captainsolo

Forgot to mention that I always watch Batman on LD. Great pressing, with the original Dolby SR which has a great low end dynamic presence. Though all the video versions aren't as dark as the theatrical film.

Batman Forever

I always take a lot of flack for this, but I still love this movie. Call it leftover childhood nostalgia or something but I can't help but enjoy this the 5,000th time around. I know it has many problems and I know it gets too campy in all the wrong places. But it is still to date the only Batman film to include the escapist adventure element of the character. The studio meddling with the super long original cut of the film did not help matters, but the really big problem with the film came in a last-minute meddling with the final film and dropping some crucial subplot scenes. Then they re-ordered the opening structure of the film and made things very discombobulated. Read the original novelization or a earlier script if you can find it, and you get a much better idea of what the original intent was.

Like the first film, there is a lot of subtext going on here. And again like the first film, it is impossible to get all of it due to not being given the whole picture. Kilmer's performance goes beyond Keaton in the psychologically damaged and tortured department. He deserved a straight Batman story that did not delve into the campier aspects. And his main appearances as Batman here are probably the most iconic we'll ever get for live-action (save for the stupid nipples).

The dialogue is occasionally witty and pointed, but unfortunately not all the time. Jim Carrey is too Jim Carrey as the Riddler, and lacks the panache and restraint that Frank Gorshin brought to the role on the TV series. Robin Williams would have brought a much more chilling and intense portrayal in Burton's proposed version, much as Tim Curry would have as the Joker in 1989. (Two of the all-time missed casting opportunities IMO, but these would have been "R" rated ;) Tommy Lee Jones is wasted as Two-Face, but I think the character was devolved that way to eventually just be a silly watered down version of Jack's Joker. Robin still feel shoehorned in to a degree, but at least the dynamic works by lifting the idea of an older Dick Grayson from the Animated series.

I still think the Bruce/Batman relationship with a psychologist is a brilliantly twisted idea, but that too goes nowhere in the film.  The design changes bring in some fresh vitality, but lack the presence of Burton's films because the Forever sets are primarily mattes, models and digital imaging. The score however is fantastic. It works semi in-tandem with the motifs that Elfman setup all the while going for that big Batman fanfare.

The initial idea seems to have been a meeting of Bruce's tortured soul with the fantasy and adventure of Batman. What happened was that the studio wanted a more commercialized venture and here and there little changes became big changes. The scenes in the film bang together if you really look at them, and there is a noticeable patchwork effect if you really pay close enough attention. The original cut was rumored to be in the neighborhood of 2.5-3 hours. The film a stands was cobbled together by a editor at the last minute to have the closest thing to a summer popcorn movie for 1995.

But it isn't bad. Just full of missed opportunities.

3.5 balls out of 4 stupid Bat-asses.

I last watched this film on projected DVD in a sound suite. With amps and the like, the DTS 5.1 track was incredible. However, it sounded a bit too focused to my ears and not quite how I remembered the film sounding. I stumbled across this review from the Widescreen Review of the Laserdisc: 

Both versions of the soundtrack are a blast and you had better be braced into your seat when things get revved up and the 25Hz deep bass kicks in at reference level. The use of the discrete 5.1 palette is wonderful with energized directional and motion effects throughout the soundfield. But the Dolby Surround® version delivers an even fuller bass soundfield experience, with the discrete better articulated.

I've always felt that the Special Editions of the Batman films (ported to Blu-ray) had been tweaked and didn't fully resemble the original presentations. The first film never felt right to me until the LD. I actually have a copy of the Forever LD, and decided to give it a try.

This Dolby Surround track has some of the most natural bass I've ever encountered on a film. Though I still lack an AC3 demodulator, it crushes the DVD 5.1 mixes (even DTS!) from sheer dynamic range alone. Every channel is well balanced with tremendous natural bass and my subwoofer sounding like it's being fed a huge LFE. All this from a 2.0 matrix! The rear surround is actually split as well so there is rear separation just like a 5.1 mix, but just a tiny bit muddy. This is like being in the theaters of old during the 90's era of sound system wars.

And now...oh crap it's time for Batman & Robin. W H Y ?

Unless it was an original print. I missed out on both Grail and am still pissed over missing Brian at an art house. A triple bill with Meaning of Life would kill.

Keep in mind that the home video ratio typically depends on the studio releasing the film and the features of the source used. I don't think that Grail would gain or lose anything at a 1.75:1 ratio as on one of the LDDB entries ( like the variable ratios for VistaVision) but for all intents and purposes, the 1.66:1 would be the correct ratio to use.

ANFSCD was a small release by Sony several years back. The use of 1.85 could have been from lack of checking, or more likely from using a US print source which would be set for 1.85. Jabberwocky was a Columbia movie anyway, and I don't think it was specifically composed for either ratio. I'm just glad that was ever released at all on DVD.

I'm going to a Q&A with Batman producer Michael Ulsan later this week, and with TDKR approaching I figured I'd do my heavy Batman theorizing again...

Batman

A surprisingly deep film that is unfortunately too tied to its commercial overtones. Much like an opposite reflection of the original Superman, this first film works by bringing the character's world into a hybrid of the era's mindset. Add in a murky depth behind these characters and you have a great experience that will give a few nuggets of bonus material if you pay enough close attention. Perhaps the reason why I've watched this so many times.

3.5 balls out of 4 pale moonlights.

Batman Returns

Hands down the best live-action Batman film by any conceivable notion, and Burton's most and possibly only fully-realized film. Why you may ask? Because this Batman is not about the trappings, but moreover the human condition itself. You don't marvel at the large cityscape of Gotham, as a much smaller and better realized version serves as strongly. You marvel at the characters and their issues and their psychological complexities. There is an emotional and human context that has never been seen before or since in the cinematic Batman mythos that Burton delves gleefully into and we fall under it's spell under the guise of our comic heroes.

Oh, and did I mention the snow? Oh, God this is a beautiful movie to look at. And that moment in the ending when Elfman's score goes a bit Herrmann-esque with Keaton finding the black cat on Christmas? When has there ever been such a deep moment in Batman? Answer: Never again.

4 balls out of 4 beautifully shaped Keaton eyebrows.

European money, European production. Most European films were shot 1.66:1 and then cropped for presentation here to 1.85:1. These were the differing standards in our respective territories. The difference is usually marginal if the film wasn't specifically composed for a particular ratio. Later on 1.66:1 became less used and 1.85 more common across the globe, hence Brian and Meaning of Life running at that ratio.

Personally, I love the 1.66:1 ratio and whenever a film was shot in it I like to see it that way to notice a possible difference. I like the shape as it more closely resembles a still photograph and is a more visually interesting way to hold a larger image than scope widescreen, than a flat 1.85 or 1.78. When 1.66 films have been cropped for home releases here in the US, image can be manipulated in negative ways. Just look at the first three Bond films and some of the early Hammer horror classics to get an example of this.

I was glad that I waited for the 3 disc Holy Grail DVD because the 1.66:1 looks much more esthetically pleasing to my eyes. The 1.85 just looked a bit too flat, and I know that the film was originally shot in 1.66. The added scene never bothered me, but you might have to go to VHS to find a version without it.

The 5.1 mix is completely unnecessary. The  mono is a bit tinny and undefined being from a low budget production, but completely adequate. Life of Brian suffers from a badly mixed original Dolby Stereo surround track that was finally cleaned up and placed into a good 5.1 remix that keeps the original primarily mono audio imaging.

bkev said:

captainsolo said:

Saw this in a second run theater, in which the 35mm print looked great. (Save for the CGI which stuck out like a sore thumb.) Much better than any digital presentation around. And what's with the whole, "we shot 5 minutes in IMAX" gag? Just swallow the cost and do the whole thing!

To be fair didn't The Dark Knight do that too?

That's where it pretty much started. DKR is composed of more IMAX footage but the dialogue is all 35mm (Some have said that some was also shot in 70mm).

I've got to get something myself eventually for other projects. But I'll need to add a firewire card to my PC etc.

When I did some transfers in college, I wound up having to use the Dazzle converter which though it can be bought in office stores, actually did quite well.

I was quite surprised how well the '99 DVD held up when upscaled. After digging around for info on the LD, I found some reports that even the '99 DVD had been color tweaked. Is this true?

Monolithium said:

captainsolo said:

Revolutions. I swore I'd never watch this again. An obviously bad film, and theatrically everyone was in a stunned silence of disbelief. Really this is just the second half of the same film as both sequels were shot simultaneously. But this one has all of the really bad elements. I thought it couldn't be as bad as I remembered. There is no redeeming quality to this junk. It is terrible, badly written, pathetic, meandering, nonsensical, mindless and complete stupid in every conceivable way. Words cannot even begin to describe the depths of it's absolute stupidity in every conceivable element of filmmaking. 

Zero balls. Ball-less crap. Worse than any of the prequels. And that's saying something.

Stop being so vague and tell us what you thought of it.

Don't worry, big review of both sequels coming...but after all these years I still can't fully wrap my head around what they were thinking on Revolutions. It's just so unbelievably uninteresting.

How would they do the rumored sequels with Neo though?

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

I went in thinking, "This got pretty good reviews, it can't possibly be as lame as MI:3." (which I thought was okay, but rather tepid.) I was wrong. This is a film that decides to never really involve the viewer, and never really gets up off the ground to anything of much interest. The story is really pointless and serves as a way to get from one over CGI'd action sequence to the next. At least the awful MI:2 had John Woo to make some great looking action setpieces. I can't actually decide if this is worse than that or not. In the end it's just pretty darn lifeless and reminds me that the first film was really good for a summer blockbuster. It had spies, who did some spying...and the ending cameo in the fourth entry makes you yearn for just a truer espionage sequel like the first film.

Saw this in a second run theater, in which the 35mm print looked great. (Save for the CGI which stuck out like a sore thumb.) Much better than any digital presentation around. And what's with the whole, "we shot 5 minutes in IMAX" gag? Just swallow the cost and do the whole thing!

1.5 balls out of 4 "Tom Cruise needing a career boost"s.

I didn't think so, just because of the extreme trial that was the troubled production. Not to mention the footage that went overboard and had to be saved in the lab! Then there's the fact that many prints were probably struck off the negative.

What I'm wondering is if TSISW will be presented in full, or only excerpted.

"Almost there..."

;)

For some reason I challenged myself to revisit the Matrix films.

I forgot how much I actually enjoy the first film, and have always stuck with my 1999 DVD for the theatrical color timing. It looks quite good upscaled too. Simply a great ride of a movie. 13 years on and still fun.

4 balls out of 4 spoons.

I thought Reloaded was always a bit of good action sequences with middling to bad dialogue. Theatrically it was an overlong mess. Coming back to it, I found myself hating the film and finding it incredibly stupid as it went on. The key phrase here is "GET ON WITH IT!". The Merovingian was a great character though and sadly was only really in one scene.  The car chase is not very good despite its elaborate structure. And what's with the CGI animated Neo and fight sequences? What we can't even have real people doing the fights any longer? And don't even get me started on the "we're all going to die, so let's mass techno dance/grope in slow motion" sequence. Stupidity.

1.5 balls out of 4 dress/robe thingys. I'm being generous.

Revolutions. I swore I'd never watch this again. An obviously bad film, and theatrically everyone was in a stunned silence of disbelief. Really this is just the second half of the same film as both sequels were shot simultaneously. But this one has all of the really bad elements. I thought it couldn't be as bad as I remembered. There is no redeeming quality to this junk. It is terrible, badly written, pathetic, meandering, nonsensical, mindless and complete stupid in every conceivable way. Words cannot even begin to describe the depths of it's absolute stupidity in every conceivable element of filmmaking. 

Zero balls. Ball-less crap. Worse than any of the prequels. And that's saying something.

So essentially here is another franchise that should have never been. There are no Matrix sequels. Like Anchorhead has said many times about ESB and ROTJ but to a much greater degree, the sequels opened things up too much. There was no imagination or focus left.

And the sad thing is, I wanted to like these sequels.

And there's yet another blurb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLWvXaeDzwU&feature=player_embedded

The audio is clipped on every track in the ProTools screen glimpsed. With all of the video processing being done, wonder how much of the original softness will be intact?

Further reading the HTF article and came across this tidbit:

Once the picture restoration was completed, the team at Universal Studios Sound prepared to up-mix  Jaws to a 7.1 mix from the 5.1 mix that had been created in 2000 using the original mono soundtrack. Now on the forthcoming Blu-ray, fans can enjoy JAWS in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, optimizing the sound for the latest home theater technology.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/319941/ushe-press-release-jaws-blu-ray-plus-restoration-details

Just saw this on the HTF release details. Great news indeed!

The new disc lists the mono as included, but I hope it is some kind of lossless track. Probably won't be. The last 5.1 remixes were awful, so why they need a new 7.1 mix is beyond me.

Yes, let's spend a bunch of money and restore the film from the original negative and say f-you original mono soundtrack!

Yep, mine are the same edited episodes for Season 2 with reduced quality from the Canadian ones. No.51 goes back to the Canadian source.

Crud, how did I miss this thread? I've got the capped TV Land S1-3 as avi/mpeg and as far as I know all mine are uncut. How do I check this for those missing 50 S2 episodes-by the runtime? I've only watched through S1 so far.

Great idea! Nice to be a classic-era villain. Now, where the devil did I put my phosphorous paint and seaweed? Anybody seen a diving suit around anywhere?

 I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)

Classic, historically important film that has dated incredibly well. (Maybe because it's pre-code) Expertly told and completely flawless. Shades of film noir too for good measure.

4 balls out of 4 leg chains.

CP3S said:

Captiansolo's blog. Wow, good stuff.

I've always enjoyed his posts, and have admired his passion for film. He is the sort of film geek I have always aspired to be but fail miserably at. A few days ago I found myself thinking, I really wish this guy had a blog filled with movie reviews and glancing down at his sig I discovered that he does.

Wow, thanks! I always want to write more reviews/articles but each one takes me a few hours to get through simply because I've got so much to say. Then I edit like crazy trying to make things a bit more coherent. At least it gets some of all this out of my head for a bit. ;) (Just checked, and my list of reviews to write is at about 30 or so offhand. Ugh.)

Have you ever tried writing/discussing film? If you enjoy it it's not that difficult. I led my own film society in high school/college so I met many people who didn't know what they were getting into-but the key is to always enjoy the film at hand. I can't stand it when critics/reviewers/professors/classes forget that they are supposed to be educating about the topic and get high and mighty in their theorems.

Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A month or so ago, I started my yearly re-read through of the Bond novels-but with a twist. I've been going through all the original Fleming books a section at a time very slowly, so that I can fully draw out all the little details of the text and really immerse myself in the book. It's interesting to do this with books you've read beyond countless times. This one only gets better each time, and you can clearly see the differences Richard Maibaum made when adapting for the film.

Can I just say that I love Fleming's women? People ogle over all the film Bond girls, but they're absolutely nothing compared to the women Fleming wrote. In the books, the characters are actual people with real defined motivations instead of being regulated to eye candy most of the time.

Wish I did. Sorry.

I'm Closing. ;)

Jabberwocky

Odd mix of Terry Gilliam's visual style with a Holy Grail-esque film. That said, this is a little gem of a movie that, even though it doesn't always work quite well, is always entertaining to watch. Michael Palin is very likeable as always. Despite a low budget, the film features a very well-realized Dark Ages setting. The gags are really quite funny for the most part too and actually feature into a cohesive narrative as opposed to the skits being more important.

The DVD is very murky looking and has unnecessary sound remixes though.

3 balls out of 4 potatoes.

I thought the commercials were bad enough...that is indescribably awful and disrespectful to the films themselves. Who the heck thought this was a good idea?

Are you referring to the original Embassy VHS with the International cut? That's what I've still got buried somewhere and I'll pull it out to check if so.

I just picked up the Criterion and DC LDs recently and have given them a once over. The image looks near identical to be honest, with the Criterion being less defined and containing more artifacts due to age (mine is the CLV edition). The DC LD looks stunning and is full CAV. (But has really bad side break locations) In fact it looks much better than the original DVD release, everything seems to flow much more nicely and there aren't those ugly artifacts cropping up. The PCM Dolby Stereo surround on both are fantastic.

Color-wise the Criterion LD may be a tiny bit more saturated. I think the theatrical image would most resemble the DC as shown on the LD, 2006 DVD or the archival versions on the new sets. The DC, Theatrical and International are seamlessly branched so the main portions all use the same transfer.

Here's an easy one for me:

Jean Seberg in Breathless

The pixie haircut. A simple chic style. A general faraway irreverence for everything that hides some deep fragility somewhere. Probably the main reason why I keep going back to this film over and over again. One of the best female characters ever, and a truly beautiful girl. To see this film is to fall madly in love. I did. The restored print theatrically is beyond stunning.

XyZ said:

... Tomorrow I'll try this:

 

This was actually in my local record store the other day. I noticed a box at the front counter where they keep all kinds of novelty items, and saw it was some kind of food item...then I realized I was actually looking at a box of Soylent green. I said aloud: "NO Way! There is NO WAY they actually made a box of Soylent green!" The guy at the register really had no clue what I was going on about. So I just smiled and said "it's people" of course.

Now: leftover oversteeped white tea.