Obscure Cinema

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.

But it's just cartoons, innit?

Generally speaking, Japanese animation doesn't do a whole lot for me, unless it's by Hayao Miyazaki, and even then I tend to be a bit picky. Back when I was doing my MLitt, however, we had a lecture on anime, during which we were shown Tokyo Godfathers, which, in addition to having an incredibly witty and involving narrative, boasted the most outrageous posing and facial expressions I've ever seen outside of Warner Brothers and Spumco - a far cry from the usual static faces with only the mouths opening and closing favoured by anime directors. The director of this film was Satoshi Kon, whose greatest claim to fame appears to be Perfect Blue, described by some as the closest thing in existence to an anime giallo.

Anyway, his latest film, Paprika, was recently released on Blu-ray in certain territories, including Japan and France. Judging by the trailers and stills that I've seen, its animation eschews the flamboyance of Tokyo Godfathers in favour of the more static, conservative look usually associated with anime, but, given the complete and utter dearth of 2D animation on either of the HD formats (barring the three Looney Tunes cartoons included on The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD), I'm willing to take what I can get, and in any event I'm hoping that Paprika demonstrates the same quality of storytelling seen in Tokyo Godfathers. Anyway, I've ordered a copy of the French release, which DVDRAMA tells me is region-free and includes English subtitles.

Speaking of 2D high definition animation in France, according to FilmTalk, Sylvain Chomet's Les Triplettes de Belleville (or Belleville Rendez-vous, or The Triplets of Belleville, depending on where you are in the world) is to get an HD DVD release (from Warner, presumably, as they released the standard definition version) on October 31st 2007. Given that it is almost completely dialogue-free, English subtitles (or lack thereof) should not be an issue. Needless to say, I'll definitely be picking this one up too.

Welcome back to the land of the living

Well, my holiday is over, and this morning it was back to work for me. That said, now is probably as good a time as any to tell you that I won't be there for much longer. I've been offered a part-time job as a library assistant at Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art, working 9-to-5 on Wednesdays and Saturdays - ideal for when I get started on my PhD. I sent my letter of resignation to head office this morning, telling them that I plan to work until next Friday (the 20th), and my intention is to make this known to the rest of the team tomorrow. I'm not quite sure how they're going to react - productivity has increased substantially since I've been around to shoulder some of the workload, so I would imagine my contributions will be missed - but I don't foresee there being any problems with my leaving. Either way, in less than a fortnight, I'll be gone, and, while I certainly don't harbour any ill feeling towards my co-workers, and indeed have probably learned a lot from the experience, I can't say I'll be too sorry to go. The job, when all said and done, is pretty monotonous, and, given the choice of processing forms for 37 and a half hours a week or working in a library 14 hours a week and spending the rest of my time studying gialli, well, I know what I'd rather by doing.

Speaking of gialli, I picked up a book via Amazon's Marketplace called Italian Horror Film Directors, written by European Trash Cinema contributor Louis Paul. I became aware of this title via Keith Brown's excellent blog Giallo Fever, and, while his write-up suggests that this is a rather flawed book, there are so few publications dealing with gialli and Italian genre cinema in general that I came to the conclusion that it would be wise to line my bookshelf with this rather weighty hardback. If nothing else, it's another entry to add to my PhD's bibliography, and I'm sure it'll be an enjoyable enough read even if it's not on the same level as, say, Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds or La Dolce Morte.

When the Starz go Blu

Source: High-Def Digest

Hot on the heels of the news that Starz Home Entertainment (formerly Anchor Bay) had tossed its hat into the high definition ring with the announcement that the first season of Masters of Horror would be coming to Blu-ray, the company has now provided specs for this release (a set of four BD50s, 1080p transfers, PCM 5.1 audio, and "comparable extras" to the standard definition counterparts), as well as the news that Halloween, plus entries in the Evil Dead and George A. Romero's original zombie trilogy will be showing up in October (the article states that we'll be seeing "three to four" titles, so exactly what will be released seems to still be up in the air).

I have to say I think it's really good that Starz are debuting with some of their big guns. I'm not sure how long it'll be before we see some gialli in high definition (I'm hoping for those long-promised special editions of Tenebre and Phenomena), but things do finally seem to be on the move for fans of the more obscure side of cinema.

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.

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!

Mother of Tears: an illicit glimpse

Source: Dark Discussion

Dark Discussion member Yellowfire was at the Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors convention in Secaucus, New Jersey on July 1st, where the same 20-minute preview of Dario Argento's Mother of Tears that was screened at the Cannes Film Festival was being shown. He has made available a few hand-held photographs of the footage shown and even a couple of audio clips, and they won't be left online for long, so get 'em while they're hot! While it's too much to hope that the entire preview will ever be made available online, I would like to hope that the launch of the official Italian Argento web site in five days' time will herald some high quality clips, or at the very least a non-camcorded copy of the trailer.

Returning to the shots themselves, it's obviously difficult to get much of a flavour for the film's look given that they are fairly small and blurry. I do, however, note with some degree of glee that some of the old Inferno look seems to have returned, judging by the blue tinting in the last few shots. Likewise, the music sounds excellent from the sample clips provided, very similar to that of the trailer.

In even better news, here's what someone else who was in attendance had to say about the preview:

I had the chance to see about twenty minutes of this film last weekend. All I can say is that it's vintage Argento. Highly atmospheric, bloody as hell, surreal, disturbing and gorgeously shot.

[...]

Frankly, eveything I saw of it was amazing. This is the Argento we haven't seen in almost twenty years back at the top of his game, and MOTHER OF TEARS looks to be a fine capper to the Three Mothers trilogy.

Naturally, I'll be waiting to see the final film before making any definite opinions, and I sincerely hope that I don't have too long to wait, but, based on this feedback and these tantalising glimpses, I'm very, very excited.

High definition charity

Source: High-Def Digest

As part of a move to get more independent content on to HD DVD, Microsoft and Amazon have joined forces to subsidise the production of independent titles. Entitled "The 1000 HD DVD Indies Project", due to the number of titles to eventually be made available, this venture will see Microsoft offering their authoring services for free to independent filmmakers who make the grade, while Amazon will then package the discs and sell them exclusively on their web site. The idea, it would appear, is that the discs will be made to order, eliminating much of the overhead associated with bulk production, and with the proceeds going straight back to the filmmakers.

There's no word yet on any of the titles that we can expect to see through this scheme, but it's interesting news for sure, and goes some way towards showing how serious Microsoft is about supporting the HD DVD format.

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.

Argento online

Long overdue, Dario Argento will finally get an official web site, as of July 7th 2007. As you can probably gather from the URL, www.darioargento.it will be an Italian language resource, and it's unclear exactly what the content will comprise. In the meantime, the definitive Argento resource on the web is Dark Dreams, and, for English speakers at least, this is likely to remain the case even when the official site has been launched. I really hope it will give us some new material on Mother of Tears - like a high quality copy of the trailer.

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.

Anchor Bay goes Blu

Source: High-Def Digest

Well, colour me surprised, excited and disappointed in equal measure? Starz Home Entertainment, the DVD company formerly known as Anchor Bay, have added their name to the still-small list of independents producing high definition content. The good news? We may soon get to see Dawn of the Dead (the original, not the remake), Halloween, The Evil Dead et al in HD. The bad news? They have tossed their hat exclusively into the Blu-ray ring (I was sure they would go with HD DVD, if anything), and their only announced release so far is the first season of Masters of Horror. Oh, and MGM is handling the distribution, which, given their track record with their own titles so far, is slightly worrying.

I must say I never thought the first Dario Argento title to get an HD release would be Jenifer. That's just... wrong. Still, looking on the bright side, I'm now hopeful that those HD-mastered special editions of Tenebre and Phenomena will eventually emerge, on both DVD and Blu-ray. That's what I'm hoping at any rate. Those, coupled with an HD DVD of Suspiria from The Weinstein Company, would put me in HD heaven. It's just too bad so many of the other Argento films are owned by the HD-phobic Blue Underground.

DVD review: Pan's Labyrinth: Platinum Series

New Line have served Pan's Labyrinth extremely well in terms of audio and bonus content, but as is usually the case the lacklustre image quality lets the side down.

I've reviewed the R1 Platinum Series edition of Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro's critically acclaimed and award-winning dark fairytale. New Line's 2-disc set, features excellent audio and an impressive array of extras.

Review copy courtesy of CD-WOW.

Mother of all picture galleries

A lavish gallery of promotional stills for Dario Argento's upcoming Mother of Tears has appeared online at Italian movie site Occhi Sul Cinema. There are potentially some major spoilers, but if you don't mind about that sort of thing, then it provides a rather interesting insight into just what we can expect from the final part in the Three Mothers trilogy. Obviously, as photographs taken on the set, these shots haven't gone through the digital grading process to which the final film will be subjected, but I sincerely hope that we get more in the way of primary colours than what has been seen so far. I'm also slightly wary that the gore seems to adhere to the "squirt as much blood as we can" philosophy of Jenifer, Pelts and Non Ho Sonno rather than the more imaginative, lyrical violence of Suspiria and Inferno, but I will of course reserve judgement until I see the finished film.

If nothing else, it looks set to be an audacious and explosive finale. Will it be anything like the first two instalments in the trilogy? Probably not - we are, after all, talking about a gap of almost 30 years - but at least it looks as if we'll be getting something more daring than Argento's last few efforts (both film and TV).

By the way, a couple of shots from this gallery were removed shortly after being uploaded, but Dark Discussion member SilverSurfer had the foresight to save them, so they are now available here.

Update, June 16th, 2007 08:21 PM: The gallery appears to have been taken down, but some low resolution versions have been saved at GoreZone (scroll down to find them).

You win some, you lose some

I got home today today to find that the HD DVDs of Mulholland Drive and Brotherhood of the Wolf had both arrived from Amazon.fr, and I'm happy to report that Mulholland Drive looks really nice. It's not the most amazing transfer you'll ever see, but it seems to basically be faithful to the look of the film, which is slightly diffuse. I did notice some signs of noise reduction in some of the later scenes, which is odd, because the earlier scenes that I looked at appeared to be unaffected. I'll give the transfer a more thorough appraisal when I actually sit down to watch it from beginning to end, which I'll be doing prior to putting together a review for DVD Times. For now, I'm just glad to have one of my five favourite films in high definition, with a transfer that isn't a complete embarrassment.

That complete embarrassment would be Brotherhood of the Wolf, whose transfer is so weak that I don't know why Studio Canal even bothered releasing it in HD (oh right, to make money - of course). Detail is weak, and heavy ringing is constantly in evidence: take a look at Lyris' post for some shots of the mediocrity. If American Psycho is the worst-looking Blu-ray disc I own, then Brotherhood of the Wolf is definitely my worst-looking HD DVD. Then again, I don't own Traffic, so perhaps I should be thankful for small mercies. Needless to say, if I'm not sufficiently impressed by the film itself, I'll be offloading the HD DVD post-haste.

BU Stendhal specs announced

Fangoria has got the scoop on Blue Underground's upcoming release of Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome, due for release on September 25th. This 2-disc special edition will feature the following specifications and extras:

Disc 1:
- 119 minute uncut version
- 16x9-enhanced 1.66:1 transfer
- 6.1 Dolby DTS-ES English audio track
- 5.1 Dolby Surround EX English audio track
- 2.0 Dolby Surround Italian audio track
- Original Theatrical Trailer

Disc 2:
- "Director: Dario Argento" featurette
- "Inspiration: Psychological Consultant Graziella Magherini" featurette
- "Special Effects: Sergio Stivaletti" featurette
- "Assistant Director: Luigi Cozzi" featurette
- "Production Designer: Massimo Antonello Geleng" featurette

Sounds like it's going to be a great set, although I'm a little confused as to why Blue Underground would bother remixing the horrendous English dub into 6.1 rather than the vastly superior Italian version (and I'm a little concerned that no mention is made of subtitles - such things are not guaranteed with Bill Lustig at the helm, even when non-English audio is included). It's also a shame Alan Jones seemingly didn't get a chance to record that interview with Asia Argento for the disc that he was trying to put together at Cannes.

On the same day, Blue Underground will also be re-releasing The Cat O' Nine Tails, Opera and Suspiria. As with their earlier releases of Deep Red and Inferno, these will simply be the old Anchor Bay DVDs repackaged. Opera will be the single-disc release, while Suspiria will be a 2-disc set, presumably replicating the first two discs of the Anchor Bay 3-disc limited edition, sans soundtrack CD.

This information discovered by R.J. MacReady at Dark Discussion.

Mater Lacrimarum in the flesh!

The trailer for Dario Argento's upcoming Mother of Tears/The Third Mother has been running in Italian cinemas in front of Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (his half of Grindhouse, which was split into two films for its European release), and one thoughtful viewer had the presence of mind to camcord it, the results of which are now available on YouTube. Bearing in mind that this is just a very brief trailer, and that the image and audio quality are both quite poor, it's very exciting to see these tantalising glimpses of the film.

The musical accompaniment, which I'm guessing is an excerpt from Claudio Simonetti's score for the final film due to the presence of the words "Mater Lacrimarum" in the choral accompaniment, reminds me very much of Jerry Goldsmith's work on the Omen trilogy (and I consider this a very good thing, because I think they are among the finest movie scores ever created), while the presence on the traditional Satanic imagery (in particular the goat's head with a pentagram on its brow) suggest a distinctly different tone from the more fairytale-oriented Suspiria and Inferno. This is all good, from my perspective: while I hope Mother of Tears includes many of the elements that we know and love from the first two films in the trilogy, it's also nice to see Argento experimenting with new ideas. October 31st (and whenever the film becomes available to those of us outside Italy) can't come soon enough.

Thanks go to Mariana at Dark Discussion for uploading the video to YouTube.

A day in at the movies

The Problem Child 3-pack and Black Book both arrived today from Play. After checking the first two films and verifying that they were indeed in widescreen and that Problem Child 2 was uncut (they are, and it is - 1.85:1 nunchuk action ahoy!), me and Lyris steeled ourselves and popped in Problem Child 3, as prepared as was humanly possible for the horrors that this made for TV sequel, with the key roles recast, could inflict on us. And it was... surprisingly bearable. Don't get me wrong, it's a load of crap (not that the first two Problem Child films were ever going to win anything, of course - not even a Razzie), but it made us laugh, and the shift in tone wasn't as dramatic as in, say, a Disney cheapquel. It's a hell of a lot more surreal, even going so far as to include a couple of physical gags that wouldn't seem out of place in a Tex Avery cartoon, and the guy playing Ben Healy (William Katt - who was in Carrie, by some coincidence) is about as poor a match for John Ritter as you could ever hope to find, but the scenes with the three returning cast members - Jack Warden, Gilbert Gottfried and Eric Edwards - provide much merriment. There is also some rather sly humour, some of it surprisingly twisted by network TV standards. Am I suggesting that everybody rushes out to see it? No - like I said, the film (if you can even call it that) is garbage by anyone's standards, but it was a painless enough way to kill an hour and a half.

I also finally sat down and watched Pan's Labyrinth, and I'm exceedingly glad I did, as it's probably the best new horror movie I've seen since The Descent... although perhaps "horror" isn't the best way to describe it as, contrary to what the marketing campaign would have you believe, only small portions of it take place in the world of make-believe. The rest of it is all unsettlingly real, taking place in Spain in 1944, with the country under the grip of General Franco's fascists, and the military stopping at nothing to root out and destroy the resistance forces. The film is absolutely beautiful to behold, and the designs and effects work on the various creatures that the protagonist meets are astounding. In some ways, it reminded me of a twisted live action Spirited Away: a dark fairytale for adults.

Now I'm seriously considering picking up the French HD DVD, due for release on July 4th (my birthday!), even though it doesn't have any English subtitles (I suspect the film can be enjoyed without the intrusion of translation anyway). Annoyingly, though, it will only be available in a 5-disc box set, packaged with the standard definition release and the score, rather than as a stand-alone HD DVD. It will also be the first HD DVD title to be THX-certified, which means... bugger all, of course.

PS. Black Book is my 600th DVD.

"Ya rotten kids, ya should be locked in cages!"

After many years of shoddy treatment at the hands of its distributor, Problem Child, one of my favourite bad movies ever, has finally been released properly!

This film, and its sequel, the imaginatively named Problem Child 2, have, for some time, only been available on DVD in 4x3 full frame format. Obviously, these aren't the most prestigious titles Universal has ever released, and you won't see them being added to the studio's HD DVD line-up any time soon (then again, considering some of the junk they've released in high definition, you'd think they might be well at home there), but no movie, not even Voodoo Academy, deserved to be butchered in such a way. Thankfully, Universal's European distribution wing have come to the rescue, releasing the two original "classics", and an apparently embarrassing made-for-TV sequel, on April 3rd, in a 3-disc box set, named, like its two-film US counterpart, the Problem Child Tantrum Pack. Recognising the important place that these films hold in the history of cinema, the BBFC have also agreed to waive the cuts they originally demanded to Problem Child 2 (the film was unlucky enough to be released at the height of the board's nunchuk obsession).

Naturally, I've ordered myself a copy, from Play. I also took the opportunity to order a copy of Black Book (Zwartboek in its native Dutch), a film I originally intended to go to see at the cinema (yeah, yeah, how many times have I said that and not gone through with it?). It's a Paul Verhoeven film, so chances are it's laughably bad, shamelessly tasteless, or both, but it got some pretty good write-ups at the time of its theatrical release, so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, and hope to get my reviews of both The Fountain (boo, hiss) and Pan's Labyrinth (which I still haven't got round to watching) before the end of the weekend.

Oooooh yes!

Source: Shock Till You Drop

I guess Mother of Tears is the official US title, then, rather than The Third Mother. Too bad Myriad didn't employ better proofreaders - that spelling error is a pretty damning mistake to make!

Credit for discovering the poster goes to Misery at Dark Discussion.