The Multimedia Chronicles

I was looking for a video review of a recently released Doctor Who Blu-ray boxset, as I suspected YouTube was littered with them, most of them well, they weren't horrible as such but they weren't interesting either.

As a result I stumbled across The Multimedia Chronicles which is a video podcast that pretty much covers all forms of media, basically it's a guy talking to camera about stuff he likes and he would seem to like a lot of the same things I do.

If you are a fan of comics, books, video games, movies and television shows it may be worth a look when you have a moment to spare but be warned there are an awful lot of episodes covering a lot of different subjects, more than any new viewer could reasonably hope to get through.

OK so when did that happen ?

Perhaps the more appropriate question might be OK so why did that happen ?

I've been pretty quiet on the blog front for a while now, life just gets busy sometimes but weirdly that's when my page views spiked, when I wasn't writing anything, perhaps the internet is trying to tell me something.

I don't usually check blog statistics but I got a notification of something that needed my attention and while I was attending to it I noticed an increase in viewing figures, not an Earth shattering increase but for a while there the numbers were higher than I ever would have expected to see.

No doubt it's all down to web-bots, web-bots and Space 1999 fans apparently.

Hawk the Slayer ( Blu-ray )

If I can say one thing in the defence of Hawk the Slayer it's that you can see the people are genuinely trying to make a good movie and sometimes despite a low budget and lack of production values cast and crew rally together to make a movie that is greater than the sum of it's parts, sadly in the case of Hawk the Slayer that didn't happen.

Most of the performances given by cast members were wooden to say the least with the exception of Jack Palance and I honestly don't know how to describe his work on the movie but I can truly say it was a unique performance and seldom have I seen anything ti rival it in modern cinema.

Hawk the Slayer has reputation for being a terrible movie but I don't think that is entirely fair, it's certainly not a good movie but it is strangely entertaining.

I have seen a couple of different DVD releases of the movie and I think it would be fair to say the new Blu-ray release is the best looking version I have seen, it seems like no restoration work has been done on the movie and in this case that adds to it's charm.

Hawk the Slayer isn't for everyone but I enjoy it, perhaps I enjoy it for the wrong reasons but it make me laugh.

Wyrmwood

So what do you get if you cross Mad Max with a low budget B-grade zombie movie ?, well I'm not entirely sure myself but Wyrmwood might be a good guess.

Wyrmwood is a low budget Australian horror / comedy or at least that's how I describe it that was filmed over a three year period and at least partially crowd funded through Indigogo and while the end result might not be densely plotted the movie is bat shit crazy and a lot of fun.

I never heard about Wyrmwood until after the movie was completed which is a shame because it's something I would have supported when they were fund raising, there are rumors of a sequel and if that goes ahead I'll be more than happy to put some money towards the production.

If you like guys in cars, zombies and disco tunes this just may be the movie for you.

Check it out !

Porco Rosso ( Blu-ray )

I know most fans of Hayao Miyazaki's movies will probably disagree with me but I think Porco Rosso is probably my favourite Miyazaki film.

I find that while most of Miyazaki's films are based on enchanting ideas they tend to be a little too long and things seem to drag a little in the middle of some of his films, Porco Rosso doesn't seem to do that, it's 94 minute running time seems to be perfect, it introduces the characters and story and then things move on at a decent pace until the end, things don't seem to be rushed at all and there is no checking to see what the time is or how long them movie has left because the viewer finds themselves wading through a slow bit.

As for the story itself, a cursed World War 1 fighter pilot who fights sky pirates and hides out in Milan while his plane is being repaired and then hate to fight a duel over the fate of a girl, there is of course more to it than that but you get the idea, this is pure light hearted adventure.

On Blu-ray the animation looks truly stunning and the sound is at least to my somewhat deaf ears crystal clear, Porco Rosso looked nice on DVD but it is stunning on Blu-ray.

Most of Miyazaki's movies are clever and engaging but I don't know that I would consider them all to be essential parts of any movie collector's library however Porco Rosso is definitely worth purchasing.

It's Almost Done.

I've been quiet of late, the last week or thereabouts has seen me occupied by lawyers and such and well I haven't really wanted to say anything just in case I jinxed anything.

Last week my ex wife pretty much blindsided me by making an almost perfectly reasonable settlement offer, a couple of minor tweaks later and it seems that both parties are reasonably happy and I guess more importantly no one got screwed over, we should be signing papers soon and then we can both get on with life.

Wish me luck.

What ever happened to quality control ?

I'm a fan of movies and to a lesser extent TV, when a story is told well it can transport you away from your trouble for a time although strangely enough this seems to often take the form of enjoying someone else's problems instead.

If there is something I've derived joy from in the past I tend to end up buying it and I also tend to want the best version of that TV show / Movie available so I often trodden the upgrade path from VHS to DVD and now Blu-ray and there are some titles I own more than one copy of in each format because it was rereleased with some new special feature that I felt I needed.

Recently the original version of Battlestar Galactica was released on Blu-ray in the United States which is one of those titles I own multiple version of in multiple formats and I bought the UK Blu-ray release last year.

Apparently the American Blu-ray release of Battlestar Galactica has footage missing from one of the episodes, the publishers of that series are aware of the problem and will be releasing replacement discs for their customers so I guess things will be made right in the end but this sort of thing just drives me crazy, was it not possible to have someone watch the master discs and check for errors ?, surely this would be cheaper than having to print and ship who knows how many replacement discs to disgruntled customers, I nearly ordered this set myself but I think I'll be waiting for some time now until ( hopefully ) the old stock has been sold.

It wouldn't be so bad except this sort of thing seems to be common place these days and it seems to be happening more commonly with expensive boxsets and I ought to know because it's happened to me with all of my more expensive purchases recently.

Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery apparently has audio sync issues, I've only watched the pilot so far and that was fine but apparently it's especially noticeable on the Fire Walk with Me disc.

Batman: The Complete Television Series had missing footage on 2 discs, replacement discs have been issued for those who request them online.

Halloween: The Complete Collection Limited Deluxe Edition and Halloween Complete Collection both feature audio sync issues on the Halloween 4 disc and a replacement disc has been issued although it may take several requests to Anchor Bay before they actually ship them.

It was rare that you ever heard of this sort of thing happening on DVD and yet it seems to be becoming reasonably common on Blu-ray and none of the sets I've mentioned are cheap, I would imagine that most people are like me and when you are paying reasonably big money for some of these sets you expect that some care was taken in producing the content.

I really want the upcoming Lost in Space Blu-ray boxset but I'm afraid they are going to screw that one up as well.