Blu-ray

Let’s celebrate gun crime

Aboard the HMS Whimsy, we often use the phrase “the Warner look”. Basically, what this means is an HD transfer that has a smooth appearance, but which has clearly had the top “layer” of fine detail removed through high frequency filtering. Such discs generally look pretty good, and tend to get high marks from most reviewers, but are not representative of the level of detail that high definition is truly capable of. The Brave One is one of the better Warner titles, lacking the unsightly ringing of the likes of V for Vendetta, but obviously coming up short if you compare it with the likes of Across the Universe from Sony.

The Brave One
(Warner, USA, VC-1, 19.6 GB)

All the colours of the rainbow

Discs like these are the reason why I’m pretty convinced that Sony Pictures, despite the rough shape of many of their early releases, are putting out the best high definition transfers available. Behold Across the Universe, an absolutely batty looking musical drama which arrived last Wednesday but which I still haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch yet. From start to finish it’s an absolute delight to behold, with crystal clear images and beautiful grain. I did spot some light compression artefacts in one scene (see Shot 11), and if I spot any more when I actually watch the disc all the way through, I’ll let you know, but I am very, very happy with this release.

Across the Universe
(Sony Pictures, USA, AVC, 28.2 GB)

Blue obscurities

So far, the line-up for Blu-ray titles this year has been fairly underwhelming. Things do seem to be changing, though, with the format being bolstered by the support of independent studios specialising in niche fare. Today, Tartan announced their plans for Spring 2008 with a total of six releases in both the US and UK, beginning with Ji-woon Kim’s A Tale of Two Sisters and Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park on April 14th, followed by Park Chan-Wook’s I’m a Cyborg and [Sympathy for] Lady Vengeance on May 26th, and finally Nick Cave’s The Proposition and Moon-saeng Kim’s Sky Blue (known in its native South Korea as Wonderful Days) on June 23rd.

You can certainly sign me up for A Tale of Two Sisters, which I already own on DVD, and Lady Vengeance, which I’m now glad I held off picking up. I might also be tempted by a copy of Sky Blue, particularly if it’s a review sample: the film itself is, to be honest, about as limp as a dead kipper, but the prospect of seeing the admittedly impressive live action miniature photography is rather promising.

Oh, and New Line is releasing the Guillermo Del Toro-produced The Orphanage (El Orfanato in its native Spanish) on April 22nd, day and date with the standard definition DVD release. This is another title that has caught my eye and is clawing its way towards my wallet.

Universal vs. Sony Pictures: Round 2

This morning, my copy of the Japanese Blu-ray release of Danny the Dog sailed through my letterbox and flopped gracefully on to my door mat. I’d been waiting for this release with some anticipation for a few reasons.

Firstly, while this title is (well, was) an HD DVD exclusive in the US, put out by Universal, in Japan the results are held by Sony Pictures, making it a Blu-ray exclusive. Whenever the rights are held by different companies in different territories, the possibility arises for rather interesting results as the two studios each handle their separate encodes (and, as the case may be, masters) differently. Additionally, two different cuts exist for this film: the American/British version, entitled Unleashed, is about a minute shorter than the international cut (Danny the Dog), lacking some character-building scenes and slightly extending an early montage, in addition to substituting the film’s final shot. Personally, I was disappointed when Universal failed to include the international cut on their HD DVD release, so, since 2006, I have been eagerly anticipating another distribution getting a crack at it.

Good news, then: Sony Pictures’ Japanese release is the international cut, complete with Morgan Freeman and Jet Li bonding over groceries (that’s not as weird as it sounds). Even better news: it includes subtitles in Japanese and English, both of which are optional. Beyond that, though, things become a bit confusing, particularly when it comes to the transfer.

In my DVD image comparison between the US, UK and French standard definition releases, I remarked that the French release (the international cut) had a markedly different colour palette in comparison with the other two (both the shorter cut). The short version, by and large, looked to have its colour values more heavily manipulated, resulting in “the warm-tinted scenes looking warmer […] and the desaturated ones looking more monochromatic” (to reiterate what I said in the Comments section of my comparison).

Well, the Japanese release features different grading again, less contrasty than either the French DVD or the UK/US DVD and HD DVD releases, which were quite heavily “pumped”, crushing some of the shadow detail and blowing out the highlights. In addition, while the US HD DVD was clearly taken from a digital intermediate, the Japanese version comes from a film source. It exhibits more grain (I strongly suspect that some noise reduction was performed on Universal’s HD DVD), but, while it seems to superficially show more detail, this is in fact due to edge enhancement, resulting in some unsightly halos around highly contrasted edges.

So, a toughie. I definitely prefer the look of Universal’s release, which appears smoother and more natural, and has (to me) a more aesthetically pleasing colour scheme, but have a look at the images below and see which you think is the more eye-pleasing of the two.

Unleashed
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 12.8 GB)

Danny the Dog
(Sony Pictures, Japan, AVC, 26.1 GB)

DVDs I bought or received in the month of February

• Almost Famous (R0 UK, Blu-ray)
• American Gangster (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Astérix et les Vikings (R0 France, HD DVD)
• The Brave One (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• Gone Baby Gone (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• The Lady Vanishes: The Criterion Collection [2007 re-release] (R1 USA, DVD)
• La Môme (R0 France, Blu-ray)
• The Night of the Werewolf/Vengeance of the Zombies (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Run Lola Run (R0 UK, Blu-ray)
• Volver (RA USA, Blu-ray)
   

Blu Underground

Source: Film Talk

Well, this has got to be just about the most unexpected piece of news to round off the month, but perhaps also the most pleasant. Blue Underground, who hold the US DVD rights to most of Dario Argento’s catalogue, not to mention a vast sea of other European cult titles, have added a placeholder page to their web site announcing their intentions to get into the high definition market in the near future:

We are proud to announce that a number of high definition Blu-ray™ releases are in the works. We will have more information soon.

There we go - there’s no actual information besides their statement of an intention to release on the format, but I must say I’m absolutely thrilled. I pretty much gave up any hope of seeing the likes of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Suspiria and Inferno in HD any time soon after the rights to these films ended up at Blue Underground and various statements came from the company indicating that they didn’t perceive the market to be large enough to make HD releases viable. I can’t wait to see what their first titles are, and it goes without saying that they should constitute a sizeable improvement on the filtered, edge enhanced standard definition transfers that Blue Underground routinely put out.

My most wanted titles:

• Baba Yaga
• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
• Deep Red
• Don’t Torture a Duckling
• The Fifth Cord
• Inferno
• Night Train Murders
• Opera
• Short Night of the Glass Dolls
• Suspiria
• The Stendhal Syndrome
• Who Saw Her Die?

Now, obviously, I’m not naïve enough to assume that anything approaching all of these titles will show up, but if even a handful of them get the HD treatment, I will be a very happy gentleman.

Garbage baby garbage

Yesterday, I received a copy of the US Blu-ray release of Gone Baby Gone from DeepDiscount. I watched it tonight, and was less than impressed.

This film gained some level of notoriety in the UK when distributor Buena Vista cancelled its theatrical release, which was scheduled uncomfortably soon after the disappearance of British child Madeleine McCann, and I must confess that my interest in seeing it, while due primarily from the positive write-ups it received, did to some extent stem from the parallels drawn between the McCann case and the one portrayed in the film. (Perhaps Buena Vista’s marketing department should have made a donation to the Maddy fund for the free publicity?) And the parallels are quite striking. Not only does the missing child, Amanda McCready, bear a great deal of physical resemblance to Madeleine McCann, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are similar: in both cases, a neglectful mother left her child alone in an apartment to get wasted (Kate McCann on alcohol, Helene McCready on cocaine) at a local bar, and later lied about the length of time for which she had abandoned the child. In both cases, a toy belonging to the missing child becomes a vital piece of iconography. And finally, in both, frustrated by the police’s lack of progress, the family of the missing child hires private investigators.

Unfortunately, the most significant similarity between the two cases is how annoying they both are. The media furore surrounding the McCann disappearance, and the manner in which her parents shamelessly and (I believe) insincerely manipulated the media, made me gag. The mawkishness and falseness of the front they adopted was irritating in the extreme, and, unfortunately, Gone Baby Gone is every bit as mawkish and false. This is a film which doesn’t just tug at the heartstrings - it claws desperately at them, using every cliché in the book in a desperate bid to make the audience care about what is, ultimately, a dull, confused and poorly plotted story.

More annoying than all of that, however, is Casey Affleck, who delivers all his dialogue (most of which seems to be about “respec’”) in the same deadpan mumble and is virtually incomprehensible half of the time. This film was co-written and directed by his older brother, Ben Affleck, and I can only assume that this proves that nepotism is alive and well in Hollywood. Similar criticisms are sometimes made of Dario Argento when he casts his daughter in his films, but Asia Argento seems to have a better grasp of English than Casey Affleck and is considerably less annoying to boot. Ed Harris, meanwhile, stumbles over his ridiculous dialogue as best he can, and Michelle Monaghan’s role is so pointless that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was written in minutes before shooting began because the producers realised, at the last minute, that it would look rather bad if all the women in the film were drug addicts and/or negligent parents. I like both of these actors, I really do, but there’s a limit to what they can do without a worthwhile script. The only actor to escape with any sense of self-respect is Morgan Freeman, who I tend to find elevates the perceived quality of just about any material he gets his hands on.

In short, I don’t rate Ben Affleck as an actor, and, based on this, he isn’t much better as a director or writer (bearing in mind that I haven’t seen Good Will Hunting). It’s definitely one of the weakest films I’ve picked up in high definition since its inception, and definitely not worth the $27 I paid for it. Oh, well - you win some, you lose some.

Anchor Bay sails again

Fangoria has got the scoop on the long-delayed special edition re-releases of Dario Argento’s Tenebre and Phenomena from Anchor Bay, due out at some point this summer, accompanied by some fairly dodgy cover art. Originally announced in an unofficial capacity a good 2-3 years ago, I forget precisely where they were first mentioned, but it seems to have been common knowledge for some time that these were in the pipeline. Anyway, the specs provided are as one would expect: these two titles, both originally non-anamorphically, will both be receiving new 16x9 enhanced transfers in their original aspect ratios of 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 respectively. Additionally, they will carry over all the extras from their previous releases, in addition to a new retrospective featurette - Voices of the Unsane for Tenebre, and A Dark Fairy Tale for Phenomena.

Unfortunately, the real questions aren’t answered. Namely, will these releases be properly uncut? The previous release of Tenebre was missing a few seconds of footage at various points, while Phenomena lacked over six minutes’ worth of (mostly minor) material in comparison with the longer integral cut. (Both films were released on DVD in their full length variants in various other territories.) Additionally, while the Fangoria article states that each film will feature a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, what I really want to know is whether or not the original mono (or should that be stereo for Phenomena?) mixes will also be provided. Ideally, I’d like to see the original audio mixes provided for both English and Italian, with subtitles… although this is Anchor “you don’t need subtitles if the film is in English” Bay we’re talking about, so I won’t get my hopes up.

Finally, where are the Blu-ray releases?

Anyway, I’ll continue to keep an eye on the buzz surrounding these releases, but with some trepidation. I already own a copy of Tenebre (the Dutch Shadows release from A-Film) which I’m pretty happy with, barring some colour timing issues, and the Integral Japanese version of Phenomena that I own is nice, but for the fact that certain stretches of dialogue are in Italian on the English language track. Ah, we’ll see. I might be tempted by review copies…

Get thee behind me, Toshiba

Well, on Tuesday, the courier came to pick up my HD-EP30 and return it to Amazon. I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel happy about the idea of paying for 1080p hardware which doesn’t correctly resolve 1080p. Luckily, the returns process was pretty straightforward - Amazon are generally good when it comes to that sort of thing - and, in any event, my brother’s bricked Xbox 360 has now been repaired and should be back aboard the HMS Whimsy before too long, so we’re not facing an indefinite future without HD DVD playback.

By the way, I’ve yet to find any conclusive information as to whether or not all the HD DVD players advertised as being “1080p Full HD” (a blatant falsification) suffer from this problem, given that I’ve yet to find a single review that actually picked up on it, but I have my suspicions. In that case, there’s something quite laughable about the fact that the best pieces of hardware for the two competing formats were both games consoles… and one of them a cheap add-on drive for an existing console, at that.

Lola redux

This is a follow-up to my previous post on the Blu-ray release of Run Lola Run, Dear Universal, this is what a catalogue release SHOULD look like.

In the comments section to that post, I was contacted by a regular reader who called into question the Blu-ray transfer and its authenticity as regards Tom Tykwer’s intentions, due to comments made by his friend, a hardcore fan of the film, who reacted in horror, upon seeing my screen captures:

At first glance, I always thought the colours looked messed up on those pics (based on my memory of the film). Lola looked green/yellow-ish on lola4.jpg, and Manni looked purple on lola7.jpg. I compared them to the DVD. And I can now say the colours are totally messed up on the BD. There is also framing issues. As the BD looks cropped on the left/right sides. I’ve seen this movie probably well over a hundred times, and based on these pics, the BD presentations is WAY to much on the green side. I’ve attached pics that showcase all these problems.

Link
Link
Link

My regular reader also sent me a few more of his friend’s thoughts on the transfer (among other issues) via email, and, with his permission, I thought it would be worthwhile to post some of the material that pertains specifically to the matter at hand.

Regarding his familiarity with the film (lest he be accused of basing his opinion on how it should look solely on the previous DVD release):

Well, I’ve seen the film theatrically, but it wasn’t the best presentation. As it was one of those tiny garbage arthouse theatres, with a screen smaller than todays Plasmas and no better than stereo sound.

But I never remember the film looking that green. And, 10 years ago, I had near photographic memory.

The reason I’m taking the time to post all this is to provide an alternate viewpoint on the issue of the film’s transfer. I don’t feel qualified to make a case for the transfer being right or wrong - clearly, my reader’s friend has a familiarity with the film which I do not possess (I consider it a favourite of mine, but at the same time I must point out that I have only seen two versions of it: the Region 2 UK DVD and the Blu-ray release), and on that basis alone (not to mention his obvious technical knowledge, when discussing such issues as VC-1 compression and digital intermediates in his email), I am inclined to trust his viewpoint.

But it’s not my place to say whether the Run Lola Run Blu-ray release looks “correct” or not. I suspect that, as is always going to be the case with a medium like film, especially when we are in the realm of lab printing, which does not provide the accuracy of digital colour timing (where you can create a single master with a locked down colour palette), every source is going to look somewhat different from the others, meaning that it is virtually impossible to identify a single correct look. Looking at the comparison shots linked to above, it should be clear to all that there are obvious differences between the DVD and Blu-ray releases in terms of colour palette, but that’s the one thing I can say for sure.

What I can’t say with any degree of certainty is whether one is more accurate than the other. Yes, you could argue that the Blu-ray release looks a bit too yellow in terms of flesh tones, but someone else might just as easily turn round and say that the DVD looked a bit too magenta. In any event, I’m always somewhat wary of using flesh tones as an indicator of the accuracy of a transfer’s colour palette. Lighting conditions, film stock and all manner of other variables can all affect the look, and that’s before you get into the issue of artistic intent. Who’s to say Tykwer was going for natural flesh tones anyway? One can hardly consider this to be a film with a naturalistic style.

As is always the case with issues like this, the one person who can truly clear up the issue is Tom Tykwer. Did he supervise the original DVD or the Blu-ray release? Did he supervise both or neither? How does he feel about the new look? I don’t know, and, therefore, the only advice I can really give on this matter is to use your own judgement based on the evidence at your disposal. The bottom line is that I’m very happy with the look of the Blu-ray release, although I readily admit that it could be the wrong look. Caveat emptor, and all that.

Putting the “tosh” in Toshiba

Well, I got home today from work (and from visiting my granny, who is seriously ill) to find that my Toshiba HD-EP30 had arrived from Amazon.co.uk. After extracting the two free HD DVDs (300 and The Bourne Supremacy), I hooked the thing up and decided to give it a whirl.

Physically speaking at any rate, it’s an improvement on my first HD DVD player, the venerable HD-A1. It’s about half the height, and weighs significantly less. Also, from a standpoint of pure convenience, because this is a European model, it doesn’t require a step-down transformer. (Good old HD DVD and its lack of region coding!) That’s about where the differences end, though, as the Windows CE-based interface is virtually identical, and it takes almost as long as its predecessor to power up and load discs. The Xbox 360 add-on, in comparison, was positively sprightly.

Of far greater concern than the speed, however, is the issue of image quality. When I switched the machine on, my first port of call was the picture menu to change the output mode from 1080i to 1080p. As soon as I popped in my first disc (The Bourne Ultimatum, which I hope to finally get reviewed by the beginning of next week), I knew something was up. The Bourne Ultimatum is one of the best-looking discs released on either format - an extremely detailed encode with no sign of artificial sharpening or detail reduction, and yet, on the HD-EP30, there was ringing in abundance, and a distinct lack of fine detail. A couple more high quality HD DVDs later, and I ruled out any possibility of the discs themselves being at fault.

Lyris suggested that the problem might be the 1080p output. Rather predictably, he was right: setting the output to 1080i immediately resolved the ringing problem and returned the detail to its rightful place. All well and good - but I paid for a device with 1080p output, and 1080p24 output at that. Why should I have to limit myself to 1080i60 just because Microsoft and Toshiba couldn’t get their acts together? Lyris’ projector correctly resolves 1080i film mode, but it means we’re still stuck with 60 Hz output rather than pure 24p, resulting in the infamous 3:2 pull-down judder that many viewers raised on a lifetime of PAL material find extremely difficult to ignore when watching NTSC content.

So, what do I do now? Do I attempt to return the player and attempt to explain to Amazon that I don’t want it because its 1080p output introduces ringing? (Somehow, I don’t think there’s an option that quite fits that description on their returns form.) Is there even any point? For all I know, all Toshiba’s standalone players could exhibit this problem. I’ve spent the last half-hour on Google and have yet to come across a single review or report that mentions the bug, so I have no realistic way of knowing whether I’d be any better off with one of the other 1080p-capable models.

Urgh! This just makes me respect Sony’s Playstation 3 all the more.

Update, February 25th, 2007 09:01 PM: I updated the firmware to version 2.0 at the recommendation of others. Alas, the image quality is still as rotten as ever. See photographic evidence of the disgrace at Lyris Lite.

The final curtain

Source: High-Def Digest

The last domino of the format war has fallen: Paramount has officially announced it will align with Blu-ray and begin releasing titles on the format.

“We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer,” the studio said via a statement issued Wednesday to The Hollywood Reporter.

“As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly.”

The studio did not issue any further details regarding a timeframe for the transition, nor any specific title announcements.

That’s a wrap, folks. No more speculating as to which format to buy a title on. To paraphrase the American Pledge of Allegiance (or rather the 1954 revision of it), “One Format Under Sony”.

Dear Universal, this is what a catalogue release SHOULD look like

With Universal on the way to Blu-ray, they will soon find themselves up against Sony Pictures, whose transfers for catalogue titles, while not always perfect, are generally of a much higher standard than the ones being put out by the other majors - particularly Universal, who are often guilty of the worst Crimes Against Film.

Today, I received the UK Blu-ray release of one of my favourite films, Run Lola Run, and I’m pleased to report that it looks better than I could ever have hoped. Is it perfect? No, it’s not, and, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t have the detail that you would get from a DI-sourced transfer, but it does look really, really good, and puts Universal’s HD DVD release of American Gangster, which I also received today, a film that is nearly a decade younger, to shame. That’s just plain wrong.

Run Lola Run
(Sony Pictures, UK, AVC, 23.3 GB)

Universal, you tramp!

Source: High-Def Digest

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has officially announced that it will release its titles on Blu-ray.

Though details of the studio’s transition away from HD DVD were still sketchy at press time, Universal Studios Home Entertainment President Craig Kornblau officially confirmed the move in a just issued statement:

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for hi-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate. While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray.”

Wow - they sure moved fast, didn’t they? HD DVD isn’t even twenty-four hours in the stone cold earth and they’re already hopping into bed with their former partner’s bitterest rival. The big question, I suppose, is whether they’ll continue to release titles on HD DVD for a short period, like Warner, or simply scrap any plans to release anything more on what is now officially a dead format.

Congratulations, Buena Vista - you’ve managed to make Universal’s catalogue releases look good

Is you probably know by now, my eye is, to put it lightly, rather critical when it comes to image quality, whether it be standard definition or high definition. You’ll probably also know that I hold the majority of review sites in contempt - or, at least, the ones which concentrate on reviewing the audio-visual elements of discs rather than the films themselves, and which present themselves as authorities on technology but prove to be nothing of the sort. I’m the sort of person who, when I read a glowing review of a new release, will think “Okay, so what have they missed?” rather than “Great! I can’t want to see it for myself!” Broadly speaking, though, I tend to expect that if a disc is really - and I mean really - shoddy, even the most vision-impaired critic will notice.

Well, today, I have been proved wrong once again by Mr. Peter M. Bracke, the lead reviewer over at High-Def Digest, one of the most contemptible of the contemptible web sites. Until recently, my “favourite” (in the same way that a tornado is my “favourite” natural disaster) Bracke review was of Universal’s HD DVD release of Traffic, in which he showered praise on a standard definition upconvert. Now, he’s done it again, this time with the Blu-ray release of Scary Movie, just one of the many masterpieces from those auteurs of cinema, the Wayans Brothers. Here is Mr. Bracke’s assessment:

[T]his transfer is bright and colorful, exceedingly sharp, and bolstered by a crystal clear print. There’s not a blemish to be found on the print, and I was particularly taken aback by the almost complete lack of grain and noise, even though the majority of the film takes place at night. Likewise, colors are bold but smooth, and fleshtones are naturalistic. Most astoundingly, detail is strong enough that it rivals most of the new releases I’ve seen on Blu-ray lately, and the “three-dimensional” effect is well in evidence.

The only irritant I could find is some edge enhancement, resulting in some visible halos. Otherwise, when it comes to picture quality, ‘Scary Movie’ is a top-drawer catalog release.

He goes on to give the transfer an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5.

Here is what the transfer looks like:

(Picture nabbed from the AV Science Forum, captured by benes.)

Granted, Cindy Campbell may have skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom after spending the previous evening shaving her moustache in the bath (I’ve seen the movie, unfortunately), but this is going a bit too far. This is some of the worst degraining I have ever laid eyes on, and is the sort of thing I’m talking about when I refer to images that look “waxy”… although, having used that word to refer to comparatively excellent transfers like La Vie en Rose, I’m thinking I need a new way of describing the likes of Scary Movie. “Diarrhoea-like” might suffice.

I could also point out the massive halos, but in this particular case, it’s almost beside the point.

Seriously, Buena Vista (and every other studio), don’t think you can get away with putting out turkeys like this. And reviewers, don’t think that your shoddy journalism is doing you any favours. A picture is worth a thousand words, and one press of the Printscreen button can quash oodles of uneducated writing.

Just don’t take my wings

An open letter to Michael Bay:

Dear Michael Bay,

I have nothing in particular against you. You may be an arrogant blowhole who has no idea what he’s talking about, and your films may be widely derided as everything that’s wrong with modern cinema, but I personally don’t consider you to be completely without merit. The Rock, for all its inanities, is a pretty entertaining action film with some amusing dialogue, while Transformers and The Island are harmless fun, although each could have used an editor to cut a good 45-60 minutes out of them. I haven’t seen either of the Bad Boys films, so I won’t comment on them, but the point is that I’d probably actually defend you if someone called you a talentless hack who should be locked up and never allowed within a hundred feet of a movie camera ever again.

Sometimes, however, you seem to insist on making my job difficult for me. I have just watched your bombastic wartime epic, Pearl Harbor, on Blu-ray, your preferred high definition format, no less, but I now find myself in the unfortunate position of having scarcely a kind word to say about you. The script is awful, your direction shambolic, your attention to historical detail non-existent and your capacity to bore with over-wrought dialogue and a turgid love triangle knows no bounds. To say that the best part of the film is the 45-minute long special effects reel that is the attack on Pearl Harbor would be about the kindest thing I could say, although, given your aesthetic sensibilities, you’d probably take that as a compliment.

By all means make films about aged MI6 officers teaming up with annoying lab rats to take on platoons of marines holed up on Alcatraz. I have no objections to you making more glossy rip-offs of Logan’s Run with Ewan McGregor doing an appalling imitation of an American accent and Scarlett Johansson gaping for two and a half hours. I don’t even mind you making more movies about robots urinating on John Turturro. Hey, whatever floats your boat. But please, Mr. Bay, for the sanity of all concerned, never consider making a film like Pearl Harbor again.

Yours sincerely,
Captain Whiggles
HMS Whimsy

Speaking of sex and death…

Who would have thought a film with murder and incest as two of its primary themes could be so damn good-natured? I watched Pedro Almodóvar’s 2006 film Volver on Blu-ray recently, and am kicking myself for not coming across this gem sooner. Okay, I did spend most of its running time feeling that I was working the twists out a good half hour before the characters themselves, but that’s the only real flaw in what is otherwise a whimsical masterpiece.

Sony Pictures’ Blu-ray transfer isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s a solid enough presentation of a film-sourced (i.e. non-DI) master, with even the aged MPEG-2 codec not hampering things too much (though there are certainly artefacts there if you look for them). Detail isn’t exactly breathtaking, but I’m pleased that Sony have, as far as I can tell, left the image alone, rather than resorting to artificially sharpening it or trying to stamp out the film grain.

Volver
(Sony Pictures, USA, MPEG-2, 27.2 GB)

The rat that got the cream

Ratatouille may have been denied a Best Picture nomination by the Academy, but there can be no doubt it absolutely owned the animation industry’s own equivalent of the Oscars, the Annie Awards, on February 8th. Nominated for virtually every category in which it was eligible, and winning most of them, this is a success that seems to have been matched only by Brad Bird and Pixar’s previous collaboration, The Incredibles.

Ratatouille’s wins were in the following categories: Best Animated Feature, Character Animation in a Feature Production (Michal Makarewicz), Character Design in an Animated Feature Production (Carter Goodrich), Directing in an Animated Feature Production (Brad Bird), Music in an Animated Feature Production (Michael Giacchino), Production Design in an Animated Feature Production (Harley Jessup), Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production (Ted Mathot), Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production (Ian Holm), and Writing in an Animated Feature Production (Brad Bird).

The short piece, Your Friend the Rat, included on the Ratatouille Blu-ray and DVD releases, also won Best Short Subject.

In addition, animation historian John Canemaker, Ren & Stimpy creator/director John Kricfalusi and veteran Disney animator Glen Keane were honoured with the Winsor McCay Award (for career contributions to the art of animation), while historian Jerry Beck picked up the June Foray Award (for significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation). Flash creators Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi, meanwhile, received the Ub Iwerks Award for technical achievement, while a Special Achievement Annie Award went to Edwin R. Leonard for “promoting the Linux open system for animation in animation studios and gaming software development”.

For a full list of the nominees and winners, see here.

Edith Piaf’s waxy face

Some screen captures from TF1’s Blu-ray release of La Môme (La Vie en Rose) for your appreciation. This is a very strong transfer in all but one respect: noise reduction. Whoever encoded the disc (or perhaps it was done at the digital intermediate stage?) made the decision to apply a grain-sucking effect on certain shots, which has the effect of making textures, particularly the actors’ skin, look waxy and unnatural. This is most pronounced in the first shot below, but crops up throughout to varying degrees, although some shots appear to be completely unaffected. It’s just a shame that the studios feel the need to resort to such image manipulation, because interference like this shows up especially badly in high definition.

La Môme
(TF1, France, AVC, 20.2 GB)

The worst HD images I’ve ever seen

I got home from work today to find a package from Amazon waiting for me, containing BCI’s recent double-disc Blu-ray release of Paul Naschy’s The Night of the Werewolf and Vengeance of the Zombies. I’d heard varying reports about these discs, with some viewers reporting what sounded like severe playback problems, so I decided to investigate the matter myself. Suffice to say, I’m so shocked by what I saw that I’m uncharacteristically going to say nothing and leave it to my brother, who encodes DVDs for a living, to explain just how appallingly bad these discs are. From his site:

As someone who’s authoring SD DVDs on a comparatively miniscule budget, I understand entirely what it’s like to be working with limited resources and some old film stock. My job is to make damn well sure that not even a trace of this shows in the end product (I look forward to the day I can show screen grabs, the wait is pretty agonising for me).

So, I can almost sympathise with BCI Entertainment, who have just released their first Blu-ray Disc. My situation, where I’m working with a mature, standard-def format is very different to their one of working with a relatively new HD disc spec.

The difference is video knowledge, and knowing where to stop (I’m sorry, but I’m done with being afraid of looking arrogant - this is quite clearly a release gone wrong). BCI’s release, a double-feature of “The Night of the Werewolf” and “Vengeance of the Zombies” - two Spanish horror films the 70s and 80s - contain unforgivable mistakes which are related to authoring mishaps, not a lack of money - which is much less understandable. Both films are presented in 1080i (the packaging claims 1080p) which is unusual, given BD’s native support for 1080p/24, but isn’t fatal.

Firstly, the black level hasn’t been correctly set somewhere along the line, so no matter how good your display is, the best blacks you’ll get (without compensating for it, that is) will be very milky grey. As I said, that’s a baffling mistake, but because we can lower the “Brightness” setting on our display, it’s not entirely unrectifiable (I’m not entirely sure what effects this will have on the image’s tonal range, though).

Above: The Night of the Werewolf. Click for full size image.

As usual, my biggest gripes with these discs are how shoddily digitally manipulated they are. There’s nothing we can do to undo these effects - these copies of the films are ruined for good. The film grain on both titles has basically been eroded with what looks like a purely Spatial process, which gives things a waxy appearance and cuts off details. In my opinion, film grain reduction should ideally not be done at all, but if you’re going to attempt it, it should be done first across the time axis (temporally) rather than at the single-frame level.

Every so often on “Zombies”, the picture will freeze up entirely for a few frames. Either this is a weird encoding bug, or it’s a botched attempt at hiding areas of damaged film. If it’s the latter, I sympathise because I know how tricky film damage is to undo, but as I said, know when to stop. Removing entire frames from the film is much, much more distracting than any film defects and is much more damaging. If you can’t undo the film damage - then leave it alone and make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. If it’s the former, well, it should have been fixed.

The audio on “Zombies” appears to be very out of sync. I’m not sure if this is down to shoddy dubbing or a disc authoring error, but I suspect the latter. In that case, it’s not forgivable. It should have been corrected before the discs were mass-produced.

Above: The Night of the Werewolf. Click for full size image.

Moving on to “Night of the Werewolf”, the image is just as eroded - the same shoddy attempt to hide film grain is here. What’s the point? The grain is still here, the difference is that now it looks waxy and ugly, rather than like natural film grain. Now you’re left with a still grainy image with lowered detail, so you’ll please neither camp. Secondly, the film stutters badly throughout. I’m assuming that the 3-2 pulldown hasn’t been correctly applied (it shouldn’t have been applied at all - BD supports native 24p).

Most bizarrely of all, this one actually has DVNR artefacts. By “DVNR artefacts”, I mean instances where an automated system set up to remove dirt and scratches from the film has mistaken parts of the image for dirt and tried to remove them (example at 19 minutes, 20 seconds). So it would appear that the people in charge DO have access to this expensive equipment?

Before anyone says “These are low budget films, they’d never have looked great”, I wouldn’t be entirely sure. What’s there shows more potential, underneath the digital mangling. Again, leaving things alone looks like it would have been the best policy. And yes, I know what these films are. People would be much more upset if, say, “The Godfather” had been bungled in this way, but I don’t care whether it’s “Night of the Werewolf” or “Revenge of the Valley Girls III”, because 1) we can’t start judging and 2) good mastering techniques are free.

Oh, one other thing. Both discs have 14.1gb and 12.8gb filled respectively, falling way short of the 25gb maximum capacity of a single layer Blu-ray Disc. I’m not sure what the point of this is.

I think it’s great that smaller companies are beginning to release films in HD, but honestly, these discs should never have gone out the door in this state. They are seriously dreadful by anyone’s standards. I would hate for poor quality releases like these to add fuel to the already-existing “only Hollywood live action blockbusters should be released in HD” fire - these releases do more harm than good and if I had been calling the shots, I would never allow for these to have gone into mass-production. Small companies have it rough in the HD world, but there’s a difference between having limited funds and making a mess.

Oh, the one thing I have to add is that Vengeance of the Zombies is in the wrong aspect ratio. The entire film is presented in open matte 1.33:1.