A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
Source:
DVD TrashTime for an update on Cecchi Gori's upcoming Italian DVD release of
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin: with a running time of 95 minutes, it sounds as if the release will be cut.
The master is supposedly PAL, which confuses me slightly, since, if it's genuinely a native PAL master rather than a standards conversion from NTSC, then at 95 minutes it would mean that it is not the same cut as Media Blasters' release. The US "Schizoid" cut in the Media Blasters release runs for just under 96 minutes, which would be more like 92 minutes in PAL. Likewise, the fullscreen uncut version in the Media Blasters release, which is a standards conversion from an Italian PAL video, is approximately 97 minutes. In other words, there are three possibilities: (1) the stated running time is wrong, (2) it's a standards conversion of the cut US version, or (3) it's a different cut from either of the versions in Media Blasters' release.
If this release is indeed cut, then I'm extremely disappointed but glad to get the news before shelling out for it.
Orders a-plenty
I ordered the recently released score to
What Have You Done to Solange? from
DigitMovies.
I'm also doing my best to get a hold of books that will be useful for my dissertation. Today I bought Marcia Landy's book
Italian Film from the university bookshop, and I ordered a mint copy of Xavier Mendik's book on
Tenebre (entitled, originally enough,
Tenebre) from
ABE Books, a great source for picking up rare, out of print books.
Alice the Vampire Slayer
The long-mooted movie adaptation of
American McGee's Alice, a PC game from 2000 and surely one of the most inspired interpretations of
Alice in Wonderland, seems finally to be on course for release, judging by
the IMDB. This is a film I'll definitely be very interested to see, although I'm far from confident that they'll succeed in capturing the mood of the game. Two pieces of information, in particular, give me cause for concern. One, the director is Marcus Nispel, Michael Bay's little stooge who helmed the thoroughly uninteresting remake of
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Two, they've got Sarah Michelle Gellar playing Alice.
What the heck? Gellar is a lot of things, but she's no Alice. For one thing, she's nearly 30, and the Alice in the game is supposed to be around 16 or so - and even accounting for age, she simply isn't the right physical type. The news that they've cast
Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the title role also makes me concerned that they've decided to go down the route of having Alice delivery peppy one-liners rather than remaining true to the personality in the game. I'd much rather they'd cast someone like Angela Bettis (
May) or Emily Perkins (
Ginger Snaps), who have the right frail sort of look and enough of the requisite weirdness. Posters on the dreaded IMDB forums have also suggested the likes of Alexis Bledel and Emma Watson, both of whom I'd take over Gellar.
Oh, and no doubt it will be filled with CGI - which is a shame, given that, in order to capture the off-kilter vibe of the game, you'd really need to do animatronics and puppets for the inhabitants of Wonderland.
Still, we'll see. Who knows - maybe I'll end up eating humble pie when it comes out in July 2007?
Profondo Rosso essay added
I've added my essay on the camera and subjectivity in
Profondo Rosso to my
Essays section.
Have a look at it and tell me all the mistakes I've made that it's too late to fix.
Hangin' out with Orson
It's a little overdue, but I've finally uploaded my new picture for
Orson.
I love these pens, by the way. I've ordered a new 12-pack, since this one's sure to run out before too long.
The New York Ripper comparison updated
Thanks to Tolpol, I've now been able to update my
comparison of
The New York Ripper to include the R0 Dutch release by Italian Shock Entertainment. The source used for its transfer seems to be the same as or very similar to the one used for the Australian release. It's darker and less saturated, and is non-anamorphic, but judging by the screenshots is still better than the French release. Obviously, because I haven't seen this DVD for myself, I'm not going to asign ratings to it, but as far as I can tell the Australian release still comes out on top.
PS. The Dutch release also misses out the scene with Davis and his secretary, as well as the misplaced one that appears in the final scene on the French release.
Uno Bianca
Ultimately, the three-hour running time seems to work against Soavi. Had the script been pared down to a more reasonable 90 minutes or, at a stretch, two hours, he could probably have delivered a taut and involving thriller, and shaving off some of the more mundane aspects of the investigation could have given it the sense of drive it so urgently needed. The end product is intermittently engaging, but it is unremarkable and, at this length, simply requires too much investment for a film that doesn't offer anything special. It's great that Michele Soavi has made a comeback after so many years away from the limelight, but those expecting a natural progression for his obsessions with gothic horror, love and death will be sorely disappointed. All things considered, Uno Bianca is probably more a case of him keeping his hand in the jar rather than pursuing his own vision.
I've
reviewed NoShame Films' recent release of
Uno Bianca, a 2-part, 3-hour TV movie helmed by Michele Soavi (
The Sect,
Dellamorte Dellamore) and based on true events. The 2-disc R0 US set features a disappointingly non-anamorphic transfer, but boasts solid audio and some informative extras.
Vomit
The Omen remake trailerThis represents everything I loathe about the Hollywood remake engine. Needless to say, I will be having nothing to do with this execrable little movie.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 3: School Hard
Teleplay by David Greenwalt; Story by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt; Directed by John T. Kretchmer
Buffy episodes at this stage seem to alternate between pretty good and pretty bad. The premiere was very good, the second episode was weak, this episode is good, the next is garbage... This episode is special, because it introduces the one character who, more than any other, would come to define the tone of the show from now on. This ended up being both good and bad, but, at this stage in the show, Spike was a great character. The difference between the annoying pomposity of the other vampires and his nonchalant take on the whole mythology, ably demonstrated in the scene immediately after the opening titles, is incredibly refreshing, and the frying of the Annoying One at the very end must have resulted in cheers from viewers the world over when the episode originally aired. Small wonder Spike went from being a villain to one of the good guys (it was the only way the writers could justify keeping him around, I suppose).
By the way, of all the episodes of
Buffy David Greenwalt wrote before moving to
Angel, this one was probably the best.
8/10Next time:
Inca Mummy Girl. Oh, god.
The New York Ripper
I've added a comparison between the Australian and French releases of
The New York Ripper to my DVD Image Comparison section. While I was rummaging through the discs, I noticed some rather strange discrepancies:
For some bizarre reason, two copies of the film are included on the French disc, one running for 1:31:06 and the other for 1:33:06. The shorter version omits a scene in which Dr. Davis has a brief conversation with his secretary that takes place between Williams' interview of Jane's husband and the raid on Mickey Scellenda's landlady's apartment. The longer version is played when you select the audio commentary, the shorter version for English, French and Italian audio - despite the fact that the longer version actually contains the audio tracks for all three languages. The scene is completely missing from the Australian disc.
A further discrepancy shows up in the form of an extraneous shot of Dr. Davis that, on the French disc, is for some bizarre reason spliced into the middle of the final scene, breaking the continuity. This shot should have appeared much earlier in the film, at around the 44 minute mark, when he and Williams have left the hospital. On the Australian DVD, it is completely absent.
Anyway, see the results for yourself
here. I think you'll agree that the Australian transfer is much nicer, although I'm fairly sure its colour values are wrong.
O Buffy, where are thou?
Today's regularly scheduled screening of
Buffy had to be postponed today as I was out, first seeing my supervisor about my dissertation (she didn't want to borrow my copy of
The New York Ripper, but I did manage to foist the atrocious
Strip Nude For Your Killer on her), and then attending a guest lecture on portrayals of prostitute trafficking in film and television. My mini-review of
School Hard will go up tomorrow instead.
The Australian New York Ripper is ripper, mate!
Well, not quite, but it's pretty good. It arrived this morning, and I immediately gave it the once-over. Unlike the French 2-disc release that I own, this transfer is progressive, taken from a proper PAL master, and shows substantially more detail. There is a new-found crispness to the image that wasn't there before. On the other hand, there is a rather unsightly brown tint to the image (which I must admit might have been intentional - can anyone confirm?), and at times the black level seems slightly off. There is also quite a bit of film damage in the form of white specs, but as you probably know by now I don't mind that sort of thing half as much as edge enhancement, filtering, standards conversions and the like, all of which plagued the French release something rotten.
Look out for a full comparison soon.
Hilda gets a makeover
I decided that the old colour model of Hilda that I uploaded on Sunday wasn't particularly great, so this evening I redrew it. This time round, I found a really nice pen - a Pentel Stylo JL30 fountain pen, which was probably being used for crosswords and the like - which gives variable line widths and is generally much smoother to draw with than the 99p Woolworths pens I've been using for these drawings. I've got to get me some more of these.
Anyway, head over to my
original post to see the new and improved Hilda Beaumont. A revised drawing of Baby Orson will follow, as will Jemima.
Announcing Dying Feathers
The Pretentious Entertainers' new album,
Dying Feathers, goes on sale today! If you're in the San Diego area, be sure to stop by the exclusive coffee maison Life 21 to get your copy signed and shake hands with the band.
You can also befriend the Entertainers on
MySpace. They already have many admirers already, including Dork, who were featured on the soundtrack for
American Pie: Band Camp - clearly men of taste!
The future's bright
Ah, the one remaining hope for the Beaumont dynasty! With Richard unlikely to amount to anything and Jemima destined to be given away to the highest bidder when she becomes of legal age, it looks as if Baby Orson is the clan's only hope for survival.
Because he is only an infant, not much is expected of Orson. If Abraham and Hilda were a little more perceptive, however, they would realse that to say he was below average intelligence would be an understatement.
Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all this stupid?
It's Hilda Beaumont, the mother of Richard, Jemima and Orson and the wife of Abraham!
This one took me ages to get right, and I'm still not all that satisfied with it. Hilda (or Dinah, or whatever she ends up being called) is, for some reason, much harder to draw than anyone else in the Beaumont clan. Perhaps it's because she's tall and skinny, whereas Richard and Abraham are short and fat, or maybe it's the ridiculous hair (a carry-over from the 3D Movie Maker days). Either way, now that I've got the toughest character out of the way, I can look forward to drawing and inking the comparatively simple Jemima and Baby Orson.
To underscore her status in the Beaumont household, I gave her a ladle (at least that's what it's meant to be).
RIP Alida Valli
Source:
Horror DVDsAlida Valli, co-star of various horror classics, including Georges Franju's
Eyes Without a Face, Mario Bava's
Lisa and the Devil and Dario Argento's
Suspiria and
Inferno, has died at the age of 84.
Opera
It's yet another of my patented DVD image comparisons! This time, I've taken a look at the US limited edition and UK releases of Dario Argento's
Opera, one of my favourite films. While neither edition is ideal, they are both good in their own separate ways.
Take a look!
Major victory in the "violent porn" consultation
Source:
Melon FarmersPlans to make the viewing of so-called "violent pornography" have, it would seem, met with substantial opposition. The Home Office apparently received more than 400 responses to their consultation, the majority of which were against their proposals. They have also had meetings with key organisations such as the BBFC and the BDSM community, the outcome of which has been that "any plans to criminalise the viewing of extreme pornographic imagery will be much less far-reaching than had been indicated in the Government's consultation paper".
This legislation, the result of an ill-judged campaign spearheaded by the opportunistic family of the murdered Jane Longhurst, will surely go ahead in some form, but it looks as if the most outrageous proposals have been nipped in the bud. The notion of imprisoning someone for simply seeing an image is, to me, completely unfathomable, but we can be thankful, at least, that the bill will receive the now-customary watering down it rightly needs.
Who is this moody bastard?
Why, it's David, the inseparable companion of Richard Beaumont!
The Höekvision influence is still there, although, to my surprise, when I dug out some of my old drawings of the character, dating back to the days before I'd even
heard of
Ren & Stimpy, let alone seen it, I found that the design looked much the same as he does now. He's developed a bad posture over the years, gained big, round Ren-ish eyes and lost a lot of hair, but essentially this is still the character as I designed him, so I don't feel like quite as much of a rip-off merchant any more. He does look a lot older than I intended when he's coloured and inked... although I guess that probably has a lot to do with the cranky pose and facial expression I drew.
New Lizard in a Woman's Skin release coming soon
Source:
DVD TrashBig news in giallo-land: Cecchi Gori Home Video is planning on releasing Lucio Fulci's
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin on DVD in Italy. As most Euro cult fans will probably know, the only other DVD release, by Media Blasters in the US, is hardly ideal, presenting viewers with two options: a widescreen, film-sourced but censored print, and a cropped, video-sourced but uncut print. There's currently no word on the state of the version Cecchi Gori will release, but it would be absolutely superb if they managed to get their hands on a completely uncut film print to use. (And if they did, there would certainly be egg on the faces of John Sirabella at Media Blasters!)
I'll be watching the developments regarding this release very closely.
Abraham Beaumont: the cericel
Who is this strapping gentleman? Why, it's Abraham Beaumont, the father of Richard!
Despite my earlier statement regarding my intense dislike of inking and colouring, I've done another in the space of a few hours, and indeed I'm considering doing one for each of the principal cast members of
Richard Beaumont, so that people know what they look like. It's alright for me, since I have these colours in my head, but everyone else has to make do with my crude black and white scribbles, so I'm making a point of doing these finished drawings, basically so I don't have to do them at a later date (like when people start asking me if Richard's hat is green or yellow).
Anyway, stay tuned for Hilda, Jemima, Orson, David, and perhaps even some of the secondary characters I haven't introduced you to yet, such as the lovable bartender Bino and the perpetually big-nosed Mr. Queens.
By the way, you might notice a bit more volume to the lines this time round. Varying the line thickness is what gives cleaned-up drawings like these a sense of depth, and a feeling that the character is not simply flat. This is something I find really hard to do, but I'm going to practice, and who knows? Perhaps by the time I've got through my entire cast of characters, I'll be able to do halfway decent inking.
Richard Beaumont: the cericel
You're not going to see too many full colour pictures on this site, largely because I'm useless at colour and inking. However, I thought it would only be fair to give my loyal visitors some idea of the colour styling for Richard Beaumont, so, just for you, I painstakingly inked this drawing of the delirious buffoon and then painted it in Photoshop. I even did an extremely lame imitation of a sponge-painted background and added a drop shadow to make it look a bit like a cel setup.
I may do similar setups for the other characters at some point, but I'm not going to promise anything. I'm much happier just drawing my impoverished scribbles instead of having to worry about putting together a finished piece of artwork. I promise you one thing, though: you're not going to see any crummy airbrushing jobs here. What I mean by that is that they may be crummy, but they certainly won't be airbrushed.
Movie madness
I watched
The Mephisto Waltz and
Four of the Apocalypse over the space of the last couple of days.
As I suspected,
The Mephisto Waltz wasn't quite as good as I'd remembered it, although, somewhat surprisingly, I still found myself creeped out by parts of it, especially the hallucinogenic dream sequences. That almost never happens with me, so I'll give the film credit for managing to unnerve me. Elsewhere, Jacqueline Bisset is sublime, but none of the other actors make anything like the same impression. There are also some real problems with the script, not to mention the fact that the death of Bisset's daughter is only mentioned glibly in passing, several scenes after the event is supposed to have taken place, simply doesn't ring true.
Meanwhile, I was very impressed by
Four of the Apocalypse. Like
The Mephisto Waltz, it has script problems - "disjointed" is the word that immediately springs to mind - but the film has a real edge to it, as well as being quite touching at times, which took me aback given that human emotions are not something Lucio Fulci seems to be all that great at portraying. Watching this film affirmed for me how cool Fabio Testi and Tomas Milian are, while Lynne Frederick was wonderful too, even if her faux Southern accent was all over the place. This is one of the few Spaghetti Westerns I've seen, but I enjoyed this one enough to consider seeking out some more. I should probably start by going the way of Sergio Leone.
It all starts with a storyboard
Above are some thumbnail scribbles from a new
Richard Beaumont story I'm working on,
Colony of the Beaumonts. For cartoons, you don't use scripts, you use storyboards, so the whole process requires a lot of drawing and redrawing. The best way, I've found, is to do very quick, rough scribbles like the ones you see above, so you can work out the staging, the plot and the dialogue without having to worry about creating finished drawings. I just scribble down the ideas as they come to me, often spending no more than a few seconds on each picture. Then, afterwards, I can draw a proper storyboard.
The basic concept of the story is that Abraham walks out on the rest of the family, and we see how they cope without him (not very well, of course). In this key scene, he comes home from a night of drinking and is confronted by an irate Dinah (whose name I am considering changing to Hilda, which is why, on the first page, you can see the letter "H").
As always, click the small images for larger versions. These boards read down the way rather than across the way, but all the frames are numbered, so you shouldn't get too lost. Sorry about my illegible writing.
Richard's Aussie Adventure - storyboards
Here are the storyboards for an exciting scene from
Richard's Aussie Adventure, a
Richard Beaumont cartoon I came up with a few years ago.
The boards for this sequence are a bit more polished than the ones I posted from
Richard in Love. There are two reasons for this. One is that I actually animated quite a lot of
Richard's Aussie Adventure a few years ago in Microsoft 3D Movie Maker, an extremely primitive program that lets you create horrendously clunky animation, so basically I knew how this scene was going to play out and wasn't simply scribbling down the drawings before I forgot what I wanted to do.
The other is that I boarded it in 1.78:1 widescreen rather than Academy (1.33:1) ratio, and as of yet I've not found a convenient way of fitting three 1.78:1 storyboard frames on to a sheet of A4 paper. If I put three on one page, there isn't enough vertical room to draw comfortably, but, with only two frames per page, the individual drawings become much larger, which means I automatically seem to spend more time drawing them carefully. To be honest I prefer the scribbly approach - these drawings have more life to them and I think capture the moment a lot better. Still, with the ones I've posted here, it's probably more easy for people to tell what's going on.
As always, click the small images to see larger versions. I reformatted the boards to the standard "three per page" variant in order to save space and make the action flow a bit better.
Check back later and I'll post some of the story for this episode.
Oh, and here's a layout I drew this morning for one of the scenes from
Richard in Love I posted earlier. The blue outlines indicate the starting pose, while the black (lead) lines are for the end pose. I don't know if that's how the professionals do it, but I find it quite effective.
More Richard in Love
Here are some storyboards from another scene in
Richard in Love. Here, Richard tries to give Wanda a flower he has stolen from a nearby garden, but she doesn't want to know.
The rest of the Beaumont clan
There are three other members of the Beaumont household that I didn't mention in
yesterday's post. They are very much secondary characters, but they do show up from time to time, and sometimes even get a storyline or two. Here they are.
Delia Beaumont is the mother of the household. Because the Beaumonts believe that a woman's place is in the kitchen, she stays at home and cooks, looks after the children and generally acts in a clueless manner. Delia is very happy with her situation, because she is so brainwashed that she actually thinks she's getting a good deal out of life. So ignorant is she to the goings-on in the outside world that she believes Richard is the worst child on the planet and that David is a saint.
Jemima Beaumont is Richard's younger sister. She always does as she is told and, as such, is the favourite child of the family. The main reason for her doing everything she is told to do is because she is too stupid to think for herself. She frequently rats Richard out when he gets into one of his hair-raising adventures, but most of the time she just stands there, wall-eyed, and watches as the more interesting members of the family get up to their wacky antics.
Finally, there's
Orson Beaumont, the baby of the family. Orson is the child in whom Abraham and Delia are putting all their hopes, since Richard has turned out to be such a phenomenal disappointment (and they can't expect much from Jemima, except to pawn her off to the richest suitor when the time comes). No-one has noticed, however, that, inside Orson's head, the lights are on but nobody's home. Too bad!
Richard in Love - story and storyboard sample
Above are the storyboard panels from a key sequence of
Richard in Love, a
Richard Beaumont cartoon I first came up with back in the late 90s. I recently finished boarding the whole thing and will probably upload some more samples at some point. For now, click on the images above to see full size versions, complete with dialogue.
Here's how the story goes:
One afternoon, David arrives at the Beaumont manor to discover Richard jumping about like a loony. David asks what he's doing, and Richard proudly explains that he's playing a game of
hopscotch by himself. David is mistified. He knows Richard lives in a world of his own, but this is just too much.
Later, on the bus, David realises the reason for Richard's insanity: he doesn't have any friends. He puts this to Richard, who is absolutely mortified - because it's true! He bursts into tears, but suddenly his eyes light up as he spots a young girl walking down the street. He jumps through the window, shattering it, and races after her. He causes a massive pile-up, but he doesn't care. As he squirms about in the wreckage, he proclaims his love for the girl, whose name is Wanda.
That night, Richard can't sleep. He goes downstairs to make himself a bowl of gruel to soothe his heart, but he makes a terrible mess, and his mother, Delia Beaumont, comes to see what's up. Richard pours his heart out to his dear mother, explaining to her that he intends to marry Wanda. Delia tries to dissuade him, but it's no use: Richard is blind to logic.
The next day, he emerges from a hedge near Wanda's house and offers her a flower, but she doesn't want to know. Wanda's father, shotgun in hand, drives Richard out of the area.
Later, Richard hits on a fine idea: if he can't earn Wanda's love with flowers, he'll buy it. He offers to purchase an ice cream for her, and she's won over at once. However, he doesn't have enough money to pay for it, and the vendor calls the police. Richard is overpowered with the help of a tranquiliser, and he is put in jail.
The papers are full of the news that Richard has been arrested for ice cream theft. Abraham Beaumont destroys all Richard's possessions, while Wanda's father forbids her from having anything to do with the felonious Beaumont boy.
Richard is eventually released from jail, and he immediately goes to seek out Wanda. He announces that he intend to make her his bride, but she is having none of it. She socks him in the groin and runs off, leaving him squirming. The final frames are tinged with sadness (and comedy) as he pursues her through the city, wailing: "Come back! Come back I say!"
The End.
Introducing... Richard Beaumont
One of my favourite pastimes, in addition to watching movies, writing reviews and generally complaining about things, is drawing crappy little pictures to amuse myself. For as long as I can remember, I've done this, but because I don't spend nearly enough time at it, my "style", if you can call it that, tends to pretty much be a crude imitation of whatever animation I happen to be enjoying at any point. Back in the early years, I suspect this was something of a "Disney plus Warner with a dash of MGM" blend, while I also went through a period of trying to make my characters look like the cast of the
Asterix books and movies. Right now, the
Ren & Stimpy influence is more than a little too obvious (you'll see what I mean in a minute, if you haven't already), but I can't help it. I'm a thieving nogoodnik.
This strapping young lad is
Richard Beaumont. I created him back during a boring summer holiday in France when we had nothing else to do. Young Richard is the boy everyone loves to hate - full of himself, overly smart but completely ignorant of the facts of life. He has a knack for getting himself into all sorts of awkward predicaments, generally because he doesn't stop to think about the consequences. So far in our stories, Richard has been to Australia, been blasted into space, been committed to a mental asylum after telling everyone he was shot by Nazis, destroyed the computer of his only friend, and, in a story I'll be sharing with you in a later post, been smitten by a young lady who will never return his advances.
Richard has a father,
Abraham Beaumont. Abraham is a professor, but he's even less clued in to how the world works than his young son. He is a toymaker by trade (he owned the company Beaumont Enterprises until it was bought out by exectuvies), but also dabbles in scientific experiments. Abraham is very strict, but he does everything with Richard's best interests in mind. He sometimes joins Richard on his wacky adventures, but more often than not he stands back and shakes his head sadly as the poor boy puts his foot in his mouth yet again.
See what I said about the overly strong R&S reference? This is
David, and his character design has slowly evolved into a knock-off of Ren Höek that I can't for the life of me shake off. Anyway, David is Richard's only friend. He wouldn't admit this, of course, and he doesn't hang about with Richard voluntarily, but he goes with him on almost all of his adventures. Often he is quite mean to Richard, but that's because Richard can be a tactless buffoon! Some might say David is the voice of reason, but the truth of the matter is that he isn't particularly reasonable at all.
Stay tuned, because I'm going to post a few samples from my storyboard for
Richard in Love soon!
Confounded Criterion cavalcade
My orders from
Deep Discount DVD, containing the Criterion releases of
Walkabout,
Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages and
I am Curious, as well as Anchor Bay's
Four of the Apocalypse, arrived this morning. Excellent service, and very well packaged too. Provided they continue to live up to their name, I'll almost certainly be ordering from them.
I also received something very unusual for me: a VHS tape. Yes, a video. Videos, as you probably know, are things that I don't buy unless I have absolutely no choice, so this was very much an unavoidable situation. The film contained on the tape is
The Mephisto Waltz, a 1971 horror movie from 20th Century Fox that bears the distinction of being the only film the studio made in 1970. It's essentially a
Rosemary's Baby rip-off, but it was one of the first horror movies I ever saw, and back when I was an impressionable young lad it gave me quite the fear, so I'm looking forward to watching it again to see if it still has the same effect on me (I'm guessing not).
Hey, Rupert Murdoch, listen to me. Get your goons to release this on DVD ASAP!
Oh yeah, and my scanner came too. More on that in a bit.
Essay done
Well, my Screen Bodies essay is now finally in the can. The deadline isn't until Thursday but I'm going to hand it in tomorrow since I'll be going out to work anyway. Of course, I'll end up kicking myself if I suddenly think of something else I need to add to it tomorrow night...
Ren & Stimpy clips
John K has put clips from
Altruists and
Stimpy's Pregnant, two of the cartoons on the upcoming
Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes DVD, on his blog. Be sure to check it out, all you appreciators of good drawings and fluid animation.
This is definitely my most anticipated DVD release of the year. Although I've seen all the cartoons on the set, in one form or another (a thank-you present from John K to my brother
Lyris, who has been working on the upcoming Ultimate Edition box set in the form of a timecode painter-outer and censorship ratter-outer), I still can't wait to see them in DVD quality. It pains me that animation of this quality is so hard to come by, with people spending all their time praising eyesores like
American Dad and
South Park.
Go and visit
John K's blog post to see what's on offer, and then head over to your favourite R1 DVD supplier and pre-order yourself a copy of this delightful package of merriment.
A spanner in the works of the Blu-Ray machine
Remember how, recently, I've been pledging my undying support for the Blu-Ray format, leaping aboard its bandwagon and saying "no chance, hard cheese" to its rival, HD-DVD? Well, I'm now very strongly considering retracting that support. A
post by Synapse Films head Don May Jr. at the Mobius Home Video Forum points out that Sony, who has approval power over all titles released on Blu-Ray, has already vetoed certain more adult-themed titles such as
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (a film I am strongly considering picking up in HD format).
This is bad news however you look at it. Whether or not you have any interest in so-called "adult" titles (and I can easily see this being extended to other non-mainstream releases that Sony decides they don't like), you can't deny that having a single company able to decide what can and cannot be released on a certain format is an extremely bad situation to be in. It's generally agreed that one of the main reasons for the failure of Sony's BetaMax format was their reluctance to allow adult material on it, and it looks like the same thing could end up happening here. Newsflash, Sony: the entertainment industry thrives on dirty videos. Why do you think VHS and DVD were so successful?
I'll wait a bit to see what ends up happening, but Toshiba may have found themselves an unexpected late convert to the HD-DVD camp.
Asterix and the Vikings clips
Allocine has posted a bunch of videos from
Asterix and the Vikings, including the first 3 minutes of the film, trailers and a bunch of interviews. It's hard to determine what the film will be like based on these brief snippets of material, but once again I am extremely impressed by the animation - better than its predecessor,
Asterix Conquers America, by leaps and bounds.
Somersault
Somersault is an undeniably beautiful film with some magnificent performances, but I can't help thinking that it's not really deserving of the lavish praise heaped on it by so many critics. Metrodome's DVD, however, is a thoroughly satisfying affair, with a nice transfer and some revealing extras.
I've written another of my occasional series of Whiggles.com DVD reviews, this time covering
Somersault, an Australian film that has swiped numerous accolades and yet is nothing like as profound as it thinks it is.
Full review
here.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 2: Some Assembly Required
Written by Ty King; Directed by Bruce Seth Green
Ouch. After the season's promising start
last week, this episode was a real letdown. It's not bad, just incredibly mediocre with some embarrassing parts. Ty King wrote two episodes of
Buffy, and I find it quite amazing that the other was
Passion, perhaps one of the strongest episodes ever. This was clearly intended to fill the schedule, and as such it doesn't feature any meaningful progression for the characters, while the main storyline, involving a couple of students digging up the dead bodies of girls to create a partner for a resurrected football player, is not only incredibly silly (not in itself a disaster) but also incredibly badly executed (which most certainly
is a disaster). This feels more like a Season 1 episode than a Season 2 one, and I'm glad this format doesn't continue for too much longer.
4/10Next time:
School Hard, the introduction of a certain William the Bloody.
Asterix Conquers America
Holy bermuda shorts, Batman! It's yet another DVD Image Comparison!
This time, I take a look at
Asterix Conquers America, a decidedly mediocre adaptation from 1994 of
Asterix and the Great Crossing. (That said, I still find it infinitely more watchable than
Pocahontas, which came out only a year later and also featured Red Indians.) I've owned three DVD copies of the film, all of them guff, but now have only one: the R2 German version which features an obnoxious redub by two German whiggers called Erkan and Stefan. Obviously, there's not much fun in comparing a disc with itself, so I dug out the old French LaserDisc and decided to see how they stacked up. The results are... interesting.
See the festering crap for yourself!
Titanic 2: Jack's Back
http://www.totallycrap.com/video/titanic_2_jacks_backYet another bogus movie trailer for the gallery, and this one could be the funniest and most professional to date.
Amélie
Yes sir, it's another DVD image comparison! This time I've taken a look at the R1 US and R2 UK releases of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
Amélie, one of the best films of the decade so far and pretty much the only romantic comedy (although such a description comes dangerously close to selling it short) I can bring myself to sit through.
Anyway, you can view the comparison
here.
The Movies expansion set coming soon
Lionhead Studios is currently working on an expansion set to their excellent tycoon/moviemaking game
The Movies. This one really caught me unawares, which really shows that I need to keep up with developments in the wonderful world with gaming, but in any event, it sounds as if it will feature a number of much-needed additions to the current game. The changes focus mainly on the actual moviemaking side rather than the tycoon aspect, which is good news, since that part of the game, while fun, is currently hamstrung by some unneccessary restrictions.
Anyway, check out
Total Video Games for a 3-page interview with project lead Brynley Gibson, who describes all the exciting new tools that have been added, including bluescreen and greenscreen modes, free camera angles, miniatures, pyrotechnics, stuntmen and loads more.
The Movies: Stunts & Effects is currently scheduled for a Q2 2006 release. Take a look at
the official site for more info.
PS. While you're at it, check out some of the
movies I've made. They're not exactly great, but most of them were done during my first few days with the game. I'm going to hold off creating anything particularly ambitious until the expansion is released, because I fully intend to make use of its new tools.
Casualty: Series 1
Variable in quality and always very rough around the edges, the first series of Casualty is certainly not perfect, but possesses a sort of bare-faced honesty that makes its flaws seem almost appopriate. While the show would go on to bigger and better things, the original 15 episodes serve as something of a time capsule, and arguably accomplish the series' aims and objectives more successfully than any subsequent series.
I've checked in at Holby City Hospital's A&E department with a fractured femur and a severe case of puffer fish poisoning to
review Casualty: Series 1, released as a 4-disc box set containing all 15 episodes by 2 Entertain/Cinema Club.
Amazon affiliates
My corporate sell-out shenanigans continue. I've added Amazon affiliate links to all my
DVD image comparisons and Whiggles.com-based
reviews.
Captain Whiggles purchases a scanner
I can't remember whether or not I bothered telling you, but my scanner broke last year, and, frankly, I was beyond caring so I didn't bother replacing it. I didn't have much need to, given that there wasn't much that I particularly wanted to scan. Recently, though, I've found myself missing having the ability to throw a sheet of paper into the tray, press a button and have it magically appear on my computer screen.
This afternoon, I decided to finally do something about my lack of scanification and buy a new one, so over to
Amazon I went and picked up a
Canon Lide 25 for £35. Of course, everywhere seems to be shutting up shop for the Easter holidays (apparently someone died or came back to life or something), so I probably won't see it till later on next week.
If you too would like to buy exactly the same scanner as me (and earn yourself a place aboard the HMS Whimsy) be sure to click the link. You see, I've sold out and become an
Amazon.co.uk Associate. Hopefully they won't kick me out like Google did.
What Have You Done to Solange?
Source:
10K Bullets ForumDigitMovies will be releasing the score to Massimo Dallamano's excellent giallo
What Have You Done to Solange on CD on April 26th. This remains one of Ennio Morricone's best ever giallo scores, and is one that I've wanted to get my hands on for some time.
At the movie's release time no record was issued excerpt from this OST neither on 33 rpm format nor 45 rpm format. A 33 rpm vinyl LP (RCA SP 8062) was released only in 1986, with 13 selected tracks and prepared for an album that never saw the light of day in 1972.The same material was then re-issued on CD RCA Records 74321-49904-2 (OST 135) in 1997. Our new CD was made possible thanks to the collaboration of M° Morricone who has given us the permission to enclose eight extra tracks found on the original stereo master tapes of the '72 session.
More information can be found at the
DigitMovies web site.
The dilemma regarding cut films
I consider myself a relatively fortunate film fan in that, thanks to the magic of the multi-region DVD player and the credit card, censorship is rarely an issue for me since, unless a title has been released cut in
every territory, picking up a complete version of every film I want to own is not an issue.
As many of you probably know, one of my favourite directors, if not my absolute favourite, is Dario Argento, and I am pleased to say that I own completely uncut copies of all of his films (including strange cases like
Trauma and
The Stendhal Syndrome, where the Italian domestic versions feature material not found in the export releases). For a number of people, raised on butchered American prints of his films, the advent of DVD and the release of classics such as
Profondo Rosso,
Tenebre and
Phenomena was cause for jubilation. Myself, I've never seen a censored Argento film, and part of me is now wondering if I should seek some out.
The most famously mangled Argento films are
Profondo Rosso and
Phenomena, both of which lost around 25 minutes of their running times for their respective US releases. As it happens, the shorter versions of these films are both available on DVD -
Profondo Rosso in the UK as part of a 2-disc set also containing the full-length Italian version*, and
Phenomena, under New Line's ghastly title
Creepers, in Australia.
The big question, though, is whether or not I would really want to pay for these butchered editions. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying a couple of bucks for curiosity value, but I draw the line at paying the £6
Atlantic DVD are asking for
Creepers! For the time being, therefore, I'm going to say "no cheese" and stick with my uncut, director-approved copies. Still, colour me curious. I'd love to see
Creepers one day, so I can see if New Line really did edit it to make the monkey into the killer.
* This version is not actually full-length in the UK release, as it loses a shot of a lizard pinned to the ground, supposedly due to animal cruelty legislation. The same shot, however, can be found in the shorter version, so either the BBFC decided that the lizard scene was faked (which I suspect it was) or they're just incredibly incompetent. If the former is the case, then, if you ask me, they should have admitted their own error and reclassified the international version free of charge!
Lifestyles of the rich and bankrupt
Source:
GamasutraOne of the funniest true-life disaster sagas I've read in a long time, and one that should put a smile on the face of anyone who predicted disaster for the
Gizmondo.
Rayman 4 this winter
Source:
GamasutraUbiSoft has announced that they plan to ship the latest
Rayman game,
Rayman 4, in time for the 2006 holiday season. After taking a break to work on
Beyond Good and Evil (which I really must dig out some time soon) and the
King Kong movie tie-in game, co-creator Michel Ancel is said to be back at the helm, so hopefully this will be better than the less than impressive
Rayman 3. And is it too much to ask for them to go back to the gleefully whimsical "gibberish" dialogue of
Rayman 2 rather than calling on the talents of (shudder) Billy West again?
The New York Ripper
I ordered myself a copy of the R0 Australian release of Lucio Fulci's
The New York Ripper this morning. It's apparently the best-looking of all the releases of this film to date, and at any rate is bound to look superior to my French NTSC to PAL standards converted copy.
Incidentally, I rewatched the film recently and felt compelled to add an extra half-star to my overall rating. Although I initially criticised the film's rather cheap, crummy look, a repeat viewing has made me see that its visuals are entirely appropriate to the subject matter. Furthermore, some use of colour and framing, which I didn't notice before, have made me think that it's nothing like as poorly shot as I initially thought.
Music mania
My
Asterix and the Vikings CD arrived today. It contains a total of 21 tracks, 7 of which are pop songs (many of them of the Europop variety), so there are essentially 14 decent (i.e. score music) tracks.
Overall, it's a pretty good, if unremarkable, score. The track titles are vague enough for it to be unclear exactly which parts of the story they correspond to (and, in any event, I get the impression that the plot has been substantially altered from the book on which the film is based,
Asterix and the Normans), so I can't really comment on how appropriate it is to the film until I've actually seen it. I do get the impression, though, that there is something of a jarring gap between lighthearted, jolly themes and music that has a more sinister tone to it. Ah well, we'll see. I just hope the film gets released before too long, if not in UK cinemas then on DVD with some form of English audio options.
eBay censors
Source:
Melon FarmerseBay recently removed an auction for a copy of Anchor Bay's recently released
Box of the Damned DVD, a collection of former Video Nasties such as
Tenebre,
The Evil Dead and
The Last House on the Left, despite the fact that the set has a valid BBFC classification and can therefore, as the Melon Farmers point out, be sold in the likes of Virgin and HMV.
According to eBay, however:
Even if an item is given a rating for general sale in the UK by the BBFC, this does not exempt such an item from eBay policy.
Under our policy, eBay does not allow items or descriptions that graphically portray violence or victims of violence, and lacks substantial social, artistic or political value. For example, eBay will disallow sales of explicit crime scene or morgue photos and videos, the type often found in this series.
As useful a service as eBay provide, I must say that I find them to be a rather disreputable bunch of crooks, with their secrecy, lack of accountability and seemingly arbitrary rules. I also find it quite amusing that I have frequently sold non-classified DVDs using their service and not been shut down. Why they think they have anything to gain by forbidding the sale of certain goods beggars belief. It's clearly not a legal issue, so I can only assume that it's down to good old-fashioned puritanical snobbery. These items don't conform to the moralistic outlook of some high-ranking moneyman at eBay, so hey presto, you can't sell them. Just because.
Lost-lost Martino giallo coming to DVD
Source:
DVD Maniacs ForumAustrian DVD company Sazuma Productions has announced a new line of giallo DVDs, with the first release being
Morte Sospetta di una Minorenne (
Suspected Death of a Minor), a little-seen giallo-poliziesco hybrid from 1975, directed by Sergio Martino. I wasn't aware that Martino had made a sixth giallo-styled film (I assumed that the five available on DVD constituted his entire giallo output), so I'll be quite curious to pick this one up. I don't own any other Sazuma releases, but they seem to be serious about delivering a good product, transferring the film from its original negative and so on.
You can read more about this release in their
blog entry.
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