Saturday, July 4, 2009: Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Six (DVD, Region 1, USA) [birthday present] Saturday, July 4, 2009: The Children (BD, Region ABC, UK) [birthday present] Saturday, July 4, 2009: Eden Lake (BD, Region B, UK) [birthday...

Posted at 11:59 PM in Blu-ray / DVD

The World at War (DVD, Fremantle, Region 0, UK) I picked this up for £25 - a bargain for what is widely considered, with good reason, to be the best documentary ever made on the subject of the Second...

Posted at 5:12 PM in DVD

Much like the suburban lifestyle it critiques, Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road is slick, polished and very, very conventional. It takes few risks, succeeding largely thanks to fine performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and especially Kate Winslet, who make up for what...

Posted at 12:33 PM in BD Impressions

Want to know how a Blu-ray Disc is manufactured? Do you even care? If you do, you might want to check out Charlie Brewer's illustrated report over at News.com.au, taken from deep inside the bowels of one of Sony's "Blu-ray...

Posted at 7:40 PM in Blu-ray

Monsters, Inc. (BD, Buena Vista, Region ABC, UK) While the postponed US release is still no nearer to getting an actual release date (and may indeed slip into 2010 if rumours are to be believed), the UK version came...

Posted at 7:22 PM in Blu-ray

Oh dear. The second of our Monday night horror movie BD double bill, Haute Tension (I refuse to call this film by its UK title) may be considerably better than Hush in every aspect of its execution, but ironically leaves...

Posted at 11:40 AM in BD Impressions

Were it not for the fact that My Bloody Valentine 3D and The Unborn both came out this year, I'd be calling Hush the worst horror movie of 2009. Bankrolled by the usual hodge-podge of lottery funds and music-labels-cum-film-distributors, it...

Posted at 10:44 AM in BD Impressions

I almost didn't see Coraline. The 'tude-infested poster made me expect a smug, self-satisfied movie brimming with pop culture references and centred around a wise-ass, sassy heroine. It just goes to show that appearances can be deceptive, for the poster...

Posted at 11:58 AM in BD Impressions

Upcoming US and UK Blu-ray titles for the next week. Titles I intend to pick up at some point are in bold. This seems to be unofficial BD music week... Monday, July 27, 2009: Alive in Seattle (UK) Anti-clock (UK)...

Posted at 12:00 AM in Blu-ray

I don't doubt that the precise "meaning" of Roman Polanski's Repulsion has been debated ad nauseam. What is the purpose of the nuns playing ball in the courtyard overlooked by Catherine Deneuve's flat, or the street musicians? Who does the...

Posted at 3:02 PM in BD Impressions

In September 2006, Glasgow businessman Javed Mukhtar was abducted from his house in the middle of the night by armed men, who demanded a ransom of £2.5 million in return for his release. The kidnappers were ultimately apprehended shortly after...

Posted at 1:03 PM in Reviews

Dollhouse: Season One (BD, 20th Century Fox, Region ABC, USA) Coded for all regions despite indications to the contrary on the back cover. Hush (BD, Optimum, Region B, UK)...

Posted at 1:49 PM in Blu-ray

MGM and 20th Century Fox have dug into their collective vault and will be releasing an array of horror-themed titles on Blu-ray on September 15th. Making their high definition débuts are Child's Play, the first of the "Chucky" films; Misery,...

Posted at 6:38 PM in Blu-ray

The first and by far the best film by Andy and Larry Wachowski, Bound offers up the potent combination of a steamy Sapphic romance and a sharp deconstruction of gangster movie conventions. When it was originally released in 1996, it...

Posted at 4:33 PM in Reviews

Coraline: Collector's Edition (BD, Universal, Region ABC, USA) Repulsion (BD, Criterion, Region A, USA)...

Posted at 10:49 AM in Blu-ray

If The International was Tom Tykwer's attempt to break into the American mainstream, then he succeeded admirably. The film is as slick and soulless as anything else being put out by the major studios at the moment, and absolutely none...

Posted at 9:40 PM in Reviews

Languidly paced and slow to get going but ultimately rewarding, The Lives of Others provides a fascinating insight into surviellance and the culture of suspicion that characterised Soviet East Germany. Although there's plenty to praise in Sony Pictures' BD transfer,...

Posted at 8:16 PM in BD Impressions

This is a new feature I'm starting up on a trial basis, listing the UK and US Blu-ray releases for the coming week, with titles I've ordered or intend to pick up at some point in the future (i.e. when...

Posted at 1:46 PM in Blu-ray

Chicken Little came about at a time when the Disney studio was convinced that the path to success lay in imitating its arch-rival DreamWorks, which for some bizarre reason raked in a massive amount of cash with Shrek and its...

Posted at 12:13 PM in BD Impressions

Switchblade Romance (BD, Optimum, Region B, UK) Better known outside the UK by its superior French title, Haute tension (High Tension in the US). This disc uses the latest form of AACS content protection (MKB 14), which is currently...

Posted at 10:31 AM in Blu-ray

A definite day one buy for me: one of my absolute favourite movies of all time and probably Hitchcock's most purely enjoyable romp. The DVD, released in August 2000, was widely lauded in its day as a stunning restoration....

Posted at 7:41 PM in Blu-ray

Flame and Citron is an interesting film: an attempt to tell a film noir-style thriller in Nazi-occupied Denmark, focusing on a pair of real-life assassins working for the resistance movement, from whose code names the film's title is derived. With...

Posted at 4:45 PM in BD Impressions

I've been pretty outspoken on the whole issue of the 2007 high definition remaster of Suspiria, which has since been released in various iterations on DVD and Blu-ray. Basically, its colour and contrast values look completely different to those of...

Posted at 11:12 AM in Cinema

The International, the latest film from Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer, is a plodding, muddled and not very interesting affair that is so infuriatingly po-faced that it collapses under its own weight. A terrifically staged shoot-out at the Güggenheim...

Posted at 10:37 AM in BD Impressions

The International (BD, Sony Pictures, Region ABC, UK) Tom Tykwer's latest, a thriller starring Naomi Watts, Clive Owen and Armin Mueller-Stahl....

Posted at 1:28 PM in Blu-ray