Friday, February 26, 2010

Blogger's Block and Beware Blu-Ray


I am currently working on a lengthy movie review post, but it seems to be taking me a little longer than it should, so I thought I would just do a couple quickie posts in the meantime.

My topic today is my love / hate of the Blu-Ray video format. I absolutely love the picture quality for these discs, but I wanted to warn people that if you are fans of special features, especially commentary tracks, you may want to learn a bit more about each and every Blu-Ray you pick up before selling your old DVD copies to FYE.

A great example is the newly released Cabin Fever. Keep in mind that the original release DVD was entirely on one single disc. And on that lone disc was a making of, a trailer, the Rotten Fruit series of animated shorts and 5 (count em) COMMENTARY TRACKS!!!

So imagine my surprise that I went in to Target the other day and saw the Blu-Ray disc in their new release section for the low low price of $14.99. Wow, I thought to myself what a bargain! I picked it up and out of habit immediately flipped it over to see what goodies it has. Ready??...It has all the aforementioned extras except for the 5 commentary tracks. WHAT!?!?! It does however have a brand new one on there from Eli Roth and the cast but would it have killed them to port over the ones from the DVD? What about all the extra space that the Blu-Ray fromat provides? They just decided to say "awww screw it nobody will even notice they're gone"? And consider this: since Cabin Fever is supposed to be a throwback to the '80s style of horror movies, then the pristine picture quality that Blu-Ray provides is kind of secondary when it comes to the extra features. Think about it. You almost want a blurrier grainier picture quality with this sort of flick.

This is a disturbing trend I have noticed lately. Although it doesn't seem to be that case with every movie that comes out (Shaun Of The Dead ported over every special feature and even had a couple small new ones), you do have to be careful of what you are buying if you are into this sort of stuff.

I also find it strange that this has not been considered by the studios: One of the primary reasons the DVD market bottomed out so quickly is that it became quite evident that people were collecting movies voraciously, now that a compact affordable format had proven successful. But like with any other collectible, shelf space becomes limited and runs out completely over time. DVD collections became too large to handle and so people started saying to themselves "Hmmmm, maybe I don't really need to own every season of Punky Brewster on DVD" which resulted in a huge plunge in sales over the last 2 years.

Having said that, what does that say for the people who decide they want to own an upgraded Blu-Ray of Oh, let's say George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead just for the spiffy visuals, but can't get rid of their 4 disc box set on DVD because of the plethora of stuff on it? It means that they keep both. And that means shelf space fills up that much faster. And that means that for the reason mentioned above, the Blu Ray format may not have the longevity that DVD had, or at the very least, won't get as many titles released on it.

For example, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever isn't being released on Blu-Ray. Yet. I guess they will wait til people have shelled out their cash for the DVD first and then put it out on Blu-Ray next year.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Wolfman (2010)


Didn't really have time to post anything tonight, but after coming home from seeing The Wolfman I thought I would look on here to see what others think and to my surprise only Horror Movie A Day had anything to say so far on the movie.

Hopefully that means that everyone is busy seeing it right now. I know my theater was a packed house! This was the best werewolf movie I have ever seen. Seriously. Most of the changes that were made from the original make perfect sense and in my opinion are better, especially the time period and location of the film. There is one HUGE element of the movie that was added for this that wasn't really needed but was handled effectively. I won't say anything about it here just now as I don't want to spoil anything for those planning to go see it.

Fantastic production design, well timed jump scares scattered throughout, and rip roaring gore each and everytime the Wolfman is on screen.

And speaking of the gore, both it's level of violence and also Rick Baker's makeup design totally had me thinking that the spirit of Paul Naschy is alive and well. He would have loved this.

Please go see this and take someone you love with you for a Valentine's night out.

Friday, February 5, 2010

post birthday Amazon shopping spree

Just got done spending all my Amazon giftcards I have been saving up and ordered the following: Final Fantasy XIII for PS3, Hardbodies DVD Collection, Horror Rises From The Tomb on DVD, Zombieland on Bluray, Jennifer's Body on Bluray, and Saw VI on Bluray.
Didnt get as much for my money this year, but a PS3 game and 3 blurays blow through the cash pretty quickly LOL
Sorry I have been absent from here for a while but January was a very stressful month for me. Earthquakes, a baby being born, visits from family, wife's coworker died, and I just spent 4 days in the hospital for the first time ever. I am hoping that I can now devote a little more time to the blog now that things have calmed down.
Thanks for your patience!!