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I am really enjoying Palm's release of City of Men, the Brazilian TV series. The writing is good, as are the child actors... the quality still stinks somewhat of TV/video instead of the slick packaging of Ciy of God, but I actually kind of prefer that. Oh, and the actual quality of the video transfer is very good; I'm only on the first disc so no word on how the extras fare.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Sednaoui disc (which was pretty disappointing, IMO) had all twenty videos copies three times (in different orders) in a pretty insane waste of disc space. Granted, it's RSDL, but given the transfer quality, they certainly could have used a few extra bits.

I enjoyed the Walk on the Wild Side movie, tho.

davebert wrote:I am really enjoying Palm's release of City of Men... I'm only on the first disc so no word on how the extras fare.

What extras are on this release? I've got the region 2 Optimum disc, with both series but no extras. Would it be worth the upgrade?

I've picked up 2 Palm releases in the last week. Asia Argento's "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" which was an average "look how fucked up a movie I can make" film, and It was decent, but not really worth the 26 bucks I paid for it.. And then "Lower City" which was hot as hell and had an outstanding cast. It kept me really involved right to the end, only to stop about 10 minutes short of where I thought it should. An excellent film, but the ending was disappointing. I would welcome some of your opinions to justify a full appreciation of the flick.

Is there a way to watch Palm's Clean dvd with English subtitles for only the non-English-language parts of the film? The subtitle menu only gives on/off options, but on my Cyberhome player there appears to be two different English subtitle streams when you press the "subtitle" button. I feel like I've tried every possible combination of options (stream 1 on/stream 2 off, etc.) but I can only get subtitles for everything or none at all. As far as I can tell, the subs are all the same no matter which option I choose (i.e. regular English subs, not English-for-hard-of-hearing).

Or am I just dense?

Aren't they supposed to be releasing Invisible Waves this year?

DVD Verdict and DVD Beaver reviews of Ten Canoes.

Palm Pictures' new Summer Palace DVD a new level of hell. I suppose it isn't something we don't expect already from Palm - especially in light of the last Lou Ye film they mangled as best they could - but the new r1 DVD of Summer Palace is another low point for Palm. This beautiful movie is given the most hideous - looking interlaced transfer ever; it looks as if the movie were shot on a consumer video camera. There is a comparison on DVDbeaver but I went ahead and bought the DVD because, what other choice did I have?

And to add insult to injury I have to add that they had this very exquisite, sensuous theatrical poster for the film, and it would have been a nice cover for the DVD. Also, the French disc has a nice cover. But did Palm even take a cue from the breathless quality of the promo artwork already available to them? No. They had to create their own, incredibly - shitty - looking cover for the DVD, in which the star looks like someone's punched her in the eye, she looks like she hates everything, there's a couple of spare blue silhouettes of soldiers behind her, and everything else is hideously - dropshadowed title text. Talk about heavy - handed. I might use this cover in as an example of everything not to do with graphic design. Remember, students; a design can be used for good...but also for irreparable evil. Let's take a look at exhibit A.

I've looked around for another DVD of this in any corner of the world, and I've only been able to locate TF1/Ocean's r3 French disc. Does anyone have that disc? Is the quality good? The screencaps I've seen might be tampered - with, but they look pretty bad. A review says the DVD is dark, but they don't say anything about interlacing. Is this a better option if subtitles aren't a consideration?

I just bought Last Life in the Universe and Memories of Murder, and overall I didn't have too many problems with them, for R1 releases of foreign films, but...

The packaging doesn't list as many technical specs as I would like. Both of them fail to mention whether or not they are anamorphic widescreen (they are, thankfully). I know anamorphic should be expected with newer movies, but sometimes you never know what new ways an R1 company will find to screw something up. And, I think info like that is still important for the newbie buyer. There are a few companies that still do this (Bandai Entertainment also being a notable company which I purchase from), and it annoys me.

I guess considering the lack of demand for foreign films, I rarely expect VERY good treatment out of anyone outside of Criterion, but it's always disheartening to compare these to other regions and see the lack of extras, audio tracks, etc, that we're missing. Add that to the expected R1 company usual f*ckup, it's befuddling to see why North America should have more monkey job DVDs compared to other regions.

Okay, rant over.

As for the films themselves...

I notice someone in here complaining about a missing scene in Last Life. It's certainly probable, but given that Chris Doyle sat down and (I assume) recorded this commentary track for the DVD while watching the entire film, I would think he might have mentioned it if it was important. Also, many films are continually tinkered with by the director himself and so you get many international versions in existence.

Memories of Murder, I think, is probably one of the best "unheralded in North America" Asian films I've seen in a while. Although Bong Joon-Ho is very much a Hollywood-like director in the way he films scenes--very manipulative, and very slick. He's obviously in total control when executing mainstream appealing storytelling elements. I would not be surprised if he does make a complete move to Hollywood soon, as he's exactly the type of director I could see them coveting. His recent film, The Host, is just another step in that direction. I have mixed feelings about this. I think everything went right in Memories...but it's easy to fall into facile, cliched Hollywood obsessions with a style as slick and manipulative as his, and some of that showed in The Host.

Gondry is releasing another disc of his videos, not on Palm, but via his website. It will feature twenty videos, behind the scenes footage and various other ephemera.

And the raincoat brigade rejoices

Paz Vega at her hottest in hi-def...if that makes me part of the raincoat brigade, then....

No raincoat would be needed if it weren't such a shitty film. What could be summed up as the Jeopardy answer to the question "What do you get when you cross a Mexican soap opera with Tinto Brass?"

Well, it could've been worse. At least the director didn't do a cameo wearing a trenchcoat a la Mr. Brass....