Source: The DVD Forums

I haven't read the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, but I must admit they sound interesting.

The award-winning trilogy - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - tell the story of Oxford girl Lyra Belacqua.

She is drawn into an epic struggle against the Church, which has been carrying out experiments on children in an attempt to remove original sin.

As the books progress the struggle turns into a battle to overthrow the Authority, a figure who is God-like in the books.

[Chris] Weitz, who directed American Pie and About A Boy, said New Line feared that any anti-religiosity in the film would make the project "unviable financially".

It's a shame to see studios kow-tow to religious looneys, but when one considers that religious looneys make up the majority of the population of the US, which will no doubt be the film's main audience, this isn't really surprising. I'm just a little curious as to how the film can ever be considered faithful to the books when its very purpose has been unceremoniously ripped out to please a bunch of nut-heads.

A while back I told you about Live for the Moment, the directorial debut of fellow DVD Times reviewer Rik Booth. He shot the film at the age of 15 and released in on DVD back in September. I agreed to buy a copy from him for the purpose of reviewing it for DVD Times, and the review is now available, here.

On my way in to university this afternoon (to hand in my final essay! Woo!), I noticed an interesting article in the Metro (the free newspaper given out on various transport services in Glasgow). I don't normally go in for this sort of tabloid nonsense, but a piece in the reader mail section caught my eye. It is a response to another letter in a previous issue that was clearly comprised of some pious fool writing in to complain about how the "true" meaning of Christmas (Christianity, in this person's opinion) was being eroded away but godless heathens. The response is surprisingly coherent and logical for a Metro reader:

Danny (Metro, Fri), you say you are deeply disturbed by how 'this country's religion' is being smothered, but what exactly is this country's religion? Last time I checked, it didn't have one. You say we should celebrate our own religion, but not everyone agrees with you on whether or not we even have one.

As for December 25 being the birth of Christ, it isn't. The date was taken from 4,000-year-old pagan ceremonies celebrating the birth of a variety of sun gods, Dionysus, Osiris and Mithras, all born during the time of the winter solstice, when the sun appears to be dying before becoming powerful again.

Mithras was supposedly born during the time of the solstice, to a virgin mother. His humble birth, hardly befiting a god, was witnessed by shepherds and wise men, and feared by the patriarch of his homeland. He raised the dead and healed the sick. He returned to his celestial kingdom at the spring equinox after having his last meal with his 12 followers, where they ate mizd, a piece of bread marked with a cross.

And, his legend is more than 2,000 years older than that of Christ.

HA!

A new feature has been launched at DVD Times: the personal blog, to which I will be contributing. These posts will take the form of discussions, praise, rants and raves about matters relating to film, DVD, TV and other forms of media that loosely fall under DVD Times' remit, so you can probably expect to see a number of features duplicated both here and at DVD Times. Judging by the feedback that the first two blog updates have received within minutes of being posted, it looks like this feature is going to be a success.

Lyris and me went to see The Incredibles today at the Odeon. What can I say, other than to make the lame and over-used comment that The Incredibles is... drumroll... INCREDIBLE? Ba-dum! The fact of the matter is that such a description is indeed accurate. This is by far Pixar's best film since the original Toy Story. I'm by no means a superhero comic/movie fan, so I suspect that a lot of the gags went over my head, but even so I had a thoroughly good time watching it. As good as Brad Bird's previous film, The Iron Giant? Well, not quite, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that, no matter how much effort goes into it, 3D is never going to look as appealing as 2D. (The fact that they ran a trailer for the decidedly 2-dimensional The Spongebob Squarepants Movie before The Incredibles didn't do much for my opinion of the third dimension.) That said, I definitely recommend you go and see this movie: it's easily the best of the year.

Yes! You heard right! It's time for another installment of my patented Whiggles vs. the Christian Nutters adventures, and what better time for one of these charming little romps than in the run-up to Christmas, the festival these zealous fools stole from the pagans, renamed and tried to ruin. (Thankfully, the important elements, namely the giving of gifts and the celebration of family and friends, survived, while the idiotic fairytale of a child being immaculately conceived and born in a barn is slowly being eroded away.)

A little disclaimer, in case some people get the wrong idea (as they often do): I don't have anything against people who choose to follow (or are suckered into by their parents) the Christian belief. People are free to believe what they want. I myself have about as much respect for this religion as I have for belief in pink elephants and Santa Claus, but don't let that stop anyone buying into it hook, line and sinker. Hey, if it brightens up your day (although I don't see how it could), then that puts a great big smile on my face! Having said that, I detest those that try to ram their beliefs down people's throats, and it is without further ado that I move on to today's troublemakers:

Wal-Mart is sued over rude lyrics
(Submitted by Rik Booth)

Evanescence is band that I have little time for, personally. Their lyrics are overwrought and pretentious, every song seems to sound the same, and worse still (for me) they all seem to have Christian overtones. That said, they would appear to be of the more liberal bent of Christianity -- the kind that tolerate such unbelievably unholy and dangerous things as swear-swords (* GASP! *) -- and this has enraged a pious Christian man from Washington County. Mr. Trevin Skeens is suing Wal-Mart for selling the CD in question, which contains a swear-word. Shock, horror! He is also seeking damages of $74,500, presumably for the harm that the sounds of the offensive utterance caused to the eardrums of himself and his delicate little children. Grow up, Trevin, and find something better to do with your time.

Christian protesters seek to prosecute gay play
(Originally posted by Lyris)

Meanwhile, in merry old Britain, a group of Scottish Christian nutters (yes, we get those people over here too) have called the police to report the fact that American playwright Zsuzsi Lyndsay has staged a play in London about Jesus, in which he is depicted as a homosexual. Gee, that's terrible.

Okay, now this one I have slightly less of a problem with. Jesus, after all, is a character invented by the Christians and as such I can understand if they want to control his image. That said, they should bear in mind that copyright didn't exist back with the crazy ones first created him, and even if it did the rights would have moved into the public domain long, long ago. I also have problems with idiots like these wasting the emergency services' time with silly little games like these. Every year in the UK, over 11,000 people are raped and 1,000 murdered, yet dipshits like these seem to think that this is a worthy cause for the police to investigate? Go suck a fuck, you silly twats.

One more thing. Yesterday I went into Fopp on my way home from university after handing in two of my three essays, and I picked up two CDs by Aimee Mann, Bachelor No. 2 or The Last Remains of the Dodo, and Lost in Space. For those of you who haven't heard of her (and most probably haven't), Aimee is a delightfully nutty lady who writes the most absurd songs and dresses in an intriguing array of suits and neckties. She also produces, records and publishes the music herself, which is pretty admirable, and at £5 per disc these were a steal. Great music, and great packaging artwork too. I advise you to check her out.

The full version of Armies of Exigo (PC) arrived today. I've only played a couple of levels so far, but it looks like a very good game indeed.

Source: Amber Benson Official Web Site

Chance, Amber Benson's indie directorial debut, has secured distribution from Small Planet Pictures in America, so until they do their official release the DVD and VHS are now no longer available for sale. (They're still shipping outside America, however.) Personally I'm quite surprised that this has happened. Chance is nearly three years old now, and is very much a low budget "video"-like movie. The news of a possible theatrical release in 2005 is great news indeed, although I can't really imagine what it must be like to see something shot on interlaced DV on the big screen -- a bit like The Blair Witch Project, I'm guessing. Nonetheless, this probably bodes well for the budgeting of Amber's next film.

Last night I successfully won an eBay auction for the World of Warcraft Collector's Edition: £87, plus £15 shipping, which is... well, significantly more than what I hoped to pay for it. Oh well, I've been wondering what to get for Christmas anyway (besides M, A Woman is a Woman, Angel Season 4 and The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2). The game better be good.

This article about a woman who is suing the directors and producer of The Matrix for ripping her off makes for an interesting read.

I've added a comparison for The Butterfly Effect (R1 US Infinifilm vs. R2 UK).

I've reviewed Nathalie, a veritable yawn-fest of an erotic thriller that proves to be neither erotic nor thrilling, despite the presence of Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart and Gérard Depardieu. Momentum's R2 DVD is acceptable, although marred by burned-in subtitles and a lack of extras.

My brother and my mum arrived back from New York this morning. By all accounts a whale of a time was had by all, and my brother of course smuggled through several hundreds of £s-worth of electronic goods, all under the watchful eye of Her Majesty's Thieves & Excise. They also brought back an Uglydoll for me, which now adorns the roll-front cabinet housing my oversize DVD cases:

Now that my brother's camera is back, I should probably show you the new-look study:

I must admit it looks a good deal better than it did before, even if all the furniture will probably end up going back in much the same places as before. The old carpet was stained and worn and grotty, and the underlay beneath it had been completely ground down to nothing where our office chairs sat. At the very least we now have a clean floor, although how long that will last with two large, hairy, muddy dogs in the house is anyone's guess.

I also ordered two more DVDs: House of Flying Daggers (R3 Hong Kong) and Onibaba (R0 USA, Criterion). Yeah, yeah, shoot me. The big question is, will I hit the 300 mark before the end of the year?

In other news, today at my Literary & Linguistic Computing tutorial I had my first brush with Dreamweaver, which I have now decided I simply must get hold of. I was a little dubious at first, but I think it's definitely a superior piece of software to Frontpage. The integration of style sheets is much better and the interface, which admittedly takes a little getting used to, is much more conducive overall. I would quite like to make my next design of this site (which is a long way off, so don't worry) with style sheets, and for that I would definitely like to have a program that makes such things easy to implement and manage.

Finally, Psycho (R2 Denmark) arrived today. Unfortunately, it turns out that the anamorphicness and extras-ness of the Scandinavian releases does not apply to the Danish release. I had assumed that Denmark fell under the heading of "Scandinavia" as far as DVDs are concerned, but obviously that is not the case, at least not here. This release includes all the extras, but the transfer is non-anamorphic and looks like an NTSC-to-PAL standards conversion to me. Oh well, for £10 I suppose you could do a lot worse. Certainly I don't see much point in trying to send back this now-opened copy and demanding my money back. Most online DVD suppliers don't accept unsealed returns at the best of times, and somehow I don't think my Danish is up to haggling (in other words, I don't speak a word of the language).

Oh well, back to my Pragmatics essay...

SuicideGirls has an exclusive interview with Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi. There's not a huge amount of new info in it -- it's more a funny conversation than an actual in-depth interview.

It's all go in DVD world. The other day, I ordered A Clockwork Orange (R2 UK), and it arrived yesterday -- I haven't watched it yet. This will be my first introduction to the wierd and wonderful world of Stanley Kubrick's controversial tale of the poor villainous bastard who enters a correctional facility to be cured of his evil ways.

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Two (R1 USA) also arrived: another Christmas goody.

I also (shock, horror!) went out and actually bought a DVD in a high-street store: La Belle Noiseuse (R2 UK), which is very highly spoken of.

I also ordered a number of DVDs:

- Psycho (R2 Denmark). The Scandinavian releases are anamorphic and include the most extras, whereas release are either anamorphic or include all the extras, not both. Get your copy today from DVDoo.com.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition (R1 USA). I'd forgotten this was coming out, and frankly, after being disappointed by the theatrical cut at the cinema and only watching the DVD through once, I was almost ready to not bother with this, but I decided I might as well complete my collection and see if the extended cut improves the film in any way (although I'm still struggling to imagine the film being even more bloated than the theatrical cut already was).
- Spider (R1 USA). I started to watch the UK disc which I bought recently last night, and was appalled by the poor compression, which led to blocking up during many scene transitions. Rather than suffer this thing for the entire duration of the film, I promptly ejected the disc and put it up on eBay (I was stupid enough to throw away the receipt). The R1 release will hopefully (most likely, that is) have superior image quality, and also includes a commentary by David Cronenberg to boot.
- Where Eagles Dare (R1 Canada). Come on, who doesn't love this campy, silly and downright entertaining World War 2 action movie?

Oh, and it would seem that the new Astérix box set has been delayed until February 2005. Cock.

The Chigago Tribune has posted and interesting interview with Criterion DVD producer Kim Hendrickson. It's brief but worth a read.

Sorry for the silence these past couple of days. We've been blitzing the study to lay a new carpet and I've only just got my computer back in place. The good news is that I finished my second of two essays before we pulled everything out. That gives me some breathing space before they're due in, so I can make any last-minute alterations well in advance. Two down, one to go. ;)

A couple of Argento news pieces for you today.

First of all, Mannfan has posted the first few pages of Do You Like Hitchcock?, Argento's upcoming TV movie and homage to the work of Hitchock, at Dark Discussion (scroll down to the final post of the page; it continues on to the next page too). I guess this is what an Argento script looks like: more like a story outline than an actual screenplay. I'm guessing he does most of his planning on storyboards. It sounds as if it will air in March 2005 in Italy, but sadly there won't be a DVD any time soon, as RAI Television want too much money for the rights.

Secondly, some bad news regarding The Third Mother, also at Dark Discussion (starts last post on page 2). Medusa will be producing it, but apparently they are refusing to accept foreign funding, so the budget is going to be drastically smaller than Argento would have liked. This doesn't sound good at all, given that a film in the vein of Suspiria and Inferno is going to need a decent budget in order to work properly. The Card Player was made for only $2 million, and... well... it kind of shows. I really hope this gets resolved. I suppose one thing to bear in mind is that Medusa did cough up $10 million for The Phantom of the Opera. That does suggest that they are willing to provide a decent amount of cash if they get behind the idea.