Mainstream Cinema

Cease your meddling!

Above: the original 1999 version; below: the re-graded 2004 version

George Lucas isn't the only filmmaker to indulge in revisionism. That's right, the Wachowski brothers are at is as well. No, the alterations that have been made to The Matrix aren't quite on the same level as the "Greedo shoots first" debacle - no footage has actually been reshot, and the special effects are unchanged - but they're significant nonetheless. When the film was re-released on DVD in 2004, the entire film was digitally graded to bring its look into line with the two rubbish sequels, and, now that I have the ability to take screen captures of HD DVDs, I can show you just how extreme the difference is.

Above: the original 1999 version; below: the re-graded 2004 version

I'm curious as to how people feel about this. On the one hand, I do think that the re-graded version is aesthetically preferable. Creating a digital intermediate allows filmmakers much more control over the final look of their movie than traditional lab work, and we can therefore presumably assume that the look of the new version of The Matrix is closer to representing what the Wachowskis originally intended than what was initially released. On the other hand, it's hard not to see this as being a "because we can" situation. The central concept - that the Matrix had a green tint, whereas the "real world" had a blue tint - was conveyed subtly in the original version, but, in the re-graded version, has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The shadow detail is also seriously hampered by the manner in which the contrast has been pumped up.

Above: the original 1999 version; below: the re-graded 2004 version

Oh, and the HD DVD of The Matrix is indeed edge enhanced. It's not as bad as on some titles - it's no Crank or An American Werewolf in London, for example - but it's there all right. I noticed it within less than a minute of the film starting, and yet many people continue to tell me that I'm imagining things, or that there is a problem with my equipment, or whatever other outlandish excuse they can come up with. That's the great thing about being able to do screen captures: I can now provided visual evidence! Now who's crazy, guys?

Blurry Blu-ray

My copy of the French Blu-ray release of Paprika arrived today from FNAC. Time didn't permit me to actually sit down and watch the whole thing, but I have a few preliminary observations to make.

First of all, this disc features no less than nine audio tracks (Japanese PCM, and Japanese, French, English, German, Czech, Italian, Spanish and Polish Dolby Digital) and 24 subtitle tracks. This, combined with the fact that the disc is multi-region and displays an FBI logo if your player's default language is set to English, strongly suggests that Sony is planning to release the same disc throughout much of the world.

Second, for the first full-length 2D animated HD title I've picked up, the transfer is decidedly underwhelming. It's an MPEG2 encode, and, while compression problems don't appear to be too apparent based on my viewing of the opening 15 minutes, the image looks rather soft and filtered, lacking the crispness that I would have hoped for from an animated film produced entirely in the digital domain. Like many of the Studio Ghibli releases, it's also windowboxed, needlessly throwing away several lines of resolution. I'm not sure why this practice seems to be so widespread with anime films, but it's a very annoying one and I wish the companies wouldn't do it.

As for the film - let's just say it hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm going to sit down with it at some point this weekend and give it my full concentration, but my initial impressions suggest that my various esteemed commenters were right.

Oh yeah, and Sony has announced a few new Blu-ray titles for release in the US on September 25th, including Black Book and the extended cut of Underworld. I've already got the German HD DVD release of Underworld, due out on September 3rd, pre-ordered, and that will remain the case, since the early bird catches the worm, but I'm all over Black Book, which, in addition to being an extremely engaging film, looked a little underwhelming in its UK DVD release from Tartan.

Fox, king of lies

Guess it's full steam ahead for Phase Hydra.

It may have escaped your notice, but a brand new web site geared around marketing Blu-ray, entitled Hollywood In Hi-Def, was recently launched. The idea, presumably, is similar to the HD DVD Promotion Group's The Look and Sound of Perfect, with the only differences being a URL that's easier to remember, and the fact that Hollwood In Hi-Def doesn't make its Blu-ray bias explicit. It's fairly obvious (the next-to-zero mention of HD DVD and the blue colour scheme are dead giveaways), but it's underhand tactics like these that cause me to view the Blu-ray camp with a great deal of suspicion. Don't get me wrong: I know that both sides are, at the end of the day, out to make money by any means necessary, but I always feel that there's something slightly more honest about the way the HD DVD camp conducts itself.

Nowhere is the Blu-ray Disc Association's willingness to lie, in spite of how blatantly transparent their porkies are, than in a recent article regarding the lack of titles from 20th Century Fox so far this year. Fox, as you may or may not be aware, haven't released a single Blu-ray disc since Night at the Museum on April 24th. Recently, however, the forums became abuzz with the news that several new titles had been announced for release in various European countries, including France and Germany. Not so, according to Fox themselves:

There have been reports of Fox releasing on Blu-ray internationally while still on hold in the U.S.

A Fox executive told us and some late-night commenters at High-Def Digest that it isn't true. Fox has made no Blu-ray announcements in Europe, Asia or the U.S. since its last Blu-ray title, "Night at the Museum," on April 24.

Oh really?

Is that so?

Wait a minute...

Do Fox seriously think their US customers are so isolated from the rest of the world that they will somehow fail to notice the various sites not only listing the various titles announced for release on the other side of the Atlantic, but also their cover art, technical specs and bonus content? That would appear to be the case, as a comment posted to the article in question, featuring links to announcements for various German releases, was mysteriously deleted as I was typing this entry. Based on the evidence, I'd have to say that Fox really do think we're as stupid as they are.

Update, July 12th, 2007 08:31 PM: Looks like the links were not deleted after all. By default, the site only displays the four most recent comments.

Sacré bleu! Mr. Bean goes HD!

Source: DVD Times

News that Mr. Bean's Holiday was to get an HD DVD release in Australia on August 15th has essentially been common knowledge for some time now, and it should come as no surprise that a UK release date was announced today. Arriving five days later than its counterpart down under, on August 20th, this release, which will presumably be identical to the Australian version, will feature the usual razzmatazz (1080p VC-1 transfer, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio in a variety of languages, and the same extras as the standard definition release). I missed seeing this at the cinema, and, while I have my suspicions as to the film's quality (based in part on the largely negative reviews), I'll no doubt be picking up a copy of this. Now if only Universal would release the original Bean in HD as well.

DVD debacle

Arrivederci Amore, Ciao and my review copy of The Secret of NIMH both arrived this morning. A few quick words on Arrivederci Amore, Ciao before we proceed: I only got the chance to glance at it briefly, but it doesn't look to be a very good transfer at all. It's fuzzy, washed out and video-like, and it's also not progressively flagged. It'll do until a better English-friendly presentation comes along, but that's about the kindest thing I can say about it. I highly doubt that the English-unfriendly French release looks this weak.

Anyway, The Secret of NIMH fares somewhat better. Despite the patent lack of serious bonus features in what was supposed to be the 25th anniversary release of this film (after a decent audio commentary and a cursory 15-minute featurette, the only other extras contained in the 2-disc set are crummy kiddie games. Even the accompanying booklet looks more like the sort of menus many restaurants do for pre-schoolers, with a crossword, mazes and join the dots puzzle. Still, the film is ultimately what counts, and I'm happy to say that the transfer improves quite noticeably on the old non-anamorphic UK release. It doesn't look dazzling, but MGM's rather conservative restoration (if indeed one was done at all) is still preferable to the overly processed look of Disney titles like Bambi and Peter Pan. Gary Goldman, one of the film's producers and directing animators, supervised the colour timing for this release, and it shows, because it avoids the garish "pumping" that goes on so often with animated DVD releases these days. The colours look smooth and natural, and will apparently be the first time American viewers will get to experience the film on a home video format in anything approaching its intended timings - previous releases were apparently mangled by incompetent technicians who used Mrs. Brisby's fur colour as a basis to regrade each scene, without realising that her fur intentionally changed colour depending on the lighting conditions!

But could someone in the know please fill me in on the film's intended aspect ratio? The DVD includes both 1.33:1 fullscreen and 1.85:1 widescreen versions, and I can't help thinking that the fullscreen version looks more "right":

Below, you can see that a lot of the artwork created for the backgrounds shown during the closing credits is being lost, and the composition to me strongly suggests an intended ratio of 1.33:1:

As you can see, the widescreen edition is a fairly straightforward case of cropping the top and bottom of the frame, with a small amount of picture being gained at either side. Now, obviously, as a film released in 1982, it would have to have been projected theatrically in a widescreen ratio - more than likely 1.85:1 for American cinemas, although, as with many Disney titles from the same period, the Internet Movie Database lists an intended ratio of 1.66:1. On their commentary, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman make no mention of which is their preferred presentation, although it may be that they have expressed their opinions in this matter elsewhere. Does anyone know?

In any event, you can expect a full review at DVD Times in the not too distant future, although I would like to reread the novel on which the film was based, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, before I get started.

The return of Captain Whiggles

I'm back, and I'm a whole day older. I have now walked this blighted earth for 24 wholes years and a day (give or take a couple of hours), although, believe it or not, I don't feel a whole lot different. Actually, since I turned 18 and could legally do pretty much anything I might want to do, my actual age has ceased to be much of a concern for me, to the extent that, when people ask me how old I am, I often actually have to stop and think about it.

Anyway, I had a pretty good day, albeit with a couple of minor monkey-wrenches thrown in. I had a bunch of parcels waiting for me when I got up yesterday morning:

The big box at the back is, as you can probably gather, the Lego Café Corner set I ordered a couple of weeks back. I finally finished putting it together this morning, and, while I can't exactly claim it to have been a challenge, it took me a decent enough amount of time, and the level of detail present in the finished building is commendably higher than what you get in most of the sets aimed at a younger audience. Now, if only Lego would do something featuring a similar level of detail for a castle or a pirate ship...

In front of the Lego box, from left to right, we have: The Simpsons: The Complete Sixth Season and The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season on DVD, Black Snake Moan on HD DVD, and Crank on Blu-ray. And yes, that hideous Homer head for The Simpsons' sixth season really is as bad as everyone says. The plastic outer "cover" was dented out of shape when it arrived (unavoidable, given its flimsy construction, and I don't hold DVD Pacific, the US Postal Service, Royal Mail or anyone else responsible for this - the blame lies solely with 20th Century Fox), and the tray housing the four discs that resides inside the cover is a pain, filled with bits of paper (advertisements, episode booklet) that fall out as soon as you open it. It's very frustrating that the standard cardboard box was never released to buy in the US, as it was elsewhere, because ordering the replacement is, for someone without a North American postal address, a bit of a challenge. By the way, I've taken a look at some of the episodes from both Seasons 6 and 7, and, while there are still some visible DVNR artefacts, they are nothing like as bad as the ones affecting the PAL version.

Me and Lyris also watched Crank last night. First, the bad news: the film looks like ass. It was shot in 1080p, so ideally this should have been a pixel-to-pixel reproduction of the source materials (barring compression, of course). Unfortunately, someone took it upon themselves to add a tonne of edge enhancement, making the picture look harsh and ugly. Strangely enough, the edge enhancement is is inconsistent, with some scenes (basically those in which the protagonist doesn't appear) being less affected, and the two of us both came to the conclusion that the filmmakers intentionally decide to over-sharpen the image as a stylistic choice, presumably to make it appear "harsh" and "raw". Whoever is to blame, though, they should be severely chastised for their decision.

Luckily, it's an enjoyable film. I hesitate to call it "good", because, to be honest, it was pretty much a complete load of garbage, but it continually kept us entertained, and was, on several occasions, laugh out loud hilarious. Jason Statham's hard man shtick gets a little old after a while (I'm still not sure why they got a Brit to play this part), but the characters surrounding him help keep him in check, and Amy Smart plays the greatest blonde ditz I've seen in a film since Anna Faris in Lost in Translation: "Don't talk to him like that! My boyfriend kills people!" Oddly enough, the most similar film I can think of to this is not Speed, as most people seem to suggest, but Run Lola Run. Obviously, it's less high-brow, but it has the same sort of energy and the same basic plot - if "person runs around the city for 90 minutes" counts as a plot.

Oh, and Black Snake Moan has a really impressive transfer, at least judging by the brief glance I had at the first couple of scenes. Paramount has really come a long way in the last few months.

Anyway, I also went to Braehead Shopping Centre for lunch and shopping. Luckily, I didn't see any shifty types looking to ram burning vehicles into buildings (Braehead is just down the road from Glasgow Airport), so I was able to make my purchases in peace. I actually ended up buying a hell of a lot more than I intended, not least an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on. You may remember that I bought one earlier this year and ended up selling it on to a friend, because it didn't meet my needs. Luckily, the situation has now changed. For one thing, Lyris now has an Xbox 360, so we both decided that this would be the perfect moment to dispose of our large, clunky Toshiba HD-A1 player and replace it was something faster and less space-hungry. In addition, HD decryption software has progressed considerably in the last six months, which makes it much easier now to rip discs to my hard drive and take screen captures for review purposes (the add-on connects to either the Xbox 360 or a PC via USB, so it only takes a couple of seconds to plug it into the required device).

I also picked up two HD DVDs and one Blu-ray disc, all of them blind buys: La Haine, Syriana and Layer Cake. I know next to nothing about any of them, but it's nice to be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, the goons at HMV not only forgot to take the security tabs out of La Haine and Layer Cake, meaning I couldn't actually open them to get the discs out (most store-bought UK DVD and high definition cases feature a plastic tab which seals it shut and can only be removed using a special machine in the store), the case for La Haine was also quite badly smashed (okay, so it's partially my fault for not noticing until I got home). Luckily, my dad was able to run me back in to get the tabs removed and the case for La Haine replaced.

I'm not done yet, though! I also bought the soundtracks to Serenity and Cars, and picked up the games Empire Earth II and Quake 4 in a "2 for £15" deal at GAME.

So yeah, all in all a good day was had, although my wallet is no longer speaking to me.

Cover designers take note

Bad DVD (and VHS, and HD DVD, and Blu-ray, and...) cover art tends to be the exception rather than the norm, so I wouldn't normally go out of my way to make a post dedicated to a single example of this dubious trend, but I've come across a cover so hideous that I felt the need to make an exception to the rule. I'm talking about Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH, recently re-released as a 2-disc "Family Fun Edition" (god, how I hate that term) through 20th Century Fox, who have taken over the home video distribution of most MGM/UA titles. The cover art used for the old non-anamorphic UK release wasn't exactly out of this world, but at least it was faithful to the tone of the film contained inside the case. By contrast, the open matte US DVD from 1998 received an eye-searingly bad design, and it is this same odious piece of artwork that has made it on to the latest release.

Take a look at the image opposite. The Secret of NIMH was, on its release in 1982, one of the darkest animated features ever released, along with Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings and Martin Rosen's Watership Down. It may have come from former Disney animator Don Bluth, and it may have featured talking animals and moments of slapstick humour, but it was an altogether bleaker and more mature animated feature than those raised on Snow White and Cinderella would have been used to. The DVD cover, by contrast, gives the impression that the film is intended for pre-schoolers, with bright colours, big smiles and an abundance of airbrushing. The crow, black in the film, has even been painted blue, presumably because black is a verboten hue in la-la land.

This may all seem trivial, but I really think distributors should take more care to market their output appropriately. Warner did exactly the same thing with Watership Down, going for bright colours and cute bunnies for their cover art, despite the fact that the film features said cut bunnies having their gizzards ripped out in graphic detail. Not wanting to sound like a bleeding-heart "think of the children" crusader, but isn't there something a bit morally suspect about effectively wrapping a title that is known to have traumatised many young children in a pink ribbon and selling it as if it was babysitting fare along the same lines as the Disney cheapquels? Even this film's co-producer, Gary Goldman, has got involved in the debate, slating the cover art and decrying the fact that he and Bluth were not consulted by Fox when it came to marketing.

I've got a review copy on its way to me from DVD Times, courtesy of our good friends at DVD Pacific, and I'm genuinely curious to see this most unusual film again. I'm just glad I've seen it before, because I wouldn't have given it a second look based on that sickening cover art.

By the way, you should definitely read the article featuring the aforementioned Gary Goldman quotes. It provides a very interesting retrospective on a film that clearly has significantly more of a following than I'd previously realised.

Visit my thrift store!

Roll up, roll up for the most exciting auction you'll see all day! A whole host of high quality DVDs (and some not so high quality) are waiting on eBay for your perusal. Today's batch is comprised of:

• American Pie (R2 UK)
• Bubba Ho-Tep (R2 UK)
• Chinatown (R2 UK)
• Chocolat (R2 UK)
• The Forgotten (R1 USA)
• The Hills Have Eyes (remake, R1 USA)
• Lost in Translation (R2 UK)
• Problem Child Tantrum Pack (R1 USA)
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (R1 Canada)
• Scary Move (R2 UK) - includes exclusive postcards
• The Secret of NIMH (R2 UK)
• The Skeleton Key (R1 Canada)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (R2 UK)
• Underworld: Evolution (R1 USA)

I've got a bunch more titles to put online, and I'll probably do so at the same time tomorrow night. Happy bidding!

The double-dipping element

The upcoming Blu-ray re-release of Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, due out on July 17th, will, it would seem, be struck from a completely new master. According to a post by Sony Pictures insider "Paidgeek", we can expect to see "a marked improvement over any previous release" - good news for sure, given that I was slightly suspicious that we would simply get a new encode sourced from the same master, with added DVNR, edge enhancement or filtering.

I can't say that this is my favourite Luc Besson film - I consider Léon to be his masterpiece - but I do find it quite enjoyable if I switch my brain into second gear and plug my ears whenever Chris Tucker appears on screen, and I've been looking for an opportunity to replace my standard definition Superbit copy. I held off on last year's lacklustre Blu-ray release because I knew that an improved edition was on the way, so I've now ordered myself a copy from DVD Pacific. For those who got burned on the earlier release, Sony have set up a replacement programme, although presumably it will only be open to North American customers. The new disc, by the way, is very much intended as a replacement in the most literal sense of the world, featuring the same cover art and with the original version already having been discontinued. Sony, it would seem, would prefer to sneak this improved version out under the radar rather than making a bit song and dance about how they have, fittingly, become the first high definition studio to play the double-dipping game.

Spooks and spectres in high definition

Source: AV Science Forum

The cover art for the upcoming German HD DVD releases of Silent Hill, Underworld: Extended Cut, 12 Monkeys and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider has been unveiled... and I don't know about you, but personally I think that this Silent Hill artwork is streets ahead of what was used for the American Blu-ray and DVD releases. Of course, better cover art is not, for me, an adequate reason for double-dipping, but I've pre-ordered a copy of it (and Underworld) all the same, given that I'm hoping for a superior encode to the Blu-ray release, which crammed an MPEG2 copy of the film on to a single-layer 25 GB disc. The new release date, by the way, is September 3rd, a few days later than the originally announced August 31st.

Update, July 1st, 2007 04:23 PM: As Jayson pointed out in the comments selection, this release of Underworld is to be the extended cut.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of June

• Black Book (R0 UK, DVD)
• Brotherhood of the Wolf (R0 France, HD DVD)
• Lost in Translation (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Mulholland Drive (R0 France, HD DVD)
• The Odessa File (R2 UK, DVD)
• Problem Child Triple (R2 UK, DVD)
• The Rock (R0 France, Blu-ray)
• The Skeleton Key (R0 USA, HD DVD)

Not a bad month as far as the quantity of HD content is concerned, although the quality has been rather mixed, to say the least.

The Odessa File

Frederick Forsythe is probably best known, as a novelist, for The Day of the Jackal, which somehow manages to combine a painstaking level of attention to detail with an extremely gripping plot, resulting in the book being compulsive page-turner despite is extremely clinical style. The Odessa File, written a year later, retains The Day of the Jackal's attention to detail, but for the most part of a more conventionally structured suspense thriller, focusing on an intrepid hero rather than a ruthless killer, and unfortunately suffering from a series of plot contrivances that The Day of the Jackal was able to avoid. Both books were, within the space of a few years, turned into films produced by John Woolf and written by Kenneth Ross, although this is where the crew similarities end.

In 1963, Hamburg journalist Peter Miller (Jon Voight) inherits the diary of a suicide victim who was formerly a prisoner at Riga concentration camp during the Second World War. The diary implicates the camp's ruthless Commandant, Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell), in a series of barbaric war crimes, and Miller decides to set about tracking the man down himself and bringing him to justice. Unfortunately, he finds himself up against something of a brick wall, given the German public's apathy towards digging up this shameful past, as well as the high level of infiltration into the civil services by former Nazis, who naturally have a vested interest in preventing their old identities from being uncovered.

The film is largely a faithful adaptation of its source material, but it deviates in a few respects, some of which actually end up weakening it. The part of Miller's stripper girlfriend Sigi (Mary Tamm), for example, is beefed up, but this only really amounts to more screen time for her rather than her actually affecting the narrative in any way. Likewise, a few plot elements are compressed to save time, while the subplot of a planned Egyptian offensive against Israel, involving the unleashing chemicals over its major cities, is relegated to a brief mention at the beginning and end. In effect, they might as well not have bothered including it at all - surprising, given that it was what gave the novel so much of its urgency. More damagingly, though, the film makes it clear almost from the get-go why Miller is so driven to track down Roschmann. In the novel, his motive is concealed among Forsythe's trademark screeds of painstakingly detailed descriptions, and as such doesn't draw attention to itself, but, in the film, this issue is lingered on to the extent that the audience will surely put two and two together immediately. The film's depiction of the atrocities committed by the Nazis is also greatly toned down from the material in the novel, which probably explains the rather tame PG certificate.

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

As with The Day of the Jackal, the film adaptation constitutes a step down from its source. Unfortunately, the film, while engaging enough, is also not of the same standard as Fred Zinnemann's The Day of the Jackal, which succeeded in adapting the novel's clinical, detached narrative style to the screen. Ronald Neame's The Odessa File is, like the book on which it is based, a more conventional affair and thus fails to distinguish itself from the crowd of war and post-war movie thrillers made at around the same time.

Overall, a 7/10 for the film. I don't tend to give numerical ratings to books, but if I did, The Odessa File would probably be an 8/10.

DVD image comparison: Problem Child

I slept for eleven and a half hours last night. Clearly, I must have been rather tired: I tend to find that I ideally need about nine hours' sleep per night, but since I started working, I've been tending to get less than seven (I need to get up at 7 AM, and, try as I might, I normally don't get to sleep until after midnight). Needless to say, I'm now decidedly refreshed, so I've made good use of my new-found vigour and put together a new DVD image comparison, featuring the R1 USA and R2 UK editions of the undisputed masterpiece known as Problem Child. Be sure to check it out if you're considering adding a copy of this treasured classic to your film library.

So many promises to fulfill

Source: Mobius Home Video Forum

I must confess that I haven't been particularly enamoured by David Cronenberg's recent output. Spider, while technically as well-made as anything else the man has put his name on, left me rather cold, and even the acclaimed A History of Violence never really clicked for me. As such, I've been hoping for a long time that he would eventually go back to the body horror theme for which he made a name for himself prior to the beginning of this decade, and had hoped to see him eventually tackle Painkillers, which sounded like the return to his old stomping ground I'd been hoping for. With Painkillers seemingly as good as cancelled, though, I've set my sights on Eastern Promises, which seems set to continue Cronenberg's leaning towards more mundane and realistic thriller territory. The cast - Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Sinéad Cusack - looks excellent, the usual team is in place... and the trailer, recently made available online, looks pretty decent. Given that I'm more of a Videodrome man than a Spider man, I can't say I'm overly confident that I'll enjoy it, but it looks sufficiently interesting for me to at least give it a look.

Y'all like HD clowns, doncha?

Source: High-Def Digest

When Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects was released on Blu-ray last year, it was a pretty safe bet that its predecessor, the inferior but still enjoyable House of 1000 Corpses would be hot on its heels. Lions Gate has finally announced it with a release date of September 18th, more than a year later. Sporting a 1080p AVC transfer, PCM 7.1 (!!!) and Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio, plus all of the extras from the standard definition release, this is another definite upgrade for me, even if only for the opening pre-credits sequence. Yes, I think it's that funny. "Fuck yo' mama! Fuck yo' sister! Fuck yo' grandma! ... And most of all, fuck you!" Delightful!

High definition geology

The French Blu-ray release of The Rock (or Rock, as it is simply titled in France) reached me today. As previously reported, it is indeed encoded for all regions (A, B, C), so I had no trouble playing it in my Japanese Playstation 3. It also includes all of the extras from the Criterion Collection release, barring the audio commentary - a shame, because it was a good one. I suspect that the commentary may be presented when this film eventually surfaces on Blu-ray in the US, given that the two Pirates of the Caribbean titles also had their commentaries dropped for their European releases, but were present on the American editions.

Anyway, you probably want to know about what really counts: the image quality. Well, the good news is that it's a pretty nice-looking disc. I nearly had a heart attack when the opening Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Productions logo appeared, as it was so ill-defined that it looked like standard definition, but things picked up immediately after that. I suspect that the master used here is the same one from which Criterion sourced their standard definition transfer, which is a good thing in my book, because it is pleasingly unmangled, with only some light temporal noise reduction artefacts visible on occasions... and edge enhancement. Yes, the halos around high contrast edges are quite noticeable at times (look at the soldiers' hats in the opening credits sequence, or the massive glow around Nicolas Cage as he stands against the sunset after Sean Connery leaves at the end), and, as with the Criterion, the footage during the opening and closing credits, plus any shot with location type, appears to have been taken from a softer source than the rest of the film.

Basically, this is a low- to mid-range 8/10 transfer in my book. Whereas the Criterion is in the upper echelon of standard definition DVDs, the master doesn't quite cut the mustard as a contender against the best that the HD arena has to offer.

HD DVD review: The Skeleton Key

Universal's HD DVD for The Skeleton Key constitutes a definite improvement on the standard definition release in terms of audio-visual quality, although it's still far from the upper echelons of the format's capability. Unless you enjoyed the film a great deal, or habitually rebuy all your standard definition titles in standard definition, there's not a great deal here to justify shelling out for the same film twice, but if you don't already own the DVD, this HD DVD is a fine place to start.

The Bayou goes high definition in The Skeleton Key, released on HD DVD by Universal with all of the content from the standard definition release intact. Descend into the swamps at DVD Times...

Arrivederci Thailand, Ciao

It would appear that Thailand is the first country in which an English-friendly version of Michele Soavi's (Dellamorte Dellamore) 2006 return to the big screen, Arrivederci Amore, Caio, has been released. Available at eThaiCD for a mere $11.50 US (and free shipping), it features Italian and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, and English and Thai subtitles. Bonus features are limited to a trailer and photo gallery, but at that price, who's complaining? No word yet on how the image quality measures up, but I've placed an order for it anyway. I wasn't all that impressed with Soavi's recent TV movie, Uno Bianca, and this new film seems to be along similar lines to it, but, given the excellence of Dellamorte Dellamore, and the high quality Stagefright, The Church and The Sect, I'm not about to pass on this talented director before seeing his latest effort. Hopefully this will arrive in time for my birthday.

Credit for this discovery goes to Benjamin C at DVD Maniacs.

I also ordered a copy of the R2 UK release of the 1974 adaptation of Frederick Forsythe's The Odessa File, another steal - £4.99 at Play. I'm currently reading the original novel, and, while it's not on the same level as The Day of the Jackal (and I have a feeling the same will be true of the film, despite sharing the same producer, John Woolf, and screenwriter, Kenneth Ross), it's an incredibly gripping affair. I only have 50 pages or thereabouts to go, so I'm fairly sure I'll have finished reading it before the DVD arrives - and a good thing too, as I don't want my interpretation of the book to be clouded by the film adaptation.

Beauteous Blu-ray

High-Def Digest is reporting that Sleeping Beauty is to see the light of day on Blu-ray in 2008, according to a press release from Disney. No specific release date of specifications have been given as of yet, but this is excellent news indeed, because there has been a complete dearth of 2D animation in high definition so far (the three Looney Tunes titles included with The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD being the only high-def cartoons I own). Sleeping Beauty isn't my favourite Disney feature by a long shot, but I'm going to take what I can get at this stage. Let's just hope that the likes of Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp and Lilo & Stitch (my personal preferences) aren't too far off.

High definition is rockin'!

I was really looking forward to the release of The Rock on Blu-ray - not because it's one of my favourite films (I certainly like it, don't get me wrong, but it's no classic), but because Criterion's standard definition DVD was one of the best ever released, so I was eager to see how it would stack up in high definition. Unfortunately, Disney's US wing recently indefinitely postponed both it and Pixar's Cars, which were, let's face it, two of my main reasons for ending my HD DVD exclusivity. Luckily, France has come to the rescue once again: both The Rock and Crimson Tide, another Jerry Bruckheimer explosionfest culled by Disney in the US, are currently available in the land of baguettes and fine wine, and I've ordered my copy of the former from Fnac. It's also coming out in the UK on July 2nd, but, as you probably know by now, I'm not the sort of person who likes to wait. In any event, I want to be sure it arrives before my birthday (July 4th).

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the French release has been confirmed as region-free and with removable subtitles. Apparently it's also "a little grainy", which, in conjunction with a BD50 and an AVC encode, would seem to bode well as far as image quality is concerned. It also seems to have all of the extras from the European special edition, which, by my reckoning, means everything that was included on the Criterion - unless the poster is referring to a different continental special edition that I'm not aware of.

Oh yeah, and I've also pre-ordered the French HD DVD release of Hannibal, due out from Universal on August 1st, from Amazon.