January 2007

A taste of things to come if Blu-ray wins

Source: High-Def Digest

Want to know why I’m so against Blu-ray winning the format war? Stories like this. Okay, I know, dodgy low-rate porn movies - who cares - but this is merely a foretaste to the sort of control Sony could have over the industry if they emerge triumphant from this shambles. Basically, none of their copying facilities agreed to cooperate with porn producers Digital Playground, and Sony even went so far as to threaten to revoke the company’s Blu-ray licenses if porn appeared on the format. As a result, Digital Playground have defected to HD DVD - hopefully they are just the first of many.

So, the question now is, what other titles will Sony decide are not “appropriate” for release on Blu-ray? We already know that Synapse Films were told that they couldn’t release Thriller: A Cruel Picture, among other titles. This is the sort of nightmare situation we could be faced with if the industry takes the Blue Pill, and I’m sure I speak for every movie fan with any sense when I say that the last thing we want is a future in which a company with its own films to sell can dictate what others can and cannot release.

The CES obituary

The show itself is not over yet, but there are unlikely to be any further major announcements between now and when it finishes tomorrow - and in any event Universal have already confirmed that, somewhat surprisingly, they won’t be announcing any titles at the show. Many HD DVD fans are currently a little down about the fact that the Blu-ray camp unveiled a roster of major titles for release this year while HD DVD had little to show on the software side of things, but I’d like to read this slightly differently.

Let’s put it this way: CES stands for “Consumer Electronics Show”, implying a decided emphasis on hardware and technological innovation. The HD DVD camp certainly had much to show in that regard, announcing several new player manufacturers, the development of triple-layer 51 GB discs, and the news of Microsoft’s plans to bring more cost-effective solutions to customers. On the hardware side, what did Blu-ray have to show for itself? Bugger all. Apparently announcing a combined total of less than 90 titles for release between now and summer (many of which were already announced months ago) is news-worthy and points to the impending demise of HD DVD… while the HD DVD camp’s technological breakthroughs and commitment to deliver more than 300 new titles this year is nothing? Yes, I’m surprised and disappointed that Universal didn’t at least hint at what titles we can expect to see from them, but I think that those crowing over the fact that Blu-ray has announced Casino Royale and Pirates of the Caribbean are getting a little ahead of themselves. The announcement of these titles is not news: anyone with any sense could have guessed that they were coming. So don’t give up on HD DVD yet: on the contrary, start wondering what’s going on with Team Blu-ray if the best they can come up with to announce at a major electronics show is a handful of new movies.

Oh, and it seems that New Line has elected to toss its hat into the ring with HD DVD but not Blu-ray. Food for thought, no?

Another financial blunder

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. That sound is me metaphorically banging my head against my desk. I don’t have a job, and my funds are rapidly drying up, and yet I’ve just committed yet another expensive mistake.

Back when it was first discovered that Microsoft’s $200 HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 could be connected to any PC, I was overjoyed: here was an affordable way of making my computer HD DVD-enabled, and, in conjunction with the latest software solution from Cyberlink or Intervideo, begin taking screen captures in earnest for reviews, comparisons, an HD Hall of Fame, and so on. Everything was in place, or so I thought: my system was HDCP-ready, and it seemed that everything would fall into place just fine.

Or so I thought. The drive arrived today from Hong Kong (they’re rarer than gold dust on UK shelves, and in any event I only ended up paying about £5 more than I would have paid for a local model), and I wasted no time in hooking it up to my PC via USB and popping in a disc (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, if you must know). I fired up PowerDVD Ultra, the HD DVD-enabled version of Cyberlink’s popular DVD software, and waited as it span up. The Warner Home Entertainment logo then appeared for just over a second, and then…

“Cannot initialize player, please make sure your system meets minimum system requirement criteria. You can find extra information from Cyberlink FAQ website - - (Error Code = 0103). Please run the BD-HD Advisor tool for more information.”

And so I did. I scanned for HD DVD support, only for the advisor to tell me that apparently my display is not HDCP compatible. Bollocks. Complete and utter bollocks. I know for a fact that the display is compliant because my standalone HD-A1 player has interfaced with it without any problems. I also know for a fact that, when I ran the BD/HD Advisor a couple of weeks ago, when I still had my Nvidia card, everything was in working order. Now, initially I thought that I had been screwed over and that my video card was in fact not HDCP compliant - but that wasn’t right either, because the advisor recognised both the card and the graphics driver as compliant. Why, then, does connecting the monitor to this ATI card make the program think it isn’t HDCP, while connecting it to a different card makes it think that it is? The only possible answer I can come up with is that Cyberlink have screwed up somewhere, and have written crippled software that is shutting out users who should be allowed in. A quite perusal of Cyberlink’s customer forums revealed that I’m not the only person with this problem: another user is also being locked out for no reason, with no explanation other than the dubious claim that his HDCP-compliant Dell monitor was “without HDCP”.

Now here’s the real kicker. Remember the whole point of HDCP? To lock out those unsecure analogue connections and only allow 100% safe, encrypted connections in order to prevent piracy? Well, guess what - if you hook up an analogue monitor, the HD DVD plays just fine, in full 1920x1080 resolution (which my crusty old CRT supports). No error message, no nothing. The reason for this, of course, is that, facing a barrage of complaints, the various studios who insisted on HDCP in the first place agreed not to enable the Image Constrant Token, which would either limit resolution severely or else prevent playback at all, until 2012. But this still doesn’t explain why Cyberlink has chosen to bar users with digital displays unless they have HDCP support. Frankly it reeks of paranoia and fellating the Hollywood studios lest they lose their precious licenses.

In any event, it’s all rendered somewhat moot by the fact that Cyberlink have disabled the screen capture process for HD content. What do they think I’m going to do? Pirate a movie by pressing PrintScreen on every frame? That was my main (okay, make that only) reason for getting this drive, so it’s as good as useless for me. Disabling the overlay through my usual method (opening a video file in Windows Media Player, then, with the overlay now in use, running PowerDVD and forcing it to fall back into software mode) doesn’t work either, because it just spits out yet another error code about not finding the appropriate drivers. None of the screen capture programs that supposedly allow you to capture the overlay work either.

Result: I’m now saddled with a drive that is all but useless, and have spent no small amount of money on a video card that is, for at least one program, not interfacing with my monitor properly. This is every bit the nightmare scenario that I correctly predicted when I first heard about these newfangled monopolisation… sorry, content protection measures. At least the drive is in short enough supply that I can probably expect to resell it for a reasonable price, but right now I’m extremely concerned about my video card. If PowerDVD and its advisor program don’t think my monitor is HDCP-compliant when it’s hooked up to it, how can I be sure that other programs aren’t going to think the same?

Lizard in March

Fangoria has unveiled detailed specs for Media Blasters’ upcoming re-release of Lucio Fulci’s classic giallo A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin. Due out on March 13th, this DVD will feature the full-length 103-minute cut of the film, with a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, and English 5.1 and mono and Italian mono soundtracks. Special features include:

• Half-hour interview with Fulci expert Professor Paolo Albiero
• Featurette on the history of the film’s censorship, with Albiero
• Original Italian titles
• Fulci trailer reel
• Shriek Show trailers

All the extras from the already available Italian release are therefore being included, no doubt with English subtitles. This is definitely good news, but it’s a shame that the extras from Media Blasters’ previous release aren’t being ported over. A reason to hang on to the old one, I suppose.

HD DVD at CES: the buzz

Well, CES proper hasn’t actually started yet, but last night the HD DVD camp held a pre-show press event to unveil some important pieces of news regarding the format’s future over the next 12 months. Here’s a quick rundown of the major announcements:

• No defections or declarations of neutrality on either side, although Lions Gate will be distributing their films in HD online via Microsoft’s Xbox Live Video Marketplace service. As the only Blu-ray-exclusive studio to do this, this bodes well for their future neutrality.
• Toshiba announces triple-layer 51 GB HD DVD disc, taking the format’s capacity beyond that of Blu-ray. Currently it’s unknown whether this will work in current players (it hasn’t been ruled out, though), or whether any studios will actually consider it worthwhile enough to use, but it does make the format more appealing on paper to those who judge its merits based on pure specs.
• Several hardware manufacturers will be releasing HD DVD players, including Alco, Jiangkui/ED Digital, Lite-On, Shinco, Meridian and Onkyo.
• From the more than 41 studios and distributors now supporting HD DVD worldwide, we can expect to see upwards of 300 new titles being released in 2007, including the entire Harry Potter and The Matrix series, Blade Runner and the original episodes of Star Trek. New Line will also begin releasing titles early this year, including both catalogue (Se7en, Austin Powers, Final Destination, etc.) and new day-and-date titles.

All in all it sounds fairly promising. I would have expected more concrete announcements from Universal and Paramount - once again it seems that Warner is carrying most of the weight - but perhaps they’ll say something during the actual show over the next few days.

Stay tuned…

Update, January 8, 2007 12:01 PM: Updated with Lions Gate info.

CES: what will it mean for HD?

As previously mentioned, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) starts tomorrow in Las Vegas. All the major players will be out in full force, and both sides of the high definition home video war - HD DVD and Blu-ray - will be in attendance, touting their wares. I haven’t yet said much about the early buzz regarding what we can expect to see tomorrow, but I feel that now is as good a time as any to point out that the HD landscape looks set to change dramatically, with the introduction of HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid discs from Warner and a HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid player from Lucky Goldstar. This, to me, says that neither side made any real headway over the Christmas period, and at least some companies are buckling down to make the most of a market in which both will be around for a long time.

Would I buy a dual-format player? I can’t deny that it would be nice to be able to play any HD disc that came out, but I can’t say I’d be willing to plunk down the $1,200 (US) that this player will initially cost, even if I did have that kind of money to burn - especially when you consider that, for the time being, there are at most five Blu-ray exclusive titles that I would even consider buying (a number that will most likely drop to two if Lions Gate go dual-format as predicted). For the time being, I expect this house to stay HD DVD-only, but it’s nice to know that the option is there to get in bed with both in the future without having to own two different players.

Speaking of Blu-ray, here’s their latest boner: apparently the blue camp can’t get picture-in-picture working because the only player that supports it is the Playstation 3. How, then, did Lions Gate manage to enable picture-in-picture on their recent release of The Descent? Answer: by including two copies of the film on the same disc, one with a video window superimposed. Nice to know those 50 gigabytes are being put to good use.

HD DVD review: An American Werewolf in London

An American Werewolf in London is the most disappointing HD DVD title I have reviewed thus far, although it constitutes an undeniable improvement on its standard definition counterpart. Unfortunately, edge enhancement and a lack of the original mono audio mix make this release difficult to recommend to all but the most dedicated fans.

HD pickings have been slim for horror fans so far, but Universal has sought to rectify this with the release of John Landis’ classic An American Werewolf in London. I’ve reviewed the R0 US DVD/HD DVD combo.

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

Released, almost to the day, one year after Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Blizzard Entertainment’s follow-up expansion set, The Frozen Throne continues the single player narrative where it left off in the previous game, while adding a plethora of new units, abilities, items and maps to eke more life out of the multiplayer and skirmish scene. The basic mechanics of Reign of Chaos, referred to from hereon in as RoC, are covered in my review of that game.

Beginning with 1996’s expansion set to Warcraft II, Beyond the Dark Portal, Blizzard have proven beyond any doubt that they take their expansion sets as seriously as their stand-alone games. Not content to merely throw in a handful of new units and some additional multiplayer maps, they have a track record for improving and expanding the universe of the original without betraying its essence. Starcraft: Brood War in 1998 showed how this could be done, continuing the epic storyline of the original game and branching off in new and unexpected directions, while the inclusion of two new units for each of the three races, far from unbalancing the game, fit snugly into its mechanics to the extent that it became difficult to imagine a time when they weren’t there. The Frozen Throne (TFT) is cut from very much the same mould, with the single player campaign picking up immediately after the Night Elves’ great sacrifice to defeat the demon-lord Tychondrius. The new campaign once again finds us with the Night Elves, and, over the course of 22 missions spread across three campaigns, players also re-encounter the Humans and the Undead.

Conspicuously absent are the Orcs, always one of the backbones of the series and one of the two races present since the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. This dramatic change came about as a result of Blizzard not being able to satisfyingly shoehorn the Orcs into the events of the storyline as told in TFT’s campaign, and, as a result, instead giving them their own “bonus” campaign: The Founding of Durotar, more than anything else, serves as a demonstration of the power of the World Editor which comes bundled with the game, allowing users to create their own maps and interconnected campaigns. Playing less like a strategy game and more like an RPG, it seems in spirit far closer to the original “role-playing strategy” premise upon which Warcraft III was founded before they developers brought it back to its RTS roots.

Even within the regular campaign, there is a considerable amount of change. Perhaps to help alleviate the tedium present in RoC’s single player missions, where the same familiar units and objectives were present throughout, Blizzard have thrown a monkey wrench or two into the mix. Often, certain units or buildings will be unavailable, and there is an increased emphasis on using non-standard strategies and units. For instance, threaded throughout the campaign are encounters with a race of sea-creatures called the Naga, and, on a number of occasions, they can be used to augment your forces. Some missions even allow access to their buildings, making them an almost fully-fledged faction in their own right. The Naga, sadly, are not available to play in multiplayer and skirmish games, which is a shame, but it’s fairly clear that they are not as fully realised or balanced as the four main races. Likewise, the Human campaign, which is actually more concerned with the Blood Elves, a group of survivors of Prince Arthas’ destruction of Dalaran in RoC, than the Humans themselves, often allows access to units not normally available, such as elven archers. As a downside, the single player campaign is marred by some rather tedious dungeon crawl levels, which do little other than highlight the often ineffective pathing, as units bump into each other and generally end up in traffic jams as they attempt to negotiate the often narrow corridors.

On a more long-term basis, meanwhile, each race gains two new units and a new hero. Most of these seem designed to offset perceived imbalances in RoC: for example, the Night Elves, who previously lacked a heavy-duty melee unit, gain the Mountain Giant, a huge, hulking stone contraption that can uproot a tree and use it as a club. The Humans, meanwhile, receiver the Spellbreaker, a magic-immune melee unit that can steal enchantments from enemy units and apply them to allies, or likewise remove negative spell effects from allies and apply them to enemies. Each race additionally gains a new building, a shop, from which a variety of race-dependent weapons can be bought: the Night Elves, for instance, can purchase a Moonstone, which immediately sets the time of day to night for a brief period, allowing them to recharge their Moon Wells or hide their forces in the shadows; the Undead, meanwhile, can buy an Orb of Corruption, which allows them to instantly generate an area of Blight on the ground upon which to construct buildings. Finally, a new neutral outpost, the Tavern, is included on many maps, allowing players to recruit neutral heroes instead of being restricted to their own race’s choice of four. This allows for more varied and less predictable strategies, and Blizzard’s inclusion of new heroes with many of their patches has kept the game and its play-styles continually evolving. Naval transports and combat ships, last seen in Warcraft II, also make a welcome reappearance, although they are, for the most part, restricted to two or three levels in the single player campaign.

The Frozen Throne carries on Warcraft III in fine tradition. It may not do much to alleviate some of the game’s inherent flaws, such as the small-scale nature of the battles and at times derivative nature of the plot, but, if you enjoyed Warcraft III, then you will probably have come to accept these or at least take them in their stride. In any event, the additions help to expand the scope of the game and fill out some of the weaker elements of the various races. As strategy games go, you can definitely do a lot worse than Warcraft III, and this expansion proves that there is not necessarily anything wrong with more of the same.

8/10.

ATI to the rescue

nVidia be gone! The Canadians have come to restore my sanity! My ATI Radeon X1950XT arrived this morning - for some reason, Chillblast sent me a PowerColor model rather than the Sapphire one I ordered, but, as they are exactly the same card, only with a slightly different fan and a different box, I’m not particularly bothered. In any event, I installed the thing this morning, and in the process found that I had to chuck out my case fan, because the card itself comes with the largest fan I’ve ever seen, and meant that there simply wasn’t enough room in my PC’s case. In any event, the case fan’s only real purpose was to cool the video card, so I suspect that its own dedicated fan will perform exactly the same function without any real difference in the long run.

Anyway, despite my criticisms of ATI’s Catalyst Control Center and its dependence on Microsoft’s .NET framework, I’m so glad to be back to it. nVidia’s control panel, while not exactly bad, had numerous problems, including the fact that features available in the newer system, integrated with the most recent driver releases, are missing from the older and more functional classic control panel (and vice versa). It’s also nice to not have to reset my overlay settings every time I boot the computer and every time I want to watch a video.

I did, however, have a rather nasty surprise when I popped in Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes in order to test DVD playback. Put simply, when I enabled AVIVO acceleration in PowerDVD (AVIVO is essentially ATI’s version of the advanced hardware video playback functions called PureVideo by nVidia), I noticed that a massive amount of noise reduction was being applied, resulting in outlines and colours trailing, with the contents of one shot being ghosted into the next. The control panel featured no way of disabling this, but a quick search in Google revealed this thread, where it was revealed that, after dragging their feet for some time, ATI had finally acknowledged the issue and provided a registry tweak to turn off noise reduction completely. It’s not the world’s most perfect solution, but ATI deserve credit for actually listening to their customers, unlike nVidia, who have failed to fix the overlay colour temperature bug, despite it having existed for over a year. (I will, however, give nVidia credit for allowing users to modify noise reduction and edge enhancement settings as they see fit… although this too seems to be fraught with problems for some users.)

Once the noise reduction had been successfully disabled, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the AVIVO deinterlacing is actually superior to that of nVidia’s PureVideo. As you may recall, every so often PureVideo’s otherwise commendable motion adaptive deinterlacing would slip up, resulting in the fields jumping every few seconds. Not so with AVIVO: in fact, I watched an entire 15-minute stretch of Ren Seeks Help and didn’t notice a single problem.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles, I ran Futuremark’s two graphical benchmark applications, 3DMark ‘03 and 3DMark ‘05, to see what, if any, difference the new card made to performance. As I suspected, it appears that my CPU is the deciding factor, given that there’s only so much a new graphics card can do if the CPU itself isn’t equally cutting-edge. Still, I did see my 3DMark ‘03 score jump from 12,582 (12,836 on the GeForce) to 15,106, while my 3DMark ‘05 score went from 6,067 (5,875 on the GeForce) to 7,749. Not the world’s most amazing statistics, and I doubt it will result in any major improvements to my gaming performance, but a definite rise nonetheless.

Make your mind up, Warner!

Source: High-Def Digest

Seemingly intent on dragging this misbegotten format war out for as long as possible, Warner is set to announce HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid discs at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), due to begin on January 8th. What exactly does this mean for the industry? In reality, I suspect not a whole lot. It means that studios supporting both formats will be able to release a single disc for both, but it’s unlikely to suddenly bring Blu-ray only or HD DVD only studios into the dual-format fold. It will also probably mean more expensive discs for consumers, which is never a good thing if you want a new format to succeed.

In an exclusive pre-CES interview with the Times, Barry M. Meyer, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Brothers, claims the studio created the idea of Total HD as it became apparent that while neither the Blu-ray or HD DVD formats would be going away anytime soon, continued consumer reluctance to invest in rival technologies could stall the widespread adoption of high-definition.

“The next best thing is to recognize that there will be two formats, and to make that not a negative for the consumer,” said Meyer. “We [Warner] felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn’t want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them.”

As for CES in general, who knows how things are going to pan out? One visitor asked me for my predictions regarding the show, so I might as well reiterate them here:

• A least one major manufacturer will announce an HD DVD player
• Warner will announce the Matrix trilogy and perhaps some Hitchcock and Kubrick titles, in addition to some more recent blockbusters like A Scanner Darkly
• Universal will do likewise, perhaps with some Hitchcocks and more recent offerings
• Paramount will continue their lacklustre support of both formats
• Perhaps a couple of TV box sets
• If any Blu-ray supporter makes a commitment to HD DVD, it will be Lions Gate
• New Line may or may not say something with regard to their HD plans

Bear in mind that these are mere guesses, not informed predictions, so don’t take them as in any way reliable. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how many, if any, turn out to be accurate.

HD DVD review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire seems to be considered by many fans of the franchise to be the worst film in the series so far, but, whether it’s because I wouldn’t class myself as a Harry Potter fan or for other reasons, my reaction to it was quite the opposite. I still don’t really understand what it is that makes so many people fanatical about this series (I expect that I would have to read the books to get my head around that), and it hasn’t given me any particular desire to rush to the cinema and see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when it is released in cinemas in July, but, as a stand-alone film, this fourth part in the septology is a nicely-executed if meandering piece that should engage both children and adults, whether or not they have read the books.

For the first HD review of 2007, I take a look at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, released in the UK in December 2006 but yet to appear anywhere else in the world. Warner’s disc features a stunning transfer and an exclusive In-Movie Experience feature.

Categories: now with multiple pages

As you’ve probably noticed, I tend to go a little overboard with categories, meaning that most posts have several assigned to them. I also tend to post quite a lot, which means that many of my category pages now feature over a hundred entries, many of them with pictures. All this means that it takes a long time for these pages to load, especially for people with slow connections.

The solution? Alden Bates’ Paged Archives Plugin for Movable Type. A very simple to use add-on, this allows me to split my categories archives (and monthly archives too, if necessary, although I don’t think it’s got to that stage yet) into multiple pages. Each categories page is now restricted to only 20 entries, with more visible using the navigation options near the top of the page (see DVD, for example). Note that the category post index on each page will still show every post made in the category, rather than only the ones visible on the current page.

Zimmer 13

Note: thanks to Keith for setting me up with a copy of this film.

West Germany/Denmark/France: Harald Reinl, 1964

Zimmer 13 (Room 13) is my first encounter with the krimi movement, a series of thrillers produced in Germany during the late 1950s to early 1970s based on the writings of British novelist Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. These films are often compared to the Italian giallo movement, and indeed many gialli were marketed in Germany is krimis - for example The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, What Have You Done to Solange? and Seven Bloodstained Orchids. Compared with their Italian counterparts, these films tend to emphasise professional detectives and organised crime rather than amateur sleuths up against lone madmen, while the (70s) Italian modernism favoured by giallo directors tends to be eschewed in favour of an image of what appears to be a pre-World War 2 England.

I’m feeling in the dark here, so bear with me. The plot focuses on a private detective, Johnny Gray (Joachim Fuchsberger, who also appeared in Solange, further emphasising the krimi connection), asigned to protect Denise (Karin Dor), the daughter of Sir Marney (Walter Rilla), who finds himself owing a favour to the wrong crowd and fears for her safety. There’s also a razor-wielding maniac on the loose, and a maverick ganster named Joe Legge (Richard Häussler), planning a grand heist with his lackeys in the ominous Room 13.

The strongest element of the film, and its most giallo-like part, is the mystery surrounding the identity of the razor killer. I didn’t guess the outcome, and it came as significantly surprising, although I tend not to think too analytically about a killer’s identity the first time I watch a film. The heist itself, as it happens, is not particularly interesting or remarkable - the whole thing is made out to be intricately planned, right down to the second, but in reality it’s just a run of the mill train robbery. The ominous-sounding Room 13 also turns out to be anything but - it’s just a room in a club where the gansters meet (given that the film is named after it, I was expecting a little more).

Still, the film is nicely-paced, and the monochromatic Scope photography, by Ernst W. Kalinke, is rich and evocative (I always considered a shame that so few gialli were shot in black and white, with Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much being pretty much the only one I can recall right now). Elsewhere, Fuchsberger makes a reasonably effective lead, even if he’s not particularly convincing as a “brilliant” detective - a failing of the script rather than his performance. Karin Dor is also a sympathetic heroine/damsel in distress, cut from the Nora Davis (to again reference The Girl Who Knew Too Much) mould - vulnerable, but not completely gutless. Some attempts at comic relief, most involving bumbling police scientist Dr. Higgins (Eddi Arent), don’t work particularly well, given that they tend to crop up at the most inappropriate moments - usually immediately following a death.

As my first krimi, I don’t really know how this compares to the rest of the line-up. Chances are I’ve either slated what is considered a masterpiece or bigged-up a clunker. Who knows. I also have Dead Eyes of London to watch, so maybe I’ll have a better idea of what these films are generally like soon. In the meantime, this gets a 7/10.

The Year in Review

2006 - the year of HD

Note: I’m not going to cover worldwide hot topics like the execution of Saddam Hussein or the continued botch-job that is the situation in Iraq. This is simply a set of personal musings about my own experiences this year.

On a technological front, by far the biggest development on the HMS Whimsy this year was the arrival of an HD DVD player - a late change from our original intention to pick up a Blu-ray player. Originally, I had expected to perhaps have half a dozen titles in high definition by the end of the year, but have in fact ended up with 21 (plus another two that Lyris bought). Certainly a number of these are films that I probably wouldn’t have bought had their been a better selection available, but still, if you’d told me that, a mere six months after its launch, the format would included crystal-clear copies of Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood, not to mention more obscure cult titles like An American Werewolf in London and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I wouldn’t have believed you. All in all, HD DVD got off to a great start in 2006, with I only hope will continue to be bettered in 2007.

Including both standard definition and high definition, I bought or received for review a total of 107 DVDs. I wrote 66 reviews for DVD Times (two down from last year’s record of 68), and went to the cinema a whopping two times. I watched 216 films (including those watched more than once), 99 of which I had never seen before. These tended to be of the more obscure variety, although I did see a number of “major” (both in the sense of being “important” and of being blockbusters that just about everyone ended up seeing) titles that had, for one reason or another, passed me by until last year, including Trains, Planes & Automobiles, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Blade Runner, Tout Va Bien, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Collateral, Corpse Bride, The Piano Teacher, Theatre of Blood, A History of Violence, V for Vendetta, 5x2, Bitter Moon, Walkabout, Fritz the Cat, Vertigo, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Descent, The Constant Gardener, Serenity, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Duck Soup, Strictly Ballroom, The Fifth Element, Ghost World, Cars, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Being John Malkovich, Black Sunday, The Omen (remake), Witchfinder General, Topaz, Torn Curtain, Casino Royale, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Miami Vice, Basic Instinct and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Quite clearly, this list features some real gems and some absolute garbage, including gems that I thought would be garbage and garbage that I thought would be gems.

In terms of television, meanwhile, I watched the first two seasons of Veronica Mars and the final season of Alias. I also went through the entire seven-season run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with its steadily diminishing returns post-Season 5 gradually driving me towards the brink of suicide (I exaggerate). The long-running medical drama Casualty also celebrated its 20th anniversary, with the launch of the first three series on DVD - it’s anyone’s guess how long they will continue this, given that each series becomes progressively longer, until they eventually run for more or less the entire year. Speaking of Casualty, that particular show shocked me in delivering perhaps the best two hours of television I’d seen all year, with the much-heralded return of former writer (and Waking the Dead creator) Barbara Machin for a one-off guest writing gig. Much to my delight, the magnificent Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was finally released on DVD, although the same team’s follow-up, the satirical chat-show Man to Man with Dean Learner, turned out to be a huge disappointment. The fifth season of Spooks also aired, and, while it was suitably engaging, it sacrificed some of the subtlety of previous years in favour of increasingly unbelievable conspiracies and hostile takeovers. Oh, and on the TV/film front, Channel 4’s dedicated film channel, FilmFour, became free in July, providing the UK with its first free-to-air channel dedicated to movies.

After over a year’s worth of procrastination, I finally recorded a new fan commentary, this time for Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso. Once again, feedback for this seems to have been largely positive, although it’s anyone’s guess what I’ll think of it myself when I finally brave listening to it again.

The Third Mother, the long-awaited conclusion to Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy (started with Suspiria and Inferno in 1977 and 1980 respectively), finally went into production, wrapping at some point in late November/early December, with a projected May 2007 release date. Argento also helmed another episode in the American Masters of Horror television series: Pelts turned out to be less shameful than 2005’s Jenifer, but a far cry from his home-grown exploits nonetheless. Meanwhile, the much-feared Hollywood remake of Suspiria was finally axed.

After much talk of the two companies going their separate ways, Disney bought Pixar and instated John Lasseter as the joint president of feature animation for both studios. Shortly before the end of the year, it was announced that, following the release of Meet the Robinsons, Disney would be abandoning CG animation entirely and returning to the hand-drawn realm in which it made its name.

Once more in the animated world, John Kricfalusi, the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show and the industry’s last great hope, started up an excellent blog in February. July also saw the release on DVD of Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes, containing six new installments featuring everyone’s favourite dog and cat duo, three of which had never even aired on TV. Sadly, there seems to be no indication that sales of the DVD have persuaded Paramount to order more episodes.

I got into computer games this year to a far greater extent than I had for some time, picking up Guild Wars: Factions, Guild Wars: Nightfall, The Movies: Stunts and Effects, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Legend, as well as replaying Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Icewind Dale II, Starcraft: Brood War and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Lyris also picked up the new Nintendo Wii console in November, resulting in much enjoyment as all on sundry made asses of themselves waving its newfangled controller about. Oh, and Blizzard Entertainment “postponed indefinitely” (read “cancelled”) its troubled console action game Starcraft: Ghost, much to the disappointment of the three or four people that still cared about it.

I also bought rather more technological gadgets than is normal for me: I picked up a digital camera in February, and a swish new widescreen LCD monitor in June. I also replaced my Creative Zen Micro MP3 player with a Sony NW-HD5 in November, and made the mistake of buying an nVidia-based video card for my computer in December (the replacement ATI model will hopefully arrive soon after business returns to normal after the New Year holiday).

In September, I finally finished my MLitt, handed in my dissertation, and, much to my shock, was awared a Distinction. Unable to find a job, I went on unemployment benefit - what fun.

Oh, and on the web site front, September saw a new site design and a return to Movable Type as a publishing platform after slightly over a year with Blogger. In November, meanwhile, I finally got sick of my useless host, Fuitadnet, constantly screwing up and making life difficult, and moved to Donym, where the rent is cheaper and everything runs much more smoothly to boot.

Holy crap, it’s 2007!

Happy new you-know-what!