Blu-Rays Make Me Blue

Early last year my TV ran out of steam. It was on its last legs for quite a while, but a few kludgey fixes via my technologically minded friend Adam, and a couple of judiciously placed bangs to the case seemed to fix it, until one day nothing I did worked anymore and it was consigned to the forever after. At that point I had no job and even less money, so I just had no TV for what turned out to be around 8 months, and I watched all my TV online instead. I don't actually watch that much free-to-air TV locally anyway, I download it all. It may or may not be legal, but they get more real money from my DVD purchases than they ever got from my watching an ad. Plus my watching does not affect ratings measurements, so whatever. In the end, no TV wasn't too much of a loss.

Eventually I got a new job, which is still going very well, thanks for asking, and could afford a new TV, which I purchased late in 2011; as this time it was an HD set I figured the least I should do to take advantage of that is buy a BluRay player; there certainly isn't any HD content to speak of on TV, which is ridiculous, so this is the only way to see HD in all its glory.

I made a decision pretty early on that I would buy most new movies as BluRays, unless there was no advantage from them, such as a comedy or romance, something without interesting visuals. And I would purchase only a few of my existing catalogue in BluRay, movies that I love and watch repeatedly. For the most part I have kept to that, especially when they're at affordable prices.

But it wasn't long before I began to suspect that BluRay wasn't all that special. I had always had doubts that higher resolution was all that much of an improvement over DVD, but now I saw that I was right. There is an increased sharpness, no compression artefacts, better range of gradient colours (no banding), and some extra detail in shadows, but in the overall scheme of things those are very minor improvements, and in some cases even those don't apply - the DVD copies are plenty fine. BluRay players and HDTVs both "upscale" a DVD, the higher spec components improving the image quality.

So I have made a second decision, and that is BluRay is only worth it if it's on sale. Otherwise I'll most likely get the DVD every time. If it wasn't for the fact that some BluRays have better Extra Features (a conspiracy they've implemented to encourage BluRay purchase) I wouldn't even hesitate. And these days I'm getting a bit bored with Extras as they are usually three minute sound-bite patronising self-congratulatory crap in fast cut edits. Ugh.

When they created the BluRay standard, it was competing directly with HD-DVD, a system that arguably would've had better features, but eventually capitulated under pressure from Studio support going to their competitor. I think BluRay rushed their development, and missed a lot of useful features that could've made the system robust and future-proofed. Instead they concentrated only on slightly more dynamic interactive menus and stupid interfering crap.

Here are a few things wrong with BluRays:

1. When one starts, it asks for a language setting. That should be a default setting in the player, so the disc automatically plays in the language of choice, instead of just sitting there waiting for input.
2. Many BluRay discs have copy protection, which slows down startup to sometimes as much as five or six minutes of pissing about. I don't know what it's actually doing, but it's the most annoying crap ever. Plus copy protection is a waste of time, it doesn't stop the Pirates and only inconveniences the legitimate buyer. Just stop it, already.
3. Trailers are still sometimes unskippable. Fuck that.
4. There should be a way for the player to detect the current date, and change the trailers to adjust their "Only In Theatres" to "Now Available On Disc" after six months.
5. After the second time you've played the disc, the trailers don't need to play automatically anymore. Or those stupid disclaimers. Or any of the other crap that clutters up startup of a disc. We've seen them already, no need to subject us to them forever.
6. BluRays have 25GB of space on the disc, single layer. A Dual-Layer disc has 50GB. You could store two entire seasons of a TV show each made up of 22 x 42m episodes, in 720p HD, and yet the box-sets come on as much as five discs per season. It's bullshit designed to make it seem like you're getting what you're paying for, but it's just an absurd hassle to be forced to get up and swap discs all day.
7. BD-LIVE is a joke. You need an absurdly good internet connection for downloading, which I do not, and a home theatre system that works in tandem reliably, which is an almost impossible task, and in the end all you get out of it is nothing anybody could possibly find entertaining.

Here are a few things worth getting BluRays for:

1. The image is prettier.
2. The menus are easier to use, though they are a little bit confusing occasionally.
3. If you want 3D, this is the only format that can do it. But 3D is a fool's errand.
4. Apparently the sound is better. I am not very good with audio so I can't tell.
5. That's about it.

Here are some good things about my new home theatre arrangement, though.

HDMI, which is the cable connections between an HDTV and the BluRay player, via the AV Receiver as the main unit, makes for interactivity between all the devices. I can turn the TV on and my AV Receiver will turn on and switch to the optimum settings I've preset. I turn on the BluRay player, and the AV and TV turn on. Same when I turn one off. At first I had bought a universal remote to do all that, but turns out I didn't need to, and in fact it was more annoying than just swapping remotes anyway. Plus I can adjust things like channels and audio on one remote because of how HDMI works.

I download a lot of TV, and they come in two formats. It used to be only AVI, compressed in DivX, but recently they've added MP4, compressed in H264, which makes for smaller file sizes, faster downloads, and better quality image. However, there's a problem. The only way to reliably watch the AVIs on my TV is to save them to a USB stick and watch them through my BluRay player. Whereas the only way to watch the MP4s is to connect my TV directly into the Network. Any other method for each causes glitches. This is because of the brand of my devices, in this case Panasonic. Other brands do things slightly differently.

I admit these are 21st Century Problems. I live in a future arguably better than projected by science fiction. My ability to watch any TV shows from around the world, any movies only a short few months after cinema release, under my personal control, is an incredible situation that if I could've imagined it when I was a kid would have blown my mind to smithereens. But really it is a shame that a few missteps make the whole thing that much more irritating than it needs to be.

Cinematic Catch Up

I have not had a lot of money to spend on frivolities lately, so have not splurged on DVDs on days of release for a long time, instead waiting for them to halve their prices later in the year. But last week, I decided I wanted to finally catch up on movies I had missed, movies that had been praised at their cinema release, so I bought three movies to watch: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, G.I.Joe, and District 9.

Goodness me, what an entertaining week I've had watching them.

G.I Joe was first. I missed out on most of the toys that were turned into cartoons, during the 80s. Partly because I was just a little too old for the toys themselves, and partly because the cartoons were such poorly animated, badly acted, horrendously written dreck, I just stayed away for my own sanity's sake.

G.I. Joe is a very old toy franchise, however, and inspired the UK equivalent of Action Man, which was more popular when I was a kid, even though none of my friends or I had an Action Man toy either. But I was aware of the storyline, generally, that was used as the basis for the TV series. It amounts to nothing much more than good guy US military vs bad guy Foreign military, with fancy weapons and vehicles that did lots of flashy foldy shooty stuff. Basically, standard violence-based boy's toys.

Movies based on toys and games and video games are, as a rule, awful. The main problem seems to be the interactive and single-player nature of a game is impossible to translate into a story that really encapsulates the experience each person has with it. It's hard enough to adapt a book and fulfil the imagination of the author, let alone the imagery concocted by the reader, but to re-create the individual experience of a kid who plays with his toys in a particular way peculiar to their own approach, is not universal enough to work properly. Couple that with the inherent ridiculous and fantastical nature of something like G.I. Joe, and any attempt to take it seriously is a waste of everyone's time.

So how do you deal with those issues and still make an entertaining and successful movie?

Imagine you're an eight year old boy, and you have four or five of the G.I. Joe (and the enemy C.O.B.R.A's) action figures and vehicles. How do you play with them? Do you slowly drive the car along, and watch as you characters exit the vehicle and wander along to a house where they sit on the couch and watch TV? Do they have tea parties with your sister's teddy and dolls? Do they sit on a shelf gathering dust as a potential collector's item?

No, they do not.

"And then Joe runs to the helicopter, and they fly over a cliff and go RRRRRRRGGGGHHHH, and then the tank comes up over the dunes and it goes BBBKKKKHHH POW POW POW AKAKAKAKAKAK!!! And then the helicopter goes WEEEEEEEEEE BAAAABOOOOMMMM!!! And then COBRA arrive in their submarine, and attack all the divers in the boat POW SPLASH! CRASH! AAAAAARRRGGHH You got me, Commander!!! AAAARRRKKKKHHH. But they don't know that Joe's got an army of jet fighters, WWWHHHOOOOOOSSSSSHHHH!!!!! POW!!! BAAABOOOOMMMM!!!!"

And that, in a nutshell, is how they made the G.I. Joe movie.

And because it re-created the way kids played with the toys in precisely the right way, the movie works. Against all odds, and despite its absurdities throughout, it knew what it was, what it was trying to be, and it achieved success. If you want to see a completely over the top mind blowing blast of a movie, G.I. Joe is worth a look.

The next movie I saw was District 9.

I had seen the trailer, and when I had ever seen the reviews the implication was always "Don't read this review, because what you think the movie is about, it's so much more, and not at all what you are expecting." So I kept away from as much promotion for it as possible, until now when I finally saw it on DVD.

Also, I love visual effects, and the things I had seen for District 9, the casual approach, where whole sequences had a dismissive feeling of the effects being not "special" at all, just accepted as real, it so intrigued and impressed me I was completely drawn to it, even if the movie turned out to be bad.

Luckily the consensus has been that it's a wonderful film, of great impact and handled with astonishing, seemingly effortless, dexterity.

And I agree.

It starts out as a documentary, following a dorky Government official in South Africa, where Aliens had arrived in their spaceship, twenty years earlier, and now he has to convince them to relocate to a new location outside of the city. Cleaner, but smaller, but more importantly...

Click for spoilers

...far away from a buried spacecraft, which only needs fuel to allow the Aliens the opportunity to go back to the Mother Ship and head home again.

But when the Official accidentally sprays himself with the fuel so carefully collected and distilled, he begins to go through a metamorphosis that completely turns the story around into something new. And not even that is what you might expect.

It truly is an amazing film, and may even be up for an Academy Award, if reviews are anything to go by. I urge anyone who hasn't seen it to not read my spoilers, and just go and get the DVD and watch it as soon as you can, because you will be at turns revolted, amazed, thrilled, energised, and inspired, by what unfolds.

And the visual effects are really cool, too.

The last one I watched this week was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I started reading the Harry Potter books way back before they were a phenomenon. Well, maybe right on the cusp of its beginning. And though I've never felt they were great literature, or particularly worthy of the praise and crazed mania that they ended up in amongst, they are nevertheless entertaining reads, with a great grasp of character, and with very well woven plot threads that leads to an ending that fits all that had come before.

Half-Blood Prince, as a book, comes at a difficult point in the over arcing plot. The main characters are fleshed out, the main plot threads are in play, and the end game is yet to begin. But the main bad guy and his motivations are left as something of a mystery up to this point, and so Jo Rowling set aside this book to finally tell Voldemort's tale, and provide the final clues to his reign, his return, and his motivations to kill Harry.

But there has to be more to the story than that, and both Rowling, and director David Yates, managed to find a good backbone to carry the characters along. Yates has exploited it in a better way for the film than was portrayed in the book, even though all the beats matched. As he was the director for the previous film, he had set up a few threads that carried through, and that continuity, coupled with the unexpectedly subtle performances, brought it a sincerity that resonated throughout the length of the film.

Basically the kids have grown up. They're teenagers with raging hormones, and are making stupid decisions based on instincts obscured by unimportant things they think are crucial.

The actors have likewise grown up, their acting has improved in every way, but they still have an amateur performance element, which sort of gets on my nerves. But that's being picky, because it's drowned out by spectacle, wonderful relationship moments, and a stylish flourish that bodes well for the next movie.

Which, incidentally, covers one book, but will be split into two films, because it's so long and can't be easily trimmed back.

So I definitely recommend all three of these films for a great evening's entertainment. They are fun, provocative, and spectacular. What more can you hope for?

Panda-Monium

How's that for an original title. Oh well.

Dreamworks Animation has, in my estimation, a bit of a chequered history when it comes to originality. Its very first production was 2D, based on the Biblical story of the Exodus of the Jews, better known as the Ten Commandments, and was called Prince of Egypt.

It was pretty good, but a bit dour and dramatic. Not really a movie for kids, though I'm sure they got something out of it. It's one of those Bible myths that probably has a fair amount of truth to it, somewhere amongst the miracles and epic absurdity. If you ignore the talking to God, burning bushes, and parting of the Red Sea, the story comes down to two brothers who diverge in their beliefs and have a bit of an argy-bargy over ruling their people.

Anyhoo, they soon realised that kind of movie wasn't going to bring in the moolah, so they immediately took a leaf out of Disney's book, and headed down a family friendly comedic route.

The Road To El Dorado which was based on the Bob Hope & Bing Crosby "Road To..." movies, was clearly stolen from what Disney had planned originally for Emperor's New Groove (which had started out as the more dramatically themed Kingdom of the Sun).

Sinbad, which wasn't as good as it ought to have been, was very similar in style to Disney's Treasure Planet.

As Pixar started to make a real impact, Dreamworks shifted its focus to CGI animation, believing that those movies make more money than traditional 2D animation. A load of baseless nonsense, of course. Pixar's success is based entirely on great characters in fun stories with hilarious humour. All things that do not impact the style of art used to create them.

But as the CEO of Dreamworks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, used to work for Disney, he had some insight into what was being developed by Pixar. And though he denies it, he clearly was stealing their concepts and then trying to rush them through to release first. I have always resented that about Dreamworks.

Equivalent movies include:
Antz = A Bug's Life
Shrek = Monsters Inc
Shark Tale = Finding Nemo
Madagascar = Into The Wild

Now, plot-wise they aren't really similar (except for that last one) but if you were to hear on the grapevine that Pixar's next film was going to be about fish, or about monsters, then you can definitely believe Katzenberg would then say "Hey, lets do a movie about monsters". Even worse, they have a new movie out in the new year called Monsters vs Aliens and the character design is so similar to Monsters Inc it's highly suspicious. Though it does look like a funny film.

I watched Dreamworks's new feature last night, Kung Fu Panda. It stars Jack Black as a panda who unexpectedly is chosen as being the greatest warrior of legend and prophecy despite being an incompetent clumsy boob. It is an excellent movie. Really funny, brilliantly animated, and highly recommended.

And best of all, as far as all the plagiarising of ideas that I have just accused Dreamworks of partaking in, this is a wholly original concept, that I can only praise them for.

And this is the thing - when they forego the pop culture references, and choose a story that is not based on another company's production, Dreamworks do amazing stuff, the top of their game. Though the sequel is inevitable, I hope they continue to make original product, one-offs like Over The Hedge (admittedly based on an existing comic strip) and Bee Movie, and don't run ideas (like Shrek) into the ground. They deserve better, and deserve to be seen.

Charley Boorman: By Any Means

I accidentally stumbled upon a cool TV series on DVD a few years ago, which at that point rapidly turned into my favourite documentary ever, called Long Way Round. Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman got on a couple of motorbikes and travelled around the world, pretty much on a straight line through Europe and Asia and America, from London to New York. It was loads of fun, with tons of adventure, and a great voyage of discovery for them both.

Since then they have done another, Long Way Down, which wended its way through Africa. Unfortunately, it didn't quite have the same magic the second time, and was also marred by being over-organised, but it was still great TV.

Charley Boorman has also done something on his own, when he took part in the most dangerous race in the world, the Dakar Rally, in a show called Race To Dakar. I enjoyed that too, but it was very much more oriented towards motorbike racing, so that didn't quite draw me in as much as it might someone who's a fan.

But now his latest solo adventure, By Any Means, is something I've been really enjoying a lot. He and his Producer friend Russ Malkin, who has been part of all the previous series, are taking a trip from Ireland to Sydney, via Asia, using only land transport like cars, bikes, buses, boats, etc, to get there. So far there's been four episodes and it's been fantastic. Always upbeat, interesting, and fun, as well as being seat-of-their-pants racing from place to place, in sometimes very precarious transport.

Michael Palin's journeys, which are similar in vein, are now too structured and colonial to have the visceral appeal it had when he began the Around The World In 80 Days trip he made. Charley (and Ewan) are now taking up that mantle instead, and they're following through admirably, with just the right balance of fun and adventure.

I totally recommend it, I'm sure it will be on DVD soon, and I can't praise Charley enough for managing to front the programme with such ease, competence, and charismatic aplomb. This new found career he has stumbled on of hosting travel and adventure shows is perfect for him, and I hope he continues.

I Like Parcels

Not that long ago, when I had very little money, an awful lot of really cool geeky stuff was made available. They were difficult to source (I occasionally heard about them through my local comic shop), expensive to ship (sometimes shipping cost more than the item itself), and for those reasons, and my lack of cash, I had to let most of them pass me by.

But now I have some money, and the difference is glorious. It's so easy to find the coolest things online. Toys, books, DVDs, music - if you want it, you can get it. Due to demand, shipping is now really competitive and affordable. It's a doddle to get coolness personified sent to me in exciting brown cardboard boxes.

Last week I got a new comic art anthology. Today I got three new DVDs. Next week I expect to get a soundtrack CD and a DVD of one of my favourite movies.

I'm not a fan of the more commonly experienced forms of shopping, i.e. clothes and shoes and wandering from shop to shop, trying stuff on, looking for bargains. Blah. Buying online is so much easier, and more exciting. Perhaps I buy rather too much too often, but I'm careful; It hasn't depleted my savings too much. And it means I get more parcels!

I love getting parcels in the mail.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

As soon as the movie began, showing the spectacular landscapes of Scotland, I immediately recognised it. "That's not Scotland, that's New Zealand." And it turned out I was correct, as I soon spotted some familiar New Zealand actors in the cast.

In truth, Scotland and Otago are very similar in appearance, hence the Scottish settlers in the Dunedin area, but even so New Zealand has a distinctive look that's all its own.

Anyway, that's just the backdrop to the film. The real story is about a boy who is missing his Father, away at War, and needs a friend. He stumbles upon an unlikely item when he was down at the lakeshore, and it turns out to be the egg of the legendary Water Horse, a supposedly mythical creature. As it grows and gets spotted by various locals, it is clear this is the source of all the Loch Ness Monster sightings over the years.

It's a sweetly told story, with a hint of brutal reality scattered throughout, about a friendship between a boy and his monster, and the people who variously discourage and encourage him. The conflict between the military captain and the friendly handyman characters is particularly well handled, and adds a very effective sidestory to keep the characters interesting. The bad guys, however, if you can call them that, are a little under developed.

The visual effects, some of which were composited by my friend Cameron at Weta Digital, are almost universally outstanding. In some shots the interactivity of its motions in the water, especially in the bathtub, were stunningly realised and extremely convincing.

I will enjoy watching this film in the future, and it may become one of my favourites.

3:10 To Yuma

I'm not a fan of Westerns, generally, but there have been a few that I've watched and particularly enjoyed, both movies and TV shows. Some of them are just staples of my childhood and so stick in my mind, but others are great stories wonderfully told, the genre notwithstanding.

But that's the key: Westerns are a genre; and like Science Fiction and Fantasy, it's a setting to tell morality tales. Sure I can enjoy them on the superficial level of gunfights and horse riding, but that's not enough for me, and they're often why I don't like Westerns as a rule - they seem to rely too much on gunfights and horse riding. Just compare any Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western with each other. So to draw me in, they have to have a good story that works on my level.

3:10 To Yuma got some good reviews when it was released last year, so when I saw it was out on DVD I was interested. I have enjoyed Christian Bale a lot recently, and there's no doubt that Russell Crowe is a great draw card, even if he is a dickhead in real life (cf. Robert Downey Jr). On a whim I bought the DVD. It might introduce me to the genre in a more serious way, but if nothing else it should be entertaining.

As I have gotten more involved in movie making, genres as a concept have started to interest me more. I am not a fan of Horror, but I have worked on Horror stories and movies. I am not a fan of War films, but working on Checkpoint for Rob was something that interested me a lot. I am not into steam trains, but having made a model of one for Checkpoint, I had to do some research and it really interested me, now that I had a purpose motivating it. Soon I'll be researching jet fighter planes for similar reasons.

So the Genre of the Western - the tropes, the clichés, the stereotypes, the myths, the stories - hold a fascination for me now that they haven't before, and it's interesting to see modern film-makers take them and twist them into something modern audiences will enjoy. That in and of itself is something I should pay attention to: How do you take a genre full of well worn clichés and turn them into something new, and watchable, and unpredictable?

Perfect Day

Today I decided to go into town to pick up a few things. I had four things I specifically wanted to buy, and also have lunch.

Firstly, the weather was perfectly pleasant. Cold (it's winter) but clear skies.

Next, I walked to the train station, unhindered, and bought a two hour ticket, which actually gave me 2.75 hours when you buy it at the right time. The next train arrived promptly thereafter, on schedule, and got me into the city in rapid time.

Then I got off at the stop nearest to where I wanted to be, walked straight there, and bought the two DVDs I wanted, which were prominently displayed and easy to locate. I even bought another one that I had long been considering purchasing, on a whim.

Half a block down the road was a bookstore I wanted to get a very specfic item from, but it was something that had only been released a few days ago, in the US, so I wasn't sure if it would be here yet. But as it's published in Australia, I had some hopes. I didn't find it on the shelf, though I did get another book I had been wanting, so went to the counter to pay for it, and there behind the counter was the first book I wanted - the last in the store. I grabbed it.

Then I went half a block to have the very lunch I had been craving for all morning. It was tasty, with friendly service, and I quickly consumed. I wandered over to the Tram stop, and my tram had just arrived. I leapt on, and headed home, where it dropped me off at my door.

A perfect day.

Enchanted

Wow, what a wonderful movie! That's what all the reviews said I'd be feeling after seeing it, and were they ever right! It's a beautiful take on fairy tale films, and the Disney-ified approach in particular. Kind of poking fun at them, while also contributing to and honouring them.

Very funny, incredibly heartwarming performances, as romantic comedies go this has to be in my top five. Amy Adams as Giselle and James Marsden as the over-the-top Prince Edward were particularly impressive. Playing an animated character in live action is not something that is often done, especially in this style, and they managed groundbreaking performances that really shone. Top marks to them!

And the animation at the beginning was also fantastic. I liked the colour choices they used, especially in the lines. I've not seen them apply that technique so successfully before, and I hope to see more like it in future animated films, such as the upcoming Princess and the Frog.

There were hundreds of sly references and homages to actual Disney animated films, and a list of them can be found here. It was truly a dazzling display of film making, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everybody!

Disturbing Trend With DVDs

I live in a fairly average suburb; not too far away from the city centre, but not so close it's expensive and elite. The local shopping area is quite comprehensive, with everything you could want, and a few specialist shops besides. It doesn't have a good hot chicken franchise, though.

However, it does not have a specialist DVD store. Rental shops, yes, but not for buying, so the only place I can go locally to get my fix (and DVDs are one of my few real vices, if you can even call it that) is the Target store. Target covers a wide range of items, not really specialising in anything specific except maybe household goods and clothes, and they carry a few big and cheap brands, but not much else. In the realms of DVDs, therefore, there are serious holes in their available selection.

One thing that annoys me is that they don't get in the newest movies on the official day of release, and instead it may be four or five days before they appear. This doesn't really bother most consumers, but for people like me, especially when it's something I've been pining for in my annoying geeky way, then it can be quite frustrating to make the effort to go in specifically and not find it there.

The next thing that bothers me is that the selection is so naff. It's usually just the big name movies, a few of the really popular TV series, rather a lot of the stupid crap for the under 2s, and whole shitloads of oldie stuff from before 1950. So if I want something a little unusual, such as season 2 of Count Duckula, or Ross Noble's latest stand up show, then most likely I'll never find it anywhere in their store. I'm sure they would order it in, but it would take them days to get it, and there may even be an extra charge for the effort, when it's easier for me to just hop on a tram and grab it elsewhere.

And now we come to the crux of why I'm ranting today. A new trend has begun at Target and other major retailers (Borders is doing this too) and that is some movies are coming out with two editions - a barebones one with no special features, and a 2-disc edition with all the bells and whistles. It used to be that they only stocked the full-on edition, so no matter which store you went to, the moment you recognised the name of the movie on the cover you could pick it up confident that it was the bestest available in the country. But now that can't be relied upon. Now Target et al are only getting in the barebones editions!

Bastards!

This means that in order to get the version I want, I have to make the effort of going to a more comprehensive store, which in this case is going to have to be JB Hi-Fi, the only store in the country that does it properly. I wouldn't even trust Ezy-DVD's shop to stock it, as they seem to be tiny and pokey and a lot less impressive than you'd think considering their online store.

But JBs doesn't have a store conveniently near me - the nearest ones are about 5km from here (in all four compass directions) so they're a tram or train journey away. That's not a great expense, but it is annoyingly time consuming.

I have to be vigilant. Today I almost bought The Golden Compass from Target without checking the back for the list of its content, but I did check anyway out of force of habit. Lucky that I did, it had no mention of any extra features. I thought that was very unusual, considering it's a visual extravaganza of a film, and it would be perfect for showcasing a bunch of cool documentaries showing off their effort. So I looked around the shelves, but no other edition was visible - that is, except for the Blu-Ray one, which strangely enough listed shitloads of cool stuff. So I knew something was up. I decided to detour to Chapel St and go to the JBs there, and sure enough, there it was: a 2-disc edition, right there on the top shelf.

I was careful this time, but I am sure one day I'll accidentally drop my guard and end up with the naff edition of something sometime soon.

Damn them!

The Dark Knight Returns

A new Batman film, by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, a sequel to their triumphant debut Batman Begins, is nearly here - The Dark Knight - and this is their latest poster for it. I am writing this post just because that poster is so cool!

This is the famous film that represents Heath Ledger's penultimate adventure before his death. It's going to get some amount of publicity just for that, but I think it would've been marked as a great performance even if he had not died, if the trailers are anything to judge.

I am very much looking forward to it - it's a good year for fantasy movies, but like last year the majority of them are sequels. The list of "I can't wait to see them so bad I'll even see them in a cinema" for me include:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Wall*E
The Dark Knight
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Hellboy 2
Prince Caspian

Iron Man is out next week, but unlike the rest of the world I really don't see what's so exciting about this film - it looks pretty regular to me. So I will most likely wait for DVD for this one. Along with:

Spiderwick Chronicles
Wanted
Lovely Bones
Get Smart
Quantum of Solace (Bond 22)

I'm sure there are more that I'll want on DVD, I usually buy about 50 a year, though many of those are TV shows and older productions that are finally getting a release.

Sam and Max

I love Sam and Max. I was first introduced to them when I was hanging around a friend of mine's comic collection, and in one of them they had a small article about Sam and Max comics. I loved what I saw, and sought out the trade paperback collection "Surfin' The Highway" which had me in stitches!

Then the Lucasarts game came out, and I knew I had to have it. I was a big fan of Lucasarts adventure games, having been a fan of Monkey Island and Zak McKracken already (and later games like Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle). I grabbed it as soon as I could, and it was possibly the most fun game ever made (with the possible exception of Monkey Island). Completely silly. I remember my friend Simon and I played it together and were rolling on the floor with laughter.

There was a cartoon of Sam and Max on TV in the late 90s, but it passed me by - it must've been at an obscure time of day that caused me to miss it (I was working then, so that was probably why) but I had hopes that Sam and Max would return at a later date in another new form. Steve Purcell, the creator of the characters, worked for Lucasarts, but then he moved to Pixar, where he still works, and yet I heard that Lucasarts were planning on making an all new Sam and Max adventure game. I emailed Steve Purcell himself, and asked him if he was still involved, and he actually replied! He said he was. But soon after that, Lucasarts made one of the stupidest decisions (in a long line of recently stupid decisions) and pulled the game from completion (along with a Full Throttle sequel) because they thought adventures wouldn't make them money, and now stick almost exclusively to Star Wars and Indiana Jones licenses. They've sucked that well dry, in my opinion, but anyways...

Telltale Games then said they had the license to Sam and Max. Having never heard of these guys, I wasn't sure about them, but as it turned out most of the team there were ex-Lucasarts, and more importantly they worked on the Sam and Max game that was stopped, so really what they were creating was essentially the same kind of game as Lucasarts would've made anyway (even though it was a different storyline this time). I haven't played this game yet, I haven't found the time to download it, but I do plan to do so soon.

Telltale do have merchandise available on their site related to the game, which I have grabbed. I have a t-shirt, cap, and book of sketches, all of Sam and Max. It's also where I was introduced to Bone, another game they make, and which came from an associated comic book series. I have the complete black-and-white trade paperback of that, and it's an astonishing work. I am looking forward to the movie that Warner Brothers are making of it.

But the reason I brought this up is that the aforementioned TV series of Sam and Max is now out on DVD, and I have bought that. It's just as surreal and manic as all its other incarnations, and is a delight! It even comes with some extra features, though I haven't watched them yet. I heartily recommend that you rush out and buy it now! Now, I tells ya, now! No, put that down, I said go out and get it right now! What is ya, deaf?

Beowulf

I just watched Beowulf on DVD. It was very pretty, but not quite as impressive as it tried to be.

As a story, and a myth, it was wonderful. It's one of the oldest myths, apparently from the Vikings, one that JRR Tolkien was somewhat enamoured by, inspiring him to write Lord of the Rings (though the themes don't mirror it in any way).

But the movie, which employed 3D computer graphics recorded from motion capture by the (excellent) performers, was a little bit still stuck in the Uncanny Valley, which I found quite distracting. I did get used to it, but it didn't really stop happening throughout. And a lot of the animation/motion was still a little stiff and jerky - not unlike a (very impressively elaborate and detailed) cut-scene from a video game.

So we're still in an experimental mode for this art form, even this far along since Final Fantasy. Indeed, I think I preferred FF's achievements in motion capture, as its more stylised character design suited the lack of finesse in the capture/animation, while the higher production values and technological improvements applied to Beowulf was a mismatch, and should've heralded a better finished product.

Oh well. It had Angelina Jolie almost (digitally) naked, which isn't such a bad thing to see.