Blu-ray Capsule Reviews: June 2009
Here at DVD Times we’re always striving to cover as wide a range of titles on each format each month as possible. So, in order to try and boost our coverage and give you the low-down on as many releases as possible, we’ve decided to try out a Monthly Review feature where we can write up capsule reviews of the titles we would ordinarily have passed on. Not as technical as our standard reviews, they will nonetheless aim to give you all pertinent information you could want.
We are anxious to hear your feedback on this feature, if it’s well received then the aim is to keep updating this page as newer releases reach us this month creating a new monthly archive of quick-hit reviews. Now, we can’t stress this enough: These capsule reviews are not replacing our usual, more technical reviews, they are purely a means for us to cover titles that otherwise would’ve been passed on by our reviewers. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this feature and please, please leave us your comments!
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since Dolph Lundgren dyed his blonde locks black for the first cinematic interpretation of The Punisher in 1989. 20 years and Hollywood still cannot get it right, Thomas Jane’s lacklustre 2004 effort failed mostly because The Punisher didn’t really do all that much punishing, but Punisher: War Zone certainly redresses the balance in that particular aspect. Frank Castle doles out a monumental amount of mean-spirited ”justice” in this film, which starts off with Castle taking down the Cesare crime family in a bottle factory, dumping hotheaded gangster Billy Russoti face first into a glass bottle crusher, and killing one of his lieutenant’s who happens to be an undercover FBI Agent. Stricken by the revelation he’s killed one of the good guys, Frank contemplates quitting the vigilante business whilst watching over the dead agent’s family, but when Russoti emerges from the crusher as the mangled psychotic: Jigsaw, it’s not long before Frank is required to go back to what he does best.
If ever you needed a perfect example of why something that works on page may not work on screen, then Punisher: War Zone is most definitely it. I’ll give director Lexi Alexander some credit for at least attempting to be faithful to the character’s comic book roots, but she does so with such zealousness that it results in a completely overblown, grotesquely exaggerated mess. I’m not impartial to a bit of nasty violence in my action films, but there’s only so many times you can see close ups of people getting their faces caved in before it becomes extremely tedious. The script is an unmitigated disaster, Ray Stevenson is the best screen Punisher to date, but the unrelenting gruffness of the character makes for an intensely dull lead. The rest of the cast are stuck doing heavy New Yoik accents and delivering the kind of dialogue that would make George Lucas blush, but the majority of the performers are non-natives who fail miserably to nail the accents. Jigsaw looks fantastic and Dominic West plays him facetiously, but all the villains in this film act as if they’re mentally retarded rather than mentally ill, which pails into comparison to how badly characterised Punisher sidekick Martin Soap is. The tone of the film is also all over the shop, it starts off as quite a nasty and cynically trashy action film with absurdly flashy gun shoot-outs, but eventually descends into depressingly unhumourous farce that ends with a shockingly morally dubious coda that really insults the intelligence of its audience. This may be the most faithful adaptation of The Punisher to date, but it’s just as lousy as the previous efforts!
The Disc: Lexi Alexander seems to favour the Zack Snyder approach of xeroxing panels from the comic book blowing out the contrast to create a rather stark, gritty look. So this 1080p, 2.4:1 transfer looks massively over-exposed in daytime sequences, whilst night time sequences have deep blacks and hit & miss shadow detail. Naturally with this crushed appearance grain can get quite sharp and thick, but for the most part it’s kept to a moderate layer with no obvious signs of noise reduction. The Punisher is quite a colourful film with many sequences that are just bathed in primary colours that are brought vividly to life by the transfer on this disc, there’s no obvious colour bleed or chroma noise – in fact the AVC compression in general is very good, although a little contouring can be spotted in darker regions of the picture. Image detail is also very good and maintains a fairly sharp Hi-Def edge, but unfortunately noticeable edge enhancements haunt he transfer at times.
Sadly Sony have not ported over the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 from Lionsgate’s US release that has received rave reviews, but the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 certainly does an excellent job. Bass has serious punch and sound dynamics are excellent, filtering out every gunshot and shell casing ping whilst also breathing life into the heavy rock soundtrack. Dialogue also remains smooth and audible throughout, while the soundstage is given a full and thorough workout from every direction. As for extras, the only substantial feature is a good natured but rather technical audio commentary with Lexi Alexander and cinematographer Steve Gainer. The other featurettes are too short to offer anything substantial, but the Training for The Punisher feature is pretty interesting.
Please help support DVD Times by purchasing this title or any others through our affiliate links...
Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno, it’s fair to say that Michael Cera is hot property right now, and it looks like he’s pretty content playing exactly the same role in a series of quirky little teen comedies. Nick and Norah follows lovesick bass player Nick, who has recently broken up with popular highschool hotty Tris. Tris has a bitch-hate relationship with the introverted “sensitive” girl Norah, who takes a shine to Nick when she eyes him on stage at a late night gig. Sparks fly between the pair when Norah walks up to Nick and kisses him after Tris pokes fun of her being at the concert with no date. Norah doesn’t know Nick is Tris’ ex, but after the kiss the two are flung together on a long night in New York as they bond over music and scour the city for mysterious super-band Where’s Fluffy, who are playing a surprise gig in a secret location.
A rom-com featuring a promiscuous sex kitten who gets off on the effect she still has on her broken-hearted ex, a rom-com where the plain Jane clever girl is in fact a stone-cold knockout, who in reality would be beating men away with a stick – I bet you can’t guess what happens to little miss promiscuity when she witnesses sparks flying between her ex and the plain Jane! Oh yes, it’s safe to say Nick and Norah is not a particularly adventurous film, it seems today’s comedy filmmakers are as content as ever in churning out utterly clichéd plotlines, even when they follow through so completely in making every other aspect of the film off-kilter and alternative. Nick and Norah is what you’d call a spunky teen flick (in the non-fluidic sense), where the characters have personalities bordering on manic-depressive and communicate with an urbanity you wouldn’t find from your average angsty 17yr old. It has a kick ass alternative pop soundtrack and the script crackles with an infectiously gentle wit, and it actually uses its New York setting as a separate character in the story. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a little too generic to truly impress a grumpy 30yr old like myself, but if I were 12 years younger I’d probably be more inclined to be quite impressed by it.
The Disc: Presented in 1080p at 1.84:1, Nick and Norah has a quite a bright vivid image that is brought rather attractively to life on this blu-ray, colours are bold but nicely contained and the image is quite sharp, with no obvious signs of noise reduction and barely any edge enhancements. Contrast is naturalistic, while brightness levels are a little high with daytime scenes looking a little exposed and night time sequences having a blue tinge rather than deep blacks, but it seems like the intended look of the film. Compression on this AVC encode/BD-50 disc is pretty solid, although you can spot some mosquito noise around the opening credits. The print used is in excellent condition and grain ranges from a moderate to slightly thick, but sharply defined layer. The English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is suitably energetic and brings the upbeat soundtrack expressively to life, the audio dynamics are excellent, dialogue is crisp and clear, and while the soundstage isn’t exactly that broad it does the job.
Sony have provided a relatively modest but fun selection of extra features on this UK release, which seems to match their US release. The most substantial are the two audio commentaries, the first of which is the “Telestrator” commentary with director Peter Sollett and stars Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, and Ari Graynor, which is a rather rambling, playful track with the foursome doodling over the image. A second commentary features Sollett alongside scriptwriter Lorene Scafaria, and authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, who wrote the novel the feature is based on. This is a more involving, technical track that focuses on the making of the film and the writing of the novel and the correlations between the two. The rest of the extra features are less involving and mostly just pratting around by the actors, except for a Storyboards featurette that comes with a very informative commentary track by Peter Sollett and editor Myron Kerstein.
Please help support DVD Times by purchasing this title or any others through our affiliate links...
Film festival friendly awkward family reunion films are almost an industry in of themselves on the independent circuit in America these days, so much that you’d be forgiven for thinking every family in America has brooding issues that manifest themselves in obscure irrational traits. Junebug is relatively unknown director Phil Morrison’s entry into this popular subgenre, and it’s not a bad effort at all. The story revolves around Chicago art dealer Madeleine, who has recently married George Johnsten and finds herself travelling down to his hometown in North Carolina to sign up a unique local artist. Taking the opportunity to introduce Madeleine to George’s close-knit family, the couple decide to spend a few days living with The Johnstens where Madeleine’s multi-cultural sensibilities clash gently with conservative mother Peg, laconic father Eugene, grumpy brother Johnny and his effervescent and heavily pregnant wife Ashley.
Junebug was a little labour of love for Morrison and scriptwriter Angus MacLachlan who are both from the town it is set, so there’s a tremendous sense of respect and authenticity pervading through Junebug, even if it is rife with small-town clichés. Morrison makes quite the impression as director and seems to have a gift for character introductions, and the film is edited to perfection by Joe Klotz. The dynamics of the Johnsten family are quite understated, but worthwhile and most importantly they feel like a real family, but Amy Adams really dominates as bubbly girl-child Ashley, brightening up every scene she’s in. It’s a star-making performance if ever there was one. The impression the rather outgoing and at times insincere and overtly sexual Madeleine makes on this conservative family is quite fascinating, particularly the relationships she forms with Ashley and step-mother Peg, but Junebug’s big weakness is the lack of characterisation for George. I get that he’s cut from the same cloth as his reserved father, but a lot of the internal sadness of the Johnstens stem from the huge impression George makes on their lives (Peg misses him in her life terribly and Johnny cannot stand living in his shadow). George is such a non-entity that it’s hard to believe he could be revered (and hated in Johnny’s case) in such a way. Still, Junebug has a lot of heart, doesn’t over-intellectualise its subjects, and is totally free of condescension. It’s also genuinely funny, and at times moving.
The Disc: Junebug was shot on 16mm film so it inevitably has an image that is a little on the soft side and has a reasonably prominent layer of grain throughout every scene. Still, this 1080p 1.78:1 transfer does look pretty pleasing, Junebug’s colour scheme is pretty muted but it has a reasonably broad palette that is nicely expressed on this disc, with no bleed or noise. Brightness and contrast levels are very naturalistic, Junebug seems mostly lit with natural light so the image can be a little dark in places and the contrast is pretty low, giving the image a filmlike appearance. This transfer may not have the deepest blacks out there but the shadow detail is excellent. The print used is pristine and the image is free from any distracting signs of DNR or Edge Enhancements, my one major criticism are the noticeable banding issues, particularly in dark scenes where you can see horizontal bands quite clearly.
Unfortunately the audio options aren’t quite so solid, there’s a 24-bit DTS-HD track and a redundant 16-bit DolbyTrue HD, along with a DD2.0 track that presumably, given Junebug’s low budget, is the film’s original audio track. I don’t know if it’s a problem that stems from how the audio was recorded, but the 5.1 HD tracks are heavily muffled and have soft bass and lousy high frequency response, which does affect the sound dynamics and makes dialogue a little difficult to follow in a couple of scenes. The DD2.0 track has stronger bass, but also has issues. Eureka have transferred over all the extras from their R2UK DVD release, which was a pretty solid selection of featurettes and a decent commentary with Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz. Highlights of the featurettes are the short Behind the Scenes features that have specific subject and have real focus, and a lengthy post-screening audience Q+A session with Amy Adams.
Please help support DVD Times by purchasing this title or any others through our affiliate links...
In retrospect, it seems bizarre that, during development, A Bug’s Life was intended to be the studio’s “A” picture, with its stablemate Toy Story 2 initially intended to be a cheap direct-to-video project. Indeed, Pixar’s sophomore effort, a loose re-working of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, remains their least impressive offering to date. This should not be inferred in any way to be a dismissal: the Emeryville CGI house’s worst is still considerably better than most studios’ best. A Bug’s Life, however, had the misfortune of being beaten to the post by a matter of months by rival DreamWorks’ Antz, a suspiciously similar-looking tale about a colony of ants under threat that was actually devised after Pixar’s film but rushed out the door ahead of it. A Bug’s Life, with its bright hues, colourful array of child-friendly characters and patented Pixar humour, is by far the more aesthetically pleasing of the two.
However, unlike Pixar’s other two films from the 90s, the two Toy Stories, its technology dates it – the result, perhaps, of the filmmakers’ ambition exceeding the technology available to them in 1998. Certainly, there are “wow” moments a-plenty, with the Scope aspect ratio perfectly suited to capturing the epic vistas of this computer-generated world. Unfortunately, CG animation being what it was a decade ago, the natural environments tend to take on a plastic sheen – Pixar’s subsequent Finding Nemo achieved a far more convincing representation of the world of nature. A Bug’s Life remains fun and engaging, but comparisons with the rest of Pixar’s output tend to be rather unfavourable. It lacks the confidence and acerbic wit of its immediate predecessor, Toy Story, and ultimately seems geared more towards a younger audience than any of the studio’s other films, save perhaps Cars.
In its high definition debut, the film looks virtually flawless, if a little lifeless due to the crystal-clear presentation of its now dated graphics. Detail is beyond reproach, and the difference between this and the earlier DVD releases is night and day. Of the Pixar films released on Blu-ray so far, Ratatouille is by far the nicest-looking overall, but this is mainly down to the artistic techniques employed, which gave the image a more natural sheen. Certainly, barring some unfortunate artefacting during the rain storm at the film’s climax, I can’t criticise the transfer of A Bug’s Life in any way as far as reproduction of the source material is concerned.
The film is equally well served by a fantastic lossless 5.1 audio track, which ably demonstrates the subtleties of Gary Rydstrom’s sound design and presents no problems as far as clarity is concerned. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are also provided.
In terms of extras, the majority of the included content is replicated from the previous 2-disc special edition DVD. The names of some of the featurettes have changed, and they are organised slightly differently, but virtually everything has been ported over, with the unfortunate exceptions of the two isolated music and sound effects tracks. New features include an affectionate and entertaining look back at the making of the film in the form of a roundtable featuring director John Lasseter, co-director Andrew Stanton and producers Darla K. Anderson and Keven Reher, as well as a brand new visual presentation of the film’s original story treatment, supplemented by narration from Dave Foley (Flik) and some crude animation techniques.
Please help support DVD Times by purchasing this title or any others through our affiliate links...
Choose life. Choose a job. From that iconic opening monologue to the final frame, Trainspotting is a giddy, ballsy junkie rollercoaster ride. Based on the novel from Irvine Welsh, it tells the story of heroin addict Mark Renton trapped in inner-city Edinburgh during the recession of the early 90s. His constant voiceover takes us through Renton’s perpetual cycle of addiction and petty crime within a bleak urban landscape and his contempt towards this lifestyle, whilst also narrating the stories of fellow junkie friends Spud & Sick Boy, the dangerous sociopath Begbie, and clean living sports nut Tommy. Compressing the multiple narrations and episodic format of Welsh’s novel into a more conventional film narrative, Danny Walsh and scriptwriter John Hodge fashioned something akin to A Clockwork Orange, a film that uses wit, exaggeration and stylistic flair to drive a bleak social vision, but in a way that connects with mainstream audiences far more successfully than Kubrick’s film ever has. Renton’s facetious narrative is engaging and immediate, perfectly reflecting the mindset of many disaffected young adults leading working class lives in inner cities throughout Britain. Drugs are shown not as the answer, just the only distraction that can temporarily help the characters gloss over this social impasse.
Danny Boyle's direction is extremely playful, he’s clever enough to realise that the urban setting and addiction themes are all that’s needed to ground the story, so he just lets fly with visual pop-culture references and overtly stylish set pieces that abstract the reality of addiction and withdrawal. This stops the subject from ever appearing grim and earned the film a reputation for glamourising drugs, which it does to an extent, but it expresses the destruction of heroin addiction much more strongly than it ever does the highs. In fact if anything Trainspotting overstates this point, the character arc of Tommy for instance is so extreme within the confines of a relatively short and very playful feature film that it robs his story of any real pathos. This doesn’t distract from what Boyle and Hodge achieve with Trainspotting though, it’s an excellent film and back in 1996 it had particular impact, as it came out during that post-Tarantino glut of drug-themed films and proved that you could also make exciting films about the British drug scene, and do so without avoiding the real issues of the subject.
The Disc: Film4 have included all the extras from Universal’s 2-disc DVD on this BD-25 disc, which was basically an excellent selection of interviews that talked about all aspects of the film’s production and a very good audio commentary from McGregor, Boyle, Hodge, and producer Andrew Macdonald. These features combined should really tell you all you need to know about the film, but Film4 have also produced their own retrospective featurette specifically for this Blu-ray release called Memories of Trainspotting, which has the primary cast and crew reminiscing about their time on the film. Unfortunately the 1080p presentation isn’t given quite such loving treatment. In most areas the image is pleasing enough; Trainspotting has a rather muted appearance for the most part, which is exhibited in this transfer, colours are nicely defined and free from bleeding or noise, and when you hit the scenes that are lit with more vivid primary colours then the image looks more dynamic and striking, and the pale skin tones remain very consistent throughout. Contrast and Brightness are a little low, which again is the intended look of the film, so no complaints here, black levels are good even though there aren’t many dark scenes in Trainspotting. The AVC compression is excellent despite the film only taking up 16Gb, and the print used is in very good condition for a film almost 15 years old now, and a relatively soft, fuzzy layer of grain is present throughout, with no obvious signs of noise reduction.
The problem is that the image is noticeably soft, not DVD soft but it does look more like a 720p transfer than a 1080p transfer at times, which isn’t entirely a surprise given Trainspotting’s low budget origins, but to combat that lack of definition Film4 have completely nuked the image with Edge Enhancements. Ugly, distractingly thick halos outline the characters in many of the exterior scenes of the film and even infect some of the interiors as well, it may not be a major problem on Plasma and LCD displays, but on any screen above 5ft it really is a nuisance. Audio at least fares a little better, there are English DTS 5.0 and DD5.1 tracks to choose from that are equal in quality and provide decent (if unspectacular) presentation of the film’s audio. Dialogue sounds clear and clean, which is important for a film with such strong accents being used, and the dynamics are pretty solid. The soundstage is pretty expansive when needed, but the bass is definitely a little hollow and the treble response could be a little better.
Please help support DVD Times by purchasing this title or any others through our affiliate links...
We are anxious to hear your feedback on this feature, if it’s well received then the aim is to keep updating this page as newer releases reach us this month creating a new monthly archive of quick-hit reviews. Now, we can’t stress this enough: These capsule reviews are not replacing our usual, more technical reviews, they are purely a means for us to cover titles that otherwise would’ve been passed on by our reviewers. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this feature and please, please leave us your comments!
Punisher: War Zone
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
If ever you needed a perfect example of why something that works on page may not work on screen, then Punisher: War Zone is most definitely it. I’ll give director Lexi Alexander some credit for at least attempting to be faithful to the character’s comic book roots, but she does so with such zealousness that it results in a completely overblown, grotesquely exaggerated mess. I’m not impartial to a bit of nasty violence in my action films, but there’s only so many times you can see close ups of people getting their faces caved in before it becomes extremely tedious. The script is an unmitigated disaster, Ray Stevenson is the best screen Punisher to date, but the unrelenting gruffness of the character makes for an intensely dull lead. The rest of the cast are stuck doing heavy New Yoik accents and delivering the kind of dialogue that would make George Lucas blush, but the majority of the performers are non-natives who fail miserably to nail the accents. Jigsaw looks fantastic and Dominic West plays him facetiously, but all the villains in this film act as if they’re mentally retarded rather than mentally ill, which pails into comparison to how badly characterised Punisher sidekick Martin Soap is. The tone of the film is also all over the shop, it starts off as quite a nasty and cynically trashy action film with absurdly flashy gun shoot-outs, but eventually descends into depressingly unhumourous farce that ends with a shockingly morally dubious coda that really insults the intelligence of its audience. This may be the most faithful adaptation of The Punisher to date, but it’s just as lousy as the previous efforts!
The Disc: Lexi Alexander seems to favour the Zack Snyder approach of xeroxing panels from the comic book blowing out the contrast to create a rather stark, gritty look. So this 1080p, 2.4:1 transfer looks massively over-exposed in daytime sequences, whilst night time sequences have deep blacks and hit & miss shadow detail. Naturally with this crushed appearance grain can get quite sharp and thick, but for the most part it’s kept to a moderate layer with no obvious signs of noise reduction. The Punisher is quite a colourful film with many sequences that are just bathed in primary colours that are brought vividly to life by the transfer on this disc, there’s no obvious colour bleed or chroma noise – in fact the AVC compression in general is very good, although a little contouring can be spotted in darker regions of the picture. Image detail is also very good and maintains a fairly sharp Hi-Def edge, but unfortunately noticeable edge enhancements haunt he transfer at times.
Sadly Sony have not ported over the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 from Lionsgate’s US release that has received rave reviews, but the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 certainly does an excellent job. Bass has serious punch and sound dynamics are excellent, filtering out every gunshot and shell casing ping whilst also breathing life into the heavy rock soundtrack. Dialogue also remains smooth and audible throughout, while the soundstage is given a full and thorough workout from every direction. As for extras, the only substantial feature is a good natured but rather technical audio commentary with Lexi Alexander and cinematographer Steve Gainer. The other featurettes are too short to offer anything substantial, but the Training for The Punisher feature is pretty interesting.
| Film: 3/10 Runtime: 102mins Distributor: Sony Pictures Release Date: 22nd June 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: ALL Video: 8/10 2.40:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 9/10 English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Spanish Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Russian Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English Audio Descriptive Service DD5.1 Subtitles: English*, English SDH, Spanish*, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Hindi, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portugese, Swedish, Ukrainian * Included on Extra Features | Extras: 5/10 Commentary with Director Lexi Alexander and Cinematographer Steve Gainer The Making Of Punisher: Warzone (09m:02s) Training for The Punisher (05m:47s) Weapons of the Punisher (04m:39s) Meet Jigsaw (03m:34s) Creating the Look of The Punisher (02m:46s) Terminator Salvation Trailer (01m:54s) Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Trailer (02m:31s) The International Trailer (02m:10s) Quarantine Trailer (01m:41s) There are 4 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
 £13.93 |  £13.95 |  £20.47 |  £20.48 |
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
A rom-com featuring a promiscuous sex kitten who gets off on the effect she still has on her broken-hearted ex, a rom-com where the plain Jane clever girl is in fact a stone-cold knockout, who in reality would be beating men away with a stick – I bet you can’t guess what happens to little miss promiscuity when she witnesses sparks flying between her ex and the plain Jane! Oh yes, it’s safe to say Nick and Norah is not a particularly adventurous film, it seems today’s comedy filmmakers are as content as ever in churning out utterly clichéd plotlines, even when they follow through so completely in making every other aspect of the film off-kilter and alternative. Nick and Norah is what you’d call a spunky teen flick (in the non-fluidic sense), where the characters have personalities bordering on manic-depressive and communicate with an urbanity you wouldn’t find from your average angsty 17yr old. It has a kick ass alternative pop soundtrack and the script crackles with an infectiously gentle wit, and it actually uses its New York setting as a separate character in the story. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a little too generic to truly impress a grumpy 30yr old like myself, but if I were 12 years younger I’d probably be more inclined to be quite impressed by it.
The Disc: Presented in 1080p at 1.84:1, Nick and Norah has a quite a bright vivid image that is brought rather attractively to life on this blu-ray, colours are bold but nicely contained and the image is quite sharp, with no obvious signs of noise reduction and barely any edge enhancements. Contrast is naturalistic, while brightness levels are a little high with daytime scenes looking a little exposed and night time sequences having a blue tinge rather than deep blacks, but it seems like the intended look of the film. Compression on this AVC encode/BD-50 disc is pretty solid, although you can spot some mosquito noise around the opening credits. The print used is in excellent condition and grain ranges from a moderate to slightly thick, but sharply defined layer. The English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is suitably energetic and brings the upbeat soundtrack expressively to life, the audio dynamics are excellent, dialogue is crisp and clear, and while the soundstage isn’t exactly that broad it does the job.
Sony have provided a relatively modest but fun selection of extra features on this UK release, which seems to match their US release. The most substantial are the two audio commentaries, the first of which is the “Telestrator” commentary with director Peter Sollett and stars Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, and Ari Graynor, which is a rather rambling, playful track with the foursome doodling over the image. A second commentary features Sollett alongside scriptwriter Lorene Scafaria, and authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, who wrote the novel the feature is based on. This is a more involving, technical track that focuses on the making of the film and the writing of the novel and the correlations between the two. The rest of the extra features are less involving and mostly just pratting around by the actors, except for a Storyboards featurette that comes with a very informative commentary track by Peter Sollett and editor Myron Kerstein.
| Film: 6/10 Runtime: 89mins Distributor: Sony Pictures Release Date: 22nd June 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: ALL Video: 8/10 1.84:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 9/10 English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Italian Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English Descriptive Audio DD5.1 Subtitles: English*, English SDH, Italian*, Danish, Dutch*, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Swedish * Included on Extra Features | Extras: 7/10 Telestrator Commentary with Peter Sollett, Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, and Ari Graynor Audio Commentary with Peter Sollett, Lorene Scafaria, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan Deleted & Alternate Scenes Outtakes A Nick & Norah Puppet Show by Kat Dennings Ari Graynor's Video Diary: A Look Behind-the-Scenes Storyboard Animations Storyboard Animation Piece Faux Interview with Kat Dennings and Eddie Kaye Thomas Peter Sollett's Photo Album Music Video: "Middle Management" by Bishop Allen Nick & Norah's Interactive Playlist CineChat The House Bunny Trailer Rachel Getting Married Trailer Seven Pounds Trailer There are 2 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
£5.99 |  £5.99 | £6.93 | £6.95 |
Junebug
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
Junebug was a little labour of love for Morrison and scriptwriter Angus MacLachlan who are both from the town it is set, so there’s a tremendous sense of respect and authenticity pervading through Junebug, even if it is rife with small-town clichés. Morrison makes quite the impression as director and seems to have a gift for character introductions, and the film is edited to perfection by Joe Klotz. The dynamics of the Johnsten family are quite understated, but worthwhile and most importantly they feel like a real family, but Amy Adams really dominates as bubbly girl-child Ashley, brightening up every scene she’s in. It’s a star-making performance if ever there was one. The impression the rather outgoing and at times insincere and overtly sexual Madeleine makes on this conservative family is quite fascinating, particularly the relationships she forms with Ashley and step-mother Peg, but Junebug’s big weakness is the lack of characterisation for George. I get that he’s cut from the same cloth as his reserved father, but a lot of the internal sadness of the Johnstens stem from the huge impression George makes on their lives (Peg misses him in her life terribly and Johnny cannot stand living in his shadow). George is such a non-entity that it’s hard to believe he could be revered (and hated in Johnny’s case) in such a way. Still, Junebug has a lot of heart, doesn’t over-intellectualise its subjects, and is totally free of condescension. It’s also genuinely funny, and at times moving.
The Disc: Junebug was shot on 16mm film so it inevitably has an image that is a little on the soft side and has a reasonably prominent layer of grain throughout every scene. Still, this 1080p 1.78:1 transfer does look pretty pleasing, Junebug’s colour scheme is pretty muted but it has a reasonably broad palette that is nicely expressed on this disc, with no bleed or noise. Brightness and contrast levels are very naturalistic, Junebug seems mostly lit with natural light so the image can be a little dark in places and the contrast is pretty low, giving the image a filmlike appearance. This transfer may not have the deepest blacks out there but the shadow detail is excellent. The print used is pristine and the image is free from any distracting signs of DNR or Edge Enhancements, my one major criticism are the noticeable banding issues, particularly in dark scenes where you can see horizontal bands quite clearly.
Unfortunately the audio options aren’t quite so solid, there’s a 24-bit DTS-HD track and a redundant 16-bit DolbyTrue HD, along with a DD2.0 track that presumably, given Junebug’s low budget, is the film’s original audio track. I don’t know if it’s a problem that stems from how the audio was recorded, but the 5.1 HD tracks are heavily muffled and have soft bass and lousy high frequency response, which does affect the sound dynamics and makes dialogue a little difficult to follow in a couple of scenes. The DD2.0 track has stronger bass, but also has issues. Eureka have transferred over all the extras from their R2UK DVD release, which was a pretty solid selection of featurettes and a decent commentary with Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz. Highlights of the featurettes are the short Behind the Scenes features that have specific subject and have real focus, and a lengthy post-screening audience Q+A session with Amy Adams.
| Film: 7/10 Runtime: 106mins Distributor: Eureka! Release Date: 22nd June 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: ALL Video: 7/10 1.78:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 5/10 English DTS-HD Master 5.1 English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English DD2.0 Subtitles: None | Extras: 6/10 Audio Commentary with Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz Deleted Scenes Behind the Scenes Amy Adams Q&A Casting Sessions Ann Wood No user comments, why not be the first? Screenshots: |
 £8.99 | £9.00 | £9.00 |  £9.85 |
A Bug's Life
Reviewer: Michael Mackenzie
However, unlike Pixar’s other two films from the 90s, the two Toy Stories, its technology dates it – the result, perhaps, of the filmmakers’ ambition exceeding the technology available to them in 1998. Certainly, there are “wow” moments a-plenty, with the Scope aspect ratio perfectly suited to capturing the epic vistas of this computer-generated world. Unfortunately, CG animation being what it was a decade ago, the natural environments tend to take on a plastic sheen – Pixar’s subsequent Finding Nemo achieved a far more convincing representation of the world of nature. A Bug’s Life remains fun and engaging, but comparisons with the rest of Pixar’s output tend to be rather unfavourable. It lacks the confidence and acerbic wit of its immediate predecessor, Toy Story, and ultimately seems geared more towards a younger audience than any of the studio’s other films, save perhaps Cars.
In its high definition debut, the film looks virtually flawless, if a little lifeless due to the crystal-clear presentation of its now dated graphics. Detail is beyond reproach, and the difference between this and the earlier DVD releases is night and day. Of the Pixar films released on Blu-ray so far, Ratatouille is by far the nicest-looking overall, but this is mainly down to the artistic techniques employed, which gave the image a more natural sheen. Certainly, barring some unfortunate artefacting during the rain storm at the film’s climax, I can’t criticise the transfer of A Bug’s Life in any way as far as reproduction of the source material is concerned.
The film is equally well served by a fantastic lossless 5.1 audio track, which ably demonstrates the subtleties of Gary Rydstrom’s sound design and presents no problems as far as clarity is concerned. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are also provided.
In terms of extras, the majority of the included content is replicated from the previous 2-disc special edition DVD. The names of some of the featurettes have changed, and they are organised slightly differently, but virtually everything has been ported over, with the unfortunate exceptions of the two isolated music and sound effects tracks. New features include an affectionate and entertaining look back at the making of the film in the form of a roundtable featuring director John Lasseter, co-director Andrew Stanton and producers Darla K. Anderson and Keven Reher, as well as a brand new visual presentation of the film’s original story treatment, supplemented by narration from Dave Foley (Flik) and some crude animation techniques.
| Film: 7/10 Runtime: 95mins Distributor: Disney Release Date: 19/05/2009 Disc Country: United States of America Region: ALL Video: 9/10 2.39:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 10/10 - English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 - French Dolby Digital 5.1 - Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: - English SDH - French - Spanish | Extras: 8/10 - Geri's Game (short) - Filmmakers' roundtable - A Bug's Life - the first draft - Grasshopper and the Ants (short) - Audio commentary - Pre-production - Design - Production - Sound design - Release - Outtakes - BD-Live There is 1 comment. Have your say. Screenshots: |
Trainspotting: Ultimate Collector's Edition
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
Danny Boyle's direction is extremely playful, he’s clever enough to realise that the urban setting and addiction themes are all that’s needed to ground the story, so he just lets fly with visual pop-culture references and overtly stylish set pieces that abstract the reality of addiction and withdrawal. This stops the subject from ever appearing grim and earned the film a reputation for glamourising drugs, which it does to an extent, but it expresses the destruction of heroin addiction much more strongly than it ever does the highs. In fact if anything Trainspotting overstates this point, the character arc of Tommy for instance is so extreme within the confines of a relatively short and very playful feature film that it robs his story of any real pathos. This doesn’t distract from what Boyle and Hodge achieve with Trainspotting though, it’s an excellent film and back in 1996 it had particular impact, as it came out during that post-Tarantino glut of drug-themed films and proved that you could also make exciting films about the British drug scene, and do so without avoiding the real issues of the subject.
The Disc: Film4 have included all the extras from Universal’s 2-disc DVD on this BD-25 disc, which was basically an excellent selection of interviews that talked about all aspects of the film’s production and a very good audio commentary from McGregor, Boyle, Hodge, and producer Andrew Macdonald. These features combined should really tell you all you need to know about the film, but Film4 have also produced their own retrospective featurette specifically for this Blu-ray release called Memories of Trainspotting, which has the primary cast and crew reminiscing about their time on the film. Unfortunately the 1080p presentation isn’t given quite such loving treatment. In most areas the image is pleasing enough; Trainspotting has a rather muted appearance for the most part, which is exhibited in this transfer, colours are nicely defined and free from bleeding or noise, and when you hit the scenes that are lit with more vivid primary colours then the image looks more dynamic and striking, and the pale skin tones remain very consistent throughout. Contrast and Brightness are a little low, which again is the intended look of the film, so no complaints here, black levels are good even though there aren’t many dark scenes in Trainspotting. The AVC compression is excellent despite the film only taking up 16Gb, and the print used is in very good condition for a film almost 15 years old now, and a relatively soft, fuzzy layer of grain is present throughout, with no obvious signs of noise reduction.
The problem is that the image is noticeably soft, not DVD soft but it does look more like a 720p transfer than a 1080p transfer at times, which isn’t entirely a surprise given Trainspotting’s low budget origins, but to combat that lack of definition Film4 have completely nuked the image with Edge Enhancements. Ugly, distractingly thick halos outline the characters in many of the exterior scenes of the film and even infect some of the interiors as well, it may not be a major problem on Plasma and LCD displays, but on any screen above 5ft it really is a nuisance. Audio at least fares a little better, there are English DTS 5.0 and DD5.1 tracks to choose from that are equal in quality and provide decent (if unspectacular) presentation of the film’s audio. Dialogue sounds clear and clean, which is important for a film with such strong accents being used, and the dynamics are pretty solid. The soundstage is pretty expansive when needed, but the bass is definitely a little hollow and the treble response could be a little better.
| Film: 8/10 Runtime: 93mins Distributor: Film4 Release Date: 1st June 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 6/10 1.78:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 6/10 English DTS 5.0, English DD5.1 Subtitles: English Audio Descriptive* * Included on Extra Features | Extras: 8/10 Commentary with Danny Boyle, Andrew McDonald, John Hodge, and Ewan McGregor Memories of Trainspotting (44m:45s) Deleted Scenes (10m:46s) Look of the Film Then (03m:54s) Look of the Film Now (03m:09s) Sound of the Film Then (07m:48s) Sound of the Film Now (04m:47s) The Beginning (09m:51s) Archive Interview with Irvine Walsh (04m:27s) Behind the Needle (06m:38s) Danny Boyle on Trainspotting (03m:19s) Ewan McGregor on Trainspotting (08m:06s) Cannes Snapshot (01m:48s) Cannes Vox Pops (04m:59s) Trailers (03m:19s) Production Photo Gallery (05m:17s) There are 2 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
£9.85 | £9.85 |  £9.89 |  £9.93 |