"The Heat" on BLU RAY - A Review Of The 2013 Comedy.

Here is a link to Amazon UK to buy the right issue at teh best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DHB410E

“You want something to eat? I got a Subway I bought last week...” - The Heat on BLU RAY

"The Heat" is Starsky and Hutch for Girls. It also hankers back to those wiseass buddy-buddy movies of the Seventies where everyone is a "perp" or a "narc" or a "douchebag" - and cops keeping the mean streets free of drugs are all heart, gut instinct and no procedure. Throw in an FBI Captain (Demian Bichir) and a Boston Police Chief (a fabulous turn by Thomas Wilson) who are antagonistic and put upon and you get the picture. 

What makes "The Heat" so enjoyable is just that – it’s 'so' enjoyable. And I mean the whole way through. You can’t help but think that both Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy had an absolute blast making this. And there’s that rare thing between them too – a genuine oddball chemistry that shouldn’t be there but is. These are two great actresses at the top of their game - making it look easy.

Bullock is Ashburn – a snooty rubs-everyone-up-the-wrong-way career-obsessed FBI agent who dresses in immaculate suits and has a way with closing cases that annoys the men in the Bureau (even the sniffer dogs don’t like her). McCarthy plays Mullins – a bedraggled foul-mouthed drug-busting Boston Street cop whose hair was last groomed in 1972 and wears the same teeshirt for six days in a row in her beat up car.  One is all rules and regulations and by the book – while the other is more likely the use the Telephone Book as a weapon during interrogation (her fridge is full of revolvers and rocket launchers instead of food). Bullock about McCarthy as she turns over her Captain’s office: “What’s she doing? Captain: She’s looking for my balls…” There then follows a McCarthy tirade of insults to the whole office about the mediocre size of his appendages that will have you howling with laughter.

Both are unwillingly assigned to a pusher called "Larkin" who has eluded the Boston Police forever. Mullins also has to contend with her estranged crazy family and her kid brother Jason (Michael Rappaport) whom ‘she’ put in jail for dealing. Jason is a good kid (she was trying to protect him from addiction) – but just out of jail - maybe he’s tempted to go back to the wrong crowd again. And on it goes to Ashburn with a knife wound in her knee crawling through hospital corridors to save her partner’s kin…

As you can imagine – most of the crudity – vagina and dick jokes – barroom hijinks – hanging drug-dealers over fire escapes – personal hygiene gags and non-stop laughs is provided by McCarthy - who probably spouts more good one-liners in “The Heat” than there’s been in all 50 of Woody Allen’s movies. “I used to be married you know” says Bullock as they get hammered on shots in a dive bar (a really funny set piece) – McCarthy replies “What! To a hearing man!” The jokes are all like this and Director Mike Feig keeps you giggling at them - all the time.

The BLU RAY picture quality is immaculate throughout – defaulted to 2.40 (bars top and bottom of the screen) – but even stretched to full aspect – it looks amazing – a proper Hollywood blockbuster set of production values.

There are two cuts of the movie – “Theatrical” and “Extended” and as you can imagine the outtakes in the huge amount of Extras go on for hours and generously feature a lot of the seriously talented supporting cast:

1.         Director and Cast Commentary

2.         Mullins Family Fun

3.         Acting Master Class

4.         Let’s Get Physical

5.         Police Brutality

6.         Von Bloopers

7.         Supporting Cast Cavalcade

8.         Over And Out

9.         And Stuff We Had To Leave Out But Still Think Is Funny

10.       How The Heat Was Made

AUDIO: English 51. DTS-HD Master Audio, English Description Audio Dolby Digital 5.1, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian DTS 5.1.

SUBTITLES: English For The Deaf and Hard Of Hearing, French, Spanish (Castellano), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Estonian Latvian, Arabic, Chinese and Turkish.

“The Heat” is far more fun than it had any divine right to be – don those sweat pants – get that flak jacket ready – and pull the pin out of those comedic grenade.

Way to go ladies…

"Mr. & Mrs. Smith" on BLU RAY. A Review.

Here is a link to the right issue on Amazon UK and at the cheapest price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000O771WO

"...The Best Looking Mark I've Ever Seen..."

Hang-gliding between skyscrapers on steel pulleys, re-decorating your suburban home with pump-action shotguns, abseiling down the outside of a city hi-rise with a whip and a wire from your handbag, planting bomb detonators under the elevator your cheating husband's coming up in...

Let's be blunt about it - "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" rocks. In fact it may well be the ultimate 'guilty pleasure' on the BLU RAY format. It's a properly decadent big ass funky old slice of Hollywood entertainment...and it's bloody funny too at times - even oddly touching in places (Angie getting drunk on the floor of her offices when she learns of her husband's not-dissimilar day job).

And into the bargain you get two of the sexiest people on the planet (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) actually falling in love with each other as they film - and with the very real sensation that neither can keep their hands off those lithesome nether-regions in-between takes - let alone keep them in their CIA-issued flak jackets. And all they have to do is get through marriage and life without killing each other. Ah shucks - sure aren't we all doing that.

And on it goes to the hot pair of them smirking in front of a marriage counsellor at the end having clearly renewed more than their TV licence...

However fans of the dynamic duo should note that the 'US' BLU RAY on 20th Century Fox is REGION A LOCKED - so it won't play on our machines unless they're chipped to be 'all regions' (which few are).

Stick to the UK version. It has top quality picture quality - it's on the '2 for £10' price list - and it's got more pizazz in its assassin's marriage than a Bowie Knife in a Tango Teacher's garter...

“The Remains Of The Days” on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2013 Sony Pictures 20th ‘Anniversary Edition’. Part of SONY COLLECTOR SERIES on BLU RAY

Here is a link to the right issue on Amazon UK to get the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DGXKNR8 

“…It Is Not My Place…” – The Remains Of The Day On BLU RAY

I own 7 titles in this Sony Pictures BLU RAY series (see PS below) and the picture quality on some of these reissues has been hit and miss for me – "Guns Of Navarone", "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and "Stand By Me" are good rather than great – while "Gandhi", "The Bridge Of The River Kwai" and "From Here To Eternity" look utterly amazing. So it’s with relief that I can say the transfer of 1993’s "The Remains Of The Day" looks truly beautiful on this well laid out and well thought out 2013 Anniversary Edition BLU RAY.

Tony Pierce-Robert’s masterful cinematography is brought out in a way you’ve never seen it before in this quality transfer. It’s defaulted to 2.40 (bars top and bottom) - but even stretched to full aspect – the grain on the huge number of indoor shots is very minimal. It fact giving the picture a bit of distance – it could be “Downton Abbey” in High Def – it’s that well filmed. Boarding House signs, the family Daimler car, the crunch of the gravel outside the huge Darlington House door, a bead of sweat dripping off the old man’s nose as he serves at table, the squeak of leather shoes, chucking water over a kitchen table to wash it – it all looks and sounds glorious.

Anthony Hopkins (playing James Stevens) and Emma Thompson (playing Miss Kenton) had just come off "Howard's End" in 1991 – so they knew each other very well – and were ideal casting for this kind of material (Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep were once muted for the parts with Mike Nichols as the Director). Equally impressive is James Fox as Lord Darlington, a young Hugh Grant (pre "Four Weddings" fame) and English stalwart Peter Vaughan playing Hopkins’ frail father. There are also small parts for Ben Chaplin (ITV’s "Mad Dogs") and Lena Headey (Queen Cersei Lannister in "Game Of Thrones"). This is a world where people say “my dear boy” at dinner, there are 12 for tea and a scullery maid who’s eloped with a footman is described as a ”bad business”.

The principal Extra “The Filmmaker’s Journey” features interviews with Hopkins, Thompson, James Fox and Christopher Reeves, Director James Ivory, Producers Ismail Merchant and James Calley and novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.

AUDIO: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French, German, Italian and Spanish Dolby Surround

SUBTITLES: English, English SDH, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.

EXTRAS:

1. Ultraviolet Code – To Download the movie for mobile devices

2. The Remains Of The Day: The Filmmakers Journey

3. Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England’s Fatal Flaw

4. Love & Loyalty: The Making Of The Remains Of The Day

5. Deleted Scenes

“The Remains Of The Day” is such a quality piece of filmmaking – a life wasted in servitude (dialogue above) – not taking a chance on love when it’s presented to you. And the ache that Hopkins and Thompson are able to bring to the piece is almost red raw.

This is a top class reissue – and I wish there were more of them…

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PS: SONY COLLECTORS SERIES (BLU RAY) 

Film fans will probably have noticed that original issues of this ‘UK’ Sony Pictures series of releases have generic artwork – usually a gold-banded card wrap on the outside with a number on the top of the spine (blue band on top, gold stripe set against a white sleeve). Although it doesn’t say so on anywhere on the artwork – this ‘UK’ set of BLU RAY releases has become known as the “Sony Collectors Series”.

“The Remains Of The Day” is number 19 so far (as of March 2014). Here are the other titles in the series – all of which originally came with ‘card wraps’:

1. Taxi Driver (35th Anniversary Edition) (1976)

2. The Bridge On The River Kwai (Collectors Edition) (1957)

3. Stand By Me (25th Anniversary Edition) (1986)

4. Gandhi (2 Disc Special Edition) (1982)

5. Easy Rider (Special Edition) (1969)

6. Midnight Express  (Special Edition) (1978)

7. Boyz N The Hood (20th Anniversary Edition) (1991)

8. Das Boot (2 Disc Director’s Cut) (1981)

9. The Guns Of Navarone (50th Anniversary Edition) (1961)

10. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (2 Disc Special Edition) (1977)

11. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (Special Edition) (1964)

12. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Special Edition) (2000)

13. The Caine Mutiny (Special Edition) (1954)

14. Lawrence Of Arabia (50th Anniversary Edition) (1962)

15. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Special Edition) (1993)

16. Groundhog Day (Special Edition) (1993)

17. Glory (Special Edition) (1990)

18. From Here To Eternity (Anniversary Edition) (1953)

19. The Remains Of The Day (Anniversary Edition) (1993)

"The Last Of The Mohicans" on BLU RAY - A Review Of The 2012 "Director's Definitive Cut" - Good Rather Than Great...

Here's a link to Amazon UK to get the right issue at the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006LMILOI

"...Deeply Stirring In My Blood..."

Based on James Fenimore Cooper’s novel about the British and French Colonial wars on the American Frontier in 1757 – Michael Mann’s "The Last Of The Mohicans" is a 5-star blast of a movie with fabulous chemistry between its lead actors Daniel Day-Lewis (Nathaniel Hawkeye) and Madeleine Stowe (Cora Munro – a general’s daughter). But no matter how much I love the 1992 movie or want it to be great on the new fangled format – I take exception to anyone suggesting that the "Director's Definitive Cut" on BLU RAY is 'stunning' to look at. That's just nonsense – it isn’t.

Unfortunately the whole film seems afflicted with a sort of out-of-focus blurriness and lack of definition that infects scene after scene. Sure it looks clean in the daylight sequences - especially when Hawkeye and the power mad Magua (a sensationally good Wes Studi) go at it with hatchets on the mountain ridge at the end. The scene where Magua seeks the approval of the tribe elder and Hawkeye tries to reason with him – is superb too - gorgeous clarity. But other outdoor sequences (running through foliage) are just plain ordinary looking. And again there's huge parts of “The Last Of The Mohicans” - especially the interminably long night sequence in the centre of the film when General Munro’s Fort is being bombarded by French guns - when blocking and grain fill every shot to a point where it looks like a bad Eighties video.

It’s defaulted to 2.4:1 aspect ratio (bars on the top and bottom)  – but if you stretch it to semi or even full screen aspect – immediately the picture quality degrades – and the haziness of the focus returns.

The "Director's Cut" runs about 5 minutes longer than the Theatrical Version - and other good news is that there’s all-new “Making Of” featurettes:

1. Act 1: Becoming Hawkeye

2. Act 2: A Love Story Between Hawkeye and Cora

3. Act 3: Bringing The Epic Story To Life

4. Commentary by Michael Mann

Subtitles include English, Brazilian Portuguese, Complex Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Thai and Turkish. This November 2012 BLU RAY reissue is also REGION FREE.

I hate to throw a damp squib on the log cabin fire – but I’ll now find this movie hard to watch ever again. It’s a bit like “American Graffiti” (see review) – another huge favourite of mine that’s been made worse somehow by BLU RAY rather than better.

No matter how much affection you have for this film – I’d suggest a rental before you buy…to actually see what you’re getting. Let your own eyes be the judge…

"Peace At Last" by THE BLUE NILE - A Review Of The 2014 2CD “Deluxe Set” Remaster and Reissue.

Here is a link to the "Deluxe Edition" on Amazon UK (with the best price also):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HS90I3U

“…Could Be Singing…Could Be Together…”

First things first - the idea that The Blue Nile's 3rd album "Peace At Last" 'needs' to be remastered was to me ridiculous. I bought the original CD on Warner Brothers 9362-45848-2 in June 1996 - the day it came out - and it was (and still is) a beautifully crafted and produced album. So it was with a healthy amount of scepticism that I plopped Disc 1 into my snazzy Marantz this afternoon...

Well take me sideways with a can-opener from Mars - but they've only gone and done it again. Because like "A Walk Across The Rooftops" and the sublime "Hats" that were both remastered in 2012 - this is truly gorgeous return to the original tapes. There's undeniable sonic improvement on every track - especially in the background instrumentation. Here are the poets and typewriters...

UK released Monday 3 March 2014 - "Peace At Last DELUXE SET" is a 2CD reissue on Virgin/Linn/Universal LKHCDR 3 (Barcode 0602537618071). Disc 1 is 44:56 minutes (3 seconds longer than the original issue) while Disc 2 offers up 6 New Outtakes (29:42 minutes). Original band members ROBERT BELL and PAUL BUCHANAN in conjunction with their long-standing Engineer CALM MALCOLM have remastered the lot.

The 16-page booklet housed within a foldout card digipak retains none of the original artwork (excepting the cover) and there's nothing on any of the inner flaps. It's massively disappointing and feels utterly superfluous to requirements. There's a title page - one page of bare-knuckle credits - followed by 15 pages of photos of the band sat in the studio or the steps of some building somewhere - none of which advance your knowledge of the album one jot. There's no liner notes - no personal explanations or insights - no lyrics - it's rubbish frankly. The only explanation I can offer is that the band is keeping with its previous minimalist approach to artwork. But I'd say - I think the mystery is common knowledge now boys and we could have done better. Back to the good news...

The opening track "Happiness" has a synth opening with a count in - it's crystal clear - and the slight hiss that was on the original hasn't been compressed or removed - just given more presence. But when the choir of Eddie Tate and Friends kicks in - it sounds HUGE - just glorious. "Tomorrow Morning" has always moved me to tears (lyrics above) - and today it has done so again. The strum of the acoustic guitars and the delicate piano - compliment Buchanan's aching vocal as the strings come pouring in halfway through - a superbly handled transfer. The wallop out of "Sentimental Man" is again to the fore - funky Rock at its best (I remember gigs when this slayed them in the aisles - especially the guitar solo). "Love Comes Down" sounds incredible and "Body And Soul" is so sweetly emotive. The piano of "Family Life" seems even more haunting - what a beautiful piece of songwriting - and the hurt in the words is like an open wound that can't be cauterized. "War Is Love" features that huge drum sound with a tight slap bass behind - it's somehow more controlled - you hear the acoustics and gorgeous keyboard fills. It ends on "God Bless You Kid" and "Soon" - both sounding renewed.

As to be expected the 6 new tracks that make up Disc 2 (3 versions and 3 new songs) are a mixed bag of the good and the dismissible. Both "Soon" and "War Is Love" are 'Laurel Canyon Mix' versions in which the synth fills and treatments clutter up the songs to a point where they interfere with the lovely melodies ("War Is Love" is the better of the two). We then get a pretty version of another album track "Holy Love" in the guise of a 'Picture Mix' that ambles nicely but never really takes off.

Better is the first new song "Turn Yourself Around" which sounds like an early run-through for "Love Comes Down". Featuring those impassioned vocals that make Buchanan so special - it could have been a sought-after B-side. The unreleased 'Demo' of "A Certain Kind Of Angel" could easily have been a "Hats" outtake with the same synth patterns and five-minute length. It's lovely. But best of all is "There Was A Girl" - as pretty a song as Paul Buchanan has ever written. At five and a half minutes - it's a beautiful melodic slowy that will make fans swoon and notice the pimples on their arms. It ends a patchy Disc 2 on a genuine and much-needed high.

So there you have it - a 10-star album in a 4-star repackage. But man when I play that new remaster and those new songs - I'm gone baby gone.

"Raise the children ...hold them to sky..." Paul Buchanan sang on "Body And Soul". I did and I still do.

The Blue Nile people - God is jealous of them - and he's God...