When I started the Blogorium over on another social media site several years ago, I eventually became an early adopter of Blu-Ray. At the time, I worked at a used book store that sold video games and systems and I was able to purchase an 80gb PS3, partially for the games but mostly for the shiny new discs that beat HD-DVD in the "successor to DVD" format war. I wanted to upgrade TVs from the old standby 17" (?) set I had (and its twin, a loaner from a friend who moved) and eventually did pick up that HDTV monstrosity (it's in storage now for various reasons).
At the time, I was gently mocked by friends for taking such an interest in a "niche" market for home entertainment, to the point that I jokingly referred to all Blu-Ray and HDTV posts as being "fancy schmancy." Now that most of the world seems to be catching up (because Blu-Ray discs are often cheaper than their DVD counterparts and you don't have to get rid of your DVDs with a BD player), I haven't used the term in a while.
People seem to be moving more and more into the "all digital" direction, to the point that a younger co-worker derisively said to me "Blu-Ray is for noobs!" I laughed out loud, because that doesn't make any sense, especially coming from someone who never knew an analog world. I'm not articulating this well, but I think anybody who has been following the development of home media for the last... let's just say thirty years is far from being a "noob" on the subject. Maybe I'm the opposite - the fuddy duddy who still likes to have a tangible copy of something, an actual library of film, music, and books. I have plenty of digital copies and songs on iTunes (no e-reader to speak of), but there's something to be said for having friends over and giving them time to look through your shelves in the down time.
We've also established that I'm a "supplement junkie," and you don't get those kinds of extras with a digital copy. I get most people could care less about commentary tracks or making of documentaries or retrospectives, but it's not a coincidence that I buy Criterion discs that have lots of contextualizing extras about the films. To me, that's as interesting as the film itself - watch the second disc of The Battle of Algiers (if it's the DVD, the second and third discs) and then watch the film again. The all digital, just the movie world of cloud technology isn't totally for me just yet. It has its purpose, but it doesn't replace a shelf full of quality releases.
Speaking of quality releases, I think that was the point of this whole post... I must have gotten lost back there somewhere. Oh well, let's skip to the chase. The following are some of the most interesting discs I picked up in 2011. Not all of them were released in 2011 (I'm guessing with the imports anyway) but it's my list so you'll live. When possible, I'm going to put up links where you can buy them, because several are titles you probably didn't know you could buy and are already available.
For starters, let's look at this:
A Nightmare on Elm Street Collection - In the US, we got the first Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray released in time for the shitty remake in 2010. Last October, we got a double feature of 2 and 3 on one disc... and that's it. Not the worst deal, necessarily - two of the best entries in the series and... well, Freddy's Revenge. Still, it's not like we can replace our boxed set yet, right?
Not true, gang - Amazon.co.uk had an October 2011 release of the entire series on Blu-Ray. The five disc set replicates the individual release of the first film and then doubles up 2/3, 4/5, and 6/7, with a bonus disc of new extras, including episodes of Freddy's Nightmares, the anthology-ish series that you can only see if you're patient enough to watch Chiller for a week.
(Oh, Freddy vs. Jason fanatics are admittedly SOL, but that's not really a Nightmare film anyway. Wait... are there Freddy vs. Jason fanatics?)
Additionally, each of the BD discs has all of the interview clips from the seventh disc of the Nightmare on Elm Street DVD set, but without having to navigate the "labyrinth" to find them. Even though we're dealing with two films per disc, I have to say that all of the sequels look very good in high definition. This set will probably come out in the US (let's hope by next October) but if you've got a Freddy fix, the whole thing is available now. Most importantly, it's REGION FREE, meaning that all of the movies are going to play on any BD player you have here in the states.
Payback - also region free and available on Amazon's UK site, the release of Payback overseas improves the existing BD release here by including both versions of the film (the US release only has the director's cut) plus all of the extras from both original discs. Whether you like one version or the other, it's got something for all Payback fans, so you can watch it whenever you like, however you like. Let's hope Point Blank makes the leap to high definition in 2012...
Taxi Driver - Everything included from all the various versions of the DVD, plus the Criterion laserdisc commentary with Scorsese, at a very reasonable price. What's not to like?
Citizen Kane (Ultimate SomethingorOther Edition) - Best Buy has a two-disc version with Kane and The Battle for Citizen Kane, which is nice, but the super fancy schmancy edition (for a few dollars more) also includes RKO 281 and The Magnificent Ambersons. If you want to quibble, only Citizen Kane is a BD disc, but it's a nice set that encompasses all things Kane with the added bonus of the only version of The Magnificent Ambersons we're ever going to get included as a bonus. The film looks fantastic, by the way.
Battle Royale - I know Anchor Bay is releasing BR next week on Blu-Ray, but Arrow Films beat them to the punch in the UK with a region free set of the theatrical cut, the director's cut, and an additional disc of extras for what amounted to $35 at the end of 2010. As I didn't get it until 2011, I'm counting it - it also doesn't include Battle Royale II, which is a very nice thing for Arrow to do. That would only sully the experience. I opted for the super fancy, now out-of-print Limited Edition, which came with some other fun stuff, but you can still get the three disc version for a reasonable price.
The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions - Is it maybe a pain to switch out the discs? I guess. Are the "appendices" just DVDs? Well, yes. Will I take this over the "theatrical" Blu-Ray set? Any day. The movies look better, all of the extras are intact, and the extra documentaries from the "Limited Editions" are included for good measure. It's an impressive package, all things considered.
The Twilight Zone - I finally have all five seasons on Blu-Ray, and it's more than worth your while to pick the sets up. Yes, you can watch the episodes on Netflix, and they look pretty spiffy. The sets are packed to the gills with everything a TZ fanatic like the Cap'n could possibly want to see, hear, or know. I didn't think a series would catapult past Battlestar Galactica's complete set, but The Twilight Zone on Blu-Ray did it in spades.
Blue Velvet - on Blu-Ray, with an hour of long thought lost footage, restored and fancy schmancy-ed by David Lynch.
I couldn't narrow down the Criterion selections, so here's just a sampling of what they kicked our collective asses with this year: Kiss Me Deadly, Three Colors, The Great Dictator, The Killing / Killer's Kiss, Island of Lost Souls, The Music Room, 12 Angry Men, Cul-De-Sac, Blow Out, Carlos, The Phantom Carriage, and Sweet Smell of Success. That's not counting the HD upgrades to Beauty and the Beast, Orpheus, The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, Rushmore, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Dazed and Confused, The Double Life of Veronique, Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge, The Battle of Algiers, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Solaris, Diabolique, Smiles of a Summer Night, or Fanny and Alexander. To name a few.
Special kudos also go to Lionsgate for slowly but surely releasing Miramax films in a way that doesn't suck (*coughEchoBridgecough*), including Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Cop Land, Trainspotting, The Others, Mimic (in a Director's Cut!), Heavenly Creatures, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Amelie. It's too bad Echo Bridge got From Dusk Till Dawn with all the Children of the Corn and Hellraiser sequels, because unless you want to see what happens when FDtD looks like when crammed onto a disc with both of its sequels and the documentary Full Tilt Boogie, you won't be seeing it on Blu-Ray (unless Criterion gets it... knocks on wood*). Oh sure, it's ten bucks, and that's three dollars more than just From Dusk Till Dawn on Blu-Ray (no, seriously), but it looks like crap. Trust me; someone bought it for me and I looked at all four movies on the disc. From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter probably looks the best of the three of them. Technically they're all watchable quality, but it's a missed opportunity to be damned sure when you see that Lionsgate is releasing HD versions with all of the extras from the DVD versions. Echo Bridge? Not so much.
Finally, I must admit that while nobody else seems to care for them, I was quite impressed in having everything together in the Stanley Kubrick Limited Edition Collection and I also bought the nine disc Star Wars Saga. I watched most of the extras and some of the movies. Guess which ones (okay, one) I haven't put in... Hint: It's EPISODE ONE THE PHANTOM MENACE. I won't be buying the 3D Blu-Ray Set, even if I have a 3D TV at that point. I'm also not going to see The Phantom Menace in 3D. You don't need to believe me because I know that's true.
And I'm out of steam... there were more, but I'll get to them another time.
* This is not as crazy as it sounds - I still have the Miramax DVD set of the Three Colors Trilogy, and Criterion picked up the rights to that...
Showing posts with label 3d. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3d. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, June 20, 2011
What the Hell Week: Saw 3D
Welcome to "What the Hell" week, a series of reviews devoted to films that I hadn't planned on ever seeing, but oh well, why not? I just said "what the hell" and am going to take a look at a few flicks that didn't seem like something I'd want to watch. For those of you hoping for those flicks to have the words "Avatar" or "Twilight" in them, I'm sorry to disappoint - that's not happening. Tomorrow's Retro Review is also a "What the Hell" as in "what the hell was I thinking?," and other than a brief stop for a Video Daily Double on Wednesday, I'll be in "adventurous" mode until Sunday.
---
Let me get something straight here: there are people that not only watched, but LIKED all seven Saw movies? In particular, there are people who felt that Saw 3D was a fitting close to the series? I know at least two people who have seen and have begged me to watch the films after I abandoned the Saw franchise halfway through Saw III, but both of them claim that the movies get so "stupid" that I'd enjoy them on that level. As I just said, my history with the Saw films is truncated: I kinda liked the first film, less and less on repeated viewings, I hated Saw II, and couldn't get more than twenty minutes into Saw III before I turned it off. I never entertained watching IV, V, or VI, despite attempts to include them in Horror Fests or just for my own amusement. I had no plans to watch Saw 3D, but in the spirit of this theme week, "What the Hell?"
Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is hard at work as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell)'s successor, and has his sights set on Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) -Jigsaw's widow - who tried to kill him with one of her husband's traps. When Jill turns herself in to Detective Matt Gibson (Chad Donella), who has been hunting Hoffman, the killer sets his sights on Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flannery), a survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps, now doing the talk show circuit with his book Survive. The only problem is that Bobby Dagen was never in one of Jigsaw's games, and his attempt to cash in raised the ire of the original moral murderer. Hoffman sets up a real game for Bobby, one designed to test his willpower and see if he can truly call himself a "survivor." Meanwhile, Gibson is drawing ever closer to Hoffman, or is it the other way around?
It's probably worth noting that the title of the film is not Saw VII, but Saw 3D (although I saw it in 2D) - the title on the home video Blu-Ray and DVD may say "Saw: The Final Chapter," but the on-screen title is Saw 3D. Secretly I'd hoped that instead of the seventh entry into what sounds like a hopelessly convoluted series, I would instead see a remake of Saw III, but with 3D gimmickry. Boy howdy do I bet that would have bristled these alleged Saw "fans." Alas, that's not the case, but in for a penny, in for a pound. What the hell, right? I already started watching it...
And what the hell indeed, because not only was it really, really easy to pick up on plot developments in the three-and-a-half films I skipped, but for a film that seems to bring things "full circle," Saw 3D more or less just borrows plot elements from earlier Saw films wholesale: the ending comes directly from Saw II, where a heretofore unknown accomplice of Jigsaw turns up to thwart the plans of a main character, and then locks him in the room from the first film, there's the beginning of Saw III, where a character we assumed was doomed escapes from said room and finds a way to figure into the series again, and another series of non-existent "flashbacks" used to ret-con the series disguised as "revelation" (this I understand figures prominently into Saw IV, V, and VI).
In the meantime, nothing else has changed whatsoever - the film opens with a kill that has nothing to do with the story, but exists to keep the bored gorehounds that flock to see these films drunk with bloodlust so that writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Feast, The Collector) can dither around with the plot until the next bloody set-piece. Director Kevin Greutert graduated from Saw editor to Saw director with the sixth and seventh entries of the franchise, and if he was asked to make every room look over-cluttered and interchangeable so that things like a sense of geography were irrelevant, then job well done.
I don't know whether to blame Greutert, Melton, Dunstan or the actors for the terrible dialogue: one the one hand, someone had to write garbage like "these are my scars... 'cause our minds will heal, but these scars will never go away. These scars shan't be a symbol of shame... they should be worn as a badge of courage," but frequently the delivery is so awful that it does no favors to the screenwriters. Chad Donella's Gibson is so terrible that every scene he has with Betsy Russell (Cheerleader Camp) is laugh out loud funny. I don't think that was the intention. Even Tobin Bell is terrible in his manufactured flashback to connect John Kramer / Jigsaw to Bobby Dagen.
Special mention goes out to Cary Elwes, who (SPOILER, but like I really care at this point) returns to the role of Dr. Lawrence Gordon, someone I think we all assumed died at the end of Saw, but it turns out didn't. Mostly he growls and grumbles, and really seems pointless in the film until it's time for his not-at-all-surprising "twist" - something you should be able to figure out just by knowing that Dr. Gordon didn't die. If it's that hard to figure out, go back up three paragraphs or think carefully about how Saw II ended.
Saw 3D makes the critical mistake of being more interested in the cat-and-mouse games between Hoffman and the police than the grand guignol murder set-pieces, so to justify the film's existence for gore obsessed fans and the extra five bucks for 3D glasses, Greutert and the writers shoehorn in some more mostly unrelated "games" with characters that have no bearing on the story itself. The series set the precedent of an opening kill, and Saw 3D's involves a love triangle, a blade see-saw (of sorts) and a reverse pendulum. What I'll give Greutert credit for is putting the trap in full view of passers-by: the trap is in a glass box in the middle of downtown wherever they shot this*, which is a pleasant change of pace from "dingy room," the setting for every other kill in the series. It actually lends a slight sense of tension to the inevitable bloodbath as people begin to panic outside of the trap (even if most of them do nothing to help).
On the other hand, the creative team is so strapped for kills that they include a white supremacist group (led by Linkin Park's Chester Bennington) in a garage "game" so they can quickly rip the skin off of one person's back, run a tire through another's head, rip a man's jaw and arms off, and pulverize the final victim, all in the name of finding a way to get Hoffman from outside of the police station to inside. When you realize that all of that effort went into switching bodies in a bag, the effort seems a little ridiculous, and on top of that, Hoffman also went out of his way to make sure that IF Gibson figured out where he was that a turret machine gun would (SPOILER) kill him and destroy the fake Jigsaw lair.
The coup-de-grace, however, is not even the Bobby Dagen "game," which has the weakest kills by far (including one that's almost identical to a trap from Saw II), but the fact that in order to squeeze one more drop of blood out of this turnip, the writers create a dream sequence in order to kill Jill off twice in the same movie. The contraption used for the dream sequence feels like a mandate from the studio for one more 3D shot, because there's no reason it would exist in the movie otherwise.
(for the record, it's easy to see where the 3D would be in the film, even in 2D, and I have to say that it wouldn't be worth the extra cash to me: it mostly consisted of guts, keys, and a hacksaw being flung at the camera)
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that if the Cap'n didn't mind missing three and a half Saw movies that I'd probably hate Saw 3D, but the series continued success has perplexed me. As someone watching from the outside, I had initially planned to just sit out the whole thing and be happy in ignorance, but at least now I can say that I KNOW I didn't miss anything skipping the middle entries**. Under normal circumstances, this would be a So You Won't Have To, but the whole point of "What the Hell" week is to look at movies that people saw so that I wouldn't have to. I'm doing it anyway, but there's always a chance of a pleasant surprise to come, right?
A final note: while Lionsgate, the creative team, and anybody involved with the sequels swears there won't be a Saw VIII, original creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell have indicated that they would like to come back and "close out" the franchise once and for all. I mention this because later this week I'll be taking a look at one of their non-Saw films, Insidious, but also to indicate that it doesn't matter how terrible a sequel gets, how limply it moves to tie itself with A Nightmare on Elm Street for number of entries, or how inexplicable its popularity is***; there will always be room for one more crappy sequel as long as there's money to be made.
* Toronto, but the film's police station is identified as "Metropolitan Police Station" on the sign, so who knows where they want you to think this crap takes place.
** It was explained to me that Saw 3D was "as stupid" as IV, V, and VI, so I feel confident that I understand what I didn't see.
*** Seriously, if someone would like to explain to me why you keep watching these movies, I'd love to hear it. The "mythology" of the films is constantly being revised because the formula of the sequels are stale and interchangeable, the kills aren't really that impressive, and the acting is borderline amateur hour.
---
Let me get something straight here: there are people that not only watched, but LIKED all seven Saw movies? In particular, there are people who felt that Saw 3D was a fitting close to the series? I know at least two people who have seen and have begged me to watch the films after I abandoned the Saw franchise halfway through Saw III, but both of them claim that the movies get so "stupid" that I'd enjoy them on that level. As I just said, my history with the Saw films is truncated: I kinda liked the first film, less and less on repeated viewings, I hated Saw II, and couldn't get more than twenty minutes into Saw III before I turned it off. I never entertained watching IV, V, or VI, despite attempts to include them in Horror Fests or just for my own amusement. I had no plans to watch Saw 3D, but in the spirit of this theme week, "What the Hell?"
It's probably worth noting that the title of the film is not Saw VII, but Saw 3D (although I saw it in 2D) - the title on the home video Blu-Ray and DVD may say "Saw: The Final Chapter," but the on-screen title is Saw 3D. Secretly I'd hoped that instead of the seventh entry into what sounds like a hopelessly convoluted series, I would instead see a remake of Saw III, but with 3D gimmickry. Boy howdy do I bet that would have bristled these alleged Saw "fans." Alas, that's not the case, but in for a penny, in for a pound. What the hell, right? I already started watching it...
And what the hell indeed, because not only was it really, really easy to pick up on plot developments in the three-and-a-half films I skipped, but for a film that seems to bring things "full circle," Saw 3D more or less just borrows plot elements from earlier Saw films wholesale: the ending comes directly from Saw II, where a heretofore unknown accomplice of Jigsaw turns up to thwart the plans of a main character, and then locks him in the room from the first film, there's the beginning of Saw III, where a character we assumed was doomed escapes from said room and finds a way to figure into the series again, and another series of non-existent "flashbacks" used to ret-con the series disguised as "revelation" (this I understand figures prominently into Saw IV, V, and VI).
In the meantime, nothing else has changed whatsoever - the film opens with a kill that has nothing to do with the story, but exists to keep the bored gorehounds that flock to see these films drunk with bloodlust so that writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Feast, The Collector) can dither around with the plot until the next bloody set-piece. Director Kevin Greutert graduated from Saw editor to Saw director with the sixth and seventh entries of the franchise, and if he was asked to make every room look over-cluttered and interchangeable so that things like a sense of geography were irrelevant, then job well done.
I don't know whether to blame Greutert, Melton, Dunstan or the actors for the terrible dialogue: one the one hand, someone had to write garbage like "these are my scars... 'cause our minds will heal, but these scars will never go away. These scars shan't be a symbol of shame... they should be worn as a badge of courage," but frequently the delivery is so awful that it does no favors to the screenwriters. Chad Donella's Gibson is so terrible that every scene he has with Betsy Russell (Cheerleader Camp) is laugh out loud funny. I don't think that was the intention. Even Tobin Bell is terrible in his manufactured flashback to connect John Kramer / Jigsaw to Bobby Dagen.
Special mention goes out to Cary Elwes, who (SPOILER, but like I really care at this point) returns to the role of Dr. Lawrence Gordon, someone I think we all assumed died at the end of Saw, but it turns out didn't. Mostly he growls and grumbles, and really seems pointless in the film until it's time for his not-at-all-surprising "twist" - something you should be able to figure out just by knowing that Dr. Gordon didn't die. If it's that hard to figure out, go back up three paragraphs or think carefully about how Saw II ended.
Saw 3D makes the critical mistake of being more interested in the cat-and-mouse games between Hoffman and the police than the grand guignol murder set-pieces, so to justify the film's existence for gore obsessed fans and the extra five bucks for 3D glasses, Greutert and the writers shoehorn in some more mostly unrelated "games" with characters that have no bearing on the story itself. The series set the precedent of an opening kill, and Saw 3D's involves a love triangle, a blade see-saw (of sorts) and a reverse pendulum. What I'll give Greutert credit for is putting the trap in full view of passers-by: the trap is in a glass box in the middle of downtown wherever they shot this*, which is a pleasant change of pace from "dingy room," the setting for every other kill in the series. It actually lends a slight sense of tension to the inevitable bloodbath as people begin to panic outside of the trap (even if most of them do nothing to help).
On the other hand, the creative team is so strapped for kills that they include a white supremacist group (led by Linkin Park's Chester Bennington) in a garage "game" so they can quickly rip the skin off of one person's back, run a tire through another's head, rip a man's jaw and arms off, and pulverize the final victim, all in the name of finding a way to get Hoffman from outside of the police station to inside. When you realize that all of that effort went into switching bodies in a bag, the effort seems a little ridiculous, and on top of that, Hoffman also went out of his way to make sure that IF Gibson figured out where he was that a turret machine gun would (SPOILER) kill him and destroy the fake Jigsaw lair.
The coup-de-grace, however, is not even the Bobby Dagen "game," which has the weakest kills by far (including one that's almost identical to a trap from Saw II), but the fact that in order to squeeze one more drop of blood out of this turnip, the writers create a dream sequence in order to kill Jill off twice in the same movie. The contraption used for the dream sequence feels like a mandate from the studio for one more 3D shot, because there's no reason it would exist in the movie otherwise.
(for the record, it's easy to see where the 3D would be in the film, even in 2D, and I have to say that it wouldn't be worth the extra cash to me: it mostly consisted of guts, keys, and a hacksaw being flung at the camera)
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that if the Cap'n didn't mind missing three and a half Saw movies that I'd probably hate Saw 3D, but the series continued success has perplexed me. As someone watching from the outside, I had initially planned to just sit out the whole thing and be happy in ignorance, but at least now I can say that I KNOW I didn't miss anything skipping the middle entries**. Under normal circumstances, this would be a So You Won't Have To, but the whole point of "What the Hell" week is to look at movies that people saw so that I wouldn't have to. I'm doing it anyway, but there's always a chance of a pleasant surprise to come, right?
A final note: while Lionsgate, the creative team, and anybody involved with the sequels swears there won't be a Saw VIII, original creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell have indicated that they would like to come back and "close out" the franchise once and for all. I mention this because later this week I'll be taking a look at one of their non-Saw films, Insidious, but also to indicate that it doesn't matter how terrible a sequel gets, how limply it moves to tie itself with A Nightmare on Elm Street for number of entries, or how inexplicable its popularity is***; there will always be room for one more crappy sequel as long as there's money to be made.
* Toronto, but the film's police station is identified as "Metropolitan Police Station" on the sign, so who knows where they want you to think this crap takes place.
** It was explained to me that Saw 3D was "as stupid" as IV, V, and VI, so I feel confident that I understand what I didn't see.
*** Seriously, if someone would like to explain to me why you keep watching these movies, I'd love to hear it. The "mythology" of the films is constantly being revised because the formula of the sequels are stale and interchangeable, the kills aren't really that impressive, and the acting is borderline amateur hour.
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