Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 11: Showtime

Written by David Fury; Directed by Michael Grossman

Another generic and almost completely forgettable episode. More annoying Potentials show up, more whinging from all on sundry, more speeches from General Buffy... And Giles and Anya visit a demon named Beljoxa's Eye, who says the First Evil has been given the chance to put its plan into action because the line of the Chosen (i.e. the Slayers) has been altered, apparently as a result of Buffy's resurrection. Um, yes, but it's been shown already that the line no longer goes through Buffy but through Faith. If it had continued to go through Buffy after her first death at the end of Season 1, Kendra wouldn't have been called in Season 2, and therefore neither would Faith in Season 3. The fact that a new Slayer wasn't called when Buffy died at the end of Season 5 only compounds this. Therefore, the writers are once again ignoring their own canon simply so they can make the plot do what they want it to. If the change in the line of the Chosen was what the First Evil needed, it would have sets its plan into action at the end of Season 1 - but, of course, it didn't.

Theoretically, it would be entirely possible to ignore errors like this, in much the same way that it was possible to ignore The Gift's many instances of twisting the canon, but the fact that Season 7's plot is so fundamentally uninteresting makes it difficult to simply gloss over this sort of thing. Note to writers: if you want to make your show all about the plot at the expense of character development, you'd better have an airtight plot. But no, instead we get the first of General Buffy's many stupid ideas: last week, she fought the Ubervamp and it not only beat her but gave her a thoroughly good hammering. So this week, her grand plan is to... fight it again? What's changed? Nothing more than the venue. She sends everyone to a construction yard where she faces the Ubervamp in an arena-style showdown - but what precisely is it that allows her to beat it this time, when she's already injured, that she didn't have last week at full health? Oh, she has an audience and a cool location for a fight. But she doesn't have any advantage. She simply beats it because that's what the script calls for. Someone really didn't think this through.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Potential.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 10: Bring on the Night

Written by Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie; Directed by David Grossman

Today, Giles shows up with a trio of girls in tow - Potentials, i.e. girls who could potentially be called as Slayers when the current one dies (and exactly who is the current Slayer is a matter that will be debated in a subsequent review). They're incredibly annoying, and none more so than the pair with the most hideous Cockney accents known to mankind. I don't get why, in what the writers must have, by this time, known was the final season, they decided to bring in a whole roster of new characters and give them more screen-time than the original characters.

One of these Potentials is a brash Hispanic lesbian called Kennedy. Her appearance signals that (a) the writers had abandoned any thought of trying to get Tara back, and (b) they'd decided that yes, Willow going to remain a lesbian. Back during the break between Seasons 6 and 7, Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon actually had meetings to discuss whether or not Willow would "stay gay". (I've seen a made-for-TV documentary, seemingly recorded early during the production of Season 7, in which Noxon described Willow's relationship with Tara as "college experimentation"!) Unfortunately, Kennedy is an absolutely awful addition to the cast, and it's not even remotely plausible that Willow would be attracted to this type of person. The addition of this character was, clearly, an attempt by the writers to regain some of the "lesbo street cred" (to quote Tough Love) that they'd lost over the Tara debacle: "Oh, so you guys like lesbians, do you? Well, we'll give you a new lesbian and Willow can have a steamy lesbian romance with her!" Way to miss the point, again. She's there only so they can look a little better - a token gay relationship that isn't going to end in death and destruction (although I've read some hilarious fanfics in which Kennedy is killed in a variety of gruesome ways). In all fairness, I feel sorry for the actress, Iyari Limon: she tries very hard, but this is not a gig I would have wished on anybody. But, ultimately, she and Alyson Hannigan have absolutely no chemistry together and their scenes together are uncomfortable in the extreme. The fan-written continuation of the series, The Chosen, actually performs the seemingly impossible task of making this character likeable, to the extent that, when she left at the end of the virtual Season 8, I was genuinely disappointed, but, ignoring fanfic and concentrating only on what exists on the screen, she's a dead loss.

This episode also begins the "Is Giles the First?" subplot, a pointless little mislead that serves no actual purpose and is completely unbelievable. Basically, the idea is that Giles touches nothing and no-one touches him, which is intended to make the audience suspect that Giles is in fact dead and that the First has assumed his guise. The problem with this is that, like so much of Season 7, it makes no sense. Last time Giles showed up in Sunnydale, Buffy and Anya were all over him, which makes the extremely cold, non-touchy-feely manner in which everyone behaves when he appears at the door extremely strange. Ditto with the fact that, when Buffy falls into a hole, Giles doesn't stop to help her out - he just kind of stands there. This is never explained and is a perfect example of the writers' willingness to sacrifice character to service a pointless subplot.

Oh yeah, and why does the First have Spike tortured by holding his head underwater? Vampires don't need to breathe, remember? Come to think of it, why is the First torturing Spike anyway? Because he didn't do its bidding? I'd have thought it would have better things to do - like deal with all the Potentials showing up in Sunnydale.

Still, it's not all hopeless. It's good to see Drusilla again (the First assumes her form), and written considerably better than she was in Crush. Ditto with Joyce, who shows up in Buffy's dreams.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Showtime.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 9: Never Leave Me

Written by Drew Goddard; Directed by David Solomon

Sorry these reviews have been so sporadic. It's just so hard to get myself motivated to watch these episodes - there's literally nothing compelling me to go from one to the other. At least Season 6 had a train-wreck quality to it, where I found myself eagerly ploughing through the episodes to see what new low the writers would sink to each week. Here, it's all just... meh. It's competently shot, but it's generic, and there's nothing happening on the screen to justify my time. We've seen it all before: Spike's dangerous, he keeps being triggered by the First so they have to keep him chained up in the basement; Andrew is annoying and whiny; Xander, Willow, Dawn and Anya serve as set decoration. And what's up with Wood secretly burying Jonathan's body? My memory is hazy, but I don't recollect this ever being explained.

And it gets worse. The very next episode introduces the horror of... the Potentials.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Bring on the Night.

Spread the hate

What is it about Disney and reviews that brings the slavering fanboys out of the woodwork? First I was attacked by "Jens" for my less than favourable review of the direct to video nightmare Mulan II, and again for a throwaway comment in my review of Bambi pertaining to the preview for its own shoddy-looking cheapquel. Now it's happening again, this time because I've had the audacity to suggest that the transfer for the new Platinum Edition of The Little Mermaid is not as good as it could have been.

According to the poster by the name of "Dingbats",

If you want to see reasoned comments from people who actually care about this movie you ought to go to www.ultimatedisney.com and ignore this biased reviewer who clearly hasn't got a clue what he is talking about, and seems only able to make sounds from his rectum.

Well, it's good to know that my reviews are so appreciated. You know, when it comes to video-related matters, if people could just say "Well, I don't see the problems you're referring to," it wouldn't be half as bad, but the fact that some people actually feel the need to tell me I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about really irks me. Do they think my eyesight is defective and adding artefacts that aren't actually there? No, many of them are just too blindly loyal to Disney to believe that the studio could possibly be in the wrong. What's even more annoying is the assertion that, because I criticised the transfer, I don't "care about this movie". If anything, the opposite is true: I'm voicing my concerns precisely because I think the film deserves better. Read the whole review, moron.

Luckily, people in the know like Home Theater Forum reviewer David Boulet and film restoration expert Robert A. Harris concur with my opinions, which is not particularly surprising to me, but is certainly nice, as it means I'm not the lone voice of dissent. By all means go and read the Ultimate Disney review if you want a sycophantic love letter to Disney written by someone who praised the likes of the grubby, non-anamorphic The Black Cauldron and Hercules releases. But, without getting too full of myself, I like to think that I'm offering a somewhat more objective service.

How it feels to be wanted

I got my first rejection letter yesterday. I never mentioned it, because, in the heat of the moment... well, I forgot, but I couple of weeks back I sent out a bunch of job applications. Two were to libraries, one was for a desk job at Strathclyde University's modern languages department, and the other was to an online firm, Prospect Solution, where I will (hopefully) be writing essays, doing proofreading, and so on. (Hell, supply and demand - if people are willing to pay for it, I'm willing to do it!) I recently got a preliminary acceptance email for the Prospect Solution gig, but am holding off until the results for my MLitt come in before I send them my full details. In any event, it may turn out that it's something that brings in little work and money, so I need to keep my options open.

Anyway, yesterday morning I got a rejection letter from the Glasgow School of Art's library. "Dear Mr. Mackenzie, thanks for your application, but we regret to inform you that bla bla bla..." It's fair enough, I suppose, and I'm all too aware that rejections are a necessary part of the process, but I wish that, in these circumstances, they would give some indicator of why you were turned down. Something like "Dear Mr. Mackenzie, there are other people better qualified than you," or "Dear Mr. Mackenzie, we saw the picture that you included on your CV and would never employ someone has grotesque as yourself." Then again, experience has taught me that employers have a habit of trying to let you down gently when they decide they don't want you. I do, after all, speak with the experience of someone who is one of the few people ever to have been turned away by McDonalds. Much to my relief, I might add, but the spotty-faced deputy manager who interviewed me was typically cagey as to his reasons for rejecting me. He said something along the lines of "I don't think you'd be right for McDonalds," which I suspect is polite talk for "You wouldn't last a minute in front of a deep fat fryer," or "I actually wanted someone to work from midnight to 8 AM, but you weren't having it." Either way, it was a narrow escape.

Sorry, I seem to have gone a little off topic. Anyway, onwards and upwards. I'll no doubt be firing off a fresh batch of applications before too long. And until someone offers me a job, I'm actually quite enjoying the unexpected leisure time. It's allowing me to catch up on some of the things I like to do, namely writing reviews, watching movies and trawling my way through Season 7 of Buffy. Although, in the case of the latter, "like to do" is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace: The Complete Series

Darkplace will, I suspect, be something of an acquired taste. An appreciation of its attention to detail and a proper understanding of its comedy requires some familiarity with the material being lampooned, while many are likely to be put off by the fact that it is essentially the same joke repeated over and over again. However, those who grew up on 1980s horror and sci-fi, much of it bad, should get a real kick out of Darkplace. It is in my opinion one of the funniest comedies of the last decade, and the fact that part of me knows that, had it really aired in the 80s, I would almost certainly have tuned in religiously, is proof that it operates on some level beyond simply making fun of its source material.

Finally getting the DVD release that fans have been clamouring for since it originally aired in 2004, I've reviewed Garth Marenghi's Darkplace: The Complete Series, presenting all six episodes of the horror/sci-fi spoof on a single disc with numerous extras. Darkplace is released on October 16th 2006.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 8: Sleeper

Written by David Fury & Jane Espenson; Directed by Alan J. Levi

Spike has started walking around without his shirt on again. One can only assume that Marti Noxon has returned from maternity leave, presumably to take control of the show. Thing is, I liked it better when no-one was in charge, earlier on in the season. (And I truly believe that no-one was in charge. Joss Whedon was busy with Firefly, Noxon was squeezing out a brat, David Fury was - by his own admission - spending more time on Angel, and neither Douglas Petrie or Jane Espenson strike me as having being significantly invested in the show to have taken over showrunning duties. Rather, they strike me as having been writers for hire who were, by this stage, just intent on getting the job done.) It was directionless, sure, but at least it was largely fun and occasionally meaningful. Now, with Captain Marti steering the ship, it remains directionless, but becomes completely boring.

Anyway, nothing much happens in this episode, except Buffy tries to find out whether or not Spike is killing humans again. Yawn. The highlight of the episode is that they managed to get one of my favourite musicians, Aimee Mann, to guest star at the Bronze, where she mimes two songs from (at the time) her most recent album, Lost in Space... although her line as she exits, "Man, I hate playing vampire towns," is one of those odd "breaking the fourth wall" moments that really doesn't sit well with me.

Overall rating: 5/10.

Next time: Never Leave Me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 7: Conversations with Dead People

Written by Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Marti Noxon (uncredited) & Joss Whedon (uncredited); Directed by Nick Marck

This is the closest Season 7 gets to an episode that is a genuine masterpiece, and the reason for that is that it is one of the few that attempts to do anything approaching an intelligent look at the issues raised in Season 6 and the themes of Season 7. Chiefly, we get to hear Buffy admitting what we've all known for a long time: that she has a superiority complex and thinks she's better than her friends. The episode also manages to be genuinely unsettling in its depiction of the poltergeist that invades the Summers house and attacks Dawn, while the central concept of the episode - none of the main characters come into contact with each other (in fact, Xander and Anya aren't even in it, making this the one episode out of the entire run of 144 that Nicholas Brendon missed) - is pretty nifty.

Still, there are some major problems. As good as the aforementioned poltergeist material is, it makes no sense in the grand scheme of things. Originally, I thought it was either the First preventing Joyce's spirit from contacting Dawn, or indeed that the vision of Joyce was the first. Either way, her line to Dawn, "When it's bad, Buffy won't choose you. She'll be against you," is never followed up on. If it's Joyce genuinely trying to warn Dawn, then it's nonsensical enough, but if it's actually the First, then the attacks make even less sense, since it is established that the First is incorporeal and can't affect anything physically, which means that it would be impossible for it to smash up the house and give Dawn a thrashing.

The other big problem is the Willow material. I've seen the original script, and the plan was for Willow to be visited by what first appears to be the ghost of Tara, but eventually reveals itself to be the First, after failing to convince Willow to slash her own wrists. In the episode as it airs, Willow is visited by the First in the guise of Cassie (the girl from Help). Unfortunately, this makes little sense, as Willow never even met Cassie. And, if the First can appear in the guise of (and I quote) "any dead person it wants", including Buffy (who has, after all, been dead twice), Spike and Drusilla (who are, after all, technically dead), the Mayor, Glory and so on, who not Tara?

There is of course a completely straightforward answer: Amber Benson flatly refused to have anything to do with an episode that would cause even more heartache to a community of fans already extremely uset by her character's death. And this, more than anything, is perhaps the biggest scandal of Season 7. When the season ended, Joss Whedon, confronted in an interview with IGN about various problems with the season, came up with a grand story about how his original plan was that Tara was eventually going to be resurrected and return to Willow and everyone would be all smiles and he cried every time he pitched the story because it was so heartwarming... but then that horrible Amber Benson refused to do it. As it happens, though, Amber tells a completely different story, saying that Whedon never once mentioned a happy ending to her, and that she was under the impression that he wanted to appear as the First and only as the First, something that she wasn't prepared to do to her fans. (And I can't say I'm surprised. She of all the cast and crew members seemed to be the one who most "got" the social significance of the role she played - although, given that at least one lesbian viewer told her that she didn't commit suicide "because of Willow and Tara", it would take a very dim person not to get it.)

Here the vindictiveness of Whedon really comes out, as he did his absolute best to make her out to be the bad guy, pulling his usual "tortured artist" schtick, when, as has been pointed out numerous times, if he hadn't made the decision to kill off Tara in the first place, the whole sorry situation could have been avoided. He behaved in a similar way with Charisma Carpenter on Angel, deciding not to renew her contract after she got pregnant and therefore required his precious artistic vision for the fourth season to be altered (although, given that they seemed to be making that season up as they went along, I suspect that he was once again looking for someone other than himself to blame for its shortcomings). Then again, it's always someone else's fault with this guy: apparently Alien: Resurrection's problems are Jean-Pierre Jeunet's fault, the Buffy movie sucked because of Donald Sutherland, and so on and so forth.

Am I rambling? Sorry.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I forgot: Andrew kills Jonathan in this episode. That's right, murders him in cold blood. And yet somehow, despite knowing this, Buffy and co are more than happy to let him hang about in their house for the rest of the season.

Overall rating: 8/10.

Next time: Sleeper.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 6: Him

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by Michael Gershman

What's the biggest problem with Season 7? (Apart from it generally being boring and lifeless, that is.) Continuity. This episode is fun in a ridiculously cheesy throwaway manner, but it seems to exist in its own reality because, outside of a brief moment near the start that acknowledges what's been going on in Anya's life, the characters act as if the events of previous episodes never took place. Anya, who was utterly depressed at the end of Selfless, is back to her cheery Season 4-5 self; Willow, who, less than six months ago, was standing with the love of her life's blood splattered all over her, is busy falling head over heels for a generic high school jock and contemplating casting a spell to rid herself of the slight inconvenience of him having a penis (I don't care that he's wearing an enchanted jacket that makes all women crazy about him - Willow would never do this!); and Spike - Spike - is busy moving in with Xander. You know, the same Spike who Xander wanted to kill after he boned Anya and tried to rape Buffy? Well, apparently not, because in this episode the two behave pretty much like old pals who've had a minor tiff in the past. Perhaps, though, this is Drew Greenberg's niche: stupid, throwaway episodes that have nothing to do with the main story arc and can be syndicated out of their original production order. To be honest, I suspect that this is the sort of material we would have seen with the aborted Buffy animated series. Who knows? Perhaps the episode was even written for it. That said, as mediocre as it is, it's certainly considerably better than anything else he ever wrote for the show, although I'm still not ready to forgive him for Older and Far Away or The Killer in Me (review for that particular travesty forthcoming).

This is, by the way, the last filler episode before the main Seasonal Arc of Morbidity kicks into gear, so you might at well savour it. It's more or less all doom and gloom from here.

Overall rating: 6/10.

Next time: Conversations with Dead People.

Fear and Loathing of the State

The extended edition of Enemy of the State (R1 USA) and the recently-released HD DVD version of Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (R0 USA) both arrived today from DVD Pacific. I've given Enemy of the State the once-over, and my report will, for now, be brief. Basically, it contains the same extras as the R2 UK release I already own - nothing more, nothing less. The transfer, meanwhile, features considerably less obtrusive edge enhancement than its British counterpart, but on the downside looks abnormally soft. Additionally, it strikes me as having much weaker colours than the R2, although I'll have to do a side by side comparison to make sure. Either way, I'm curious to see the extended cut, but the new transfer doesn't exactly set the world on fire.

On to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where I'm happy to report that things are better all round.

We all know how weak Criterion's transfer of the film was, right? Actually, we probably don't, because practically every review I've ever read of that release gave it a 10/10 (or equivalent) for image quality.

(On a side note, isn't it amazing how a company's own self-publicity can convince the public that said company is providing a better service than it actually is? The number of reviews I've read where writers praise Criterion to the heavens is just astounding, when in fact the discs they're praising are so mediocre that they're clearly not in a position to distinguish in the first place between a good disc and a great one! I actually bought into it myself for a long time, on the basis of a couple of stellar titles and a couple of not so stellar ones, whereby I believed the hype and assumed that the not so stellar ones were just blips. As it turns out, the reverse is closer to the truth: the stellar transfers are the ones that are the blips. In the end, as it happens, the average Criterion release is no better in terms of image quality than one from any other studio. I still thank them every day for spearheading the movement to present films in their original aspect ratios, and for creating the first LaserDiscs with bonus features, and for brilliant-looking discs like The Rock and Naked Lunch, but nowadays I'm convinced that the praise of their DVDs is a prestige thing rather than something grounded in reality.)

Anyway, the Criterion DVD looked abnormally poor, as did Universal's version. Luckily, though, they've now been superceded by an HD DVD release which, while being rather bare-bones in comparison with Criterion's stacked 2-disc release, and while not featuring a "perfect" HD DVD transfer like Serenity and Unleashed, is so much better than what preceded it that it's literally like watching a different film.

Taken from a film element (presumably the 35mm interpositive also used for the Criterion and Universal standard definition releases, judging by the identical print damage), the first thing that leaps out is the monumental increase in clarity. The opening drive through the desert looks fresh and new, lacking the hazy, foggy appearance of the DVDs and literally coming alive in terms of film grain. The close-ups are eye-popping - for example, I never noticed Johnny Depp's character's clumsy shaving job before. Naturally, the increase in clarity continues to be evident throughout the film, although this is more evident in some scenes than others. The dark, low contrast sequences in the hotel, for example, unsurprisingly look slightly less defined than those taking place in the stark sunlight of the desert. The transfer is also pleasingly free of tampering, although, like Red Dragon, it also exhibits a degree of horizontal edge enhancement.

This is overall a mid to high 8/10. It's fairly near the bottom of the heap as far as Universal's HD DVD transfers go, but that's no small achievement given how uniformally excellent they've been so far. For comparison, I'd put it on around the same level as Warner's Constantine, which also suffered from slight edge enhancement.

The Little Mermaid: Platinum Edition

As one of Disney's most beloved animated features ever, fans of all ages are sure to be queuing up to pick up this 2-disc edition of The Little Mermaid before it is placed back in the notorious Disney Vault. Still, while the extras are plentiful and largely informative, the transfer is a real disappointment and one that betrays a lack of understanding or regard for the medium of film-sourced, hand-drawn animation. The sad thing is that, for the foreseeable future, these flaws are likely to be here to stay, so holding out for a later release (e.g. a high definition version) is unlikely to improve matters substantially. One thing's for sure: Disney should definitely never again commission Technicolor to undertake a restoration of one of their films.

One of Disney's most popular animated classics has finally been given a re-release on DVD, getting the deluxe 2-disc Platinum Edition treatment. I've reviewed the R1 US release of The Little Mermaid, due out on October 3rd, which unfortunately features a decidedly substandard restoration.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 5: Selfless

Written by Drew Goddard; Directed by David Solomon

The crazy new costume designer strikes again! In Beneath You, it was Spike and his horrifying blue shirt; this week, it's Streetwalker Willow in her wacky red tights.

Anyway, a lot of people are crazy about this episode, but I consider it rather overrated. It's worth watching, though, because it's the last time Anya gets any meaningful character development. Trouble is, it seems to exist for no reason other than to cap off the "return to vengeange" plot that was introduced late in Season 6. What was the point? Was it because they realised the plot wasn't a very good idea after all? Buffy does, of course, have a moral obligation, and indeed duty, to kill demons, especially those who are themselves making a habit of slaughtering people wholesale. How on earth could they justify keeping Anya alive after what she's done? Buffy does, after all, stake random vampires as they rise from their graves before they've had any chance to kill anyone. If she's not going to give them the benefit of the doubt, what's so special about Anya?

Answer: Emma Caulfield. She was originally going to be a one-shot villain, but Joss Whedon liked her so much that he kept her around until the show ended (although he did give her a crappy pointless death in the final few minutes because he was pissed off that she'd decided to quit whether or not the show was renewed). It's the same with Spike and, I suspect, a number of other characters who Buffy, for no tangible reason, allows to live, simply because people like the characters and their actors. In all honesty, Buffy might as well have killed Anya in this episode, as was her intention, because Emma gets precious little to do from hereon in, other than get drunk with Andrew and have a surprise bout of kitchen-floor sex with Xander just before the final battle.

This was the first episode written by a new writer, Drew Goddard, as his first ever gig in the industry. A number of people have commented that, had he run the final season, it would have been a whole lot better and actually lived up to the promises of "going right back to the beginning". I can sort of see why: he does well with the continuity in this episode, referring all the way back to Xander's "kick his ass" lie at the end of Season 2, and also throwing in a fun musical number set at the time of Once More With Feeling (although it's vastly inferior to anything in that episode). These are just window-dressing, though. The "kick his ass" line is promptly buried without ever being exploited (if the writers wanted to drive the gang apart, surely dirty secrets from the past such as that should have been the perfect tools with which to do so), and the song is nice for what it is but ultimately empty. I'm not saying the season wouldn't have been better with Goddard in the driving seat, because at least then someone would have been steering it, but, based on his contributions to the Buffyverse, I don't think he's the wunderkind some people have made him out to be.

Overall rating: 7/10.

Next time: Him.

Land of the Dead

My copy of the HD DVD/SD DVD combo release of George A. Romero's Land of the Dead Unrated Director's Cut (R0 USA) arrived this morning, and I'm happy to report that it's another strong release from Universal. No, it's not "perfect" in the manner of Serenity and Unleashed, but it is very, very good and a step up from Red Dragon, released shortly before it, also by Universal.

Like many of the more recent films getting the upgrade to high definition, such as Serenity and Constantine, Land of the Dead is sourced from a digital intermediate, and as such has a "cleaner" and more static look than titles sourced from film elements, such as Red Dragon and Sleepy Hollow. The level of detail is, for the most part, excellent, although the darker scenes, of which there are a fair number, are obviously not as crisply defined as the day scenes or the brightly lit interiors. This is, of course, a result of the original photography. Unlike Red Dragon, edge enhancement is also pleasingly absent, apart from a handful of close-ups of Big Daddy at around the 33 minute mark. In these shots, there is some prominent ringing around his head, but the fact that, out of the entire film, only these shots are affected, suggests that some digital tomfoolery went on during the post production process, rather than any tampering with the transfer. In any event, the shots are gone after around 30 seconds, and the problem never crops up again.

The compression is also well handled, barring some blocking on a single explosion towards the end of the film - once again, impressive results for an HD15/DVD9 flipper release. Overall, therefore, this is another stellar effort from Universal. It's not their best, but it's not far behind my personal "Big Three" (Serenity, Unleashed and The Bourne Supremacy). Of course, flip it over and take a look at the standard definition side, and it's another story entirely. I know the R1 DVD release of Land of the Dead was a particularly weak effort, but yikes! Softness and thick blurry edge enhancement halos galore! This is Fellowship of the Ring bad (i.e. really bad, especially for a big budget release of a digitally sourced modern film).

So far, my overall rankings for the various HD DVD releases that I've seen now look like this (from best to worst):

10/10:
Serenity
Unleashed

9/10:
The Bourne Supremacy
Land of the Dead

8/10:
Red Dragon
Constantine
Sleepy Hollow
Million Dollar Baby

7/10:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Before the year is out, I hope to be able to add Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, An American Werewolf in London, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride and Miami Vice to the list (the latter three are review copies that I've put my name down for), as well as the Japanese release of The Machinist and the UK release of Gangs of New York... provided the latter (a) actually comes out and (b) actually plays in the HD-A1. And who knows what other titles will be announced before Christmas?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 4: Help

Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner; Directed by Rick Rosenthal

As I write this review, it occurs to me that, despite being one of the weakest seasons of Buffy ever, Season 7 actually has the longest run of solid episodes at its start. Looking at these early episodes, it seems clear that the writers at least were earnest in their intent to move away from the depression of Season 6 and go back to a more light-hearted style of show. It also seems fairly certain that, at this stage, they really weren't sure whether or not this would be their last season, because it's probably fair to say that, had they known for certain they were on their way out, they wouldn't have done so many filler episodes. In that regard, I suspect that at least some of the blame for Season 7's overall suckage should be laid at Sarah Michelle Gellar's feet, since she took so long to decide she wasn't coming back that the writers ended up with very little time to wrap things up.

Anyway, good things about this episode: Willow and Xander visit Tara's grave. This is one of something like three episodes in which Tara is directly referenced (although her name isn't actually spoken here), and the scene manages to be quite touching. Also, the main plot, involving a young girl called Cassie who can see into the future and predicts that she's going to die on Friday, is a little different from usual and is dealt with well. It's not the most uplifting of episodes, but it is poignant, and probably Rebecca Kirshner's best writing effort. The actress playing Cassie, Azura Skye, is also excellent. I know that the episode is filled with all sorts of timeframe errors, but I can overlook these. Interestingly, too, this short-lived mini Scoobie gang of Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander is quite effective, getting away from the sometimes overcrowded nature of of the last couple of seasons in favour of a more concentrated approach. Where's Anya, though? She's not in this episode at all, which is pretty indicative of the way her character ends up being treated throughout the rest of the season.

On the downside, the writing may have got better, but the directing certainly hasn't. If anything, it's got worse. So far, every episode of this season has looked bland, flat and anonymous, with drab lighting and very uninteresting camerawork - and, as far as I can remember, this doesn't change. It's serviceable, that's for sure, but when I look back to something like Bad Girls in Season 3 and think how good the lighting, staging and stunts were, it becomes really obvious how much the show's technical standards have slipped.

Overall rating: 8/10.

Next time: Selfless.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 3: Same Time, Same Place

Written by Jane Espenson; Directed by James A. Contner

As I'm watching these early Season 7 episodes, I'm finding it amazing just how much better they are than the second half of Season 6, or indeed the second half of Season 7. They're not perfect, and there's a distinct lack of proper narrative follow-through, but at least they're acknowledging certain issues, such as Willow's previous homidical tendencies, even if they're doing their best to brush them off.

This episode is good in most respects: it has a cool monster (Gnarl is one creepy mofo), decent character moments and even an effective metaphor (Willow can't see the gang, and they can't see her, because of their failure to communicate). There are also some very nice comedy moments, my favourite being posable Dawn (she gets paralysed by Gnarl). That said, some of the problems that will affect the rest of the season are already becoming apparent. Chiefly, we learn that Anya has had her right to teleport revoked - presumably because the writers realised it would make things a little too easy if she could travel anywhere she wanted in the blink of an eye. The same is true later in the season with Willow's magic ability, which varies on an episode by episode basis as they struggle to rationalise why someone with enough power to literally destroy the whole world isn't getting out the big guns for the showdown against the First and his minions.

Overall rating: 8/10.

Next time: Help.

The Omen: how to make exactly the same movie twice and ruin it

A review copy of the 2006 remake of The Omen (R2 UK) arrived this morning. I can't exactly claim that I had high hopes for this latest Hollywood cash-in (a movie made entirely because of the marketing possibilities of a 6/6/06 release date, it would seem), but jeez Louise! Even I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it turned out. I mean, it uses almost exactly the same script as the original (a writer called Dan McDermott was brought in to "update" it, but the changes he made were so minor that the Writers' Guild of America didn't even give him credit), and the original is one of my favourite films of all time. I figured that it would at least be competent, if unremarkable. Sadly, I was wrong. The new Omen is not merely bad, it's a shit film.

I'll have a full review up before too long (probably October 16th, when reviews of the new UK releases of the first four Omen films will also be going up at DVD Times), so I'll be brief. Crap acting, crap music, crap "scares", crap direction (seriously, this is the one horror remake I've seen that actually looks less slick than the original), and Jesus Christ, the kid playing Damien is the worst of the lot. Scowling at the camera and wearing pasty make-up does not a scary child make, people. A couple of intriguing dream sequences nonewithstanding, this film is a worthless waste of celluloid. I didn't think it was possible to take a classic film and screw it up this badly, but sadly I was mistaken. 3/10

The Little Mermaid: Technicolor Digital curls out another one

This morning I received a copy of Disney's upcoming 2-disc Platinum Edition of The Little Mermaid (R1 USA), courtesy of DVD Pacific. Unfortunately, it's not good news. Yes, the extras are numerous; yes, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's songs sound punchy; no, there's no crappy inserted "all-new animation"... but the transfer leaves a lot to be desired.

Disney have always had a rather spotty history with their Platinum Editions, especially those for films not shot in the digital realm. Previously, their "restorations" were handled by Lowry Digital Images, the same company responsible for ruining the Indiana Jones and Star Wars trilogies with their overly aggressive digital noise reduction techniques. I first became aware of their destructive influence with Bambi, whose transfer was so horribly mangled that parts of the image that had been subjected to "clean-up" literally warped and swam around before my very eyes, while incompetently handled DVNR eroded the pencil lines of the original animation in much the same manner as the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 cartoons that we were all getting so worked up about last summer.

With Cinderella and Lady and the Tramp, Lowry continued their campaign of mass destruction, this time seeming to get the line mangling under control, but filtering and noise reducing the images so much that any hint of film grain was completely eradicated.

With The Little Mermaid, however, Disney have sunk to a new low. The restoration this time was carried out not by Lowry but by Technicolor Digital Services, who have subjected the film to a series of harmful and inconsistently applied algorithms. Heavy temporal noise reduction is visible on a number of occasions, causing the pencil outlines of the animation to ghost and leave trails, giving a look much like that of an LCD screen with a very low response time. On other occasions, the lines become eroded in the same manner as Bambi and the Looney Tunes cartoons. Perhaps most distracting, though, is that the level grain and detail erosion varies on a shot by shot basis. Some shots look fine, showing a reasonable level of grain and detail, but others will suddenly look oily and smudged, especially shots with a lot of pale hues (presumably because they would be more likely to be affected by grain).

The end result is very disappointing, and it's clear that these so-called restoration "experts" should be kept away from films such as these, because they obviously have no understanding of how to deal with animation. These transfers are certainly watchable, but are far from pleasant, and in my opinion constitute artistic vandalism, given that these are likely to serve as the masters for several subsequent generations of releases of these highly-regarded films.

It's also worth mentioning that this transfer is cropped. Compared with the 1.66:1 transfer of the Limited Issue release from 2000, sourced from a LaserDisc master, this 1.78:1 transfer is missing information at both the top and bottom of the frame. Obviously, the film would have been intended to be exhibited in a variety of ratios from 1.66:1 to 1.85:1, depending on the specific dimensions of the cinema screen on which it was being projected, but the use of 1.66:1 transfers for just about every other Disney film from The Rescuers onwards suggests, to me, that those responsible prefer to have the full image visible for their DVD releases. Either way, cropping or not, this is a disappointing transfer, especially given the film's historical value.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 2: Beneath You

Written by Douglas Petrie; Directed by Nick Marck (England sequence written and directed by Joss Whedon)

More monster of the week whimsies, but clearly a bit of an afterthought. I mean, a penis monster (well, that's what it looks like at any rate) who comes out of the ground and chases a helpless lady is hardly original. The main focus, it would seem, is on Spike and his newly acquired soul, as well as his newly acquired state of insanity. Initially, I assumed that the two were connected, but, of course, later on it turns out that the insanity is just the First messing with him.

What really bugs me is the fact that the gang pretty much just accept Spike back. Okay, so Xander can at least remember that he tried to rape Buffy last time he was in town, and Dawn warns him that if he lays a finger on her sister, he'll "wake up on fire" (gotta love the new got-together Dawn), but everyone seems fairly blasé about it. Oh, and if everyone knows that Anya, now a practicing Vengeance Demon again, is killing people as a career, why in the hell aren't they doing anything about it? Still, Spike's blue shirt is by far the most offensive part of the episode. I'm not exactly a fashion-conscious sort of fellow, but yeesh!

As with last week's episode, the scene between Willow and Giles in England is its best moment. I find it interesting that this damaged, vulnerable Willow, having realised just how out of control she was, has reverted back to her Season 1-3 speech patterns. It's moments like these that make me realise what an immensely talented actor Alyson Hannigan is, and, not for the first time, I find myself shaking my head when I think that she's stuck appearing in crap like Date Movie. Someone give the girl a decent dramatic role, for god's sake!

Savour these moments, by the way, because, barring the Buffy scenes in Conversations with Dead People, they're the only Joss Whedon material we'll get until the finale. And, as a point of useless trivia, they were actually shot in Anthony Head's own house and garden.

Overall rating: 7/10.

Next time: Same Time, Same Place.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 1: Lessons

Written by Joss Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (England sequences directed by Joss Whedon)

It's always difficult to know precisely what went on behind closed doors during the break between Seasons 6 and 7, but it seems fairly safe to say that there would have been some heated discussions to say the least. What is known is that Joss Whedon and his writers were more than a little put out to discover that, as it happens, people don't generally like being depressed and seeing characters they've grown to love pushed into the mud and trampled on. Whedon likes to say that he "gives people what they need, not what they want", but it's pretty clear that, in more than a few areas, he realised he was going to have to listen to the fans.

And it wasn't just the fans. James Marsters threatened to quit because he was sick of having to stand around in a jock-strap for hours on end all day. Sarah Michelle Gellar went to Whedon and told him she was sick of playing a manic depressive and wanted a return to the light-hearted fun and fancy free of the first three seasons. Emma Caulfield said that, no matter what happened, she'd be gone after the season ended. Amber Benson was busy becoming a martyr for a sizeable portion of the audience. Michelle Trachtenberg wanted to wear high heels. Oh, and there was the slight problem of the advertisers saying they'd pull out if the Doublemeat Palace ever reared its ugly head again.

So, prior to the new season starting, a whole lot of grand promises were made. Season 7 would be more light-hearted and fun (a natural progression, Whedon claimed, to the doom and gloom of Season 6 - although frankly I have my doubts), heading back to high school and dealing more with monster of the week cases. Giles would appear in more episodes and be put to better use. Buffy would stop being depressed. Amber Benson, Eliza Dushku and a bunch of others would be back. Oh, and the "magic as drugs" metaphor would be dumped.

The first episode comes around, and it's a competent but completely unremarkable season premiere. Basically, it's a monster of the week episode that introduces the new Sunnydale High and begins to hint at the Big Bad of the season, the First. It also serves as something of a pilot for a "Dawn the Vampire Slayer" spin-off that never came to fruition: by the end of Season 7, there was no way Michelle Trachtenberg was going to agree to ever play Dawn again, and I doubt many people would have objected to this decision. The funny thing, though, is that the development of Dawn is one of the few things I like about this season. Okay, "development" probably isn't the right word, as she doesn't really progress in a meaningful way, but she does become considerably less annoying (then again, maybe that's because she gets considerably less screen time). Anyway, it involves Dawn hooking up with a couple of kids who can only be described as Willow Lite and Xander Lite, although some people have nicknamed them the Scrappies (to the original gang's Scoobies). They never appear again, and Dawn the Vampire Slayer is pretty much buried in the episode Potential, but it does show that, mindful of the fact that this could well be their last season, Whedon and co were busy executing various contingency plans so they'd have something to fall back on. Of course, none of them ever panned out, but that's another story.

What bugs me about this episode is the inability to address any of the events that took place during the previous season. Yes, it's good that the episode is largely upbeat, but the fact that everyone seems to have had a memory wipe does not bode well. Tara is never mentioned - actually, it takes till the seventh episode for her name to be spoken, for the first of something like three occasions in the whole season - and Willow's murder spree has been conveniently forgotten. Actually, Buffy, Xander and Dawn never even mention Willow in this episode (she's off in England with Giles, learning how to not kill people, as Anya puts it in a later episode). I'm sorry, but for people who went to Hell and back the previous year, everyone's just too cheerful. If the writers went through the five stages of acceptance regarding Tara's death, this would have to be Denial - ignore the angry lesbians and maybe they'll go away. (Trouble is, judging by the drop in viewing figures, that's exactly what they did.)

The final scene, which features the dead Big Bads of every previous season, is definitely the highlight of the episode. It's too bad only a handful of them ever ended up showing up for subsequent episodes - yet another example of the unfulfilled potential of the season.

Overall rating: 6/10.

Next time: Beneath You.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6 (2001-2002)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6

Season 6 reviews:

• Episodes 1 and 2: Bargaining 7/10 and 8/10
• Episode 3: After Life 6/10
• Episode 4: Flooded 5/10
• Episode 5: Life Serial 6/10
• Episode 6: All the Way 6/10
• Episode 7: Once More, With Feeling 9/10
• Episode 8: Tabula Rasa 8/10
• Episode 9: Smashed 5/10
• Episode 10: Wrecked 2/10
• Episode 11: Gone 4/10
• Episode 12: Doublemeat Palace 2/10
• Episode 13: Dead Things 7/10
• Episode 14: Older and Far Away 4/10
• Episode 15: As You Were 2/10
• Episode 16: Hell's Bells 1/10
• Episode 17: Normal Again 7/10
• Episode 18: Entropy 4/10
• Episode 19: Seeing Red 3/10
• Episode 20: Villains 4/10
• Episode 21: Two to Go 5/10
• Episode 22: Grave 4/10

There's really not much for me to say that hasn't been covered in the individual episode reviews. To put it bluntly, I am not a fan of Season 6. It's the worst so far, bagging an average rating of only 4.95 out of 10, which even Season 1, with its 5.67, was easily able to beat. The sad news is that I have another 22 episodes ahead of me, and, despite what minimal pleasures the first few might hold, none of it seems to matter, because I know that all the mistakes made in Season 6 are not going to be undone, and indeed very few of the issues raised are even going to be broached.

I'll be honest right now and say that the only thing motivation me to make my way through the final official season is the knowledge that there is an unofficial continuation waiting for me, written by a group of dedicated fans, that is of a higher calibre than anything the "real" Buffy writers were able to come up with in Season 7. I don't normally read fan fiction, but The Chosen does the seemingly impossible task of salvaging the wreck of a show that Buffy had become by the end of its seven-year run, making the central characters likeable again and righting countless other wrongs. Pretty sad when a bunch of fans, in their free time, can put together a better season and a half (and counting) than fully-paid professionals, but there you go: that should give you some idea of how bad Buffy got before the end.

Anyway, I'm done for now. You can probably expect my viewing of Season 7 to begin in a few days, but right now I feel like a break. And a cold shower.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:35 PM: Fixed a bunch of dead links.