When this format came out, I was one of the loudest voices for a couple of years that it was unnecessary, too expensive, and studios still had no idea what the fuck they were doing with it, which only ever results in wasted money. Nowadays? Well, that third part still ends up being true a lot of the time, and at least once a month, a disc will come out with some brand new gimmick that does nothing to enhance the film and really just raises my blood pressure. Oh yes, I’m talking about you, U-Control. This list, however, is a solid 25 instances of the system working, of perfect marriages of format, of information, of clarity, and just plain love of the medium. These are the things the HD era of watching films at home needed to bring to the table. More than just an image upgrade, it needed to deliver something, anything, DVD couldn’t.

I imagine there’s gonna be complaints about such a recent set landing at the top of the heap, while their HD horse of choice got passed up, and believe me, I wasn’t the only vote on this list, and there’s a good 10 I can rattle off the top of my head that would’ve made it in given my druthers* However, the Alien Anthology represents a genuine landmark for this format, not just the ones studios keep coming out with in terms of how many sold, or what percentage of the purchases were for the film in HD. The Quadrilogy was already a gargantuan undertaking, and if you’re stuck with standard def, there’s no excuse not to have that thing sitting on your shelf right now. The fact that the Anthology trumps the shit out of it in every single way should send a goddamn elephantine shudder up your spine. Not just for A/V Quality, though these films have never looked better, but the new footage for the documentaries, the way a film’s true intent has been brought to life using the new technology, MU-TH-UR Mode giving the viewer control over the information in ways DVD has only been able to hint at before, the ability to flow the experience across multiple discs in a completely seamless manner, and, really, just sheer quantity of material for the price tag. They want $140, MSRP. The Alien Anthology offers a $140 experience. That is a rare, amazing thing these days. This is the bar for this format. This is what hardware developers look for and hope for when they push the envelope a bit further. This is a killer app. It’s a reason for owning a Blu Ray player: For an experience like this one.

–Justin Clark

I’ve been a supporter for Blu-Ray since its initial launch. I can remember long arguments with several online writers about how SONY has picked the winner this time. But, when you argue like that…you leave yourself open to the armies of Aspergers rattling off stats at you. Well, stats and history lost this round. Now, I’ve got to listen to those same critics espouse the death of the disc and the rise of the Media On Demand Network. Well, that shit might as well be the flying car at this point. Network infrastructure is shaky at best, while excessive traffic demands vs. potential price increases kill that idea in this economy.

Almost four years after launch, we’ve got thousands of releases and very few top tier titles. Sure, home video gets the shaft from the major players. Everyone waits to see what’s going to be the defining point in that entertainment generation before they dip a toe in the waters. Universal is currently gearing up Jaws, Paramount has Raiders of the Lost Ark in development and Lucasfilm has spent the past year building up excitement for the Star Wars Saga to hit Blu-Ray. While the Alien Anthology is currently the best marker for where Blu-Ray can go, we’ve only reached that halfway point in the first High Definition Home Entertainment generation.

New developments for the BD-Java applications are helping to extend movie-viewing and BD-Live internet components to new heights. Pandora, Netflix and other streaming devices are turning these players into multi-faceted home entertainment hubs that will be ready to march into the future. It’s a period of excitement and it’s one that I’m glad to have celebrated with you this month. Sure, the current economic climate might put a damper on the home theater enthusiast’s purchases. What matters now is making those purchases count, as we show the studios what we want and expect in this new age.

–Troy Anderson

*–Surely, this discussion will blow up on the message boards a few hours after this posts, but for anyone wondering about our personal list of scorned favorites, here’s 5 each, in no order.

Justin Clark

Casablanca
The Ultimate Matrix Collection
The Godfather Trilogy
Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence
2001

Troy Anderson

The Thin Red Line
Baraka
North by Northwest
Lost: The Complete Collection
America Lost and Found: The BBS Story

Director: Jean Pierre Jeunet
Cast:
Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya, Brad Dourif,
Michael Wincott, Dominique Pinon, and Leland Orser as That Guy He
Always Plays.

On the
flipside of Alien 3, this would be the primary “Why Didn’t It Rank
Higher” target. Resurrection‘s a sore thumb in this set. It’s an
excremental film. Despite being the most recent film in the set, it’s
also the ugliest in terms of A/V quality. It’s got the least
interesting production tales to be told. And it’s the one that’s the
biggest waste of time. Fact is, Resurrection shouldn’t have happened,
full stop, especially not with Sigourney Weaver, though I give Joss
Whedon some due props for going out of his way to let Ellen Ripley as
we know her stay dead.

What
Resurrection is is a studio franchise checklist come to life. They
didn’t know what made the first two work, and hated everything about
Alien 3, so they split the difference, going with an arthouse director
in Jeunet, a more action packed setting, a young, hungry screenwriter,
and kept every single one of these things on a short fucking leash. The
result’s a glorious mess. Jeunet is so ridiculously out of his
element, being forced to swallow every one of his instincts that make
his films a joy to watch, but his modicum of influence throws the film
off-kilter in a way that at least keeps it interesting. There’s tiny
moments where his quirks and sense of humor shine through that almost
redeem the film wholesale. Whedon’s script, despite his protests to the
contrary, is weak, basically just throwing characters and setpieces at
the wall and seeing what stuck, and what stuck is not a whole hell of a
lot. However, they did end up inspiring Whedon to refine these
character types into what eventually became Firefly. Sigourney Weaver
didn’t need to be here whatsoever, however, she, along with Ron Perlman
and Brad Dourif, is one of a select few who persevere in this film
against all odds, playing Clone #8 as, essentially, an autistic child
for the first half of the film. She becomes a generic heroine later,
but she plays that heroine with that autistic child in mind, like she’s
picking up one-liners as she goes along and doesn’t quite know how or
why she needs to deliver them. It’s a rather fascinating performance.
It’s too bad the rest of the film isn’t supporting her in any way.

In every
other respect, Resurrection is a master class in bad decisions, in how a
studio will act when they have no real ideas. But even a bad film can
be sorta captivating when you get to see how these kinds of decisions
happen (see also: the bonus disc for Batman and Robin), and to their
credit, the bonuses and commentaries for this film do exactly that:
it’s a view to a clusterfuck. Jeunet smirks around the documentary for
the film, stating over and over he had little idea what he was shooting
per se, but at least tried to put some sort of personal stamp on the
proceedings. The vibe on set is actually a fun, laid back one, captured
and remembered rather sweetly here despite the spite everyone involved
has for the studio and its process at the time, The chapter in the doc
about Sigourney making the behind the back shot is more entertaining
than the film itself. Whedon gets his say, trying to put some distance
between him and the film, and it’s just not happening. However, the
documentary, I’d say, is a more fascinating look at the workings of a
bad sequel than a bad sequel really deserves. It’s like Best Worst
Movie. The final product is almost a supplement in this case.

–Justin Clark

SCREENSHOTS

Director: David Fincher
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Lance Henriksen, and a fuckload o’ bald British dudes

If
this set was released as individual films as opposed to the giant set,
Alien 3 by itself might’ve landed about halfway up the list. There’s
plenty of examples of films with troubled productions getting a nice
little spit shine and a side of brutal honesty in the features to give
it some bang for the filmlover’s buck. Alien 3 exemplifies everything
Blu Ray can and should be used to accomplish. It has made a broken film
achieve its true potential.

Alien
3‘s not so much the red-headed step-child of the series as it is the
hard-drinking, Hemingway-reading, Tom Waits-listening,
switchblade-carrying son of a bitch of the series. It said fuck you to
every expectation people would have after Cameron dragged this series
into the mainstream, delivering a nihilistic, sobering shot of bleak
to the universe in which it resides. It wasn’t my favorite of the
series in theaters, but it’s the one I would always find the most
fascinating. The Alien 3 Workprint’s appearance on the Quadrilogy set
on DVD showed us all there was a masterpiece lying in ruins on screen
in the form of the theatrical cut, but had been jerry-rigged back
together to give us an approximation of what David Fincher had
originally intended. The film’s themes of hope, or lack thereof,
suicide, abortion, mental illness, the weight of religion,
incarceration, and class issues had gone from being watered down hints
to being the text. Yes, all that’s there. In an Alien film, and all
in service of the one truly interesting place this film could’ve ever
have taken Ripley: you take away a woman’s life, her hope, her dreams,
and ensure that she’ll never get them back, what responsibility does
she owe herself or those around her? Fincher made Alien into an
arthouse franchise again, while still keeping the tension and horror
this series started out with, from both the human and alien sides of
things.

The result is only truly visible on the Blu Ray. It completes the good work started on the Quadrilogy, no expense spared. New ADR’s been recorded, the footage has been re-processed and brought up to standards, the sound design for the missing scenes redone. The Workprint is a brand new movie, for all intents. On top of that, Fox decided to man the hell up and release the footage cut from the Alien 3 documentaries the first time of David Fincher on set and for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what Fox was afraid of to begin with. The Simpsons has bitten the hand that feeds them a lot harder than Fincher does here (especially this year). The worst is actually a lighthearted moment of Fincher calling Fox a bunch of assholes who don’t know what they’re doing through a megaphone. But for the most part, the footage shows an increasingly tired Fincher who’s actually still passionate and excited to be working on this film to the bitter end. Seeing that enthusiasm and knowing how it would be cut down in one fell swoop towards the end of production is harder to witness now, but it makes for a far more effective piece of behind-the-scenes storytelling, which suffered on the Quadrilogy set with Fincher’s absence.

The kicker about Alien 3 is that ask any random set of strangers on the street, you’re liable to find more fans of Alien Resurrection than Alien 3, but this is the film that got the most love. This film’s restoration is a gift, and a leap of faith that this film’s true worth has never been measurable until now, and we deserve to give it a shot when it’s looking its best.

–Justin Clark

SCREENSHOTS

 

THE FILM THAT EVERYONE SUPPOSEDLY OUTGREW

Aliens is one of the R-rated flicks that the younger generation uses to cut its mature teeth. Out of all four Alien films, it’s the one that’s the easiest to digest. Space Marines seem to have this ability to implant themselves into the global subconscious in a way that few archetypes can replicate. Why people give a shit about a bunch of dumb grunts traveling the universe and shooting aliens is beyond me. It’s almost like a passive aggressive fantasy perpetrated by an English speaking people against an unknown entity that seems to attacking for undefined reasons. I’ll leave it to the Liberal Guilt crew to work out any extra meanings.

Out of the four films in this release, this is the feature that benefitted the most. Cameron’s flat shoot seemed like an angry response to Scott’s scope in the last picture. Yet, Cameron went out of his way to load more action into the frame. This is something that you don’t notice when you’re younger, but as technology catches up to theatrical exhibition, it catches the eye. One has to wonder if economic use of the screen is related to Cameron’s early days at New World. I chalk it up to an FX technician graduating to the director’s seat before he had learned proper film grammar.

That’s not to say that I’m calling James Cameron an inferior director. There’s an army of others to make that claim. What I’m stating is that revisiting the film in a cleaned-up format has helped me to see a lot of the shortcomings. Both cuts of the film show that most of the film was a studio shoot where sets were being constantly reconfigured and demolished to make way for the next set-up. The puppetry of the Queen and latex bodies of the Alien warrior drones pop in a way that seems cheap to the first film’s artistry.

Yet, it doesn’t matter. Unless you have a copy of the film print or this pristine HD release, you’re not going to notice the warts on the frog. That’s where Cameron has built his career and garnered several Awards. Spectacle is often mistaken for talented camerawork, but Cameron does something here that falls in and out of that realm. One has to wonder if he wasn’t playing to expectations, as this was a film series born by a greenlight from Moebius storyboards.

The
film’s arrival on Blu-Ray offers up a new look for Cameron’s ode to Reagan era aggression in deep space. As previously stated, this flick lives and dies by its visual pieces. From the discovery of Ripley in deep space to the failed attempt to save LV-429 to the final battle with the Queen, the 1080p transfer marks the definitive visuals for the Blu-Ray generation. There’s an amazing Home Theater experience and then there’s rebirthing a film for the masses. Hell, I haven’t begun to describe the DTS-HD master audio track that will rattle your seat with the spray of Pulse Rifle fire.

If you’re new to Blu-Ray and you want a chance to really show off all that scratch you spent, I’d recommend bringing up Apone’s squad switching to live ammo upon their arrival at the infection site. Hearing the various guns, ricochets and ambient noise mixing together with James Horner’s score produces this wall of sound that will either make you go deaf or give your neighbors a reason to move. There are other key moments to show off the power of your subwoofer. Scenes such as the facehugger attack on Newt and Ripley, Bishop getting torn in half and the Power Loader fighter with the Queen will test your setup and make you smile with glee. What’s even better is that the release doesn’t come in that Eco-friendly hippie bullshit packaging that Avatar: Collector’s Edition received. 

Aliens
is a film that carries a ton of baggage, but it deserves your attention on Blu-Ray. It’s very rare to have a film restored so gracefully and I would like to take a moment to applaud the work of Charles de Lauzirika and his team. Your work here will be remembered for some time and one can only hope that it inspires other teams to bring their A-game to the next major releases to drop in 2011 and beyond. Ladies and gentlemen, you can retire your DVD copy of the Alien Quadrilogy. 20th Century Fox has topped themselves again.

SCREENSHOTS

So, I’m supposed to leave with you. The lady who couldn’t work an automated suspended animation chamber. The woman who overshot a simple trip home by nearly 60 years. Yeah, ummm…I’m going to take my chances with the facehuggers.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell anyone if you fucked Vasquez.

The end result of a Bill Brasky threesome.

The
economy has gone to hell, but you can still afford to splurge on the
latest in High Definition treats. The CHUD Home Entertainment Team has
taken upon themselves to draft the Top 25 Blu-Rays released in Region A
thus far. From the 1st of December until Christmas, we’ll count down to
the greatest Blu-Ray release of all-time. Join us and marvel at the
treasures of the 1080p set.

LIST POSITION: #1
TITLE:  Alien Anthology
Director: Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, Ron Perlman, Michael Biehn and more!
MSRP: $139.99
RATING: R
BUY IT AT AMAZON!

 

WHY IT’S ON THE LIST

20th Century Fox did such a great job marketing this title, that websites were freaking out over leaked screenshots. Tying the early releases close to Avatar‘s theatrical reign only helped to drive up interest in older James Cameron titles. Then, FOX decided to up the ante past the superb treatment for Aliens, they dared to turn our expectations on their ear. All four Alien titles would be revisited with fully remastered transfers and a new wealth of special features. What were you more excited over? You couldn’t tell, as every time you turned around something new got announced.

Alien opens the Anthology with a new HD transfer that makes it look like it was released last year. Ridley Scott shot the film in dark surroundings with a ton of suggestion to help cover the limited technology of the time. But, that doesn’t matter as Sci-Fi/Horror is a genre where the Director best shines. This was Scott’s second feature, as he attempted to move out of commercial work and into the realm of studio pictures. Much has been made of Tobe Hooper and Stanley Kubrick’s influence over the film and it shows. The sterility of Weyland Yutani’s Nostromo serves as the perfect environment where Scott could play with expectations.

The late great Dan O’ Bannon used to simply state the movie was a haunted house film in space. Period film critics dismissed it as a slasher with slight riffs on Mario Bava material. While I admit that there is truth in both opinions, what matters is that audiences throughout the last thirty-one years have discovered and mined new meaning out of film. Pulling a Blue Collar aesthetic out of the Sci-Fi sterile environment was rather inventive for the time. Hell, name any film pre-dating Alien that featured characters like Yaphet Kotto or Harry Dean Stanton.

What works in this film is that Scott and the crew don’t want you to feel comfortable. There is no scientist on board the ship and the best that the crew has to work with is an automated computer system. Say what you want about Ash, but I view him as yet another head of the giant Company machine. When the crew is ordered to explore the wrecked Space Jockey ship, they’re doing out of obligation to an employer. There’s no greater cause and no desire to explore the unknown. The crew of the Nostromo are regular people just like you.

The
film’s arrival on Blu-Ray is marked by that incredible transfer. Home Theater Master Charles de Lauzirika has been handling the Alien franchise for roughly a decade and his work for FOX has been nothing less than stellar. Having watched the film on VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Rep Theater film print…I’d have to go so far as to say that this is the best possible presentation. You’re able to pick up background detail for the first time, such as the obvious milk crates being used for the floor panels. Hell, there’s one moment in the film when they try to cut the facehugger off of Kane and the blood tears through the floor that blows my mind.

If you frame it just right, when the blood spatter burns through the last panel, you can see a boom mike clearly in frame. Hell, Yaphet Kotto’s death scene is almost ruined by the 1080p transfer. When he gets lifted up for the forehead crunch, you need to stop and slowly advance the film to see something interesting. That’s right, kids. The FX team replaced Kotto’s head with a melon and they didn’t even bother to match up the skin complexion. How hard is it to doll up a piece of produce?

Alien
is a film that a lot of cinema geeks use as a rite of passage. Long considered the best in the Quadrilogy, fans try to mark it as the start of the American Sci-Fi horror boom. Teens struggle to find copies, so that they can witness Kane’s chestburster death for themselves. Many copies are ruined by excessive pausing on vintage Weaver in her panties. There’s so much genre schlock among the quality elements that it’s an instant treat for the neophyte.

Is the film groundbreaking? Hell, no. At times it does play like Heavy Metal working out their version of Planet of the Vampires. That’s not a bad thing, as it seems cinema needs more films about exploring genre staples and trying to ground fantasy and reality into a piecemeal offering. Will the violence be excessive for some viewers? Sure, but people need to see properly shot violence. We’ve had two generations of music video pill poppers trying to redefine editing and cinematography for a generation. Fuck the jump scares and take a trip back into time to see some fucked up H.R. Giger horror fantasies.

THE BEST SUPPLEMENT

MU-TH-ER mode offers fans a chance to place what they’re seeing in a larger context. Similar to the releases for Fight Club and Gladiator, this BD-Java application allows the viewer to watch the film on one of the first discs with points marked off for potential revisiting in the supplemental discs. Such an application is almost essential for the bigger box sets. The sheer armada of supplemental material collected over the last ten years needs context and applications like this offer new viewers and old hands a chance to relay this material into an educational treasure trove. Would it be nice if all the material could be contained on one disc? Sure, but that’s not feasible at this point in time.

SCREENSHOTS

Planet of the Wishbone.

Together, they journey into Eli Wallach’s colon to find The Hellfish Bonanza.

It’s darker than Gordon Willis’s mulatto love child up in this bitch.