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Happy New Year 2011!

11:30 PM / General / 10 Comments

Only half an hour to go!

Well, it's been a pretty eventful year, both on a personal level and in terms of the wider world. I'm not going to bore you by doing a round-up of everything of note that's happened, but let's just say that in the last twelve months we've had (in no particular order) volcanic ash clouds; Wikileaks; a UK general election; some of the more severe weather in living memory; cuts, cuts and more cuts; the release of the most anticipated real-time strategy game of the decade; some truly outstanding Blu-ray Disc releases; and I made serious inroads in pursuit of a career as a screenwriter. Oh, and during summer everyone except me seemed to go nuts over some game involving people kicking a ball around a muddy field - go figure. So, a whole lot of stuff happened, some of it important, some not so important, and some damn near irrelevant - events affecting the world, events affecting the country, events affecting no-one other than myself...

On to matters specific to this site, in the next couple of days I'll be doing a feature on the best-looking (and perhaps also some of the worst-looking) BD releases from 2010... or rather the best ones I personally saw (contrary to popular belief, I don't pick up every single title out there). I'll also be doing my personal top 10 films of 2010, though you'll have to wait a little longer for that one as I don't want to pre-empt the next episode of the Movie Matters podcast. (And I've still got a bunch more films to watch...)

So here's to 2010, and here's to 2011...

Films I saw for the first time in December 2010

11:26 PM / Cinema / No Comments

• Wednesday, December 1, 2010: SPLICE (Canada/France/USA, 2009) 8/10
• Wednesday, December 8, 2010: IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH (Italy/Spain, 1970) 4/10
• Friday, December 17, 2010: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (USA, 2010) 7/10
• Wednesday, December 22, 2010: THE MIST (USA, 2007) 8/10
• Thursday, December 23, 2010: MICMACS (France, 2009) 7/10
• Monday, December 27, 2010: SHUTTER ISLAND (USA, 2010) 7/10
• Tuesday, December 28, 2010: FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (France, 2010) 5/10
• Wednesday, December 29, 2010: WHIP IT (USA, 2009) 8/10
• Friday, December 31, 2010: ATTACK ON LENINGRAD (Russia/UK, 2009) 5/10

BDs and DVDs I bought or received in December 2010

11:22 PM / Blu-ray / 1 Comment

• Saturday, December 18, 2010: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Monday, December 20, 2010: THE MIST (BD, Region B, UK) [Christmas present - thanks, Lee!]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: SALT (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: WHIP IT (BD, Region B, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: THE KILLER INSIDE ME (BD, Region B, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: SHUTTER ISLAND (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Saturday, December 25, 2010: INCEPTION (BD, Region ABC, UK) [Christmas present]
• Wednesday, December 29, 2010: ATTACK ON LENINGRAD (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Wednesday, December 29, 2010: BEAN: THE ULTIMATE DISASTER MOVIE (BD, Region ABC, UK)

BD impressions: Whip It

6:44 PM / BD Impressions / 3 Comments

The film: Despite its unashamedly derivative nature and a largely pointless romantic subplot, I really enjoyed WHIP IT, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. With Ellen Page in the lead role and Fox Searchlight as the studio behind it, it's tempting to compare it against JUNO, which is not entirely unreasonable: it has a similar (albeit less abrasive) tone and is essentially yet another "coming of age" tale of teenage angst, albeit with pregnancy replaced by roller derby.

Now, I don't know the first thing about the rules of roller derby and the film doesn't exactly go to great lengths to explain them, but in the end it doesn't really matter and I suspect that's because, as much as the derby scenes take up a major portion of the film's running time, both the humour and the pathos are situated at a far more personal level. I must admit I'm not entirely sold on Ellen Page - not to say she isn't a talented actress, just that she has certain quirks in every performance of hers that I've seen which for some reason grate with me - but she's a lot more likeable here than when playing Juno MacGuff, simply because the character, Bliss, is far less deliberately obnoxious. Great performances by Daniel Stern (whom I actually hadn't seen in anything since the HOME ALONE movies - man, he's aged) and Marcia Gay Harden as Bliss' parents, not to mention Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Zoë Bell et al as the skaters, and some really nice photography courtesy of Robert Yeoman, one of those "workman" cinematographers whose name shows up in the credits for everything from crummy Jim Carrey comedies to Wes Anderson's films. I'd be surprised if WHIP IT sets anyone's world on fire, but I really enjoyed it and would certainly recommend giving it a look. (I actually thought it was slightly better than JUNO, but don't tell anyone.) 8/10

Image quality: A solid encode of a superb-looking master. Very little to say here - 10/10.

Whip It
studio: Lions Gate; country: UK; region code: B; codec: AVC;
file size: 29.2 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 37.78 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

7:12 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

#1025: ATTACK ON LENINGRAD (BD, Metrodome, Region ABC, UK)

#1026: BEAN: THE ULTIMATE DISASTER MOVIE (BD, Universal, Region ABC, UK)

Picked these up today during my lunch break. The first was a blind buy (I had a £10 HMV gift voucher to spend) and the second... well, it's Mr. Bean. In HD. How could I turn it down?

Christmas swag redux

4:15 PM / Blu-ray / 11 Comments

And now my Christmas BDs, sorted in order of image quality, from best to worst (based on a fairly quick initial examination). Warner Home Video: excelling at mediocrity since 2006.

Christmas swag

3:15 PM / General / 3 Comments

Plus money and Jelly Bellies.

BBFC "consumer advice statement" of the year

11:08 PM / Cinema / 3 Comments

Saw this emblazoned on the side of a bus, as part of an advertisement for THE DEATH AND LIFE OF CHARLIE ST. CLOUD:

Contains moderate language and a car crash

Yeah, for real. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Movie Matters #4

4:47 PM / Podcast / 4 Comments

The Movie Matters podcast returns for its final episode of 2010. Co-hosts Lee Howard and Michael Mackenzie exchange Christmas presents, tackling Frank Darabont's THE MIST and Roman Polanski's THE GHOST (a.k.a. THE GHOST WRITER). We also discuss upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases of interest, induct another title into the Blu-ray Hall of Fame, and discuss the films we tend to watch over the festive period.

• http://www.landofwhimsy.com/moviematters/moviematters-episode4-24-12-10.mp3
• http://rapidshare.com/files/439064763/moviematters-episode4-24-12-10.mp3
• iTunes

The music sampled in this episode is from HOME ALONE (John Williams), THE GOONIES (Dave Grusin) and TOY STORY (Randy Newman), with clips from THE MIST and THE GHOST. Special thanks to David Mackenzie for audio support.

http://moviematterspodcast.blogspot.com

Podcast question of the week

5:45 PM / Podcast / 5 Comments

Lee and myself are planning on recording a special Christmas episode of our Movie Matters podcast tomorrow. We'd like to be able to do a regular "listeners' questions" feature along the lines of the "Do you find horror movies scary?" feature we did in the most recent episode, so if anyone has any suggestions for possible questions, feel free to post them here.

This is pretty short notice, I know, but I'm not the most organised individual around.

BD impressions: Videodrome

4:06 PM / BD Impressions / 5 Comments

The film: David Cronenberg is a director whose work I have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy. I find his films to be very cold and misanthropic, and while I sometimes suspect that Sturgeon's Law applies as much to human beings as to anything else, I suspect my outlook on life is generally more optimistic than that of old Croney.

I liked VIDEODROME a great deal the first time I saw it, several years ago, and rewatching it the other night I found myself still admiring its obvious strengths, despite being a little less taken by it as a whole than I previously was. It's typical of early-to-mid-period Cronenberg, turning on a dime between gross-out horror and biting social commentary. (Although I've described the evolution of Cronenberg's style in recent years as "mainstreamification", it's fair to say that his old body horror obsessions haven't left him - they've simply been submerged beneath a more "accessible" surface.) The world he depicts is as grim, cold and unfeeling as anything else in his filmography, and the protagonist, Max Renn, is a character for whom it's difficult to like, dislike or feel any real sympathy for. I often feel that the characters in Cronenberg's films are not really intended to be seen as people at all but rather collections of flesh and bone destined to be graphically disembowelled or transformed. In a sense, they feel like films told from the point of view of a dispassionate observer - a scientist, which of course is precisely what Cronenberg started out as.

I remember reading somewhere that Cronenberg was still writing the script while the film was shot, and I suspect that may have something to do with the film's somewhat disjointed feel and uneven pace. At times I feel it lacks cohesion, even when taking into account the fact that its protagonist spends a great deal of time hallucinating. I'm not convinced it really conveys the feeling of being in a waking nightmare (at least not in the way that films such as MULHOLLAND DRIVE and INFERNO do), and I have a feeling that this is at least partly due to Cronenberg's cold, detached approach conflicting with a desire to convey an experience as deeply personal as hallucination.

Still, although it probably sounds like I'm coming down pretty heavily on it, I like VIDEODROME. It's a style of filmmaking (more overt body horror) that I'd love to see Cronenberg get back to one day. I really liked the unusually humanist (for Cronenberg) EASTERN PROMISES (I was less taken by A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and my reaction to SPIDER was downright lukewarm), but I think there's something to be found in films like VIDEODROME, THE FLY and DEAD RINGERS that Cronenberg does better than anyone else, and the horror genre is a poorer place without his input. Love live the new flesh! 7/10

Image quality: Not exactly stunning, although the extent to which it could reasonably be expected to have looked any better is open to debate. Universal licensed the film to Criterion, and certainly the disc's look is of a piece with a number of Universal catalogue titles. The encoding, which in my experience tends to be Criterion's strongest point, is uniformly excellent, detail in close-ups is reasonably good and the grain, while a tad clumpy, is probably a pretty accurate representation of the source elements. When all said and done, I suspect that for it to look substantially better, we would have to go back to the original camera negative as opposed to the interpositive used here. Still, it looks substantially better than Criterion's DVD (derived from the same master) and is, on the whole, a worthwhile upgrade. 7/10

Videodrome
studio: Criterion; country: USA; region code: A; codec: AVC;
file size: 24.5 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 39.57 Mbit/sec

Comment away!

12:37 PM / Web / 1 Comment

As mentioned in my previous post, a couple of days ago I enabled the TypePad AntiSpam spam protection system. It actually comes installed by default on recent Movable Type builds and only requires that you apply for a free API Key, but I didn't realise this until recently.

In the couple of days that it's been enabled, I've seen my incoming spam cut drastically thanks to the system's adaptive nature: it actually learns what you report as spam and rejects future incoming comments that are similar or come from the same source. Now that I feel reasonably confident that it's not rejecting legitimate comments, I've decided to leave it enabled for the time being.

Because TypePad AntiSpam is proving to be so much more effective than the SpamLookup system I was reliant on before, I no longer have a massive pile of junk to wade through every day, so I've decided to re-enable immediate comment posting on a trial basis, bypassing the need for me to manually approve every message that comes through. Obviously, if I end up being inundated with spam, I'll turn moderation back on, but I'm hoping I don't have to: I'd much rather have the immediacy of people being able to post a comment and know that it will show up straight away (unless it accidentally gets tripped up by the anti-spam software and sent to me for moderation).

Site stuff

1:06 AM / Web / 11 Comments

I'm trying a different spam-blocking system at the moment (TypePad AntiSpam). Can I ask people to reply to this post (with anything - doesn't matter what) so I can ensure it's working properly and not just junking everything?

BD impressions: How to Train Your Dragon

4:40 PM / BD Impressions / 3 Comments

The Film: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is the best DreamWorks animated feature I've seen to date... which would put it a notch or two below the worst of Pixar's output. In my opinion, whereas even Pixar's lesser movies have something reasonably substantial going on beneath the surface, most of DreamWorks' films feel like they started life as one-note jokes... for example BEE MOVIE, for which I'm still convinced a bunch of balding executives dreamt up the title at a board meeting, feel about slapping their thighs and laughing themselves silly, and then passed it off to their underlings to cobble together a film. I've made no secret of my disdain for most of the studio's output, but a couple of years back I was pleasantly surprised by KUNG FU PANDA, which was a pleasant enough way to pass an hour and a half, and this year, DRAGON has upped the stakes again with what is by far DreamWorks' most substantial animated effort to date.

A lot of the credit for this, I suspect, goes to Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, writers and directors of LILO AND STITCH (by far the best Disney film in the last fifteen years), who were brought on to the project fairly late in production, replacing the original writers and directors. A lot of the problems I tend to associate with DreamWorks are still present: the human character designs are ugly, the attempts at being "edgy" (a Katzenbergian mainstay) tend to fall flat, the voices are completely forgettable, and at its heart the story conforms to generic "boy wants to please father" animated feature template with all the expected clichés. So it's clearly no LILO AND STITCH. It's fun, though, moving along at a brisk clip and not getting bogged down in the nudge-nudge wink-wink pop culture references that so often mar CG animated features. The dragon toothless, the most obviously Sanders-like element of the film, is a decent Stitch stand-in, and the growing bond between him and Generic Teenage Boy Protagonist #34 is nicely realised.

This year, when compared against TOY STORY 3, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON has no chance. In the UK the stakes are particularly high as DRAGON finds itself competing not just against Pixar's juggernaut for the crown of best animated feature of 2010, but also PONYO, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, THE ILLUSIONIST and THE SECRET OF KELLS. I've yet to see THE ILLUSIONIST so I can't comment on it, but I'd rank DRAGON a little above KELLS and below PONYO and FROG. Still, I do get the impression that DreamWorks' output has been steadily improving in recent years, so who knows where whatever they release next year will end up on my "top films of 2010" list. 7/10

Image quality: A number of Paramount-released BDs - THE LOVELY BONES, TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, and indeed DreamWorks Animation's own KUNG FU PANDA and MONSTERS VS. ALIENS (at least in its 2D incarnation - the 3D version was fine) have suffered from light ringing around edges, particularly noticeable on the letterbox bars of 2.35:1 titles. At first, I assumed this was the result of filtering. Now, however, a number of people have put forward the idea that the issue actually stems from less than optimal downconversion from a higher resolution (4K?) source. Regardless of the reason, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON appears to be affected too. The letterbox bars look fine, oddly enough, but there's some pretty noticeable ringing around high contrast edges throughout the film - particularly noticeable given the prevalence of shots of ships on the open seas and dragons soaring through the air. It's far from a bad-looking disc, but it does have a somewhat harsh appearance, placing it below the best-looking BDs of animated titles such as BOLT and PONYO. 8/10

And here's the real kicker: compare my capture of the Viking ships at sea to the same frame from the Blu-ray 3D version exclusive to Samsung's "3D Starter Kit", posted at Blu-ray.com. As you'll see, the slight ringing present in my capture from the 2D version (check the underside of the horizontal wooden bars of the left- and right-most ships) is absent in their capture from the 3D version, which looks much crisper and more defined overall. (Note that the 3D version is also slightly more zoomed out. I can't state with any authority whether the brightness differences are due to actual differences on the disc or different capture settings.) Looks like, regardless of whether or not you have a 3D-capable setup, the 3D disc is the preferred option - ditto for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS.

How to Train Your Dragon
studio: Paramount; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 24.6 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 36.1 Mbit/sec

Just arrived...

10:46 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

#1018: THE MIST (BD, Momentum, Region B, UK)

An early Christmas present from my good friend Lee. All will become clear when we release Episode 4 of the Movie Matters podcast.

Just arrived...

10:06 PM / Blu-ray / 7 Comments

#1017: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (BD, 20th Century Fox, Region ABC, UK)

Picked this up for a song (sorry!), primarily on account of its sumptuous transfer, but also because I haven't seen the film since I was a kid and quite fancy watching it again.

According to the BBFC rating on the back cover, it "contains no material likely to offend or harm". Good to know - I've lost count of the number of times a film has leapt off the screen and inflicted irreversible harm on me mid-viewing.

BD impressions: Astérix et la surprise de César

12:50 PM / BD Impressions / 4 Comments

The film: Released in 1985 after almost a decade since the last Asterix film (legal issues, naturally), ASTÉRIX ET LA SURPRISE DE CÉSAR (Asterix and Ceasar's Surprise, released in English as ASTERIX VS. CAESAR) is the first of three films produced by the Gaumont studio in the mid-to-late-80s and the first of two (the other being LE COUP DU MENHIR/ASTERIX AND THE BIG FIGHT) to be an amalgamation of two different books. The two sources were ASTERIX THE GLADIATOR and ASTERIX THE LEGIONARY, which actually fit together rather well in that both deal with Asterix and Obelix leaving their village on a mission to rescue one of their own, kidnapped by the Romans. With some light tweaking of the plot, the film takes in both LEGIONARY's North Africa and GLADIATOR's Rome, and indeed comes together far more effectively than LE COUP DU MENHIR/ASTERIX AND THE BIG FIGHT, which only succeeded in combining ASTERIX AND THE SOOTHSAYER and ASTERIX AND THE BIG FIGHT by jettisoning virtually everything from the latter (including, bafflingly, the Big Fight of the title).

CÉSAR, and ASTÉRIX CHEZ LES BRETONS/ASTERIX IN BRITAIN from the following year, were produced simultaneously, with BRITAIN being the more assured of the two. Still, CÉSAR has a lot to offer, and indeed I'm inclined to call it the more successful of the two overall, thanks to its brisker pace and greater variety. Still, it suffers to a degree from the same problem that afflicts most of the Asterix films, in that the stakes seem pretty low throughout. The Asterix books have a decidedly lackadaisical quality, generally conforming to one of two possible paradigms: the "village under threat" scenario and the "Asterix pokes fun at a foreign country" travelogue. CÉSAR conforms to the latter (albeit with the social satire largely excised in favour of a more plot-heavy format), and as a result of both the structure it inherits from the books and the decidedly G-rated nature of the film, there's never any real threat to the characters. It ultimately feels rather bitty and episodic, which is fine in a 44-page graphic novel but feels rather slight when transposed to a 75-minute film. Some of the strongest elements, and the ones in which the stakes are briefly raised, come in the form of additions not present in either of the books, particularly Asterix's near-drowning in a basement prison during a thunderstorm, which is about as dark as the series ever got.

Flaws aside, it's all good fun, and one of the unintentional pleasures of this film is watching the character designs change with virtually every shot. The phrase "on model" clearly wasn't familiar to the animators, resulting in a rather bizarre state of affairs in which the proportions and even overall artistic styles of the characters morph continuously over the course of the movie. It started out under the supervision of a British director, Ginger Gibbons, who was replaced by twins Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi (who later went on to work at Disney, directing the Firebird Suite segment of FANTASIA 2000), and while it's hard to know where Gibbons' influence ends and the Brizzis' begins, overall they do a decent job of pulling it together into a cohesive whole.

Image quality: I was pretty positive about this disc following the cursory glance to took at it on the day it arrived. Having now watched it from beginning to end, and had a chance to look more closely at it, I'm feeling slightly less generous. The disc itself is pretty solid, but underlying problems with the master prevent me from elevating it into the upper echelons of animation BDs.

To set the stage, this appears to be a completely new master of the film. Compared with the previous French DVD release from 2005, the image is darker and more richly saturated, which brings it more in line with the various British, Australian and German releases (VHS and DVD) I've seen. Additionally, the opening and closing titles have been electronically regenerated, which is not something I'm particularly happy about, as they... well, look like electronically regenerated titles. The DVD release was marred by some pretty significant DVNR artefacts in the form of disappearing lines and smearing, and while the problems are slightly less severe this time round, they're still there and still, to my mind, shockingly careless (see Example 6 and Example 8). A further problem emerges in roughly the final third of the film, in the form of heavy mosquito noise around the animation outlines and areas of the screen in which there has been recent movement (see Example 19). At first I suspected the culprit to be poor compression. Upon closer inspection, however, it appears to be some sort of crude grain reduction gone wrong. These problems are less apparent in motion than they are in still-frame form, but it still strikes me as incredibly sloppy that they were allowed to get through.

Still, it's the best the film has ever looked (well, outside of a cinema, at any rate), and I don't mean that as a back-handed compliment. Detail is incredibly impressive, with no hint of the ringing that plagued the DVD, and when you consider how poorly treated these films have been over the years on home video the results here are even more impressive. Flaws aside, this is extremely watchable even on a 123" display. It's just a shame it's not perfect. 8/10

Astérix et la surprise de César
studio: Gaumont; country: France; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 17.1 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 31.85 Mbit/sec

In the folds of third-rate gialli

12:51 PM / Cinema / 5 Comments

One of the downsides of writing a thesis on the giallo is that it's hard to watch any of the films themselves without ending up in full-on analytical mode, picking the films apart instead of enjoying them in their own right. I'm currently at a stage in my PhD where I'm setting the actual research and writing aside for a couple of weeks to partake in something of a giallo refresher course: I've spent so long concentrating on a small subset of films that I've decided it's time I remind myself of the broader context by indulging in a giallo-viewing binge, watching as diverse an array of films as possible.

One that I've owned on DVD for a couple of years now but for various reasons only got round to watching the other day is Sergio Bergonzelli's IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH (1970). I'd like to tell you it was unexpected, overlooked giallo gems you come across every now and then - I can remember not having high hopes for THE FIFTH CORD (Bazzoni 1971) but being blown away by the stunning cinematography once I finally saw it - but alas, it's very much scraping the bottom of the giallo barrel... if indeed it's a giallo at all. The blurb on the cover for Severin's DVD certainly markets it as such, but those expecting BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (Argento 1970)-style shenanigans with groovy urban landscapes, a sumptuous Ennio Morricone score and a list of bodies as long as your arm will be sorely disappointed. This one is more along the lines of the earlier "female gothic"-inspired melodramas like THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH (Guerrieri 1968) and THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION (Ercoli 1970), situating the action in a secluded country villa (in what purports to be Switzerland but is clearly central Spain) and lacking the typical black-gloved killer (though there are certainly plenty of literal and figurative unmaskings).

An escaped convict (Fernando Sancho) witnesses governess Lucille (Eleonora Rossi Drago) burying the body of her murdered employer in the grounds of his stately home. Several years later, after being released from jail, the convict, who has kept his mouth shut about what he saw all this time, shows up and decides to indulge in a little blackmail with Lucille, her foppish son Colin (Alfredo Mayo) and the flaky Falesse (Pier Angeli), daughter of the murdered man...

It's a slow burner, taking a while to get going and never really coming to much, dragging out every one of its 93 minutes and offering little beyond the worst excesses for which the giallo is often derided: flat characterisation, attrocious dubbing, blatantly nonsensical plot developments, dodgy gore effects, etc. In an otherwise decent giallo like WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? (Dallamano 1972) or even a second-tier effort like DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (Ercoli 1972), these elements are less prevalent or even tolerable on account of the other pleasures on offer, but here they draw attention to themselves because there's so little of consequence going on. It sounds unbelievable, but a film that features decapitations, pet buzzards, nudity galore, Nazi death camps, incest and death by the old "cyanide in the bathwater by way of a cuckoo clock" ruse (don't ask) somehow actually manages to feel uneventful.

It also features more twists and revelations than any other giallo I can think of. Characters turn out not to be who they say they are or even THINK they are, a character returns seemingly from the dead with a new face, and the blame for the murder that opens the film is shifted multiple times, even after one character has confessed to it. Even the relationships between the three main characters are unclear. It took me at least half the film to work out who was whose son and who wasn't whose daughter... and then the rug was ultimately pulled out from under my feet. If all that sounds exciting, believe me when I say it isn't. The film plods along with no real sense of direction, and I get the impression Bergonzelli was largely making it up as he went along, desperately throwing twist after unbelievable twist at the viewers in a desperate attempt to keep them awake.

In terms' of the psychosis of its central character,* Lucille makes an interesting counterpoint to Carol (Florinda Bolkan) in the later (and far superior) LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (Fulci 1971). Fear of spoilers prevents me from saying too much about this, but let's just say that I'd previously assumed Carol to be somewhat unique among central female characters in gialli. The film opens with a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud, from which the film takes its title ("What has been remains embedded in the brain, nestled in the folds of the flesh. Distorted, it conditions and subconsciously impels."). Now, I must admit Freud is not my area of expertise, but I Googled that quote and the only results it turned up were references to the film itself. I therefore have to conclude that it's either a clumsy translation or else the filmmakers themselves made it up and stuck Freud's name on it for added credibility. The gialli have an odd relationship with psychoanalysis, acknowledging and playing with it without (I suspect) really understanding it except in the broadest sense. As such, quotations like the one that opens this film - and others like THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH (Martino 1971) - promise a more nuanced look at the psyches of the film's characters than we ultimately end up getting.

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH is, at the end of the day, really only worth it for giallo die-hards. The truth is that most of the decent gialli were already released on DVD years ago, which means that more recent releases such as this and Camera Obscura's SO SWEET, SO DEAD (Bianchi Montero, 1972) are often a case of newer companies picking up the scraps left by the likes of Anchor Bay and Blue Underground. It's a shame, because Severin's transfer is pretty serviceable, provided you can overlook some noticeable print damage and splice marks. The soundtrack (English only) is more adversely affected by the effects of age but does its job, while the sole extra is a trailer.

* A minor point, but in my thesis I use the term "central character" to refer to the female leads in gialli rather than the more typical "protagonist". This was at the suggestion of my supervisor, who felt that the role of the characters played by Edwige Fenech et al wasn't active enough to justify the use of the word "protagonist". Jim Hull wrote an interesting pair of articles (here and here) about the roles of protagonist and main character and the fact that they are not necessarily interchangeable.

Movie Matters #3

6:28 PM / Podcast / 3 Comments

The Movie Matters podcast returns with a special themed episode focussing on the "video nasties" phenomenon. In the third instalment, co-hosts Lee Howard and Michael Mackenzie examine Jake West's new documentary VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP & VIDEOTAPE, and then take on the nasty to end all nasties, Meir Zarchi's controversial I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. We also discuss upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases of interest, induct another title into the Blu-ray Hall of Fame, and ponder the question: "Do you get scared by horror movies?"

• http://www.landofwhimsy.com/moviematters/moviematters-episode3-06-12-10.mp3
• http://bit.ly/dRdCCo
• iTunes

The music sampled in this episode is from WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? (Ennio Morricone), VIDEODROME (Howard Shore), ALIEN (Jerry Goldsmith) and INFERNO (Keith Emerson), with clips from VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP & VIDEOTAPE and the theatrical trailer for I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Special thanks to David Mackenzie for audio support.

http://moviematterspodcast.blogspot.com

Updated Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at 06:20 PM: A big thanks to Daniel Sardella for pointing out a major audio glitch at the end of the episode. A corrected version has now been uploaded, and I've now moved the alternate download source to Rapidshare, thanks to Megaupload's continued suckiness.

BD impressions: Splice

1:16 AM / BD Impressions / 12 Comments

I turned down the opportunity to see SPLICE during the Glasgow FrightFest at the GFT back in February - a decision I now regret, as this turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me and by far the most unusual film I've seen this year. Starring Byron Deidra and the ever-dependable Sarah Polley, this horror/sci-fi hybrid from Vincenzo Natali is best described as reminiscent of early David Cronenberg (i.e. prior to his post-SPIDER mainstreamification) but has an identity all of its own. Two eccentric geneticists mix several different types of DNA and create a living, breathing, thinking organism unlike anything seen before... with disastrous results. Nicely shot, with some genuinely impressive visual effects and a healthy dose of the "ick" factor (it's one thing to create a new species, but quite another to... nah, I'm not going to spoil it for you), I'd definitely recommend giving this Canadian oddity a look.

Image quality: OK, can Warner please sell the UK rights to more of their films to Optimum? ;) OK, so I know this isn't technically a "Warner film" - several production companies, Warner among them, were involved - but all kidding aside, I have a feeling the presentation of this UK release is better than that of Warner's US version... at least going by screen captures and word of mouth. Detail isn't out of this world, but the compression is solid throughout and I see nothing to suggest that this isn't a faithful representation of the DI. 9/10

Splice
studio: Optimum; country: UK; region code: B; codec: AVC;
file size: 22.4 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 30.91 Mbit/sec

HDTV fun and games

5:13 PM / Television / 9 Comments

For the last several years, most of my TV recordings have come courtesy of the Freecom DVB-T USB stick I picked up for somewhere in the region of £15. Back then, the only television being broadcast via antenna in the UK was of the standard definition variety, but with BBC, ITV and Channel 4 all launching their own high definition terrestrial solutions in the last year, I decided I wanted to get in on the act instead of having to rely on other sources to acquire HD recordings of the relevant shows.

The only problem? Until recently, it was impossible to get hold of a computer-based device capable of receiving DVB-T2, the transmission system used for HD terrestrial broadcasts in this country.

Enter the solution: MyGica's FreeView T200, the first DVB-T2 USB device available in the UK. The fine people at TVStick.co.uk got their initial shipment on Monday, dispatched one for me within about half an hour of my ordering it, and it showed up on Wednesday afternoon. That's what I call great service!

Initial impressions are pretty positive, taking into account the newness of the device and the various technical kinks that will presumably be worked out with subsequent driver iterations. Unlike my Freecom DVB-T, which was basically a USB pen drive with an aerial connection on the back, MyGica's solution is a small hub with its own external power supply, although it still connects to the system via USB. The bundled HiDTV software can only be described as unstable, at least on my system - it crashed continually while searching for channels and took somewhere in the region of five attempts to complete a full scan. After that, it remained unstable and I was unable to get any sound (although the video looked fine).

Fortunately, I've used Windows Media Center for TV viewing and recording ever since I upgraded to Windows Vista and later Windows 7, both of which come with Media Center included, and I've always found it to be vastly superior to any of the various freeware TV options, as well as ArcSoft's TotalMedia (which came bundled with my Freecom stick). Therefore, I promptly ditched HiDTV and switched to Media Center, which detected and played all the relevant channels with no problems.

The image quality seems good - certainly as good or better than the various alternatives I've been relying on for HD shows I watch. The recordings are all in Microsoft's proprietary .wtv format, which only plays in Media Center or Windows Media Player. I personally don't have a huge problem with this as both are perfectly adequate programs, but if anyone knows of a way of converting these files into something more compatible (without re-encoding, naturally), I'd be interested to hear.

A slight problem, though: for some reason no programme guide data is available for any of the four HD channels (BBC One HD, BBC HD, STV HD and Channel 4 HD) in Media Center. Apparently this is a problem between Microsoft and Freeview HD and one that affects at least one other HDTV receiver (the Black Gold BGT3620). For three of the four channels, the most straightforward solution is to sync each channel with the TV guide data from its standard definition counterpart. Obviously this doesn't work for BBC HD, which has no SD equivalent. File it under "problems I can live with but hope they fix before too long."

The only other problem I've encountered in Media Center is that sometimes on startup, or upon changing channels, it will randomly lose the ability to received HD content, giving me a message stating that the signal strength may be weak or the aerial may be disconnected. In these instances, opening up the HiDTV software for a few seconds (which is sometimes as long as it runs for before crashing!) is enough to solve the problem, and I'm sure it's an issue that will be cleared up eventually, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

Still, all in all I consider this £69.99 well spent. There are clearly some compatibility issues to be worked out, but until then I'm more than content to work around them in exchange for (relatively) hassle-free viewing and recording of HD content.

BD impressions: Alien: Resurrection

4:10 PM / BD Impressions / 11 Comments

Hold on a minute... THIS one is considered the red-headed stepchild of the ALIEN series? Granted, after the jumbled mess of ALIEN 3 it wouldn't take much to create a more coherent film, but I actually found myself enjoying ALIEN: RESURRECTION more than any instalment since the first ALIEN. Of course, RESURRECTION is very much in the shadow of Ridley Scott's masterpiece, and I can understood people being put off by the quasi tongue in cheek tone of the thing, but I really enjoyed it both as a stand-alone film and a more satisfying (not to mention uplifting) wrap-up to the Ripley saga than was offered by the previous film.

Yes, I liked it more than ALIENS. Sue me.

RESURRECTION is interesting, both as a prototype for writer Joss Whedon's criminally short-lived FIREFLY series (I found it interesting how much that series borrowed from this film not just in terms of the ragtag crew but also the visual style) and for its interesting take on identity with regard to clones and androids. It may not be the most original premise, but it's a good deal more fully-formed than the themes of ALIEN 3 (such as there were), and several steps more intelligent than anything in ALIENS. I've read plenty of reviews stating that director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's style is completely unsuited to the ALIEN series, but I find that a little hard to swallow given that each of the previous three films has its own completely different style and tone. Nothing about Jeunet's treatment of the material strikes me as sacrilegious - at least no more so than Cameron and Fincher's approaches - and I was impressed that Whedon managed to make his supporting cast interesting enough that for the first time since ALIEN I didn't find myself thinking "Hurry up and get back to Ripley!" every time the narrative focused on them.

Of course, it's a long way from perfection. Winona Ryder is irritatingly shrill, the revelation that one character is an android feels like a cheap twist, Jeunet's apparent inability to cut away from the monster effects ultimately destroys much of their credibility, and I'm still trying desperately to convince myself that Ripley's line about saving the earth was deliberately hokey. Still, for me it delivered the thrill ride I was promised with ALIENS but ultimately didn't get. I'm giving them both the same rating of 7/10, but one is a much higher 7 than the other. All in all it's very much a B-movie, but a thoroughly entertaining one nonetheless.

So, for those keeping track, my decidedly atypical order of preference looks like this:

1. ALIEN - 10/10
2. ALIEN: RESURRECTION - 7/10
3. ALIENS - 7/10
4. ALIEN 3 - 6/10

Image quality: Another cheapo job à la ALIEN 3, I'm trying to decide whether this one looks better or worse than its predecessor. Probably very slightly better overall, though that has a lot to do with its more consistent appearance, less invasive grain reduction and the fact that the higher contrast gives the perception of better detail. It's still fairly soft, but it looks like film throughout, which is preferable to what it would probably have looked like if Jeunet had been granted his wish to degrain the whole thing (see here). 6/10

Alien: Resurrection
studio: 20th Century Fox; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 30.6 GB (theatrical cut), 32.55 GB (special edition);
average bit rate (including audio): 40.27 Mbit/sec (theatrical cut), 40.12 Mbit/sec (special edition)

BD impressions: Alien 3

2:08 PM / BD Impressions / 2 Comments

One of those cases where the tortuous production history is a lot more interesting than the resultant film.

ALIEN 3 is, to put it bluntly, a mess, and a lot of the time it's not even an entertaining mess. Taking into account the degree of behind the scenes interference to which it was subjected, I suppose the surprising thing is not that it ended up in such a chaotic state but rather that MORE films don't turn out this way, given that such tales of executive meddling aren't exactly uncommon in Hollywood (though this admittedly does seem to be a particularly extreme example).

I chose to watch the assembly cut, which I believe constitutes an approximation of David Fincher's ultimate intentions for the film before he abandoned the project during post-production, though that may have been a mistake as I felt the extended running time did it no favours, and I was certainly suffering from viewer's fatigue towards the end. In terms of its place in the series, it was obviously woefully inferior to ALIEN, and while I would mark it a good few notches below ALIENS as well, I must admit I did feel that there were certain aspects that it handled better than its predecessor.

It definitely got me on side at the beginning by dispensing with the insufferable Newt and captain whatsisname (the one played by Michael Beihn), and I felt that placing the characters in an environment with no access to firearms was a marvellous touch, avoiding as it did the gung-ho bang-bang malarkey from ALIENS. The attempted rape of Ripley was well-shot, and I enjoyed Charles Dance's understated performance as the medic... but on the other hand the various death scenes felt really lacklustre, and as with ALIENS the film succumbed to the burden of an over-sized cast I couldn't bring myself to care about (though oddly enough I found this cadre of rapists and murderers a whole lot less loathsome than the soldiers in the previous film).

Nicely shot, great score by Elliot Goldenthal... but on the other hand, really poor effects, a script that spends way too long treading water (there are only so many ways you can have characters saying "We're fucked" to each other before it becomes tedious), and a general sense of the ideas behind it being better than the execution. I definitely didn't get the sense that it was the atrocity some claim it to be, but I did feel that Fincher and co dropped the ball overall. That said, I can't help wondering to what extent its less than rosy reputation stems from the ALIENS fans being disappointed by its less gun-heavy, more understated approach.

Image quality: Oh dear, not a pretty sight at all. After being spoiled by the excellent quality of the previous two films on BD, I was disappointed to discover that Fox appear to have used an outdated master for the third instalment. Detail is inconsistent but leans towards soft for the most part. There is a fairly noticeable improvement in clarity in the scenes added back in for the assembly cut, but it would be a stretch to call even these "good". Grain reduction is apparent too, and the image tends to be pretty murky... although the latter may have been a deliberate aesthetic choice. Either way, it all looks incredibly mediocre and it's a damn shame to see this instalment in "the MU-TH-UR of all Blu-ray collections" (to quote the back of the box) given such half-assed treatment. 6/10

Alien 3
studio: 20th Century Fox; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: AVC;
file size: 23.4 GB (theatrical cut), 29.4 GB (special edition);
average bit rate (including audio): 29.17 Mbit/sec (theatrical cut), 29.08 Mbit/sec (special edition)

Why is it...

2:37 PM / General / 1 Comment

...that a measly bit of snow is capable of bringing this country to a standstill? I was meant to be going on relief to a smaller library that's a little less straightforward to get to than my normal branch (a train and a bus ride as opposed to a direct train or bus), but after nearly an hour and a half standing at the railway station I was informed that all trains in either direction had been suspended indefinitely. Some buses were still running, but getting to the branch I was supposed to be working at would have required three buses plus a twenty minute walk. By the time I got there - IF I got there, which wasn't exactly a sure bet given the disruptions to the service - it would practically be time to leave again, and then I'd have been faced with the dubious task of somehow getting home.

I had no option but to call my boss, explain that there was no way I was going to get in, and head for home. I'm fortunate in that I have a thoroughly decent boss who is understanding of such problems, but it doesn't change the fact that what should have been a simple A-to-B journey was made impossible by a few centimetres of snow. Glasgow isn't even that badly hit compared to some parts of the country. So my question is, if countries like Sweden can cope with weather much more severe than this every winter, what's the UK's excuse? Admittedly it's unusual for us to get snow of any degree of severity this early into winter (normally it tends to be January for us), but it's not as if snow is an unknown quantity in these parts, and we were repeatedly promised by the government that they had learned their lesson from the severe weather last winter and had made appropriate provisions.

Obviously telling any authority they should be spending MORE money in the current political climate isn't going to go down too well, but if winters like this are to become the norm (thanks, climate change), I'd say it's time the people in charge get their act together and take steps to ensure the whole country isn't going to grind to a standstill every winter.

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