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Arrow's upcoming release of ZOMBIE

11:46 AM / Blu-ray / 29 Comments

Well, colour me impressed: it appears that, for its upcoming UK BD release of Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (a.k.a. ZOMBIE, a.k.a. ZOMBI 2), Arrow Video has commissioned a brand new transfer from the original negative. The results can be seen at Blu-ray.com, and they blow last year's release by Blue Underground, a vacuum tube transfer courtesy of the notorious LVR, out of the water. The Blu-ray.com captures look strikingly good (you can compare them to Blue Underground and LVR's effort here), and thanks to them, a disc I wasn't planning on picking up has now shot to the top of my wish list.

As per the Blu-ray.com review, here's Arrow's blurb about the new transfer:

Zombie Flesh Eaters has been [missing word here - I'm guessing "transferred"] exclusively by Arrow for this release, with all work personally overseen by Restoration Supervisor James White at Deluxe Soho, London.

The film was sourced from the original Techniscope 2-perf 35mm negative made available by Variety Communications, Italy. The pictures was scanned at 2K resolution and fully graded on a Nicoda Film Master at Deluxe Soho, London. Restoration work was completed in 1080Psf HD resolution using a combination of software tools and techniques. Thousands of instances of dirt, scratches and debris were carefully removed frame by frame. Damaged or missing frames were repaired, and density and stability issues were significantly improved. Throughout the process, care was taken to ensure that the film's original details and grain structure remained unaffected by digital processing. Although every effort has been made to present Zombie Flesh Eaters at the highest quality possible, some minor picture issues remain, in keeping with the condition of the original materials.

Both the original English and Italian mono soundtracks were restored, with audio issues such as bumps, clicks or dropouts removed or repaired. Audio sync to picture remains noticeably loose at times, in keeping with the nature of the film's production.

Lastly, working from the original 2-perf negative has allowed for access to the entire exposed image area of the film, so we have chosen to retain as much of the original frame are possible for this restoration."

Restoration supervisor: James White.
Audio mastering: Gary Sanders/Deluxe 142.

The downside? It's locked to Region B. This is unusual for Arrow Video, so I'm assuming it's part of their licensing agreement.

Arrow have clearly pushed the boat out here - I suspect most of us (not unreasonably) assumed they would simply license the existing LVR transfer - so I think it's only reasonable that fans of Italian cult cinema acknowledge their effort by picking up a copy of this release, sending a message that yes, we know a good quality release when we see it and spend our money accordingly. It's only £11 on Amazon UK - so if you're a fan of these films and can play Region B discs, get cracking!

PS. You'll need to be logged into a Blu-ray.com account to see their captures at full resolution.

Comparison: Suspiria

10:53 PM / Blu-ray / 11 Comments

I apologise for the length of time it has taken for this comparison to see the light of day, and I apologise in advance for the length of the comparison. It's by far the largest I've ever done, but SUSPIRIA remains one of my favourite films, and its history on BD has been a tortuous one to say the least, so I felt it was worth the effort to get it right. I've never taken this many captures for a single BD Impressions piece, let alone a comparison with four different releases placed under the microscope. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for ImageShack!

Anyway, all BD releases of SUSPIRIA that I know of are derived from a 2007 high definition scan of the original camera negative, transferred at Technicolor in Rome as a joint Italian/French venture. Neither of the two releases I already owned - the Italian release by CDE and the UK release by Nouveaux Pictures - particularly impressed me. However, with the addition of another release to the roster - a French disc by Wild Side, who did excellent work on TENEBRAE a couple of years back, I've decided to start with a blank slate and reappraise all three of these releases. As a point of comparison, I've also included captures from the highly praised 2001 US DVD release by Anchor Bay, upscaled to 1920x1080.

Take a look at the captures below and then scroll down (and down, and down) for the commentary.

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Comparison: Casino Royale

12:05 PM / Blu-ray / 13 Comments

One of the more curious aspects of the recently released BOND 50 box set is the inclusion of yet another version of CASINO ROYALE. Daniel Craig's first outing as 007 has had a rough history, being censored in three different territories - North America, the UK and Germany - all in different ways, with the North American cut being by far the most heavily compromised.

You can read about the respective versions here:

• North America
• UK
• Germany

(Note that a handful of other territories, including South Korea, got the US cut because the same disc was released there.)

In the UK, the cuts were inflicted because distributor Sony Pictures wanted a 12 rating, and the BBFC deemed certain elements of the scene in which Bond is tortured to be overtly sexualised (which, if you ask me, raises all sort of questions about how the censors get their jollies). The good news for UK customers is that, with CASINO ROYALE having changed hands to 20th Century Fox, the film has been resubmitted and bumped up to an uncut 15. The logic, I would assume, is that the dark and bloody LICENCE TO KILL already makes the BOND 50 set an overall 15, so there would have been no reason not to throw in a version of CASINO ROYALE that had the same rating. (Which deserves a round of applause, by the way: a lot of distributors probably wouldn't have bothered.) It's worth pointing out that Fox have also released the new 15 version separately, and for a very reasonable price too. (Apart from the 15 logo, you can identify it by the gold rather than white 007 logo in the title on the front cover.)

The opportunity to watch the film in its full, intended form is not a new one for me, since I picked up the uncut Finnish release of the film back in 2007. It does, however, provide me with an opportunity to compare the work of two different distributors, both using the same master as a basis for their respective encodes. What differences will their be in their approaches? And will the five years that have elapsed between Sony and Fox's releases have any impact on the overall quality? Let's find out.

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Movie Matters Mini #4 - Skyfall

6:33 PM / Podcast / 2 Comments

Co-hosts Lee Howard and Michael Mackenzie join the rest of the world in pondering the matter of the new James Bond film, Sam Mendes' SKYFALL, which sees Daniel Craig return for his third outing as 007, accompanied by Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw. This mini-episode also includes a more general discussion of Daniel Craig's tenure in the role and the Bond series as a whole.

• Direct link
• iTunes

Links of note:

• Movie Matters Letterboxd page
• You Expect Me To Talk - The James Bond Podcast by Jake Del Toro

The music sampled in this episode is from LICENCE TO KILL by Michael Kamen, the SKYFALL title theme by Adele, and the James Bond theme by Monty Norman.

Created by Lee Howard & Michael Mackenzie
Edited by Michael Mackenzie

http://moviematterspodcast.blogspot.com
http://letterboxd.com/moviematters

Greetings from the future

11:07 PM / Technology / 9 Comments

I'm typing this post from inside Windows 8, which I upgraded to this evening. Windows 8 has been the subject of a great deal of chatter in Computerland, not much of it very positive, stemming mainly from Microsoft's frankly batty decision to ditch the Start menu that has been with us since Windows 95 and replace it with a full-sized Start SCREEN that seems to have been designed primarily for users of fondleslabs. I can't say I was too enthused by anything I saw or read about Windows 8 - essentially, it looked like a slightly tweaked Windows 7, but with a clunky new interface bolted on top of it.

Still, Microsoft are currently offering the upgrade edition of Windows 8 Pro for a ridiculously cheap £24.99 (the offer expires at the end of January, at which point I'm assuming prices will rise to their usual extortionate levels), and given that upgrading from Windows 7 has been described as fairly painless, I decided, with a couple of hours to kill, to buy a copy, install it and see what it was like.

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Well now, isn't this interesting

2:25 PM / Blu-ray / 18 Comments

Italian:

UK:

French:

More on this to come, but I don't want people to get TOO excited. Although there appear to have been a number of colour tweaks applied to the French release, it's still derived from the same 2007 transfer as the UK and Italian releases, and the highlights are still severely clipped, especially during the climax. Oh, and there are forced French subtitles (seriously, guy, stop doing that, PLEASE). Still, though, I consider this release an improvement. And if nothing else, Jessica Harper and Joan Bennett no longer look like lobsters in the scene I took these captures from.