Winged Migration as the title hints at is a visual story about migrating birds.

The Main Event

Winged Migration or “Le Peuple migrateur” is a 2003 Oscar nominated feature documentary about the migratory habits of birds, although I have to say that the term documentary can only loosely be associated to the production. For me a traditional documentary will give you some fairly detailed commentary over the visuals to explain what you are seeing. Think David Attenborough. Winged Migration doesn’t do this. In fact even when the narrator does speak (about once every 10 minutes) he comments on something quite general rather than anything specific to what we see on screen. What we do get is sequence after sequence of stunning footage that will blow you away and leaving you asking yourself “how did they film that?” However I think it is the lack of any real commentary throughout that will endear this DVD to you or not.

At the very beginning we are told that no special effects were used in filming the birds and whilst that maybe true the making of extra give clues as to how they “cheated” to get the desired effects. This involved taking the eggs of wild birds so they could be hatched in controlled conditions, also they were in close contact with humans from the day they were born so they were used to having human beings around them, this included the noise that aircraft made. This of courses aided the filmmaker’s immensly when the sequences were filmed amongst the birds in flight. Whilst this method has allowed the crews to capture some stunning footage of birds in flight the “no special effects were used” comment seems to indicate that it was all filmed on the back of perseverance and patience and whilst I am sure that those traits were still needed the fact that the birds were at least partially domesticated (that how it seems to me) takes a little of the wow factor away.

I found the intro particually good, the first few minutes of the film plays out more as a intro to a feature film, there are some nice shots of a small body of water with a quaint village in the background, some Geese come to settle in the water and one of the Geese gets trapped in some netting, a small boy cuts the bird free and she is off, into the sky flying with her kind, from this point onwards were are told a story in a visual manner, and 80% of those images look unique and absolutely stunning; very different to what you are used to when watching programs of this ilk, the other 20% of the shot are standard documtary type shots and although good will not stand out from other discs/features that you may of seen.
I have several favourite scenes one is where a small chick loiters precauriously on the edge of a sheer cliff before taking a plunge which seems like hundreds of feet so he can get to the water and another is where a couple of birds land on a military vessel in order to rest, they promply plonk themselves ondeck put their heads under their wings and grab 40 winks. Other scenes that although maybe neccesary to the production but that I felt awkward about was when you saw sucks being shot from the sky by hunters, all I could think about was that they had travelled thousands of miles only to be shot by someone out hunting for the day… humans, they seem to spoil everything.

Image

Wow… The emergence of blu-ray now allows us to appreciate these kinds of documentaries in a new way; the visuals are truly amazing. Right from the beginning when we see the robin in the dilapidated shack by the river through to the penguins diving through rough seas at the end you will be amazed, not only with the superb camera shots but also with the endurance that these birds, some of whom we see in our own parks, truly have.

Sound

The Disc played on my system in Dolby Digital 5.1 (as it is unable to achieve HiDef specific soundtracks) and although the rears are used to a degree I do wish that they were utilised more, the scene with the avalanche for example (about 16 minutes in) certainly rumbled the LFE a little but the main sound was still mainly from the front array, I certainly didn’t feel that I was being overtaken by snow. And the horses at around 22 minutes, the sounds of their hooves galloping are punchy and awesome but I never felt that I was in the middle of a stampede, surrounded by wild horses.
The music was nice, adding some reall drama to some of the scenes, in fact sometimes the music felt like it should be more for a feature film than a documentary, and I felt I hint of “walking in the air” from the Snowman on some scenes whenthe camera was amongst the birds in flight.
Discussion wise as in the narrator talking about what is being shown is very poor I felt, the occasional line every 10 minutes, this was obviously a concious effort to keep talkiong to a minimum so that you can admire the wonderous beauty of the camera work and the birds on screen, and you do admire these things, but as I came to the end of the run time I was losing interest a little as I had watched all the “wow” scenes and thought that a narrator would be nice by that point.

Special Features

There are a total of 6 extras on the disc    the best of which is the making of, it takes place over 52 minutes and it explains how they hatched the eggs, imprinted the birds making them used to human noises and presence as well as giving information on how they filmed the fantastic scenes. Some of the people involved with bringing up the birds spent so much time with them they must of developed some real emotional bonds with them, Other extras are a commentary, which struck me as a bit dull, creating the music, interviews with the film makers, a photo gallery and some previews of open season 2 and surfs up.

Overall

I enjoyed the documentary; the visuals are stunning that much cannot be denied, the music was nice and very apt to the scenes we were being shown, however the soundtrack could have done with some more oomph and towards the end I started getting a little distracted because although the stunning visuals hold everything up at the beginning there comes a time towards the end of the feature where you have seen all the great camera work and there is only an empty space where a narrator should be, after all there is only so many birds taking off, flying and landing that you can take before thinking that someone should be saying something here. However when the French Narrator does comment it seems dull and uninteresting so perhaps it was a good idea to not say much.

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Winged Migration – Blu Ray Review

The big difference we noticed right away with this showing was that there was no advertising or trailers. 6:30 start meant exactly that. A few minutes before the showing the usher came in and announced that the film would be Ice Age 3, much to my daughters delight. Not only that but it was the 3D showing so glasses were handed out all around.

This was an extra treat as we had never seen a cinema 3D film before this. I’ve seen the home ones of course with the red and green glasses. But I was happily surprised to see that the cinema technology has really moved on. The glasses were comfortable to wear, the colour was far richer than those home systems and the 3D was much more realistic than I was expecting.

As far the film itself, I found it to be a lot of fun. I loved the first Ice Age and while the second had its moments it was a little disappointing. This one though is a return to form, it had a lot of laugh out load moments and was funny for adults and children alike. The new character Buck (Simon Pegg) is a welcome addition and has many of the best lines.

All in all we had a great night and I thank Vue for the free tickets they were very much appreciated. I don’t know if they plan on having any more mystery showings but I can certainly recommend this one. Although next time I might ease down on the jalapenos’ on my Nachos, I certainly over indulged.

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Vue Cinemas, Mystery Showing Event

I’m 35 now, you’d think I’d have learned! When Star Wars Episode I came out I remember combing the interenet for every scrap of infomation out there. In the end it pretty much ruined the film for me as I already knew so much going in, all the surprises were gone (it wasn’t that great a film anyway, but my advanced knowledge ruined it even more).

Anyway back to Star Trek. This franchise re-boot is definitely a steo in the right direction, the pacing was very good, it wasn’t break neck speed all the way through, there were peaks and troughs. There was good character development and some nice humourous touches for those with a lot of Star Trek knowledge. The actors madea  pretty good show of it as well. i have to admit when I saw the list I was a bit unsure of a couple of them. Zachary Quinto I cuold immediately see was a good pick for Spock and Simon Pegg would handle the comedy provided by Scotty with his usual aplomb. Chris Pine as Kirk was a bit of a stretch seeing as I’d only previously seen him in The Princess Diaries 2, but I was willing to go with it. John Cho as Sulu could work and I knew nothing about Anton Yelchin, so that could all be good as well. My biggest doubt, and he turned out to give the best chaacter performance in my opinion, was Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. After seeing him rampaging thorugh middle earth as Eomer in Lord of the Rings it was difficult to see him as the grumpy, scrawny Leonard McCoy. In the end his delivery was spot on and believing this guy to be a younger version of the character we all know and love was no leap at all.

The leap had to be made on the plot. BEWARE, there may be spoilers ahead………….only read on if you’ve either already seen the film or are not bothered about doing so. Now I can see the advantage in re-booting the franchise in such a way as to change the timeline, giving you extra scope to do different things in the future rather than having to stick to the events already set down in the Star Trek universe that we know up until this point. Time travel plots generally mess with people’s heads and it’s no different here, although personally I have no problem with it. The only real problem I have is they went one paradox too far.

For them to alter events from the time of Kirk at the academy forwards is fine, but in having the Romulan vessel go back to the day of Kirk’s birth and change the circumstances of his childhood was a little bit too much for me. All of the other characters, up until the timeline changing event that forms the main body of the film, grew up in the same manner as they always had. Their inherant character, formed during childhood would therefore still be the same, the character’s essences would be the same. Kirk on the other hand grew up in totally different circumstances from his birth. His father who would’ve influenced his character to a pretty large degree, was no longer there. The Kirk we therefore now have is possibly a totally different person to the one we grew up with.

Is this taking it all a bit too seriously? Probably. Am I loosing sleep over this? No. At the end of the day it’s a piece of entertainment and I think the general message of the film was that although he grew up in different circumstances he still ends up becoming a hero, ready to lead the Enterprise into any tricky situation that arises. I can see however that some of the real Trekies out there will not be happy with the changes that have been made (these are the guys and gals that have had their ears surgically altered so they can look like Vulcans etc.). What us more moderate fans get is the promise of more action/sci-fi to come. On balance I hope J.J. Abrams stays on to take the Enterprise out for another spin around the galaxy.

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Kirk’s Movie Blogspot May 27th

OK, so I didn’t have this as one of my ‘Top10 films yet to come to Blu Ray’ choices. Maybe that was because I’d already heard it was soon to be released, I can’t remember, but it’s nearly here! What’s the film? It’s Ghostbusters of course! It’s got a final release date and there’s even a Blu Ray trailer. I’m also assured the artwork is final for the UK Blu Ray. Hopefully we’ll be getting a review disc for this soon, but in the meantime here’s the press release:

“Who ya gonna call?!…”

GHOSTBUSTERS
Debuts on Blu-ray™ Disc on 15 June, 2009

Available for the First Time in High-Definition in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary
Arrives Packaged with 32 Page Scrapbook, Including Exclusive High-Def Features “Slimer Mode” and “Ecto-1 Refurbishment” Featurette

Everyone’s favourite paranormal psychologists are back to save the world, this time with unsurpassed picture and audio quality and advanced new bonus features in the Ghostbusters Blu-ray Disc. Releasing on 15 June, 2009, in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary, Ivan Reitman’s sci-fi blockbuster comedy stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Annie Potts, and Rick Moranis. The high-def set oozes with special features and interactivity, including collectible 32 page scrapbook, Slimer Mode, a picture-in-picture graphical viewing experience, a featurette on the refurbishing of Ecto-1, and more.

“This great franchise is one of the crown jewels in the studio’s library,” said Lexine Wong, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing. “With Ghostbusters 25th anniversary upon us and the forthcoming release of an eagerly anticipated new video game, this is the perfect opportunity to release this exciting new edition on Blu-ray Disc.”

Directed and produced by Ivan Reitman (Meatballs, Stripes), with the screenplay written by Dan Aykroyd (My Girl, The Great Outdoors) and Harold Ramis (Knocked Up), Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray (Meatballs, Stripes), Dan Aykroyd (My Girl, The Great Outdoors), Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Copycat), Harold Ramis (Knocked Up), Annie Potts (TV’s “Designing Women”), and Rick Moranis (Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Spaceballs).

Synopsis:
University parapsychologists Dr. Peter Venkman (Murray), Dr. Raymond Stanz (Aykroyd) and Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis) lose a research grant when their experiment methodology is proven to be bogus. The team decides to go into business for themselves and open ‘Ghostbusters,’ a ghost removal service. After struggling to get on their feet, they are summoned to investigate the strange happenings in Dana Barrett’s (Weaver) Central Park West apartment. What they discover is that all Manhattan is being besieged by ghosts and other worldly demons through a portal in her building.

Ghostbusters Blu-ray Disc Special Features:
All-New Exclusive Special Features
• Digitally Mastered Audio and Video
• Slimer Mode: Picture-in-Picture Graphical Viewing Experience with an examination of the spook-hunters’ firehouse headquarters, an in-depth exploration of the creatures in the Ghostbusters mythology, behind-the-scenes discussions of making the movie, new cast, crew and special effects artists interviews and much more!
• Featurette: Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car
• Ghostbusters Garage: Ecto-1 Gallery
• Collectible 32 Page Scrapbook

 Additional Special Features
• Filmmakers’ Commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Joe Medjuck
• Featurette: 1984 – The Making of Ghostbusters – Interviews with the cast and crew
• Featurette: Interviews with Cast and Crew
• Featurette: SFX Team – Includes Before and After Multi-Angle Explorations
• Scene Cemetery – 10 Deleted Scenes
• Audio: English, Spanish (Castilian), French (Parisian), Portuguese (Brazil)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish (Latin Am), French (Parisian), Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch, Arabic
• Storyboard Comparisons
• Closed Captioned

Ghostbusters has a run time of approximately 105 minutes and is rated PG for adult language and mild violence.

PRODUCT INFORMATION

TITLE Ghostbusters
Release Date 15 June, 2009
Format Retail Blu-ray™ Disc
RRP £19.99
Certificate PG
Genre Comedy
Running Time 105 mins approx

Ghostbusters Blu-ray Trailer
 
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Ghostbusters Comes to Blu Ray!

Undead or Alive, A Zombedy

Everything about this film screams comedy, from the full title “Undead or Alive, A Zomedy” through to a few funny written lines at the beginning telling us we won’t have to read for much longer. So genre wise it would be more like Shaun of the Dead than Day of the Dead but also has the added originality of being a comedy zombie film set in the old Wild West. The film lasts for about 80 minutes, but was it a scream or a squib?

Apparently the last act that the famous Indian Geronimo performed was to create a curse for the white man, this curse gives them a hunger for human flesh and the curse can be transferred by a bite. A farmer called Ben (Brian Posehn) is in jail waiting to be hanged after eating his family. Elmer (James Denton) who is an Army deserter and Luke (Chris Kattan) who is a broken hearted cowboy are in jail themselves after getting into a fight although it isn’t long before they escape locking the deputy in the cell next to Ben. From there it seems that everyone gets bitten whilst Luke and Elmer flee town. Ben bites the Deputy, who bites the sheriff and the both of them bite the posse that has been formed to track the fugitives. Meanwhile Elmer and Luke meet Sue (Navi Rawat) Geronimo’s niece and they try to escape the zombified posse that are tracking them.

I must admit I didn’t think that I would enjoy this film; I thought it would be one of those really low budget films with gallons of gore, and little real entertainment value. But I am glad to say that I was pleasantly wrong. The story itself isn’t that original with it really just being a chase movie with our three people trying to get away from a posse, what is original though, at least to me, was the fact that it was set in the wild west and although not side splittingly funny it had some good gags.

Acting wise things are ok, Denton comes across well as the straight guy, good with a gun and coming up with most of the ideas, he is the overly sensible one, Kattan is there for the laughs and whilst sometimes I just thought his lines were a bit silly he thankfully didn’t really go for full on slapstick and most of his gags raised a smile, although little else. Rawat was good in her role, she is a beautiful woman and her part Indian heritage definitely helped her come across as being as authentic as she could in the film, in terms of looks at least. Chris Coppola played Cletus the deputy, he was the main comedy element of the Zombie side; he reminded me a bit like Nick Frost’s Ed in Shaun of the Dead only nowhere near as funny. Lastly Matt Besser was the evil Sheriff Claypool bent on revenge after Luke and Elmer steal his retirement money; he came across as a nasty piece of work even when he wasn’t a zombie even if he did look like a cross between Charles Bronson and Charlie Chan.

It certainly isn’t a film to be taken seriously, Rawat’s character spurts out dialogue that as an Indian she just wouldn’t know and language is used throughout that probably was not used in that time, but it’s doesn’t really matter as no one watching this movie is really going to expect historical accuracy when dealing with a comedy zombie film. However all three of the “good guys” seem to have good onscreen chemistry and come the end of the movie I felt that I had been entertained and it was an ok film.

Sound
Its a Dolby Digital 5.1 track which came across as clear and level regardless of loud noises or dialogue, surrounds were used to some degree but I would liked to have heard more from the rears.

Picture
For a budget film this has an excellent trnsfer, nice natural colours show off the landscape very well.

Extras
There are three extras on the disc, an audio commentary with Director Glasgow Phillips although it also has James Denton and Navi Rawat in on the chat. It is quite a light hearted talk through the film and worth a watch although it seems that James and Navi are sitting at the back of the room with the microphone being at front, Chris Kattan actually comes in on the commentary a few minutes in. From South Park to the Wild Wild West is a documentary where Glasgow Phillips talks about the whole concept and production of the film, I got the impression that he really felt out of his depth when making it and I have to give him credit for coming up with a film that was quite entertaining. Geronimonsters, the zombies that walked the west looks into the make-up that went into making the zombies in the film.

Overall
Not the best film you’re going to see, but a light hearted, fun comedy film that has good entertainment value for its relatively short running time.

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Undead or Alive DVD Review

Periodically I will take a disc from my collection and review it, this week it is that Guy Ritchie classic Snatch.

Snatch – R2 – 2 Disc Collector’s Edition

There is so much happening in Snatch that it may be difficult to pin down what is going on, when its going on, and who it is happening too; but it essentially starts off with two stories that merge towards the end… kind of. The first story involves two unlicensed boxing promoters, Turkish (Jason Statham) and Tommy (Stephen Graham) who get involved with organising an illegal boxing match with local villain Brick Top (Alan Ford). This all starts to go wrong when Mickey (Brad Pitt) an Irish Gypsy boxer doesn’t do what he is told piling pressure on everyone.

The second story line involves Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) who is trying to get a large Diamond back to his boss Avi (Dennis Farina), Franky however has gone missing in London so Avi comes over and speaks to his cousin Doug the Head (Mike Reid) and they get in Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) to help search for Franky and the missing rock.

The two stories are the catalyst for everything that happens in the film and for me it is a gem of a movie that is funny, violent and full of interesting characters and bad language that all intertwine the only way an early Guy Ritchie film could, you know… back when he made good films.

In fact the film is very much like his previous film Lock Stick and Two Smoking barrels in terms of style and comedic value, however it is not a continuation of that movie even though it does contain a few of the same actors, In fact Ritchie says in the extras that he wanted this to be a lot darker although he concedes that that didn’t really happen.

Personally I love the film, I love the way all the threads of the two story streams come together, the way that the actors embrace their characters and by that I mean all the actors from Tommy and Gorgeous George (Adam Fogerty) all the way through to Mickey and Brick Top (Alan Ford) who incidentally gets all the best lines (just listen to the Nemesis speech).

Some have written that there are too many characters in the film and there is a fair few but I would disagree that there are too many, everyone will have characters that they love and ones they love to hate. Turkish, Tommy, Brick Top and Mickey have their little story, that all revolves around the boxing match and every one of them is superb, Jason Statham as Turkish totally looks the part as the unlicensed boxing promoter, his lines are witty and quick and although he is a little bit of a hard man himself he doesn’t really want to get into owing Brick Top any favours, it is worth noting that Statham character narrates certain aspects of the film in a talk over. Even Stephen Graham’s character Tommy does well as his little sidekick and I am surprised that he has done nothing movie wise since this film.

Brick Top is a rather unhinged gangster, totally ruthless and doesn’t stand any messing about and he will come down hard on those that do, Alan Ford is absolutely fantastic in his role, I would not want to mess with him at all in any way shape or form. Brad Pitts Mickey is exceptional too, I wouldn’t say that he steals the show but the scenes that he is in are ones that you will be waiting for, and his unintelligible chat will have you rewinding scenes if this is your first viewing.

On the other story Benicio Del Toro does really have masses of screen time, but it is his character that starts to ball rolling by stealing the Diamond in the first place. Dennis Farina (Avi) is the would be recipient of the Diamond, he has to come to London when it all goes wrong; again he doesn’t have masses of screen time. Vinnie Jones as Bullet Tooth Tony makes a great gangster, and as someone new to the world of acting (at the time of filming) he really fits in well with these tough guy characters, the speech he gives in the pub is a classic. There are other characters on this side of the story, the best of whom is Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedzija) and totally insane ex KGB agent whom seemingly just cannot be killed. He is one of my favourite characters in the film, totally psychotic and really he is the cause of the mayhem that transpires as it is him that hires people to try and rob Franky of the Diamond.

On a technical point of view though Ritchie had not really pushed himself, in fact Snatch was probably easier to make than Lock Stock, He had a bigger budget and a definitive crowd puller in Brad Pitt in fact since making this film he obviously got involved with Madonna and his films have been panned, namely in the ultra crap Swept Away, and even going back nearer his roots in Revolver have not given him the credibility that he had gained from his first two films. As of writing this his Sherlock Holmes film is in post production and I really just hope that he finds his way back to making really entertaining movies again as it would be a shame to see this talented British film maker fall by the wayside.

Extras:
On the first disc you can listen to a commentary by Director Guy Ritchie and Producer Matthew Vaughn. Switch over to disc two and you get the following.

Song Selection:
This is a collection of 6 songs that feature in the film, these are not standalone but actually show that clip of the film with the accompanying track.

Trailers:
Two trailers, one an international trailer, the other just marked as a trailer.

Soundbites:
This is a set of quick fire interview excerpts; this would have been quite interesting had they interviewed normally and let the camera role, but there are too many cuts making it annoying to watch, although some of the information imparted is good.

Photo library:
As it says a number of still taken throughout the making of the film.
Making of Snatch;
this is quite interesting, a fairly lengthy look into the making of the film, a fair bit of the interview footage is that from the
soundbites.

Productions Notes:
This is obviously text based and maybe interesting to those that like this work of thing.

TV Spots:
A bit like trailers, but for television.

Deleted scenes:
this was quite interesting; you can have them with commentary on or off and I believe there is a feature on disc one called Stealing Stones where you can view these deleted scenes within the film.

Filmographies:
Basically what films some of the actors have been in before.

Storyboard Comparisons:
Exactly what it says on the tin.

b-roll:
A weird little extra that shows two scenes being filmed with Ritchie directing a few of the actors.

Overall:
a thoroughly enjoyable film, the storyline is excellent, that actors all play their roles really well and has the humour that fans of lock stock enjoy. For those not familiar with lock stock, but like gangster films that have menace as well as a little humour then I totally recommend this.

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From the Collection: Snatch DVD Review