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Greetings to you! These past weeks I've been browsing your website, enjoying and learning most from your Screen-cap page.

These are my favourite films from 2012. Morgan from Ireland

1. An Unexpected Journey
2. Sinister
3. Skyfall
4. Gambit
5. Argo
6. The Life of Pi

7. The Muppets
8. ParaNorman
9. Frankenweenie
10. When Santa Fell to Earth

(Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 1:29 AM)

lol just read my the original post from December, not sure how I missed out number 6 (Prometheus). Pasted it in from a notepad document, guess I deleted it accidentally. Probably best to just repost here;

Here's my top 10 films released on blu-ray in 2012 (all UK releases);

1. Universal Monsters Collection - Strong transfers and good extras, shame my "Creature" disc was damaged (warp/stain on disc). The replacement disc played fine though. A nine film set for under £30, bit of a steal really.

2. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial - Classic film, with a great transfer. Thankfully the theatrical cut, not the awful CGI ET & walkie talkie version.

3. Jaws - Another Spielberg film getting the VIP treatment by Universal, if only their whole back catalogue of films could be as lucky.

4. Tyrannosaur - Great film, a tough watch granted but worth it. Very strong performances from Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman

5. Pocahontas - Thankfully a strong presentation from Disney (considering some of the weak offering lately). Shame the song "If I Never Knew You" isn't included via seamless branching (was even a feature of the DVD). It was a deleted song, not a brand new one shoehorned it. I just paused the film, found it in the pop-up menu, watched it then continued where it left off. Not ideal though obviously.

6. Prometheus - strong transfer. I enjoyed it, Fassbender and Rapace especially steal the show. Not sure I'd be interested in an extended cut if they ever re-released it, I don't think the deleted scenes really would have added much to the film.

7. Cast Away - Long awaited UK release is open matte 1.78:1 (OAR 1.85:1) but apart from that the transfer is pretty solid. Sadly though it is barebones, so for extras & even the audio commentary you really need to pick up the 2 disc R1 release.

8. 21 Jump Street - Very funny comedy, haven't laughed like that in a while. Both Tatum & Hill were great.

9. The Hunger Games - I enjoyed the film, Its no Battle Royale but its good. Jennifer Lawrence is definitely one to watch over the next few years.

10. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson is a bit hit and miss for me but I really like this one. It's a lot more of a coherent story than say "The Royal Tenenbaums" (which I do still enjoy). Less than 10 minutes of extras on the disc though, which is a shame.

A couple of honourable mentions;
"The BFG" it spent years being aired, released on DVD, VHS etc. in cropped 4:3, was nice to see it in original 16:9 framing.
And "Life Is Beautiful", the fantastic film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Sadly the transfer is lacking in detail. Seems to be some filtering going on. Contrast seems a bit off too.

(Posted on Monday, January 28, 2013 at 1:10 PM)

Duh, just realised I was too late if you were recording yesterday.
Nevermind :)

(Posted on Monday, January 28, 2013 at 1:13 PM)

Off topic, but thought I'd share. Hope what he says about PHENOMENA is true (TENEBRAE too, though I'm plenty happy with the Wild Side Blu)--from lovelockandload:

[QUOTE]
Synapse Films’ Don May Jr. gave Fango the scoop that the company just acquired Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS and DEMONS 2 and Dario Argento’s TENEBRAE and PHENOMENA. “We’ll be releasing Blu-rays and DVDs of all four in 2013,” he tells us. “We’re getting better hi-def masters of TENEBRAE and PHENOMENA, and we’re fixing the timing and color errors that were in the previous Blu-rays of the DEMONS films.
[END QUOTE]

(Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 4:18 AM)

Are Synapse normally region friendly?

(Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 12:00 AM)

Synapse will be using the Wild Side master for Tenebrae: http://www.kentaiblog.com/2013/02/demonic-phenomena.html

I'm disappointed that Phenomena will probably be the shorter version, I like the full Italian cut. Thankfully I can live with the Arrow BD of that one (Tenebrae on the other hand I will definitely be upgrading, as long as the Italian audio is present).

(Posted on Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 12:35 AM)

Neil, Synapse said on twitter that the contract for TENEBRAE, PHENOMENA, DEMONS,and DEMONS 2 says that they have to be region locked.

(Posted on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 10:20 PM)

^ Cheers, I have the French Wild Side version of Tenebre already so it's not total disaster. Wanted a version without subtitles. And I don't fancy buying a region friendly bd player at the moment.

I can live with the heavily dnr'ed Arrow Phenomena bd for now - think I prefer the longer cut anyway...

btw Nice as the French Tenebre master looks, this comparison shows that it is cropped somewhat so there is still some room for improvement:

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cID=1481

(Posted on Monday, February 11, 2013 at 1:42 PM)