Zeder's Revenge!

Image originally released Zeder, a.k.a. Revenge Of the Dead, on DVD in fullscreen as part of their Euroshock Collection way back in 1999.  But in 2002, when 20th Century Fox(!) reissued it in Italy in widescreen with the superior Italian audio track and removable English subs, I was very happy to upgrade.  More recently, when Code Red announced this title, I was excited at the prospect of this film making its HD debut, but only if it was the uncut version (there have been a couple budget releases - this one and this one - from a label called Cydonia missing a decent chunk of footage) with the Italian audio and English subtitles.  Thankfully, they came through.

Update 8/20/24: It's Day 4 of Update week 2024, and here's one that's been conspicuously absent since its release in February: 88 Films' new and improved Zeder!  And that's not all.  This is an all-horror Update day, wherein I've also added three additional DVDs of Night Of the Living Dead and House On Haunted Hill apiece.  And since I've got plenty more updates to come.  This Update Week may unnaturally extend an extra couple of days.

The first thing you should know about Zeder is that the Revenge Of the Dead box art is very misleading.  If you're expecting anything Hell Of the Living Dead or Nightmare City, forget about it; zombies never crawl out of manhole covers or anything like that.  I mean, there are a couple cool scenes towards the end that you could maybe connect to the cover image at a stretch, but this is really more of a giallo with a supernatural twist than a traditional zombie film.  Gabriele Lavia is a young writer who buys a used typewriter and realizes the old ink ribbon reveals the last things the previous owner wrote with it.  This leads him into a strange conspiracy involving mysterious references to something called a "K Zone" and life after death.  Zeder is a smart, brooding film about secret messages, following clues, hidden passageways and a pool scene surely influenced by Val Lewton's Cat People, all written and directed by Pupi Avati (Story of Boys & Girls, The House With Laughing Windows).

And this is why fans cared so much about getting the original Italian audio with this film.  Yes, like almost all Italian films, it's all dubbed either way; but in Zeder's case, the Italian's a much better performed, naturalistic track.  And that wouldn't be so important for your typical Italian zombie film that's just out to dazzle you with eye candy and gut munching gore.  Heck, sometimes the bad dubbing can even add to the experience of the wilder cases; but here I think it really spoils it.  Here you've got great locations with atmospheric lighting and people that need to involve you in their struggles, not sound like cartoon characters.

All that said, I really appreciate Code Red releasing it with the Revenge Of the Dead artwork.  It's an iconic VHS cover from its day, and I have... fond? memories of renting it and falling asleep to it several times when I was too young to appreciate its craft.  And I like that Code Red's motif is to hold to those old American video days with their covers.  I mean, come on, if they're already released L'ossessa as The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, they've gotta go with "Revenge Of the Dead!"

1) 2002 IT Fox DVD; 2) 2017 US Code Red BD; 3) 2024 UK 88 BD.

The first two discs look pretty similar, apart from the added clarity of Code Red's HD.  It still looks a little soft, which I imagine goes back to the film itself, but it definitely sharpens up the DVD and nicely clarifies all the edges.  The framing tightens in just a smidgen from about 1.82:1 to 1.78.  Despite being anamorphic, Fox's disc has a bit of window-boxing around all four sides that I'm glad the blu dispenses with.  Guys, let's never bring back TV overscan, okay?  Anyway, Code Red's packaging also specifically points out its new, exclusive color correction, and it looks quite good.  But again, it's pretty similar to Fox's DVD, just a bit more subdued, which is appropriate.  Compare the skin-tones in the comparison below to better see where they've improved things.

But things have improved a second time with 88's disc, which is is taken from a fresh 2k scan of the original camera negative.  Colors are more natural and the contrast especially is more subdued.  Grain that was smoothed over is now present, albeit still a little light in some areas, fine detail and edges are sharper.  It feels like another step forward, equal to how the Code Red advanced on the DVD.  In fact, flipping between screenshots from all three, I'd even say it's greater.

1) 2002 IT Fox DVD; 2) 2017 US Code Red BD; 3) 2024 UK 88 BD.

Now, to be clear, all three discs do offer that inferior English dub in addition to the Italian track, if you want it.  It's nice to have as a curiosity piece if nothing else.  And yes, all three releases have English subtitles.  But not everybody's entirely happy with Code Red's subs, so let's get into that.

There are a couple issues going on.  One is just the look.  Slightly outlined white vs. yellow with black bars behind them.  The first are less distracting, but the second are easier to read, which as a glasses wearer, I appreciate.  Second there are some translation differences, but I don't understand Italian well enough (or at all) to argue which are more accurate.  Code Red's subs match the English dub more closely and are likely what we foreign film fans like to call "dubtitles," while 88's are traditional subtitles, as they specifically translate the Italian track.  And third, I think the most controversially, is the fact that the Code Red subs are captions for the hearing impaired, which means besides transcribing the dialogue, they also include sound effects like "[door opens]."  It isn't too distracting once you get used to it, though.  There isn't a "[tap] [tap] [tap]" for every footstep or anything; it's just the key sounds.  So I get why some people are a little underwhelmed, and I agree the 88, or even Fox, subtitles are preferable - I'm glad 88 has finally given us the better option in HD.

Moving on to the special features, the Fox DVD did actually have a few.  Not a lot, but some pretty cool stuff.  Unfortunately, though, none of it had English language options.  So there's a well-edited 15 minute featurette including interviews with Avati, Lavia, producer Antonio Avati and composer Riz Ortolani, plus trailers for Zeder and House With Laughing Windows.  They're just not English friendly.  It's always killed me that that featurette wasn't subtitled.

Code Red doesn't have any of that stuff, but instead come with their own special features package.  First and foremost is a terrific, half-hour interview with Pupi Avati, which you can watch either subtitled or dubbed (the latter created presumably because the subtitles on this extra, for some reason, are super tiny).  There's also a brief, but all new interview with Gabriel Lavia, and a fun Revenge Of the Dead teaser trailer which tries so hard to mislead you into thinking it's a different type of flick that it doesn't even show you any footage from the film.  The blu also includes reversible artwork, which is fitting, as you can go with a Revenge Of the Dead cover or a Zeder cover, though I'm not a big fan of their newly commissioned Zeder art (I never like these comic book-style covers the cult labels insist on going with these days), as well as a slipcover with the new Zeder art.

And 88 doesn't have the Fox or the Code Red extras, but that doesn't stop it from having the best features package of them all.  First of all, it has two audio commentaries, both by experts, which are fine but not great.  One's by Kim Newman & Sean Hogan and the other's by Barry Forshaw and Eugenio Ercolani (the later of whom has done several of 88's Italian titles now).  Both are on the casual side, but not bad if that's the sort of thing you're after.  Much more crucially, then, we come to the interviews.  There's no need to be disappointed they don't have Code Red's Avati and Lavia interviews, because they've conducted new ones with both.  The Lavia one is longer, so they get to go more in depth, and the Avati subtitles are far more legible.  Then they also have exclusive interviews with actor Steno Tonelli (this one's quite interesting) and Pupi's brother and professional collaborator, Antonio Avati.  They've also got the trailer and their own Revenge Of the Dead reversible artwork; and the first pressing also came with a double-sided poster, slipcase and 40-page booklet.

So hey, the Code Red was nice for its time.  It looked good, was uncut with all the important language options and some some great extras... which for the first time ever, we could understand.  But 88 has definitely raised it up further to contemporary standards.  Better picture, better subtitles and considerably more special features.  And Zeder is a really cool movie that deserves it, so long as you're prepared for something subtle and calmly paced without a lot of gore or zombie action.

Import Week, Day 4: Back To Spain for The Sea Inside

You may recall, about two years ago, I got interested in sussing out all those Spanish blu-rays... which were grey market, which were BDRs or upconverts?  Well, there's still a lot of really enticing exclusives down there, so for the next two Days of Import Week, I thought I'd swing back around there, this time for The Sea Inside, an impressive Academy Award winning film (it won Best Foreign Film and was also nominated for Best Makeup) that still remains DVD-only here in the states.

The Sea Inside is the fourth film by Alejandro Amenabar, the at least once highly acclaimed writer and director of indie cinema darlings Thesis, Open Your Eyes and The Others.  I'll be honest, admired a lot of the style and originality he brought to his work, but I also found the writing to be a little shaky.  Fortunately, The Sea Inside is based on the true story, and writings, of Ramon Sampedro (played by Javier Bardem).  So while Amenabar still wrote the screenplay, and quite well, there was a lot already established, making this a safer venture than an original work.

Sampedro, if you're not familiar, became a quadriplegic early in life, and spent decades fighting with the Spanish government for his right to die.  We see a little bit of his early life and how he fell into his situation through flashbacks, but by and large this film just examines the end of his life for him and his loved ones, particularly the ethical and moral issues his struggle raises.  It's definitely kind of a tear jerker (no scientist rushes in during the third act with a miracle cure), being both a very humanistic, empathetic experience, and also at times a rather cold, logically argued one.  Highly emotional but unsentimental.

The Sea Inside came out as a new release special edition DVD from New Line in 2005.  It was reissued by Warner Bros for their Archives collection in 2017, where they really missed their shot to put this out on BD.  Fortunately, the same mistake wasn't made overseas.  There are Japanese and German blus, but since this isn't an English-language film, there's no original English language audio track for them to preserve.  And naturally they just subtitled it into their own languages.  Only the 2015 20th Century Fox blu from Spain bothers to include English subtitles (sold separately, or as part of their 5-film Alejandro Amenabar boxed set).  Fortunately, it's a legit, properly pressed disc.

2005 US New Line DVD top; 2015 Fox BD bottom.

The color timing and everything looks the same, so we're probably looking at the same master, although you will notice the aspect ratio has changed.  We've gone from 2.40:1 to 2.35:1, which basically is just the BD slightly lifting the mattes to reveal a bit more along the top and bottom.  I do believe 2.40 is actually the correct AR, but the difference between 2.35 and 2.40 is even less than the common 1.85 to 1.78 switcharoo the major studios like to pull, so it's fine.  It's just a sliver extra picture.  The mids are also a shade brighter now on the blu.  The important thing is this is a 100% legit jump to HD, with the much sharper, clearer image picture one expects when jump to blu-ray.

New Line's DVD has the original Spanish audio in both 2.0 and 5.1, with both English and Spanish subtitles.  The BD has exactly the same options, except both audio tracks are in lossless LPCM.

One great thing about the DVD is how full it is of great extras.  It starts us off with a first rate audio commentary by Amenabar (in Spanish, but subtitled into English), but that's not even the highlight.  The crown jewel is the feature length 'making of' documentary that details every stage of production, from at home with the director and producer pre-production, on location and in the studio, to composing and editing in post.  There are also a handful of deleted scenes, several galleries of storyboards, photos, etc, and the theatrical trailer (and a couple bonus trailers).

The blu-ray has all of the same extras as the DVD, but unfortunately, none of their English subtitles.  The movie is English-friendly, but the special features aren't.  Language doesn't enter into it for the storyboards or stills galleries, but for everything else, you still need to hang onto your DVD copy if you want them translated.

So it's another one of those "build your own special edition" situations where you have to get the BD for the ideal movie presentation and the DVD for the extras.  Warners really blew it making their Archives release DVD-only.  But it's a relief to know that the opportunity to build such an edition exists, because yes, the blu-ray is all good.  You just have to import.

Arrow Delivers the Definitive Lords Of Chaos

Oh yeah, I've been waiting for this one to arrive!  I almost broke down and copped the US edition that came out earlier this year, but that and the German blu are barebones.  Only Arrow has created a proper special edition, just released this summer, of Jonas Akerlund's Black Metal true crime dramatization Lords Of Chaos.  And yes it's one of their UK only titles (since MVD have licensed it for the US) and it's labeled Region B, but the disc doesn't seem to actually be region locked at all.  ...By the way, this post has inspired me to add a new True Crime category to the site index.

Update 8/14/19 - 12/15/22: I went back and got my hands on the US Fox DVD of this film.  If that feels a little underwhelming, I've also updated my Stalker and Satyricon pages with their respective Criterion DVDs.  I don't suppose three minor updates add up to one substantial one?

Lords Of Chaos is great, but before I get into it, hopefully I can just quickly try to head off anymore people being mislead.  I'm seeing this film get categorized fairly regularly as a horror film... The opening line of its wikipedia entry is, "Lords of Chaos is a 2018 horror-thriller film," Amazon lists it as "Horror, Suspense," etc etc.  There are a couple of gruesome moments, but I think the marketing is leading people to expect a film like some kind of cross between Jackals and Deathgasm, which this definitely is not.  It's decidedly better than either of those flicks, but it didn't even particularly strike me as being horror adjacent.  It's much more in line with movies like My Friend Dahmer, Star 80, I, Tonya or Party Monster: dramas, with a touch of humor, based on real life homicides.  You know, it's not like those movies would've been better adapted as horror films, but sending people in with the wrong expectations can do more harm than good, leaving people walking out of movies like Army of Darkness scoffing, "that movie wasn't even scary!"  Yeah, gore hounds will probably be enthused about a couple of moments (and one in particular), but what really hits with this movie is how it zeroes in on the human truth of the real people depicted.

So this is the story of Norwegian Black Metal band Mayhem, which famously underwent, and caused, some serious trauma during its reign including the suicide of one their lead singers, a series of church burnings and two murders.  Akerlund is a former black metal musician himself, and while this film is technically based on the 1998 Lords Of Chaos book, he explains in the extras about how he licensed it mainly for the names and rights to the basic thrust, but really wrote the script based on his own research and point of view.  The only other criticism I seeing being regularly laid into this film is that it's inaccurate; but while there's the usual condensing required to turn a complicated, years-long story that involved a ton of people into a single, two hour feature - and yes, like HBO's Chernobyl, it was shot in English with non-native actors (including Rory Culkin as Euronymous) - it struck me how far out of his way Akerlund went to be faithful.

I watched the documentary Until the Light Takes Us in anticipation of this film, and lots of moments and lines of dialogue were clearly lifted right out of it.  And the film is constantly using real locations, supporting characters playing themselves, the authentic music and carefully recreated images.  Yes, it seems like Sky Ferreira's role was composited just so this film could pass the Bechdel Test (hey, also like Chernobyl!), and obviously in cases like this where the only information we have is based on conflicting and biased testimony, some guesses have to be made.  And it's not like a film needs to be doggedly accurate to be great, anyway.  Have you seen what Tarantino's been doing lately?  So, it's all academic.  But I still want to say that this film, which describes itself on-screen as being "based on truth, lies and what actually happened" is far more authentic and accurate than I was lead to believe.

2019 US Fox DVD top; 2019 UK Arrow BD bottom.

Arrow presents Lords Of Chaos slightly matted to its proper aspect ratio of 1.85:1.  Fox doesn't fare quite as well, with a windowboxed and slightly squeezed 1.81:1.  This is a modern, digital film, so there's not a lot of scanning or color correction to go through and potentially get right or wrong.  Arrow's own About the Transfer booklet entry simply reads, "[t]he master was prepared in High Definition by Gunpowder and Sky and delivered to Arrow Films."  And in most other aspects, the two discs look fairly identical, apart from the natural boost in clarity on the blu's part for being in HD.  And Arrow's got the best compression in the industry these days, so it's a very safe bet.

Especially since it seems like the US release from MVD is not such a safe bet, with its lossy and mislabeled audio tracks.  According to DVDTalk, "The packaging and menu offer a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track but we don't get that, we get two identical 2.0 mixes. Obviously, a lossless option would have been preferable here and a surround option certainly would have opened things up a bit. We didn't get that."  Whoops!  Well, actually, the Fox DVD got it right, with both the 5.1 and 2.0 mixes.  But being DVD, they're both lossy.  It also includes English and French subtitles.  And of course Arrow gets it right, delivering both the 2.0 and 5.1 mixes in lossless DTS-HD.  So that's a noteworthy win for Arrow, who also include optional English SDH subtitles.

But of course it's not their only win.  The Fox DVD and German blu only include the trailer, the US blu has the trailer and eleven teasers, and the Arrow has two trailers and all eleven teasers... so it already wins just with the trailers.  But, as I said, Arrow's the only special edition on the market, so now watch it completely stomp out the competition.

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore provides an intro to the film, which is actually rather lengthy, as he talks addresses different opinions on the film and even reads from the afterword he wrote for another book on Mayhen called The Death Archives.  There's just over ten minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes and a 22+ minute with Akerlund himself, which is the center piece of these features.  They also talk to Arion Csihar, who plays his father Attila in the film, and sings one of Mayhem's songs, journalist Jason Arnopp, who wrote the famous Kerrang cover story on Mayhem and who also plays himself in the film, Sam Coleman who plays Metalion and special effects artist Daniel Martin, who has some fun anecdotes and props from the most violent scenes.  There's also a stills gallery, a 22-page booklet with notes by Jonathan Selzer, one of Arrow's standard cards (this one's for Edgar Wright's A Fistful of Fingers) and reversible artwork.

So there's no question about which edition of the film to get.  And if you're on the fence about the film itself, ah man, it's so good.  A fascinating story, great performances all around, and you don't have to any kind of black metal aficionado to appreciate it.

Be Sure To Grab The Good Girl

I love the wild, cult films being released by all the popular boutique labels as much as the next guy, but it feels like the pendulum has swung so far in their direction that we're losing sight of all the great catalog titles we still need from the studios.  So it's great when I get to shine my little spotlight on something like this: an under-represented overseas label coming out with a long-awaited BD debut that none of the other review sites seem interested in.  In this case it's Germany's Spirit Media releasing 2002's The Good Girl, the second film from the Chuck & Buck team Miguel Arteta and Mike White, and one that I daresay surpasses all the Best Picture nominees it would've competed with that year, had it not been relegated to the Independent Spirit Awards like most of the best films from that era.

Writer Mike White stepped back into a supporting role for this one, as the filmmakers' break-out success allowed them to rope in some serious star power this time around.  So Jennifer Aniston - right at the peak of her post-Friends fame - stars as the titular good girl, an honorific we learn might be deeply ironic in this earnest dark comedy.  In fact, everything's at their peak in this film: the script, several of the performances including Aniston's - they've yet to top their work here.  And this is a stellar cast, with John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tim Blake Nelson, Deborah Rush, John Carroll Lynch and Zooey Deschanel all in top form.  This is one of those rare comedies that's equally poignant as a drama, and it's a shame so many of the people who made this film went on to mostly blander, commercial fare.

20th Century Fox released this as a new release in 2003.  That's a little before blu-ray's time, so fans had no complaints about the special edition flipper disc that gave us anamorphic widescreen transfer on one side and fullscreen on the other.  But in the ensuing years, this is one of those key titles I'd look at on my shelf and think, "oh, come on already!"  And it only just now has, in Germany only.  With its major stars, you'd think somebody would've stuck a blu into Best Buys and Walmarts long before now.  But looking at the master, maybe I can see why home video companies were reluctant to spring for it.

1) 2003 Fox fullscreen DVD; 2) 2003 Fox widescreen DVD; 3) 2020 Spirit BD.

Not that Spirit Media's blu is a disaster; don't get me wrong.  Their new HD release is a much-needed boost in clarity that I recommend anyone upgrade to.  Fox's old DVD was quite good for its time, not much unfortunate image manipulation or dead space in the overscan areas, gently matted to 1.82:1 (or an unattractively re-framed 1.33:1, depending which side of the disc you're watching).  It's just soft, which the BD happily improves, and slightly vertically, pinched, which the BD also corrects to an exact 1.85:1.  There is a bit of edge enhancement, which made sense for a master meant to be compressed to SD, but is a little disappointing now.

2020 Spirit BD.

But the real issue is in the black levels, which as you can see in the second set of shots, sometimes glows blue.  It reminds me of Sony's Eat Drink Man Woman blu, although in this case, we can see that the problem dates back to the equally guilty DVD.  It's not consistent; it comes and goes depending on the scene.  You can see in the shot to the left, the blacks look perfectly fine.  At its worst moments, though, it is distracting, and it almost looks worse on the blu not because it actually is any worse, but because the rest of the picture quality looking so much nicer makes it stand out more.  But again, it is just as present in the DVD, so there's no escaping it, making Spirit's blu still easily the best option.

That includes lossless audio as well.  The DVD had the original English 5.1 in Dolby with a Spanish dub and English and Spanish subtitles.  The blu bumps the English track up to DTS-HD and (naturally) swaps the Spanish dub for a German one, with optional German subtitles.  We do lose the English subs, however.

An area Spirit didn't need to improve on Fox was the extras; the DVD was already a pretty rewarding special edition.  Arteta and White to a smart and sometimes funny (White anguishes every time he realizes Arteta removed a line of dialogue) audio commentary, and they even got Aniston to do her own, partial commentary (it's just select scenes, but it's informative and of course rare to get a major star to participate).  Then there's a collection of deleted scenes, many of which could've stayed in the picture, including a slightly different ending, and those all also have optional commentary by Arteta and White.  The only thing it was missing was the trailer, which Spirit has added (fullscreen, in English) as well as a new stills gallery.

In an ideal world, this would get a remaster for a fancy Criterion, with all the little flaws ironed out and a 20th anniversary retrospective.  But considering this is The Good Girl's first blu-ray release in all these many years, I wouldn't count on anything more than what we've just gotten, which is still a solid upgrade for an essential film.  I mean, what're you gonna do, watch the DVD in 2021?

A Farewell To Twilight Time: Titus

We've known it was coming since 2019, but Twilight Time has officially announced that they're closing down for good.  Their policy of releasing strictly limited, and generally pricier, editions of all their films has rather famously rubbed some collectors the wrong way.  But in these days of dissolving physical media, nobody likes to see another label go.  Especially since they've released quite a number of first class DVDs and blus, some of which are still the going definitive editions for some of the best movies to this day.  So I thought I'd see them off with a look at one final must-have Twilight Time title from their extensive collection.

Julie Taymor is a name that inspires remarks of admiration and derision in almost equal strength.  She's either a visionary director who you hold in extreme regard for bringing her unique and celebrated Lion King to Broadway, or she's the awful woman who ruined SpiderMan, turning his Broadway debut into an infamous fiasco that will live on as a cautionary tale for decades to come.  Say what you want, Taymor is an artist who swings big and makes bold choices.  When she hits a home-run, it's a triumph, but unlike the real masters of cinema (a la Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, etc) she doesn't have the consistent sensibilities to make even her missed ambitions commanding works.  You never know what you're going to get, which at least keeps things interesting.  Her upcoming biopic, The Glorias, has been getting some discouraging reviews, and it may well turn out to be a dud; but I'm still looking forward to seeing it and finding out for myself.

Because Taymor proved she had masterpiece material right from her first feature (though you should also look into her award winning TV films she made earlier in her career), Titus.  I've heard this film described as confusing, but that's really only if you don't know what you're getting into.  This is no Mulholland Drive head scratcher; it's a straight-forward, faithful adaptation of one of Shakespeare's earliest works, Titus Andronicus, based on the staged production she'd been running of it for years in NYC.  What I suppose throws people off is that her idea that the powerful temptations and destructive powers of violence that Shakepseare has written about are so timeless and universal, she places it in an out-of-time sort of universe where soldiers will carry lances on horseback in one scene and ride tanks in another.  But if you just jump into the movie blind, the opening scene starts with a young child in a 1950's style kitchen being grabbed by a soldier and carried out into an ancient Roman coliseum.  So if nobody told you, "hey, we're just watching Titus Andronicus here," it can feel like a scene out of Time Bandits and you'll spend a while wondering what kind of artsy fantasy story is unfolding here.  But once you accept that this kid isn't from another time or dimension, and he's just one of Titus's sons who's been waiting for his father to return home from battle, you'll see that, even for a Shakespeare play, this plot is surprisingly simple and direct.

It's a singular, gritty tale of revenge and murder.  Titus is played to delicious excess by Anthony Hopkins, and I'm sure his notoriety for his role of Hannibal Lector was no coincidence to his casting here.  In fact, certainly Taymor excels in her creative production design and costuming (for which it received an Academy Award nomination) as you'd expect from her.  But the performances are stunning.  Alan Cumming and Jessica Lange are perfectly cast villains, with Velvet Goldmine's Jonathan Rhys Meyers as an unforgettable murderous prince.  Harry Lennix is the only carry over from the original stage production, but thank god for him, because he's really the (bleak) heart and soul of the piece. Taymor's Titus is one of those rare, essentially definitive adaptations that really closes the book on future versions, like Andrew Davies' Pride & Prejudice.  They nailed it.

Fox released Titus as a new release on DVD in 2000.  It was a pretty impressive 2-disc set, which is good, because it was pretty much our only option.  It didn't hit blu-ray until 2014, when Twilight Time finally issued it in the HD format.  Limited to 3000 copies, and now out of print and hard to find, it's still the only blu-ray option out there anywhere in the world.  So you can see at once both why people are fans of Twilight Time getting releases like this out there, and annoyed by the strict availability.

2000 Fox DVD top; 2014 Twilight Time BD bottom.

Interestingly, the aspect ratio shifts slightly from 2.36:1 to 2.31, with the blu shaving a slim slice of information along the top and left edges.  I actually would've guessed the opposite, since the DVD has a slight pillar-boxing effect going on in the left-hand side overscan area.  Anyway, it's all just slivers you'd never notice outside of a direct comparison like this.  What you will notice is the fresh sharpness of the HD transfer.  The DVD is unattractively soft along all its edges, smoothing away grain and fine detail alike.  And more offensively, it's guilty of unwanted haloing by way of edge enhancement.  The blu is free of most of that and much clearer, though admittedly there is a bit of a digital look to the film grain when you get in close, betraying an older master.  But it's still leagues ahead of the DVD and overall rather good even by BD standards.  It's just not a fresh 2 or 4k.  Otherwise, you can tell this is from the same source, with identical color timing and even the same film damage (note the white speck that occurs in the exact same spot in both of the upper frames).

Both discs gave us the choice of a stereo or 5.1 mix with optional English subtitles.  But the DVD also included Spanish subtitles, and the blu, of course, bumps both audio options up to lossless DTS-HD.

We got a lot to work with, extras-wise.  Like I said, Fox had given us a 2-disc set.  And even before you got to the second disc, you had three audio commentaries on the first disc.  There's a really good one with Taymor, a fun one with Hopkins and Lennix, although that one is plagued with a lot of silent stretches and awkward editing, and a music one, which is partially an interview with the composer, and partially an isolated music track.  Then, probably the best extra is the 49 minute behind-the-scenes documentary.  That's supplemented by a brief addendum featurette that talks specifically about the "penny arcade nightmares," the colorful phrase Taymor uses for the handful of dreamlike sequences that occur in the film.  There's also a Q&A session with Taymor, though that mostly repeats what we've heard in the previous extras, plus six trailers and TV spots, a couple stills galleries and a six-page booklet.

Happily, Twilight Time carries all of the Fox extras onto their blu.  They also include their own isolated score track, in addition to the one from the DVD, that plays the score without the composer commentary and plays in DTS-HD.  They've also replaced the booklet with their own, featuring notes by Julie Kirgo.

So yeah, it is annoying that it's now out of print and hard to find.  It was already an expensive release when Twilight Time put it out at the time, and it's only gonna cost you more now.  That's always been the downside of Twilight Time.  But it's a fantastic film you should definitely have on your shelf, and it's thanks to Twilight Time that we got it on blu.  They did a first class job of it as always, and my collection's definitely better off thanks to them.  So Twilight Time, I'll miss ya!