Why My Pants Exploded This Morning At 9:30am EST

Author: AF Duncan May 8th, 2008 No Comments »

My Criterion Collection newsletter told me this:

Dear Criterion Collection Newsletter subscriber (THAT’S ME! - ed.),

We’ve got some exciting news for this fall, and we wanted you to hear it first.

Our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We’ve picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we’ll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions.

Holy shit, people. This is going to be amazing. Here’s the list of their first 13 Blu-ray titles:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

This is all good stuff, but I’m really looking forward to Chungking Express and Walkabout, which apparently will have a new transfer.

General, Movie/TV, On DVD

DVD Review: Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors Volume One

Author: AF Duncan May 8th, 2008 2 Comments »





A funny thing happened when I received this DVD in the mail. I immediately called my brother and, chuckling with sadly predictable Gen X smartass irony, told him what 80s TV show box set I had in my hand. His revealing response: “What the hell is that?”

My bro was the target audience for Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors when it debuted in 1985, and he had no memory of it. I was a couple years older at the time and remember specifically avoiding the show because it looked so epically lame.

This was in the mid 80s — the heyday of TV cartoons for licensed properties — and poor little programs like Jayce had to fight with unstoppable juggernauts like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, He-Man, Robotech, and dozens of others vying for the attention of little dudes all over the country. To say Jayce had an uphill battle to capture eyeballs and wallets is a vast understatement.

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General, Movie/TV, On DVD

DVD Review: Sam & Max: The Complete Series

Author: AF Duncan April 4th, 2008 No Comments »


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I think it’s finally official: the 90s are starting to sneak their way back. Tori Spelling’s got a bestselling autobiography (and supposedly there’s a new 90210 on the way), people are figuring out some long-forgotten music of the “alternative” flavor is holding up pretty well, there’s this, and also mid-90s cult kiddie fare like Sam & Max is getting the DVD-box-set treatment.

An independent comic hit in the late 80s/early 90s, creator Steve Purcell was able to spin off Sam & Max’s underground success into 1993’s Sam and Max Hit the Road, a popular LucasArts video game, and ultimately into a critically acclaimed but short-lived (12 episodes total) FOX Kids cartoon called The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police. Thanks to a consistently healthy following, the duo has lived on in some form ever since the cancellation of the show, most recently in a new series of computer games from Telltale.

The sharp, nostalgic minds at Shout! Factory (apparently somewhat in cahoots with Telltale) have collected the entirety of the FOX TV series into a nice little DVD set. All the episodes of Sam & Max are here, including three separate animated shorts for FOX and a new one called “Our Bewildering Universe.” Other extras: a conversation with Steve Purcell, an inside look at Telltale Games, a playable demo of the “Ice Station Santa” game, original concept art for the TV show, and a detailed overview of the original comic series.

As far as the quality of the series itself, it’s amiable enough, but largely uneven. The sense of artistry and craft found in late 80s-early 90s TV cartoonage like DuckTales, Real Ghostbusters, Ren & Stimpy, and Batman: The Animated Series was obviously long gone by the time Sam & Max made it to production. There is some decent goofy character design from Purcell, but overall the show suffers from a cheap and lazy look.

Some pacing and timing problems in early episodes are smoothed out a bit as the show progresses. The plots are for the most part wacky and energetic, and it does try hard to be funny and clever. To that last point, Sam & Max is very much a devotee of the unappealing-but-popular-at-the-time Tiny Toons/Animaniacs school of cartoon humor, which grew out of a reaction to the discovery that arrested-development/nostalgia-obsessed Gen X 20 and 30-somethings like myself were watching weekday afternoon and Saturday morning kids shows. Unfortunately, this Tiny Toons/Animaniacs school of thought tended to equate “manic,” “shrill,” and “faux-smart, obscure pop culture references” with “funny.” True, John Waters can often pull that equation off astonishingly well. But the spasmodic Animaniacs and its ilk just tended to be tiresome and laborious.

I appreciate the effort to recreate that mixture of smart and silly old Looney Tunes shorts, the Marx Brothers, and classic Simpsons accomplished so brilliantly. But the snarky and smug rapid-fire quips in shows like Sam & Max always seem more interested in calling attention to how intelligent the writers are and how the shows are Not Just For Kids! than in pulling off a truly funny gag.

Sam & Max fans will probably enjoy this set. Anyone else can take a pass.

Grade: C+

General, Movie/TV, Comics, On DVD

Sony Launching Blu-Ray Profile 2.0 With A Couple Of Duds

Author: AF Duncan March 24th, 2008 6 Comments »

Somewhat annoyingly, “Profile 2.0″ is the next gen of Blu-Ray players and discs. What makes it better than current Blu-Ray (aka “Profile 1.0″)? Apparently fairly meaningless features like picture-in-picture and Internet access. The fun part is Profile 2.0 discs will only play on Profile 2.0 players, which aren’t even on the market yet. However, PS3s will be upgraded for Profile 2.0 through a firmware download, which is kind of neat.

Sony plans on launching this new, sure-to-be-confusing-and-frustrating-to-the-average-consumer technology, which Sony is calling BD-Live, on April 8 with two completely inexplicable titles: the critically panned “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and the justifiably forgotten Schwarzenegger dud “The 6th Day.”

Sony’s two BD-Live titles each include exclusive downloadable theatrical and home video previews along with a FAQ about BD-Live functionality. “Walk Hard” includes three featurettes that star Bill Hader as Derek Stone, a historian and expert “Coxologist.” These featurettes are available only via the BD-Live download.

BD-Live titles also have the potential to enable a wide range of Web-based features, including ringtone and wallpaper downloads, peer-to-peer interactions, live virtual events and gaming.

General, Movie/TV, On DVD, A/V Club

DVD Review: 13: Game Of Death

Author: AF Duncan March 18th, 2008 No Comments »


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The latest in Dimension’s Dimension Extreme (exclamation point not included) line of over-the-top horror, 13: Game of Death is a strange, engaging Thai thriller about a timid, way-down-on-his-luck salesman, deftly portrayed by the uncannily Arliss Howard-esque Thai pop star Krissada Terrence, who becomes involved in a brutal online game show that promises the contestant millions of baht if they successfully complete 13 morally questionable challenges. To describe any of the challenges would ruin much of the film’s many surprises, but needless to say, none of them are particularly pleasant. In fact, as you could probably guess, the majority of them are delightfully insane.

The fast-paced 13: Game of Death covers some well-traveled ground. At various points it resembles The Running Man, The Game, The 10th Victim, Series 7, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Crank, The Condemned, and Rockstar’s Manhunt video game. However, the film manages to distinguish itself from those efforts through an appealing combination of quiet and naturalistic Japanese-new-wave detachment and inventive, genuinely funny slapstick humor.

Of course, as with so many of these Asian cult films, there are one or two randomly cryptic scenes and dangling plot threads, and the ending becomes a silly melodramatic muddle when the filmmakers try to shoehorn in a Big Statement about reality and violence and morals and voyeurism. Or something.

Mildly and expectedly uneven aspects aside, 13: Game of Death is sharper and less self-involved than other, more celebrated recent Asian genre films, proving once again that the Thai film industry is one to be reckoned with.

13: Game of Death is out today.

(weak) Extras:
-short Making Of
-couple trailers

Bonus note to torture enthusiasts, in tried and true cult film fashion, the cover of the DVD has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the movie.

GRADE: B

General, Movie/TV, On DVD

“Batman: Gotham Knight” Video

Author: Stephen Gerding March 12th, 2008 1 Comment »

The site loads slow, the video is choppy and the embed code actually gives you a YouTube clip, but here’s the first promotional clip for the “Batman: Gotham Knight” DVD . The animation seems OK enough, at least. Most unintentionally funny bit: Paul Levitz showing how in touch he is with the kids today when he comments on the “growing love” of Japanese animation.


Comics, On DVD, Animation

Blu-Ray By TKO In The 18th Round

Author: AF Duncan February 19th, 2008 No Comments »

On the same day that Fidel Castro steps down as president of Cuba, Toshiba quits the HD-DVD business. COINCIDENCE??

Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company’s Tokyo offices.

Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

It is assumed Nishida was also somewhat relieved, as his company will now no longer have to field those constant “when is blankety blank going to be on HD-DVD?!?” phone calls and emails.

General, The News, Movie/TV, On DVD

New “New Frontier” Stills, Jeremey Sisto Interview

Author: Stephen Gerding February 15th, 2008 2 Comments »

Warner Brothers has just released some new Batman-themed stills from ““Justice League: The New Frontier,” along with an interview with the voice of Batman in the flick, Jeremey Sisto. Full sized images are in the gallery, the rest of the interview is after the jump.

Justice League: The New Frontier - Batman

A year ago, Jeremy Sisto was starring as a private investigator with deep psychological scars in “Kidnapped.” This season, Sisto joined the “Law & Order” legacy of actors as a detective with a haunted past.

It’s seem only natural that his next starring role would be as Batman. Sisto fills the vocal role of the Dark Knight in the highly-anticipated release of “Justice League: The New Frontier,” the second DC Universe original animated PG-13 film presented by Warner Premiere, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and distributed by Warner Home Video.

Based on the landmark DC Comics graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke and produced by animation legend Bruce Timm, “Justice League: The New Frontier” features an all-star voice cast led by Sisto, Kyle MacLachlan (Superman), David Boreanaz (Green Lantern), Neil Patrick Harris (The Flash), Lucy Lawless (Wonder Woman), Kyra Sedgwick (Lois Lane), Brooke Shields (Carol Ferris), Miguel Ferrer (Martian Manhunter) and Phil Morris (King Faraday). The film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 26, 2008. The HD DVD edition will be available March 18, 2006.

“I tend to (get cast) as dark characters, and I’m more drawn to those characters anyway – they’re usually more interesting,” Sisto said. “Plus, I got this deep voice from my father, and the combination of the timbre of my voice and my inflections tends to make people feel that there’s some darkness there.”

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Movie/TV, Comics, On DVD, Animation