Reviews

La Femme Publique - c'est fantastique! (Part deux)

More reviews of Mondo Vision's La Femme Publique are beginning to trickle in. Today's comes from Svet Atanasov at DVD Talk, who was extremely impressed:

It is almost too good to be true - Mondo Vision have assembled a package that will warm up the hearts of many film aficionados who have been hoping to see Andrzej Zulawski's La femme publique treated with the proper dose of respect. Well, the wait is over. I would like to go on record here stating that even Criterion could have not produced such a terrific package. This is a gift for all of us and I hope that Mondo Vision will be around for many years to come so we could benefit from their admirable desire to please. Good luck Mondo Vision and thank you for this most beautiful release!! DVDTALK Collector Series.

The review gives the transfer, audio and extras a 10/10 rating each.

Halloween Blu-ray review: The Omen (2006 remake)

Well, here we are once again, concluding yet another review of yet another box set of films in the Omen franchise. (I think it's safe to call it a "franchise" rather than a series now, given that, with the 2006 remake, any remaining hints of artistic merit have been well and truly exterminated.) The big question, I suppose, is whether or not this four-disc Blu-ray collection is worth it. My answer, as usual, is going to have to be "no": the original 1976 film is available separately for considerably less money than the four-movie set, and it's really the only one worth bothering with, so my advice would be to save your cash and just pick up the first one.

That said, for those who are determined to be subjected to the full Omen experience (or as full as possible without the hilariously awful 1991 TV movie), this box set constitutes an admittedly expensive but nonetheless satisfying package. The first film has received by far the most lavish treatment, and rightly so, but the audio-visual quality of the subsequent entries in the series is nothing to be sniffed at either. The Omen Collection is not exactly The Godfather Collection of horror movie franchises in high definition, but in terms of image quality and the actual running time of the bonus content, it's comparable. All told, Fox have provided a far more generous package here than anyone had any reason to expect, and, whatever you might think of the films, at least they are to be commended for not doing this project on the cheap.

I conclude my trawl through the Omen series of films with a review of the Region A Blu-ray release of the dire 2006 remake, available both separately or in The Omen Collection. The review also concludes with some general thoughts on this four-disc box set.

Review at DVD Times.

That concludes this year's Halloween fun. Sorry I didn't get round do reviewing an extra film, but the time just wasn't there. Every year, I convince myself I'll start working on the reviews earlier, but I always end up leaving them to the last minute.

Halloween Blu-ray review: The Final Conflict

As the conclusion to a trilogy, The Final Conflict is not even remotely satisfying. However, as I've said before, I prefer to look on the original Omen as a standalone film and the subsequent instalments as curious but unnecessary aberrations. As such, there's not really a great deal to recommend here, barring the impressive performance by Sam Neill and the knowledge that, limp as it is, it is at least considerably better than the 2006 remake of The Omen and a slight - very slight - improvement on Damien: Omen II.

In which God's followers reveal themselves to be so hopelessly inept as would-be assassins that Jesus Christ himself has to come down from the heavens to defeat Damien Thorn.

Review at DVD Times.

Halloween Blu-ray review: Damien: Omen II

Damien: Omen II is not a very good film, and as such it's little wonder that the Blu-ray package assembled for it is a pale shadow of that of the original Omen. Still, it's a perfectly adequate disc and one that, once again, proves to constitute a substantial upgrade over its DVD counterpart. Whether or not that makes the film itself any better is, of course, open to debate...

As part of DVD Times' Halloween coverage, I've reviewed 20th Century Fox's recent Region A Blu-ray release of Damien: Omen II, considered by some the least awful of the various cash-ins on the original Omen.

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 5 and 6: Subterraneans

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Michael Offer

"We've all had days like that, haven't we? You make one small mistake, and because of that you make a bigger one. You leave your wallet by the bed. Then you go up to get it. You trip over the rug, you break your leg. Next thing you know, you're in hospital with a fatal infection. Just because you forgot your wallet." - Dr. Nick Henderson

After a slightly rocky start, Series 5 finally hits its stride with a solid if not entirely remarkable case which doesn't have to worry about introducing any new characters or airing the dirty laundry of those that are already established. The story here is that of Michael Sharman (Alexis Conran), a millionaire businessman who simply vanished a year ago. By chance, his body is found locked in the cellar of an old munitions factory, the evidence suggesting that he had been kept alive by his captor for several months, despite no ransom having ever been demanded. A chain of events leads the team to Sharman's former neighbour, Nick Henderson (Toby Stephens), a celebrated scientist leading a bizarre double life.

Fairly early on in the game, it becomes abundantly clear that Henderson is as guilty as they come, partly because of the evidence against him and partly because we, the audience, are granted intimate access to his daily activities, which include lying to his wife (Nicola Stephenson) about both his whereabouts and his employment status, holing up in a small shed on an allotment overlooking the site of Sharman's imprisonment, desperately dashing around searching for an alibi for the day of Sharman's disappearance, and, when the net closes in, going on the run with his wife after hoodwinking her with a sob story about him having discovered an outbreak of SARS in the UK which the government and the police are conspiring to hush up by doing him in. It all borders on farcical, and, particularly in the second part, the increasing absurdity of Henderson's claims does detract somewhat from what should have been a tense situation (there is a continual undercurrent which suggests that he may end up doing to his wife what he did to Sharman and at least one other victim), but it's all quite entertaining, and given that it's sandwiched between two considerably darker episodes, it makes for a welcome change of pace. Not that that flashbacks to Sharman slowly rotting away and going mad in his prison aren't brutal, however. In fact, the sheer banality of Henderson's reason for killing him makes the deeply calculated nature of his incarceration all the more shocking.

Ultimately, Subterraneans isn't a hugely noteworthy or memorable episode, but it works, and the slightly different nature of the case's progression (i.e. knowing the identity of the villain from a fairly early stage) succeeds in shaking up the formula a little.

Holby connections: Michael Offer has directed several episodes of Holby City over the years, while Kelly Harrison (Tina) played ambulance technician Nikki Marshall in Casualty between Series 16 and 18. Finally, Nicola Stephenson (Julia Henderson) played nurse Julie Fitzjohn in Holby City for its first three series.

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 3 and 4: Black Run

Written by Raymond Khoury; Directed by Ben Bolt

Back when Waking the Dead's fifth series was first beginning to air, in September 2005, Sue Johnston gave an interview with the Radio Times in which she said that the nice thing about the new series was that it focused exclusively on the characters of Boyd, Grace and Spence. At the time, I thought this was a rather unkind dig at her other co-stars, but, in retrospect, I see what she was getting at: while three of the two-parters in Series 5 are what I would term conventional Waking the Dead cases, with the team solving them in their capacity as detached (personally if not emotionally) professionals, each of the other three focuses on a past case of one of the three remaining members of the original team. Black Run is Boyd's turn to have his dirty laundry aired, and oddly enough it turns to be the weakest of the three.

The story: former police officer Eddy Vine (David Hayman), rotting in prison with terminal cancer, convicted of murdering his partner, Tom Palliser. Pending an appeal for his early release on grounds of ill health, Vine summons Boyd, the man who succeeded in securing his conviction a decade ago, to offer him forgiveness. Vine's manner, however, is enough to plant a shred of doubt in Boyd's mind, leading to him unofficially launching a re-examination of the evidence and witness testimony. Gradually, the rest of the team begin to suspect that Boyd may have coached some of the witnesses, causing them to question just for whom Boyd has re-opened the case. The worst is yet to come, however, when Boyd is suspended after putting a biker in a coma after seemingly being drunk at the wheel while in the company of Palliser's widow, Sheryl (Diane Parish)...

Actually, this is a rather interesting episode for one very specific reason: the part of Eddie Vine is played by David Hayman, best known as DCSI Mike Walker in rival series Trial & Retribution. Seeing him going head to head with Trevor Eve is like some sort of weird crossing over of two different worlds - think The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons, only less crappy. Their scenes together don't really have the sort of intensity I was expecting, in part because Hayman is putting on a less than convincing Cockney accent, with his regular Glasgow dialect occasionally slipping through the net, but it's also because there's something rather contrived about it all. The basic idea is that Boyd is set up for a massive fall by the vindictive Vine, with him pulling the strings from inside prison. Simply put, there aren't enough scenes between the two characters, and the identities of the individuals that he manages to manipulate into screwing Boyd over are a little on the far-fetched side. Trevor Eve certainly acquits himself with applomb, as always, but, because the show's producers would never allow him to commit a cock-up on as grand a scale as the one he is accused of here, the outcome is never in any doubt: Vine must be guilty, and Boyd must have been justified in coaching his witnesses to ensure that he went down. Vine is ultimately revealed to be a deeply unpleasant individual, corrupt to the core, but the programme ultimately ends up sending out the rather less than savoury message that it's okay for the police to bend the rules to ensure a conviction provided they're convinced their suspect is guilty. It's actually not entirely surprising that the script comes from Raymond Khoury, best known for his affiliation with Spooks, a programme which frequently revels in glorifying this "bending of the rules" by authorities who seem to be allowed to operate above the law. The series of events in which Boyd becomes embroiled also greatly demeans the character, turning into a screaming, slavering idiot who by rights should have had his status permanently revoked. This is arguably the character at his absolute worst, and comparing this episode with something from, say, Series 1, provides a clear indicator as to just how much he has (d)evolved since the show's beginning.

The other point of interest is that this storyline introduces Mel's permanent replacement, Stella Goodman (Félicité Du Jeu). Unfortunately, I've never been able to warm to this character, primarily because she seems so contrived. Without giving too much away, she is brought into Series 5 to serve a very specific purpose, but once that purpose has been served, the writers of Series 6 and beyond allow her to remain, but end up taking significant liberties with her characterisation once her original raison d'être is gone. Du Jeu tries hard, but she's always in the shadow of the rest of the cast, who are more experienced and have the benefit of better-developed characters. Stella's input in this episode is fairly minimal, so she is less irritating here than she would later become, but she still makes me wish they had just kept Georgia Mackenzie on instead.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Blu-ray impressions

Yesterday, my brother received his copy of the Blu-ray release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which provided our nocturnal viewing entertainment. This was my second time seeing the film and my brother's first, but I think our impressions were largely the same: it's entertaining, and its heart is in the right place, but you can't compare it to Raiders of the Lost Ark, probably my favourite action-adventure movie of all time. I'm not even sure you can put it in the same league as the first two sequels... although, that said, there is nothing as irritating in Crystal Skull as Kate fucking Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Instead, we get a somewhat underused Karen Allen, but you know what? Kudos to Steven Spielberg and co for bringing her back as a romantic interest for Harrison Ford rather than going down the more predictable route of pairing Shia LaBeouf up with a younger woman. It's pretty unusual to see a romantic pairing between characters close to the age of drawing their pension in a Hollywood blockbuster, and dare I say it a tad more convincing than the alternatives.

It's reassuring to see that Ford has still got what it takes to portray an albeit slightly slower, more gristled Indy, still able to hold his own in the action set-pieces. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Spielberg and Lucas, whose direction and script are the areas in which the film feels the most stale. There's a "going through the motions" feel to a lot of the material, and I suspect that, ultimately, neither of these men is the same person they were when they made the original trilogy. Meanwhile, the over-reliance on CGI, CGI-generated UFOs and, worst of all, CGI-generated comic relief animals, feels out of place in an Indiana Jones film. (Although I'll grant you that the UFOs portrayed in the film are no more absurd than the notion of a cup granting eternal life, as in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.) Still, I can't say it bored me for a second, and when the lights came up I certainly felt suitably entertained.

Transfer-wise, Paramount's BD is very nice indeed. I'm not sure I'd put it in the upper echelon of HD presentations, as it's not the most detailed image I've seen, and I'm pretty sure at least some grain reduction was done somewhere in the chain (it's odd that Spielberg apparently fought tooth and nail with Lucas to shoot this on film rather than digitally, because a lot of the time it's all but grainless), but there's nothing overly destructive to glimpse. Given the technological changes that have taken place in the last couple of decades (CGI and the use of digital intermediates, to name but two), it's unsurprising that Crystal Skull is, visually speaking, the odd one out in the series, but, regardless of Spielberg's cinematographic choices, the film looks great on Blu-ray and is another sterling effort from Paramount.

Oddly enough, though, I can't really say the same about the audio. We both felt that there was something lacking, and I think Dan Ramer's review at DVD File sums it up best:

The lossless TrueHD 5.1 is quite nice, but surprisingly unimpressive. All the right elements are there. [...] And yet, I came away with the distinct impression that the dynamic range is a tad lacking. I had to pump up the gain by 6 dB to attain dialog loudness parity with other BDs. And even with the gain turned up that high, the sound effects didn't have that visceral bite that satisfies. This is a wholly adequate track, but I expected a demo-quality experience.

 
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
(Paramount, USA, AVC, 34.1 GB)

Waking the Dead: Series 5, Episodes 1 and 2: Towers of Silence

Written by Joe Cozens; Directed by Philippa Langdale

One of the nicest things about any show with a small, established cast is the depth of characterisation that it affords. Waking the Dead, as I've said before, has never really been about the personal lives of its regulars, but, by spending so long with each of them, you really get a sense of what makes them tick and develop a close attachment to them. The downside, naturally, is that, when one of these characters leaves, the show's entire world is turned upside down. At the end of its fourth series, Waking the Dead lost not one but two of its five regulars, all of whom had been there since the pilot episode. The result is that, like it or not, the show can never be the same again.

In actual fact, Mel and Frankie weren't the only ones to leave. The other departure, behind the camera rather than in front of it, was that of executive producer Alexei de Keyser, who died of a heart attack mere days before the broadcast of Series 4's final episode. He was a producer on Casualty during its 13th series, and was promoted to series producer (in charge of the overall flow of the storylines and characters) for Series 14. When Barbara Machin left to do Waking the Dead, she took de Keyser with her, and I suspect that he, more than perhaps anyone else, was instrumental in establishing and maintaining the show's tone. On the upside, producer Richard Burrell opted to stick around for a third (and final) year, and, although the rest of the writing staff was new, Ed Whitmore remained in place as head writer, again for one more series.

Of the two new characters brought in to replace those that left at the end of the previous series, only one is introduced in this episode. Unfortunately, brilliant name aside, Dr. Felix Gibson (Esther Hall) has "placeholder" written all over her. Although a valiant effort is made to establish her as having her own personality in this episode, throughout the rest of the series she gives the impression of speaking lines that were intended for her predecessor, Frankie Wharton. I'm not sure precisely when it was realised that Holly Aird definitely wouldn't be coming back, but Felix's characterisation leads me to believe that at least some of the scripts were written for Frankie and then hastily retooled for Felix. At least in this first episode, the writer differentiates her from Frankie, primarily by playing up to Boyd's distinct discomfort around her, unnerved by her demand that he roll up his sleeves and help out in the lab (in contrast to Frankie's "one woman army" ethic) and attempting to compensate for her rather cold personality by making incessant small talk. (In later episodes, Felix would drop the "cold fish" persona completely and become much more talkative, not to mention discover the same sense of black humour that made Frankie such an enduring character.) I never liked Felix quite as much as Frankie, but she definitely grew on me, partly thanks to Esther Hall, whom I've always liked as an actress (even in those cloying BT commercials that she is probably best known for, in which she plays Kris Marshall's wife), and I was ultimately very disappointed that she only lasted for a single series, and was replaced by the interminably dull Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), whom I'll discuss further when I get on to Series 6.

One final note on the casting before I get on to the episode itself: filling in for Mel for this two-parter only is DS Andrea "Andy" Stephenson (Georgia Mackenzie - no relation to me, I hasten to add), which I always found rather curious. Why go to the bother of introducing a new character and integrating her with the team, only to replace her with something completely different for the next case? I suspect that, ultimately, it had a lot to do with a desire on the part of the writers' to bring in someone with a strong resemblance to Mel, in order to accentuate Boyd's angst, but at the same time not wanting to simply replace Mel with Mel 2.0, so only keeping her around 'til she'd served her purpose. It's a shame, because, from what little we saw of her, I liked Andy a lot more than Mel's permanent replacement, whom I'll discuss in my review of the next episode.

Anyway, finally getting on to the episode's plot, the case the team are investigating this time round involves the discovery of a mummified body aboard a decommissioned cargo plane bound for an "aeroplane graveyard" in Arizona. Found sans hands, the body bears striking similarities to that of Nadir Mehta (Neran Persaud), an airport bag handler found by Andy at the top of a water tower in Kent six years ago when she was a PC. His brother, Sarosh (Emil Marwa), is currently in prison for his murder, but, suspecting that Sarosh is in fact taking the blame for someone else, Boyd mounts an undercover operation inside the walls of the prison. Their investigations reveal a trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals, a shady firm of private investigators, and an Indian police inspector who may not be who he says he is... and that's only half of it.

It took me a few viewings to warm to this two-parter, and I'm still not sure I'm totally sold on it, particularly given the unsatisfying ending, and I hate the parachuting of David Walliams (one of the most irritating British "comedians" this side of Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais) into the (mercifully brief) role of a high-ranking police official. However, looking back on it, there's a lot to like. Admittedly, a lot of it is stylistic stuff rather than actual narrative material, but I can be engaged by good direction even if the script isn't stellar. I particularly like the opening, which intercuts the discovery of the cargo plane body with shots of the deserted Cold Case Headquarters, the silence broken by brief snippets of dialogue between the original cast of five. I like our introduction to Boyd and Grace, visiting a shop so Boyd can buy a model aeroplane (the significance of this currently unclear). I like the ballsy decision to open the new series with only Boyd and Grace present at CCHQ, Spence having been frogmarched into prison for (at the time) unrevealed reasons. I like the moment where Boyd and Grace re-enact an event from the case using his new model plane and various other toys as props, with the scene going from light-hearted comedy to something more serious as Andy's unexpected arrival causes Boyd's semi-repressed memories of Mel's death to simmer up again. I like the scene in which Mehta's widow, Roshni (wonderfully played by Nina Wadia), realises that the counterfeit medication her husband procured for her actually led to the death of their young child - an extremely emotional scene, heightened by a beautiful piece of piano music that has been used a few times in the show, though never as effectively as here. I like the use of Zoroastrianism, which makes a nice change given how reliant television tends to be on the three "main" monotheistic religions when it wants to inject a dose of the supernatural. Oh, and I love Boyd's nickname for the mummified body: Crispy Duck. He may be going to pieces over Mel's death, but the man has not lost his dark sense of humour.

This was a long review, but that is, to an extent, unavoidable given the turning point that this episode marks in the show's fortunes. Subsequent episode reviews shall, I expect, be considerably briefer.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 11 and 12: Shadowplay

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Andy Hay

The final episode of the fourth series, this two-parter marks what is very much the end of an era for Waking the Dead. Given that the events of this episode resonate throughout the subsequent series, I'm afraid avoiding spoilers is simply not going to be an option, so I'm going to be blunt: this is the episode in which Mel dies. Actually, it's also the episode in which we see the last of Frankie, but people tend to forget about that because she doesn't end up being thrown off a top storey balcony and pulped on the bonnet of Boyd's car. In fact, Frankie doesn't actually have an exit storyline at all: in real life, Holly Aird failed to give the production team sufficient notice about her desire to leave the show, and as a result there wasn't enough time to write an on-screen exit for the character. Either way, though, this is the final time we see the entire original team together, and as a result I always find this storyline to be rather bittersweet.

For what it's worth, it's a very strong episode to cap off a very strong season. The case this time is that of a young woman with psychiatric problems who killed her family in an arson attack. Her claims that she was told to do this by a man calling himself "the Shepherd" arise interest in the team when they unearth two further examples of young women committing murder for the same reasons. Barring the similarities in the cases, there is a further connection: all three were patients of Dr. David Carney (Paul Kaye).

As suggested by the title, theme this time round is the Jungian concept of the shadow aspect: the notion that each of us has a repressed "other half" consisting of our fears and weaknesses, which we project on to others. The theme is given flesh in the form of David Carney and his brother Matt (James Larkin), whose highly competitive relationship is at the heart of the episode's mystery. It's threaded throughout both episodes not just in terms of the brothers' relationship but also in the parallels between the various women that have been manipulated. The use of Jungian psychoanalysis is interesting and actually somewhat refreshing, given that media portrayals of psychoanalysis - Waking the Dead included - have a tendency to rely on the Freudian school of thought, boiling everything down to notions of penis envy and the so-called "primal scene". I don't claim to be anything of an expert, but from what little I know of psychoanalysis, I've always found the Jungian approach to be the more interesting of the two (although not necessarily any more convincing).

Anyway, psychobabble aside, what we end up with is a solid conclusion to what is, in my opinion, Waking the Dead's strongest season. Given that it also effectively brings the first "age" of the show to a close, it can also be taken as a solid conclusion to that too. It's cleverly written, artfully directed and emotionally affecting, and you can't ask for much more than that. From here on in, it's into considerably murky waters for the show as it is forced to get back on its feet sans two-fifths of its original cast.

PS. My apologies for not having posted more of these reviews. I've actually now watched to the end of Series 5, but other commitments have prevented me from actually doing write-ups for them yet.

Blu-ray review: The Omen

It's hard to imagine a substantially better package for the high definition debut of one of the horror genre's all-time greatest titles. So often, catalogue titles are mistreated or given short shrift, but the superb audio-visual presentation and all-encompassing package of extras, one of the best ever assembled for a film of this type, cause me to give this my highest recommendation. Simply put, The Omen on Blu-ray is a must-have.

No, not the ghastly remake of the same name. The original 1976 version of The Omen has finally made it to Blu-ray, and I've put it through its paces.

Blu-ray review: Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2

Provided the lack of extras and the presence of the tamer R-rated cut of Volume 1 don't deter you, both volumes of Kill Bill have been well-served on Blu-ray. In an ideal world, the Weinstein Company would have released the combined cut of both films, entitled "The Whole Bloody Affair" (which also includes the House of Blue Leaves fight scene in colour and the violence deleted from the R-rated version), in high definition by now. Given that they have yet to even release it on DVD, however, it looks like this is going to be the best we'll get for some time, and really, we could do a hell of a lot worse.

Now that Quentin Tarantino's B-movie epic has finally surfaced in high definition, I've done double duty and reviewed the Blu-ray releases of both volumes of Kill Bill at once.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 9 and 10: The Hardest Word

Written by Doug Milburn; Directed by Philippa Langdale

The naked body of a man is discovered tied face down to a bed with the word "sorry" carved into his back, following a sex act. This looks like a case for the Murder Investigation Team, but Boyd, who has been investigating a murder with the exact same characteristics, succeeds in getting himself and his team involved in the inquiry, and they soon find themselves forced to work with the crude and abrasive Detective Superintendent Andy Bulmer (Phil Daniels) and his heavy-handed mob. Boyd, however, can't seem to keep his eyes off psychological profiler Dr. Greta Simpson (Emma Fielding), drafted in to help with the inquiry. At Grace and Greta's urging, the team begins to consider that the killer is more than likely someone who was abused him/herself at some point in the past and is now gaining sexual gratification by acting out his/her murderous fantasies.

As I rewatch these episodes, I'm coming to the conclusion that something I'd previously forgotten about Series 4 is how witty it is. Waking the Dead has always had a streak of dark humour about it, but it really comes to the fore in this series. In retrospect, I have a feeling that this may have been intended to make the tragedy that occurs in the final episode all the more horrifying. Anyway, much of the humour here comes from Boyd's obvious infatuation with Greta, and Grace's simmering jealousy. Many long-running series seem to end up featuring undercurrents of Platonic affection between certain characters, and Boyd and Grace are the obvious candidates in Waking the Dead. It's considerably more pronounced here than in the later series, but the two characters often resemble an old married couple with their continual spats and reconciliation, and the combination of mutual respect for and irritation with each other.

When I wrote my original review of Series 4 for DVD Times, I described this two-parter as "the only case in the entire collection that comes even close to striking a bum note", criticising its ending for being abrupt and not particularly satisfying. I was originally similarly critical of Series 2's Thin Air but now consider it one of the best episodes of the entire series, and something similar appears to have happened with The Hardest Word. The conclusion is still far from satisfying, and the actual specifics of the killer's relationship with his/her victims is a little hard to swallow once revealed, but in a sense I don't think the ending was ever intended to by the sort that wraps everything up neatly. Throughout the episode, after all, the old "nature versus nurture" argument is continually brought up, coming down firmly on the "nurture" side. We are continually shown that abuse is a vicious cycles, with victims often becoming abusers themselves. As such, there's no real end to it, and I get the impression that the somewhat ambiguous ending, which still leaves us unclear as to just how complicit one character was in the murders, is meant to reflect that.

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

Interestingly, barring the pilot, the second episode of this two-parter is the only episode not to conclude with the familiar Waking the Dead theme tune over the credits. Odd, that.

Beware of neo-Nazi teenagers and speeding paramedics

It really doesn't seem that long ago that I delivered a fairly damning prognosis of Casualty's 22nd series, and yet here we are once again, with Series 23 kicking off with a two-parter spread over the previous two nights (Saturday and Sunday). As ever, I made a point of not getting my hopes up too high, but, as with last year's season premiere, I found myself enjoying the two episodes much more than I'd expected, and am now having to make a concerted effort to temper my anticipation for the rest of the series in case I end up being let down again.

The premise this time was a rather imaginative one, charting the events unfolding around a camera crew shooting a documentary about the hospital and its staff. Ably written by Mark Catley, who handled most of the best episodes in the previous series, and skilfully directed by Keith Boak (despite his over-reliance on the dreaded shakycam), the framing device of the crew interviewing the various regulars was put to great effect, frequently cutting away from the main action to provide an insight into their thoughts on the trials, tribulations and internal politics of the job. The main plot, meanwhile, followed the documentary team as they accompanied one of the ambulance crews out to the troubled Farmead estate, where they ended up trapped in a burning building after Sammy, a delightful teenage girl (choice dialogue: "Your breath stinks... is it coffee or are you sure you've not just been drinking shit?") with neo-Nazi sympathies and a perpetual scowl on her face, set off some fireworks. Their last-minute escape from the inferno, however, was very much a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire", as the ambulance in which the camera crew were riding then ploughed into the aforementioned brat, the effect achieved using a dummy so obvious that it gave the killer's death in Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling a run for its money:

Dodgy effect aside, it worked, and it also provided a segue into the second episode, where the local community, incensed that the emergency services had put one of their own into Intensive Care, began a full scale riot. Personally, I did have some trouble believing that seemingly the entire estate would erupt into anarchy simply because one girl, who we were initially shown to be an outcast who was hated by her peers and neglected by her family, was injured. I didn't really buy it and thought it was a tad contrived. Still, what I appreciated about it was the way it conveyed the meaninglessness of the violence, how everyone was getting worked up about something that had happened to someone most of them probably didn't even know. This was done, to some extent, in the Series 13 episode Trapped, which showed what happens when the police fail to enforce order and mob rule takes over. I also felt that the rioting scenes were somewhat reminiscent of Series 7's Boiling Point in their depiction of complete and utter carnage with the emergency services trying to help people and finding themselves caught in the crossfire.

I still ultimately think that Boiling Point is the better episode (hey, it's my third favourite of all time), but the cast and crew really managed to pull off a similar atmosphere effectively here, and I'm impressed that they were able to make it seem this intense and gripping. There is a point in the second part when a group of the show's regulars venture into the midst of the carnage to look for one of their colleagues, Clinical Nurse Manager Tess (Suzanne Packer), who lies skewered like kebab on a stretch of waste ground (the result of a somewhat contrived series of events), and are set upon by an angry mob headed by Sammy's brother. Normally, Casualty tends to be rather predictable, but on this occasion the encounter between the staff and the thugs was so tense that I actually found myself feeling concerned for their safety. (The last time I genuinely felt that connected to the characters was in the excellent two-parter written by Barbara Machin for Christmas 2006, when Josh (Ian Bleasdale) was stabbed and I actually didn't know whether he'd live or die.)

Something else I really appreciated about these two episodes was the feeling of teem spirit that seemed to permeate throughout them. Although the raging fire in the block of flats in Part 1 and the rioting scenes in Part 2 provided a lot of adrenaline-packed action, my favourite moments were the interactions between the regulars. A major problem I've had with Casualty of late is how fragmented it has become. Whereas, in the old days, the team felt like an extended family who all got along despite their differences, in recent years I've felt that everyone was splitting off into their little groups and not really interacting with each other. Add to that the endless bickering, oneupmanship games and "who's having sex with who" storylines, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were watching an endless playground squabble. Here, just about everyone seemed to actually pull together and function as a single professional unit. I've never really liked Tess as a character so I can't say I really cared whether she lived or died (I find her a flat, uninteresting cipher whose only purpose is to bark orders), but, when she was wheeled into Accident & Emergency, I really did feel the team's concern for her. Unfortunately, I still got the feeling that certain characters were being forced out on to the periphery and weren't really interacting with the others, a problem that also affected the previous series, but it's early days yet, and given how much action was crammed into the space of two hours, I'm not surprised some characters were, to a degree, left by the wayside.

Overall, Series 23 has got off to a strong start with a really good pair of episodes, and once again I find myself crossing my fingers (without a great deal of hope, it must be said) that they aren't just a flash in the pan. Last year's My First Day and Charlie's Anniversary are still the better pair of episodes overall, but this year's two-parter was a lot better than I was expecting and I'm once again finding myself looking forward to next week's episode. It does seem to prove that Series 22's opening episodes weren't just a flash in the pan and that the current cast and crew can continue to deliver the goods if all the stars are properly aligned.

The spirits without

I picked up a couple of Blu-ray discs yesterday in a sale at Zammo that I probably wouldn't otherwise have bought were it not for the fact that they were on sale in a "2 for £20" deal. (Anyway, I was in a buoyant mood because I'd just received a large sum of money that had been incorrectly taken off me in taxes over the past twelve months of so, and felt like treating myself.)

One was Tekkonkinkreet, which caught my eye a while ago because it's one of those rare anime productions that I actually think has a semi-interesting visual style. The other, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, is a film that I'm not a massive fan of - in fact, the only reason I tolerate its soulless, stilted, so-called "realistic" visual style is the knowledge that the various imitators it spawned (e.g. Robert Zemeckis' butt-ugly The Polar Express and Beowulf) are a whole lot worse. Still, I kept hearing about how good the BD transfer supposedly was, so eventually I got fed up waiting for it to become available for rental and decided to plonk down the cash for it.

Anyway, I took a look at it tonight, and yes, it's a very good transfer. Not perfect, but still really impressive. My purchase of the standard definition DVD release, back in 2001, actually marked something of a special event for me because it was the point at which I started becoming aware just how many DVD reviewers were full of the proverbial. Put simply, the glowing 10/10, A++ and 100% ratings for image quality didn't match my own impression of it being overly filtered and riddled with compression artefacts. But I digress. The Blu-ray release is about as far as you can get from the DVD as you can get, although a small amount of filtering has been applied and is present throughout: check the light ringing around the text in the final capture below. It's fairly minor, but it means that the disc does just fall shy of perfection. I wonder why they thought it was necessary to do this.

Oh, and, as a side note, I do like that, despite the film never having touched celluloid, someone was thoughtful enough to actually try to make it look like film by adding a sheen of grain to it. The illusion is actually quite effective and goes some way towards making the motion captured CGI visuals look slightly less clunky and fake than they otherwise would have.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
(Sony Pictures, UK, AVC, 25.2 GB)

Top-rate film gets third-rate treatment

Much to my surprise, I discovered yesterday that one of my favourite films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie, had, without my knowledge, received a Blu-ray release, courtesy of Canadian label TVA Films.

I was all set to pick up a copy... until, that is, I read the review at Blu-ray.com. Not only does it not feature English subtitles (not unreasonable, given that it is a French film and TVA Films services the predominantly French-speaking Québec community), it also features a 1080i transfer, with a very mushy, low detail appearance, which can be seen from the screen captures posted along with the review. (You need to register with Blu-ray.com to see them at their full 1920x1080 resolution.)

So, while I would love to own this film in high definition, and while I don't doubt that it constitutes a noticeable upgrade over the standard definition DVD releases, I'm going to exercise considerable restraint and bide my time until another studio comes along and does it justice.

The depths of insanity

I got home from work yesterday to discover a veritable storm brewing over at the AV Science Forum. The topic was The Descent, one of my favourite horror films of the last few years and also one of my favourite Blu-ray releases. The controversy surrounded what can only be described as the most baffling anomaly I have seen regarding the format so far: apparently, there are two separate encodes being sold, one AVC and the other MPEG-2.

Yes, I wasn't prepared to believe it either at first. Why on earth would Lions Gate go to the trouble of pressing two completely different discs of the same film? We're still no closer to finding the answer to this perplexing conundrum, but what we do know is that, thanks to the in-depth investigations of AVS poster msgohan, there is absolutely no doubt that two different versions are doing the rounds. Does this ultimately make any difference to the end user? Well, take a look at the captures below and judge for yourself. They show the same frame on each of the two different discs.

Now you can understand why people who were sold the MPEG-2 version are rightly aggrieved and demanding to know what on earth is going on. I own the AVC version and I too am not a happy bunny. After all, last Halloween I reviewed the AVC version and gave it a 10/10 for image quality, a rating I still stand by. However, the fact that there is no actual discernible way of knowing which version of the disc you are picking up when you purchase it complicates the review somewhat. My 10/10 rating, after all, most assuredly does not stand for the MPEG-2 encode, which not only features more noticeable compression artefacts, but has also been pre-filtered to remove grain and fine detail. Now I'm in the unfortunate position of having written a review that may or may not actually be valid on a case by case basis.

As msgohan quite rightly puts it:

Not at all what I expected. So much for a nice, fair codec comparison. The Descent has been Warner'd! What numbnuts at Lionsgate thought this was a good idea?

You can see a whole series of captures, saved as lossless .png images, comparing the same frames from both versions, here.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 7 and 8: Anger Management

Written by John Milne & Andy Hay; Directed by Andy Hay

"Not now, Grace. I'm having a post-crisis depression." - Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd

A curious episode, this one, and one which, particularly in its first half, adopts a rather unconventional structure, telling the story in a non-linear fashion and shifting back and forth between different time periods (in fact, the first thing we see is the last thing to happen chronologically). I wonder if this explains the crediting of the director, Andy Hay, as co-writer - the only time this has happened for a Waking the Dead script. I try to imagine the episode playing out in a linear fashion and do have my suspicions that this how it originally started out, with the material being re-ordered to spice it up.

Either way, the result is probably the best episode of the season, primarily because of the humour that ensues from Boyd finally going to see a therapist about his temper - something I'm sure we all agree has been a long time in coming. The therapist, played with acerbic glee by Kerry Fox, forces him to face up to his unpleasant behaviour:

Varley: "When you pace about, how do you react?"
Boyd: "I pace about, I raise my voice, you know..."
Varley: "Stamp your foot and say 'I want it now'?"
Boyd: "Yeah."
Varley: "That's what toddlers do."

Much of the humour comes from the fact that Boyd's behaviour, as a result of bottling up his anger, becomes increasingly more absurd, making his team feel even more uncomfortable around him as a result. And, naturally, by the next episode, everything's back to normal, but still, this slightly more even-tempered Boyd, while brief, makes for a nice change of pace.

The main case, meanwhile, focuses on the death of a man in a hostel, found with a bullet in his skull. The police assume it to be a suicide, but Frankie is convinced that the investigation has been botched and organises for the Cold Case Squad to take a look. Suspicion soon falls upon Sam Jacobs (Nigel Terry), a man who has just completed a stretch in prison for viciously assaulting a man who raped his wife. Sam claims to have put his violent past behind him, but, through a series of flashbacks and encounters with people from his past life, we soon come to learn that his acts of violence extend far beyond merely beating up a rapist.

Nigel Terry, the individual playing Sam Jacobs, is a gifted actor who shows up quite often in British TV series (you name it, he's probably been in it) and, in my opinion, doesn't get the credit he deserves. He was excellent in the opening two episodes of the previous series of Casualty as an animal rights activist whose home-made bomb unintentionally detonated in a crowded street, and, in Anger Management, he gives what I feel is his best performance that I've seen. Sam is a complex character, and, while there's never any doubt that he has secrets to hide, the precise nature of these secrets remains unclear until the end, and he is portrayed in such a manner that, even when we learn the full extent of his dark past, it's hard to lose sympathy with him. The dual nature of his life is nicely realised in many ways, among them a curious scene in which he and his family, despite being Buddhists, are shown to still bring in the Sabbath (their background is Jewish). Props also to the director for the rather inventive flamenco dance sequence which is intercut with a character preparing to break into CCHQ to retrieve some vital evidence.

DVD review: Spooks: Code 9

In a word, Spooks: Code 9 is shit. Not just run of the mill, take-one-look-and-change-the-channel shit, but oh-my-God-am-I-really-seeing-this shit. No doubt the brainchild of some jaded executive who saw the perfect opportunity to craft some exciting yoof TV and get down wif da kidz, the result is a bit like being locked in a room with Eugene Levy's character from the American Pie films. In other words, cringe-inducingly embarrassing, very probably for both parties.

As the BBC continues its tradition of running successful brands into the ground with needless spin-offs, I review Contender Home Entertainment's release of Spooks: Code 9, a youth-oriented spin-off of the successful spy series.

Waking the Dead: Series 4, Episodes 5 and 6: Fugue States

Written by Ed Whitmore; Directed by Ben Bolt

I have one significant complaint about this episode, and that's the suspension of disbelief required in order to accept the massive coincidence involving one character and the revelations regarding his/her relationship with another. Otherwise, this is cracking story, one of the very best of the series, which sees the team investigating the disappearance of a twin brother and sister during the Notting Hill carnival of 1990. The case is reopened when a DNA check on a young homeless man injured when he steps in front of a car reveals him to be the boy, Jason (Joe Armstrong), but a bout of insomnia (real or faked?) prevents him from revealing where he has been for nearly 15 years... or the whereabouts his sister, Cindy. In digging into the circumstances surrounding Jason's disappearance, the team uncovers a history of child abuse and dodgy dealings involving crooked goings-on with social services and an abduction conspiracy.

Any episode involving a missing child runs the risk of becoming repetitive given Boyd's own experiences in this area, and yes, it's true that he clearly sees Jason as something of a surrogate for his own missing son, becoming uncharacteristically protective of him (even turning down an opportunity to uncover further evidence as to where he has been because he is afraid it will traumatise him). However, the main personal thrust of this episode, unusually, falls on Mel's shoulders, following the revelation that she was in fact born Mary Price and, at a young age, was forcibly removed from her mother (deemed mentally unfit to care for her) and placed with foster parents. (This in turn results in a noticeable continuity gaffe in the sixth series when the issue of Mel's ancestry is raised, but I'll cover that at a later date.)

I've said this previously, but I'll repeat it here: I think Claire Goose is seriously underappreciated as an actor. Far from simply being a pretty face, she gives the characters she plays a degree of authenticity beyond what is on the page. When she was in Casualty, she gave what is in my opinion the best performance any actor has ever delivered in that show, in the episode Love Me Tender, and she does much the same here, imbuing the character enough depth that, when she flies off the handle and acts impulsively, you don't simply think she's being self-centred and projecting her own personal situation on to the ongoing investigation. Here, she commits a horrific act that is purely the result of her heightened emotional state, resulting in her jumping to the wrong conclusion as to a suspect's intentions, but she somehow retains our sympathy throughout.

Elsewhere, we get the usual witty banter between the team. I previously said Ed Whitmore's scripts tended to be drier than, say, Stephen Davis', but I should probably now take that back, as there are some absolute corkers in this episodes' dialogue, some of them rather clever. It's also, for once, reasonably coherent throughout, although I did find myself having to pause a couple of times to work out exactly what was going on in my head. Massive coincidence aside, it's all pretty logical too. A solid entry and the point at which this season, after a slightly rocky start with In Sight of the Lord, finds its feet before going to enjoy a continuous run of high quality episodes until its end.

Another day in bland collect-'em-up world

With the release of Diablo III still a long way off, many gamers are doing their best to find the Next Big Thing in the action RPG world to keep them entertained in the interim. A lot of people thought that might be Hellgate: London, designed by the creators of the first two Diablo games, but that turned out to be a disappointment for many. Others have looked to Titan Quest (which I can't say impressed me a great deal), which offered similar gameplay mechanics, this time in a world inspired by Greek Mythology.

Recently, a little game called Space Siege, developed by Gas Powered Games, came out for the PC. This is a game that sounds like great fun on paper: a slick, down-and-dirty ARPG pitting a solitary hero against hordes of aliens - a sort of heavily streamlined Diablo set in space. Its creative director - Gas Powered Games' CEO, Chris Taylor - also has an interesting pedigree, having masterminded a number of successful games, including Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege and, most recently, Supreme Commander. Barring the latter, which I haven't played, his games have never done a great deal for me, with Total Annihilation's revolutionary use of terrain elevation and real-time 3D models (a rarity at the time in real-time strategy games) seeming to distract people from the overall blandness and homogeneity of the games design, and Dungeon Siege playing like a third-rate, dumbed-down version of Diablo with a few interesting tweaks in the form of party support and a dynamic character development system which automatically adjusted to the player's style of gameplay instead of going down the usual rigid class-based route. Still, despite not being particularly impressed by any of these games, I was more than willing to give Space Siege a go. After all, Diablo in space? Sounds like fun.

Then the reviews started coming in, basically summing up the game as bland, easy, dumbed-down beyond belief and completely, utterly generic. Undeterred, I downloaded the demo and had a go myself. Fifteen minutes later, having completed it, I promptly uninstalled it from my hard drive.

It's interesting, because one of the main criticisms levelled against Hellgate: London was that its developers were guilty of overreaching, setting their goals too high and over-hyping what was otherwise a pretty unremarkable game (which has always slightly confused me - were people expecting them to trumpet their game as "a middling game that doesn't aim too high" or something similar?). Space Siege's problem is the exact opposite: it's essentially a freeware casual game with lavish production values and an A-list price tag. Everything about it has been pared back to the barest minimum, resulting in a game that can't be accused of aiming too high because it doesn't seem to aim at all. There are no character classes, just a single generic hero with the mega-bland name of Seth Walker who gets access to a range of around ten guns over the course of the game. There are no stats or experience: instead, you level up at pre-determined moments and occasionally find a new weapon to replace your current one (you can't keep both). Effectively, the experience, loot and currency have all been homogenised into a single system of mechanical parts which are periodically dropped by fallen enemies, and in turn can be used at various stations to buy health, grenades etc. or upgrade your weapons and armour. It's all very flat and unimaginative, and the lack of a meaningful stats systems means that it's unclear what an upgrade of "+4 to armour" actually means in practice. It doesn't help that all of this is visualised in the form of graphics that are technically proficient but completely and utterly unimaginative, making Hellgate: London's oft-criticised monotonous environments look positively varied. In a sense, I suppose it looks the same as it plays, which is to some degree appropriate.

The one relatively original idea in the entire game is its system of cybernetics upgrades, in which Seth can choose to replace various body parts (e.g. eyes, arms, legs) with various robotic equivalents, which improve his abilities but in turn reduce his "humanity" rating. I'm told that the absolute ultimate is a cybernetic brain, but that in practice even this barely changes the gameplay one iota, beyond slightly altering other characters' reactions to him and resulting in a slightly different ending. As the inimitable Jeff Green (one of my favourite gaming journalists) said in his review at 1UP:

I went full robot, taking the ultimate final step: a cybernetic brain, which -- all told -- reduced my humanity to 5 percent. Fully expecting a dramatic or even traumatic change in my character (would I still be speaking the same heroic-yet-wooden dialogue?), I discovered that the game barely acknowledges it. In the final cut-scene, I saved the world...and apparently lived happily ever after as a robot.

If a bland, derivative, completely unimaginative and over-simplified point and click action game pitting a witless hero against hordes of witless space mutants sounds to you like a good use of your $50 and a fine way of passing the time before Diablo III's release, knock yourselves out. Myself, I think I'll just play Diablo II some more.