prove more useful to present an ordered list of the best of the best. So, starting this week, the “Weekly Picks” column will become a “Top 5 New Releases” article! How do you like them apples?

I know…there isn’t much of a noticeable difference. Just some numbers down the left hand side of the screen. Sigh… It’s not too late to return to the old format, you know…Let me know what you think!

1. A SERIOUS MAN

Like I said in my announcement article for this Blu-ray release, I loves me some Coen Brothers! But I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t yet own a single one of their films on Blu. I missed the Burn After Reading and Fargo releases last year, as well as both editions of No Country For Old Men. Let me assure you, I won’t let A Serious Man pass me by. Typical for Coen releases, the A Serious Man Blu-ray is feature light, with only a couple of “Making-of” featurettes and a helpful “Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys” doc.

Amazon: $19.49

2. BRONSON

Tom Hardy plays the lead role in this electric profile of “Britain’s most violent prisoner”, but he’ll always be Shinzon, the Picard clone/Romulan leader of Star Trek: Nemesis to me! There’s no question that this over-the-top, highly stylized film isn’t for everyone but there’s a reason Bronson made so many Top 10 films of 2009 lists - it’s gritty, surreal and packed with black humour. And did I mention that Tom Hardy is brilliant in it?

Amazon: $17.99

3. THE RUNNING MAN

Classic, Golden-age Governator! Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in this 1987 adaptation of a Stephen King story, where convicts are given a chance to avoid incarceration by appearing on America’s most popular television game show. Arnold will be a free man if he can successfully run a gauntlet of brutal killers on his way to the outside world. By Crom, don’t those fools know who they’re up against!?! Conan is going to take them to the cleaners!! The late Family Feud host, Richard Dawson co-stars in an unusually sleazy but delightful turn.

Amazon: $13.99

4. DARE

I haven’t seen this one but I recommend it to you as it was recommended to me - Dare is more than a typical high-school school drama, with singing or dancing teens. It’s a critical examination of the way teenage stereotypes shape and define young lives. Writer/director Adam Salky expands his 2005 short into a debut feature film that could become this generations Pretty in Pink or Cruel Intentions.

Amazon: $24.99

5. THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE

Oi. This looks like a real stinker to me. But on a week like this, it’s a struggle to find 5 amazing releases. The Time Traveler’s Wife is an adaptation of the popular Audrey Niffenegger novel of the same name and appears here on the merit of said popularity alone. Oh, and I also really like Eric Bana. And Rachel McAdams is pretty easy on the eyes. And I understand that it involves time travel, which, as a story device, I’ve become quite partial to in the last year or so.

Amazon: $24.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

The Godfather Blu-ray Disc Review

karl — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:47:42 +0000

THE GODFATHER (1972, Blu-ray released February 2, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)

You don’t need me to review the story of The Godfather for you. Chances are, you’ve seen it and you already know that it’s Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece and arguably one of the best films ever made. The last scene of the film is one of my favourite movie endings of all time, and it still gives me chills after countless viewings.

The last time I watched The Godfather was when the Blu-ray box set was released last year and it was a revelation. The film is shot in such deep shadow that no VHS or DVD version was ever able to convey the cinematographer’s original intent, and that’s where this release really shines - lush detail mixed with the blackest of blacks to immerse the viewer in the authenticity of post-war America. There are a couple of scenes (notably the scene in the hospital with Enzo the baker) that look a bit grainy, but I’m pretty sure this is true to the original negatives and the lighting conditions at the time of shooting and, as such, as faithful a representation of the film as possible.

Having seen the Blu-ray edition of the film in the aforementioned box set, I was interested to see how the individual release held up. I sat down to watch it with Amy, who had never seen the movie before, and we dimmed the lights. It was actually more of a treat for me to see her reactions to scenes I’d seen a million times, and the fact that she stayed awake for the whole thing is a testament to Coppola’s honest storytelling and further indication of The Godfather’s lasting appeal.

The film is exactly the same as what I saw in the boxed collection - beautiful picture quality and sound - the best this movie will probably ever look. The only real difference between the two releases is the lack of any real Special Features on the standalone disc. There’s an audio commentary by Coppola, which is excellent and definitely worth a listen, but that’s it! The wealth of extras from the collected edition are gone. No more ‘making of’ featurettes (some of these were almost feature-length on their own!), no more talks with the writers and composers (my favourite features, showing footage of the creative process and real insight into the craft of filmmaking) and no more ‘family tree’ extras (an in-depth look at who’s who in the Corleone family). Sure, I could do without some of this stuff, but the featurettes would have been nice, especially as Amy was full of questions and hungry for more information following our viewing.

As a fan of the first film and less so of the sequels, I thought I’d be content to own this standalone disc, but due to the lack of additional stuff (and the quality of that missing stuff) I’d recommend that any fan of The Godfather just pick up the trilogy box set. It’s worth it - even if you never bother to crack open Part 3.

Repackaged Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray Announced, includes The Plan but not Face of the Enemy Webisodes

brenden — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:21:32 +0000

Have you been watching Caprica, the follow-up series/prequel to Battlestar Galactica? I haven’t taken the plunge yet but I have a feeling this might just be the weekend I give the new SyFy series a shot. I’m honestly still a little Battlestar-ed out from last years final season and all the news leading up to the release of the Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series Blu-ray boxed set. Yet, here we are again, less than a year later with an almost identical announcement from Universal, for another release of the series on Blu. What can you expect from this new edition? Read on and I’ll tell you…

At its core, this is just a repackaging of the series in newer, slimmer, standard digipacks that will fit happily on your movie shelf (No package art is available yet). The bonus here is that, not only will this set be cheaper ($299.98 down from $349.98 MSRP) but it will also include last years direct-to-video film The Plan, in its extended, unrated version! This is great news for those of us who felt the previous set was lacking the necessary components to call itself “Complete“, bringing it one step closer to deserving its name.

Sadly, however, it seems that Universal is still reluctant to include the webisodes that led into the final season of the series - The Face of the Enemy. We reported on its omission from the original set last year, when a storm began brewing around the notion that the studio was trying to bury the shorts for outting one its core characters. Seems like a silly reason to omit content to me. People were getting outted as robots on a weekly basis on Galactica. I think one man’s sexuality was of a much lesser concern to fans than the revelation of the identity of the final Cylon! Home Media Magazine has spoken to Universal who seem inclined to keep the webisodes an online exclusive into the forseeable future.

The 2009, original bulky packaging for Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series

On a positive note, our pals over at TV Shows on DVD have uncovered a packaging trade-in program! If you already own the set and would prefer the new digipacks to fit the discs on your shelves, Universal is ready to help you out. Hop on over to their site for details!

The new edition of Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com for $177.99. The original edition, released July 28, 2009 is currently reduced to only $185.49.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:42:35 +0000

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS (2009, Blu-ray released January 5, 2010 - MSRP $39.95)

I took one look at the lack-luster design work of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and wrote it off as uninspired pablum. Boy, was I wrong! This is one of the most genuinely entertaining animated films of 2009! And my niece and nephew are here in another video review to tell you all about it!

Yes, it’s another kids review with Max and Olivia. They’re starting to become old pros at this now. Expect to see them hosting a cable show in the next year with a plan to branch out to national syndication in the near future. Sheesh. Who knew you could have so much going for you before the age of 10?

Ha! Funny kids. They absolutely loved it. But so did my sister. And my girlfriend. And I thought it was pretty all-right as well, you know. What it lacks in inspired design sense and nuanced animation (read Ren and Stimpy creator John K’s brilliant technical analysis of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs here) it makes up for in wit and charm. It’s smart and funny in all the right places.

And the Blu-ray is no slouch either! As I’m sure you can imagine in a direct digital transfer, this thing is pitch perfect in damn near every way. Bright, vivid colours, incredibly deep blacks and every bit and byte of computer animated detail represented in gorgeous 1080p. Beautiful! The DTS-MA 5.1 is also a stunner, being one of the more well rounded and immersive tracks I’ve heard so far this year. I would even go so far as to say it’s exciting!

The supplemental features on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Blu-ray are a blend of extras for the kids and for adults. Kids will enjoy the ‘Flint’s Food Fight‘ BD-Java game and the Interactive “Splat” Feature that allows them to launch digital food at the screen while the movie plays. Adults will appreciate the entertaining commentary track with Bill Hader (the voice of lead character Flint) and co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and the behind-the-scenes featurettes, “A Recipe for Success: The Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and “Key Ingredients: The Voices of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs“. The set is rounded out by a music video (with a “making of” featurette), extended scenes, early development scenes and 9-minutes of Progression Reels with introductions by visual FX supervisor Rob Bredow. There are also DVD and Digital Copies of the film included.

Surrogates Blu-ray Disc Review

brenden — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:41:43 +0000

SURROGATES (2009, Blu-ray released January 26, 2010 - MSRP $39.99)

I had no expectations of Surrogates. I mean, I didn’t really care for the blown-out, hot-colour look of it, from what little I witnessed in the trailers but I was willing to give it a shot. And you know what? It’s not half bad if you’re in the mood for a simple, fast-paced sci-fi/action thriller.

Surrogates is an adaptation of the Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele comic book series of the same name, about a society of lazy dopes who have taken to living their lives through good-looking robot “surrogates”, controlled video-game style through brainwave interfaces from the comfort of their bedrooms. They never have to leave home. Hell, they don’t even have to get out of their pajamas! Just lay back and let the robots do their shopping, their jobs and all the social activity they could ever dream of. And speaking of socializing, much like online chatting today, you never really know who is on the other end of a surrogate. That young girl robot you’re chatting up at the club might just well be an overweight man in his fifties! Yeah, this is fairly predictable sci-fi fare. A kind of Philip K. Dick-lite story playing with the idea of the subjective nature of societal and personal identities. It’s not conceptually groundbreaking stuff but luckily for us it is the stuff of fun Hollywood adventure fare.

Director Jonathan Mostow delivers a fast paced 88-minute carnival ride of a film, with Bruce Willis turning in a weary yet hard-assed performance as a cop, busting back into real life to put the smack-down on the bad guys after his robot body bites the big one. The short running time keeps the film tight enough to keep you from cutting the plot to threads. And Willis fills every moment with enough charisma that he’s almost able to keep you from wondering why most of the other characters in the film are paper thin. But hey, you know what? In the era of two-hour-plus sci-fi concept-epics, it’s sometimes all right to kick back with a little bit of fun and Surrogates certainly fills the bill.

The Blu-ray disc is a tricky number. Technically, I think the visuals on this thing are pretty nice. It’s got everything you look for in a spiffy, modern transfer. But as a result of smoothing the features of the actors’ faces to make them appear as robotic surrogates (altering skin-tone, erasing wrinkles and pores) the transfer give the appearance of having digital noise reduction applied. This isn’t the case, as you can clearly tell from the grain structure of the images. But that won’t stop you from doing a double take when you’re watching the disc. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is out of this world, so crank the Surrogates Blu-ray up loud!

Mostow leads off the special features with an outstanding audio commentary. If you don’t love the film you won’t be very inclined to give it a listen but he’s got a lot to say and provides a fair amount of insight into the production. The 15-minute featurette ‘A More Perfect You: The Science of Surrogates‘ is a lot of fun, offering up production secrets while educating about the realities of modern robot science. I don’t think it will appeal to most but the real-world science content was honestly a highlight of the disc experience for me. The Blu-ray is rounded out with a featurette exploring the adaptation of the comic to the big screen, some deleted scenes and a really lame music video.

The Criterion Collection loses rights to films, Pierrot Le Fou Blu-ray to go Out Of Print OOP

brenden — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:21:09 +0000

This is a sad, sad day. The Criterion Collection has announced that they have lost the right to publish a significant group of their titles. I’m aghast. From the sounds of things, all of these titles will now be a part of the Studio Canal/Lionsgate deal which has recently brought us the less-than-spectacular Blu-ray release of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran. You might remember that Criterion was just about to release Ran on Blu-ray when the earlier part of this deal yanked the carpet out from under them. It’s so depressing to know that a superior transfer exists but until the current Studio Canal disc goes Out Of Print we’ll never see it. …sigh…

The most important thing to know right now, for you Blu-ray fanatics out there, is that Criterion’s recently released Blu-ray of Pierrot Le Fou is among the titles that are going bye-bye. If you love the film, are a Criterion Blu-ray completist or just want to show your support for the company you need to rush over to the Criterion store and pick it up ASAP (alternately, head to Amazon.com while their supplies last.) Sounds like these discs are starting to disappear quickly now that the word is out. You’ll find most back-ordered as of this writing. I’ll take a back-order over an OOP (Out Of Print) any day!

Here’s what Criterion has posted on their site, including the full list of titles they’re about to lose:

Our three least favorite initials: OOP. Since we launched the Criterion Collection more than twenty-five years ago, we’ve endeavored to keep everything we’ve published in print. But despite our efforts to renew rights, we are losing a large group of titles from StudioCanal at the end of March, and we wanted to give you advance notice that our editions will be going out of print. Until we’re out of stock, we will be offering these titles at an additional $5 off on our website. The titles are going to Lionsgate, and we don’t know when they may be rereleased. As ever, we will continue to try to relicense the films so that they can rejoin the collection sometime in the future.

Here are the titles that will soon be out of print:

Alphaville
Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy (Eclipse Series 6)
Le corbeau
Coup de torchon
Diary of a Country Priest
The Fallen Idol
Forbidden Games (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Gervaise (Essential Art House edition)
Grand Illusion (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Le jour se lève (Essential Art House edition)
Last Holiday (Essential Art House edition)
Mayerling (Essential Art House edition)
The Orphic Trilogy
Peeping Tom
Pierrot le fou (DVD and Blu-ray editions)
Port of Shadows
Quai des Orfèvres
The Small Back Room
The Tales of Hoffmann (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Trafic
Le trou
Variety Lights (Essential Art House edition)
The White Sheik

Take note: this may be your last chance to pick up spine number 1 from the collection.

Happy viewing!
The Criterion Collection”

Via: The Playlist
Via: Criterion Cast.com

Universal bringing David Lynch’s Dune to Blu-ray

brenden — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:42:12 +0000

Holycrapholycrapholycrap…This is big news for me. Universal has revealed that they’re finally going to release David Lynch’s Dune on Blu-ray on April 27th! I’m such a huge fan of this film. I know, I know…it’s not perfect. It’s got a lot of problems. It’s not exactly like the book. It’s ridiculous and weird. I’ve heard it all before. But I grew up with this adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic and like a lot of failed genre films from the 80s, it has a very special place in my heart. I’m excited to finally get to see it in beautiful 1080p.

Details appear to echo the old, relatively well-received HD-DVD release from a few years back with the exception of the addition of DTS-HD audio and the loss of a photo gallery. We don’t have any package art yet so I’ve included a selection of Blu-ray art from the various European releases instead!

DUNE
(April 27, 2010 - MSRP $26.98)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

UPDATE: Here’s the actual cover art from Universal.

Sigh…I prefer the Euro covers…

Via: The HD Room

Disney bringing Tombstone and Armageddon to Blu-ray

brenden — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:26:49 +0000

These two films are fan favourites but I’m only excited about one of them coming to Blu-ray. I have to admit, I’ve never seen Armageddon and I’m not sure if I ever will. It just seems too…90s-dumb. I’m sorry. I know it has a lot of fans. I’m just pretty sure I’ll never be one. On the other hand, I’d be happy to watch Tombstone once a week. It’s one of the few great, really entertaining modern westerns to come out of that decade.

We don’t have any details about the titles Blu-ray discs yet and even the release date seems in question. We were initially told to expect them on May 4th but retailers have now been informed that the discs will street on April 27th. I’m thinking the April date is the one to count on but who really knows for sure at this point. And to be honest, I don’t really care. One week doesn’t really make that much of a difference, you know? In the meantime, until we hear some firm details, check out the package art below:

Blu-ray Picks for the Week of February 2

brenden — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:12:57 +0000

Okay, this is just ridiculous. I can’t afford all of these discs in one week! I had no idea that February would be such a big release month. I thought March was going to be my bank-breaker and that I’d have another month to save up for the big titles but this week is going to make me reevaluate. As always, we appreciate any Amazon purchase you make through our links. Your clicks help keep the site on its feet!

ZOMBIELAND! This is such a fun movie and you’re really doing yourself a disservice if you don’t check it out. It’s a great little horror/teen-comedy/action mash-up that looks and sounds fantastic on Blu. I’ll have my full review up for you later in the week. Don’t miss this one if you can help it!

Amazon: $23.99

Tony Jaa is our generation’s Bruce Lee. This guy is incredible! And Ong Bak, available today on Blu from Fox, is the movie that introduced him to the world. I’m picking this one up as soon as possible. Here’s hoping the transfer does the 2003 Thai hit film justice!

Amazon: $15.99

More Tony Jaa!!! Ong Bak 2: The Beginning, the 2008 sequel is set in the past and Jaa plays a totally different character so there’s no need to see Ong Bak before this film. It might not be quite as strong as the original but Ong Bak 2 is so well shot and the fight scenes are so stunning it’s definitely worth checking out.

Amazon: $14.99

Did you see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus? Awesome. I mean, it’s not perfect but it felt like a bit of a return to form for Terry Gilliam. I enjoyed it. And I also really enjoy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, released on Blu-ray today. I don’t count it among Gilliam’s finest but it’s so bat-shit crazy, filled with amazing imagery and performances it can’t be ignored. This Blu-ray doesn’t include the awesome extras form the Criterion DVD but the 1080p transfer makes it worth adding to your collection.

Amazon: $18.99

Today is the day that Disney rights their wrongs and apologizes to Martin Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus for the visual butchery of the initial Gangs of New York Blu-ray release with this brand new, remastered edition. Check out this screenshot comparison of the two Blu-ray releases to see just how improved this new edition is!

Amazon: $25.99

House of the Devil is a retro-style horror film, crafted to feel like something straight out of the 80s. The studio has even gone so far as to promote it by sending out VHS copies of the film to the press (which you can now order for yourself in this limited collector’s edition DVD/VHS bundle!) Reviews and word of mouth have been pretty good on this one and I’m anxious to get my hands on the Blu-ray to see what all the hype has been about.

Amazon: $21.99

Speaking of scary movies with great word of mouth, Triangle is the story of a group of friends who go sailing on a yacht and come upon a seemingly deserted ocean liner during a storm in the Bermuda Triangle. They soon realize they’re not alone. The premise doesn’t sound electric to me but a million positive reviews can’t be wrong. Worth a look!

Amazon: $18.99

I’m not a big Doctor Who fan (the psychological scars it inflicted on me as a child have yet to heal) but I know this show is kind of a big deal. In addition to this Blu-ray box collection of the Complete Specials, BBC is releasing all of them (The Next Doctor / Planet of the Dead / The Waters of Mars / The End of Time Parts 1 and 2) in individual editions!

Amazon: $44.99

What’s that? You love Casablanca but you didn’t want to buy that big, overpriced Blu-ray box set of goo-gahs and crap it was previously packaged in? Well, today is your lucky day! The beautiful Blu-ray disc edition of the film is now available all on its own at a really great price. You owe it to yourself to own this film on Blu if you’re a film lover.

Amazon: $16.49

And speaking of films you love now in a cheaper package, Paramount has made both Godfather and Godfather Part 2 available in individual Blu-ray releases under their premium Sapphire label. These are the same discs from the previously available boxed set and look and sound brilliant! Full reviews coming this week.

Amazon: Godfather - $23.99
Godfather Part 2 - $22.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
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