April 2009

DVD Trash Roundtable #1

I recently participated in DVD Trash’s first roundtable of 2009 - hopefully the first of many. The question poses was:

When your alone, what is your Wintry Friday Night Evening Wrapped in a Blanket Horror Movie? Basically the genre movie you curl up on the couch with!

You can find my answer, along with those of several other genre fans, here.

The early bird catches the worm

It seems I’m a little late to the party with this news, but I recently discovered that Disney’s upcoming Blu-ray Disc Platinum Edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be arriving on store shelves a full seven weeks ahead of its DVD counterpart.

This to me is very pleasing news and is the sort of thing I hope to see more and more of in the future. Before anyone accuses me of being mean in denying those still restricted to standard definition DVD the right to experience this classic, let me just say that I’m not. The BD release of Snow White also includes a DVD copy of the film, as was the case with the recent BD releases of Bolt (itself released 48 hours ahead of the standalone DVD version) and Pinocchio, among others. My reasoning behind this is that, by adopting this strategy, Disney is ultimately encouraging (whether intentionally or not) those who have yet to adopt BD to pick up a future-proof package, making the eventual path to BD that bit more painless for them. (“Gee, honey, why not get a BD player? We’ve already got this collection of discs just waiting to be played in it.”)

What I’d ultimately like to see is the abolition of stand-alone DVD releases altogether, in favour of these BD/DVD combos. I’m not sure how feasible this is at the moment, but I suspect it will become more so as BD replication and licensing costs decrease. It seems fairly clear that the general public will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into high definition. I suspect that BD is long past the point of being considered a failure, so its survival in the immediate future is not in any jeopardy. Simply surviving, however, is not enough.

My ultimate dream is to be able to obtain a BD copy of any film of my choosing, and that won’t happen until the format at least achieves parity with DVD. At the moment, it’s simply not worth the time and money for smaller labels to release their niche collections on BD, because not enough people will buy them for them to even begin to recoup the costs. I don’t blame them. If you’re struggling to make a profit when you release a title on DVD, the last thing you want to do is pay the astronomical licensing fees to author, press and distribute a BD version that even fewer people will buy.

Therefore, it’s up to the majors - the ones who can afford it - to lead the way by helping to increase market saturation, and personally I think that these combo releases are theoretically an excellent means of doing that. It can only work, though, if sufficient incentive is given for the average (wo)man on the street to buy the BD/DVD combo rather than the standalone DVD. Until the day comes that standalone DVD releases disappear altogether, “BD first” strategies like the one being demonstrated by Snow White seem like the best solution.

Source: Blu-ray.com

Hello, Dolly!

I may have gone silent on the issue of Dollhouse, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up watching it. On the contrary, I’m continuing to keep track of it on a weekly basis, although the news that Fox is readying a BD release does mean that I may consider sitting the rest of the season out ‘til I can enjoy it in all its HD glory. Once I’ve made my way to the end of the season (episode 8 of 13 was the most recent to air), I’ll put together a full review. For the time being, however, to summarise: Yes, it’s got better. No, it’s still not fully “clicking” with me. I felt it really began to find its feet, so to speak, with Episode 6, which was the first one for me to really feel like a Joss Whedon show (which, depending on how you feel about the man’s style, is either a good thing or a bad thing).

It’s therefore promising that, despite less than stellar viewing figures, the signs are pointing towards Fox renewing the show for a second season. Obviously, it’s all still up in the air at the moment, but the rumours look promising. Ever the pessimist, I was actually expecting it to be yanked before the first season reached the half-way mark, but the evidence suggests that someone at the network genuinely likes the show. In any event, I’m crossing my fingers for it following in the footsteps of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which had an uneven first year before finding its feet at some point during Season 2.

Just arrived…

Two Evil Eyes (Blu-ray, Blue Underground, Region ABC, USA)

DVD review: Baba Yaga: The Final Cut

What transpired in 1973 means that any presentation of Baba Yaga was always going to be severely compromised. As such, Shameless are to be commended for taking the time and trouble to involve Corrado Farina and attempt to restore the film to its intended state. The audio-visual shortcomings of this release mean that those who already own the Blue Underground DVD are going to want to hold on to that version, but this new version represents a valiant effort to bring the film closer to how it was originally meant to be seen. As such, and for the insightful new bonus features, this release gets a thumbs up from me.

Originally hacked to bits by its producer, Corrado Farina’s trippy Baba Yaga has been granted a second chance courtesy of Shameless Screen Entertainment. I review the Final Cut at DVD Times.

Mamma Mia! BD impressions

If you don’t like Mamma Mia!, you’re a miserable git. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Well, okay, I’m not pushing for a law to be passed forbidding any negative criticism of this deliriously-stupid-and-actually-a-bit-crap-but-still-outrageously-entertaining musical, but personally I had a great time, and I’m usually pretty cynical when it comes to stuff like this. For the record, I can’t say I have an opinion on Abba one way or the other, so listening to a bunch of Hollywood A-listers massacring their greatest hits was no skin off my nose. I will say this thing, however: listening to Pierce Brosnan attempting to sing is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve witnessed so far this year. You have been warned.

On to the BD, and the look of the video can best be described as “inconsistent”. “Processed” is another adjective that springs to mind, as is “baked”, at least as far as the flesh tones are concerned. The film’s look is obviously deliberately stylised, and I suspect that all the flaws are the result of tinkering at the DI stage rather than any foulplay when the BD transfer was created. The look varies wildly on a shot by shot basis, with some looking quite natural indeed, with a nice amount of inherent film grain, and others looking scrubbed beyond the point of recognition. Our old friend the airbrush crops up on several occasions… well, basically every time Meryl Streep appears in close-up (look under her eyes - oh my!). Poor old Meryl is not the only victim, though - the youthful Amanda Seyfried gets the same treatment on occasions, and at times the whole screen appear to have been molested. It’s not exactly The Counterfeiters, is it? 7/10

Mamma Mia!
studio: Universal; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: VC-1;
file size: 29.2 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 38.50 Mbit/sec

Just arrived…

Baba Yaga: The Final Cut (DVD, Shameless Screen Entertainment, Region 0, UK) [review copy]