Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince Blu-Ray Review

Posted by Martin:

The Video: A

The Audio: A

The Extras: B+

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
received decent reviews when it came out in the summer of 2009.  It has a fresh rating of 83% over at Rottentomatoes.

The Video:

The video here is excellent.  The codec is VC-1 in 1080P, formated in the 2:40.1 aspect ratio.  This is a very dark film, story wise and cinematography wise, and the dark areas still show detail with little to no noise.  A very attractive picture to see.

The Audio:

The audio is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1.  A very clear mix.  There is action in the movie, of course, but there are moments when the quite subtle elements are still heard and not muffled or muddled.  A very enjoyable soundtrack.

The Extras:  B+

On the first disc there is Maximum Movie Mode, which is not much more then a Picture in Picture track through out the movie, but it is a generous one.  You will see animatics, production stills, and interviews with the cast.

Focus points:  These are fourteen chapters that are also in the Maximum movie mode.  I found “The Millenium Bridge” chapter the most interesting as it showed how they shot the opening sequence of the movie.  Interesting movie making points in this chapters.

The majority of the extras are presented the second disc.   The majority of the extras on this disc are fluff and aimed at a younger audience.   But there is one documentary that is very engaging, JK Rowling: A Year in the Life.  The documentary spends a year with Rowling as she finished writing the film book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I knew very little about the author of the books, but this is a very engaging portrait of the author and the interesting life that she has led so far.  This documentary is where you will actually learn something about the world of Harry Potter.

There are of course other extras on the disc:

Close-up with the cast of Harry Potter:  This is a series of eight featurettes with the cast of the movie, as they show different parts of the production.  Daniel Radcliffe sits down with editor MArk Day, Rupert Grint shows a day of stunt work, Emma Watson talks with make-up artist Amanda Knight.  For my money the most enjoyable was seeing Weasley twin James Phelps earn his stripes as an assistant director.  It was refreshing to see someone from the cast not rest on their laurels and try to do something new.

First Footage of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Not much here, a few seconds of footage from the upcoming movie.

Overall:

For the Harry Potter fan this will be an automatic addition to their collection.  There will be a double dip on this one, so if you can hold off I would recommend getting this through Netflix for the time being.

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Star Trek (2009)

The Orphanage

Star Trek (2009) Blu-Ray Disc Review

Star Trek (2009)

The Video: A

The Audio: A-

The Extras: B+

The reboot of Star Trek was highly anticpated and seemed to please both die-hard Star Trek followers, casual fans, and other movie goers.  Rottentomatoes gave it an extraordinary 95% freshness rating.

The Video: A

The video here is excellent.  This transfer comes in 1080 P in MPEG AVC codec.  Shot in anamorphic widescreen 2.39:1 the image is very clear and organic due to the imperfections in shooting with anamorphic lenses.  Personally I did not enjoy a lot of the lense flares employee stylistically in the cinematography but the image still translates very well to Blu-Ray.

The Audio: A-

Presented in Dolby TrueHD with 5.1.  With such an active track being a sci-fi action film ideally I would like to have had a DTS-HD 7.1 track.  But this track is very clear and alive as needed for such a film.

The Extras: B+

Star Trek 2 Wrath of Kahn: Blu-Ray Review

Posted by Martin:

Star Trek The Wrath of Kahn

The Video: B

The Audio: B

The Extras: A

This is the fan favorite of the long running Star Trek movie series and it gets a great treatment on Blu-Ray.

The Video: B

The transfer is great.  I give this one a B because the original cinematography I would not consider A material.  There is not a lot of crispness to the image in places, but in all honesty Wrath of Kahn as never looked better.

The Audio: B

Presented in Dobly TrueHD 7.1 this is a fine sounding track.  This track is not reference level.  The track can lean more toward the higher frenquency due to the musical score.  The sound stage is not used fully for this film.

The Extras: A

This is where the disc really shines, there is a flood of extras.  There are two feature commentaries, although one of the commentaries is from the original DVD release.

Library Computer offers on-screen information about the different elements on the screen.  An interesting way to learn about phasers, and starships.

The most informative piece is about the production of the film.  You learn that producer Harve Bennet has never seen a Star Trek episode when he was brought on board, so he spent several months catching up and watching all the episodes.

You also learn that Leanord Nimoy (Mr. Spook) wanted to leave the series, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to do the movie in the first place.  Thus the death of Spock was written into the script.  Since this came out two years after The Empire Strikes Back, I couldn’t help but think about the parallels with Harrison Ford thinking about leaving his series and the Han Solo storyline.

There are other featurettes about Star Trek collections and collectors.  A piece that passionate fans may enjoy.  I learned about the ill-fated Phase 2 Star Trek series in this section, as someone was connected enough to have clothing from that unproduced series.

The featurette about Star Trek authors is really for the true Trekkies.  Here you have two talking heads that talk about Star Trek books, these two talking heads are REALLY intro Star Trek.  The information here was well above my Trek level.

Overall, this is a great Blu-Ray.  This is a great example of how well done extras can add to the knowledge and experience of a movie, especially a well loved movie such as this one.

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Taken Blu-Ray Disc Review

Posted by Martin:

The Video: A-

The Audio: A-

The Extras: B-

Taken was written by Luc Besson of The Professional and The Fifth Element fame, and directed by Pierre Morel.  It didn’t do so well with the critics, receiving a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The video: A-

The video here is presented in 1080P/AVC and formatted in 2.35:1.  This is an attractive image, Michel Abramowicz’s cinematography is well suited for the gritty story line.  Most of the action takes place at night and in shadowy rooms, and his work is excellent here.

The Audio: A-

The Audio is present in DTS-HD 5.1.  Since this is an action movie the soundtrack pops and is very active, a very attractive soundtrack.

The Extras: B-

I was surprise to see so little extras here.  The extras center around two feature length commentaries.  The first track is with director Pierre Moral, cinematographer Michel Abramowicz and Michel Julian.  This track is spoken in French and given English subtitles.  Although it is nice to learn about some of the technical aspect of the movie, reading the text makes the commentary hard to finish.  The second commentary is with screen writer Robert Mark Kamen.

Other extras include:

“The Making of” a short standard fluff piece about the making of the movie.

“Avant Premiere” five minutes of footage from the premiere, nothing much here.

“Story board to Screen” a short featurette with key scenes where the story board is shown on one side of the screen as the scene plays on the other.  I have never been much of a fan of this type of extra.

The second disc includes the digital copy for your ipod.

Overall, the movie is nice to look at and listen to there isn’t much there in terms of extras.  I’m not sure if they would double dip this one, since it didn’t recieve a lot of criticial respect, but you really never know these days.

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Confessions of a Shopaholic Blu-Ray Review

By Martin:

Video: B

Audio: B

Extras: C

Confessions of a Shopaholic came out in Feburary to poor reviews.  It was based on two books by Sophie Kinsella.

The Video: B

The video here is good.  The focus is on bright, attractice fashion pieces, consequently the saturation can be distracting in certain places.  This is an acceptable image, but there is nothing to show off here.

The Audio: B

Encoded in DTS-HD, the audio is clear.  But this is a romantic comedy and not alot of use of the sound stange for surround sound.

The Extras: C

Not a lot here, the studio did not put much effort into this release.  There are six behind the scenes featturettes, which focus on the fashion design in the film, the green scarf that plays a big plot point, and few other parts of the movie.  There are deleted scenes most of them were wisley left out, I did like one where Rebecca gets a parttime job at a clothing store, that seemed to fit the rest of the movie.  There is also the standard outtake and blooper reel.  And lastly there are three music videos included Shontelle and Akon’s “Stuck with Each Other,” Trey Songz’ “Takes Time to Love,” and Jordyn Taylor’s “Accessory.”

If you are a fan of this film and the books then I could recommend purchasing this disc.  For everyone else if you are into romatic comedies then just rent this one.

Knocked Up Blu-Ray Disc Review

Posted by Martin:

The Video: B

The Audio: B

The Extras: B

Knocked Up
is another in a growing line of comedies by Judd Apatow.  Going back to the great Freaks and Geeks
television show and then beginning with The 40-Year-Old Virgin Apatow, along with Seth Rogan, seem to have created there own little brand of comedy. Knocked Up is in the same vein as the rest of his work, a dorky guy some how manages to snag a beautiful woman.  It was well reviewed when it came out in 2007.

The Video: B

The video is formatted in 1.85:1.  The transfer of the Eric Edwards cinematography work is done well.  This is not the most eye catching movie to see.  Some of the scenes seemed to be lit poorly that occur in Seth Rogan’s character’s house.  Can’t give this video an A, but this is a very clean transfer.

The Audio: B

The main audio is presented in DTS-HD.  This is a dialog driven movie, there are no action scenes.  DTS-HD may have been overkill here, but there are no complaints on the audio.

The Extras: B

There is a ton of stuff here, and for me it is too much stuff and poorly organized.  I prefer extras that don’t repeat each other and are well organized. A lot of the extras are edited gag reels from the set.  Here is what you get in terms of extras:

• Feature Commentary with Seth Rogan, Judd Apatow, and Bill Hader
• Deleted Scenes
• Extended/Alternative Scenes
• Line-O-Rama
• Beard-O-Rama
• Finding Ben Stone
• Gag Reel
• Kids on the Loose
• Directing the Director
• Gummy the 6th Roommate
• Roller Coaster Doc
• Kuni Files
• Kuni Gone Wild
• Topless Scenes
• Stripper Confidential
• Video Diaries
• RAw Footage
• Katherine Heigl Audition
• Loundon Wainwright III Scoring Session
• Loudon Wainwright III Live and McCabe’s

An extra of note would be “Finding Ben Stone”, this is a fake documentary of trying other actors out for the Seth Rogan part and how much of a jerk each actor was.  The funniest part of this bit is the opening when they have scenes with Michael Cera playing Rogan’s part.  That seemed so natural that I didn’t realize it was fake until a few minutes into the mockumentary. Very funny scenes with Michael Cera check that out.

This is a better commentary then the sloppy one they put together for Pineapple Express.  They added Apatow and Rogan added Bill Hader to the mix so that he could do impressions through out the commentary.  You do learn at the beginning of the commentary that the two children in the film are Apatow’s own kids, he discusses his decision to use them because child actors can seem very fake from time to time.  The two kids are cute in the film.

The parts with Loudon Wainwright I found enjoyable because you don’t usually see these sort of discussions about the music on a movie, and watching the performances is a nice touch.

Overall:

I enjoyed this movie more than I expected.  Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogan had good chemistry on screen together.  There are some interesting extras here and bits that are very funny, but there is just too much and a lot of it repeats on each other.  But if you have enjoyed other Judd Apatow movies I would recommend checking this disc out.

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Pineapple Express

Slumdog Millionaire Blu-Ray Disc Review

Posted by Martin:

Video: B

Audio: A

Extras: B+

Slumdog Millionaire
took the 2008 Oscars by storm.  It was one of the highest rated movies of 2008.

The video: B

Director Danny Boyle used a mix of film and digital technology when shooting the movie.  Consequently there is a lot of noise in shadow areas in certain scenes.  Zodiac is an example where digital can still look good in the shadows.

But the rest of the movie is done very well.  This is a faithful transfer of the film, and it is a very pretty film to see.  The bright colors of the slums in the opening scenes, to the closing dance scene few movies have a look like this.

Audio: A

Formatted in DTS-Master this is a very lively mix.  There is a lot to hear, especially in the beginning of the film when the characters are speaking Hindi, which adds life to the scene.

The Extras: B+

There are two commentary tracks on this disc.  The first one with Director Danny Boyle and with star Dev Patel, the second track is with producer Christian Colson and Writer Simon Beaufoy.  

I appreciated the track with Boyle and Patel the most, that is where you learn about the types of cameras they used to make the movie, and Patel is very relaxed and amusing making for a very informative and enjoyable track.

There are a lot of deleted scenes or extended scenes interesting by themselves, but they certainly were correct to cut these scenes.

Slumdog Dreams:Danny Boyle and the Making of Slumdog Millionaire is an excellent making of documentary.  It is not the most in depth documentary, it only runs 30 minutes, but this isn't a blatant self promotion video mascarding as a documentary.  You learn a lot about working in the slums and working with the kids in their native Hindi language.

Also included is "The Toilet Scene from Script to Screen" a quick look at a defining opening scene.  Watching the other documentary and listening to the Boyle commentary you will learn more about the scene then what is shown here.

Two music videos and a short film round out the extras.  The short film Manijha is shot in in SD and runs about 40 minutes.  It is a tough movie to see about the results of poverty in India. 

Overall:

This film deserved the praise that it received last year.  It is nothing like any other Oscar winner of recent memory.  Add this disc to your Netflix queue.

Pineapple Express Blu-Ray Review-Descent Extras

Posted by: Martin

The Video: B

The Audio: B

Extras: B

Pineapple Express
is another in a growing line of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan comedies, others include the great Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin , and Knocked Up
.  It got pretty good reviews when it came out in August of 2008.

The Video: B

The video here is encoded in 1080P AVC, and is formatted in 2:35.1.  For a comedy this was a well shot film.  The opening black and white scene is wonderful in terms of it’s visual sharpness.  I won’t give this one an A though.  There were several times when either the transfer was soft and ever-so-slightly out of focus or the film was shot that way.  Either way I noticed some eyes were not in focus in a couple of shots.  The cinematography was excellent overall though out the film.

The Audio: B

The English audio is done in DoblyTrue HD 5.1.  Because this is a stoner film that is also part action film, the audio begins focused on the center dialog channel, and early in the movie I had to turn it up. But with the action ending my speakers were rattling the house.

The Extras: B

This disc comes with BD-Live funcality along with a ton of extras.  For true fans of this film they could pour over this for awhile.  I give the disc makers credit for adding rehearsal footage and read through footage, good things to see for aspiring actors and filmmakers.

The most half hearted commentary:

The audio commentary for me was disorganized and half-hearted.  Ed Begley Jr. literally leaves 15 minutes into the commentary!  I have never come across that before.  If you have please a note in the comment section.  The five minutes later two other actors walk into the room where they are recording the commentary, and to add a cherry on top a producer of the film literally phones in her commentary 25 minutes into the movie.  I felt that if the filmmakers weren’t going to care about making this commentary, then I shouldn’t care to listen to it.  Admittedly there are MANY bad commentaries out there, but there are also some great ones as well.  This is an example of how NOT to do a commentary.

Good Extras:

You will find good additional material here.  The making of Pineapple Express was the most informative piece.  It was interesting to learn that the movie was intended to be a mix of a stoner film with an action film, and that combination kept Rogan and Apatow from believing they could ever get the movie made.  This concept of the stoner/action film is repeated a lot in the messy audio commentary.

My favorite piece was on the action in Pineapple Express.  Normally this sort of wire work is highlighted in a Matrix film, but this teaches that even a simple act as carry a man on person’s back in a fight requires wires.  I loved how the camera followed the stunt coordinator around the room to show how the actors were going to fight in Red’s house.  A great five minutes of behind the scenes filmmaking school.  I would like to see more of this.

There is a five minute piece on Ed Begley’s cleaning company, Begley’s Best.  When I first saw this I thought it was an inside joke, but then I looked it up and he really does run a small environmentally focuses cleaning products company.  Good for him.

Other extras:

• Extended and Deleted Scenes
• Red-Line Trailer
• Marriage Tips from Red
• Raw Footage
• Saul’s Apartment
• Line-O-Rame
• Direct-O-Rama
• Gag Reels
• Item 9 Experiments
• Stunt Master Ken
• Injury Report
• Phone Booth
• Comic Con Panel

Overall:

If you are a fan of Seth Rogan and Judd Apatow comedies then you should buy this one, I would recommend adding this one to your Netflix queue.

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Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace Blu-Ray Review

Posted by Martin:

Video: A

Audio: A

Extras: C

Quantum of Solace
was the anticipated follow up for Daniel Craig as James Bond after the wildly popular Casnio Royale.  Quantum didn’t seem to register with audiences as well, but you can’t strike gold everytime.  Harry Knowles was in love with the film, Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs down, and I was on the liking it side, but definately not in love with it.

The Video: A

This is a solid transfer, I saw no edge enhancement.  Although this is not the most beautiful Bond films to see, Roberto Schaefer’s cinematography looks good on Blu-Ray.  The film is formatted in 2.35:1 and is done in MPEG-4 AVC at 1080P.

The Audio: A

The audio is done in DTS-HD, this is a reference grade soundtrack.  If you are into showing off the sound of your hometheater then this is the disc to do it with.  The first scene with the car chase alone will both rattle windows and show the clarity of the mix.  This is a very clear mix and shows off the clarity of a good audio mix in DTS.

The Extras: C

This is a big disappointment for such a big release.  These are also same extras that can be foung on the regular DVD.  There is no audio commentary, which is weird considering all the work that has gone into the rerelease of the other James Bond movies.  Casino Royale
was just double dipped on Blu-Ray, with additional extras including a substantial audio commentary.  All this leads me to believe that there will be a double dip on this disc in 18 months when the next Bond movie is released.

The extras you will find here are :

• Bond on Location
  
• Start of Shooting
  
• On Location
  
• The Music
  
• Olga Kurylenko and the Boat Chase
  
• Director Marc Forster
  
• Crew Files
  
• “Another Way to Die” Music Video with Jack White and Alicia Keys
  
• Theatrical Trailers

These are mostly press junket sort of segments.  They all use the same behind the scenes interviews and just cut and paste into the extras.  In fact in some of the extras they even use the same clip.  That is just lazy.  I would rather have one long documentary that doesn’t repeat itself, which these do when you watch them.

The best one is the music feature.  It begins talking about the scoring of the film, but unfortanately slinds into discussing of the theme song with Jack White and Alicia Keys.  The behind the scenes on the scoring of the feature was the one section that didn’t seem to come from a press release, hopefully there will be more on that when the collector’s edition comes out.

I would not recommend buying this disc as there will probably be a two disc release for the next Bond film, but I diffentately would recommend renting this disc and showing it off to your friends.

Please add your own thoughts to the movie and the disc in the comment section.

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Role Models

Wall-E

Role Models Blu-Ray Review

Posted by Martin:

Video: B

Audio: B

Extras: A

Role Models
is a pretty funny movie, not a classic, but pretty funny.  Although this has Paul Rudd in it who I typically find funny, this movie of course is funny because of the kids in the film.  Check out the reviews on the film.

The Video: B

The video here is a straight forward transfer of bland cinematography.  But then again extraordinary photography was not the focus or purpose of this film.  This is a good example of why simply 1080 P transfer does not necessarily make for a great image.  The basis for a great image is great cinematography.

The Audio: B

The audio is presented in DTS-HD so there is great clarity here for certain scenes, but this is not a disc with the need for extreme audio textures so DTS mix is not going to be tested here.

The Extras: A

The extras is where this disc shines.  This is a great single disc release in terms of extras.  On the disc you will find:

• Feature-length commentary with Director / Writer David Wain
• Deleted Scenes
• Alternate Takes
• Bloopers
• “On the Set of Role Models”
• “Game On: Creating a Role Playing World”
• “In Character and Off Script”
• BD-Live “My Scenes”
• BD-Live Documentaries
• BD-Live Ye Old Crest Maker
• Picture-in-Picture Cast and Crew Interviews

I wish they had included other cast members on the audio commentary.  Having just one person always seems eventually boring, having people play off of each other can make a commentary track more enjoy able.  I am thinking of the geek track on Wall-E right now as I type these words.

Of all the extras I found “Game On” and “In Character and Off Script” to be the two most enjoyable extras. Game on delves into the world of Live Role Playing Games, something that was new to me.  It was interesting to learn about the culture and how the filmmakers used this world in the film.

In Character and Off Script is a series of three skits, individual actors playing their character as if they were being interviewed for the disc.  The funniest is definately Kuzziack: Proud Xanthian.  Kuzziack is played by Joe Lo Truglio and seems to have a very good time playing the part.

Stay away from the Ye Old Crest Maker, a simple BD-Live Game where you make your own crest for a Live Role Playing Game, a complete waist of time.

Overall:

The movie is funny, but you will do better with other adult comedies out there right now.  But the extras are excellent and give a good sense of what went into making the movie.  Universal Studios did a good job with the extras on this disc.

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