Alice in Wonderland coming to BD in April

10:14 PM / Blu-ray / 1 Comment

A BD release of the Disney classic (not the naff-looking Tim Burton version currently playing in cinemas) appears to be coming out in Italy on May 2010:

Clicky!

Source: Blu-ray.com

Just arrived...

9:10 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (BD, Anchor Bay, Region A, USA)

UbiSoft's DRM faux-pas

11:17 PM / Games / 7 Comments

If you're a PC gamer, chances are you've heard about the fiasco surrounding the latest insidious digital rights management (DRM) system designed to screw legitimate customers... sorry, I mean't to say "designed to combat piracy". Funny now the two always seem to go hand in hand, isn't it?

Anyway, faced with the knowledge that, no matter what sort of copy protection or forced activation system they put on the game disc, the crackers will find a way of bypassing it, letting players get straight to the good stuff (often before the game is actually available on store shelves - SPORE, I'm looking at you), UbiSoft hit on an ingenious scheme: to force the player to authenticate and remain online at all times, connected to UbiSoft's servers and streaming a significant portion of the game data NOT stored on the physical disc. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Well, yes, until you break it down and figure out what it actually means. You have to remain connected to the internet the whole time. If your connection dies, for whatever reason, the game quits. Depending on which game it is, it might save your progress, but that's not a given. ASSASSIN'S CREED 2, for example, uses a checkpoint system, so if your connection dies, the game will only restore you back to the last checkpoint. As per Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

No matter what you're doing, no matter what the reason, the game will refuse to let you continue playing if it decides you're not online. You're dumped right back to a menu, losing any progress made since the last checkpoint. If you don't have a constant, uninterrupted internet connection, you can't play. Let's list some of the reasons you might drop your net connection, shall we? Router crash, ISP problems, cat playing with the cable, microwave muddling your wi-fi connection, train going into a tunnel when you're on 3G, Windows having a networking befuddlement, someone else in the house torrenting the bandwidth dry...

And let's get something straight here: we're talking about SINGLE PLAYER GAMES that require you to remain connected. That's a load of horse-hooey. A player's ability to run a single player game should not be dependent either on his/her web connection or the stability of UbiSoft's servers. It's ludicrous. It benefits no-one but the publisher. As Phill Cameron put it in his article at Gamasutra:

It's not there for our protection, it's there to stop people who aren't us (the paying customers), from getting their hands on the game.

[...]

Recently, PC Gamer managed to have a talk with Ubisoft about the technology. They claim that 'The real idea is that if you offer a game that is better when you buy it, then people will actually buy it. We wouldn't have built it if we thought that it was really going to piss off our customers.'

While it might be tempting to call them naive or blindly optimistic, the base theory there is sound; if you offer a better service than the pirates, you'll have more people buying the game. The problem is that here, with Assassin's Creed 2, we're not getting a better game when we buy.

The last point, which I emboldened, is in my opinion the most pertinent. From a shareholder's point of view, this new DRM system sounds wonderful in theory. After all, the bottom line is what counts, and what bigger bottom line is there than preventing the loss of sales due to piracy? (Let's, for a moment, run with the fallacy that every pirated copy directly equates to a lost sale.) Unfortunately, for the end user, it's meaningless. There's nothing to be gained by the gamer from this sort of content protection. The gamer is being asked to accept more stringent limitations being placed on their usage of the product in return for... nothing. Zilch. Nada.

The stupidity of this new system was laid bare for all to see when the aforementioned ASSASSIN'S CREED 2 was released on March 5th, and the servers were promptly brought to their knees due to the sheer demand placed on them, preventing legitimate customers from playing the game they'd just bought. That's right: people were unable to play a single player game because the servers couldn't cope with the number of connections. I hate to say "I told you so", but the sadist in me derives a considerable amount of schadenfreude from this whole affair. Rock, Paper, Shotgun again:

The DRM was clearly ludicrous from its first announcement, and Ubisoft could not have been sent a more clear message by a worldwide reaction of outrage. They persisted with it anyway (quashing some people's suspicions that this was a deliberately OTT announcement so they could appear to back down on it later), and despite repeated warnings that it was untenable continued to boast the "feature" as a bonus for gamers. This weekend people have not been gamers, because their game wouldn't run.

And don't forget that the game has currently only been released in Europe. Just imagine what's going to happen when it comes out in North America on the 9th...

This new DRM scheme is supposedly going to be employed for every subsequent UbiSoft PC game, including THE SETTLERS VII: PATHS TO A KINGDOM, which I was previously looking forward to playing but now won't be bothering with. Well, it'll be used until UbiSoft's managers cotton on to the fact that this is a major faux-pas and backtrack. That may take some time, given that all the evidence suggests that UbiSoft's managers are SPECTACULARLY stupid, but I'm confident that it will happen eventually. Electronic Arts, for example, eventually backed down on the ridiculous "three/five installs and you're out" scheme that they imposed on SPORE and RED ALERT 3, among others. It's a shame wary customers are going to have to miss out on the likes of ASSASSIN'S CREED 2 and THE SETTLERS 7, but them's the breaks, and I feel reasonably confident that the inevitable ASSASSIN'S CREED 3 and THE SETTLERS 8 will not be crippled to this extent. (That, or UbiSoft will devise something even worse, which I suppose is always a possibility...)

If nothing else, the ASSASSIN'S CREED 2 fiasco is a cause for celebration because it serves as a clear demonstration of just how dangerous this sort of DRM potentially is. If you bought the game, fully aware of the included restrictions, and found yourself unable to play it, then I sympathise, but maybe it will teach you not to be so trusting in future.

BD impressions: Triangle

11:07 PM / BD Impressions / 2 Comments

I wasn't really a fan of Christopher Smith's first feature, CREEP. Actually, that's putting it mildly: I thought it was, on the whole, dull and not particularly well-made or acted. I haven't seen his middle child, SEVERANCE, yet, but TRIANGLE is a quantum leap forward for him from CREEP. To be honest, saying anything about the plot whatsoever would ruin it completely, as it's one of those films that you really are better off knowing nothing about before watching it. However, I WILL say that he takes a potentially very tricky concept and pulls it off extremely well, aided in no small part by an excellent turn from Melissa George, who has a rather challenging role on her hands. Although the style couldn't be more different, I was reminded on numerous occasions of Kubrick's THE SHINING, if not in terms of quality then certainly in concept. While I found the characterisation and dialogue to be pretty thin (as was also the case with CREEP), and I can see some people finding the premise itself a bit frustrating, this was a pleasant surprise for me, and I definitely recommend giving it a look. Just try to ignore the dodgy CGI and green-screen...

Image quality: TRIANGLE was shot in high definition (Panavision Genesis HD) by Robert Humphreys (who also shot the sublime-looking SOMERSAULT), and it looks very good indeed on this BD from Icon. The level of detail on display is frequently jaw-dropping, and the compression is handled well for the most part, barring a bit of mosquito noise in the ocean and a single major encoding screw-up at 00:39:26. At times, the blacks look rather too grey, but this is by no means a constant issue, so I'm inclined to blame the photography or the colour timing rather than the transfer itself. A very fine-looking disc. 9.5/10

By the way, the UK release definitely seems to be the one to go for. From these screen captures, it's pretty clear that some scenes in the US version from First Look Studios have been filtered (though oddly enough, others appear unaffected).

Triangle
studio: Icon; country: UK; region code: B; codec: AVC;
file size: 19.8 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 28.74 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

11:31 PM / Blu-ray / 5 Comments

An unexpected mega haul today. First, the two discs that I'd ordered online:

LUFTSLOTTET SOM PRENGTES (BD, Nordisk Film, Region ABC, Norway)

Known in its native Sweden as LUFTSLOTTET SOM SPRÄNGDES and in English-speaking territories as THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST. I won't be watching it until I've read the novel (which I haven't started yet), but I took a look at the BD this evening and I'm sorry to report that it doesn't look pretty. See Lyris Lite for more information.

TRIANGLE (BD, Icon, Region B, UK)

Now, the discs I picked up at HMV today in a sale:

36 (BD, Palisades Tartan, Region B, UK)

LADY VENGEANCE (BD, Palisades Tartan, Region B, UK)

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (BD, Palisades Tartan, Region B, UK)

THIRST (BD, Palisades Tartan, Region B, UK)

SIN CITY (BD, Buena Vista, Region ABC, UK)

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

11:59 PM / Cinema / No Comments

• Monday, February 1, 2010: THE STRANGERS (USA, 2008) 4/10
• Thursday, February 4, 2010: THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (France/Poland/Norway, 1991) 7/10 or 8/10
• Tuesday, February 9, 2010: MYSTIC RIVER (USA/Australia, 2003) 7/10
• Sunday, February 14, 2010: THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (Sweden/Denmark/Germany, 2009) 7/10
• Monday, February 15, 2010: MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT (France/Canada/Italy, 2008) 9/10
• Tuesday, February 16, 2010: MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1 (France/Canada, 2008) 8/10
• Thursday, February 17, 2010: TAKEN (France, 2008) 7/10
• Friday, February 19, 2010: PONTYPOOL (Canada, 2008) 8/10
• Saturday, February 20, 2010: PONYO (Japan, 2008) 8/10
• Tuesday, February 23, 2010: BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (USA/UK, 2007) 6/10
• Saturday, February 27, 2010: AMER (France/Belgium, 2009) 7/10 or 8/10

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

11:59 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

• Wednesday, February 3, 2010: THE ARMY OF CRIME (BD, Region B, UK)
• Monday, February 8, 2010: MYSTIC RIVER (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Friday, February 12, 2010: GANGS OF NEW YORK (BD, Region ABC, USA)
• Saturday, February 20, 2010: PONYO (BD, Region ABC, USA) - BD impressions

FrightFest report

10:10 AM / Cinema / 2 Comments

This is going to be a rather incomplete report, because although eight films were shown at the Glasgow FrightFest, I only went along for two: A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN and AMER. I met up with Nick and Sandy from Dark Dreams, and from what they told me it didn't sound as if I'd missed much the previous night (barring a fight which broke out at the front of the auditorium and required police intervention). Still, there was a great atmosphere there, and the whole thing seemed to go down a treat if the packed auditorium was anything to go by.

So, the films. A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN was up first, and I'm sorry to report that the experience was mostly a disappointing one. We were led to believe that we were going to see a fully uncut, restored version, but before the film began, the project's supervisor from Optimum (whose name I'm afraid I can't remember) came on to the stage to apologise, saying that the restoration wasn't yet finished and that what we were going to see would be cobbled together from various sources. What ended up playing was just a DVD that bore a striking resemblance to the most recent Media Blasters release, with the exception of the opening and closing credits (which, while of very poor quality, appeared to be the original English credits rather than the reset ones that appeared on the Media Blasters DVD) and no more than two shots which seemed to have been culled from a VHS source. (One of these was the shot of Julia kneeling before Carol in the second dream sequence, only present in a much-shortened version in the previous DVD release; the other was a brief reaction shot from Carol as she discovers the room of vivisected dogs.) Oh, and some (but not all) of the dialogue that was presented in Italian on the previous DVD has been restored into English here, namely the tense dinner scene and Carol's subsequent telephone conversation with Mrs. Gordon.

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN is a great giallo, but this was definitely not the way to experience it. The quality was what you'd expect from a DVD projected on to a cinema screen, the sound levels fluctuated wildly throughout, going from too quiet to overpoweringly loud, and I'm ultimately not sure I'd have bothered if I'd known in advance that it would be like this. Fair enough if Optimum couldn't get the project finished in time, but all the same I can't help feeling that I was lured to the cinema under false pretences. I would like to think that, when the DVD release finally materialises this summer, it will be pristine and put the previous releases to shame, but the manner in which this film has been treated in the past, plus the state of the materials shown to us yesterday, does give me pause for concern. At least those who own the Media Blasters remaster can be reasonably confident that they're not missing any significant material.

AMER, on the other hand, was a different experience entirely. We were treated to an actual print of the film, and before it began Alan Jones introduced us to the two writer/directors, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. What we saw was an absolutely stunning-looking film that was clearly a love letter to 70s Italian genre cinema. From the multi-coloured, SUSPIRIA-inspired opening sequence to the sun-drenched middle section (which we were told was inspired by the look of Sergio Martino's THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH and Umberto Lenzi's SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS - although to my mind it looked a hundred times better than either of these) to the murky, blue-tinted final stretch, AMER looked like a million bucks - or more precisely a million Euros, which was its entire budget. Although we disagreed as to the merits of the film itself, Sandy, Nick and I all agreed that the first act was how we wished Argento's MOTHER OF TEARS had looked. (Actually, with its scary old house, sinister mother figure and wonderful dream logic, this first segment would actually have made for a highly satisfying entry in the Three Mothers canon in its own right, and certainly better than MOTHER OF TEARS itself.) I was continually amazed by how successfully Cattet, Forzani and cinematographer Manu Dacosse had managed to replicate the 70s look. They certainly put Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, who frittered away more than $50 million trying to achieve something similar with American "trash" cinema in GRINDHOUSE, to shame. After all, surely spending that much money on something deliberately cheap-looking defeats the purpose, no?

That said, while AMER was clearly heavily inspired by gialli in terms of its appearance and overall mood, narrative-wise it had little in common with these films... and that's assuming you actually believe it HAD a narrative. Cattet and Forzani had previously made short films, and AMER is very much a short subject stretched to feature length. It's entirely a mood piece, and those looking for a compelling plot, or indeed a plot of any kind, would be advised to look elsewhere. As beautiful as the film was, it certainly dragged in places, particularly towards the end, as it became clear that the various striking yet dissonant images were not going to be pulled together to create a meaningful whole. I'd be tempted to called it a beautiful nothing, were it not for the fact that I do believe there was something going on beneath the surface - something which eluded me on this first viewing but which will hopefully become clear to me the next time I see it. It opens theatrically in France on Wednesday, and I sincerely hope a BD release isn't too far off. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most striking-looking film of 2009. It does succumb to the law of diminishing returns, though: while the first segment is the strongest, the third and final is definitely the weakest.

Following the film, directors Cattet and Forzani were joined on the stage by their producer, François Cognard, to answer questions from the audience. Cattet didn't say much (I think she was worried her English wasn't up to scratch), with Forzani and Cognard fielding most of the answers. Questions ranged from the straightforward ("Which films inspired the middle section?") to the esoteric (the importance of the sense of touch in the film) to the downright hilarious ("Why were there so many close-ups of lady-parts?" "Because that's the subject of the movie. And besides, it's a French film."), and everyone who asked a question got either an AMER T-shirt or a poster.

And to the dickhead in the Batman T-shirt near the back who tittered through half the film making comments along the lines of "What is this shit?", I've got news for you: if you dislike a film, you can do so quietly, and if you're incapable of that, you can always leave. You ESPECIALLY don't have to stay for the Q&A and giggle uncontrollably while people are asking serious questions. That sort of behaviour would be inappropriate enough at the best of times, but when the directors themselves are in attendance, it becomes downright obnoxious. At least this joker appeared to be in the minority, if the rapturous applause at the end of the Q&A was anything to go by.

A Lizard in a well-worn skin

3:22 PM / Cinema / 1 Comment

I'm off to the Glasgow Film Festival tomorrow afternoon to meet up with some of the Dark Dreams crowd and catch screenings of Lucio Fulci's A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN and Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's AMER.

With a declared running time of 110 minutes, this screening of A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN would appear to be at least five minutes longer than the current longest available version, the remastered US DVD from Media Blasters/Shriek Show. So I can report back in something approaching a meaningful way on what (if anything) is new, I rewatched my copy of the film yesterday. (I also happen to be writing about it for the chapter of my PhD that I'm currently working on, so I was killing two birds with one stone.) I've seen it countless times now, and it still holds up extremely well, in my opinion remaining Fulci's best film. Yes, I know most people seem to prefer DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, but I've always found that one a bit more sluggish and grubby-looking, if considerably more daring in terms of its social commentary. (Think about it too hard, and you'll find that A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN is basically just telling you that hippies and lesbians are a menace to civilised society... although, of course, as per usual with the giallo, "civilised" society turns out to be anything but.)

For me, A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN proves once and for all that Fulci was a great director, making his fall from grace in the 80s all the more tragic. He was also very much ahead of his time, anticipating stylistic trends years if not decades before they became mainstream. Look at his innovative use of hand-held photography and rapid-fire editing to illustrate Carol Hammond's fractured state of mind, or the split-screen effects (also used to notable effect in his earlier, underrated ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER) as he contrasts the Hammonds' dinner party, the feeling of repression in the air positively stifling, with the uninhibited wildness of Julia Durer's party next door. (And of course there's Carol's stepdaughter, Joan, covertly tapping her foot to the jazzy music, courtesy of Ennio Morricone, seeping through the walls - a nicely understated hint towards the restlessness bubbling away beneath the family's superficially "respectable" surface.)

And what a cast! Florinda Bolkan, Jean Sorel, Anita Strindberg, Ely Galleani, Silvia Monti, George Rigaud, Alberto de Mendoza... virtually everyone who was anybody on the 70s Italian genre scene is here in some capacity (well, barring George Hilton and Edwige Fenech, I suppose). And, of course, let's not forget Stanley Baker and Leo Genn (dryly hilarious as the slightly oddball police inspector) keeping up a stiff upper lip on the British side. It helps that this by far the best dubbed giallo I've ever scene, with the English language track (recorded at Pinewood Studios) good enough to almost pass for the real thing, despite the fact that pretty much only Baker and Genn were speaking with their own voices.

A great Fulci, a great giallo and a great film. I look forward to seeing this on the big screen tomorrow with great anticipation.

The BAFTA 2010 results

12:23 PM / Cinema / 9 Comments

Best Film - The Hurt Locker
Outstanding British Film - Fish Tank
Director - Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Actor - Colin Firth, A Single Man
Actress - Carey Mulligan, An Education
Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, Precious
Original Screenplay - The Hurt Locker
Adapted Screenplay - Up in the Air
Film not in the English Language - A Prophet
Animated Film - Up
Cinematography - The Hurt Locker
Costume Design - The Young Victoria
Editing - The Hurt Locker
Make-Up & Hair - The Young Victoria
Music - Up
Production Design - Avatar
Sound - The Hurt Locker
Visual Effects - Avatar
Short Animation - Mother of Many
Short Film - I Do Air
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer - Duncan Jones (director, Moon)
Orange Rising Star Award - Kristen Stewart

Any thoughts on the results?

By the way, Mr. James Cameron, given your insistence that AVATAR is "not an animated film" and that "every nuance, every tiny bit of the performance that you see on the screen, was created by the actors", does that mean you'll be giving back the award the film won for best visual effects? No, didn't think so.

BD impressions: Pontypool

12:13 PM / BD Impressions / 5 Comments

I believe PONTYPOOL first came to my attention thanks to Mark Kermode's Radio 5 show. He didn't review the film himself, but if memory serves me correctly several listeners wrote in to recommend it. I'm glad I decided to check it out, because it turned out to be one of the best horror movies I've seen in the last year. Set in a small, isolated village in Ontario in the middle of an icy winter, it focuses on a radio host, his producer and her assistant as the three of them become trapped in their studio as a sinister virus, spread through speech itself, begins infecting those on the outside.

To say any more would be to give too much away, but suffice it to say that PONTYPOOL is a film that takes you by surprise in terms of just how effectively it exploits what, on paper, must have seemed like a rather restrictive premise: a largely fixed cast locked in a single location for over an hour and a half, HEARING about the carnage that is unfolding in the world outside but unable to SEE it. (According to Wikipedia, it was produced simultaneously as a film and as a radio play.) Effectively, it's what DAWN OF THE DEAD would have been like if Gaylen Ross had remained in the TV studio for the duration of the film. The bulk of the film is basically a three-hander for the leads, Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle and Georgina Reilly, and all three of them are pitch perfect. Their performances are such that you quickly overlook the budgetary limitations, which dictate that the carnal rule of filmmaking - show, don't tell - is flouted throughout.

I'm reluctant to spoil any more of the film, so I'll simply see this: if you're a horror movie fan, see PONTYPOOL now. In terms of horror movies released in 2008, it's up there with LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

Image quality: Well, this looks much better than the last film I watched on BD that was shot with the Red One camera, ANTICHRIST. Despite the middling bit rate, compression is never an issue, and detail is generally pretty pleasing, although the complete lack of grain leads to an image that looks rather flat and dead (although this is, I admit, down to my own personal bias towards the look of film). The single overriding issue with the transfer is the noticeably elevated blacks, an issue that it present right from the get-go (during the opening credits, simple red text against a black background, the black of the background is considerably brighter than that of the letterbox bars, a problem that persists throughout the film's duration). While it's true that the subject matter demands a rather drab, understated visual style, the raised blacks create an overly murky effect which I doubt was intentional. 8/10

Pontypool
studio: Kaleidoscope; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 16.7 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 24.8 Mbit/sec

BD impressions: Ponyo

7:42 PM / BD Impressions / 11 Comments

I've heard PONYO described as a minor entry in Hayao Miyazaki's impressive resume, and that may be true, but I personally enjoyed it more than a number of his supposedly meatier films. It's not, I feel, the best animated movie of 2008 (that honour would go to WALL-E), but it's a fine piece of work, mesmerising to look at and refreshingly free of the clichés that infest just about every North American animated movie to one degree or another. As my brother puts it, "There are no kids exclaiming how they 'just want to believe in themselves' or how they want to please their fathers, etc."

Image quality: Reference. 10/10

This appears to be the same excellent encode that was used for the earlier Japanese release, with any differences in file size attributable to the differing language configurations. The US release that I watched lacks a lossless Japanese audio track, but I can't honestly say this bothered me in the slightest. As a matter of principle, I do feel that that every BD should come with a lossless audio track of the film's original language, just as I think every encode should use as much of the available disc space as possible, but in real world terms this is often simply splitting hairs. The number of times that I've actually noticed a difference between a lossy and a lossless track when both are included on the same disc is low indeed, and it's not as if I'm listening on completely crummy equipment or anything like that. A while back, a professional audio engineer compared the waveforms of Dolby Digital 448 Kbps, 640 Kbps, 1.5 Mbps, and lossless tracks and demonstrated that, while the jump from 448 Kbps to 640 Kbps should be noticeable to the naked ear, anything beyond that was virtually immaterial. If anyone has a link to that article, I'd be incredibly grateful.

PS. It's also worth pointing out that, in addition to artificial grain, Studio Ghibli have also inserted some "artificial gate weave". While I don't doubt that some will see these as negatives, I personally felt that they went a long way towards counteracting the deadness so often associated with digital animation.

Ponyo
studio: Buena Vista; country: USA; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 21.3 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 30.18 Mbit/sec

This year's BAFTAs...

3:08 PM / Cinema / 2 Comments

Tonight sees the 2010 instalment of the UK's answer to the Oscars, the BAFTAs. I've just taken a look at the nominees and am once again shamed by how few I've actually seen.

The full list of nominees, as per the BBC News web site, is below. Films that I've actually seen are asterisked. Ones that I INTEND to see at some point in the coming year are identified by a "¥" symbol.

Best Film
- Avatar ¥
- An Education ¥
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Precious
- Up in the Air

Outstanding British Film
- An Education ¥
- Fish Tank
- In the Loop
- Moon *
- Nowhere Boy

Director
- Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker ¥
- Neill Blomkamp, District 9 ¥
- James Cameron, Avatar ¥
- Lone Scherfig, An Education ¥
- Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds *

Actor
- Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
- George Clooney, Up in the Air
- Colin Firth, A Single Man
- Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker ¥
- Andy Serkis, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Actress
- Carey Mulligan, An Education ¥
- Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones ¥
- Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
- Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
- Audrey Tautou, Coco Before Chanel

Supporting Actor
- Alec Baldwin, It's Complicated
- Christian McKay, Me and Orson Welles
- Alfred Molina, An Education ¥
- Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones ¥
- Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds *

Supporting Actress
- Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
- Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
- Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
- Mo'Nique, Precious
- Kristin Scott Thomas, Nowhere Boy

Original Screenplay
- The Hangover
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Inglourious Basterds *
- A Serious Man
- Up *

Adapted Screenplay
- District 9 ¥
- An Education ¥
- In the Loop
- Precious
- Up in the Air

Film not in the English Language
- Broken Embraces ¥
- Coco Before Chanel
- Let the Right One In *
- A Prophet
- The White Ribbon

Animated Film
- Coraline *
- Fantastic Mr Fox ¥
- Up *

Cinematography
- Avatar ¥
- District 9 ¥
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Inglourious Basterds *
- The Road

Costume Design
- Bright Star
- Coco Before Chanel
- An Education ¥
- A Single Man
- The Young Victoria

Editing
- Avatar ¥
- District 9 ¥
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Inglourious Basterds *
- Up in the Air

Make-Up & Hair
- Coco Before Chanel
- An Education ¥
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ¥
- Nine
- The Young Victoria

Music
- Avatar ¥
- Crazy Heart
- Fantastic Mr Fox ¥
- Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
- Up *

Production Design
- Avatar ¥
- District 9 ¥
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus ¥
- Inglourious Basterds *

Sound
- Avatar ¥
- District 9 ¥
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Star Trek *
- Up *

Visual Effects
- Avatar ¥
- District 9 ¥
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- The Hurt Locker ¥
- Star Trek *

Short Animation
- The Gruffalo
- The Happy Duckling
- Mother of Many

Short Film
- 14
- I Do Air
- Jade
- Mixtape
- Off Season

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
- Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson (directors/producers, Mugabe and the White African)
- Eran Creevy (writer-director, Shifty)
- Stuart Hazeldine (writer-director, Exam)
- Duncan Jones (director, Moon) *
- Sam Taylor-Wood (director, Nowhere Boy)

Orange Rising Star Award
- Jesse Eisenberg
- Nicholas Hoult
- Carey Mulligan
- Tahar Rahim
- Kristen Stewart

A few thoughts:

It's really nice to see UP included in multiple categories instead of being relegated to the ubiquitous "Animated Film" grouping.

The absence of PONYO seems like a major oversight... until you remember that it was only released in the UK a week ago and was presumably therefore ineligible. Then again, THE LOVELY BONES was only release over here TWO DAYS AGO, and that didn't stop Saoirse Ronan getting a nomination for it. (Which doesn't strike me as fair at all. Can the voters actually be reasonably expected to have seen a film which only opened just over forty-eight hours before the results are announced?)

I'm surprised to see INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in so many categories - not because I object to its inclusion but because I didn't expect what is effectively a "cult" film (albeit one marketed towards as wide an audience as possible) being so well represented at such a mainstream event. (Though Mélanie Laurent's absence from the list is a crying shame.) On that note, it's nice to see LET THE RIGHT ONE IN being recognised too. I'll be rooting for it if for no reason other than to see a vampire movie winning a BAFTA and proving that there's more to the genre than TWILIGHT. Speaking of which, I hope the Orange Rising Star nomination for Kristen Stewart represents her body of work as a whole rather than her appearance in that risible series of films, because that would be like rewarding someone for kicking a puppy.

That's about it, really. I've seen so few of the contenders that there's really not much point in my expressing an opinion on them... except to say that I would derive a considerable amount of schadenfreude if AVATAR were to perform dismally. I've not even seen the film yet and I'm already sick of hearing about it.

Image comparison: L'amour braque

2:34 PM / DVD / 10 Comments

I apologise for being so late with this comparison. Mondo Vision's release of Andrzej Zulawski's L'AMOUR BRAQUE came out back in October, but for one reason or another I didn't get an opportunity to do one of my customary comparisons. However, with SZAMANKA and THE SILVER GLOBE recently added to Mondo Vision's coming soon roster, I thought now was as good a time as any to remind you of the work that this label is doing in bringing Zulawski's films to a wider audience in the best quality to date on home video.

[Continue reading...]

Just arrived...

11:02 PM / Blu-ray / 7 Comments

Ponyo (BD, Buena Vista, Region ABC, USA)

BD impressions: Mesrine

3:35 PM / BD Impressions / 2 Comments

I knew very little about Jacques Mesrine (pronounced "meh-reen" rather than "mez-reen") before watching this two-part biopic starring Vincent Cassel as the titular French ganster, and after watching it I wasn't convinced I knew all that much more, except that he was fond of women and attention in equal measure and managed to survive for so long due to a combination of blind luck and sheer audacity. Not many people could pull off a successful escape from a maximum security prison - Mesrine managed FOUR in his lifetime, on one occasion fleeing a courtroom in the middle of his sentencing.

Cassel and director Jean-François Richet (yes, the guy who directed the remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13) don't seem to be entirely sure whether they want to simply present the facts or spin an action-packed, crowd-pleasing yarn about a lethal yet charismatic nutcase, but they lean more towards the latter. Certainly they are successful as far as creating a tense, engaging thriller is concerned, particularly in the first instalment, KILLER INSTINCT (the second part, PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1, suffers a little from an excessive running time and the fact that it essentially devolves into a formula of "heist, chase scene, jailbreak, chase scene, heist, chase scene..."). However, I did find myself slightly frustrated by the films' treatment of Mesrine himself. No attempt is made to explain why he ended up the way he did, barring a brief flashback to his experiences as a soldier in Algeria, which some may interpret is suggesting that the horrors he witnessed and participated in may have been responsible for unbalancing him. As a result, we don't really get a handle on him, and there's something slightly disconcerting about the manner in which the films lurch between portraying him as a scumbag (this is a man who on one occasion shoves a pistol into his wife's mouth, and on another beats a journalist within an inch of his life for criticising him in a newspaper article) and appearing to implicitly expect us to cheer for him as he outsmarts the authorities yet again. I've a feeling this may actually be deliberate - contrasting the romanticised myth of Mesrine as a Robin Hood figure with stark depictions of the the sort of low-life he really was - but the result is a pair of films that feel slightly schizophrenic at times. I read one review which suggested that the films felt as if they had been written by Mesrine himself, such is the extent to which they aggrandise him, and I'm tempted to concur, even if they do stop short of condoning his actions.

Undoubtedly the greatest strength of the two films is Cassel, and everything you've heard about him in the role is true: he really is amazing. He may not provide us with much insight into how Mesrine's mind works, but that's because of the script rather than his performance. At any rate, at no point is his Mesrine anything less than an utterly (and frighteningly) believable person, taking command of every scene in which he appears (and I can count on one hand the number in which he doesn't). A fine array of supporting performers, including Gérard Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric, Elena Anaya and Ludivine Sagnier, provide backup, but that's about as far as their contributions go: everyone and everything is in service to Mesrine himself, and they never really come to the fore as three-dimensional characters. This is particularly true of the various women he picks up during the course of his lengthy reign of terror, who all seem to vacillate between gazing doe-eyed at him and then going off in a strop once they realise they play second fiddle to his lifestyle as a career criminal.

Flawed? You bet, but thanks to Cassel's bravura performance and Richet's assured, kinetic direction, the two films are never less than thoroughly engaging. KILLER INSTINCT is the better of the two thanks to its more solid structure and more efficient handling of the narrative, but together they make up an excellent double bill that demonstrates yet again just how good the French are when it comes to action cinema.

Image quality: I'm extremely impressed by how good MESRINE looks on BD. Both films, which have a combined running time of over four hours, have been squeezed on to a single BD-50, but for the most part you honestly wouldn't know from looking at them. Although detail is a little inconsistent, shifting from extremely sharp to ever so slightly soft, I'm inclined to blame the materials rather than the disc itself. The compression is also surprisingly good given how much material is on the disc. You might spot the odd bit of artefacting in the backgrounds here and there in the screen captures below, but for the most part there's nothing to complain about, and certainly nothing untoward jumped out at me in motion. Could they have looked even better if each had been given its own disc? I suppose it's possible, but the quality of the presentation is good enough that at no point did I find myself playing the "what if...?" game. 9.5/10

Mesrine: Killer Instinct
studio: Momentum; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 15.8 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 19.99 Mbit/sec

Mesrine: Public Enemy Number 1
studio: Momentum; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 18.6 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 20 Mbit/sec

BD impressions: Jenta som lekte med ilden

3:20 PM / BD Impressions / 8 Comments

For my thoughts on the film itself, please see my previous post. A quick summary:

It's hard to put my finger on why, but THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE definitely FEELS like a TV movie rather than a theatrical production. Perhaps it's the overly dialogue-driven nature of the narrative (lengthy scenes unfold in which one will character simply sit and talk to another about events which occurs in the past, with no visual cues whatsoever) or the near complete lack of action (a car chase and a narrow escape from a burning barn aside). Or perhaps it's the fact that this is clearly the middle child in a trilogy, setting up a whole lot of strands that will hopefully be tied up in the third instalment, and therefore feeling less like a stand-alone event than a stepping stone in a lengthy serial. Either way this is not, as some have suggested, a pale shadow of the first film, though in any event I didn't think part one was as great as many claimed. Either way the ending, almost as open-ended as that of the novel, will doubtless disappoint some but left me eagerly anticipating THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST...

As with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, the Norwegian BD release (the same disc was also released in Sweden and Finland) does not contain any English subtitles. However, HTPC users can easily download some gramatically dubious but perfectly coherent subtitles and sync them up using Media Player Classic Home Cinema or another suitable player.

Image quality: Unfortunately, the encoder didn't cope at all well with the drop to 16mm. The fact that, unlike the previous film, this one has been crammed on to a single-layer BD-25 doesn't help matters either. The bit rate is woefully inadequate throughout, and artefacting is a continual problem, albeit affecting some scenes worse than others. 16mm can look perfectly good in high definition (just look at THE COUNTERFEITERS or the Middle Eastern sections of BABEL), but it needs room to breathe - something it didn't get here. It's serviceable up to a point, and I've seen far worse, but it's far from a shining example of the BD format. 7/10

Jenta som lekte med ilden
studio: Nordisk Film; country: Norway; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 21.1 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 23.35 Mbit/sec

A few thoughts on The Girl Who Played with Fire

2:53 PM / Cinema / 1 Comment

Whereas the first instalment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, received a lavish, big-screen adaptation, its two follow-ups, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, were fast-tracked as low budget television movies and only received theatrical releases thanks to the unprecedented popularity of the novels throughout Europe. While the original cast was enticed back, Niels Arden Oplev vacated the director's chair, with Daniel Alfredson stepping up to the task of helming both this and the third and final film, and the result is a dramatically different stylistic approach. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO never managed to be truly exciting, but it was slick and classy. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH THE FIRE... well, as the saying goes, read on.

The plot once again focuses on the mismatched pair of unlikely amateur detectives from the first instalment, reclusive delinquent Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), and this time sees Salander accused of a brutal triple murder. Two of the victims are journalist Dag Svensson (Hans-Christian Thulin) and his girlfriend, who were working with Blomkvist on an exposé of the sex trade in Sweden, naming and shaming various supposed pillars of society. Svensson and Bergman were about to go public with their research, and numerous parties would have had a vested interest in silencing them. The police's suspicion falls squarely at the feet of Salander, however: her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, and the third victim turns out to be her legal guardian, crooked solicitor Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson). (You may remember him tying up and raping Salander in the first instalment, and her getting her revenge by video-taping the attack and then returning to taser him and tattoo the words "I am a sadistic pig and a rapist" on his stomach.) Salander may have had reasonable grounds for wanting Bjurman dead, but the deaths of Svensson and Bergman don't fit. As far as Blomkvist is concerned, his one-time partner is innocent, and he is determined to prove it. Now if only he could track her down...

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was a complex novel, consisting of multiple plot strands, past and present, which were pared down quite impressively for the film version, while still retaining all the key beats. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE was even more complex, told through the eyes of a vast sea of characters (whereas its predecessor was limited to the perspectives of Blomkvist and Salander) and delving into a convoluted conspiracy that penetrates the highest echelons of Swedish society. Motivated by necessity, screenwriter Jonas Frykberg junks a lot of material in trimming the narrative to a running time of just over two hours, and unfortunately some of the most important stuff does end up on the cutting room floor. While Salander's Caribbean adventure, an enjoyable enough prologue to the novel but one which served no purpose whatsoever, is not missed, Larsson's biting social commentary has been stripped out almost completely and leaves a far more gaping hole. Many critics accused him of tub-thumping, and it's true that he wore his political beliefs and biases on his sleeve, but they gave the novel a certain weight which elevated it above many of its contemporaries. Here, Frykberg has retained the skeleton of the narrative but lost several of its nuances. It's particularly disappointing that the public hysteria surrounding the manhunt for Salander was excised, because in that area Larsson truly succeeded in skewering his targets.

What we're left with is a pacey if rather talky thriller that lacks the intellectual weight of its source material but is far less bogged down with minutiae. Whereas the first film was a slick widescreen epic, this one, shot on 16mm film using largely handheld camerawork, has an entirely different feel. Some have described it as cheap-looking, but I'm more inclined to feel that the "run-and-gun" style of photography makes it feel brisker and more kinetic, while the grubby-looking visuals seem rather appropriate given the subject matter. While THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was dark, it was largely inspired by the "locked room" mystery stories of Agatha Christie et al, and there was something rather civilised and respectable about it. With its subjects of people trafficking, institutionalised rape and forced prostitution, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE doesn't just benefit from a less grandiose visual style - it positively demands it. And that's not to say that there aren't any moments of style: Salander's covert visit to Miriam's hospital bed, with the foreground rendered a cold blue-grey and yellow light shining through the window, is particularly striking.

In terms of casting, Noomi Rapace is once again excellent as Salander and Michael Nyqvist does what he can with Blomkvist, who continues to be a rather dour and uninteresting protagonist. Peter Andersson is suitably slimy as Bjurman, and Johan Kylén manages to instil Inspector Bublanski with quiet gravitas. Bublanski is not a typical movie cop: in terms of his personality and approach to his job, he reminds me a lot of Claude Lebel in THE DAY OF THE JACKAL. By far the most interesting piece of casting, however, is that of Paolo Roberto, a professional boxer who ends up saving Salander's girlfriend, Miriam Wu (Yasmine Garbi), from a kidnap. Until his name appeared in the credits, I never realised that the character Larsson had written into his novel was an actual person. In Sweden, Paolo Roberto is something of a celebrity, and - get this! - he actually plays himself in the movie. Considering that his character essentially gets the crap kicked out of him and only manages to save himself and Miriam by the skin of his teeth, he must have a rather self-deprecating view of himself.

It's hard to put my finger on why, but THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE definitely FEELS like a TV movie rather than a theatrical production. Perhaps it's the overly dialogue-driven nature of the narrative (lengthy scenes unfold in which one will character simply sit and talk to another about events which occurred in the past, with no visual cues whatsoever) or the near complete lack of action (a car chase and a narrow escape from a burning barn aside). Or perhaps it's the fact that this is clearly the middle child in a trilogy, setting up a whole lot of strands that will hopefully be tied up in the third instalment, and therefore feeling less like a stand-alone event than a stepping stone in a lengthy serial. Either way this is not, as some have suggested, a pale shadow of the first film, though in any event I didn't think part one was as great as many claimed. Either way the ending, almost as open-ended as that of the novel, will doubtless disappoint some but left me eagerly anticipating THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST... 7/10

Book review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

11:54 AM / Reviews / 1 Comment

Yes, it's better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. How much better you find it to be will depend on your ability to once again slog through a considerable quantity of Stieg Larsson's observations about trivia that have nothing to do with the plot, such as (anti-)heroine Lisbeth Salander's newfound fascination with mathematics, in particular trying to figure out Fermat's Last Theorem.

Some things never change.

The novel, the second instalment in Larsson's posthumously published Millennium trilogy, opens with Salander holidaying in the Caribbean, where she becomes caught up in the destruction caused by Hurricane Matilda and simultaneously manages to prevent an absurdly convoluted murder attempt. It's all quite thrilling, but this 60-page episode has no bearing on the actual narrative of the book. None whatsoever. You could literally (as the makers of the 2009 film version did) cut it out entirely and no-one would be any the wiser.

When it finally gets going, though, The Girl Who Played with Fire turns out to be considerably more engaging than its predecessor. There are two reasons for this: the timeline and the subject matter. Whereas Salander and her unlikely accomplice, Mikael Blomkvist, spent the bulk of the first novel investigating a 40-year-old crime that may or may not have actually occurred, The Girl Who Played with Fire, while still drawing on the past, unravels primarily in the present, with Salander framed (or was she?) for a triple murder and on the run from both the authorities, convinced they are looking for a deranged psychopath, and a shadowy group of sinister individuals who have reasons of their own for wanting her to disappear off the face of the earth.

Larsson uses this tale to once again lay into the pillars of society, this time indicting not only investigative journalism but also the police, the sex trade and the health care service, with particular attention paid to the treatment of those deemed mentally ill. We see how Salander's murky past comes back to haunt her as every scrap of information about her his dug up and used to justify the vilification of her as the most depraved maniac Sweden has ever seen.

The frenzy only intensifies when Salander's on-off girlfriend, Miriam Wu, enters the picture, as Larsson really turns up the heat and lays into his targets with abandon: now Salander is painted by the press as the stereotypical mad lesbian killer. She's not merely crazy and violent, damn it: she has sex with women! She's a threat to the very moral foundation of society! A theme running throughout the novel is the notion that even a society as supposedly liberal and open-minded as Sweden will invariably fall back on old prejudices when the status quo is threatened.

What's particularly interesting about all of this is Salander's reaction. She isn't remotely surprised; she barely even gets angry, except when Miriam is harassed by the paparazzi. It's as if she's so used to society ill-treating her that she simply accepts being framed for a triple murder as something that was bound to happen sooner or later.

Unfortunately, we never really fear for her. The problem is that Larsson sets her up as an almost superhuman entity. He presents her as a master of disguise, capable of going undetected despite there being a nationwide manhunt for her and able to hack into any computer system. He also, in the 200 or so pages before the story proper gets going, sets up a situation in which she is allowed to live very comfortably and in perfect anonymity, almost as if she was planning for the whole thing. On some level, I suspect he did this to plant a seed of doubt in the reader's mind, suggesting that Salander could just possibly have carried out the murders and set the whole thing up months in advance, but it never really convinces. It removes a lot of the tension, turning the hunt for her into little more than an inconvenience. It's telling that one of the few genuinely tense moments in the book (and it is truly tense) is when Miriam is kidnapped. Unlike Salander, Miriam is not superhuman and we do genuinely fear for her safety.

Salander also disappears from the narrative for the majority of the second act, which presents problems of its own. While I'm increasingly coming to agree with Joan Smith's assertion that Salander is "not so much a character as a revenge fantasy come to life", she is by a considerable margin the most interesting figure in the trilogy, and the narrative drive suffers when she isn't there. We never really doubt her innocence (well, as innocent as Salander can be - it is made clear on numerous occasions that she would kill if she felt she had good reason to do so), but the characters who end up carrying the can throughout the novel's middle stretch are a rather uninteresting lot. The man leading the hunt for Salander, Inspector Bublanski, is a bland but ultimately well-meaning plod, while his underlings run the gamut from capable career woman (aren't they all, in Larsson's writing?) Modig to one-dimensional homophobe Faste. And of course Blomkvist is Blomkvist. He's still shagging his way through the entire female population of Sweden (this time he adds Harriet Vanger to his impressive roster) and he still seems to serve as a sort of wish fulfilment fantasy for Larsson. Most damagingly, Blomkvist and Salander never actually appear "on screen" together until the very end, robbing us of the unique partnership that was Dragon Tattoo's most interesting aspect.

And yet it's still a great read. For all its strodgy prose and the nagging sensation that what you're is reading is a first draft in desperate need of trimming, it is - like its predecessor - a brilliant page-turner. It's impossible not to barrel through it, eagerly anticipating what will happen next, and the final page concludes on such an open-ended note that the natural course of action will be to plunge straight into the third and final part of the trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

PS. Towards the end of the novel, there is a scene in which Blomkvist breaks into Salander's apartment and successfully guesses her security code: "WASP". Those who read the first book will understand the significance of this word. The notion that someone so security-conscious would go with such an obvious password and then be surprised when someone who knows her well guesses it is a little too much to swallow. In the real world, the only people who use "meaningful" passwords are the complete amateurs who think they're being really clever by choosing the name of their dog or favourite sports team. I mention this because, in a novel which includes both a man who conspires to kill his wife and collect the insurance by engineering that she be swept away by a hurricane, and a giant who is impervious to pain, it was for me the single least plausible moment.

Just arrived...

11:38 AM / Blu-ray / 24 Comments

Gangs of New York [remastered] (BD, Buena Vista, Region ABC, USA)

As someone else already said, what was previously one of the worst-looking catalogue titles on the format is now one of the best. I don't think I have anything else to add to the debate: the pictures speak for themselves.

Old:

New:

Click the images above to enlarge them to full size.

More posts

Please visit the News Archive Index for older posts.