Reviews

Zimmer 13

Note: thanks to Keith for setting me up with a copy of this film.

West Germany/Denmark/France: Harald Reinl, 1964

Zimmer 13 (Room 13) is my first encounter with the krimi movement, a series of thrillers produced in Germany during the late 1950s to early 1970s based on the writings of British novelist Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. These films are often compared to the Italian giallo movement, and indeed many gialli were marketed in Germany is krimis - for example The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, What Have You Done to Solange? and Seven Bloodstained Orchids. Compared with their Italian counterparts, these films tend to emphasise professional detectives and organised crime rather than amateur sleuths up against lone madmen, while the (70s) Italian modernism favoured by giallo directors tends to be eschewed in favour of an image of what appears to be a pre-World War 2 England.

I'm feeling in the dark here, so bear with me. The plot focuses on a private detective, Johnny Gray (Joachim Fuchsberger, who also appeared in Solange, further emphasising the krimi connection), asigned to protect Denise (Karin Dor), the daughter of Sir Marney (Walter Rilla), who finds himself owing a favour to the wrong crowd and fears for her safety. There's also a razor-wielding maniac on the loose, and a maverick ganster named Joe Legge (Richard Häussler), planning a grand heist with his lackeys in the ominous Room 13.

The strongest element of the film, and its most giallo-like part, is the mystery surrounding the identity of the razor killer. I didn't guess the outcome, and it came as significantly surprising, although I tend not to think too analytically about a killer's identity the first time I watch a film. The heist itself, as it happens, is not particularly interesting or remarkable - the whole thing is made out to be intricately planned, right down to the second, but in reality it's just a run of the mill train robbery. The ominous-sounding Room 13 also turns out to be anything but - it's just a room in a club where the gansters meet (given that the film is named after it, I was expecting a little more).

Still, the film is nicely-paced, and the monochromatic Scope photography, by Ernst W. Kalinke, is rich and evocative (I always considered a shame that so few gialli were shot in black and white, with Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much being pretty much the only one I can recall right now). Elsewhere, Fuchsberger makes a reasonably effective lead, even if he's not particularly convincing as a "brilliant" detective - a failing of the script rather than his performance. Karin Dor is also a sympathetic heroine/damsel in distress, cut from the Nora Davis (to again reference The Girl Who Knew Too Much) mould - vulnerable, but not completely gutless. Some attempts at comic relief, most involving bumbling police scientist Dr. Higgins (Eddi Arent), don't work particularly well, given that they tend to crop up at the most inappropriate moments - usually immediately following a death.

As my first krimi, I don't really know how this compares to the rest of the line-up. Chances are I've either slated what is considered a masterpiece or bigged-up a clunker. Who knows. I also have Dead Eyes of London to watch, so maybe I'll have a better idea of what these films are generally like soon. In the meantime, this gets a 7/10.

The Year in Review

2006 - the year of HD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Legend

With the release of Tomb Raider back in 1996, Core Design struck gold and gave the gaming industry its first true action heroine, Lara Croft - even if her gender and ample bosom arguably contributed far more to its success than any actual merit of the gameplay itself. Following the remarkable success of the first game, Core followed up with a sequel every year, with the law of diminishing returns ensuring that each subsequent instalment was inferior to its predecessors, until, following a three-year break after the half-hearted Tomb Raider: Chronicles, the Derby-based studio released the disastrous Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, a supposed drastic reimagining that, in reality, shambled on to the scene as an unfinished, buggy mess. The Angel of Darkness was so bad that publisher Eidos Interactive yanked development duties away from Core (an embarrassing situation, beyond any doubt) and handed them over to Crystal Dynamics, the US-based developer of the Legacy of Kain franchise. Tomb Raider: Legend, their first effort featuring the buxom adventurer, was eventually released in Spring 2006, three years after Core's final offering. The result: the best Tomb Raider game in years and arguably the first truly great instalment in the franchise.

Crystal Dynamics have wisely struck a balance between reinventing the game from the ground up and leaving enough of the original format to make it instantly familiar to those that have played its predecessors. One of the biggest criticisms of the various sequels was that they made the "Tomb" in Tomb Raider something of a joke, with Lara travelling to seemingly every location except actual tombs. Crystal Dynamics have rectified this, and, while there are certainly some diverse locations on display, including a trip to the skyscrapers of Tokyo at night, the bulk of the game takes place in various underground caverns and mausoleums. Including the fairly brief final boss fight, there are a total of eight different locations, most of them fairly sprawling although never daunting in their scale, with an estimated total of 10-15 hours of gameplay (according to the timer, I finished it in 9 hours and 36 minutes).

It's all over rather quickly, therefore, and I certainly found myself wishing it had gone on for a little longer, although various hidden goodies, which can be picked up to unlock bonus costumes and weapon upgrades, as well as a time trial option, do encourage you to replay the game. At the same time, Legend seems far less impenetrable than, say, Tomb Raider III, which eventually turned into giant sprawling level after giant sprawling level of tedium. It also helps that Legend's gameplay feels far more concentrated than many of its predecessors, with a focus on puzzles that can be completed using items already at your disposal rather than having to trek across huge levels to find an obscure button that will open a random door. Indeed, very few puzzles even require you to leave the room in which they are located, meaning that accomplishing your immediate objective is always within your grasp, thereby encouraging you to keep playing rather than simply giving up. The puzzles are also very logical, and indeed many even seem a little too straightforward, given that Lara or her various associates will often offer handy hints as to what needs to be done.

Crystal Dynamics have also reined in the frustration factor inherent in the constant deaths and restarts incurred during the previous games - a combination of their cumbersome controls and the games' demandingly exact grid-based movement system. Previously, even a simple jump from one block to another would be fraught with danger, as, chances were that you would line Lara up slightly wrong and end up missing your target. Legend is far more forgiving, in the sense that, provided you aim in the general vicinity of where you intend to go, chances are that Lara will automatically adjust her trajectory mid-jump and land where you want her. On the PC version, accuracy is also much-aided by finally allowing players to use the traditional mouse-and-keyboard combination favoured by every action game for years (this function was also present in The Angel of Darkness, although it did little to improve playability due to that game's clunky movement). As a result, Legend is infinitely smoother and more natural to control than any of its predecessors, meaning that gamers can actually play the game instead of wrangling with its basic mechanics.

A considerable amount of effort has also been invested in the story, which is of a more personal nature, given that it involves the fate of Lara's dead parents (the storyline has been modified somewhat since the first game to tie in better with the two film adaptations, although there are still some key differences between these two strands of the franchise) and a group of fellow explorers, many of whom came to a sticky end during a grave-digging jaunt in Paraíso. The various in-game cut-scenes are highly effective, with Lara ably voiced by actress Keeley Hawes (who played Zoe in the first three seasons of Spooks). Her banter with her various assistants, who keep in contact with her via a headset, is often quite funny, although there are a few clunkers, and, on occasions in which a particularly tricky puzzle requires multiple attempts (which are, admittedly, laudably few in number), the continued repetition of the same zingers becomes a little tiresome. Graphically, the game is also very impressive, with only a handful of blocky textures, which the art direction and level design do an admirable job of concealing the fact that the game is ultimately still based around jumping from one square block of ground to the next.

Where the gameplay is a little less impressive is in terms of its combat. It all feels a bit perfunctory, with very little possible variation beyond simply jumping about and pumping enemies with lead before they can finish you off. At Medium difficulty, the game is fairly generous in terms of doling out ammo and health packs (you can carry up to three at a time), while guns are limited to only a few variations (in addition to the now-standard pistols, you can carry only one other weapon at a time). It is possible to jump on top of human enemies to knock them down, which causes the game to enter into slow motion, allowing you to more precisely execute them, although the occasions on which this can be done (and indeed when this is actually worthwhile) are relatively few. The various bosses, meanwhile, which conclude most of the levels, can initially seem a little daunting, but are generally fairly straightforward once you work out the central puzzle, with very few of them requiring much in the way of dodging and acrobatics. A handful of motorcycle chases also tend to be a little frustrating, given that their controls are much more clunky than the game proper (the mouse, annoyingly, can't be used for steering).

Tomb Raider: Legend is ultimately a highly enjoyable game. It may not be particularly lengthy or taxing, but it is a beautifully-presented adventure with slick controls, an engaging plot and some fun puzzles. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it certainly salvages an aging franchise, breathing life into a series that I had otherwise given up on.

8/10.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Blizzard Entertainment released their original real-time strategy Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. This was followed in 1995 by the groundbreaking Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, which refined the formula, adding improved graphics and sound, as well as taking the conflict into the air and sea with the inclusion of flying units and ships. 1998's Starcraft, however, remains arguably their most polished RTS to date, and continues to be considered the best PC game ever by many players, both casual and professional. Thanks to Blizzard's continued adage that their games be easy to play but difficult to master (in other words, the basic mechanics are straightforward, allowing newcomers to immediately begin playing without needing to devour a huge manual, but at the same time requiring patience and skill to become a truly impressive player), they delivered a nuanced, balanced game with a solid audio-visual presentation and exciting, addictive gameplay. The game was so good that virtually no other RTS could get a word in edgeways, and that remained the case for many years, although Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings certainly put up a worthy fight.

2002's Warcraft III: reign of Chaos, therefore, had a lot to live up to. When it was initially announced at ECTS in 2001, Blizzards' spokespeople declared that, as the studio felt it had taken RTS gaming as far as it could go with Starcraft, it was going to focus on a new model for the third instalment of the Warcraft saga. The game was touted as an "RPS" - a role-playing strategy, sidelining the traditional strategy activities of base management and unit production in favour of a more tactical approach, emphasising exploration and intense, small-scale battles between powerful hero units, whose strength and abilities would improve with experience. In its initial demonstrations, the game looked rather similar to Myth: The Fallen Lords, sporting a 3D engine and with a camera view locked behind the heroes' heads, close to the horizon line.

Initial reactions were mixed at best, with Blizzard's impressive track record and brand loyalty being enough to convince some gamers that this would be the best thing since sliced bread, or at least since Starcraft, but others, sensing a move away from the 2D RTS format that had made the company such a success, were considerably more sceptical. Many were greatly relieved, therefore, when, only a few months after it had been announced, Blizzard declared that it was going to reign in the role-playing elements and bring the game back to its strategy roots.

The finished game, therefore, has a lot in common with its spiritual predecessors, sporting the same basic user interface as Starcraft and once again following the formula of building a base, training units and vanquishing the opposing team. The engine remains 3D, but the camera itself stays, for the most part, locked into a top-down isometric perspective heavily reminiscent of its 2D predecessors. To call Warcraft III the immediate successor to the Starcraft throne would, however, be inaccurate, because, despite the similarities, much has changed. The appearance and core mechanics will still be instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of Blizzard's previous RTS games, but those who approach this in the same manner as Warcraft II or Starcraft, expecting the same basic strategies and play styles to work, will be in for a surprise.

While the role-playing elements may have been reigned in, they have not been obliterated by a long shot. The backbone of the game is still building up a strong base and maintaining a solid economy, but a low unit cap and a focus on special hero units who must kill enemy units in order to level up and access new abilities means that there is a greater dependence than ever on micro-managing battles. In Starcraft, for example, a Zerg player might simply amass a hundred similar units, send them in the direction of their opponent's base, and beat them into submission through sheer weight of numbers, but such a strategy (if you can even call it strategy) would never work against a moderately skilled player in Warcraft III. The old rock-paper-scissors system at the heart of all the -craft games has been emphasised considerably, meaning that even the most powerful unit in the game can be completely neutralised by the correct counter.

The result of this is that smart selection of appropriate units and skilled management of the player's army is rewarded to a far greater extent than in the previous games. There is no longer a be-all and end-all strategy that can be memorised and used to win every game, which in theory leads to a more varied gameplay experience. In practice, of course, a brief glance at the various replays available on the Internet will reveal that the same basic strategies tend to be favoured (virtually every Human player chooses the Archmage as their first hero, for instance), but even within these basic templates there is more variety. Players can now quickly adapt their strategies to counter an opponent by, for example, retraining their heroes with a different selection of skills (for a price, of course), while high level players will frequently engage in minute micro-management of battles, "dancing" with their units in order to conserve as many hit points as possible.

And yet, despite this shift from large-scale macro-management to small-scale micro-management, little has ultimately changed. The objective of the majority of multiplayer skirmishes is still to destroy the enemy's base, while the removal of sea units (leaving just land and air) actually feels like something of a step backwards from Warcraft II. Blizzard's -craft formula has endured over the years for a reason, so perhaps the decision to retain the same basic mechanics, almost down to a T, was a wise one. The improvements are generally more subtle - you can, for example, queue up worker units to construct multiple buildings, as well as add weapon, armour and spell upgrades to production queues. Additionally, once a worker finishes building a resource centre, he will then automatically begin harvesting the relevant resource (for example, a Peasant who has finished constructing a Lumber Mill will go to the nearest tree and begin chopping). The result of these subtle refinements is that, once you get used to them, it becomes difficult to go back to an earlier game in the series and learn to adapt to playing without them.

With Starcraft, Blizzard introduced the groundbreaking idea of having each of its three playable factions being completely different from one another, and therefore requiring completely different play styles, while at the same time wrangling the seemingly impossible task of balancing them so that no race had an advantage over the other. By increasing the number of races to four for Warcraft III (actually reduced from an originally projected six), the developers made that task even harder for themselves, and generally manage to pull it off quite successfully. Ultimately, the same basic principles remain for each faction - each race has a worker unit who harvests gold from a gold mine, for example - but little subtleties ensure that they don't do everything the same way. Orcs and Humans, for example, can harvest gold directly from the mine, but the Undead and Night Elves must first construct an additional structure on top of the mine, with their worker units remaining inside it instead of walking back and forth between it and the Town Hall. Likewise, everyone harvests lumber, but, in the case of the Undead, it is actually Ghouls, the race's basic melee units, that perform this task rather than their standard workers, the Acolytes. Furthermore, the Night Elves, who have a great affinity with nature, do not chop down trees but instead send their Wisps to "bond" with them and extract their resources non-destructively. Little touches like these show that Blizzard is not intent on making these changes simply for the sake of being different, but has instead worked hard to make them thematically appropriate. The regal Humans, with their imposing castles and fortifications, have the strongest defences in the game, while the Undead, who are running rampant across the world and spreading their plague, can only build on ground that has been "infested" by Blight, which renders the land sickly and allows nearby Undead units to heal more quickly. Admittedly, many of these ideas initially appeared in Starcraft in a similar form (the Blight is nothing more than a variation on the Zerg's "Creep"), but all the same we've come a long way from the days of the first Warcraft, in which the only real difference between the Orcs and the Humans was the colour of their skin.

The game comes with a single player campaign which involves all four races. Strictly linear in its structure, players progress from one level to the next, maintaining their principal hero units' abilities, experience and inventory items, but with one's performance in one level generally having no direct result on the next (this is very different from the Myth games, where basic units who survived one level would progress to the next with more hit points and better weapons). It is in this campaign that Warcraft III becomes rather disappointing. Starcraft's storyline, while not of the same quality as RPG greats like Planescape: Torment, was at least engaging and dramatic, and populated by believable characters that the player could relate to. The ongoing banter between Raynor and Kerrigan in the Terran campaign, for example, was amusing and touching, and made Kerrigan's betrayal to the Zerg at the end of the penultimate Terran mission surprisingly heart-wrenching. In Warcraft III, however, most of the plot developments are predictable, being lifted either from other game storylines (Arthas' corruption by the Lich King mirrors the infestation of Kerrigan) or from the work of JRR Tolkien, whose influence permeates through every single fantasy mythology created since the mid-1950s. At times, the narrative even repeats itself, with the characters of Arthas and Illadan going through almost identical arcs as they are influenced by the forces of evil. The pacing is generally not particularly well handled, either, with Arthas' growing obsession and descent to the dark side not coming across as remotely believable. The campaign also lacks the epic scope demanded by the storyline of an entire world at war, and the decision to focus on small-scale battles disadvantages the credibility of the single player mode. Only on one occasion - during the final Orc level - does the campaign come close to being awe-inspiring, as the sky turns red and giant demons constructed of stone and fire come crashing to earth. More moments like these would have made the campaign less of a slog through a series of predictable and rather easy missions (the entire 34-mission story, including two tutorial maps, can be completed in a couple of prolonged gaming sessions).

The entire graphical presentation is also at odds with the nature of the story. The Warcraft games have always favoured a colourful, exaggerated, cartoony appearance (in comparison to the more realistic Starcraft, and competing franchises such as Age of Empires and Myth), and the third instalment is no exception, with the rather basic polygonal models actually coming across as quite lively in spite of the move to 3D. In the previous games, the storyline itself was restricted to separate mission briefing screens, but, with Warcraft III, the bulk of the plot development has been shifted into scripted events that use the game engine itself. This means that, when grotesquely caricatured figures, whose mouths flap about in a thoroughly over-animated style, are talking about the end of the world, it's all a little difficult to take seriously. In this respect, the pre-rendered CGI FMV sequences, which introduce the game and bookend each section of the campaign, and are rendered in a more photo-realistic style, are much more effective. Add to this some rather poor voice acting, which tends to be either too bland or too over the top, and it becomes clear that Starcraft was the better game in terms of unifying narrative and gameplay.

As an overall gaming experience, Warcraft III is a solid effort. The presentation is reasonably strong and the multiplayer and player-versus-computer skirmish modes are well-balanced and entertaining. The single player campaign, however, is a let-down, while the smaller scale of the conflict detracts from the worldwide, epic nature of the storyline. As such, Starcraft is still by far the best strategy game experience on the PC, and remains a benchmark that, in nearly nine years, Blizzard has yet to match.

8/10.

HD DVD review: Miami Vice

Miami Vice is ultimately close to two and a half hours of posturing, insincere characterisation and abrasive style, none of which would suggest, barring the appearance of his name during the opening credits, that a filmmaker of Michael Mann's calibre was behind it. To describe it as a failed experiment would be charitable: a mess is a more accurate description.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don their designer shades and head out to the beach as I review Universal's recent HD DVD/DVD combo release of Miami Vice.

Kerbang! Boom! Crash!

My copy of Operation Crossbow (R1 USA) arrived from DVD Pacific this morning. As I mentioned back in August, back in May 2006 Warner gave fans the chance to vote for which catalogue titles they would like to see released. The only title in the list that appealed to me was Operation Crossbow, a World War 2 spy/action movie that I'd loved ever since I happened to catch it on TV back in the early 1990s, so naturally it was the title I voted for. Apparently I'm not alone in my love of this film, for it was one of the five titles announced for a December 2006 released (another five will be released in January).

I've seen the film several times before, but never in its original 2.35:1 ratio. Uncropped, you really come to appreciate the scale of the piece, especially the cavernous underground set in which most of the film's second half takes place. Warner's transfer is also very nice: it's certainly not a Casablanca or Citizen Kane style of restoration, but that suits me absolutely fine, because it looks just as I would expect a film from 1965 to look, with grain, white flecks and the occasional visible splice. I was a little concerned, initially, by the fact that the only English track on the disc is a 5.1 affair, but it turns out that the 70mm prints of the film were accompanied by a 6-track recording, on which I presume the DVD's track was based.

But what of the film itself? How does it stack up after all these years? Very well, for the most part. It certainly runs hot and cold, thanks to a rather uneven pace and an inability to keep the focus on the spies/saboteurs once they enter the underground rocket lab (it keeps jumping back to London, where the goings-on are considerably less interesting). Sophia Loren, who gets top billing, is also wasted in a role that turns out to be not much more than a glorified cameo. Otherwise, though, this is a great mindless romp that keeps me engaged despite the two-hour running time. It's no Where Eagles Dare, that's for sure, but it is the sort of movie you can pull out every few years and still find as entertaining as it was the first time you saw it.

DVD review: My Summer of Love

Universal have not exactly rolled out the red carpet for My Summer of Love, which would be forgivable were it not for the fact that more materials than are on offer here clearly existed. As a UK film by a UK-based director, the lack of a commentary on this release when one exists for the US version is surprising and also rather unfair, while the absence of a 5.1 track makes this package feel like a rather second-rate effort.

Much to my chagrin, I recently discovered that, when I converted my entire site over to the new version 9 layout, I forgot to do anything about the various DVD reviews hosted on the site. I've now finished converting them, meaning that the site is now finally complete (for real this time), and I decided to throw in a special holiday bonus: a review that had been lying around, partially complete for several months: My Summer of Love (R2 UK). Check out the full review, but watch out, lads - it has lezzies in it! LOL!!!11~

Mann oh mann

This morning, I received a review copy of the HD DVD/SD DVD combo of Michael Mann's Miami Vice courtesy of DVD Pacific. I've never seen the 80s TV series on which the film is based, so I really didn't know what to expect.

All I can say is that I'm glad this was a review copy and thus something I didn't have to pay for, except with the two hours and twenty minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Miami Vice is an incoherent mess, an eyesore and assault on the ears. It's one hundred and forty minutes of Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx slicking back their hair and/or adjusting their shades as they swagger around various seaside locations with their jaws firmly set and their designer shades glinting in the sunlight. The plot feels like your average 45-minute cop show stretched out to beyond the normal length of a feature film, while the characters are nothing more than mere archetypes who spit out corny dialogue and offer us glaring insights into their tedious and insincere emotions.

Style-wise, the film is all over the place. Mann shot it using a combination of traditional 35mm and 1080p high definition. Some of it looks fine, but the night scenes look absolutely vile, filled with obnoxious amounts of digital noise. Meanwhile, a whole lot of scenes have what can only be described as a motion blur effect, presumably the result of shooting the footage interlaced and then deinterlacing it for the final transfer. Mann used similar techniques on his previous film, Collateral, and they were just as bad there. If this is the future of cinema, I think I'd prefer to remain in the past. Oh, and the camerawork is dreadful, too: I get that Mann wanted to convey a sense of urgency, but when your viewpoint is jittering all of the place, Blair Witch-style, I feel ready to vomit rather than being drawn into the action.

Simply put, this is the worst film I've added to my HD collection thus far. A 3/10 is, I feel, extremely generous. Not recommended. The disc itself, however, is very good, with an array of extras that I'll no doubt have to plough through and a solid transfer that does the best it can with the uninspiring quality of the source materials.

HD DVD review: Serenity

With the UK release of Serenity, Universal have done what, five months ago, I wouldn't have thought was possible: taken my favourite HD transfer of all time and improved it. No, I don't think I'd recommend that everyone who already owns the US version immediately rushes out and picks up the UK release, but the difference is there. If you don't already have the US disc, be in no doubt: the UK release is the finest-looking digital video disc this reviewer has ever seen, and Universal and their competitors are going to have their work cut out one-upping this beauty.

Eight months after HD DVD first launched, it's double-dipping time! I've reviewed the recent R0 UK release of Serenity, investigating whether Universal's new, more efficient transfer is any different from its predecessor.

Wolf Creek

As the first HD DVD I've seen from the Weinstein Company, Wolf Creek is a bit of a mixed bag. It has moments that are genuinely impressive, but on other occasions, technical issues that could probably have been avoided get in the way. However, it goes without saying that this is the best the film has ever looked outside a theatrical environment or the original camera recordings, so, if you are HD-capable, this is definitely the version of the film to pick up.

The Weinstein Company jumps aboard the HD DVD bandwagon this month with a variety of releases. I offer a sneak preview of Wolf Creek, an effective exploitation horror piece from the land down under.

V for Vendetta

For all its flaws, I admire V for Vendetta for being ballsy enough to tell a mainstream audience that blowing up buildings can be a legitimate means to an end. Warner's HD DVD release is far from the top echelon of high definition releases, but it constitutes a solid package overall, and the improvements to image, audio and extras should be enough to convince those who already own the DVD to upgrade.

Remember, remember... Okay, so it's the 5th of December rather than the 5th of November, but I've reviewed the recent HD DVD release of V for Vendetta anyway.

Alias Season 5: there's only one Sydney Bristow

Half-way through the fifth and final season of Alias, the entire show had to be put on hold in order to accommodate the pregnancy of star/producer Jennifer Garner, resulting in a shorter than usual run of 17 episodes. The compressed length, in addition to having to write the first half of the season around Garner's ballooning stomach (fairly straightforwardly, the writers had her character become pregnant too), not to mention the fact that creator JJ Abrams was busy directing Mission Impossible 3, should have spelled disaster for the show... But they didn't. Indeed, after a thoroughly disappointing fourth season, Alias Season 5 is a welcome return to form.

Due to Garner's pregnancy, the first half of the season necessitates something of a change of format, given that the show's mainstay was always the sight of Sydney Bristow performing energetic stunts in exotic attire. To compensate for the increasingly chair-bound Sydney, the writers draft in a bunch of new recruits, one of whom, Rachel Gibson (Rachel Nichols), finds herself in much the same situation that Sydney was during Season 1. As such, despite signalling something of a departure, Season 5 also recalls the old glory days, with the wide-eyed, naive Rachel serving as a suitable stand-in for the increasingly worldly-wise Sydney. The best of the new characters, however, is the feisty French criminal Renée Rienne (Élodie Bouchez), who ends up helping Team Alias out on several occasions. I would happily have watched an entire show centred around Renée (a spin-off would have been great), but unfortunately the writers make little use for her, and she drops out of the show some time before the end.

There are a few bum notes, and one of these is the third new major character, the moody agent Thomas Grace (Balthazzar Getty). To put it bluntly, he isn't interesting, and a rather pointless subplot involving his dead wife distracts from the main points of interest, and seems to have been developed before the writers were aware that they wouldn't be getting another season. Elsewhere, several of the show's mainstays are becoming rather repetitive and predictable, including the is-he-or-is-he-not-evil Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), who has been kept around for so long and has changed sides so many times, and yet always given another chance, that it's got to the point of being ludicrous. By far the worst mistake, however, is

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

Otherwise, though, this is a fine season. It's not as good as Seasons 1 and 2, but it's a major improvement on Season 4. Alias was always one of the most impressive-looking shows on television, and this one is no exception, with slick cinematography and a single Los Angeles back-lot standing in convincingly for every location from Cambodia to Siberia. Unlike so many shows, Alias goes out with a bang, and manages not to disgrace itself as it does so.

Pelts: an Argento/PETA co-production

It's no secret that I didn't think much of Jenifer, Dario Argento's first episode in the Masters of Horror anthology series. Actually, that's something of an understatement: I thought it was phenomenally bad, dethroning The Phantom of the Opera from its position as the worst thing he'd ever directed. Its problem, for me, was that it could have been directed by anyone - and by that I don't mean that it didn't "look like an Argento film" (whatever that means), which is what the episode's defenders invariably try to twist my words into. Rather, it was the sort of bland, anonymous point-and-shoot affair that any semi-competent director for hire could have pulled off. Basically, if it hadn't said "a film by Dario Argento" at the start, virtually no-one would have paid it a blind bit of notice, making the decision to fly Argento over from Italy to direct it a rather pointless endeavour. Jenifer was more a vehicle for its star/writer Steven Weber than for Argento, making the decision to market the episode around Argento's name rather than Weber's disingenuous at best, downright dishonest at worst.

As such, I was prepared for more of the same with Pelts, his contribution to the show's second season. My expectations were so low that I couldn't possibly have been disappointed, and as such it's perhaps not entirely surprising that Pelts is better than I expected. Certainly, it's still pretty clear that Argento is slumming it, calling "cut" and "action" and picking up a pay-cheque for his efforts, and it's still pretty near the bottom of the barrel as far as his impressive filmography goes, but it's nowhere near as embarrassing as Jenifer. Heavily flawed, sure; ultimately pointless, of course; but this time at least there are a few hints to suggest that a filmmaker with actual talent is behind the lens.

The plot, this time, is somewhat more suited to the tastes of Argento, a vegetarian who has owned several cats and believes we should be doing more to protect the rights of insects. Basically, a poacher (John Saxon, who previously appeared in Argento's classic Tenebre - that's two big names slumming it) and his dimwitted hick son butcher a bunch of raccoons (or "coons", as they call them, in one of the script's less than subtle racism allegories), with an eye to making a tidy profit on what they both agree are the finest pelts ever seen. Junior bashes in Papa's head with a baseball bat, however, prior to mashing his own face in one of the loathsome pair's own gin-traps. Enter Jake (Meat Loaf - yes, Meat Loaf), the furrier to whom the pair intended to sell their goods. Seemingly unconcerned by the two dead bodies in front of him, Jake pockets the pelts and, stricken by their beauty, plots to make the finest coat known to man - with an eye to convincing his favourite lap-dancer, Shanna (Ellen Ewusie), to let him fuck her in the ass (I'm not making this up).

The film's most impressive moments come during the opening titles, which are set against moody shots of the furrier's various pieces of equipment, most of them dripping with blood. Argento certainly lays on the gore thick and fast here, some of it successfully, some of it not. Of the various extended death scenes, the best is that of a seamstress who sews up her own eyes, nostrils and mouth (nearly all of the deaths are self-inflicted). Less impressive is that of a man who tears out his own innards: it's just the same Z-grade schlock peddled by Troma, only with more convincing effects. Likewise, the cinematography, by Attila Szalay (who also shot Jenifer), is highly variable: the scenes in the strip-club are the best, with copious amounts of red, blue and purple back-lighting that at times manages to evoke that of Suspiria, albeit greatly toned down; many of the exteriors, however, look flat and lifeless, with Jake's visit to the poachers' hut looking as bad as Jenifer in terms of lack of imagination. By and large, though, this "film's" look is a massive step up from that of its predecessor.

Script and acting are another story, however. The plot was adapted by first-timer Matt Venne from a short story by F. Paul Wilson. I've not read the source material, but I can't imagine it being particularly inspiring, given that it's essentially just a series of grisly suicides, seemingly stemming from coming into contact with the pelts. As such, you can find the same themes of transferral and infection of the mind that are present in Jenifer if you want to attach an auteurist reading to these episodes - personally, I don't. These are not "Dario Argento films" in the traditional sense, given that he receives no writing credits on them, instead seemingly having picked his favourite from a list of pre-existing screenplays. The performances, meanwhile, verge on embarrassing. Meat Loaf chews the scenery like nothing on earth, screaming, slavering and stomping around with a face that could curdle milk, while even the reliable John Saxon struggles to make anything of his one-dimensional role. The characters are all flat in the extreme, as it happens, and Argento, presumably realising he wasn't going to get anything approaching a decent performance out of Ellen Ewusie, instead has her spend the bulk of her screen-time with her breasts out. Oh, and there's a good old-fashioned gratuitous girl-on-girl sex scene too - the Masters of Horror team presumably think that this sort of thing, in addition to gallons of karo syrup, can be considered "pushing the boundaries", but it all reeks a little of desperation. The two women look so uncomfortable during their sex scene that it's hard not to feel sorry for them.

I don't really have much else to say. It's better than Jenifer, but once again it uses the Argento name to market a generic, poorly-written splatterfest that any number of no-name directors for hire could have pulled off. The Argento of old would have been able to direct this sort of thing blindfolded and with one arm behind his back, but at least there are a handful glimpses of the old spirit, even if they are present here in a greatly dumbed down form. Pelts is ultimately really just a means to an end - apparently it is thanks to his Masters of Horror work that The Third Mother is being made at all. Them's the breaks, I guess, and, as such, I'm willing to accept half-baked Argento if it ultimately leads to some sort of a return to form. 5/10.

PS. PETA did not in fact have anything to do with the making of Pelts, in case anyone was under any false impressions. I'm sure Argento has more sense than to associate with such an organisation.

Lovers, Liars and Lunatics: suburban dystopia

If Amber Benson is one thing, it's committed. During the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fifth season, she juggled appearances on that show with work on her own independent project, an offbeat comedy called Chance, on which she served as lead actor, writer, producer and director. The film, shot on video with a budget of $25,000, was decidedly rough around the edges, but ultimately quite charming for all its eccentricities, and showed the multi-faceted Benson's talent for writing quirky yet believable characters.

Fast forward four years, and her second film, on which she returns as star, writer, producer and director, and also adds film editor to her roster of talents, has just been released on DVD, like Chance sold directly through her production company, Benson Entertainment. Exactly how much it cost to make is unclear, but it seems to have been funded, at least partially, through a series of fund-raisers, auctions of personal possessions and of a series of Willow and Tara action figures. From the first film, it's clear that a lot has changed. The source material is now 35mm film, and the camera setups are considerably more ambitious than those of its predecessor. It's not always successful - there are some instances of truly bizarre framing, a handful of shots in which the focus is on something other than the main point of attention, and some rather problematic moments that lack establishing shots, making it difficult to get a feeling for the geography and positions of the various characters - but by and large the film has a slicker, more professional feel than that of Chance. Jakobine Motz's cinematography is functional rather than particularly impressive (the lighting is rather flat), but, with the move from video to film, Benson has abandoned the hand-held, quasi-documentarian format of the previous film in favour of something more controlled. On the aural front, the dialogue recording is sometimes a little ropey, but the orchestral score, which kicks in occasionally but effectively, helps paper over the cracks.

The plot, meanwhile, is enough to sustain the 87-minute running time, but isn't hugely substantial. Essentially, two incompetent robbers break into a suburban household, but quickly find themselves caught up in the neurotic family's own dysfunctional relationships. Benson, this time, although given title billing, takes more of a back seat as far as acting goes, given that this is, for all intents and purposes, an ensemble piece, with eight main roles and a handful of secondary parts. The black humour of Chance, meanwhile, is maintained throughout, although the actors are at times hamstrung by a script that is very talky - Benson's other writing credits are primarily as a novelist, and it shows in what appears to be an intermittent reluctance to show things visually (characters will frequently mutters to themselves phrases like "Fucking bitch!" and "I hate him!", which should be self-evident to even the least attentive viewer).

The film also ends on something of a false note with a conclusion that seems intended partially to be blackly comedic and partially to be shocking: in a sense, the abrupt change of tone results in an ending that seems too dark to be successful given the film's otherwise light-hearted tone.

Despite these problems, though, it's hard not to admire the film for its bare-faced enthusiasm. Yes, it's considerably slicker than Chance and, to some extent, more market-friendly (the narrative is more conventionally linear, there are no monologues to the camera, no guitar-strumming troubadours entering the scene to narrate the plot, and Benson has reigned in her use of the word "cunt"), but it's still an odd and distinctive film with a decidedly hand-made feel to it. I'm not sure exactly how many people are going to end up seeing it, as the $30-33 (depending on whereabouts in the world you're located) price tag, plus the fact that the DVD can only be ordered from the official web site, will put a lot of people off, but it deserves an audience. 7/10.

Disney aspect ratio conundrum

(Also posted at DVD Times)

In Disney fandom, there is a long-running debate surrounding the intended aspect ratios of a number of the studio's animated features, including everything from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) up to and including The Fox and the Hound (1981). For a long time, the eight films encompassed by this 20-year period were all available on DVD in a 1.33:1 Academy aspect ratio, barring The Rescuers (1977), which was released in 1.66:1. No-one could really decide exactly which ratio these films were meant to be shown in: theoretically, they were all released at a time when cinemas equipped to display Academy material were no longer common, so it makes sense to assume that they would have been exhibited in a ratio somewhere between 1.66:1 (European widescreen) and 1.85:1 (American widescreen). This was substantiated somewhat by the admittedly unreliable IMDB, which listed an intended ratio of 1.75:1 for these titles.

The DVDs, however, suggested otherwise. Many argued that Disney would not have released these films in 1.33:1 on DVD if that was not their intended ratio, especially given their otherwise solid track record for presenting the other Animated Classics on DVD properly. Opponents of this theory pointed to The Rescuers as the odd one out, wondering why Disney would have made this film in widescreen and then gone back to the Academy ratio for their next project. Likewise, the obviously cropped DVD and VHS releases of The Fox and the Hound strongly indicated that something foul was afoot in Neverland.

The release of a new edition of Robin Hood, however, goes some way towards answering these various questions. Previously, this film was, like its counterparts from the 1961-1981 period, released on DVD in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which showed no obvious cropping. Personally, I always suspected that, barring The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound, all the films of this 20-year period were being released in an open matte format - substantiated by the fact that zooming the DVDs in on a widescreen TV generally resulted in few if any framing problems. Now, Robin Hood has been released in a new "Most Wanted Edition" (how on earth do they come up with these titles?), and it turns out to be a 1.75:1 anamorphic presentation (i.e. with very thin black bars on either side of the widescreen frame). The Ultimate Disney review, which includes a screenshot comparing this release to its 1.33:1 predecessor, clearly shows that the earlier version was open matte. Indeed, flicking between the two captures of the same frame from both releases, it's clear that, on the left and right hand side of the frame, there is barely even a pixel's worth of difference. At the top and bottom, however, the new release obscures a considerable amount of the dead space that was present on the previous release.

The reviewer admittedly does have some reservations about this new presentation, pointing to the fact that "some elements do feel slightly cramped in the vertical direction", and a few of the screen captures accompanying the review do substantiate this. I'm not particularly convinced, however, by the various arguments he puts forth in favour of 1.33:1 being the intended presentation (although, to his credit, he doesn't attempt to claim one or the other to be the "correct" way to view the film). It seems, to me at least, clear that Robin Hood (and, therefore, presumably also One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Aristocats and so on) were exhibited theatrically at around a ratio of 1.75:1 (which falls fairly squarely between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1), therefore making this new DVD an accurate representation of its intended appearance. I consider Robin Hood to be one of the worst films from a generally poor period in the Disney studio's history, but I'm sorely tempted to pick up this new version and bin (or, more likely, eBay) my old fullscreen disc.

The only question now is why did they go to the effort to get Robin Hood right, but weren't willing to take this extra step for The Fox and the Hound?

Home Alone: Family Fun Edition

Dodgy name tag aside, this new release of Home Alone more than makes up for the inadequacies of its predecessor, and is unlikely to disappoint even the biggest Grinch. Whether or not you already own a copy of Home Alone, I recommend you pick up a copy of this solid new release forthwith, and partake of the Christmas spirit.

In the run-up to Christmas, a perennial festive favourite is dusted off for a long-awaited special edition release. I've reviewed the newly released R1 "Family Fun Edition" of Home Alone, and yes, given it a 10.

Sorry America, we got your Potters!

Forgive me this moment of plagiarism, but I still think it's one of the funniest thread titles I've seen relating to this subject. As I laid out in an earlier post, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, still lacking an official date for its US released, came out on HD DVD in the UK on November 20th, and word quickly spread that, barring the inclusion on the cover of BBFC logos and the usual UK additionata (to borrow a phrase from Garth Marenghi), such as a quote from the Daily Mirror, this was actually just the as yet unannounced US release rebadged. Well, curiosity got the better of me and, despite only having a lukewarm reaction to the first two Potter films, I ended up ordering a copy from Play.com.

It arrived today, and the rumours are true: when you pop the disc in, you're greeted with an FBI warning screen, followed by the Warner logo and the same annoying and bombastic Warner HD DVD trailer that they've included on every single one of their releases so far, then an MPAA PG-13 logo, followed by the film itself. If the studios continue to follow this model of simply repackaging (and re-labelling) the US discs, this strikes me as being a good thing, for two reasons. First: it cuts down on costs, meaning that a single master can be prepared for both North America and the UK (and any other English-speaking territories, as well as other locations like France and Spain, provided the extras are comprehensively subtitles, given that these discs tend to include French and Spanish dubs). Second: it should help bury the horrible legacy of PAL speed-up in films and dodgy NTSC to PAL standards converted extras. At the moment, Potter is a rare beast indeed: a 24 fps film with 30 fps NTSC extras that you can pick up off a UK store shelf. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Anyway, enough of that - how's the disc? Superb, is the answer. In fact, it comes very close to toppling Serenity from its "best HD DVD transfer" throne. It's amazing that Warner can put out an edge enhanced, slightly filtered and noise reduced release like V for Vendetta one week, and then release something that, to my eyes, looks almost completely untampered the next. This is an amazing looking transfer, with excellent detail and a rich, smooth, film-like look, and the fact that there are no real problems with compression is a phenomenal achievement given the number of difficult moments in this film - crowd scenes, underwater chases, firework displays, not to mention dodgy CGI fire-breathing dragons. This is very much a 10 out of 10 affair, with my only concern being some prominent edge enhancement in a couple of background shots in an early scene, which is so much heavier than anything else in the film (or indeed the shots in question) that I'm pretty sure it was a result of some effects work rather than the encoding.

As for the film, I enjoyed it more than the first two Potters, although it is to my mind still heavily flawed, not to mention far too long. As has been something of a trend recently, it's also fairly clear that, rather than being a stand-alone film, it's merely a single part in a much larger story. This wouldn't have been a massive problem were it not for the fact that the film ends on a "to be continued" note in all but name: in the final half-hour, a hideous villain and arch-enemy of Harry's escapes from his prison and comes after him, but nothing is done about this and, as is usually the case, the film ends with the school year ending and the characters heading their separate ways. Harry might have said, "Gee willickers! There's a terrible villain who wants to kill me on the loose, but we'll deal with him next term." I did, however, appreciate the somewhat darker tone when compared to the first two films (I still need to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third film), and the child actors seem to be improving as they grow older.

Oh yeah, and I also finally received my long-awaited copy of Amber Benson's new film, Lovers, Liars and Lunatics, which she wrote, produced, edited, directed and starred in. The disc was posted to me by Ms Benson herself, judging by the fact that the signature on the customs declaration matches the signature on the front cover (she signed the first 500 copies). Full thoughts and impressions will follow as soon as I've had a chance to watch it, but, having taken a glance at a couple of minutes, I should probably warn you that the transfer is interlaced and non-anamorphic (although, unlike Amber's previous film, Chance, it's shot on 35mm film rather than video).

Update, December 19, 2006 05:54 PM: Fixed dead link.

Veronica Mars, take two

Following on from my previous post, I ploughed through the remainder of Season 2 of Veronica Mars last night and this morning. And my opinions are largely unchanged: the same strengths and weaknesses that I outlined last night remained till the end. A more detailed explanation is in order, however.

The show is set in the (imaginary) small town of Neptune, home of dodgy millionaires and their snotty children, as well as the less well-off. The show looks at this "class divide" from the perspective of Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), a teenager who used to be in with the popular crowd until a series of unfortunate happenings resulted in her being ostracised by her so-called friends. She and her parents ended up becoming virtual social pariahs after her sheriff father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), put the blame for the murder of Veronica's best friend, Lily (Amanda Seyfried), on her father... sorry, all these relationships are really complicated. Mrs. Mars ran off, Keith lost his job and ended up making a living as a private investigator, and Veronica, no longer on the in-crowd, helped him out.

That was Season 1. As Season 2 begins, the previous year's various cases have been wrapped up. Lily's killer (I'm not saying who, for those who haven't seen Season 1) is behind bars, and Veronica has managed to regain much of her cred with the in-crowd. Tensions between the haves and the have-nots are at an all-time high, though, and Veronica finds herself stuck right in the middle. She soon has other problems to contend with, though, including a bus full of children from her school hurtling off a cliff for seemingly no reason... a bus that she should have been on. Did someone want her dead, and did it have anything to do with the events of the previous year?

I'll give creator Rob Thomas and his writers credit for one thing: they know how to capture the audience's interest. Whatever flaws the show might have, it has a very addictive quality. There are always unanswered questions, meaning that there's always something to entice you to go straight to the next episode as soon as the current one finishes. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, upon which this show was clearly quite heavily modelled, it follows a conventional structure of most episodes having their own self-contained cases, with a couple of larger mysteries being played out over the course of the season's 22 episodes. The "cases of the week" vary in terms of quality, but most of them do a commendable job of trying to do something unexpected... although not always successfully. The main case, meanwhile, has a decent line-up of potential suspects, including both new and old characters. The complex relationships between the various characters, meanwhile, provide ample scope for secrets, lies and intrigue, even if the soap opera elements to tend to become a little unbelievable in their complexity.

What doesn't work, though, is that I really struggle to relate to the characters, understand what they see in each other, or even like the majority of them in the slightest. Veronica begins the season in the arms of the obnoxious Logan (Jason Dohring), before promptly ditching him for her previous boyfriend, Logan's best friend Duncan (Teddy Dunn). By the end of the season, she's back with Logan again. (See what I meant about the ridiculousness of the soap elements?) Logan is the sort of creep that you'd actually cross the street to avoid, making Veronica's attraction to him decidedly implausible, while Veronica spends most of her waking hours being so sarcastic to everyone she comes into contact with that it's a wonder she has any friends at all. Of all the regular characters, the most likeable is Keith Mars, with Colantoni's performance being by far the best on the show.

There are also some rather irritating continuity issues, with character developments and plot threads being introduced in one episode, only to promptly be forgotten for extended periods. Early in the season, for example, Veronica's friend Wallace's (Percy Daggs) estranged father shows up, and various events lead to father and son eloping together. Wallace is out of the picture for several episodes, before promptly returning, and the business with his father, and his disappearance, never being dealt with. In Buffy, or other US shows I enjoy like Alias, you generally get the sense that everything that happens to the characters is working towards some sort of master plan, or at least that they are adding to their life experience and allowing them to develop, even if only in minute ways. With Veronica Mars, that sort of long-term planning doesn't seem to exist, at least not to the same extent.

Broadly speaking, though, I can understand why this show has so many ardent followers, and I certainly enjoyed watching both seasons (I'll probably pick up Season 3 when it comes out on DVD, but it doesn't appear to air in the UK and I'm not obsessive enough to be motivated to download the episodes as they air in the US). It features the same cheery, irreverent take on film noir that Buffy did with horror, and as such, I can see it appealing to the same crowd. The second season even features appearances by Alyson Hannigan and Joss Whedon himself, while Charisma Carpenter is featured on a more extended basis.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:57 PM: Fixed dead link.

La Dolce Morte: a brief review

I finished reading Mikel Koven's La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo last night, and thought I'd say a few words about it.

First of all, as I mentioned before, this is an excellent study, and nothing else like it exists. Academics, for the most part, tend to shun gialli anyway, assuming them to be unworthy of serious study, but, even when one looks at things from a less scholarly perspective, there is a real dearth of available books focusing on this genre, with perhaps the only English language title dedicated to the giallo being Adrian Luther Smith's Blood and Black Lace, a guide that is exhaustive in its breadth but, for that very reason, lacks depth.

Generally, it seems that most scholars ignore gialli because they don't consider them to be "good" cinema, lacking the sophistication and "art" of the more highly regarded Italian films by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini. Even those who do study giallo films tend to be dismissive of the bulk of the genre, focusing on the films of Dario Argento or Mario Bava at the expense of all others. Maitland McDonagh, for example, who was the first scholar to seriously study Argento, in her book Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds claimed that the "outlandish titles" of the non-Argento gialli are "the only interesting things about them", effectively rejecting an entire genre, barring the output of one of its most prominent directors.

Koven's argument is that such scholars are looking at these films in the wrong way. He points out that they were originally intended to be played to a working class, non-critical audience who had little interest in sophistication and intelligent plotting, preferring instead to be entertained by a parade of sex and violence. Viewing these films instead in terms of "vernacular cinema", he therefore argues, removes the need to justify these films as being "artistic" (which, he claims, most are not), instead looking at them from the same perspective as their original intended audience. He builds a very convincing case for this over the course of ten chapters, establishing first the nature of the giallo and of its audience, before going on to dissect specific traits of these films - e.g. the role of the detective, attitudes towards modernity, the influence of the giallo on North American slashers. In doing so, he refers to a commendable number of titles, although there is, as usually tends to be the case, something of an over-reliance on Argento's films.

Koven's approach is, therefore, a perfectly valid one. The only problem is that I don't agree with it, and at times I found his continued refusal to view these films in anything other than vernacular terms to be something of a stumbling block. In a sense, I completely understand why he did this - anyone putting together a case study, no matter how broad the scope, must set certain parameters or run the risk of waffling - but it should be remembered that this book really only shows one side of the coin. Koven is, I'm sure, absolutely right when he argues that, say, The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972) was only ever intended to be watched as trashy entertainment, and that applying the sort of analytical methods that academics also apply to the films of Fellini and Antonioni is ultimately a poor fit. At the same time, though, to pass off the entire giallo genre as being "only" vernacular cinema is, in my opinion, unwise. I've already written at length about the films of Argento and a few select others that I believe can be analysed, at least partially, as art cinema.

To tar the entire genre with the same brush is therefore, in my opinion, problematic. There are certain traits that constitute a "typical" giallo (e.g. lots of sex and violence, screaming women and gallant male rogues saving the day), but what applies to The Case of the Bloody Iris doesn't necessarily apply to Profondo Rosso (Argento, 1975). In looking at these films from a completely vernacular perspective, you run the risk of doing exactly what Koven accuses those who try to fit them into an art cinema context of doing. Yes, plenty of academics look down their noses at these films because they don't fit the framework of a Fellini, but, if you try to put them in their own little box and claim that we shouldn't even try to analyse them as art films, then you're essentially just playing into the hands of the snobs, becoming apologetic for their very existence. (It's a bit like what Stephen Thrower said in Beyond Cinema: The Films of Lucio Fulci: his argument was that talking about "justified" and "unjustified" violence was ludicrous, because, if a horror fan tries to defend his favourite gore scene in such terms, he is merely playing into the hands of the censors and automatically on the defensive.) By removing the need to justify them as "artistic", on some level you prevent them, and their study, from being considered respectable at all.

I don't want to give the wrong impression: I liked this book very much. It was an enjoyable read with a coherent argument maintained throughout, and I would like to think that it will pave the way for studies of the giallo from a variety of different perspectives. Ultimately, though, it only represents a single viewpoint, and one that, whatever the author's intentions, seems a little one-sided in its focus.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:58 PM: Fixed dead link.

Casino Royale: confessions of a layman

I'll say it upfront: I'm not what you'd call a Bond fan. Oh, I've seen a fair share of the films, and have enjoyed a number of them to some degree, but I'm by no means a completist, and can't recall ever seeing one that I've absolutely loved. Even the strongest, most strait-laced ones, which, for me, have been the two Timothy Dalton ventures, had their moments of high camp that were at best annoying and at worst verged on bringing the whole thing crashing down. As such, my review of Casino Royale should be taken very much as an outsider's point of view. What I liked and disliked about it won't necessarily be the same things that a hardcore Bond fan will like and dislike.

The short version: this is a very good film. Actually, it's close to being an excellent film, with only a handful of problems preventing it from being a top-tier effort. I'll get on to these in due course, but first, I must say that I really liked this "reboot". In the past, Bond films seem to have gone lurched back and forth between serious to camp, with a Licence to Kill being followed by a Moonraker (well, that's chronologically incorrect, but it serves the purpose of illustrating the series' two extremes). As you can probably gather, I prefer the former, and found Timothy Dalton's hard-edged, merciless portrayal of 007 to be far superior to Roger Moore's nudge-nudge wink-wink camp antics. Even Dalton had his flaws, though, for me, stemming mainly from the fact that, when the scripts called for him to be more light-hearted, he seemed hopelessly out of his depth.

Casino Royale is no Roger Moore romp. It's the first Bond film I've seen that is completely straight-faced. That's not to say that there isn't humour in it, but the humour is subtler, derived not from Bond foiling the terrorists and parachuting down to Felix Leiter's wedding all in one swish movement (a particularly cringe-inducing moment in the otherwise commendable Licence to Kill), but rather from various dry retorts that, while self-conscious, ultimately serve the characters rather than playing to the gallery. (Bond's response when asked whether he wants his Martini shaken or stirred put a smile on my face.)

The change in tone is partially due to the script, but also in no small part to the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond. Back when various actors were being touted as successors to the bland Pierce Brosnan (not a fan, sorry), I immediately latched on to him as my preferred choice (although the alternatives, ranging from Hugh Jackman to Orlando Bloom, meant that there really wasn't much of a contest as far as I was concerned), and was most pleased when he got the part. People, however, were criticising the choice before they even saw a frame of footage: "Craig's too ugly, he's not sophisticated, he's... he's... he's blond!" To that I say "Phooey!" Craig is certainly nothing like any of his predecessors, but, in my opinion, he comes the closest of all to making Bond seem human. Timothy Dalton was tough, sure, but I always saw him as more an attitude than a real person. Craig, in contrast, doesn't really have the sophistication of some of his predecessors, but this "blunt instrument", as M (Judi Dench - whose retention, despite this reboot, didn't bother me anything like as much as I thought it would) puts it, lives and breathes in a way that the others, for me, didn't. (That said, bear in mind that I've yet to see George Lazenby's turn in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, regarded by a number to be Bond's most human turn.)

In part, that's due to the way the writers build up his relationship with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, a fantastic actress and a Bond girl who, unusually, seems to have been cast for her acting abilities as much as her looks). Theirs is a relationship that begins as a series of thinly-veiled sniping matches, but which eventually becomes one of mutual dependence, as both find that the job they have to do is no walk in the park. The scene in which Bond comforts a tearful Vesper, who has just seen two men killed in front of her, packs more emotional punch than any other scene that I've seen in the series. You get the feeling that Bond genuinely cares about this woman and that, had things been different, their relationship would have gone further. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here.) Oh, and it also helps that Green is convincing as an intelligent secret service agent - Denise Richards she ain't.

But what of the setting? A casino hall didn't sound to me like the most exciting location in which to set a 140-minute film, not least because I know nothing about cards. Well, the truth is that it doesn't matter. I still know nothing about the game that was being played, despite Bond's handy explanation of it to Vesper, but in reality it's not necessary to understand the details in order to become engrossed. The casino, while the backdrop of a significant portion of the film, is really just that - a backdrop - with more interesting events being played out against it. Lest anyone be under any misconceptions, it's also worth pointing out that the entire film is not set there: Bond doesn't reach the casino until over an hour into the film.

Oh yes, and it's bloody. This film is vicious - far more so than Licence to Kill. The Bond of this film gets beaten and bloodied, and he gives as good as he gets: I can see where the notion that Craig is a thuggish Bond comes from, for he really is absolutely ruthless in the various action scenes, thrashing his opponents within an inch of their lives and, on several occasions, killing in cold blood. Nothing quite lives up to the sheer brutality of the opening bathroom beating (although the torture sequence comes close), but the approach to violence throughout the entire film is more visceral and realistic than anything we've seen before. This time, we actually believe that Bond stands a chance of failing - he's pitted against people who are more than a match for him. As befits this grittier Bond, the film was shot in the inherently grainier Super35, compared to the smooth Anamorphic Panavision of its immediate predecessors.

Having tossed around so many superlatives, I now feel inclined to point out the areas in which the film is more problematic. I essentially have three main complaints:

1. The product placement. This film, which features gratuitous advertisements for everything from Sony Ericsson phones to Blu-ray discs, leaves you in doubt that Bond is now property of Columbia Pictures.

2. The title sequence. The song is forgettable, but the execution of the graphics themselves is cringe-inducing. The concept - a "cards" motif that also showcases the new Bond - is pretty decent, but someone decided to apply a cheap, quasi-animated "cel-shaded" effect to it, which looks like something out of a video game.

3. The pacing. I didn't mind the length, surprisingly enough, but I do agree with criticisms that the final act is rather anticlimactic. My understanding is that Ian Fleming's original novel was more or less the second act, and that the bulk of the first and third acts were fabricated for the film. It's a difficult situation - I'm not sure how I would have done things differently had I been writing it - but, despite an explosive climax in Venice, it feels a bit like an over-long afterthought after

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:
the main villain has been disposed of.

All in all, though, I had a blast. This one, for me, more than lived up to the hype, and I can't remember ever becoming so engaged by a Bond film before. After 20 films playing to largely the same formula, I'm glad they shook things up with a leaner, meaner interpretation, and that, for once, the public seems to have accepted it. 9/10.