11/19/04
Weekly Release Roundup
Lots of good stuff this week... so much so that I wasn't quite able
to get to all of it. This includes Synapse's Fantasm
and Fantasm Comes Again,
Warner's The Iron Giant: Special Edition,
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume Three
and Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Volume
Two, Shout! Factory's Home
Movies: Season One, Home Vision's Late
Night Shopping and Criterion's Short
Cuts. But don't worry - next week's a little slow with
the holiday, so I'll take a look at them then.
In the meantime, take a gander at these choice discs...
  |
The
Bird People in China
This beautiful Takashi Miike film isn't so beautiful on DVD,
but if you're a fan of his oeuvre, you'll want to soldier
through the DVD presentation and try and enjoy the film. Three
men who don't really want to be going where they are going, head
towards an isolated village in China to monitor a Jade vein. One
is a salaryman, working for the company with a stake in the
claim, another is an aging Yakuza who the company owes a hunk of
cash to and they want to see if their debts will be paid and the
third is their guide. When they finally get to the village each
of them will find redemption, in their own way, and come to
grips with their own stations in life. Not the typical Miike
film, but a really good, well paced and fun film nonetheless.
ArtsMagicDVD has been doing a service to Miike fans by bringing
a large part of his films to DVD fans, and God bless them for
it. Sadly though, this presentation is one of their worst. The
video quality is subpar. Even though it's an anamorphic
widescreen transfer, it looks like it was pulled from a VHS.
It's too bad because this could have been a gorgeous looking
DVD. Sound is also a fumble. Even though it's Dolby Digital 5.1,
it sounds as if each of the channels is mixed the same, making
it nothing more than a glorified mono track. The extras raise it
up a bit. They include a commentary by Miike authority Tom Mes,
which is a well-rounded and informative track, an interview with
Miike, biography and filmography for Miike and the three stars
of the film and trailers for this and Miike's Black
Society films also released by ArtsMagic. I highly
recommend catching this film, but I'm mixed on doing it with
this DVD. |
 |
Blue
Remains
There's another ArtsMagic DVD on the shelves this week, and
it's a little known Japanese CGI feature. Although the animation
is dated, the story is okay. A young girl and her parents are
sent to a post-apocalyptic Earth to help re-harvest the Oceans,
but there's a problem and the parents die, but not before
throwing their daughter into cryosleep. A few years later, the
young girl wakes up and, with the help from mutant friends and a
robot dolphin, has to fulfill her parents job and her own
destiny. But will the evil Glyptofane Sex stop her? No. The
animation is clunky, but it works. If you're a fan of anime or
CGI in particular, you'll probably want to check out this for
the curiosity factor. Otherwise, if you're looking for Final
Fantasy 2, skip it. The anamorphic widescreen looks
damn good, slightly redeeming ArtsMagic for Bird
People. Sound is also vastly improved with a Dolby
Digital 5.1 track for both the Japanese and English dub. Extras
are a bit light, with biographies and filmographies for the
technical crew behind the film and an interview with the
co-director/writer and trailers for this and one of ArtsMagic's
other CGI animes: A.LI.CE.. |
 |
Elf:
Infinifilm Edition
Cute flick. Will Farrell plays Buddy, a young man who was
raised by Christmas elves in the North Pole. When he finds out
he's not really an elf, he is sent by Santa (Ed Asner) and his
adoptive father (played by Bob Newhart) to New York to find his
biological father (James Caan) and eat lots and lots of candy
and syrup. There he finds a new family, love and reason to
spread the true meaning of Christmas. Elf
is a very funny flick, filled with sight gags galore. New Line
is marketing this as a full fledged family film, complete with a
separate disc devoted to children's games and a full frame
transfer. I didn't quite get how this is a kid's flick, but hey,
if it helps New Line make another buck or two, more power to
them. So, this is a two disc set, disc one is the anamorphic
widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and it both looks and
sounds great. Disc Two is full frame and Dolby Digital 5.1 and
it also looks and sound good. Now, considering this is a New
Line special edition, I can say the word Infinifilm and not
confuse you. I love the idea behind Infinifilm, love packed
special editions, but the layout and function of this disc is
beyond shitty. Forget the Beyond the Film tag for this format,
we should dub it Beyond Shitty. I couldn't navigate through this
disc to save myself, but hey... I'm just a DVD journalist, what
do I know? Apparently there is a commentary with director Jon
Favreau and Farrell, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes,
karaoke, storybook stuff, DVD-ROM script-to-screen, digital
photography features and other fun stuff. But I couldn't find
it. Supposedly, this is a jam packed disc that will take you a
few hours to figure out and a few more to watch and enjoy. Lucky
for me, I couldn't find jack. |
 |
Fanny
& Alexander Box Set
The one thing in life that forces you to continually grow is
change, and no film characters know that fact better than Fanny
and Alexander Ekdahl. Fanny &
Alexander is Ingmar Bergman's semi-autobiographical
story about his own childhood in turn of the century Sweden and
is probably one of the most touching films I've seen in a long
while. Ten-year old Alexander and his eight-year old sister
Fanny live in a house filled with joy. Everyone sings, plays and
tells stories, up until their father Oscar dies, and their
mother remarries a stern and disapproving man who wants his new
family to stop living in the past... but the children can't and
thus, we have a story to tell. Winner of 1982's Academy Award
for Best Foreign Film, this is a great film and one so good that
Bergman decided to end his big screen career with it. The
Criterion Collection offers up both the 3 hourish theatrical cut
and the five-hour Swedish television cut on a new five-disc
collector's edition. |
Both
feature really nice anamorphic widescreen transfers with well
rendered Dolby Digital mono sound. Besides getting the unreleased in
America longer version, Criterion throws in the long form making of
documentary created by Bergman himself: The
Making of Fanny & Alexander, which is a just a huge
extra in and of itself. But forget that, there's even more. How
about a super informative commentary by Peter Cowie? Want more, do
you? Okay. There's also a vintage hour-long TV interview with
Bergman, a collection of video introductions by Bergman for eleven
of his films, a buncha trailers, sketches, stills, behind the scenes
footage and the trademark Criterion liner book packed with essays.
It's a big set for a big film, and I hope you find the time to check
it out. It's discovering films like this that keep me doing this
job.
 |
Buck
Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Epic Series
Bill looked at this title last week and mostly enjoyed it. Read
his review
here. |
Both
feature really nice anamorphic widescreen transfers with well
rendered Dolby Digital mono sound. Besides getting the unreleased in
America longer version, Criterion throws in the long form making of
documentary created by Bergman himself: The
Making of Fanny & Alexander, which is a just a huge
extra in and of itself. But forget that, there's even more. How
about a super informative commentary by Peter Cowie? Want more, do
you? Okay. There's also a vintage hour-long TV interview with
Bergman, a collection of video introductions by Bergman for eleven
of his films, a buncha trailers, sketches, stills, behind the scenes
footage and the trademark Criterion liner book packed with essays.
It's a big set for a big film, and I hope you find the time to check
it out. It's discovering films like this that keep me doing this
job.
New
TV on DVD from last week:
The
Andy Griffith Show: The Complete First Season,
Buffy
the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Seventh Season,
Clive
Barker Presents Saint Sinner,
The
Commish: Season One,
Farscape:
Starburst Edition - Season One, Set One,
Frasier:
The Final Season,
The
Hebrew Hammer,
Kids
in the Hall: Season Two (1990-1991),
National
Lampoon's Holiday Reunion,
The
Office Special,
Pee-wee's
Playhouse #1,
Pee-wee's
Playhouse #2,
Richard
Pryor: I Ain't Dead Yet, #*%$#@!!,
Riverworld
and
Smallville:
The Complete Third Season.
  
Also available this week:
Bob
& Carol & Ted & Alice,
The
Chronicles of Riddick,
Foul
Play,
Henry
VIII,
I'll
Sleep When I'm Dead,
Kangaroo
Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!,
The
Loveless,
Macbeth,
Peter
Gabriel: Play (reviewed
here by Matt),
The
Pickle,
Ragtime,
The
Saddest Music in the World,
A
Wrinkle in Time and
Yu-Gi-Oh!
The Movie.
  
Hang on through the weekend and I'll be back Tuesdayish with more
outstanding discs.
If you can't wait, well then enjoy your turkey and stuffing and be
back here in two weeks when we're hoping to have a look at Spider-Man
2.
Weeeeeeeee!
Todd Doogan
todddoogan@thedigitalbits.com |
