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Just arrived...

11:57 AM / Blu-ray / 1 Comment

KICK-ASS (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Fight Club captures

9:44 PM / Blu-ray / 9 Comments

I got 20th Century Fox's UK BD release of FIGHT CLUB for my birthday, having already picked up the German release by Kinowelt when it came out a couple of years back. The German release was disappointing for many, although at the time I suspected it was a fairly accurate representation of how the film looked. The UK version, however, comes from a completely new master and one that looks dramatically different to (read: better than) its predecessor.

I haven't had the chance to watch the UK disc from beginning to end, and I probably won't for a while yet, as I saw the film for the first time (fairly) recently and have plenty of discs of movies that are new to me to work through. As such, these captures are provided "as is" without a final score or any in-depth discussion. It's not hard to see which of the two releases compared below is the better of the two, though. By the looks of it they've gone back to the original negative, and the results are as impressive as you'd expect. (By the looks of it, the new US release of SE7EN - winging its way to me now - heralds similar improvements over its Dutch predecessor.)

These are for Gaeljet, who has been begging me for ages to take a look at the UK release.

Fight Club

studio: Kinowelt; country: Germany; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 33.2 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 34.18 Mbit/sec

vs.

studio: 20th Century Fox; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 31.8 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 32.74 Mbit/sec

RIP Movie Grooves

8:15 PM / Music / 2 Comments

Bad news, people: Movie Grooves, probably the best source for 60s and 70s movie soundtracks, both mainstream and off the beaten track, is closing down. They'll be honouring all outstanding orders but are no longer accepting any new ones.

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally used them a bunch of times. Most of my Argento and giallo soundtracks came from them, and I picked up quite a few other assorted gems, including the OMEN trilogy box set, along the way. They weren't always the cheapest, but they consistently provided a great service and offered a number of titles that I wasn't able to find anywhere else. I for one will definitely miss them.

Films I saw for the first time in the month of August

11:59 PM / Cinema / No Comments

• Monday, August 9, 2010: THE GHOST WRITER (France/Germany/UK, 2010) 8/10
• Monday, August 16, 2010: CENTURION (UK, 2010) 7/10

BDs and DVDs I bought or received in the month of August

11:59 PM / Blu-ray / 2 Comments

• Monday, August 2, 2010: DET FEMTE ELEMENT [The Fifth Element] (BD, Region B, Denmark)
• Wednesday, August 4, 2010: GLADIATOR: 10th Anniversary Edition (BD, Region ABC, Netherlands)
• Saturday, August 7, 2010: THE GHOST WRITER (BD, Region A, Canada)
• Friday, August 13, 2010: CENTURION (BD, Region B, UK)
• Wednesday, August 18, 2010: PSYCHO (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Tuesday, August 24, 2010: RED RIDING (BD, Region A, USA)

By the way...

10:46 AM / Technology / No Comments

...for anyone else with an ATI Radeon 5000 series video card who has been suffering from latency issues due to the card's PowerPlay power saving technology, the latest drivers seem to have cleared up the problem completely. No more glitchy TV recordings or stuttering sound when watching YouTube videos when PowerPlay is enabled!

They also enable support for anti-aliasing in STARCRAFT II, which is nice.

Hello, guys

9:15 PM / General / 4 Comments

Sorry for the criminal lack of updates to this site recently. I'm still here, just pretty busy with other stuff at the moment, namely writing. My thesis is getting the bulk of my attention at the moment, but while I wait to find out if anything comes of my CASUALTY shadow script (final draft submitted just under three weeks ago), I'm keeping my screenwriting muscles exercised by redrafting a script I've had in my "things that might come in useful some day" drawer.

In the meantime, to tide you over, here is a video of a woman with the most amazingly pliable face I've ever seen. Rowan Atkinson, eat your heart out:

(Thanks, Shaun)

Man, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing

2:55 PM / Games / 4 Comments

Great in-game footage over at Gamespot of a tutorial area, which looks more action-packed and filled with impressive pyrotechnics than the endgame content of a lot of titles I could mention.

It looks very much like Arena.net are intent on retaining the hallmarks of the original GUILD WARS - free online play, lack of grinding, distinctive art style, MAGIC: THE GATHERING inspired "card" system for magical abilities - while expanding the world and making it more free-form and persistent. GUILD WARS is the only MMO I've ever really enjoyed, and if you read their design manifesto, it's pretty clear that they're intent on turning the genre on its head and doing something truly inventive rather than just ushering out another WORLD OF WARCRAFT clone. If they can do this while retaining what made the original so distinctive and appealing, they really should be on to a winner.

Just arrived...

1:08 PM / Blu-ray / 10 Comments

RED RIDING (BD, IFC Films, Region A, USA)

I haven't had a chance to look at this yet, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that cramming three feature length films on to a single BD-50 is likely to be a colossally bad move.

Updated Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 03:32 PM: As I suspected, the compression on the 16mm 1974 is not pleasant at all. The 35mm 1980 and Red One 1983 fare much better. Lossy audio only as well, by the way. Looks like the three films were released separately in Finland with DTS-HD Master Audio, while America gets shafted.

BD impressions: Psycho

12:48 PM / BD Impressions / 10 Comments

There's not a whole lot of point in me writing paragraph after paragraph about PSYCHO, since I doubt I can say anything about it that hasn't already been said more eloquently by someone else. A landmark in horror cinema, it's certainly not my favourite Hitchcock film - I would rank NORTH BY NORTHWEST, REAR WINDOW and THE BIRDS above it - but I can absolutely understand why others put it at the top of their lists. I can't remember when I first saw it, but I do know that, when I did, I already knew how it ended thanks to the whole thing being given away on one of those Channel 4 "100 greatest..." shows, and it's a testament to the quality of the film that my experience of it didn't really suffer as a result. (Although maybe if it had been a complete surprise, I WOULD have put it at the top of my Hitchcock list? We'll never know...)

Image quality: When all said and done, a good presentation, but one that is hamstrung by the materials at the studio's disposal. I'm unclear as to whether PSYCHO's camera negative still exists, but it seems not to have been used for this release. (This is certainly Robert Harris' opinion as per this review, which is as damn near close to confirmation as you're likely to get.) It looks to be the same master that was used for the standard definition DVD included in the Hitchcock MASTERPIECE COLLECTION set from 2005... with the caveat that some additional grain reduction appears to have been applied to this release. The previous DVD was certainly grainy, perhaps more so than was intended given that it was presumably taken from a source a generation or two removed from the negative, but the result here looks rather artificial and leads to an inconsistent image. Detail ranges from very good to not that great at all, and the overall effect is at times more akin to video than to film. Some of the flaws, obviously, were unavoidable given the source material, but had this additional noise reduction not been applied, I would undoubtedly have been rating it a lot higher. 6.5/10

Psycho
studio: Universal; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: VC-1;
file size: 31.1 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 40.99 Mbit/sec

BD impressions: Centurion

8:51 PM / BD Impressions / 13 Comments

I was pleasantly surprised by CENTURION. After the disappointment of Neil Marshall's previous film, DOOMSDAY - a sloppy and ill-disciplined hodge-podge of homages to various genres which started off amusingly stupid but quickly succumbed to being just plain stupid - my hopes weren't exactly through the roof for his take on the fate of the infamous Ninth Legion which, so legend says, disappeared in Britain in the early second century AD. (Incidentally, it was also the subject of a book I read as a child, Rosemary's Sutcliff's THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH - itself being adapted for the screen by Jeremy Brock and Kevin Macdonald.)

To my surprise, it's actually very good, and far from the low-grade knock-off of GLADIATOR that the subject matter and promotion would seem to suggest. ("Britain's answer to GLADIATOR!" screams that exalted tome, NUTS, on the back cover - conveniently forgetting that GLADIATOR's director and most of its crew WERE British.) CENTURION is actually a chase movie that actually has quite a bit more in common with those POW escape movies than any historical epic I've ever seen. It's brief, bloody and not particularly subtle, but it knows exactly what it is and gives the audience what it wants to see: lots of tension, lots of battle scenes, and a fair amount of the old tomato ketchup. You've got a decent (some might say over-qualified) cast giving it their all, savvy use of the limited budget, and a director who absolutely knows the meaning of crowd-pleasing. You honestly couldn't ask for much more.

THE DESCENT remains Marshall's best film by a considerable margin, but he has regained a lot of the ground that he lost for me with DOOMSDAY, and I'm definitely looking forward to whatever he cooks up next.

Image quality: There are few nits to pick with this VC-1 encode from Pathé. The film does look a little soft at times, but I'm inclined to suspect that the photography itself is at fault here, for the look is inconsistent and some shots look significantly better than others. Compression is generally fine, although some wide shots do have that smoothed over, "watercolour" look that sometimes crops up in VC-1 encodes with inadequate bit rates. Basically, it's a fine-looking disc, albeit one that looks a little underwhelming when viewed straight after the remastered edition of the eleven-year-old GLADIATOR. 9/10

Centurion
studio: Pathé; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 25 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 36.77 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

6:15 PM / Blu-ray / 4 Comments

PSYCHO (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Although not listed anywhere on the packaging, this release includes the original mono mix. Those who don't want to wait a further two months for the US release can therefore order with confidence.

Book review: Faithful Place

10:28 AM / Reviews / No Comments

FAITHFUL PLACE by Tana French; Hachette Ireland; 2010; 448 pages

Tana French is an author with an amazing ability to choose exactly the right words to conjure up a particular mood. Although I found certain plot developments a little hard to swallow, I was majorly impressed by her second novel, THE LIKENESS, and immediately sought out its predecessor, IN THE WOODS, which turned out to be even better.

She also manages to keep her material fresh by, although setting each in the same fictionalised representation of Dublin, focusing on a different protagonist in each book. In THE LIKENESS, IN THE WOODS' protagonist, Rob Ryan, stepped aside in order for his detective partner Cassie Maddox to assume centre stage; in FAITHFUL PLACE, the focus shifts to Cassie's former boss, undercover detective Frank Mackey, a man with a deeply troubled past.

Twenty years ago, he and his girlfriend Rosie Daly planned to run away from Faithful Place, the underprivileged Dublin street where they were born and grew up, and start a new life in England. Rosie never showed up to their arranged meeting place and, thinking he had been jilted, left on his own and had no contact with his neighbours or his belligerent family... until he gets a phone call, telling him that Rosie's suitcase has been unearthed in a derelict house in Faithful Place. The discovery of the suitcase leads to the discovery of a young woman's body, and Frank reluctantly returns to the place in which he grew up to face his family, his past, and the truth about what happened to Rosie...

In a recent interview, French spoke about her desire for crime fiction to be taken seriously as literature rather than a red-headed stepchild, and this is very much apparent in her writing. FAITHFUL PLACE, like its two predecessors, tackles complicated but universal themes, in this case notions of roots, family and the extent to which these govern who we are. The central mystery (who killed Rosie Daly and why?) is, perhaps understandably, marketed as the focus of the novel, but in reality French's interests seem to lie primarily in Frank and his relationships with his family, in particular his parents, his moody older brother Shay, and his young daughter Holly.

The presence of the latter is somewhat problematic, for Frank's interactions with Holly prove to be a little too sickly-sweet. Writing young children is tricky: if you don't get the register just right, they won't be remotely believable. Make them too mature and they'll sound like worldly-wise mini-adults; don't make them mature enough and it'll seem as if they have learning difficulties. French's characterisation of Holly seems to veer between the two: at times, she seems unnaturally perceptive, while on other occasions she comes across as improbably dim.

The biggest flaw, however, comes in the form of the murder-mystery element. While it's clear that writing a paint-by-numbers whodunit is the last thing on French's mind, that doesn't excuse the glaring obviousness of the killer's identity (and is something that a writer like Denise Mina, who skilfully juggles both the thriller element and her chosen theme, would never allow). There are only ever two (or at most three) plausible suspects, and Frank latches on to the perpetrator when there's still a good 40% of the novel to go. Right until the end, I was expecting (and hoping for) a last-minute twist in which it was revealed that the actual killer was someone completely unexpected, but it didn't happen. With a whodunit, I like to either have the rugged pulled out from under my feet completely or at least work out the solution at roughly the same time as the protagonist. Neither happens here, and it means that the novel ultimately fails as a mystery, which is rather problematic as that's at least partly how it's marketed.

As for Frank himself, he lacks Cassie Maddox's quirky individuality, but he's considerably less self-pitying than Rob Ryan. He also has a dry sense of humour, which is always a good thing. The lack of any characters from the first two novels (apart from Frank and a pathologist who has appeared in all three) leads to FAITHFUL PLACE feeling rather disconnected from its predecessors (Frank was very much a tertiary character in THE LIKENESS, whereas Cassie was IN THE WOODS' most significant character after Rob), but that's not necessarily a criticism - more an observation. As with Cassie in THE LIKENESS, French uses Frank's promotion to centre stage to give him more depth: he was very much a cipher in the previous novel, a colourful character whose primary purpose was to move the plot forward.

And of course French writes beautifully. Her skill with prose is utterly enviable, and her grasp of the written word does succeed in papering over some of the elements that feel a bit thin - such as the aforementioned whodunit aspect. FAITHFUL PLACE may not be up to the standard of the author's previous two novels, and when all said and done it lacks their sense of quirky originality, but I still highly recommend it, and I now find myself eagerly anticipating her next novel... and hoping I won't have too long to wait.

BD impressions: Gladiator (10th Anniversary Edition)

8:14 PM / BD Impressions / 25 Comments

I'm not going to recount the entirety of GLADIATOR's less than rosy history on BD. Suffice it to say that the previous version, released less than a year ago, was a massive disappointment in the image quality department, with many people scarcely able to believe that such a high profile film could be released in so poor a state - particularly when, in the US, Paramount marketed as part of a range that offered the best films in the best quality, or words to that effect.

You can read my review and see screen captures of the original release here.

Moving swiftly on, Paramount and Universal, who own the rights to the film internationally, have conspired to provide us with a brand new remaster of the film, derived from a new 4K scan of the original negative. Depending on where you live, there are different options available for acquiring a copy of the new version, but it is complicated by the fact that, in the US, Paramount have "silently" released the new edition on to store shelves in nearly identical packaging. The situation in Europe is slightly more clear-cut, although in certain territories (the Netherlands, for example), copies of the new version do exist which come in the original packaging but with a "10th Anniversary Edition" sticker on the back cover. Both Paramount and Universal have set up replacement programmes, so if you already own either release, my recommendation would be to contact the appropriate distributor to arrange a trade (I believe you need to pay the shipping costs yourself).

My copy is the Dutch release by Universal (the one with the original steelbook packaging and a "10th Anniversary Edition" sticker), and I believe that, packaging aside, the same discs will be released throughout Europe. (It certainly includes a plethora of different languages, and the discs themselves carry Dutch, German, UK and Irish classification logos.)

Image quality: Anyway, the disc itself... I previously felt that Disney's re-release of GANGS OF NEW YORK represented the single biggest improvement I had ever seen from one high definition release to another of the same film. GLADIATOR, however, now takes the crown. Indeed, the image quality of this remastered edition is so stunning as to elevate it above MINORITY REPORT and BRAVEHEART in the catalogue title stakes. When word of the remastered version initially emerged, I like many people suspected that the best we could hope for would be something derived from the previous master before the edge enhancement and DNR that sullied it so much had been applied. Instead, Universal and Paramount have pushed the boat out and given us something that actually looks streets better than many BDs of films released in 2010. Even the opticals (GLADIATOR was photochemically colour timed, and as such any effects shots, shots with fades or on-screen text etc., obviously had to be taken from a print source a couple of generations down the line) look better than certain DI-sourced transfers I could mention (see Example 13). It's just an all-round phenomenal presentation and I for one am completely satisfied. 10/10

As regards the differences between Universal and Paramount's releases, obviously each is a different encode derived from the same master. As this comparison by Thunderbolt8 at the AV Science Forum demonstrates, some scenes in the Paramount release appear to have been slightly filtered, visible in the form of slight ringing around the letterbox bars à la their release of MINORITY REPORT (the European release of that title, by 20th Century Fox, suffered from no such ringing). Oddly enough, it is only present for parts of the film, and the effect seems to be fairly minimal (the grain does appear slightly clumpier on the US version of the first capture in the above link). My advice, if you want the best version available, is to go for Universal's version. On a mid-size display, however, or for someone not overly attuned to slight visual imperfections, the Paramount version should definitely suffice.

Gladiator (10th Anniversary Edition)
studio: Universal; country: Netherlands; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 33.01 GB (theatrical), 36.47 GB (extended);
average bit rate (including audio): 30.55 Mbit/sec (theatrical), 30.54 Mbit/sec (extended)

Just arrived...

2:11 PM / Blu-ray / 2 Comments

CENTURION (BD, Pathé, Region B, UK)

BD impressions: The Ghost Writer

10:44 PM / BD Impressions / 7 Comments

Roman Polanski's latest offering, THE GHOST WRITER (THE GHOST in the UK), has been somewhat overshadowed by its director's temporary stint under house arrest (which prevented him from being present in the editing room during the final stages of post-production)... which is a shame, because I believe every film deserves to stand on its own two feet irrespective of what its filmmakers may have got up to, and THE GHOST WRITER is a very fine thriller indeed.

Somewhat reminiscent of Polanski's own THE NINTH GATE, albeit with a less tongue-in-cheek approach to its subject matter (although it's shot through with Polanski's unmistakable brand of wry humour and fascination with the slightly off-kilter), with Ewan McGregor stepping into the shoes occupied by Johnny Depp in that earlier film - the dogged, slightly naive everyman who finds himself stumbling upon an elaborate conspiracy and putting his own neck on the chopping block in his relentless search for the truth. That the subject of the conspiracy, former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, is so clearly inspired by Tony Blair, gives the material a palpable sense of veracity that the rather silly supernatural frolics of THE NINTH GATE lacked.

Excellent performances all round, with Olivia Williams stealing the show as Lang's spurned wife, and some nice use of the perpetually overcast locales (with various locations in Germany and Denmark standing in for Massachusetts)... although the rather obvious use of green-screen does become a bit distracting at times. Definitely one to watch: there are many layers at work here, and the result is a complex and satisfying thriller that I suspect will stand up to repeat viewings.

Image quality: In order to save a couple of pounds, I ended up picking up the Canadian release from E1 Entertainment rather than the US release by Summit, not realising there was any difference between them. I'm glad I did, as it turns out the US version was cut to obtain a PG-13 rating, with many of the profanities in Pierce Brosnan's many rants being overdubbed with softer variants ("sod 'em" rather than "fuck 'em", etc.). As far as I can gather, the Canadian release is uncut, and therefore it's the version I would recommend people pick up. I'm not sure how the two compare in the image quality department, but this is a fine-looking disc and one that I suspect accurately reflects the look of the original master. It looks to have been degrained - the grain is light and what remains has that "sluggish" look - and detail is perhaps not as crisp as the best the format has to offer, but it's still a very satisfying presentation on the whole. 8/10

The Ghost Writer
studio: E1 Entertainment; country: Canada; region code: A; codec: AVC;
file size: 32 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 35.89 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

9:22 PM / Blu-ray / 2 Comments

THE GHOST WRITER (BD, E1 Entertainment, Region A, Canada)

Just arrived...

6:06 PM / Blu-ray / 17 Comments

GLADIATOR - 10th Anniversary Edition (BD, Universal, Region ABC, Netherlands)

The improvement is NOT SUBTLE. This is potential 10/10 material.

Just arrived...

6:27 PM / Blu-ray / 13 Comments

DET FEMTE ELEMENT [THE FIFTH ELEMENT] (BD, SF Film, Region B, Denmark)

Hmm, Sony's US re-release doesn't look quite so spectacular any more...

If anyone's playing Starcraft II on EU Battle.net...

1:14 PM / Games / 2 Comments

...feel free to add me as a friend: mrmackenzietemp[at]gmail[dot]com

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