Barney's Version - Blu-Ray - Region A

I love Paul Giamatti. Since seeing hin in Amerian Splendor and then again in Sideways, he became my favourite actor working in Hollywood today.

OK so he is a bit type-cast and generally his best films (over his not-so-best) are usually as a down-on-his-luck troubled soul character angle. This film is no execption, but his character in this has a bit more backbone, is more defiant and less well liked.

He is bigger than this film though, at times its scrappy and unfocused, especially the first 20 minutes or so. Once those steps are out of the way it settles down into the meat on the bone and we are off in familar Giamatti territory.

It doesn't reach the hights of those previous two films I mentioned, but it was still well worth the wait from my point of view.

Did I mention Paul Giamatti is great in this?

Superman IV The Quest for peace - Blu-Ray - Region B

A horrible film, a real let-down on the ones that went before. I can only imagine what Gene Hackman's face was like if he has ever seen the final edited version of this. What was he thinking, what were they thinking???

Like III though, this has a great picture transfer, although the contempt of how bad this is manifests itself by only having Dolby Stereo audio.

Superman III - Blu-Ray - Region B

More famous for being a comedy than actually being a Superman film. Richard Pryor is the star for the majority of this, the other roles are pretty much partner role to his persona.

Disturbing, if the making of documentaries on this box set are to be believed, this is direction they wanted all Superman films to be like, before Donner took the helm of the first film,

More disturbing is that this has much a much better and more consistant transfer than all of the films put together.

Its still worth a watch though all said and done.

Prince - SHM CD Japanese Mini LP editions - The first 10 LP's

(Click on image for larger)

Curse these japanese mini LP editions, not because of anything other than they are so good and so expensive!

The first 10 Prince LP's where reissued in this format about 2-3 years ago and now thier availability is drying up. Its taken me quite a while to complete the set, but now the deed is finally done.

The SHM CD format is a bit of a wheeze, a bit with XDR with cassettes years ago, it doesn't really mean anything other than they where manuafactered with slightly higher quality control than the norm.

The mastering on these discs are identical to the domestic releases (regardless of what anyone says) although they are EQ'd slightly louder than normal, but be under no illusion they are not "remastered".

Prince's Warner catalog is probably about the last major artist on the label to be remastered, and I think it will never actually happen. Prince is still a forwardly moving artist, his run-in's with Warners quite possibly mean that although they have suggested remastering them Prince just will not entertain the idea. That and the fact he has pretty much disowned his more risque material, which lets fact it is pretty much the entire back catalog!

If my gut feeling is true, I find it a bit of a shameful attitude to your fans who keep buying the material as the current editions are wayyyy long in the tooth quality wise. Still, these releases are mostly about the artwork and everything is reproduced perfectly from the vinyl editions, even down to the poster inserts and front stickers. And if they are remastered finally, I don't think we would see a Warners edition.

People may laugh in the point of having a physical release these days, but I seriously believe these CD editons will dry up very quickly and therefore become sought-after. Its also a bit depressing with the declining CD market that only the Japanese seem capable of issue editions in such amazing quality. It shames just about every other CD buying market out there.

Still, on with the LP's! Its a shame they didn't go to 11 with these, the Black Album would of been the icing on the cake! Still, with the exception of some of the tracks on Batman, this really was the end of the line for me on my Prince phase. I kept up with subsequent releases, but nothing compared to these 10. The productions become very overblown, the touring band less dynamic (Eric Leeds is irriplaceable) and the songs became confusing mess of symbolisim and silly names (Victor?).

I'd rate the top 11 in the following order...

(1) Sign o' The Times / 1999 / Controversy
(2) Purple Rain
(3) The Black Album
(4) Around the World in a day
(5) Dirty Mind
(6) Parade
(7) Lovesexy
(8) Prince
(9) For You

So, yes, if you only own the best Prince LP's, you need to own 3! Of course "Sign" is highly regarded, but I really place "1999" and "Controversy" 's experimental tracks. What other music sounds like "Something in the water (does not compute)", "All the critics love you in New York" and "Annie Christian"?

Rango - Blu-Ray - Region A

Still don't really know what to say about this and I've seen it twice now. Like Transformers, Avatar etc. I wonder who the film is made for?!

Kids will find it too "talky" and over-long and adults won't pay it any mind on their own because it is animated. Unlike "The Fantastic Mr Fox" which did it right, this is just too bizzare to really be amazing good.

The amimation is great, and the Blu-Ray is great at detail and clarity.

Its a tough recommend, tread carefully!

Demolition Man - Blu-Ray - Region A

One of my ultimate guilty pleasures, in the "its so bad its good" catagory (file next to Resident Evil, The Rock).

The action is great and energetic, the premise and execution funny, and because of the age, hardly any digital effects, when stuff blows up it REALLY blows up for real!

Some many great moments in the film, but my favourite that gets a laugh every time is the "...mickey mouse piece of shit...." line.

Picture quality is head and shoulders above anything before, and the sound is now DTS-MA, although it is a little bit tinny by todays standards.

Now if Disney would only hurry up and get "The Black Hole" released on Blu-Ray, my shelf would be complete!

Superman II - Blu-Ray - Region B

Expertly set-up from the first film, this goes to give Superman something more than the one dimension of bad guys available. The flaw in the charcter is that only one baddie is prominent (Lex Luthor) whereas Batman has several.

It has more action than the first film, therefore younger viewers will be more likely to sit through it, although without the first the character interplay would leave you cold.

I chose the original cinema cut over Donner's rather unfinished and quality-diminished Directors cut (although you can't buy the original on its own, you have to buy the sodding box set!). You can see why Donner was unhappy with the final cut, it does lack that certain something.

The same plus and minuses again on the Blu-ray front as number one.