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« September 2004 | November 2004 »
I've reviewed The Girl Who Knew Too Much (R0 USA) at DVD Times. And thus the DVD Times Halloween Special comes to a conclusion. I've reviewed La Setta (The Sect, R2 Italy) at DVD Times. I've reviewed The Church (R0 USA) at DVD Times. I've reviewed All the Colors of the Dark (R1 USA vs. R2 Germany) at DVD Times. I've reviewed the Dawn of the Dead remake (R1 USA unrated director's cut) at DVD Times. I've reviewed Scream 3 (R1 USA Collector's Edition) at DVD Times. Real-life Rambles I have the entire next week off university, so hopefully the "Daily Updates" will be replaced by more regular postings. I have told myself that I will use the time to do some actual work, however, so I can't promise anything. A review copy for Mulan II arrived today. After sitting through the entire 75 minutes of torture, I feel an intense need to scald my eyeballs with corosive acid in an attempt to rid myself of the hideous images that have been burned into my retinae. This was the first Disney cheapquel I had ever seen, and while I wish I could tell you that they aren't as bad as people say, I'm sorry to report that they really are that bad. Lyris and I alternated between cackling at the awful dialogue, ridiculous plot points, cringe-inducing songs and TV-quality animation, and grimacing in dispair. Oh, and Atomic Kitten, a has-been British girl band, perform the song over the closing credits. Surely that alone is worth the price of admission. Which, for me, was nothing, as it was a free copy, but I honestly think I should have been paid to watch this shite. Expect a particularly scathing review at DVD Times in the near future. Lyris is 18 on November 3rd, but he's moving his birthday to tomorrow so it coincides with the weekend. He's getting the UK Quentin Tarantino DVD box set, featuring Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown and, although the Pulp Fiction is cut, its image quality seems to be better than its US counterpart. I'm sure this will make for an interesting Adobe Premiere job, in order to create a best-of version. You can read more about the set on his site. He also got the UK DVD of Thirteen, and its image quality is so much better than my double-sided R1 it's not true. Expect a full comparison soon. The Halloween festivities have begun! I've reviewed Scream 2 (R1 USA Collector's Edition) at DVD Times. Web Wonders A whole array of interesting links today: - What sex is your brain? - flash quiz. Apparently my brain is equally male and female. - Eminem blasts Bush with song - I'm not a fan of Eminem at all (I hate rap music and I hate his brand of rap music more than most), but he's fighting the good fight here. I must confess I'd never have pegged him as a Kerry supporter. - Dawn of the Dead (remake) unrated R1 DVD is cut - That's right, the unrated version that was, I quote, "too scary for theaters", has been cut. Well... sort of. The scene in question is one that appears during the pre-credits prologue, and was not included in the theatrical version. It features a nude female zombie staggering about in front of Ana's car. In the Region 3 release of the film, her breasts are fully visible, but on in the R1 version, they have been obscured by some conveniently-placed blood on the car windscreen. Arguably illustrative of the idiotic nature of American censorship as a whole, this is quite possibly the first ever instance of censoring nudity by adding additional gore! Edit: I've just had confirmation that the German release is uncut as well. This is a strange situation indeed, given that the US disc is unrated, and also considering that there are two other tit shots in the movie. This leads me to believe that the "censorship" was instated for reasons other than simply trying to protect the delicate eyes of the American public from the human body. R1 DVD: R3 DVD: Oh, and one other quickie: a poll in next week's Radio Times reveals who the readers want to see as US president: - John Kerry: 53% Sure, in an ideal world we'd get Nader into the White House, but how likely is that? First we need to worry about getting Bush out, by whatever means necessary. This update covers yesterday. Well, it looks like you've made it to Whiggles.tk, despite Larry hijacking my page. Larry will be here for the rest of the week, and even when he is no longer inhabiting my main page you are sure to be able to track him down by clicking on this link. The Dawn of the Dead remake unrated director's cut (R1 USA) arrived. I haven't sat down to watch the whole thing yet, but the brief moments I checked out reminded me of two things: (1) the prologue, despite being praised by many people, is the most laughable element of the movie, and looks more ridiculous than all the bad make-up and cheese of the original, and (2) the actors in this movie are too good for the source material. It's still a fun film, but I don't understand why they had to call it Dawn of the Dead. So little of Romero's original film remains in this "re-imagining" that they would have been better off dropping the connection entirely and calling it something else. Oh yeah, and they really should rename it to "Dawn of the Edge Enhancement". This update covers yesterday. Yesterday was a funny day. It began with me lurching out of bed at 8am and squirting out a gallon of diarrhoea (in the toilet, thankfully). Not the best start for a Saturday, you have to admit. Somewhat better was the arrival of three DVDs: Blade (R1 Canada) from DVDImport.com, and the North by Northwest/Dial M for Murder double pack (R1 USA) from DVD Pacific. I haven't actually watched Blade yet, but I've glanced at it and I have to say that the transfer is quite incredible. Where did New Line go so wrong? The day went on and the diarrhoea seemed to be lessening. I watched Dial M for Murder (excellent piece of work) and moved on to North by Northwest (even better), before Lyris and I went into town to meet Graham for pizza and a movie. The movie turned out to be Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the much maligned follow-up to the much maligned Resident Evil. You can read my comments on it below, but suffice to say that, while it wasn't as bad as so many people have made out, it wasn't very good either. In the middle of Apocalypse, the stomach pains and the feeling that a vast amount of food and liquid was shooting through my digestive system like an elevator plunging down to the ground floor returned. Rather than make use of the notoriously unhygienic UGC restroom facilities, I decided to hold on because I was sure that it wouldn't be long before we went home. However, on the way out of the cinema, Lyris met up with a whole troupe of colourful characters that he seemed to know, and the decision was made to go and see another movie. I contemplated going home, considering that I was feeling worse by the minute, but I changed my mind when I realized that I had missed the bus and would have to sit for 45 minutes on my own at the bus stop before another came. Therefore, feeling like shit warmed up, I dragged my carcass to Bubba Ho-Tep (comments below). When we finally spilled out into the night at around 1.30 am, I was, as you can probably guess, feeling worse than ever. Having missed the last bus and the last train, the decision was made to hail a taxi. Four of the Motley Crew got into one and the rest of us hung about and waited for another. We tried phoning one in but were told it would take 45 minutes to reach us. Great. Eventually, we managed to hail one down in the street and it sped us home... well, sped me home, as the Three Amigos decided to stop off at someone's house for who knows what, leaving me to stagger home all on my lonesome. In bed by 2.30 am. Fast asleep. Then, at 4.45 am, I am awakened by the sound of the dogs going wild. Trying to get back to sleep, I keep hearing clicking noises coming from the window beside my bed. Huh? Is the window frame about to collapse? Eventually, after much pondering and much lamenting the fact that I feel the need to puke, I hear a little voice coming from outside. "Michael... Michael..." It is Lyris. Unfortunately, in my fevered delirium, I had somehow managed to leave the key in the lock, meaning that he couldn't unlock it to let himself in. I stagger downstairs and unlock the door. Pandemonium ensues as the two retarded mutts that live in the kitchen start squealing and running up and down the kitchen. The fat one dashes out the back door and disappears into the garden. She eventually comes back in, soaking wet and very pleased with herself. That is the end of my adventure. Suffice to say, I am currently sitting in front of my computer, typing this ridiculously long news post and feeling as bad as ever. What happy days! Still, at least I got to see a bunch of movies and have a pizza. Marvellously plotted and emensely satisfying vintage Hitchcock - in some ways a mystery without the mystery. The fun comes not from finding out how the crime was committed and by whom, but from finding out how the crime will be uncovered and by whom. Clinically and expertly shot (although I expected no less), the film does lag at times due to its emphasis on dialogue (it was, after all, adapted by a playwright from his own stage material), but this seems of little consequence when you consider that you are in the hands of the master himself. Best line: Like the first Resident Evil, Apocalypse is nowhere near as bad as people make out, but neither is it particularly good. The whole film is filled with laughable dialogue and acting, ridiculous looking stunts, bad composition, annoying MTV-style editing and the general feeling that the crew was making up the story as they went along. Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory)'s costume, a luminous blue tube top and mini-skirt, while surely extremely sexy, looked completely ridiculous - a good example of why, in the first film, Paul WS Anderson DIDN'T directly translate the video game to the big screen. The film also falls into the trap of creating various cardboard cut-out cliché characters, like the bling-bling black guy, the highly-strung tabloid news reporter and of course the evil German commander (Thomas Kretschmann doing his best to make us forget that he actually gave a GOOD performance in The Stendhal Syndrome) - lazy writing. That said, the film does have some extremely funny dialogue, the stunts are for the most part well-accomplished, and while I've spent most of this paragraph ripping on it, I was reasonably entertained. An okay popcorn flick with some really awful elements, but fun for the most part. Bubba Ho-Tep is of the "what the fuck?" school of filmmaking. The basic premise is that an aged man, who think's he's Elvis, and for all we know probably IS Elvis, lies rotting in an old folks' home and discovers that an ancient Egyptian mummy has come back to life and is extracting the souls out of the home's inhabitants (by sucking them out of their ass-holes, no less). He and his buddy, a black man who thinks he's President John F. Kennedy (he was abducted by aliens, died black and part of his brain was replaced with sand, you see), decide to fight this Bubba Ho-Tep to protect the home from being destroyed. How noble! Bubba Ho-Tep is very, very funny, and the concept is original enough that I'm genuinely surprised it got made. That said, by the end, my primary reaction was "is that all?" Perhaps it doesn't help that by the time the movie ended it was 1.30 am and I felt like I was feeling extremely ill (food poisoning?), but I felt that this was, more or less, weirdness for the sake of being weird and as such it isn't in the same league as Mulholland Dr. or Donnie Darko. DVD Debacle Shivers (David Cronenberg's first feature length film) and Fahrenheit 9/11 both arrived today. The postal service is increasingly becoming more and more unreliable. Shivers was dispatched from Miami on October 7th but arrived on the same day as Fahrenheit 9/11, dispatched on October 11th And the North by North West/Dial M for Murder double pack, dispatched October 5th, still hasn't materialized. Both bear the usual Mount Unpleasant customs stamp, suggesting that they have been torn open and interfered with. I would have thought that Her Majesty's Thieves and Excise would have more important things to worry about than a few DVD jiffy bags... Mobius, after suffering a server crash and a complete loss of all data, followed by a period of inactivity that has lasted for what seems like ages, has finally resurfaced in the form of an interim board. Luckily it seems that at least some data can be retrieved from the Internet Wayback Machine, although its archives only seem to have collated board postings up to December 2003. Either way, it's great that this board, which is a fantastic resource for obscure cinema, has resurfaced, in whatever form. The Sacred patch is actually pretty disappointing. For 128 MB, I was expecting a bit more, but instead all that's new is a trade screen, some streamlining to the interface, and some minor changes to the balance. DVD Debacle The Mulan special edition (R1 USA) arrived this morning. I was, at first, pleasantly surprised by the picture quality. Although a digital transfer when compared to the nice film-sourced version on my old bare-bones disc, it demonstrated improved sharpness and colour saturation. Not much in the way of compression problems either. Then, suddenly, it all went downhill. Around two-thirds of the way through the film, the sharpness suddenly evaporated and was replaced with a blurry, overly edge enhanced mess, filled with colour banding, similar to the Brother Bear transfer. I hoped this would be a minor aberration, but it lasted for the duration of the movie and significantly spoiled my enjoyment of it. It really did look awful -- a lot worse than most Disney DVDs. The extras are fairly lightweight, too. Okay, so there is a commentary and some very nice image galleries, but the behind-the-scenes material is lightweight and short in the extreme: like the featurettes on the Lion King Platinum Edition, only much fewer in number. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I had at least hoped for a little more than this. A handful of 5-minute featurettes, some much videos and galleries don't really cut it for a "special edition". My new monitor, the Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454, arrived today... at 7:30pm. I think that's the latest delivery I've ever had, and as coincidence would have it, the deliveryman was the same guy who handled my Mitsubishi on the three occasions on which he showed up at my house (first to take away the old one, second to bring it back, and third to bring the new one and take the old one away again). He gave me a very odd look and asked me why I kept buying "heavy computers". I just smiled and said "Sorry". Well, I didn't have time to formulate a smart-ass response. Anyway, this monitor seems to be a big improvement over the replacement Mitsubishi in terms of convergence. There is very little bleed, and it seems a lot more even. The monitor also has a much smaller chassis, so it looks nicer and saves room on my desk. Ascaron has released a major patch for Sacred. Download it here: UK; US (127.7 MB). UK Customs & Excise get their knuckles rapped for stealing cars and booze from travelers Oh, and my dad emailed me this: wedding ticket auction. Extremely funny! Technical Tomfoolery Yesterday, I ordered my new CRT, the Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454, from Misco.co.uk. It shipped today and will hopefully be arriving tomorrow. This monitor is extremely highly rated, with Tom's Hardware recommended it as one of three stand-outs in a shoot-out of 12 different 19" CRTs. I've reviewed Amélie (R2 UK special edition) right here at Whiggles.tk. This is the first review I've written for my own site (i.e. not DVD Times) for over a year, but hopefully it will be the first of many. It takes a bit more motivation to get me to write stuff for my own site, but hopefully I can be a good little boy and keep at it. I get the impression I've been misleading you about the Asian cut of Hero. I've been reading up on it and it seems that the Asian theatrical cut is exactly the same as the one released in Western cinemas. Someone spoon-fed me a big fat fib about the Western version having been modified by Miramax -- so now I'm not convinced that the Japanese release is definitely the best one. Basically, director Zhang Yimou created a 120-minute cut, with Miramax set to distribute it in the US. Miramax wanted it cut down, but Quentin Tarantino was adamant that they were to release it uncut. The compromise made was that Zhang Yimou would personally cut the film down to under 100 minutes and release this version everywhere, otherwise Miramax were going to drop their support. As a result, the full-length extended cut can't be released until Miramax say so (I believe it's once the 99-minute version is available on DVD/video in the US, but I'm not sure). Therefore, basically, all current versions are the same, although the extended cut has been released on a poor quality DVD in China. Of the current releases (Japan, China and Hong Kong) the Japanese disc still has the best picture quality though. I've added a DVD image comparison for Amélie (R1 USA vs. R2 UK special edition). I must say that, having seen both versions for myself, I now strongly disagree with the DVD Beaver comparison, which gives the edge to the R1 for picture quality and was my main reason for buying that release (well, that and the extras, so it wasn't a total loss). Hero (R2 Japan) arrived today from my favourite anonymous Japanese DVD store. The packaging itself is very nice and a great deal of care was clearly put into designing it: I enjoyed the film very much. I've not really been big on Eastern cinema in the past, although to be honest that probably has as much to do with me not actively seeking it out as anything. Hero is very similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a movie I must confess I wasn't exactly wild about (although I might change my mind now that I've seen Hero). Both films are part of the "Wuxia Pen" tradition, a sub-genre of Chinese martial arts movies focusing on mythology and the supernatural. As is often the case, it is not so much the story that is interesting as it is the way it is presented. The tale of an unnamed hero who killed three assassins bent on killing the Emperor, Hero is filled with incredible photgraphy courtesy of cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Virtually every single shot looks absolutely incredible, and the action sequences are unbelievable -- my favourite being an extended "mind battle" between the Hero and one of the assassins, taking place in their imaginations but played out as a physical encounter, involving them walking on water. Another involves a swordfight between Maggie Cheung and the oh-so-sexy Zhang Ziyi in a woodland area filled with yellow leaves. The use of colour is amazing throughout with a number of distinct "phases" -- black, red, blue, white and green -- and it definitely looks and feels unlike anything I've ever seen before. It is also not without a sense of humour and at times writer/director Zhang Yimou seems to be winking at the audience while dishing out the outrageous imagery. 9/10 PS. This is one of the best DVD transfers I've seen in recent years. There is some macro-blocking in the super-detailed scenes, such as the afforemention "yellow leaves" sequence, but overall the results are extremely impressive. There is also a fantastic full bit-rate DTS track, and the English subtitles are consistently clear and comprehensible. Excellent stuff -- 9/10 for the audio-visual presentation. A special double edition today, as I didn't get a chance to upgrade yesterday. I must admit, I'm beginning to consider offloading my replacement Mitsubishi monitor and buying a completely new one. The convergence on this one seems to be off, and there are noticeable trails in the bottom right-hand corner. I get the impression that I've been given B-grade stock, which according to the Terms & Conditions is perfectly acceptable. You see, there is a three-year warranty, and Mitsubishi are required to replace any malfunctioning product within that time-frame, but the replacement does not have to be premium quality: it merely needs to have "acceptable functionality". Some of the newer CRTS have automatic geometry setting, as well as DVI imputs (performing the digital to analog conversion on the monitor itself, so the purest quality signal is being sent from the video card to the screen). Tom's Hardware has an interesting comparison of some of the latest 19" CRT models, with some very nice-looking contenders: I'm leaning towards a ViewSonic or Iiyama. Given that I 've sold my Sony TFT for £250 (or at least I will have once the cheque arrives), the paying for it shouldn't be a problem. Yesterday, Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (R2/4 UK) arrived. I saw the final hour or so of it on Channel 4 a few months ago and found it really enjoyable in a somewhat camp way (of course, it helps when you have Johnny Depp as the lead). The whole thing, while not Polanski's best, is very entertaining with a great atmosphere and excellent photography. Today, Amélie and The Ren & Stimpy Show "Uncut": The First and Second Seasons (both R1 USA) finally showed up, after what seems like an eternity in transit. I also found the time to give Ren & Stimpy the review treatment, here. Television Turmoil Last night I saw quite possibly the funniest TV show I've had the pleasure of coming across in ages. Ban This Filth is a Brass Eye style piss-take of the likes of the late Mary Whitehouse, who relentlessly campaigned against what she considered to be "filth" on television. The show is hosted by three aged ladies, who show us the latest TV programmes, movies and trends (some real, some made up) that cause them great offence. From the official site: In Ban This Filth the lady campaigners tirelessly seek out all that is debauched, smutty and sexually explicit on TV and at the movies, then expose us to it - purely as a warning of course. Each show features a round-up of what not to watch on TV in the coming week, with clips of all the most explicit bits and full listings of when the shows will be on and what time the naughty bits occur (so viewers can be absolutely sure to avoid them). There’s also a DVD chart giving a rundown of the latest Hollywood filth to avoid and location reports covering foreign muck from Europe. Where has the Games section gone? I've moved it into the Miscellaneous section because it is too small and doesn't get updated often enough to justify its place on the main menu bar at the top of each page. DVD Debacle All the Colors of the Dark (R1 USA) finally arrived today after many delays to its release date. Although its transfer is interlaced, it definitely beats the non-anamorphic German version in terms of detail, colour and framing. It also has substantially more bonus features -- Media Blasters seem to be improving a little. Now they just need to stop encoding everything interlaced -- some of us have discovered a little thing called Progressive Scan, you know. I had three hours of time to waste today at university, thanks to be being somewhat unlucky with my timetable this year, so I went along to Fopp and bought Don't Look Now and Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut. I've added a comparison for Lilo & Stitch (R1 US vs. R2 Italian 2-disc special edition). Technical Tomfoolery This morning, my replacement CRT showed up and Malfunctioning Eddie was taken away, presumably to be thrown on the scrap-heap. The replacement, according to the date on the back, is actually 18 months older, suggesting that they have simply given me an old unsold model that was lying around. In terms of image quality, I would say that this new one is overall better than what my previous one was like by the time I gave it the boot, but I do think my first one looked better than this when I originally got it two years ago. This one is definitely not as sharp (the convergence seems to be a little off, whereas on my previous one it was close to perfect -- very surprising for a CRT). I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that my previous one was way above average when I first got it, and that most probably aren't going to compare with it. Anyway, this one is very nice and I'm pretty happy with it. After fiddling around with the controls for a couple of hours, I've managed to get the geometry more or less as perfect as can be expected with a CRT. (Geometry, in my opinion, is one of the only things TFTs have in their favour.) Yesterday, I ordered the R1 Canadian editions of Blade and Blade II, both pretty cool movies, from DVDImport.com. At only £15 (approx.) for both, this is a steal. In other news, the final three Asterix films to show up on DVD have... shown up on DVD. This November 4rd, Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video (France) is finally releasing a box set featuring Asterix vs. Caesar, Asterix in Britain and Asterix and the Big Fight. Previously only available in crappy pan & scam, non-original language releases in Australia and a handful of countries in Europe, it seems that Gaumont are taking this release seriously since, according to DVDFR.com, they will feature HD-mastered transfers, and a fourth disc featuring a documentary about the making of the three films is being included as well. This has been a long time coming but it sounds as if Gaumont are bent on getting it right, so of course I have placed my order at Amazon.fr. Just a reminder to UK viewers: Season 3 of Spooks starts on BBC1 at 9pm tomorrow night. This one really surprised me. I'd heard many good things about it but I wasn't prepared for quite how powerful the film would actually be. It's actually very odd to see a movie that takes an idea as horrifying as serial killing and presents it in a completely indifferent manner. Whether or not that is a good thing is down to the individual, but it certainly is effective in that it lets you see the person behind the proverbial monster. Charlize Theron is very good as the "monster" of the title, but the show-stealer is Christina Ricci who I think gets better and better in every film she's in. Her character is constantly told that she is being used to Theron's character, but at times I wonder if it isn't the other way round. Superb use of music, both licensed and original material by BT. By the way, I saw the Nick Broomfield documentary about the real Aileen Wuornos a number of months before seeing the fictionalized movie version. It's fairly obvious that the film definitely plays hard and fast with the rules of accuracy, and elements of the story are definitely "Hollywoodified", but more than anything I was left surprised by the complete moral ambiguity of the film. It would have been an easy choice to go down the route of the preacher, screaming the obvious "killing is bad" at every opportunity, but by instead focusing on the relationship between Wuornos and Christina Ricci's character Selby (who, I believe, is more or less completely fictionalized, with the real-life equivalent having a different name and background), first-time director (and the film's writer) Patty Jenkins is able to prompt viewers to look behind the undeniably horrific nature of Wuornos's crimes and consider the person behind the monster. 9/10 a.k.a. "The Lilo & Stitch special edition rocks!" Today I received a DVD Times review copy of Monster (R2 UK), that Oscar-winning movie starring Charlize Theron and based on the true story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. I saw a documentary about the real Aileen Wuornos on Channel 4 a few months back (culminating with gun-totin' Governer Jeb Bush executing the classified-insane Wuornos), so it'll be interesting to see how the fictionalized movie compares to the real thing. At the very least, they seem to have done an amazingly convincing job of making Charlize Theron look like Wuornos. My other DVD delivery was actually a package that has been lying at the post office since Thursday, since it required a signature. It turned out to be the recently-released Italian 2-disc special edition of Lilo & Stitch. The SE has been delayed everywhere else until next year, to coincide with the release of the cheapquel Lilo & Stitch 2, but the Italians seem to have got the right idea and gone ahead with the release. This is not particularly different from the disaster involving the SE of The Iron Giant, which was released last summer in Korea and STILL hasn't surfaced in the US. (Last I heard, they were planning on releasing it at the same time as Brad Bird's next film, Pixar's The Incredibles.) Anyway, Lilo & Stitch... The buzz around this set was that it would be the most in-depth Disney special edition ever, and they weren't kidding. Unlike the glossy production values of the usual Disney SEs, this one has a distinctive "fly on the wall" feel to it, with much of the behind-the-scenes footage shot on camcorders by members of the crew. Disc 2 takes the form of a documentary, running for over two hours and with numerous "footnotes", which are essentially interviews, production progression demonstrations, galleries and deleted scenes. Most revealing are the alternate versions of the "Jumbaa attacks" (modified to appease Soccer Moms) and "chase" (modified to avoid September 11 connotations) scenes. The original cut of the former is much more violent and funnier than the version in the finished film. See Lyris's complete guide to the changes. My only real complaint about this set is that the theatrical trailer is, as on the previous single-disc edition, nowhere to be seen. I've reviewed Secret Window (R2 UK) at DVD Times. I must admit that this flick didn't exactly set my world on fire. Johnny Depp is, as usual, excellent, but overall the idea and execution are both too pedestrian and clichéd to maintain interest for long. Real-life Rambles Well, right now I'm in the throes of a really vile cold. I was meant to be going to work at the library this afternoon, but I felt too ill to go and, after proceeding to throw up all over the street while waiting for the bus, I decided I'd made the right decision. In any event, I feel somewhat better now, but still not 100%, and I still have a very sore throat and the requisite blocked nose. Well, it looks like my monitor problem will be solved quicker than I thought. This afternoon I got an email from Mitsubishi tech support asking me whether I would like a repair job or a replacement. Of course I asked for a replacement, since I feel much better about getting a whole new monitor than I would about some technical monkeys toying around with this 2+ year-old thing and throwing in a few new widgets. All being well, the exchange will take place on Monday with the courier bringing a replacement and picking up Malfunctioning Eddie here. Technical Tomfoolery This afternoon, with no prior warning, my CRT monitor was returned to me. Good thing I happened to be in to receive it, as I can imagine that in most homes there would not be people in at 4 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it immediately became clear to me that, beyond hitting the "geometry reset" button, the technicians at Mitsubishi had done absolutely nothing to the monitor. All the problems I had complained about to them were in full force. A phone call to Mitsubishi revealed that, yes, they had indeed done nothing because, I quote, "the monitor is working within spec". Well, if "in spec" means emitting a loud buzzing noise, the colours in the bottom right hand corner of the screen drifting out of alignment, and a grille pattern embedding itself along the sides, then I might as well just give up now. I don't know what the conclusion to this saga will be, but I sincerely hope that a few more calls will convince Mitsubishi to actually repair or replace what is obviously a malfunctioning piece of equipment because, although it sounds as if I have managed to sell my Sony TFT for £250 (I paid around £270), I really don't want to have to buy a new CRT. I shouldn't have to. This one is within warranty, but that doesn't seem to matter to Mitsubishi. The R1 Canadian gift set of Aladdin arrived this morning. It contains the 2-disc platinum edition release of the movie, along with a hardcover book, as well as reproductions of an "original" film cel and character drawings by the project's various supervising animators. Not bad for around £15. Image quality appears to be a bit better than on the UK set I reviewed last month. A bit more edge enhanced, but noticeably more detailed overall. I'll be doing a full comparison featuring both DVD releases, as well as the LaserDisc version, soon. In other news, the saga of the cut uncut Ren & Stimpy DVD runs and runs. John K. has responded to fans' displeasure about the fact that a number of episodes have been trimmed. Apparently he's as shocked as we are, but rightfully points out the number of good things that are included in the set, including commentaries, image galleries, restored cuts and the banned episode Man's Best Friend. It would seem that the chance of Adult Party Cartoon getting a second season (and indeed the remaining first season episodes airing at all) hinges upon the success of this set, so I would urge customers NOT to cancel, as despite a handful of these episodes being incomplete, there is definitely a huge amount of excellent material on it. You probably remember that, over the past few months, I have posted several entries moaning about extreme slowdown on my computer that could only be fixed by reformatting. Well, this morning I do believe I have found the answer to my problems. In the past I had been led to believe that it was the C-Dilla copy protection that seems to be running rampant on many recent CDs (both music and games), which installs itself silently without user consent and constantly monitors computers for shady activity (not that it would ever stop me hooking up my CD player via my sound card's line-in and recording all my CDs to my heart's content). However, a few days ago, when the problem resurfaced, running an excellent spyware detector program called SpySweeper seemed to purge my system of all woes. Then, yesterday, it happened again. What the hell? This time, running SpySweeper did no good -- the problem was there and as annoying as ever. Despite being idle, my CPU Usage History in the Windows Task Manager would be a continual mess of spikes, as if something was continually taking up CPU cycles. Eventually, I took the advice of the experts at Slacker Central and disabled EVERYTHING in MSConfig. I then went through every single service, re-enabling them one at a time and rebooting after each re-enable. When I re-enabled the Print Spooler, the problem immediately returned. Everything else was hunky-dory. Now why, you may ask, would the Print Spooler be causing such problems? Last night I had no idea either, so I simply resigned myself to the realization that, from now on, printing would could only happen on special occasions and would require a reboot each time. Then, lying in bed in the middle of the night, a brainwave hit me. What if there was a document pending for printing, constantly trying to access the printer but not managing because the printer was switched off? Armed with this wonderful idea, I rushed downstairs this morning, switched on the printer and re-enabled the Print Spooler. A sea of garbage errupted from the printer which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be the entire HTML code for the SCUM website, direct from Lyris's computer (as evidenced by the path at the bottom of each of the 30 or so pages that were eventually spat out). As soon as this appalling paper-wasting exercise was completed, the CPU spikes stopped. So there you have it. The whole time it was because my machine, which acts as server for the printer, was trying to print but not managing. If I'd known that 6 months ago I could have saved myself at least four re-formats. Bugger. Oh horrors! The Society of Cutting Up Movies has updated its web site with news about the current epidemic of pirated Laserdiscs! Source: Members of the Loyal Order of Stupids Well, it turns out that the supposedly "uncut" Ren & Stimpy DVD set, winging its way across the Atlantic to me as we speak, is in fact nothing of the sort. Although missing material has been restored to cartoons like Sven Höek, Dog Show, Out West and Powdered Toast Man, a number of other episodes have received what sound suspiciously like syndication cuts, including Ren's Toothache, Son of Stimpy and Big Baby Scam. This is quite frankly ridiculous, and I would assume (indeed hope) that Paramount are liable for legal action given the false advertising present on the front cover of the set (when a DVD is cut, the last thing you should be doing is printing the word UNCUT in huge lettering on the packaging). I really had hoped that this would be the definitive version of the best TV show of all time, but sadly it looks like I'm not going to be able to get rid of my crummy VHS tapes just yet. Dumbasses. I recently ordered the US 2-disc special edition of the superb Amelie to replace my UK copy. As you can see from this comparison at DVD Beaver, the UK disc has inferior quality. Also, the US disc features more extras than its UK counterpart (the comparison at DVD Beaver is in fact wrong as it omits the fact that the American DVD features two commentaries -- one English, one French, whereas the UK disc only features the English commentary). Today, I also decided to order the R2 Japanese release of the insanely popular Chinese action extravaganza Hero (original title Ying Xiong), which is currently doing the rounds in Western cinemas in a mangled version created by cobbling together a combination of the Chinese theatrical cut and extended edition, but with numerous scenes removed. The version I have ordered features only the original Chinese theatrical cut, but I think this is preferable for the time being since, as shown at DVD Beaver, the only available version of the extended cut (Chinese R3) has a poor quality transfer and a forced watermark when viewing English subtitles. It was difficult to track down a copy of this film too, I can tell you. The puppy-molesters at MiramAxe have been ordering those supplying copies of the proper versions of this film to Western customers to cease and desist, because they don't want people to realize that their own version has been mangled. MiramAxe have done similar things before for other titles, but in the past their actions seem to have been restricted to suppliers specifically selling Asian versions to US customers -- this seems to be affecting virtually every Western country, and even the reliable YesAsia will not ship Hero to the UK, Australia, etc. I won't tell you where I eventually found this DVD, because I don't want the assfucks at MiramAxe to read this (although it's not very likely, I don't want to take any chances) and go after them too. Suffice to say, although I would very much like to see this movie on the big screen, I am considering boycotting it as a sign of my anger at their bully-boy tactics. Yesterday me and Lyris went out to the cinema with Graham to celebrate his 21st birthday. We saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which, despite some negative press, turned out to be pretty good. For those who don't know, this film was shot entirely on blue screen, with all backgrounds and props computer-generated. While I don't really see the point of doing things that way, the end result was pretty interesting, although very variable in terms of quality. Sometimes the effect was completely convincing, but on other occasions the bad CG stuck out like a sore thumb and it was blatantly clear that the actors weren't actually interacting with anything. Still, this was saved somewhat by a blurring filter that was applied to the whole film, making it look like a product of the early 20th century. While annoying at first, I eventually stopped noticing the filter. The film ended up being pretty entertaining with some great action sequences and funny one-liners. It was a bit hit-and-miss at times (for example, the pay-off for a running gag involving Gwyneth Paltrow's character having a limited amount of film with which to photograph the amazing creatures she comes across was obvious from the moment it was introduced), but overall I enjoyed myself. 7/10 I've reviewed Home on the Range (R1 Canada) at DVD Times. This R1 review is the result of a new deal with DVD supplier Loaded247.com, so apologies for the annoying product placement. A few days ago I mentioned that I had received a free copy of Tartan's R0 UK release of Tattoo. Tartan are a company renowned for their shoddy DVD releases, and every title I have seen of theirs has had something wrong with it, from the standards conversion nightmare that was House of 1000 Corpses to the just plain awfulness of Trauma. Well, brace yourselves, because Tattoo features a decent transfer! Not only that, it's pretty close to excellent. Click the images above for full-size versions. In terms of smoothness, detail and lack of edge enhancement, this transfer is one of the best I've seen. It also wonderfully reproduces the cold, almost monochromatic hues of the movie. Compression artefacts are also minimal. It is, however, let down by excessive amounts of noise reduction, freezing the film grain and causing problems like raindrops disappearing and running water freezing erratically -- a problem that all Tartan DVDs seem to exhibit. Nonetheless this is a huge step up for Tartan and I'll look on them more favourably in the future. The film itself is pretty good too. Sure, it's derivative of Se7en to a great extent, but it's beautifully shot and has some great characters, gore and tense set-pieces. Worth seeing. Technical Tomfoolery 3DMark 2005 has been released. You can download it here and watch your machine slow to a crawl. For the record, my system got a paltry 2352 marks, although I've been told that the latest beta Catalysts (available here) drastically improve performance for ATI users, so I'm about to try them out. Edit - 10:29pm: 3130 with the beta drivers -- a 33% speed boost. Edit - 11:32pm: But the DVD playback problem is still not fixed. Back to the 4.6's I go. Source: Dark Discussion Apparently, Anchor Bay is going to release Michele Soavi's masterpiece Dellamorte Dellamore in the US at some point next year. I already own the excellent Italian disc, but I'd be willing to upgrade if they include a subtitled version of the commentary and some more extras (also, provided they maintain the Italian audio with English subs instead of only including the inferior English track, as Anchor Bay often do). I just hope they don't use that awful "Cemetary Man" title. Source: Melon Farmers Morons in Liverpool have apparently objected with extreme anger towards a photograph featuring a bare boob hanging from a war memorial. This whole affair may remind you of a similar incident back in May, where cinema nut-jobs refused to screen a U-rated trailer urging people to vote in the European parliamentary elections because it included a shot of a child being breast-fed. I honestly don't understand some people. It's not like the breast causes disease or maltreats people or anything. It is a natural and wholesome part of the human body and one that should be celebrated rather than concealed. ¡Vivo el pecho! Real-life Rambles Today a book I ordered close to six weeks ago, Cronenberg on Cronenberg, a semi-autobiographical account of director David Cronenberg's career, finally arrived. Long live Amazon and their "usually dispatched within 48 hours" scam! Today is the 21st birthday of my good friend Graham. You may remember him as the benevolent host of my site before the move to the Land of Whimsy domain. Asia Argento has reportedly joined the cast for Land of the Dead, the fourth in George A. Romero's zombie saga begun with Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who both starred in the British spoof Shaun of the Dead, are also in the cast. A review copy of Secret Window (R2 UK) showed up from DVD Times today. |
