“My plan is, right…

Tuesday August 31st 2010

… to put a pixellated bomb on a crow.”

Trash Humpers Update: A revolution in formats

Tuesday August 31st 2010

We’ve already dedicated a ludicrous amount of bandwidth to Harmony Korine’s brilliant Trash Humpers, not only because it was the second film we did for Ultra Culture Cinema, but also because Warp Films are doing such a fucking amazing job with it.

It’s getting a home video released on September 20th and these are the formats you have to choose from:

		Enjoy waste fornication on the go with digital downloads ranging from 480×270 to 1280×720. It’s going to look shit whichever version you choose, so I wouldn’t worry too much about resolution. Actually, who am I kidding? 720 all the way bitchezzz. You can pointlessly ‘pre-order’ a download here.
		Probably the most practical format available (boring!), the DVD includes a 24-page booklet, a free A2 poster and even a variety of bonus features, including two short films (Mac and Plak, Blood of Havana) and 18 minutes of deleted scenes. Ouch. It also has some very nice cover art. Oooo! This pre-order might actually be worth doing. You get the DVD a week before release. That said, it’s quite a bit cheaper on Amazon.
		This is where things get silly/brilliant. Korine has individually created, and customised by hand, 300 copies of the film on VHS. Each comes in a totally unique vandalised package, like the rather beautiful example on the left. 150 are PAL and 150 are NTSC so get them while they’re hot. But beware, they’re not cheap.
		Finally, a very limited edition is being released on 35mm film print. Five (count ‘em) 35mm-gauge acetate-based theatrical film prints, consisting of four 1000 foot film reels, will be available – each one held in a print case hand-designed by Korine. The price? A steal at £7500. I e-mailed Warp to ask if they’d give me one of them, and was told… ‘Might be able to give you a print if you prove you have a 35mm projector at home to play it…’ Maybe next time.

This week in hideous Blu-ray cover art

Monday August 30th 2010

Brucey’s looked better, hasn’t he?

Blu-ray Round-Up: August Edition

Monday August 30th 2010

MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Bringing Lynch’s Blu-ray count to three (we previously reviewed The Elephant Man and INLAND EMPIRE), this new transfer of his 2001 masterpiece is every bit as grainy and beautiful as you’d hope. I saw it at Somerset House just a few weeks ago and even compared to that magical evening, the Blu is a wholly satisfying experience. Extras are high-quality but standard-definition.

Now all I need is a Twin Peaks Blu-ray box set and I can die happy.

THE THIRD MAN
Almost two years after Criterion released their exemplary US Blu-ray of The Third Man, the Studio Canal Collection have ably done the same over here. It’s a different transfer to the Criterion version and apparently it’s not as good, but unless you’re a total ponce the difference is probably unnoticeable. All in all, a thing of beauty.

À BOUT DE SOUFFLE
It feels like this has already been released on Blu-ray about a thousand times (it hasn’t) but in any case, it’s hard to imagine it ever looking better than it does here. Studio Canal’s Blus are so uniformly awesome that reviewing them can get hideously banal. Amazing. End of.

TOKYO STORY
I’ve never seen any of the BFI’s Blu-rays before because they’re SO. FUCKING. EXPENSIVE. but after seeing this one, I might have to start breaking the bank. The menu’s alone are a work of art (one area Studio Canal aren’t so solid on), beautifully understated and elegant. The film looks alright too.

It’s entirely devoid of extras, although the back of the case does include the heading ‘Special features’, under which it says:

High definition presentation of Tokyo Story.

Who’d have thunk it?

Marketing Disasters of Our Time: Cyrus

Sunday August 29th 2010

Cyrus is not a particularly mainstream proposition. It’s directed by the Mumblecore Kings themselves, Jay and Mark Duplass, which means it’s full of shaky HD camerawork and more crash zooms than your average Jason Statham movie. It’s also very subtle as comedies go, with no big set-pieces or out and out LMAO-moments, and although the central cast are all big names (at least compared with your average Duplass credit list), they haven’t quite got the selling power that Ben Stiller leant to this year’s other big Mumblecrossover, Greenberg.

So instead, Fox have decided the best way to promote Cyrus is total deception. Hence we get a music-saturated trailer which portrays the film as some kind of kooky blend of Little Miss Sunshine and Step Brothers, distorting the movie’s tone to such an extreme degree that it made it look totally shit. The posters have been equally bad, in particular the UK quad pictured above.

Bland doesn’t begin to describe the design, which must have taken somebody all of ten minutes to bash together. The tagline is equally lame, and the dynamic between the characters isn’t even hinted at. Is Jonah aiming a playful punch at John C or calling him a wanker? At least the French poster was a little more direct…

Those nutty French.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is: please ignore all of this awful crap, because Cyrus is a very nice film and deserves to be seen by more people than just the small number of Superbad fans who go by mistake and leave after 15 minutes.