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Thursday, June 10, 2010: TRANSPORTER 3 (France/UK, 2008) 4/10 Wednesday, June 23, 2010: THE HURT LOCKER (USA, 2008) 7/10 Sunday, June 27, 2010: WANTED (USA/Germany, 2008) 2/10...

Posted at 11:59 PM in Cinema

Wednesday, June 2, 2010: CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (BD, Region ABC, USA) Wednesday, June 2, 2010: WATCHMEN: DIRECTOR'S CUT (BD, Region ABC, Canada) Saturday, June 5, 2010: WHERE EAGLES DARE (BD, Region ABC, UK) Monday, June 7, 2010:...

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

I'm now on annual leave for the next two weeks and have set my PhD to one side as well. I'll still be working on my CASUALTY script throughout this period (well, except on my birthday, I would assume), but...

Posted at 10:22 PM in General

Can I have those two hours of my life back, please? I really don't feel like writing paragraph after paragraph about WANTED. It started off well, but rapidly disintegrated into a sludge of cod-philosophical mumbo-jumbo, incomprehensible action and a narrative...

Posted at 9:28 PM in BD Impressions

I've said before that I find Wes Craven very inconsistent as a filmmaker, and while A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is regarded by a considerable number of people to be his finest achievement, I must admit I'm less sold on...

Posted at 8:59 PM in BD Impressions

Out of the blue, a replacement for my faulty motherboard arrived by courier this afternoon... and, an hour or so later, I was up and running with my new system in my new case. I wonder what was wrong with...

Posted at 10:12 PM in Technology

The fourth Mondo Vision DVD release, Andrzej Zulawski's SZAMANKA, should be out soon and available to pre-order from Amazon.com even sooner. No specific dates just yet, but the final master is on the way to the factory, so the...

Posted at 9:47 PM in DVD

I've set up a MUBI account. Apparently, I actually created it ages ago, back when the site was known as The Auteurs, but I completely forgot about it until one of this site's regular readers emailed me a link to...

Posted at 9:11 PM in Cinema

LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL (BD, Sony Pictures, Region ABC, USA) Picked this up from Amazon for $10 to replace my German Kinowelt release with its bungled 7.1 remix. Unfortunately, it comes from the same contrast boosted master (used for every...

Posted at 9:05 PM in Blu-ray

They say that when it rains, it pours. Or, in my case, when one computer component fails, another one won't be far behind it. Last weekend, it was my six-week-old motherboard. This weekend, it was the hard drive in my...

Posted at 7:26 PM in Technology

This is almost as funny as the The Do-It-Yourself Giallo Generator: http://www.kqek.com/dvd_reviews/pop_ups/GialloCliches.htm The thing is, if this was a real film, I just KNOW I'd watch it....

Posted at 11:41 PM in Cinema

The facts: A new RAYMAN game is coming out.  It's an actual RAYMAN game, not one of those infuriating "Rabbids" activity packs.  It's a 2D sidescroller. Can someone pinch me to make sure I'm not dreaming? After RAYMAN 3:...

Posted at 4:43 PM in Games

RIVELAZIONI DI UN MANIACO SESSUALE AL CAPO DELLA SQUADRA MOBILE (DVD, Camera Obscura, Region 2, Germany) ...a.k.a. SO SWEET, SO DEAD. This is the third instalment in the Italian Genre Cinema Collection from German label Camera Obscura, which has...

Posted at 9:32 PM in DVD

It's like SHREK crossed with early 90s Disney, and it's not pleasant. Seriously, John Lasseter, what are you THINKING? (Admittedly, it's slightly less painful with the sound turned off, but still...) To cleanse your eyes and ears of the...

Posted at 10:43 PM in Animation

In THE TRANSPORTER, Jason Statham (I'm not going to call the character by his name - he's just Jason Statham being Jason Statham) drove bank robbers to safety and indulged in people trafficking with nary the blink of an eye....

Posted at 5:03 PM in BD Impressions

My lovely new computer, less than six weeks old, died yesterday. First, to set the stage, I decided I wasn't happy with the temperature inside my old Antec Sonata III case. That case was designed with noise suppression in mind...

Posted at 10:00 PM in Technology

Ah, the 90s! Haven't they aged well? No, not really, at least in the case of SCREAM. Wes Craven's 1996 slasher was more or less the first modern horror movie I ever saw - prior to that, I had only...

Posted at 8:28 PM in BD Impressions

LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (DVD, Optimum, Region 2, UK) This is my fourth copy of Fulci's best giallo, and I've only taken a brief look at it, but it looks to be the best presentation of the film...

Posted at 11:48 AM in DVD

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (BD, New Line/Warner, Region ABC, USA) The original, not the Michael Bay remake, in case you were wondering....

Posted at 11:22 AM in Blu-ray

Great news, people: Dario Argento's INFERNO is coming to BD in the UK on August 2, and will be uncut for the first time in this country. Originally announced with the usual BBFC-mandated five seconds of cuts to a scene...

Posted at 4:02 PM in Blu-ray

TERROR AT THE OPERA (DVD, Arrow Video, Region 2, UK) I picked up this recent DVD re-release of OPERA (to use its proper name - I refuse to refer to it by its ridiculous retitling) not because it offers...

Posted at 11:18 AM in DVD

WHERE EAGLES DARE (BD, Warner, Region ABC, UK)...

Posted at 11:11 PM in Blu-ray

There has been something of a debate raging in the internet pipes of late surrounding Blue Underground's BD versions of a number of cult Italian movies, notably the recent releases of Sergio Corbucci's western DJANGO and Lucio Fulci's zombie horror...

Posted at 8:10 PM in Blu-ray

James Gracey's recently published guide to Dario Argento, appropriately enough titled DARIO ARGENTO, is by the author's own admission introductory in nature, and as such seems to be aimed primarily at readers who are unfamiliar with or new to the...

Posted at 11:09 AM in Books

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (BD, Blue Underground, Region ABC, USA) WATCHMEN: DIRECTOR'S CUT (BD, Warner, Region ABC, Canada) I actually got WATCHMEN for free, thanks to AxelMusic's rewards programme. Basically, you accrue points with every purchase you make...

Posted at 11:22 PM in Blu-ray