Monday, November 3, 2009: Up (BD, Region A, USA) Monday, November 9, 2009: District 13/District 13: Ultimatum (BD, Region B, UK) Wednesday, November 11, 2009: Left Bank (DVD, Region 1, USA) Wednesday, November 11, 2009: Max Manus: Man of...

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

In gaming, the phrase "spiritual successor" is tossed around a lot. Developers are always waiting to cash in on biggest greatest hit, whether it's the endless sea of first person shooters getting cranked out (usually populated by gruff-voiced, steroid-abusing muscle...

Posted at 2:54 PM in Games

Don't say I'm not good to you: rental copies of the recent UK releases of Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection, The Descent and Sunshine Cleaning landed on my doormat in the last few days, and I'm here to provide...

Posted at 2:26 PM in Blu-ray

One of my favourite films of all time. I've already written about it here, so if you want to know why I like it so much, click the link. Image quality: Amelie's first BD release came in September 2008, a...

Posted at 7:03 PM in BD Impressions

Amelie (BD, Icon, Region ABC, Australia)...

Posted at 7:59 PM in Blu-ray

There's a big danger in making films about what is essentially something that, in real life, would be very boring, for the obvious reason that you run a high risk of the film itself becoming boring. This is a trap...

Posted at 10:00 PM in BD Impressions

Anyone remember the infuriating trend in the 1980s of resurrecting classic cartoon characters and creating baby versions of them? This creativity-deprived craze gave rise to The Tom & Jerry Kids Show, Flintstone Kids, Tiny Toon Adventures and other such dreck....

Posted at 2:41 PM in BD Impressions

The blurb on the front cover of the US DVD release of Belgian shocker Left Bank (original title Linkeroever) calls it "as important as Let the Right One In." I'm still not sure I quite follow how the reviewer is...

Posted at 10:57 PM in Cinema

Moon (BD, Sony Pictures, Region ABC, UK) Should make for an interesting double bill with J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot: two very different sides of the 2009 sci-fi coin....

Posted at 2:03 PM in Blu-ray

Star Trek (2009) (Play.com exclusive steelbook) (BD, Paramount, Region ABC, UK) Bought entirely based on the highly positive feedback I've heard from everyone, from my brother to my work colleagues. I've actually never seen a single Star Trek movie...

Posted at 11:09 PM in Blu-ray

Nobody makes films quite like Luc Besson. Well, okay, "makes" is a bit of a stretch in the case of these two films, given that he didn't actually direct them but rather, like Danny the Dog, the Transporter movies and...

Posted at 3:49 PM in BD Impressions

Apologies for the rather scarce nature of my posts recently. I've got a bit of a backlog of BD Impressions pieces to get through and will hopefully make some headway on them before too long, but I've been a bit...

Posted at 10:46 PM in Web

Until I saw Max Manus (I refuse to use the "Man of War" subtitle that the UK distributors added, and which gives the impression of a very different film) tonight, I don't think I'd ever seen a Norwegian film before....

Posted at 12:27 AM in BD Impressions

Murderland is a three-part crime drama starring Robbie Coltrane that aired on ITV1 over three weeks, from October 19 to November 2. Crime dramas are, of course, a dime a dozen on ITV's evening schedules, whether they're long-running series like...

Posted at 2:59 PM in Television

Source: EW.com Well, I won't claim that I'm hugely surprised, or indeed hugely disappointed. The writing was on the wall more or less from the get-go, and the fact that it got a second season at all is, depending on...

Posted at 11:21 AM in Television

Left Bank (DVD, IFC, Region 1, USA) Max Manus: Man of War (BD, Revolver, Region ABC, UK) Left Bank, described on the front cover as "as important as Left the Right One in" (whatever that means), is the first...

Posted at 10:26 PM in Blu-ray / DVD

For many people, the greatest casualty of the demise of Flagship Studios in 2008 was not its A-title, Hellgate: London, but rather Mythos, a side project headed by Fate designer Travis Baldree. Originally intended to test the servers that were...

Posted at 1:25 PM in Games

District 13/District 13: Ultimatum (BD, Momentum, Region B,* UK) * District 13 is Region ABC; District 13: Ultimatum is Region B....

Posted at 9:55 PM in Blu-ray

For my overall impressions of Up, please see my review of the theatrical screening. It was very nice to watch the film again in the comfort of my home, not surrounded by rowdy children. The experience was vastly superior overall,...

Posted at 10:45 PM in BD Impressions

* Warning! * This post contains major spoilers for the episode. So, Ruth is back. And poor old Malcolm crept out the back door after eight years on our screens. Thankfully, he was still breathing when he departed, breaking with...

Posted at 4:46 PM in Television

Broadly speaking, Blu-ray Disc releases from outside the US have a tendency to slip under the radar... which is rather unfortunate, as it means that a number of gems end up being unfairly overlooked by the masses. I do my...

Posted at 1:11 PM in Blu-ray

I first came across North by Northwest many years ago, when staying up past 9 PM was a novelty. I happened to dip into an already underway TV broadcast of it, and my first introduction to Roger Thornhill was of...

Posted at 3:48 PM in BD Impressions

It's hard to believe it, but our favourite plasticine duo have already been around for two decades. They haven't exactly been prolific - just four 30-minute shorts, one feature film and a collection of Cracking Contraptions bumpers - but...

Posted at 10:06 PM in Cinema

Probably the most significant change Microsoft made with Windows 7, at least from the perspective of day-to-day interaction with the operating system, is the newfangled taskbar, which acts like an odd hybrid of the old Windows taskbar (used from Windows...

Posted at 1:07 PM in Technology

A couple of weeks back, Daniel Bird mentioned to me a film called Amer, described in some circles as a "neo-giallo", in reference to the Italian thrillers that I so diligently collect and which are the subject of my ongoing...

Posted at 12:31 PM in Cinema