Re: The miscellaneous Blu-Ray/DVD thread

[Seamaster]

That is a good rant and one I support. I might end up eating my words here, but I just don't see myself supporting UV versions of movies. That's not my idea of building a film and TV series library.

[Iago]

I do not support streaming, period. No matter what, it is an inferior version of the films; even when they are running at 1080p. the extra compression results in a loss of detail that just does not compare to full 1080p on disc. To say nothing of the fact that the broadband infrastructure in this country is atrocious, and overpriced, too. Plus, providers are in the process of capping service and charging more for overages. Of course, many internet providers are in bed with the content providers (Time-Warner, for example) so it works out well for the both of them, but not so much for the consumer. Never mind the fact that as more people do turn to streaming, the bottlenecks at the end of the infrastructure -- namely, the switching at the end of the pipeline before it reaches the consumer -- are going to get worse, resulting in poorer quality service.

But the thing that I like about Bill's rant is that he makes a very good point about ownership. I can reach for any of the discs in my collection and watch them on-demand at any time, without having to wait for downloads or connection issues. But the thought of content providers revoking access is truly scary, and it could well happen. It is certainly guaranteed that one or more services will ultimately fold, and then where are you?

[Seamaster]

Well, and that's the worst of it. At that point, we're basically only renting the film, albeit a long-term rental. Honestly, the technology is different and the ability to stream on demand (assuming the infrastructure works as intended all the time, which is never the case) is a bonus, but I feel like we're going back to the late 70s and early 80s when there weren't home videos or home videos were just coming on the scene and people only rented. Granted, we won't have to sit up until 2 a.m. to catch our favourite B movies, but this is far less ideal than having the physical media at hand.

[Iago]

Even the catalogue titles that we are getting are on shaky terms. Twilight Time keeps releasing limited editions of 3000, some of which can sell out in hours of their being posted. Christine was one such film, and it now goes for over $100 on eBay. I try to keep track of them to make sure that I do not miss anything (I just watched my Major Dundee last weekend) but when some titles sell out so quickly it is hard to be in the right place at the right time to make and order. At least Shout/Scream Factory do not do any arbitrary limiting like that.

[Iago]

Shout Factory is releasing A Boy and His Dog in a couple of months, plus Bakshi's Heavy Traffic, and they announced a surprise Scream Factory release of Prince of Darkness. Looks like they are definitely moving through the Carpenter catalogue!

[Seamaster]

Even in dark times, there are glimmers of light.

[Iago]

Speaking of Carpenter, I started going on a kick picking up the soundtracks that I am missing, including Prince of Darkness[i] and [i]They Live. I even ordered a newer 2-disc version of The Fog. I already have the original CD, plus the remastered expanded version that came out a few years ago. This newer version contains that same disc, plus a second disc of previously unreleased music from the film. It never ends . . .

[Seamaster]

Hobbies tend to have that effect: they cost money!

[Iago]

Holy Zarkwon singing fish! I completely overlooked the release schedule for this week until I walked past the new release wall at Target and saw that part one of season five of Breaking Bad just came out! Even with a backlog of other things to watch, that just jumped to the top of the pile by my player!

[Seamaster]

Breaking Bad always jumps to the top of my list!

[Iago]

I have been working my way through a lot of stuff, but I did get through the first three episodes of Breaking Bad.  Since they split season five into two parts and the second half has yet to air, this is just the first eight episodes of the season.  So at three episodes, I am nearly halfway through.  It has been interesting so far, and it is interesting to see where they are going with everything, especially with Walt's character.  Not much of a spoiler to say that he is sailing deeper into the abyss.  In one sense, the first three episodes suffer a bit from comparison to the climax of season four; the events there were so momentous and catastrophic that what is happening so far this season seems a bit lower-key in comparison.  But I am sure that things are just heating up, and it definitely has some heavy character moments with Walt.


By the way, I am seriously considering pulling the trigger on Panasonic's new ZT series plasma.  It is only at the Magnolia sections of Best Buy right now, and I finally got a look at it over the weekend.  I should probably start a full thread about that.


Oh, and if you have not seen Man of Steel, I highly recommend it. Most of the mixed reviews are missing the point with the movie.  I can see why it is dividing people, though.  I took my dad, who was not very impressed, and we ended up discussing the thing at length for the entire drive home.  I think I swayed him to my side in the end.  Your mileage may vary, so keep your expectations reasonable.  But minus a couple of noteworthy flaws, I loved everything that they did and think that it is head-and-shoulders above any previous live-action films.

[Seamaster]

I'm about the same point you are with Breaking Bad, and I'm also quite interested to see where they take the characters, although the path seems fairly obvious thus far. We will have to see.

Feel free to start a new thread on displays. You must feel the new ZTs are passed the digital look you loathe?

I still have to see Iron Man 3, and that is ahead of Man of Steel on my list, but I will take your recommendation to heart.

[Iago]

I am pretty solid that I will pull the trigger on it, and probably add the Oppo BDP-105 at the same time to give me full 3D capabillity.  I am nearly through the Universal set, and really want to watch Creature in 3D.  I have seen it in 3D before, but that was anaglyph, and I really hate analyph.

I asked the clerk at Best Buy to put in a movie for me, but not an animated or CGI-heavy film.  She chose House of Flying Daggers, which does have some CGI but otherwise has a beautifully filmic look.  And it had that look on the ZT, without any digital appearance; it was quite film-like.

Speaking of Superman, I nabbed the Blu-Rays for the first two seasons of Justice League for a pretty good price from Amazon, and you would be more than welcome to my old DVDs for you and SeaJunior.  Not sure what it would cost to ship them up there, though -- it may not be worth it.

[Seamaster]

That would be very cool, if the offer still stands. I can't imagine shipping being too bad. If you're serious, I can PM you shipping details.

I will check the forum to see if a ZT thread has been started.

[Iago]

Yep, go ahead and send me shipping information and I will float them your direction.


Did you finish Breaking Bad yet? Mein Gott. I will not say anything in case you have yet to finish it, but there are a few doozies among those eight episodes . . .

[Seamaster]

Thanks, Iago.

I sent an email to your gmail account.

I did indeed finish Breaking Bad. I dearly want to see the second half of this season. It's supposed to air later this month (or maybe next), so hopefully the Blu-rays won't be far behind.

[Iago]

Don't count on it -- the already complete third season of Game of Thrones is not being released on disc until early next year!


I had mixed feelings about season five at first; given how things had ended in season four, it seemed a little inevitably anti-climactic. Those feelings changed quickly. The train heist, in particular, ranks not just as one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad, not just as one of the best episodes of television ever, but as one of the best heist scenes in film and television history, ranking up there with Riffifi, Thief and Heat. And the bumper at the end was a perfect way to deflate not just the characters, but the viewers as well. (I was sufficiently caught up in the story that I completely forgot about the pre-credit bumper until that character's surprise reappearance.) The Mike episode is stellar as well. And the cliffhanger in the last episode somehow manages to be simultaneously the smallest-scale yet biggest bombshell of the entire series.

Got your message. I may not be able to get to them this weekend, but I will get them out to you soon.

[Seamaster]

Thanks.

Breaking Bad, and the entire creative team behind the series, continues to impress me. Unlike other series where the writers sometimes get lost, these guys seem to know exactly what they're doing. The train heist was incredible. One of the things I like about Walt's character is that he's still the high school teacher at times. Even though he's risen to the top of the food chain, you can tell he's not quite comfortable with it all. But at other times it seems like that is simply his camouflage. Brilliant. I also like how Jesse is doing a 180 with his morals. It's like Walt and Jesse are changing positions. I will be sad to see this series end.

[Iago]

Actually, thinking about that, and about some of the comments that Aaron Paul and Vince Gilligan made in the extras on the discs, I am not so sure that Jesse has done a 180, and even less so that Walt has really changed that way, either. In a way, despite being a junkie and a meth cook, Jesse has always tried to keep the peace, and to keep people alive -- both Walt's potential victims, and Walt himself. Jesse is willing to do almost anything to keep people from dying, and that has not changed. Even the one time he had to pull the trigger, compare the result that it had on his character to the results of ANY of the killings that Walt has had a hand in.

I noticed a column on The Atlantic many months ago that said in the title that the secret of Breaking Bad is that Walt was ALWAYS the bad guy. I never read the story at the time because I did not want anything spoiled, but this discussion jarred my memory and I went back to check it out. The really interesting thing is that it was only written halfway through the first eight episodes, and things were about to get much worse:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/the-big-secret-of-breaking-bad-walter-white-was-always-a-bad-guy/261833/

[Seamaster]

That article was written after the author had seen the first eight episodes of the last season.

Yes, Jesse has always had a good soul, but it is evident that he's trying to change his life around and straighten up. Walter, on the other hand, is headed down a much darker street. Indeed, the cancer might have been the trigger for Walt embracing his inner demon, although I would argue it was actually the failed business partnership from his younger years when Walt first lost out on millions that snapped him. The demon just lay dormant (like a cancer). At any rate, my 180 comment wasn't meant to be that deep. My point was merely that Jesse would be happy to leave the life of crime; Walt is more than happy to embrace it, and actually seems uncomfortable about leaving it. But I admit that 180 isn't exactly an accurate description either, and was actually pretty silly, now that I think about it.

[Iago]

Not really.  Just another way of looking at things.  

Actually, the article was written before the finale aired.  I misspoke about the "halfway through" thing based on a comment he made in the article.  But I do think that he is spot-on about Walt, and like you said, the scene where Walt talks about the failed business partnership is key.  Interesting that he does not really talk about that until midway through the fifth season, yet it is not so much a revelation as a clarification; all of what he is talking about was set up during the previous seasons.  It just goes to show how good the writing is.  While the arc of the entire show was NOT planned out in advance, and in that sense they have been making it up as they go along, on the other hand everything that happens is internally consistent with what has come before.  Compare that to, oh, say, Lost.  Thank God Damon Lindelof has nothing to do with Breaking Bad.

I need to track down a box, but I will try to get Justice League out to you this weekend.

[Seamaster]

And that's where I've been impressed with the entire talent behind Breaking Bad. They haven't dug themselves into a hole or gotten lost in a convoluted conspiracy. They're doing a fine job and I only hope that the series is wrapped up well.

[Iago]

If they had not have mentioned repeatedly that they did NOT plan out the whole arc in advance, you would never know it, and that is saying quite a bit.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I gotPirates: Band of Misfits in 3D, and also the 3D version of Life of Pi, which I missed in the theatre, so I am glad that if I have to see it for the first time on video, I get to see it in the intended 3D. But all will probably go on the backburner in favor of The Howling. Twilight Time also has released a couple of limited edition Walter Hill Seventies classics: Hard Times and The Driver. I already go the former, and it looked stellar, but I really cannot wait to get the latter in a couple of weeks. I intend to do a back-to-back double feature of that film and the Nicholas Winding Refn film Drive, which while based on a different novel, clearly is inspired by Hill's film.

[Iago]

I finished watching the Scream Factory version of The Howling, and even watched the old supplements that were ported over from the DVD and the laserdisc. I even re-listened to the classic commentary track. One nice thing is that all of the supplements are in HD, even the older ones that were shot in standard definition. Even the David Allen interview, which looks like it was shot on an old camcorder, looked pretty good.

It appears that Scream Factory have hit it out of the park with The Fog:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/60831/fog-the/


And I still have not gotten the discs out to you. I will get it done!

[Seamaster]

It's been years since I've seen The Fog. Needless to say that reading the review got me all excited.

[Sponsored content]