Mainstream Cinema

Ban this filth!

Two new HD DVDs entered the house today: Lyris picked up a copy of the deliriously awful The Mummy Returns, while I received a review copy of Brokeback Mountain, the movie once referred to by my charming grandfather (who struggles with the concept of multi-racial relationships, let alone same-sex ones) as "the poofter cowboy film". Unfortunately, neither are particularly impressive examples of the format: both look somewhat soft and slightly edge enhanced, with Brokeback Mountain faring the worst, especially in the first half (the detail levels seem to improve at around the half-way point). Indeed, it's probably the only high definition title I've seen so far where at times I found myself thinking "This almost looks like a really good standard definition DVD."

But what of the film itself? It garnered three Oscars, including Best Director, and a plethora of adulation. As is so often the case, the answer is good, but not as good as the praise would lead you to believe. However, first and foremost I think something should be cleared up: in this so-called "gay cowboy movie", neither one of the two main characters is gay, and they herd sheep, not cows. However, "bisexual sheepboy movie" doesn't have quite the same zing to it, so I can see why the less factually correct pseudonym became the generally accepted one. When it was initially released, many viewers and critics remarked, with both surprise and admiration, that, despite featuring a relationship between two men, this wasn't a "gay" movie. I think I know what they mean: it doesn't treat the gender of the pair as particularly remarkable (although that's not to say that the social stigma attached to it is never an issue). "It could just as well have been a man and a woman," many people said. And that, for me, is both the film's strength and its weakness. Yes, it's impressive to see a Hollywood movie treat this sort of subject matter with respect, but at the same time, make one of the two cowboys a woman and I strongly doubt that it would have attracted nearly as much attention (although the scene in which they beat each other up might have raised some eyebrows). This is a rather conventional tale of forbidden love, and the characters, despite offering some insight into the personas they construct for themselves in order to fit into a conservative society, are really not massively interesting. It's all quite nicely shot and competently acted, but I don't see this as a masterpiece by any means; on the contrary, it has a lot in common with those daytime made-for-TV "dramedies" (to borrow a word I detest) that Channel 5 shows most afternoons.

Universal pledges 100 HD DVDs in 2007; still says no to Blu-ray

Source: High-Def Digest

After much fretting by HD DVD supporters, Universal have finally made an announcement regarding their plans for the format. Once again they have reiterated that they have no plans to support Blu-ray, and indeed they have promised an aggressive slate of 100 new titles for 2007, all of which will, naturally, be HD DVD exclusives.

Once again, no release dates are given, so it's anyone's guess whether we'll see anything before April, but the studio did let slip on some of the titles we can expect to see:

Among the additional new titles to be released in 2007 are the Oscar-nominated Children of Men, the critically acclaimed epic drama The Good Shepherd, and the high-octane Smokin' Aces. Also on deck for release this year are such highly-anticipated catalog favorites as Bruce Almighty, The Bourne Identity, Meet The Fockers, American Pie, Inside Man, Pride & Prejudice, The Big Lebowski, Liar Liar, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Brazil, Erin Brockovich, Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Slap Shot and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Universal also stated that more than 90% of these releases will be HD DVD/DVD combos - a move guaranteed to invoke anger and gratitude in equal measure.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something Blu

Well, that's it: the Playstation 3 is on its way. Lyris found one online from a US supplier at a price that, all things considered, seemed too good to refuse - especially given that, Sony being Sony and clamping down on exporter with an iron fist, it was a miracle that we found a US store that would ship one to the UK at all (and I'm not going to link to the store or even name them, because I know for a fact that Sony would do a Lik-Sang on their asses if they found out). The cute little rhyme I used for the title of this post is depressingly appropriate: I'm going to need to beg my parents to lend me some money when the bill comes in. As I've said before, hopefully I'll have a job before too long and can afford to pay it off. I'm also selling a bunch of old DVDs on eBay, which I'm hoping will at least pay for the inevitable customs charge.

Oh, and because there's not much point in owning a Crapstation and having nothing to play on it (what, you think I'd buy it for its looks?), I went over to DVD Pacific and ordered a few discs: Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut, Enemy of the State and The Descent. Unfortunately, these are all MPEG2 titles, and Kingdom of Heaven has had all of its extras stripped out so that the whole film could fit on to a single BD50 using that bloated relic of a codec, so I doubt that these will be the finest examples of the format. We all have to start somewhere, though, and I'd personally rather pick up films I like rather than buy discs featuring decent transfers but crap films (something that both formats apparently have more than their fair share of).

The discs and the Crapstation should both be arriving in about a week's time, so I'll have the full scoop for you soon. In the meantime, if anyone is feeling unnaturally altruistic, massive cash donations would be much appreciated.

The Razzies are in!

Forget the Oscars - the nominations for the real movie awards ceremony are in. A whole host of unfortunates are in line for these most esteemed of all awards this year, with an impressive seven Razzies going to both Basic Instrinct 2 and Little Man. Not to be outdone, Uwe Boll's meisterwerk Bloodrayne netted six nominations, while the remake of The Wicker Man and Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause are tied with five each (the latter in the prestigious Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment category).

I wonder if anyone will show up to personally collect their trophies? Halle Berry graciously appeared in person to accept the Worst Actress award for Catwoman in 2005 (as did Paul Verhoeven in 1996 for Showgirls, among a handful of others), so, for all we know, this could be the start of a trend.

Step away from the bike!

Many thanks must go to Graham for drawing attention to this one: a montage of the most unintentionally funny moments from the cringe-inducingly poor-looking remake of The Wicker Man. Coming soon to HD DVD and Blu-ray: Nicolas Cage steals a bicycle, punches and delivers karate kicks to various women, steals small childrens' masks, disguises himself as a grizzly bear, and has a swarm of bees poured over his head, all the while screaming "Not the bees! Not the bees! Oh no, my eyes! My eeeeeeeeyeeeeeees!"

Yes, I think I've seen all I need to see of this film. It's fairly clear they dumped the wrong one under the M3.

Update, January 25, 2007 04:28 PM: There's another, even longer and even funnier, montage here.

A pawn to the industry

If you've been keeping track of the whole HD format war business, you probably haven't failed to notice that the Blu-ray studios - Sony, Fox (including MGM), Disney and Lions Gate - announced a crap-load of titles for their format of choice at this year's CES. The HD DVD camp - Universal, Bandai, The Weinstein Company and the neutral Warner and Paramount - pledged to release another 300 titles before the end of the year, but so far haven't given much of an inkling as to what we can expect (beyond the obvious: Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings and a bunch of day-and-date titles). Making matters doubly worse has been Universal's almost complete silence on all things software. Many people suggested that Universal were getting cold feet and might possibly be gearing up to go format-neutral. I can confirm that Universal has no plans to support Blu-ray - otherwise, the war might as well be over. However, I can't exactly say I'm impressed by the fact that Universal don't seem to be releasing any more HD DVDs until April.

In the meantime, the boys in Blu are cranking out discs like there's no tomorrow (which, for them, there probably isn't if their format tanks). In addition to juggernauts like Casino Royale and Cars now having official release dates, numerous catalogue titles from the various studios (barring Sony, who own very little worth purchasing) are looking increasingly appealing. Their agenda, it seems, is to bully people into buying into the format through sheer weight of numbers... and it seems to be working. Originally, when I bought an HD DVD player, I was determined to hunker down and remain on one side until it either won or was decimated by the competition. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be happening any time soon. A glance at eProductWars will show you that the two formats are essentially on equal footing. They trade blows, and every few days the balance tips in favour of one or the other, and, as such, it's looking increasingly unlikely that either format will be going anywhere in the near future. We're simply going to have to accept that both will co-exist for some time to come. And, as much as I don't want to give Sony a penny, I am, when all said and done, a film fan, and I'm no longer content to, as Lyris puts it, cut off my nose to spite my face.

In a couple of months' time (when I will hopefully have some form of income to support my plans), I intend to pick up a 20 GB Playstation 3 from the US. It pains me to say it, but this is a far more cost-effective solution than waiting for a stand-alone combo player that properly supports both formats to become available, and in any event I can console myself (pun unintended, I assure you) with the knowledge that Sony loses nearly $250 every time they sell a PS3 - money that they hope to regain via game sales, which they certainly won't be getting from me. For betraying my principles, I will have access to a much wider array of titles: around 15 available and announced Blu-ray exclusives appeal to me, including one of my favourite films, Hannibal, and two of the best films in recent years, Casino Royale and The Descent. Naturally, for titles available on both formats, I will continue to buy the HD DVD versions. However, I'm well on the road to becoming format neutral. Expect me to be putting the image quality of some Blu-ray titles under the microscope in the not too distant future.

The year's most prestigious popularity contest

Put on your best frock: the nominations for the 2007 Academy Awards are in. As usual, I've seen virtually none of the films in the list, including none of those in the Best Picture, Acting, and Directing categories. Of the ones that I have seen, I don't think there can be any doubt that Cars deserves the Animated Feature Film award, while the nomination of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan for - wait for it - Writing (Adapted Screenplay) only serves to make me wonder if the people who put these lists together actually understand the concept of writing (for those who don't know, Borat, although based on a general outline, is largely comprised of improvised, unscripted encounters with real people). Meanwhile, the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest can now claim four nominations to its name simply serves to highlight something I pointed out last year: not all Oscars are created equal, but it seems absolutely ridiculous that this dumb and overlong popcorn flick can actually claim to have received more nominations than something like, say, Gangs of New York (2002), whose nominations were in categories that actually matter, like Best Picture and Best Director.

Of the films listed, the one that has racked up the largest number of nominations is Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, with an impressive six categories to its name. I've not seen the film yet, but I really want to - the stills I've seen look absolutely amazing. Warner owns the rights in the US, so I'm going to wait patiently in the hope that it sees an HD DVD release before the year is out.

La Rue Mulholland?

I've cancelled my pre-order for the upcoming French HD DVD release of Mulholland Dr. Why? Well, DVDFr and DVDRama are both stating that the release will come with French subtitles only, which strongly suggests that they will be forced when English audio is selected. With the one Studio Canal title I own, users are asked to select a 'base' language the first time they insert the disc, which determines which options are available to them. Selecting English restricts you to a choice of English audio with or without subtitles, locking out all the other language options, so it stands to reason that Studio Canal could, if they want, force French subtitles to "on" when playing Mulholland Dr. in English.

I don't want to go without one of my favourite films in high definition, though, and it looks like I won't have to: a post at the AV Science Forum suggests that Mulholland Dr., along with Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Deer Hunter and Ran, will be coming to HD DVD in the UK in March, courtesy of Optimum. Presumably this will coincide with the standard definition Special Edition being released on March 12th - although, given Optimum and Studio Canal's HD track record so far, I don't expect that we can count on any of the extras being ported over.

The iguana with the tongue of VHS noise

My copies of The Mephisto Waltz and The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire arrived from Xploited Cinema this morning. The Mephisto Waltz is actually the Spanish release of the film, rather than the French version I'd assumed it to be, but it makes no difference, given that the disc itself features English audio, menus and subtitles, in addition to a variety of other languages. A quick glance at the transfer suggests that it's pretty good: like many of Fox's recent releases, it's soft and a little noise reduced, but actually fairly attractive overall, and, needless to say, a massive improvement on my VHS dupe.

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, meanwhile, is a big disappointment, partly because the image quality is very poor (it's in widescreen, but I suspect that the source is a VHS tape), but mainly because it's a very weak giallo. This is actually the first Riccardo Freda film that I've seen, and I gather that his standard is usually somewhat better than this; the fact that he signed the film under the pseudonym of "Willy Pareto" suggests that he didn't regard it particularly highly either. Even through the grime and haze of the poor transfer, it's fairly easy to see that the visuals aren't all that hot, while the plot itself, not to mention the characters, fail to be even remotely engaging. It lacks a strong protagonist, while the killer's identity is a non-event and his/her motive non-existent, and the somewhat unusual Dublin location is never really exploited to its full potential. This is definitely close to the bottom of the barrel, as far as I'm concerned, although you might get a kick or two out of lines like "Well now, me fleet-footed filly, are we going to have it off in the bushes or on the bike?"

Lord of the double-dips

Source: HD-Insider

The first details regarding the upcoming high definition releases of The Lord of the Rings trilogy have begun to trickle out. Annoyingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the initial releases will be the theatrical versions rather than the longer (and, in most cases, superior) extended editions. New Line, who, like their parent company, Warner, seem to be committed to supporting both formats equally, will be releasing both HD DVD and Blu-ray versions, although it remains unconfirmed whether these will be separate releases or a dual-sided Total HD disc. Both will be encoded with VC1 and will be the first titles to feature Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio.

Nothing has been confirmed about the extras, apart from the news that, due to "bandwidth constraints", there will be no In-Movie Experience features. This strikes me as somewhat suspect. If they had said "disc space constraints" then I would have found it more plausible, but what exactly is it about The Lord of the Rings that sucks up so much bandwidth as to prevent an IME stream from being included? Smells suspiciously like double-dip territory to me. Actually, for people who bought both the theatrical and extended editions on DVD and plan to do the same for the high definition versions, this is going to be a quadruple dip. For myself, I'll wait until the extended editions come out in high definition (unless of course I can get the theatrical cuts for review): Peter Jackson's interpretation of the book is flawed enough without the massive chunks of essential material missing from the theatrical versions.

MPAA in the doghouse

Source: Variety

After 85 years of clandestine operation, the American film censorship body, the MPAA, is finally being forced to become more accountable. The reason for this, it would seem, is a little documentary by filmmaker Kirby Dick, entitled This Film is Not Yet Rated. Released on DVD on January 23rd (I've got my copy pre-ordered), it is a shocking exposé into the goings-on behind closed doors at the notoriously secretive organisation, revealing many interesting factoids that the MPAA would rather remained secret, including its anti-gay bias, hostility towards independent filmmakers, lack of accountability of its examiners, and seemingly arbitrary classification process.

The result? The MPAA have been dragged kicking and screaming into the public's eye, and are now being forced to grow up a bit. From now on, the organisation will publish detailed criteria for each classification, filmmakers will be allowed to cite precedents set by previous classification decisions during the appeals process, more will be done to ensure that indie directors are given a voice, and more effort will be made to educate and train examiners before they are allowed to make ratings decisions. Obviously, given the MPAA's long history of opression, inequity and abuse of power, it's unrealistic to expect the situation to improve overnight, but it just goes to show that a guy with a camera can force an organisation that prides itself on unaccountability to fess up and sort out their act. Now I just need to see the film for myself...

Waltzing iguanas

It's been a while since I picked up a new giallo on DVD - Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock, in July, seems to have been the last one. Giallo DVD releases have certainly slowed of late, although there are still dozens, if not hundreds, of titles that have yet to see the light of day on the shiny disc format. Recently, however, a German company called New Entertainment World released a DVD of Riccardo Freda's The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, a giallo I've wanted to see ever since I first heard its delightfully ridiculous name. Released under the title of Die Bestie mit dem Feurigen Atem ("the beast with the fiery breath"), its image quality is, by the sound of it, not particularly good, but I've been starved for good spaghetti slashers lately, and I'm pretty sure I own worse discs (the initial German release of Death Carries a Cane, for example).

As I was placing my order at Xploited Cinema, I happened to glance down at the "Customers who bought this product also purchased..." section, and my lid nearly flipped when I saw that a DVD had been released of The Mephisto Waltz. This is a rather derivative 70s horror movie designed to cash in on the success of the likes of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, but it has a special place in my heart because, back when I caught it on TV on late night in the early 1990s, it was one of the first "proper" horror films I ever saw. My memories of it are so fond that, last year, I bought a VHS dupe of the film on eBay. I never thought 20th Century Fox would ever release this on DVD, but it appears that, in France, they have done just that, under the title of Satan Mon Amour (which probably explains why I wasn't aware of its existence until now). Of course, I added it to the order.

This year's HD DVD releases

Source: HD DVD Promotion Group

Here is a partial list of some of the 300 new titles we can expect to see on HD DVD this year in the US. Note that I've omitted concert, nature show and "screensaver"-type releases to concentrate on films and the odd TV show. I also haven't included titles that already have a street date.

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner)
• The 40 Year Old Virgin (Universal)
• Above the Law (Warner)
• American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile (Universal)
• American Pie: Unrated (Universal)
• The American President (Warner)
• Angels in America (HBO)
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (New Line)
• The Aviator (Universal)
• Awake (The Weinstein Company)
• Band of Brothers (HBO)
• Battlestar Galactica (Universal)
• The Black Dahlia (Universal)
• Blade (New Line)
• Blade Runner (Warner)
• Blood Diamond (Warner)
• The Blues Brothers (Universal)
• The Bourne Identity (Universal)
• Braveheart (Paramount)
• Breaking and Entering (The Weinstein Company)
• Bruce Almighty (Universal)
• Bubble (Magnolia)
• Bullitt (Warner)
• Catwoman (Warner)
• A Clockwork Orange (Warner)
• Coach Carter (Paramount)
• Conan the Barbarian (Universal)
• Contact (Warner)
• Cowboy Bebop (Bandai)
• Dante's Peak (Universal)
• Dark City (New Line)
• Dawn of the Dead [remake] (Universal)
• Deadwood: Season 1 (HBO)
• Decameron (The Weinstein Company)
• The Dirty Harry Collection (Warner)
• DOA: Dead or Alive (The Weinstein Company)
• Elizabethtown (Paramount)
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Magnolia)
• Eraser (Warner)
• Executive Decision (Warner)
• The Exorcist (Warner)
• Eyes Wide Shut (Warner)
• Face/Off (Paramount)
• Flags of Our Fathers (Paramount)
• Forest Gump (Paramount)
• Friday (New Line)
• Friends: Season 1 (Warner)
• From the Earth to the Moon (HBO)
• Galaxina (BCI)
• The Getaway (Warner)
• Ghost (Paramount)
• Ghost in the Shell (Bandai)
• Golgo 13 (BCI)
• The Good Shepherd (Universal)
• The Goonies (Warner)
• Gothika (Warner)
• Grease (Paramount)
• The Green Mile (Warner)
• Grindhouse (The Weinstein Company)
• Hannibal Rising (The Weinstein Company)
• Hard to Kill (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Warner)
• Idlewind (Universal)
• Inside Man (Universal)
• Killshot (The Weinstein Company)
• Last Legion (The Weinstein Company)
• The Lemon Drop Kid (BCI)
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Paramount)
• The Libertine (The Weinstein Company)
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (New Line)
• The Maltese Falcon (Warner)
• The Mask (New Line)
• The Matrix (Warner)
• The Matrix Reloaded (Warner)
• The Matrix Revolutions (Warner)
• Maverick (Warner)
• Mission: Impossible (Paramount)
• Mission: Impossible 2 (Paramount)
• Mrs. Henderson Presents (The Weinstein Company)
• The Music Man (Warner)
• Mystic River (Warner)
• Natural Born Killers (Warner)
• Next of Kin (Warner)
• Night of the Werewolf (BCI)
• North by Northwest (Warner)
• Ocean's Eleven (Warner)
• Ocean's Thirteen (Warner)
• Ocean's Twelve (Warner)
• One Last Thing (Magnolia)
• Passenger 57 (Warner)
• The Player (New Line)
• Pride & Prejudice (Universal)
• Red Planet (Warner)
• The Return (Universal)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Warner)
• Rush Hour (New Line)
• Save the Last Dance (Paramount)
• Scarface (Universal)
• School for Scoundrels (The Weinstein Company)
• School of Rock (Paramount)
• Scoop (Universal)
• Se7en (New Line)
• The Shawshank Redemption (Warner)
• The Shining (Warner)
• Sin City 2 (The Weinstein Company)
• Singing' in the Rain (Warner)
• Sister Street Fighter (BCI)
• Soldier (Warner)
• Son of Paleface (BCI)
• The Sopranos [various seasons, it would seem] (HBO)
• Spawn (New Line)
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (Paramount)
• Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount)
• Star Trek: The Original Series (Paramount)
• Superman: Ultimate Collector's Edition (Warner)
• That's the Way of the World (BCI)
• Transamerica (The Weinstein Company)
• Twister (Warner)
• The Ultimate Star Trek Movie Collection (Paramount)
• US Marshals (Warner)
• Vanilla Sky (Paramount)
• Vengeance of the Zombies (BCI)
• The War at Home (Magnolia)
• The War Within (Magnolia)
• The West Wing: Season 7 (Warner)
• Wild Wild West (Warner)
• The Wizard of Oz (Warner)

Obviously this is not a concrete list - we can probably expect to see considerably more titles from Universal than are included here - but there are many, many titles in that list that I will definitely be picking up.

The CES obituary

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

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

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

Another financial blunder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HD DVD at CES: the buzz

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

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

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

Stay tuned...

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

HD DVD review: An American Werewolf in London

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

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

Make your mind up, Warner!

Source: High-Def Digest

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

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

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

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

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

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

HD DVD review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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

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

The Year in Review

2006 - the year of HD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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