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

11:59 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

• Saturday, December 5, 2009: James Bond Blu-ray (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Monday, December 7, 2009: Inglourious Basterds (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Monday, December 14, 2009: Un long dimanche di fiançailles (BD, Region B, France)
• Wednesday, December 16, 2009: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 19, 2009: (500) Days of Summer (BD, Region A, USA)
• Saturday, December 19, 2009: Licence to Kill (BD, Region A, Canada)
• Monday, December 21, 2009: Scream (BD, Region ABC, Australia)
• Monday, December 21, 2009: Goldfinger (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Friday, December 25, 2009: Book of Blood (BD, Region B, UK) [Christmas present]
• Friday, December 25, 2009: Burn After Reading (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Friday, December 25, 2009: Orphan (BD, Region B, UK) [Christmas present]
• Friday, December 25, 2009: The Strangers (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Friday, December 25, 2009: Wanted (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Tuesday, December 29, 2009: Jennifer's Body (BD, Region A, USA)
• Tuesday, December 29, 2009: 9 (BD, Region ABC, USA)
• Thursday, December 31, 2009: The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) (BD, Region ABC, UK) [review copy]
• Thursday, December 31, 2009: Ne le dis à personne (BD, Region B, France)

BD impressions: Jennifer's Body

11:50 PM / BD Impressions / 8 Comments

I wasn't going to bother with Jennifer's Body. I liked Diablo Cody's first produced script, Juno, but the buzz about this second offering wasn't good, and let's face it, Megan Fox isn't much of an actor. (At least going by her "performance" in Transformers, which if we're being generous is probably not the sort of movie that would best show off the talents of even the world's finest performer.) Then, Mark Kermode gave it a tentatively positive appraisal, in which he drew parallels between it and the excellent Canadian horror movie Ginger Snaps. So yeah, I decided to give it a shot.

It's not bad, but it's no masterpiece either. It's not funny enough to genuinely work as a comedy, nor is it gruesome/unsettling/scary (delete as appropriate) to be an effective horror movie. Its heart is certainly in the right place, though, and it's entertaining in a light, unchallenging way. Surprise surprise, Megan Fox is rubbish in it, but that's almost beside the point as the character she's playing is a complete plastic anyway, so fake and insincere that her non-performance almost seems appropriate. Amanda Seyfried (of Mean Girls and Mamma Mia!), who is actually the true star of the movie, is much better (even if, as Kermode rightly points out, it's a little hard to accept her as the dowdy one). The script is certainly genre-literate, and Karyn Kusama directs with enough style for me to forgive her for the atrocity that was Aeon Flux. I'm not trying to suggest that this is some sort of misunderstood masterpiece, but I can't help thinking that it was an unfortunate casualty of the Diablo Cody/Megan Fox backlash that erupted this year in the wake of Cody's Oscar win for Juno and Fox's... well, I'm not entirely sure what she's supposed to have done, but I guess, in a way, that sums her up perfectly.

Image quality: Reference. 10/10

Jennifer's Body
studio: 20th Century Fox; country: USA; region code: A; codec: AVC;
file size: 25.1 GB (unrated cut), 23.9 GB (theatrical cut);
average bit rate (including audio): 33.47 Mbit/sec (unrated cut), 33.49 Mbit/sec (theatrical cut)

Just arrived...

12:40 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) (BD, Sony Pictures, Region ABC, UK) [review copy]

Ne le dis à personne (BD, EuropaCorp, Region B, France)

Top 10 films of the decade: #1

12:00 AM / Cinema / 4 Comments

#1. Mulholland Dr.
(David Lynch, 2001)

An absolute masterpiece, a mesmerising fever dream told by the king of fever dreams, and one of the most powerful achievements of cinema in the last decade. Whether it came about intentionally or completely by accident, it's an incredibly intoxicating cocktail of images, sounds and emotions, and one that I'm happy to call one of my favourite films ever created.

1. Mulholland Dr.
2. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
3. Wall-E
4. Hannibal
5. Changeling
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

BD impressions: Book of Blood

11:54 PM / BD Impressions / 4 Comments

Combining two Clive Barker short stories, The Book of Blood and On Jerusalem Street, this low budget horror offering is actually a better film than the critics would have you believe, albeit one that is hampered by some major leaps in logic, some iffy visual effects and post production choices, and a lead actress attempting an accept she clearly isn't comfortable with. Shot in Edinburgh (a brief scene clearly filmed at Glasgow University notwithstanding), director John Harrison makes impressive use of the locale to create an eerie atmosphere, while eliciting decent performances out of a cast that is essentially limited to three players for the bulk of the film's duration. There's also a nicely ominous score by Guy Farley and some genuinely unsettling moments, most involving apparitions of children playing in the garden outside the house in which the bulk of the film is set. Unfortunately, Harrison and his co-writer Darin Silverman can't quite make certain late plot developments ring true. In particular, a character who was previously convinced of supernatural goings-on suddenly becomes all too willing to dismiss another character's claims of paranormal activity as a scam, despite it being clear to all and sundry that this is the real deal (she was even herself involved in occurrences that can't logically be explained, and yet seems to conveniently forget about them because the plot dictates it). It's far from groundbreaking, but on the whole I found it rather enjoyable.

Image quality: A difficult one, this. As with a lot of low budget films shot in HD (and, let's face it, a lot of high budget ones, too), a lot of what might be perceived as shortcomings of the transfer are in fact down to the source material itself. Facial close-ups tend to reveal an impressive level of detail, but many wider shots have a blurry, almost smudgy appearance (see Example 3), which could be the result of noise reduction added to conceal video noise but could equally well be down to the lens. I don't claim any great knowledge of digital photography and I can't find any information on what system was used for this film, so "ugly" is about as specific as I can get. It doesn't help that the bulk of the film takes place in low light, giving it a murky, greyish appearance. Not really knowing where the faults lie, I'm going to lean towards this simply being how Book of Blood looks and give it a lukewarm 7/10.

Book of Blood
studio: Lions Gate; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 18.4 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 26.35 Mbit/sec

Top 10 films of the decade: #2

12:00 AM / Cinema / 2 Comments

#2. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
(Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

A refreshing example of a film that has no political or moral pretensions and one that simply wishes to tell the story of a strange but fascinating and genuinely delightful person who sets out to please others at the expense of her own fulfilment. People can berate it for sugar-coating and ignoring reality all they want, but at the end of the day there is nothing wrong with that.

1. ???
2. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
3. Wall-E
4. Hannibal
5. Changeling
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Just arrived...

4:11 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

Jennifer's Body (BD, 20th Century Fox, Region A, USA)

Let's see if Juno was just a fluke...

9 (BD, Universal, Region ABC, USA)

Top 10 films of the decade: #3

12:00 AM / Cinema / No Comments

#3. Wall-E
(Andrew Stanton, 2008)

Pixar's ninth feature length production and consecutive box office hit showcases the greatest animation studio of the present day at the top of its game, both its artistry and its storytelling having matured to the extent that the viewer is no longer focused on the technology behind the movie. Given my love of the medium, it always rankles me when people consider it praise to say that they forgot a film was animated, but in the case of Wall-E, the technical wizardry and the portrayal of the characters' emotions are such that it stands toe to toe with the best live action films in terms of believability.

1. ???
2. ???
3. Wall-E
4. Hannibal
5. Changeling
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Top 10 films of the decade: #4

12:00 AM / Cinema / No Comments

#4. Hannibal
(Ridley Scott, 2001)

Unjustly maligned for not simply delivering more of the same, this unconventional follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs jettisons the police procedural structure of its predecessor in order to deliver a twisted riff on Beauty and the Beast, set in a rich, blackly comic Gothic world where opera, killer boars and brain eating rub shoulders.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. Hannibal
5. Changeling
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

BD impressions: Thunderball

9:42 PM / BD Impressions / 9 Comments

Generally speaking, my experience with films is that I tend to start out engaged, but then find myself flagging a little towards the end of the second act, only for me to reconnect with it during the final act as the big climax unfolds. Thunderball is notable for me in that I had the complete opposite reaction to it. I felt that the film's strongest point was the middle stretch, with the first and third acts failing to do much for me at all. This is comfortably my least favourite of the Connery Bonds so far (bearing in mind that I've not seen You Only Live Twice and Diamonds are Forever yet and am unlikely to do so until they're released on BD), which is curious as it has virtually all of the same ingredients as Goldfinger, which I liked very much indeed.

Its two greatest pitfalls, in my opinion, are the director's over-indulgence in underwater photography and a propensity to rely on over-the-top, silly action. The former is admittedly highly impressive on a technical level, and initially at first the nautical antics get by on the "wow" factor alone, but this quickly gives way to tedium, particularly during the climax, in which an overly protracted and virtually incomprehensible underwater battle plays out. The problem with these scenes is that they are, by their very nature, slowly paced, and as a result the film begins to drag whenever it spends too much time below the surface. Conversely, the chase that occurs above the surface towards the very end, which features sped up footage in what I can only assume was a misguided attempt to ramp up the tension, looks patently absurd and turns what should have been an exciting final confrontation between Bond and his nemesis into something that veers towards unintentional comedy. At least, however, it's still less risible than the intentional comedy: Bond's pre-credits escape by jet pack had me covering my eyes out of embarrassment (and reminded me rather too much of Mary Poppins, for some reason), and an unfortunate run-in with an out of control spinal traction machine is little better.

I didn't dislike Thunderball by any stretch of the imagination. It still has Connery, audacious stunts, and a terrific score by John Barry, not to mention the exotic locations and exotic ladies. In particular, Luciana Paluzzi's character is great fun and shows that the filmmakers had a sense of self-awareness that I previously hadn't credited them with. ("But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue...") However, put it next to From Russia with Love or even Goldfinger and it quickly begins to look bloated, ill-disciplined and rather too silly for its own good. Still, I can't help suspecting that I'll soon find myself yearning for Thunderball. Next, I'll be skipping ahead to Live and Let Die, thus beginning the Roger Moore era.

Image quality: I have a feeling the elements for Thunderball were in worse shape than those of the previous three films in the series. In any event, the presentation here is a definite step down. The dynamic range appears oddly compressed, and white tramlines are visible down the middle of the image throughout most of the film (see Example 19). Transitions between the negative and lower generation sources (used for opticals such as transitions) are also poorly handled. There are a large number of fades and wipes in this film, and on each occasion the source will jump from one source to the other in the middle of a shot, with the accompanying changes in detail, brightness and colour levels. In a couple of instances, frames are even skipped or repeated during the process. It just looks clunky and distracting and could, I suspect, have been handled much more smoothly. Oh, and the opening titles are for some bizarre reason windowboxed - bugger that. On the plus side, detail levels are pretty damn good, and on the whole the grain seems a bit more natural than on the previous films, albeit still some way from what I would class as genuinely film-like. 7/10

Thunderball
studio: 20th Century Fox/MGM; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 29.4 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 32.29 Mbit/sec

Top 10 films of the decade: #5

12:00 AM / Cinema / 3 Comments

#5. Changeling
(Clint Eastwood, 2008)

Proof that the words "Based on a true story" coupled with a running time in excess of two hours are not necessarily harbingers of tedium. Clint Eastwood spins a compelling web centred around a harrowing performance by Angelina Jolie, and proving that truth really can be stranger than fiction.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. Changeling
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Top 10 films of the decade: #6

12:00 AM / Cinema / 1 Comment

#6. Atonement
(Joe Wright, 2007)

Playing with chronology and seamlessly blending fantasy and reality, Atonement is a film about misunderstandings and the loss of innocence. Inventive and profoundly moving, it captures a wide range of tones perfectly, from naive pre-war optimism to the horrors of Dunkirk to its bittersweet conclusion, and proves that, when not forced to share the stage with gurning pirates, CGI squids and Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley can actually act. Oh, and there's that tracking shot...

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. Atonement
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Just arrived...

11:12 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

My Christmas swag:

Book of Blood (BD, Lions Gate, Region B, UK)

Burn After Reading (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Orphan (BD, Optimum, Region B, UK)

The Strangers (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Them (BD, Metrodome, Region ABC, UK)

Vinyan (BD, Revolver, Region ABC, UK)

Wanted (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Updated Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 04:13 PM: Returned Them and Vinyan. The former is a standard definition upconvert; the latter is cropped from its intended aspect ratio.

This year's haul

10:05 AM / General / 7 Comments

Was Santa good to you?

Merry Christmas 2009!

12:00 AM / General / 4 Comments

All the best of the festive season from your favourite curmudgeon!

Top 10 films of the decade: #7

12:00 AM / Cinema / 1 Comment

#7. The Descent
(Neil Marshall, 2005)

Quite simply, a magnificent horror film, and one which proves that there remain few things more effective than placing a group of characters in a terrifying situation and seeing how they react. It's a horror film that is not ashamed to be one, but which at the same time avoids the pitfalls commonly associated with the genre. In short, a must-see.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. The Descent
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

BD impressions: Goldfinger

11:45 PM / BD Impressions / 8 Comments

I suspect I have a slight preference for From Russia with Love, but it's easy to see why Goldfinger is so popular and considered, by some, to be the quintessential Bond. It has it all: witty one-liners, absurd gadgets, intricate stunts, cool villains, a sassy Bond girl, and of course Bond at his most chauvinistic ("Run along - man talk"). The series is definitely finding its niche at this stage, and what it lacks in terms of From Russia with Love's brooding menace, it certainly makes up for in terms of its audaciousness.

Watching this one, I rather get the impression it was written in a deliberate attempt to appeal specifically to a US audience, given that, early sequences in England and Switzerland aside, much of the action takes place there (contrasting with the more unusual and exotic locales in the first two films), not to mention the prominent roles played by Felix Leiter and the US military. Not a criticism, just an observation.

At this stage, making my way through the Bond canon, I rate From Russia with Love highest and Dr. No lowest (bearing in mind that I'm currently excluding the likes of Licence to Kill, Goldeneye and so on, which I haven't seen in quite some time). It's hard to say where I would put the two Daniel Craig movies in relation to these vintage Bonds, as they seem to belong to a completely different world in terms of tone and aesthetics. Certainly I like all three of them better than Quantum of Solace, but Casino Royale is an incredibly tough act to measure up to, and for better or for worse I suspect it will remain the defining Bond for me, since it's the one that really got me into the series.

Up next: Thunderball!

Image quality: Transfer-wise, Goldfinger is much the same story as the previous two Bonds on BD. Detail is good - very good in places - but the overall filmic effect is sullied somewhat by overzealous grain reduction, which gives the image a somewhat static appearance, with the continued issue of moving elements in any shot seeming to have been "cut out". There are more effects shots in this than in the previous two films, so the transfer falls back to a poorer quality source more frequently. Laser beam shots are the ones most noticeably affected, and in these instances the image quality becomes quite significantly degraded (see Example 12). On the whole, though, a nice enough presentation, and clearly the best the film has ever looked on home video. 8/10

Goldfinger
studio: 20th Century Fox/MGM; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 28.5 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 37.19 Mbit/sec

Cinema 2009

8:39 PM / Cinema / No Comments

A wonderful celebration of the year in movies, put together by Kees van Dijkhuizen.

See his 2008 retrospective here too.

Top 10 films of the decade: #8

12:00 AM / Cinema / 4 Comments

#8. Children of Men
(Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

As relevant to the present day as futuristic science fiction can be, Children of Men presents us with a deeply resonant dystopian view of what the world could potentially be like a few decades from now. Challenging, unsettling and poignant in equal measure, it confirms Cuarón as an unpredictable force to be reckoned with in the world of cinema.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. Children of Men
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Top 10 films of the decade: #9

12:00 AM / Cinema / 3 Comments

#9. Volver
(Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

Penélope Cruz gives a career-best performance in Pedro Almodóvar's whimsical yet touching exploration of the relationships between a family of women, a melodrama with a supernatural twist. One of two primarily "feel-good" films in my Top 10, there's not a great deal more I can think of to say about it. It simply sticks in my mind as one of the most pleasurable two hours I spent in front of the screen in the last ten years.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ???
9. Volver
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Top 10 UK releases of 2009

12:23 PM / Cinema / 5 Comments

My fellow DVD Times contributors and I were asked to provide a list of our top ten films of 2009. Obviously, DVD Times is a UK-based site and as such goes by UK theatrical release dates. Whenever I personally put together lists like this, I prefer to go by the release date of each film's country of origin (so, for example, Martyrs would normally count as a 2008 rather than a 2009 film). However, for the purposes of DVD Times' feature, which goes up at midnight tonight, I've put together a Top 10 which corresponds to the UK cinema release schedules. I'll be doing a more conventional Top 10 (going by release date for country of origin) for Land of Whimsy before the end of the year, but for now, here's my UK Top 10:

1. Up (Pete Docter)
2. Coraline (Henry Selick)
3. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (Peter Sollett)
4. The Red Riding Trilogy (Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker)
5. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
6. Sunshine Cleaning (Christine Jeffs)
7. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
9. Moon (Duncan Jones)
10. Martyrs (Pascal Laugier)

Top 10 films of the decade: #10

12:00 AM / Cinema / 18 Comments

#10. Les triplettes de Belleville
(Sylvain Chomet, 2003)

A thoroughly unique tale that manages to combine a childish curiosity with more grown-up cynicism, Sylvain Chomet's excellent achievement in the field of animation shows that a film with little to no dialogue can be deeply engaging and that the Japanese aren't the only people capable of producing animation aimed primarily at an adult audience.

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ???
9. ???
10. Les triplettes de Belleville

Updated Tuesday, November 22, 2009 at 00:40 AM: In my eagerness to get the list underway, I posted the first entry a day early. If I'd continued down that route, I'd have reached the end on the 30th rather than the 31st. Therefore, this entry has been moved from the 21st to the 22nd, and things will continue as planned with film #9 being posted on the 23rd, etc.

Top 10 films of the decade

3:14 PM / Cinema / 6 Comments

Beginning tomorrow, with ten days left to go in the "noughties", I'm going to run through my ten personal favourite films of the decade, one per day, in ascending order. See how many you can guess before they're revealed:

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2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ???
9. ???
10. ???

BD impressions: (500) Days of Summer

2:06 PM / BD Impressions / No Comments

The voice-over at the start of (500) Days of Summer assures us that "this is not a love story", but on reflection, I can't quite work out what it else was meant to be. Essentially a tale about a romantic falling head over heels for a cynic, their relationship and eventual break-up, I'm not convinced it breaks as much new ground as its makers believed. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel give fine performances as the romantic and the cynic respectively, and I'll admit that there does seem to be something of a gender reversal going on (I've tended to find that, in romantic comedies, the cynic is usually the male lead while his female counterpart is the starry-eyed idealist). It's also rather funny, albeit in the "quiet titter" sort of way rather than being laugh-out-loud hysterical. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's superior Amelie is a clear point of reference with its daydreams, cutaways and observations about seemingly trivial little details that help make the characters complete, but whereas Amelie actually seemed to tell a complete and satisfying story, there's something frustratingly disjointed about (500) Days of Summer. The film is told out of sequence, jumping back and forth throughout the five hundred days in which Deschanel's character, Summer, is in the life of Gordon-Levitt's Tom, sometimes for dramatic effect (there's a brilliant moment where we cut from Tom heading to work, early in the relationship and on top of the world, to him arriving depressed and dishevelled later on after things have gone south), but more often than not the result is that the film feels fragmented and episodic.

The filmmakers don't even seem to be able to commit to the refreshingly cynical outlook that they initially convey through Summer, disavowing such nonsense concepts as fate, destiny and soul-mates, only to embrace them completely in a tacked-on coda that half-heartedly tries to tell us that these things do exist, just not in the places we're looking for them. Had they actually followed through on the initial premise, I suspect I'd hold the film in higher regard. As it stands, though, it's ultimately little more than a slightly offbeat romcom about a man who dresses like a douche (seriously, who goes to the cinema wearing a tie and a cardigan?) and the charmingly quirky object of his affections.

Image quality: Barring the elevated blacks that make many of the lower lit scenes appear murky and washed out, this is a superlative BD release. Detail is excellent, compression is faultless, and yadda yadda yadda, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to come up with new ways of saying "There's nothing wrong with it." Bravo, Fox. 9.5/10

(500) Days of Summer
studio: 20th Century Fox; country: USA; region code: A; codec: AVC;
file size: 28.4 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 42.89 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

1:20 PM / Blu-ray / 1 Comment

Scream (BD, Icon, Region ABC, Australia)

Goldfinger (BD, 20th Century Fox/MGM, Region ABC, UK)

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