What's up on Blu-Ray?

Is it just me, or does the Blu-Ray market seems slow and sluggish lately? There really haven't been many good releases lately.

We've had two Tuesday releases so far in June. What have netted? On week one we got the following things:

1. The Wolfman
2. A shitload of Clint Eastwood oldies.
3. Life: A BBC Documentary
4. Band of Brothers.
5. Bad Boys
6. Alice in Wonderland
7. The New Orleans Saint: Road to Super Bowl 44
8. The Red Barron

I am very pleased to announce that the Blu-Ray of The Wolfman does indeed contain the theatrical release. I already own my copy. It's terrific. I can ignore the bad stuff.

Many old-timers will be utterly thrilled by the arrival of so many Clint Eastwood goldies. I used to be a big-time Eastwood fan in my angry youth. My temperament has changed. So has my education level. While there is still an entertainment level to many of Clint's oldies, I am slumming it when I check these out. The directors and writers were aiming low. We know that now.

If you discount the Eastwood collection what is left? What are the sure-fire crowd pleasers?

1. The Wolfman
2. The Saints

That's it. There are some "maybes" on this list.

1. The Red Barron might be good
2. Life might be good.

I have to call bullshit on a few of these other releases:

1. Alice in Wonderland was straight-up bad. It's one of Burton's worst movies. It's basically a lesbian romance without the sex. You see, the White Queen is afraid to handle the Vorpal sword. Ergo, her femme girlfriend (Alice) must take on the masculine 'knight and shinning armor' roll and slay the Jabberwocky to prove her love. I must say, Anne Hathaway was perfectly cast in this roll. She didn't even have to act. She was just being herself.
2. Bad Boys sucks. This is a stupid buddy flick conceived by Bruckheimer and Bay. When those two guys get together, your first question is "who cut the cheese?"
3. Band of Brothers is over-rates. I might feel different if I was a Nam vet, but I am not.

So what do we have this week? You know what we have? We have exactly one release this week: Shutter Island. As you know, I liked this movie quite a bit. I blogged about it several times. Good flick! The rest of it this week is rubbish.

1. Caddyshack is one of the dumbest comedies of all time. The Snickers bar floating in the pool tells you everything you need to know about the level of this film. This is the absolute quintessential stoner movie. People laugh because they smoked weed, not because the jokes are funny.
2. The Illusionist is a very over-rated romance, that is very popular among teen-girls. It's basically a darker version of a Harlequin romance. That is the audience demographic: Teen girls. It was okay, but the movie irritated me by wasting the talents of some of my favorite actors. Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Rufus Sewell, not to mention the luscious Jessica Biel.
3. From Paris with Love was almost a total cinematic catastrophe. This was awful stuff, far worse than Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. This one insulted my intelligence 25 times.

Let us remember that in literary circles, the Harlequin is a wooden clown who is often an emissary of the Devil. This theory forcefully applies to the Canadian publisher.

The list doesn't get much stronger next week. The solid goldie is Flash Gordon (1980). This is the comedy with the great European actors and the amazing Queen sound track. That is one of the most under-rated movies of all time. I thought it was very funny.

Other than that, we get the Book of Eli, Darkman, and a new box for Enter the Dragon. Bouy...

There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to Hollywood's choice of Blu-Ray releases. There are so many great titles in their back-log. Yet, they continue to focus on releasing bad comedy on Blu-Ray. Stop me if I am wrong, but what do you gain by putting bad comedy on Blu-Ray? Money? I doubt it. Show me the proof on the bottom line. I don't believe you.

I think this release schedule proves several things:

1. Piracy is hurting the release schedule for Blu-Ray. Since the bottom line is lower than it might otherwise be, studios have less incentives to invest in the upgrade process. This is why we get fewer releases.
2. It would seem the recession is still hurting the uptake of Blu-Ray. When I look down this long list of bad comedy and Rom-Com (which is terrible by definition), I see release schedule which is mom-friendly and kid friendly. This suggests to me that there is just one Blu-Ray player in the house, and that is in the family room.
3. Right now, studios do not see a profit margin in releasing some of their better titles. They are holding them out for a better climate. With a W shaped recession on tap, we may be waiting for sometime.

What would l like to see released? Let me give you a new top 11 release list:

1. The Incredibles
2. Star Wars (the original)
3. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc
4. Apocalypse Now!
5. Alien
6. Aliens
7. The Exorcist
8. Monte Python and the Holy Grail
9. Blue Velvet
10. Princess Mononoke
11. Barry Lyndon

I gave you an odd number just because I didn't want to leave Barry Lyndon off the list. I just can't believe that some of these all-time classics didn't lead the way into the Blu-Ray era.

The #1 pick on my list--The Incredibles--was a runaway smash hit in 2004. Everybody loved it. It is one of my favorite movies of all time... Maybe even my absolute favorite. Why this movie wasn't at the head of the class in 2006 is beyond me. Why Pixar has delayed a release is beyond me.

Star Wars and Aliens have both been shown many times in glorious HD on cable TV. HBO used to show Star Wars all the time. The SciFi channel shows Aliens every couple of weeks. Why they haven't released the Blu-Ray is utterly beyond me.

Every other film on that list is a classic in one way or another, and should be released.

That is not The Wolfman (2010)

Much to my surprise, a copy The Wolfman (2010) was circulating around the lunch tables of Calabasas Commons today. A certain vendor we have relations with was passing the movie around on a USB 2.0 memory stick.

I was stunned, not that somebody had a movie on a stick, but rather that a file was floating around so soon. The Blu-Ray is not scheduled for release until Tuesday.

"This must be one of those filmed films, right?"

"Nope it is a Blu-Ray rip!"

"But the Blu-Ray is not out yet."

"Somebody nailed it early."

"Really?"

I grabbed a copy from another associate who had his laptop with him. An hour or two ago, I plugged my USB 2 stick into the PS3 and began to watch. It didn't take too long for the howls to ensue... from me.

THIS IS NOT THE WOLFMAN I SAW IN THE THEATER!

No, this is the unrated director's cut. Gone is the lean, mean, fast-paced, sparce, simple tale I enjoyed very much. Welcome to a long, bloated, slow-moving, cut with contradictions and lots of bad creative ideas.

This cut is basically 2 hours. The theatrical is about 98 minutes on my clock. It looks to me like they cut the right 21 minutes. 7 of the first 9 got cut. It was a very wise decision to leave that rubbish on the cutting room floor. There is nothing to see there folks. Just move along. Not since Star Trek Voyager has cuting 7 from 9 looked soooo good to me.

What do you miss? Well... lets just say it this way... Benicio was the weak link in this movie. Even in the theatrical cut, his weak and somewhat off key performance comes through. The first 7 of 9 aggravate the situation to an ungodly level.

We actually hear Benicio recite the "Alas poor Yorick... I knew him, Horatio" speech from Hamlet. Believe me, I have seen 12th graders at Bullard High School in Fresno California do it better than that. This was downright obnoxious. It was a very good thing for Del Toro's career that the editor left that footage on the cutting room floor. You can't let that kind of crap get into the final cut. I think it is a very bad thing for his career that they put this footage back in for the Blu-Ray release. Most actors walk through life terrified that the world will unmask them as the frauds that they are. I am warning you, this Hamlet bit is going to unmask you...

And it's a terrible thing for the movie too.

Apparently, after performing Hamlet, some of the actresses are feeling a bit Randy backstage, and it looks like they would like to start up an orgy with their leading man. Just as everybody begins to start up a groove, Lawrence's would-be sister-in-law kills the buzz by knocking on the door and announcing she needs Lawrence's help in tracking down his missing brother, Ben.

This is a wretched stock scene, where the soon-to-be-hero is caught with his pants down, turns down his heroic calling rudely, and his soon-to-be-love finds him disgusting. Of course, all great love & hero stories start this way, right? Nope. All the bad ones do.

Until you see it, I cannot explain the level of damage these 7 minutes do to the whole movie. It derails the whole thing. The editor was a good surgeon. He surgically removed the tumor, and patched the (w)hole extremely well. If you leave this cancerous 7 minutes in body, the following hell ensues:

• Lawrence is no longer a sympathetic character. He's now just another debauched asshole actor with serious childhood issues. There's nothing for me to cheer for there folks. How about you?
• The fact that Emily seeks his aid makes no sense. What help will a debauched alcoholic bohemian with serious psychological issues be in tracking down her missing fiancée? Nope, he's no help at all.
• The fact that Lawrence immediately turns around and breaks his contract to look for his brother really makes no sense.

In the theatrical, we see Benico performing Hamlet, we do not hear him. Over the top of his performance, we hear Gwen narrating her letter to Lawrence. It's a simple letter to a man she does not know at all; a guy who should have been her brother-in-law, and a guy who... maybe... can help. Chicks think like this in desperate moments. Lawrence doesn't do anything overt to disgrace himself, or come off as a bastard, ergo a romance now seems plausible.

With the 7 minutes of cancer cells extracted, we get off to a nice & clean fast start. With the cancerous 7 minutes in, we are already in a train-wreck condition.

Those who read this blog know I was a big advocate of the theatrical release. I bitch-slapped the critics online, at work, in front of family, and friends. I spread good word of mouth for the theatrical release. I dragged brothers, coworkers, friends and former room-mates out to see the movie.

I'm going to tell you straight-up: I hate the director's cut. If this Blu-Ray is like the wretched Daredevil Blu-Ray, and does not contain the theatrical cut, I won't buy it. If you won't release the theatrical cut, I will never buy it. The directors cut is already a fuck-up.

Big question for Universal Studios: why did you release this shit? This never should have seen the light of day. You did a great job in burning the dead bodies and burying the ashes. Why issue this full-confession now? The Top-Kill succeed until you blew the concrete cap off the well. What the hell's the matter with you? What were you thinking?

In any case I now understand several things:

• I understand why Universal went into panic when they saw the first (Director's) cut of the movie. I would have also. In fact, I did.
• I can understand why the project got pushed 16 months while rescue-editors worked to save the patient's life on the table. I would have made the same command decision had I been in charge.
• I can understand why there was conflict. Apparently, the director fought Universal. He didn't want to give up on his little darling scenes. He somehow... The stupid bastard managed to get these turds back into the Blu-Ray.
• Joe Johnston is apparently a very, very stupid bastard. I can't believe he actually directed Hidalgo and the Rocketeer. Those were actually good movies. Hidalgo was very good; one of my favorites. Just call him Sloppy Joe the Hoe.
• I can see why Joe Johnston has not directed many movies in his long career. He looks like a stubborn fool, unwilling to receive good, constructive criticism when it is offered.

Anyway, steer clear of the download copy. Wait for the real thing. The Director's cut is a raw-red bloody abortion. You don't want to see this. It's downright ugly. See the theatrical cut. Universal got it right. Joe Johnston got it wrong.

The Wolfman rocks! See it at the best possible theater!

So yesterday I played hookie from work and went to see The Wolfman. I saw it at 2:00pm at the AMC16 theaters in Woodland Hills. In short, I loved it. I dragged a friend of mine named Colin out to see it at 7:00pm. I am glad I saw it a second time, immediately, under different circumstances. This will soften the scortched earth polemic I was going to write against the movie critics. Don't worry, those jokers are going to catch some bullets, but I was planning to nuke them.

The first time I saw the movie, it was at a state-of-the-art movie theater. I am talking about Sony 4K DLP projectors, and maximum quality THX sound. It had stadium seating with reclinable chairs. In short, it is a circa-2000 theater, and everything we would expect from a quality theater. The second time I saw the movie, it was in a circa 1971 movie theater with old-fashioned film projection and no THX sound. We had old fashioned seats. This theater provided a different and inferior experiance.

The first time around, I could see no reason at all for many of the criticisms leveled against this movie. Even now, I no evidence for most of the criticism. However, some shots stuck in the old-fashioned theater. Several critics have accused Benicio Del Toro of giving one of his most mumbling performances in recent memory. The first time around, I felt that was a straight-out lie. Every word out of his mouth was perfectly inteligible. The second time around it seemed like three different actors were all mumbling indestinctly. The first time around I though Emily Blunts performance was just fine to outstanding. The second time around she was a bit flatter. I still didn't agree with those who said she gave a lifeless and off-key performance. Rubbish!

The moral of this story is simple: This is a fully modern movie, designed from square one for the fully modern digital cinema. Do not see it in an older theater. See it in the most recently constructed, most state of the art facility you have. In my neck of the woods, this means Arclight, Muvico, or Mann Chinese. Analog does bad things to this movie. I am fairly sure that there is going to be a sensational Blu-Ray effect when it is released.

Now for the critics. Heyhehehehehehahaha... {evil laugh} You guys are loosing your street cred right now as we speak. A flat-cold disagreement between the people and the critics is taking place on Websites like Metacritic.com and imdb.com. The people love this movie. The critics do not. Ergo, the critics lose. I love it!

You guys need to get off your faggotty high horses and ditch the art-school bullshit you were taught. It has warped your minds, and your judgment. Enjoy movies as natural men and women uninfected by crappy doctrines of art. See it from our point of view. Get rid of this monumental bias that Gay romance constitutes an A film, and werewolf movies constitute C or D material.

False reports about this movie:

• The pace is poor: Bullshit! Bull fucking shit! This movie is very fast paced. It takes just 22 minutes to get to the point where Lawrence is bitten. It takes just 45 to get to his first transformation. It takes just 1 hour to get the point where he is werewolf running around London. It only takes 80 minutes to enter the climax sequence. At 98 minutes the movie is over. This is a fast-pace movie. I love the fact that it doesn't waste any time or even frames. Every 1/24 of a second counts for something. I love the efficiency.
• Benicio Del Toro Mumbles: Not in a good theater he doesn't. Sorry you saw it with piece of shit film projection there boys.
• Emily Blunt is flat as a pancake: False. Not in a good theater she isn't. Her performance is just fine.
• Anthony Hopkins only gets a little devilry: Rubbish! This is his best badguy role since Hannible Lecter. He gets a chance to really cut loose, and he is a tremendous bad guy in this movie.
• The other performances are flat: Excuse me, did you see this movie? What movie did you see on that drunken night? Hugo Weaving gave one of the best performances of his career here! That was a stand up and shout performance. He was great.
  
• It's super gory: What? What movie did you see? Have you seen Saw or Hostile? That is gore. There is some monster gore in this movie, but it is brief, and not celebrated.
• The guys in Werewolf suits look dated: They did that to keep the spirit of the original alive. Believe me, these are good suits. It is the dated approach, but if you saw the originals, you know why they did this. This critique is off-point.
• They don't understand Goth: Say wha...? This was arguably the most gothic movie ever! This is a gothic masterpiece!
• Rex Reed says that "Sometimes the monsters hunt you!" is a howler of a bad laugh: Rubbish! There is nothing funny about that line. Rex, you are getting pretty old. I think 4th stage dimentia due to advancing Azheimers disease is getting to you. Some false connection went off in your mind as the result of an organic malfunction. But then again, you always were off point.
  

In short, you can see that I totally and vehimentally disagree with critics on just about all major points. I think we have a classic monster movie here. It is at least twice as good as Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. Maybe three times as good. If you liked that movie, you will love The Wolfman.

Ignore the critics. Go see this movie. See it in a state of the art digital cinema.

My poor Wolfman II

Well folks, we are coming right down to the wire. The Wolfman will be released in less than 48 hours given midnight showings on Thursday night. The truth will be known soon: Was the 16 months of delay and reworking necessary? Was it productive? Did this turn out to be the epic cinematic catastrophe that so many declared was marching towards its inevitable ruination? Did it turn out okay?

The initial word looks decent. 544 members of IMDB have reported in with reviews. The score is massive. It is getting 8.9 stars out of 10. Of course, this is probably cast and crew members reporting in to give the movie a serious push. The score cannot hold at that level. If it does, that will be sufficient to make The Wolfman on of the top 20 movies ever released.

I have better news than this: An early critical review showing was held for pro critics. The first 7 have already checked in with Rottentomatoes.com. By a vote of 4-3, the T-Meter now stands at 57 with a strength score of 5.3. Whether you know it or not, that is a very encouraging sign.

Many good and solid action/horror movies get mixed reviews from professional critics. Many professional critics believe that a movie with action/horror theme cannot be rated as 'good'. In order to be 'good' a movie must contain emotion meltdown themes surrounding drug addiction, mental illness, divorce and homosexuality. This is A content to many critics. Gay coming out movies constitute A content. Those movies have to be talked up as Oscar contenders. Werewolf movies are inherently B content and must be downgraded accordingly. The rumors themselves can be a cause of bias. Critics may have their poisoned pens loaded, and their spectacles sharply cleaned, looking extra-hard for blems.

When you control for art school biases, and rumors of disaster, a score of 57 is not bad at all for a werewolf movie. Remember, I have no interest whatsoever in the A content that Hollywood produces, and I do not apologize for that fact. I haven't got the slightest interest in the world in the emotional meltdowns that Hollywood stars experience because they (a) discover they are gay, (b) get divorced, (c) alienate their children in this process, (d) turn to heroine for comfort afterward. I am not interested in watching them go through the 12 steps to life recovery. I am not interested in watching a psycho therapy session in progress. I am not interested in seeing how they allegedly achieved inner peace. I will not payout my hard-earned money for a ticket to see such rubbish. I am a B movie guy, and I am lovin' every minute of it. Werewolves are great stuff for me.

Ergo sum, the sort of critiques that are being leveled against The Werewolf are only mildly worrisome. The one critic who declared that the movie is poorly paced, he worries me. Pace is everything in an action/horror movie. Furthermore, when a movie goes through as many associate editors as The Wolfman, it usually means that they are dealing with issues of pace and coherency. The rest of the critics don't worry me. The positive things said about this movie do seem to outweigh the negative... once bias is controlled.

I have been hopeful that this movie will turn out well. The previews do look good to me. It is dangerous to believe in previews. These are too often the very best part of the movie cobbled together. You can make anything look great that way. The number of editors, pace issues, and coherency issues do worry me a lot.

My poor Wolfman!

For those who don't know, Guillermo Del Toro and Benicio Del Toro have teamed up to create an authentic remake of the original Werewolf of London for NBC Universal. According to the many rumors, the battle does not go well.

First off, there were rumors of many mishaps along the way. Primary production did not go smoothly or without a hitch. There were rumors of considerable disorganization. All this would mean nothing if Universal had not pushed back the release date for the Wolfman some five times. Reports of the original schedule are somewhat contradictory, but the original release date was supposed to be October 12 2008! Feb 13th 2009 was the next scheduled release date. Aprl 3, 2009 was the next date. November 6th 2009 was the penultimate date. We now have the absolute final delivery date of Feb 12, 2010. That is something like 16 months late.

Why is the movie 16 months late? What the hell has been going on for the past 16 months? Rumor has it that there has been some major wrangling over the final cut of this movie. There are at least two major versions of this film circulating at Universal. The first was scored by Danny Elfman, and it has been thrown out. Evidentally, it did not do well in market tests. Executives believed there were obvious problems in the narrative that needed correction.

To fix these problems, Universal decided to seize control of the project and produce a studio cut of the movie. In the process of fixing this edition of the film, Universal has had three different editors, one of who is famed as a 'rescue editor'. That fellow is Walter Murch, a 911 emergency guy you call--at great expense--when you have a big-budget movie that is in danger of sinking.

Evidentally, the changes Mr, Murch and company made were so substantial, Danny Elfman's musical score no longer fit the picture. Not surprisingly, in 16 months time, Mr. Elfman had moved on to other projects, and could not be recalled to rework his original musical score for The Wolfman. Universal then turned to Paul Haslinger--a fellow I like a lot--to do a fully modern Electronica/Industrial style score.

To make matters worse, we are about 12 days away from the release of The Wolfman, and we have not a single professional review of the movie yet. This means that there have been no early showings for critics. There is still time for them to do this, but we have reason to be wary. This is always a suspicious move. Whenever a studio refuses to do early showings of a film for critics, it means that they are hiding something. Given the history of difficulties and the 16 month tardy release, I would suspect that they have something to hide.

Personally, I am extremely bumbed out by this news. I have usually liked Werewolf movies. I have usually like Guillermo's movies. I was looking forward to this film with great relish. I felt this could be a great movie because of its aparent fidelity to the original by Universal. At this point, the signs are pretty bad. I am greatly concerned that this movie will flop and flop badly. This could compromise Guillermo's ability to make "At the Mountain's of Madness".