Obscure Cinema

HD DVD review: Les Triplettes de Belleville

It's great to see more traditional animation becoming available in high definition, particularly when it's a film as good as Les Triplettes de Belleville. With its solid audio-visual presentation, this release is a must-have for HD DVD-ready animation aficionados.

"Swinging Belleville rendez-vous..." I've reviewed the recent French HD DVD release of Sylvain Chomet's excellent Les Triplettes de Belleville.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of November

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• A Clockwork Orange (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Eyes Wide Shut (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Fly (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Full Metal Jacket [remastered edition] (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Mario Bava Collection Volume 2 (R1 USA, DVD)
• Pan's Labyrinth (R0 UK, HD DVD)
• Peep Show: Series 4 (R2 UK, DVD)
• Ratatouille (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• The Shining (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Soldier of Orange (R0 UK, DVD)
• The Stendhal Syndrome: Special Edition (R0 USA, DVD)
• Tokyo Godfathers (R2 UK, DVD)
• Les Triplettes de Belleville (R0 France, HD DVD)

A good month for high definition, this, and another expensive one too.

I've run out of Pan puns

Another day, another HD gallery. This one is for Optimum's recent UK HD DVD release of Pan's Labyrinth, a film which looks decent but falls short of brilliance. As I said in my review:

It's a good transfer, but one with some noticeable flaws, most noticeably a strange "eroded" appearance that appears to be the result of attempting to suck out the film grain. As a result, textures tend to look a bit waxy and "cut-out", particularly faces, while a lot of the fine detail has been removed from the foliage in the scenes taking place in the woodland. It's a strange effect, as it means there is a superficial sense of crispness, but not the sort of detail you would expect from an image so sharp.

Pan's Labyrinth
(Optimum, UK, VC-1)

HD DVD review: Pan's Labyrinth

Optimum's HD DVD release of Pan's Labyrinth is a good one, and one which improves substantially on all current DVD releases in terms of image quality. It does have its shortcomings, however, particularly with regard to the problem of audio synchronisation, and looks set to be superseded by New Line's substantially meatier US release, due out towards the end of the year. If you want your HD fairytale fix now, however, you could do a lot worse than picking up this release.

I've reviewed the recent HD DVD of Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, released in the UK by Optimum on a feature-packed disc.

Two worlds collide

I've just discovered that Michael Brandon, who played the protagonist, Roberto Tobias, in Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet, has a guest role in this Saturday's episode of Casualty (source: Yahoo! TV UK). This strikes me as incredibly weird in a quite fascinating way. Now, the question is, will he play a progressive rock drummer who incorrectly believes that he has killed a man who was stalking him,

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text for Four Flies on Grey Velvet:

Given some of the stories we've been getting on Casualty recently, I wouldn't consider that to be too far-fetched.

Pan's pipes

I received a couple of review copies of upcoming high definition releases from Optimum on Friday: Wolf Creek on Blu-ray and Pan's Labyrinth on HD DVD. Both titles are coming out on both formats (the Blu-ray versions were released on November 19th, whereas the HD DVD versions have been delayed a week, until November 26th), and I'm fairly sure HD DVD versions were requested for both, so I'm not sure why I got a Blu-ray Wolf Creek. In any event, I'm not able to review it, because it is coded for Region B only, and, as you may know, my Blu-ray hardware (Playstation 3) is Region A. As far as I'm concerned, Optimum is merely shooting themselves in the foot here, as they are simply denying themselves sales. It makes particularly little sense when you consider that region coding doesn't exist for HD DVD, so anyone in the world can play their HD DVD titles, whereas only the privileged few who shelled out for overpriced European Blu-ray players will be able to play their Blu-ray titles.

Anyway, I may not have been able to look at Wolf Creek, but I have given Pan's Labyrinth a cursory glance. The image quality is a bit uneven, with a strange "eroded" appearance that appears to be the result of attempting to suck out the film grain. As a result, textures tend to look a bit waxy and "cut-out", particularly faces, while a lot of the fine detail has been removed from the foliage in the scenes taking place in the woodland. It's a strange effect, as it means there is a superficial sense of crispness, but not the sort of detail you would expect from an image so sharp.

Extras, by the way, seem to mirror Optimum's UK DVD release, with only the bonus trailers for The Devil's Backbone and cover art of Cronos missing in action. Of course, the only audio option provided is a Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 track, so I suspect many people will prefer to wait until New Line release their own version in the US on December 26th, for its DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track and PiP visual commentary. More significantly, the picture on this release seems to be lagging slightly behind the audio at all times, resulting in some noticeable lip synchronisation errors (particularly apparent given the rapid-fire Spanish in which most of the characters converse).

Expect a full review at DVD Times in the not too distant future.

Poster pleasure

What's with Japan almost always getting the best film artwork? Time and time again, they seem to end up with much better posters and DVD covers than the rest of the world. A case in point is the Japanese poster for Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie, one of my favourite films, whose French poster (the café exterior variant) already adorns my wall.

As much as I like the French art, however, I found that the Japanese version appealed much more to me as soon as I came across it during a random perusal of AllPosters. The poster was no longer available to buy from there, and, at some point during the last couple of days, its entry has been deleted entirely, but I was able to find an auction for it on eBay, and it now adorns the wall behind me, alongside my giant Opera poster.

Musical madre

I received the soundtrack CD to Mother of Tears the other day. I've had a chance to sit down and listen to the CD from beginning to end a couple of times now, and broadly speaking, I like it, with some reservations.

This is a very eclectic score, and Simonetti borrows liberally from other compositions, including his own contributions to the Argento universe (lots of shades of Phenomena), as well as Keith Emerson's work on Inferno, Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen and some of James Bernard's work for the old Hammer films - all very worthy references to use, if you ask me. There are probably more, but they passed this relatively non-musical individual's ears by.

The best track by far is the one that accompanies the opening credits ("The Third Mother (Main Theme)") - it's very Hammeresque, and I love that grand gothic sound with lots of brass and menacing chanting. The worst, meanwhile, is that truly awful Demonia/Cradle of Filth song that accompanies the closing credits. It's essentially a metal remix of the opening title theme, with Dani Filth's tuneless rasping layered over it - that description alone should give you some idea of how bad it sounds. I can't believe Argento actually agreed to have it attached to the film - it completely wrecks the tone and is far, far worse than any of the heavy metal pieces he used in Phenomena and Opera.

As for the rest of the score, I like it, but I do find that the electronic elements, which are very much like those in The Card Player, jar with the more orchestral parts. It's not a patch on the music for either Suspiria or Inferno, but it's a good, solid gothic horror piece that goes quite well with the visuals I've seen for the film so far.

DVD debacle

I was out today at university, seeing my MLitt dissertation supervisor for a discussion about my PhD progress, the proceeds of which have left me with plenty of food for thought as regards various avenues that I can explore from now on. While I was waiting for the bus home, I decided to browse the shelves of Fopp, and came away with a couple of books which may or may not prove interesting and/or useful - Best Movies of the 70s by Jürgen Müller and Revolution! - The Explosion of World Cinema in the 60s by Peter Cowie. Oh, and I also picked up a copy of Tokyo Godfathers on DVD - one of the few anime films that I really like. Oh, if only Sony had released it on Blu-ray instead of director Satoshi Kon's most recent film, the incredibly disappointing Paprika.

When I got home, I discovered a package from DVD Pacific waiting for me, containing The Mario Bava Collection Volume 2. This is an incredibly generous package, containing seven films (the cover lists eight, but I'm not really convinced that Lisa and the Devil and House of Exorcism should truly be counted as two separate titles, particularly given that Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped have been counted as one in the same package).

I've taken a brief look at all of the discs, and the best-looking appear to be Lisa and the Devil, Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped and Four Times That Night, while the worst-looking are Bay of Blood and 5 Dolls for an August Moon, with Baron Blood and Roy Colt & Winchester Jack somewhere in the middle. A real patchwork of sources has been used, with the transfers for Bay of Blood and 5 Dolls for an August Moon looking suspiciously like DVNR'd versions of the same transfers used for the old Image Entertainment discs (I haven't seen the earlier versions of Baron Blood, Roy Colt & Winchester Jack or Four Times That Night, so I can't comment on them). Lisa and the Devil definitely has a brand new transfer (House of Exorcism looks much poorer, but is anamorphic, unlike the old Image version, so I doubt they are from the same master), while the Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped disc appears to be the same one that Anchor Bay released separately earlier this year.

This is a six-disc set, with Lisa and the Devil/House of Exorcism and Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped sharing a disc each, while, for some bizarre reason, 5 Dolls for an August Moon and Four Times That Night are to be found on either side of a solitary double-sided disc. Weird.

Anyway, looking forward to catching me some Bava, along with some Tim Lucas commentaries.

I love my diatribes

So far, I really haven't said much about my PhD work on this site. The main reason for that is that, recently, with me having been feeling under the weather, I really haven't had the energy or motivation to get cracking on it. Now, however, two things have conspired to change that. First of all, I'm feeling quite a bit better, and can now turn my mind to things other than my constant nausea (which, mercifully, I've been clear of for nearly a weak now) and pains (which are now much less severe than they were this time last week). Secondly, the supervisor of my MLitt dissertation, who is currently away on leave, is having a catch-up session on Wednesday and asked me if I would be interested in meeting up with her to discuss my progress. Of course, I said yes, and decided to use the opportunity to get something written so that, when I traipse into the university on Wednesday, we won't both be staring at a blank sheet of paper.

I always find that I work best when I have a deadline. It's not that I can't motivate myself, but I tend to find that I'm at my most lucid when I know I've promised to hand in x number of words by y date. The last 24-48 hours before a deadline are often when I get my best work done, and I'm not sure why, as I don't typically make a habit of leaving everything to the last minute. Still, my current supervisor (the one who isn't on leave) had suggested to me that I get writing as soon as possible, so that I don't get into the habit of letting the work pile up and suddenly find myself in my final year of my PhD with nothing down on paper.

At our last meeting, it was agreed that I'd put together a piece of writing explaining (a) what a giallo is and (b) why I think this is a worthwhile field of study. I was originally to discuss it with him last week, but my ill health put paid to that, so it was only this afternoon that I finally completed the assignment. It's just over 4,200 words long, approximately 3,000 of which were written today (I'm definitely one of those "bang it out quickly" people), and, while I doubt that any of it will be used in my final thesis, and it doesn't even touch on the issues of gender and identity that I hope to begin to explore in the near future, it has helped me to crystallise some thoughts and, perhaps more importantly, has eased me back into the process of academic writing, which I hadn't done in over a year. Anyway, I'm reasonably satisfied with what I've written, even if I'm still not entirely sure how it fits into the grand scheme of things. I often find that, once I've completed a project, whether it's a review, an essay or whatever, I feel strangely fulfilled, so, right now, I'm feeling light-headed and quite pleased with myself. Come tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be able to find a million things wrong with what I've written, but right now, I'm just glad to have made what I feel is a decent enough start at what is going to be a long, long project.

Oh, and I got to use the phrase "academic snobbery" in an academic essay. I wonder how that'll go down.

DVD review: The Stendhal Syndrome

If you already own a copy of the Italian release of The Stendhal Syndrome, then whether you consider this new edition to be a worthwhile purchase will be dependent on whether you feel that the price is worth paying for a slightly improved transfer and new bonus materials. If, however, you only own the poor quality Troma or Dutch Film Works releases, then I would definitely recommend this release.

I've reviewed Blue Underground's recent release of Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome, presented for this first time uncut in North America in this 2-disc special edition, courtesy of DVD Pacific.

Oh, nausea!

I got through the whole of today without feeling sick once. I put this down to my decision to stop taking the Regulan (which my GP told me was probably a wise move when I suggested it to him), which was emptying my bowels at an impressive rate but leaving me feeling like crap for several hours after each, erm, evacuation. By the way, the GP (a different one from the one who put me on the stuff in the first place) gave me a pretty thorough examination, but could find no obvious explanation as to why I have been experiencing the pains I've been feeling. He said there was a possibility that it had been brought on by a varicose vein, which would correct itself in time, but otherwise couldn't offer any definitive diagnosis, and so has referred me to the hospital for an ultrasound, x-rays and the like. I'm feeling somewhat less worried now, though, because he obviously didn't consider it to be anything life-threatening, and the pains do seem to have abated somewhat over the last 24 hours, which makes me wonder if they were partly being accentuated by anxiety. I know that, if you constantly worry about something, it's always going to seem worse. Conversely, I managed to forget my aches and pains at various points throughout the day, which I take to be a good sign.

Unfortunately, the people responsible for mangling Suspiria (see my previous post on the issue here) seem to be doing their damnedest to make me feel as ill as possible. I got home from work this evening to find screen captures of the upcoming French 3-disc collector's edition from Wild Side waiting for me, and, judging by them, the new French transfer looks just as bad, if not worse than, the Italian "definitive" DVD. I've cancelled my pre-order - if it looks this bad, then all the bonus materials in the world won't convince me that it's worth shelling out €30 for.

In more positive news, my HD DVD of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket arrived today from Amazon.com. I haven't seen the previous 2006 HD DVD release of this film, but apparently it looked like crap, so I'm happy to report that this new remastered edition looks excellent, along the same likes as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining rather than A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut. Detail is excellent, and this is definitely one of the best-looking discs Warner have put out, regardless of when the film itself was made (they've put out plenty of HD releases of 2006 and 2007 films that look vastly inferior). This is another "major" film that I've yet to see, so I'm looking forward to sitting down to watch both it and The Shining at some point in the near future.

Edgar Wright on Suspiria

Edgar Wright, director and co-writer of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has contributed audio commentaries for the international and US theatrical trailers to Dario Argento's Suspiria over at Trailers From Hell. This is a very interesting little project that I wasn't aware of until now, essentially having several "gurus" (including Joe Dante, Mick Garris, John Landis and Rick Baker) discuss a variety of trailers for genre pieces. Both of Wright's commentaries are very entertaining, and, for the record, I completely agree with his assessment of their relative strengths and weaknesses.

International trailer
US trailer

Credit for discovering this goes to Pete M at Dark Discussion.

DVD debacle

I picked up a couple of DVDs on my lunch break the other day: Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange and Series 4 of Peep Show.

Again, sorry for the sluggish updates. I thought I was on the mend, but it turns out I may have been mistaken. The pains in my stomach have now gone, but I'm still getting all sorts of aches from the waist down on my left hand side, and, to make matters worse, last night, while lying fully stretched out in bed, I could literally feel the circulation in my left leg being cut off and the entire limb going to sleep. I was only able to get the circulation going again by bending it at a 90 degree angle - so, as you can probably imagine, I didn't sleep particularly well last night. Oh, and I'm feeling absolutely rotten again today (nausea and stomach cramps), so I suspect I'm going to try to get another appointment with the doctor tomorrow.

Blu-ray review: Oldboy

It's great to see more non-Hollywood content appearing on Blu-ray, particularly a solid film like Oldboy, but it's hard not to feel somewhat shortchanged by Tartan's failure to port over all of the bonus content from their 2-disc DVD set, while the image, despite being a definite step up from every prior release of the film, falls short of the high standard set by their Blu-ray release of Black Book.

I've reviewed Tartan's recent UK Blu-ray release of Oldboy, Chan-wook Park's critically acclaimed revenge flick. This Region 0 release features decent if not outstanding transfer and audio treatment, while some but not all of the extras from the DVD release have been ported over.

Alan Jones on Mother of Tears

Reviews of Dario Argento's Mother of Tears have been pouring in for some time now, some good, some bad, some split right down the middle, but, for many fans, the review they have been waiting for is the one penned by all-round Argento expert Alan Jones. After much anticipation, he has finally written a few words on the film, as well as its Rome premiere on Halloween.

As to the film itself, well, it's not the conclusion to the SUSPIRIA and INFERNO trilogy any of us wanted to see.

[...]

While it's easy to criticise LA TERZA MADRE (occasionally different to the US MOTHER OF TEARS version) for what it isn't rather than what it actually is - a gory, campy supernatural romp - the main problem with the film is simple. The layers of ethereal artifice given by lush cinematography and arch style to the prior two classic films lent their fractured stories a further atmosphere of palpable fever dream unreality. Stripped of that, and saddled with Fasano's dull realism (his DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK photography was superior), the film's equally episodic narrative comes off as contrived, crude and kitsch. Why on earth didn't Argento use again the vivid colour palettes that made SUSPIRIA and INFERNO so fabulous to look at? He had the chance in Jace and Adam's jewel-bleeding concept, but axed it as too fairytale instead of embracing its rich atmospheric possibilities.

[...]

Claudio Argento said it best at the premiere performance. He told me, "For the general public it's a good solid movie, for Dario's fans I'm not so sure".

For the full piece, which includes several photographs from the premiere, head over to Dark Dreams.

DVD debacle, Blu-ray bonzana, HD DVD hullabalooza!

I've kind of been slacking on updates regarding new DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD releases that have been pouring on to my desk. As it happens, one of each has arrived in the last week (not counting Les Triplettes de Belleville, discussed here). What can I say? I haven't been feeling all that great over the last week or so, and as a result I've been a bit distracted. I was feeling decidedly queasy on Saturday, and in addition to that I think I've done something to a muscle, or joint, or bone, in my hip. For over a week, I've been having pains of varying degrees throughout my left hand side from my waist down, and, on Saturday night, I woke up with my whole leg spasming of its own accord. I was actually contemplating going to the hospital, but things seem to be settling down somewhat now, so I'm currently assuming that whatever was damaged is sorting itself out. I have a suspicion that it has something to do with the heavy crates I was carrying about at work just under a fortnight ago. One incident report coming right up!

Anyway, in jollier news...

My review copy of Blue Underground's US 2-disc Special Edition of Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome reached me. I've done little more than take a cursory glance at the transfer, which doesn't appear to be particularly good (although not much worse than I was expecting, given Blue Underground's track record for having an unhealthy obsession with the edge enhancement and filtering dials), and watched the Dario Argento interview on the second disc (which was very informative, even if he did gloss over the supposed conflicts he had with cinematographer Guiseppe Rotunno during the shoot). I intend to take a fuller look at it towards the end of the week, with a review (including a newly rewritten article on the film, similar to what I did for Suspiria and Inferno) coming soon.

I also picked up a copy of Fox's recent Region A Blu-ray release of The Fly, making this my first ever high definition David Cronenberg film (with Eastern Promises to follow on HD DVD in December) and only my second Fox DVD. From what I've seen of it, it appears to be a pretty good representation of the source materials, although perhaps a bit softer than I would have liked. Unfortunately, the original stereo audio mix has been junked in favour of a souped up 5.1 remix. For shame, Fox, for shame.

Finally, the HD DVD release of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey arrived on Saturday. Believe it or not, I haven't seen the film before and am decidedly curious to sit down and watch it for the first time. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those films that takes a while to "get", but one thing I do know for sure, at this stage, is that it features a very nice transfer. While I am a little concerned about its almost grainless look, in every other area it appears to be excellent, with a much higher level of detail than I am generally used to seeing from Warner's HD releases. The line-up of extras looks very good, too, with the Channel 4-made documentary 2001: The Making of a Myth thrown in along with a commentary and several other documentaries and featurettes. The other four Kubrick titles released on HD DVD at the same time (A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket and The Shining) are also on their way, although, due to supply issues at Amazon.com, they were all dispatched at different times.

Belleville belle vue

My copy of the French HD DVD release of Les Triplettes de Belleville arrived this morning from FNAC - a lovely surprise, as I'd completely forgotten it was being released at the end of October and had no idea it was on its way.

For me, this release is a huge deal, because it's the first full-length traditionally animated film I've owned on HD DVD (the next is likely to be Asterix and the Vikings, also due out in France at the beginning of December). I've already seen the three Looney Tunes shorts that are included on The Adventures of Robin Hood HD DVD, which made my salivate for more, as well as Satoshi Kon's Paprika on Blu-ray, but the latter featured a somewhat underwhelming transfer, while the visual style did absolutely nothing for me (anime generally does little for me anyway, particularly when its flat, bland, stilted, washed-out anime like the kind found in Paprika).

Many people are under the misconception that animation doesn't benefit from HD as much as live action, but my opinion has always been that the exact opposite is true, as I hope the screenshots I've posted below prove. Les Triplettes de Belleville looks amazing, with the improved definition really allowing you to appreciate the line work of the pencil animation and the level of detail in the backgrounds. Oh, and as an added bonus, it's in its intended aspect ratio of 1.66:1, unlike the DVD, which was over-matted to 1.78:1.

It's not a completely perfect release: the low bit rate of 9.16 GB is slightly too stingy for the encoder to cope with some of the more visually complex shots. In motion, the artefacts that you might be able to see in some of the screenshots below are nothing like as noticeable - in fact, I hardly noticed any of them when I was actually watching the film - but they could probably have been avoided had an HD30 been used instead of an HD15.

Still, all in all a very nice release indeed, and one that means I can now retired my 2-disc standard definition DVD version (all of the extras have been ported over, even if they are, by necessity, PAL to NTSC standards conversions).

Les Triplettes de Belleville
(France Télévisions Éditions, France, VC-1, 9.16 GB)

DVDs I bought or received in the month of October

• Black Book (R0 USA, Blu-ray)
• Dawn of the Dead (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Day of the Dead (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Fallen Angel (R2 UK, DVD)
• The Fly (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Halloween (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Inferno (R2 Italy, DVD)
• The Jungle Book: Platinum Edition (R0 USA, DVD)
• Masters of Horror: Season 1, Volume 1 (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Masters of Horror: Season 1, Volume 2 (RA USA, Blu-ray)
• Mission Impossible III (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• Nikita/Subway (R2 UK, DVD)
• Oldboy (R0 UK, Blu-ray)
• Seed of Chucky (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Stendhal Syndrome (R0 USA, DVD)
• Suspiria: Definitive Edition (R2 Italy, DVD)
• Veronica Mars: The Complete Third Season (R1 USA, DVD)

No question about it, this was a very Blu month. A very expensive one too, although at least I managed to snag three review copies.

Halloween DVD review: Inferno

Unlike the Definitive Edition of Suspiria which I reviewed earlier today, the differences between this iteration of Inferno and the earlier Anchor Bay release are not a clear-cut case of something being "wrong". Rather, they constitute a decidedly different-looking version of the same film, but one that is probably equally accurate to Argento's vision. While dedicated fans will undoubtedly wish to pick up both DVDs, those only looking for one to add to their library are advised that both editions have their own strengths and weaknesses. The choice is up to the viewer.

Continuing the joint celebration of Halloween and the Italian theatrical release of Mother of Tears, I've reviewed the recent Italian R2 release of Inferno, Dario Argento's third film in the Three Mothers trilogy.