HD DVD

I know, I’ve been slacking

I’ve been slacking with my reviews, and I know it. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I now work for 37 and a half hours a week - something which, unsurprisingly, has had an impact on the amount of free time I’ve actually had available to devote to movie-watching (when glancing at my Movie Checklist the other day, I was shocked to discover that I didn’t actually watch anything this month till the 13th) and reviewing. Basically, I suspect that I’m going to have to impose a certain degree of self-discipline, because, a lot of the time, time that I should have spent writing has simply been spent lounging around.

At the moment, I’m doing my best to put together a dual review for the two HDScape titles I was sent, and I’ve got to admit that it’s damn hard to review something that was essentially intended to act as a screensaver! I’ve also got The Fountain to do for DVD Times, as well as Casino Royale, which I’ve been promising for more than long enough now. The 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD of Pan’s Labyrinth also arrived for review earlier this week (Wednesday), so it will also have to be added to the “watch and review” pile. I have to say that this last title is one that I’m very interested to see: I had been planning on waiting for the HD DVD release, but the only one currently in the offering seems to be Spanish, and given that the film itself is in Spanish, I suspect that English subtitles are unlikely. If the film turns out to be decent, and becomes available in an English-friendly high definition release, I’ll definitely pick it up, but until then, fuzzy old standard definition will have to do.

Stay tuned for more ramblings (hopefully)!

Everything that has a beginning has an end… thankfully, in this case

Four years late, I’ve finally seen The Matrix Revolutions. And what a turkey it was.

Lyris and myself were so repulsed by The Matrix Reloaded and how mind-numbingly awful it was that we didn’t even both seeing the third instalment in the trilogy when it came out in cinemas and on DVD. I always suspected that I’d end up watching it one of these days, though, and, tonight, we decided to bite the bullet and actually load it up on HD DVD. We had the presence of mind to set the microphone up and record our thoughts as we experienced the film for the first time, and we’re currently deciding whether or not our 129 minutes of mindless blethering can be salvaged into an audio commentary that people in their right mind would actually want to listen to. Certainly, it’s something of an eye-opener, as our initial surprise at getting something half-watchable rapidly degenerates into complete and utter frustration, following by unbridled hostility as the events on screen become sillier and more incomprehensible by the minute. Seriously, I think the phrase “So what’s actually happening?” must be uttered at least every ten minutes, and there is a point in the middle, during the 30-minute explosion reel - sorry, epic battle sequence - where we simply give up even trying to think of anything to say.

Seriously, this film, especially the first 45 minutes, was a definite step up from The Matrix Reloaded, but it quickly degenerated into yet more mindless drivel that was obtuse for the sake of it and didn’t make a blind bit of sense, perhaps even in the minds of its directors. Throw in some truly ham-fisted and unnecessary biblical imagery, a whole lot of pointless characters we don’t care about, and some truly awful dialogue about “choice” and “destiny”, and you have a film that, despite making up for some of the indignities inflicted upon us with the second instalment, only serves to intensify my belief that they should have stopped after the first one.

As synthetic as the Matrix itself

I got home from work today to find The Ultimate Matrix Collection on HD DVD waiting for me, direct from the good people at Movietyme. Given that I found The Matrix Reloaded so laughably bad that I didn’t even bother with The Matrix Revolutions (I’ve got that delight waiting for me one of those nights), you might wonder why I picked up the set at all. The answer is that I wanted the original The Matrix, and it’s not available separately (not yet, at any rate). I don’t think it’s the masterpiece some people claim it to be, but it’s enjoyable enough, and it holds some sentimental value for me, as it was the first standard definition DVD I ever owned.

First of all, I must point out that I really like what Warner has done with the packaging. A laminated cardboard slip case houses four individual standard HD DVD cases: one for each film and one for a double-sided standard definition DVD housing various extras, entitled The Matrix Experience. Each film disc is also double-sided, with the reverse side, a DVD-9, featuring bonus content specific to the film in question.

Now, on to the contents. I’ve only had a cursory glance at each disc, but I’m sorry to report that there are major problems with all three films. The original Matrix comes off looking the strongest, which is probably a good thing, as it’s the only one of the three films I genuinely wanted (although, once again, I must stress that I haven’t seen Revolutions yet, so that opinion may change). It shows noticeable edge enhancement, and has clearly been filtered, but it basically looks pleasant for the most part, and I’d put it on par with other Warner releases like Constantine and Million Dollar Baby. Unfortunately, the disc does, however, get a major black mark against it by virtue of the fact that the audio, on all the available tracks, is noticeably desynchronised from the video. Just watch the moment in the first sequence when the truck mashes the phone box Trinity was inside: the sound of the collision lags noticeably behind the visuals, and, whenever someone speaks quickly, you can see them mouthing words before you can actually hear them. Others have reported this fault, and some have suggested that it is unique to the Xbox 360 add-on, but this HD-A1 user can confirm that it is a problem on that particular stand-alone player as well.

The other two films look somewhat more underwhelming than the first one, losing some (although not all) of the edge enhancement but appearing noticeably softer and more noise reduced; no audio problems that I could discern from my brief inspection, though. Ultimately, I must say that I’m a little disappointed with this whole affair. Given that this was pretty much supposed to be the flagship title for Warner, and indeed the HD DVD format as a whole, I think it could have done with a little more quality control. Then again, maybe that’s just the problem: I can just imagine the technicians sitting around a workstation, rubbing their hands with glee as they cranked the edge enhancement dial up. “Guys, we need to make this title as detailed as possible!” Cripes!

By the way, I’m not making any promises, but you might be seeing a new audio commentary from me soon, albeit somewhat different to the ones I did for Suspiria and Profondo Rosso. This evening, on a whim, I decided to switch on my microphone and hit record while myself and Lyris were giving The Matrix the once-over. The result is half an hour of sarcasm, lewd jokes and immature jibes (we stopped at the 30-minute mark, because it’s hard to stay on a roll for any longer, but we’ll probably continue the exercise tomorrow evening). As such, it probably won’t appeal to those who consider The Matrix sacred, or indeed those who like their humour a little more high-brow, but we enjoyed recording our little commentating duet, and are of the opinion that this is a film that desperately needs the wind taken out of its sails a little. Stay tuned for further information.

A fountain of garbage

Isn’t it funny when you have something or order but completely forget about it, only to come home to find it waiting for you? That’s how it was for me today when I got back from work to find the HD DVD/DVD combo release of The Fountain, which I requested for review from DVD Times last month, on my desk. I haven’t seen Darren Aronofsky’s first film, Pi, but I did see Requiem for a Dream twice and was rather impressed by it. This, in conjunction with the rather nice publicity artwork I saw for it, convinced me that it would be worth giving a go. I now sorely regret this. The Fountain, to quote Philip French in his review, “puts the ‘awe’ into awful”.

You know, I’m actually dreading the actual review-writing process, because right now I’m struggling to put into words exactly why I found it so poor. I suspect it has something to do with the sheer pretentiousness of it, the feeling that nothing is coming together and that the director is simply being oblique for the sake of it, believing that he can sucker the audience into confusing his nonsensical ramblings with profundity. Apparently, at the Cannes Film Festival, it was booed mercilessly and the audience threw things at the screen, and frankly I’m not surprised. The film has its fans, as I’m well aware, and I can only surmise that they’re seeing something I’m not. I just found the whole thing self-indulgent, tedious and, by the end, utterly ridiculous (seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen flowers sprouting out of Hugh Jackman’ mouth).

A very disappointing transfer, too, with rampant DVNR that ruins the definition, freezes the grain and causes all sorts of ugly smearing. I sincerely hope that Warner’s flagship HD release, The Ultimate Matrix Collection (on its way to me right now from Movietyme), is not similarly affected, because I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the people encoding these discs haven’t got a clue what they’re doing.

I’ve also been sent two HDScape HD DVD titles for review: Visions of the Sea and Antarctica Dreaming. I’ve taken a brief look at both and, judging by the rampant edge enhancement and poor encoding on display, they are next to useless in their intended function of providing eye candy and persuading potential customers to make the leap to HD.

High definition cannibalism

Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (his best film, in my opinion, although I’m well aware that I’m distinctly in the minority in this regard) was all prepped for a Blu-ray release from MGM/Fox in the US on April 3rd, until, only a couple of weeks from the launch date, Fox yanked almost its entire high definition line-up from the schedule, postponing several titles indefinitely. There is currently no new release date for either Hannibal or the host of other titles in the same position, and, if this continues throughout the summer, then it looks like Universal may beat MGM at their own game. Universal, you see, hold the rights to Hannibal in all territories outside North America, and, as per a post at the AV Science Forum, they intend to release it (and Hannibal Rising) in France on August 1st. Provided it doesn’t have forced subtitles when English audio is selected (a possibility, I admit), I’m all over this one. As a bonus, it will almost certainly be VC1-encoded rather than using the dated MPEG2 codec favoured by MGM.

Oh yeah, and, while New Line continues to drag its feet in terms of hopping aboard the HD bandwagon, Wild Side are planning on releasing it in France on July 4th. Of course, I suspect it’s unlikely that it will include English subtitles, but hopefully, with an HD master readily available, Optimum in the UK will step up to the plate.

“Ta-ta - H.”

Eternal Sunshine of the Noise Reduced Mind

In all the fun, excitement and frustration of my new computer arriving, I forgot to mention that the HD DVD release of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind also showed up on the same day (Wednesday). While I was waiting for Guild Wars to install and then download a multitude of updates this morning (my new video card arrived - more on that in my next post), I decided to give it a spin and see how it fared in high definition.

“Underwhelming” is the word of the day, I’m afraid. Naturally, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was never going to wow anyone with whiz-bang 3D effects and crystal clarity - it is, after all, understated in its appearance, comprised of desaturated colours and largely hand-held photography. Still, that doesn’t excuse the transfer from looking as digital as it does. Edge enhancement is blatant, and temporal noise reduction artefacts are visible in the form of frozen grain patterns and smearing textures during movement. Detail is about average, but it’s unclear how much of this is due to the transfer and how much is simply down to how the film has always looked. Either way, the majority of my complaints are the result of digital tampering, and as such, Universal deserve to have their knuckles rapped. Actually, it looks very similar to Fantastic Four on Blu-ray, only without the MPEG2-induced compression artefacts. A 6/10 at most.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of April

• Casino Royale (R0 Finland, Blu-ray)
• Dragon’s Lair (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• The Game (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• King Arthur (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• The Mario Bava Collection Volume 1 (R1 USA, DVD)
• A Scanner Darkly (R0 USA, HD DVD)

Somewhat slim pickings this month, and I note that the decline in my purchasing of standard definition titles continues, with only one actual DVD being bought. I wasn’t sure whether or not to include Dragon’s Lair, as it’s technically a game rather than a film, but I suppose it’s a borderline case, and, given the mechanics of how it operates and the inclusion of DVD-style bonus content, it ultimately makes the grade.

Gladiator and others coming to HD DVD

Source: AV Science Forum

A potentially major piece of news has surfaced courtesy of French DVD site DVDRama, where it has been stated that Universal plans to release 60 HD DVDs in France this year, one of which will be Gladiator. The relevant passage is quoted below, using AVS Forum member bboisvert’s extremely rough English translation for convenience:

Whereas Universal right now announced more than 100 titles available by the end of the year to the United States, a recent interview of the director marketing of Universal France has just confirmed the exit in our beautiful country of more than 60 titles by the end of the year 2007. Without giving precise calendar on the dates and films concerned, the few evoked titles have what to give the tournis.

Among the titles headlights of the catalogue of the studio, one will find this year in HD-DVD of the films such as Gladiator, Scarface, or even Ray, one of best “the biopic” left to the cinema these last years. One will also find, at the time of the nearest arrival of revenge in the skin (The Bourne Ultimatum) on our screens, a republication even more thorough technically of died in the skin and the memory in the skin (like what, even for such a recent support, one proposes already republications to us). For the innovations, films like The Holiday, the sons of man or The Kingdom are also announced, and will be at exit simultaneous with the DVD.

Although it’s not my absolute favourite film ever, this is definitely major news. With Gladiator’s US distributor, DreamWorks, currently dragging its feet with regard to high definition output, I’d say that a stateside release of the film is fairly unlikely this year, so this French release will no doubt become a hot commodity. Either way, it’s the sort of blockbuster release the format needs in order to increase its user base. It’s also an HD DVD exclusive in Europe, since the distribution rights outside North America lie solely with Universal rather than the format-neutral DreamWorks.

A double dose of underwhelming HD

My copy of The Game on HD DVD arrived from Amazon.com this morning. Just yesterday, I read Peter M. “I can’t tell the difference between standard definition and high definition” Bracke’s review of it, and was a little alarmed to discover that he had awarded the transfer a 4/10 rating. Given that he gave the 480i upconverted Traffic an 8/10, I was beginning to panic. Thankfully, The Game doesn’t look that bad, which just serves to underscore the fact that these incompetent reviewers are essentially dishing out numerical ratings at random. The Game looks rather diffuse, and is certainly not what I’d call the best example of what the HD formats are capable of, but it’s watchable enough and looks largely natural, with the occasional impressive moment of detail. I’m going to have to give it a more thorough going-over before awarding a rating of my own, but so far my diagnosis would be “definitely above average”.

I also received a review copy of Dragon’s Lair on Blu-ray - something which Dave over at DVD Times asked me if I’d be interested in covering the other day. For those who don’t know, Dragon’s Lair is an arcade game released in 1983, featuring cel animation supervised by Don Bluth, whose greatest claim to fame is staging a mass walk-out of the Walt Disney studio in 1979, due to a growing belief that Disney had lost sense of its very essence. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Bluth and co produced a series of saccharine and badly-written animated talking animal movies, including The Secret of N.I.M.H., An American Tail and The Land Before Time. He hasn’t managed to get anything off the ground since 2000’s horrendous Titan A.E., and, for some reason, Dragon’s Lair remains one of his most popular efforts.

I can’t think why, though. The animation has that naff 80s look, and the whole thing is let down by rubbish game design. It’s basically built around a process of trial and error: wait for the game to become interactive, and then guess which of the five buttons you need to press in order to get to the next area; memorise and repeat ad nauseam. On the Blu-ray version, this becomes even worse as, when you fail a certain section, instead of being made to repeat it, you are simply moved on to the next area. This not only makes the game more or less pointless, it also renders it completely incomprehensible as the whole thing essentially becomes a series of brief clips of animation that fail to link together in anything approaching a coherent manner.

What’s worse, during development of the Blu-ray version, the programmers apparently didn’t have access to the BD-Java specification (see this article), meaning that compatability problems are rife. One user failed to get it to work at all on his Philips player, while it has been confirmed that the only devices on which this release was actually tested are the Samsung BD-P1000, Panasonic DMP-BD10, Sony BDP-S1 and the PlayStation 3, in addition to PowerDVD BD for Windows. If my experience with the PS3 version constitutes an accurate representation of how the game was intended to be played, then I shudder to think what it would be like when it was playing incorrectly. Small wonder the manual accompanying the disc carries the following disclaimer:

Although Digital Leisure Inc. believes this program performs the functions described in this guide, the program is provided ‘as is’ without performance warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited, [sic] the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of this program is with you.

Translation: it might not work, so don’t come crying to us if this is the case. Even the menus don’t work properly - the background artwork flashes up for a fraction of a second and then disappears - while the diamond icon that the manual claims will pop up when you are supposed to issue a command doesn’t actually appear (at least not on the Playstation 3).

Dragon’s Lair is a charmless, shambolic mess of a game. I can only hope that the arcade original was somewhat better, and that the total shoddiness of the gameplay is due to the buggy implementation of the game on Blu-ray. According to an interview with the programmer responsible for porting it over, he basically had to bend over backwards due to the rough state of the development tools and lack of access to the source code, so I suppose it’s a wonder it works at all. Regardless of whose “fault” it is, though, the fact remains that it’s a completely unplayable mess and one that I’m glad I didn’t pay for.

Oh, and if you want some thoughts on the shoddy digital “restoration” performed on it by dunderhead technicians who haven’t got a clue how to use the tools at their disposal, check out Lyris’ post on the matter.

HD DVD celebrates first birthday with 100,000 sales

HD DVD turns a year old today (the official release date for the initial line-up of titles was April 18th 2006, although a few retailers started selling them early on the 15th, hence last Sunday’s buyathon). With the format having made major gains in the charts recently, now seems like the perfect time to convey more good news: HD DVD has now passed a major milestone, having sold (not shipped, sold) 100,000 stand-alone players since launch. Note that this figure does not include the number of Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drives sold.

In addition, Planet Earth on HD DVD became the first title on either format to reach a sales rank of 4 in the DVD sales charts (covering DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray and the, ahem, special interest formats like UMD), ousting the previous king, Casino Royale on Blu-ray, with a high of 7, from its throne. Now that the disc drought of early 2007 seems to be at an end, HD DVD seems to slowly but surely be clawing its way back to its previous position. Clearly, the gap between the two HD formats is going to be a lot narrower than it was in the glory days of mid to late 2006, and I expect that both formats will overtake each other at various points throughout the coming months, but I must say that those who poo-pooed HD DVD and predicted its demise spoke rather too hastily. One thing’s for sure, 2007 is going to continue to be very interesting.

David Manning rides again

Source: AV Science Forum

Never ones to shy away from blowing their own trumpet (see the David Manning and PSP lie blog fiascos), Sony has launched yet another round of shameless self-promotions, this time in the guise of the obscurely-titled Phase Hydra. The aim of the game is to

seed “high profile” forums with Blu-ray advocates and target bloggers to promote Blu-ray to get the word out to the world.

This is hilarious, it really is. Many people, myself included, have long suspected that Sony was ordering employees to infiltrate forums related to the high definition video formats in order to promote Blu-ray under the guise of consumers, and it seems that we now have the closest we’re going to get to proof of this. Stories like this only serve to remind me why Sony is so hated by such a large number of people.

Of course, the question now is why they are so desperate as to resort to these cheap tactics. Could it have something to do with yesterday’s surge in HD DVD sales during the AVS “buy an HD DVD” celebration?

Oops!

Happy birthday, HD DVD!

HD DVD is nearly a year old! Doesn’t time fly? The format officially launched in North America on April 18th, 2006, with the rather bizarre line-up of Million Dollar Baby, The Phantom of the Opera, The Last Samurai and Serenity. The HD DVD crowd at the AV Science Forum have decided to celebrate the format’s one-year anniversary by buying a bunch of titles from Amazon.com, although for some strange reason they have elected to do so today, the 15th, rather than waiting till the 18th.

Well, no matter, and I’ve decided to toss my hat into the ring and place some orders. I’ve picked up The Game, The Skeleton Key and Being John Malkovich, none of which are actually ready to ship yet, but this did seem like as good a time as any to get the pre-orders placed. I haven’t seen The Game yet, but I’ve been led to believe that it’s something of an under-appreciated gem from David Fincher, whose work I generally find quite enjoyable, at least on a technical level.

HD DVD review: A Scanner Darkly

A solid presentation of an extremely flawed film, this HD DVD release of A Scanner Darkly should please those who enjoyed the film. While this is not a title that shows off the prowess of high definition to any great extent, it is an undeniable improvement on the standard definition release and, if nothing else, a curious novelty in that it is one of only a tiny number of animated (or, in this case, quasi-animated) titles to be available in HD.

A revolutionary technique or just a gimmick? I ponder Richard Linklater’s curious live action/animation hybrid A Scanner Darkly, released on a solid HD DVD by Warner. Review courtesy of DVD Pacific.

HD my left walnut

As most people will be aware by now, there have been some amazing high definition transfers on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, and some rather less than amazing ones. When you’re working with a native resolution of 1920x1080, you’d better hope that your master is of the highest quality, because little flaws that would go unnoticed in standard definition will stick out like sore thumbs. The two titles most commonly dragged out for a public for a ritual flogging are Sony’s House of Flying Daggers and The Fifth Element on Blu-ray, transfers that are generally regarded to constitute a decidedly miniscule improvement on their DVD counterparts. Indeed, even Sony have apparently realised this, given that they are currently in the process of preparing a new version and setting up a disc replacement programme.

Unfortunately, it seems that the crown for worst HD transfer must pass from Blu-ray to HD DVD. AV Science Forum member Xylon recently started providing side by side comparisons of standard definition and high definition titles, many of which admirably demonstrate the undeniables improvements that are possible in HD with even the least visually inspiring films. Unfortunately for certain less than proficient reviewers, however, these highly effective demonstrations have shown up their amateurish postulating for the sham that it is. These screenshots serve to confirm many of the opinions I’ve been expressing for a while now, e.g. that Batman Begins looks underwhelming, while Serenity looks fucking incredible.

The shit really hit the fan a few days ago when Xylon posted a comparison of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, released last September on HD DVD by Universal. When initially released, many people commented that the transfer looked less than stellar. Such individuals were quickly put in their place by being told that Traffic intentionally looked rough and grainy, and that they shouldn’t expect 3D whizz-bang effects and crystal clarity from every title (a sentiment that I fully agree with). Now, however, Xylon’s screengrabs demonstrate the truth that dare not speak its name:

Traffic on HD DVD is a 480i upconvert.

Not only that, it actually looks worse than the DVD, with additional ringing and what appears to be even less fine detail. I really am absolutely flabbergasted, especially given some of the reviews that have emerged. The notorious Peter M. Bracke of High-Def Digest gave the transfer a 4/5 and said this:

Bottom line, this HD DVD transfer delivers. The source material is as good as the film stock allow, with no major defects visible such as print tears or distracting blemishes, though grain is intentionally excessive for much of the film. Black levels are consistent throughout, while contrast is all over the map. Some story threads have whites so blown out that fine detail is all but obscured, while others are bathed in darkness or excessively saturated colors. Thus, there is some noise and smeared hues, but again it appears intentional. Overall detail and depth to the image is about as good as can be expected. No, I was never blown away by the presentation as I’ve been with other HD DVD releases, but then I never anticipated otherwise.

The infamous Joshua Zyber of DVD Talk, meanwhile, rates it 3/5, and claims that

The disc looks exactly like the film is meant to look, and it actually has some fascinating textures, but this just isn’t the type of movie you buy for crystal clear HD image quality. While certain scenes show off the High-Def fairly well (primarily the blue-filtered Michael Douglas segments), on the whole there isn’t much fine object detail or depth. Aside from some minor edge ringing in a few scenes, the disc represents the movie’s intended style faithfully and I can’t fault it for that, but most viewers will probably not find it a huge upgrade over standard DVD.

Sorry, but the comparisons speak for themselves, and, coupled with some additional screen captures from a still crummy-looking but undeniably superior 720p broadcast version, it’s difficult to imagine anyone trying to claim that Universal have done anything other than screw up royally. Unfortunately, this is not the case: Zyber is currently ransacking what little dignity he has left by attempting to poo-poo the screenshots and tell us that what we’re seeing is untrue.

Josh Zyber, Peter Bracke: please consider retracting your reviews. The visual evidence speaks for itself, and not even the most blinkered individual could attempt to claim, based on the screenshots in question, that the Traffic HD DVD is anything other than a standard definition upconvert. Reviews such as these bring this profession into disrepute and mean that prospective buyers cannot make an informed decision about their purchases. Worse, they give lazy distributors ample reason to pump out any old garbage and charge a premium for it rather than spend money on new, decent-quality masters. Based on these phenomenally misguided reviews (and I’m sorry, but in this particular instance, we are talking about fact, not opinion), I highly doubt that I will ever trust a single article from these two writers ever again.

More ill-informed reviews:

DVD “Authority”
Upcoming Discs

One thing that should be remembered, however, is this: as ignorant, ill-informed and damaging as these reviews are, they are the small fry in this debacle. The people who should truly be hanging their heads and grovelling for apologies are Universal, who blew a 480i master up to 1080p, slapped it on a disc and had the nerve to sell it as “The Look and Sound of Perfect”.

Update, April 12th, 2007 09:08 PM: A separate thread has now appeared at AVS, with the topic starter demanding (rightfully so) that Universal acknowledge their screw-up. Unfortunately, Mr. Zyber is continuing to make a fool of himself by refusing to admit the obvious.

The latest HD image quality rankings

It’s been well over a month since I last posted by list of image quality grades for high definition titles, so I thought it would make sense to do it just now, while there seems to be something of a lull in other news worth posting.

Note that I’ve made a slight change to the rankings. From now on, if a title is available on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, and is known to have an identical encode, it will be listed under both. Broadly speaking, the same encodes have been used in every country of release, provided the same company owns the rights, but this is not always the case (for example with Casino Royale, where different edits necessitate different masters for different territories, or Serenity, where the UK release features a slightly more detailed transfer than its US counterpart).

10/10

• Corpse Bride (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray)
• Casino Royale (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray)
• Serenity (Universal, UK, HD DVD)
• Serenity (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner, UK, HD DVD)
• The Descent (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray)

9/10

• King Kong (Universal, UK, HD DVD)
• Babel (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Looney Tunes: Rabbit Hood (Warner, USA, HD DVD)*
• Children of Men (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• A Scanner Darkly (Universal, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray)
• The Bourne Supremacy (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner, USA)
• Miami Vice (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray)
• Casablanca (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Warner, UK, HD DVD/Blu-ray)

8/10

• Silent Hill (Sony Pictures, USA, Blu-ray)
• Kingdom of Heaven (20th Century Fox, USA, Blu-ray)
• Constantine (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Paramount, USA, HD DVD)
• The Devil’s Rejects (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray)
• Unleashed (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Red Dragon (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Looney Tunes: Robin Hood Daffy (Warner, USA, HD DVD)*
• Land of the Dead (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• V for Vendetta (Warner, USA, HD DVD)
• The Machinist (Toshiba, Japan, HD DVD)
• Sleepy Hollow (Paramount, USA, HD DVD)
• Million Dollar Baby (Warner, USA, HD DVD/Blu-ray)
• Flightplan (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray)
• Batman Begins (Warner, UK, HD DVD)
• Van Helsing (Universal, UK, HD DVD)

7/10

• Wolf Creek (The Weinstein Company, USA, HD DVD)
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray)
• Tears of the Sun (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• The Mummy Returns (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Warner, USA, HD DVD)

6/10

• Chicago (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray)
• Enemy of the State (Buena Vista, USA, Blu-ray)
• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Constantin Film, Germany, HD DVD)
• Fantastic Four (20th Century Fox, UK, Blu-ray)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Paramount, USA, HD DVD)
• Hostel (Sony Pictures, UK, Blu-ray)
• An American Werewolf in London (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Brokeback Mountain (Universal, USA, HD DVD)
• Troy (Warner, UK, HD DVD)
• Basic Instinct (Studio Canal, France, HD DVD)

5/10

• District B13 (Magnolia, USA, Blu-ray)

4/10

• American Psycho (Lions Gate, USA, Blu-ray)

* Found on the The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD.

Bourne on the 24th of July

Source: High-Def Digest

Universal have made an official announcement about the upcoming HD DVD release of The Bourne Identity, confirming that it will be hitting store shelves on July 24th, just over a week before the theatrical release of the third film in the franchise, The Bourne Ultimatum. The second entry, The Bourne Supremacy, was one of the first HD DVDs I ever owned, at about the same time last year, and, while it left me rather cold, I very much enjoyed The Bourne Identity (mainly because of the excellent Franka Potente, who made for a far more effective point of audience identification than Matt “gorilla-features” Damon), so I’ll definitely be picking it up in high definition.

No word on the extras yet, but, going by Universal’s track record, we should expect to see all of the features from the standard definition DVD release. The Bourne Supremacy also had an In-Movie Experience-type feature (called “Bourne Instant Access”, and “presented by” Toshiba), so it would be nice if we get something similar for The Bourne Identity.

So, this film’s about imaginary cockroaches, huh?

This evening, I made my way through A Scanner Darkly in its entirety, and, while I found that it picked up slightly in its second half, and sported a handful of smile-inducing lines of dialogue, I ultimately wouldn’t rate the whole experience too highly. I’ve found this on numerous occasions with movies about drug addiction - particularly Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a film that manages to entertain and irritate me in equal measure - and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that this is one of those “you had to be there” phenomena. I’ve never imbibed a single narcotic in my life, and I’m sorry to say that, although I take my job as a reviewer seriously, becoming a drug addict to get a better insight into the logic behind this film would be going above and beyond the call of duty. (Not that I’m saying that everyone who enjoys the film must be a drug addict.) Watching A Scanner Darkly, I felt incredibly distanced from the whole affair, and I suspect that this had as much to do with the subject matter as the visual styling, which, I’m sorry to say, I found clumsy and distracting throughout.

Incidentally, I was shocked to discover that, rather than simply running the footage he shot through a filter, Linklater actually had a team of artists go through every single frame and trace them by hand. The people - I’ll call them clean-up artists rather than animators, because that’s essentially the function they performed - responsible for this task clearly had no small amount of skill, not to mention patience, but I can’t help thinking that this was wasted on a project that could easily have been automated. By the way, the included documentary dedicated to exploring the process reveals that very few of the artists had had any direct animation experience prior to working on the film. To tell you the truth, it shows, although I would probably have been even more horrified if Linklater had actually squandered the talents of real animators on this cute but ultimately pointless exercise.

Oh, and if you’re going to create animation by tracing over live action actors, please, please, please use someone more expressive than Keanu Reeves as your source.

A scanner rotoscoped

Yesterday, I received a review copy of the upcoming (due out on April 10th) HD DVD release of A Scanner Darkly, from DVD Pacific.

Back when this film was released on DVD, I was interested to see it, due to director Richard Linklater’s rather odd choice of shooting it in live action and then applying a “cel-shading” effect to it, to give it the appearance of hand-drawn animation (a look initially popularised by video games like Jet Set Radio, although that particular title, of course, wasn’t shot in live action). It’s really the latest iteration of rotoscoping, a time- and cost-saving measure initially attempted by legendary animators Dave and Max Fleischer in the 1930s. The Fleischers quickly determined that rotoscoping simply wasn’t worth the time of day, because the results it produced, while requiring considerably less time and skill on the part of the animators, were, to put it bluntly, not good. Nonetheless, it would appear that many filmmakers have yet to learn the lessons that the Fleischers learned more than 70 years ago. These tend to be live action directors, who don’t really understand the point or potential of animation as a medium, and approach things from the frankly ludicrous perspective of trying to make it emulate live action as much as possible. This results in films that range from merely being stilted and clumsy (see Ralph Bakshi’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which, unique and at times impressive as it is, falters when it comes to the sloppily traced character animation) to downright grotesque (Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express, among others).

A Scanner Darkly, sadly, falls somewhere between these two extremes. Characters, objects and even details like eyes and facial hair “swim” around the screen in a distracting and at times nauseating manner, movements strobe rather than looking organic, and the main question on my mind was “what was the point?” Why did Linklater go to the trouble of shooting all this material using real actors, only to scan his footage into a computer and slap what looks like a silly Photoshop effect over it all? What does the film gain by being animated (and I use the term loosely, because I consider rotoscoping as illegitimate a form of animation as motion capture)? The answer is nothing. Linklater sees the medium from the perspective of a live action director, and thus isn’t able to harness its unique qualities in the way that a proper animation director could. The end result is merely a gimmick - a “hey, it’s like a real-life cartoon” affair that is probably better suited to a technician’s demo reel rather than a commercial movie or (HD) DVD.

As for the quality of the plot itself (which, given that it is essentially just a live action film masquerading as animation, is ultimately the most important element)… well, I have to admit that I was really tired last night, and didn’t have the energy or patience to get through the whole thing, but, from what I saw… eh, it just wasn’t gripping me. It was okay, I guess, but I felt strangely uninvolved. Since I’ve got a four-day weekend (it being the time of year when Christians celebrate the death of their leader - go figure), I’m going to give it another shot when I’m feeling more awake. Well, I’ve got to - I need to review the damn thing. So far, though, my reaction has been one big “meh”.

HD DVD review: Children of Men

Presenting one of 2006’s best films with a stellar transfer and audio, and some genuinely informative extras, this HD DVD of Children of Men is one of the best high definition releases I’ve seen so far, and one that gets my unreserved recommendation. In fact, I’d even go so far as to recommend that those who are currently not yet HD DVD-ready pick up a copy, if they don’t already have a copy of the DVD, given that the DVD side includes all of the content from the stand-alone release.

One of the most powerful films of the last year arrives in high definition. I’ve reviewed Universal’s HD DVD/DVD combo of Children of Men, given a stellar audio-visual presentation and some insightful extras.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of March

• Asterix and the Vikings (R2 UK, DVD)
• Casino Royale (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Children of Men (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Devil’s Rejects (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• District B13 (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (R0 Germany, HD DVD)
• Peter Pan: Platinum Edition (R1 USA, DVD)
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (RA USA, Blu-ray)

It occurs to me that I haven’t received a a single standard definition DVD that I’ve actually paid for in over a month - Peter Pan and Asterix and the Vikings were review copies. This is a trend that I expect will continue in the foreseeable future: broadly speaking, I feel less and less compelled to actually pay money for standard definition titles. Obviously, it’s a different story with something obscure like the Bava box set I ordered earlier this week, which I know is unlikely to come out in high definition in the near future, if at all, but by and large, I’m finding myself with increasingly little desire to buy mainstream titles on DVD.