Goddammit Godzilla!

As all good movie fans know, The Criterion Collection, Inc. is a purveyor of high-end DVDs and blu rays. They release painstakingly restored and remastered versions of important classic, contemporary and independent films, packed full of director commentaries and tons of special features.

Earlier this fall Criterion put out a special edition of Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954-1975. As the lengthy title suggests, it's a collection of the first fifteen Godzilla movies, which came out during the reign of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, commonly known as the Showa period. No, really! That's why they call it that.

Included in the set are hi-def transfers of: 
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
All Monsters Attack (1969)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Pretty cool stuff! Unfortunately this box set retails for a preposterous $224.99 (!). I don't give a sh*t how good they look or how many special features they crammed into the set— there's no way in hell it's worth that price.

Fortunately Barnes & Noble's annual 50% Off Criterion Sale is going on all this month, which brings the price down to a more reasonable $112. That's not too awfully bad, as that works out to about $7.50 per movie. If you hurry you can get it during the sale.

Anyhoo, I've been a Godzilla fan since I was a wee lad, so I was excited to pick up this set. Imagine my surprise though when I hurried in to my local B&N to grab one during the sale, and actually saw it in person. Jesus Christ! Look at the size of that thing! 

I assumed it was just going to be an ordinary blu ray box set. I had no idea the discs would be packaged inside a freakin' giant COFFEE TABLE BOOK! I measured the ferkakta thing, and it's approximately 10.5" x 14.5"— sure to fit perfectly on any movie fan's shelf!

I assume Criterion went all out with this set because it's their official 1000th release, and they wanted to make it special. That's all well and good I suppose, but... what the hell am I supposed to do with a giant-ass book full of discs?

Long-time readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld (both of you) know I am NOT a fan of elaborate, oversized novelty DVD box sets. In fact I even poked fun of such packaging here several years ago. Just give me a normal human jewel case, thanks. That's all I need.

I went ahead and bought the set, but I wasn't very happy about the packaging.

Ah, but it gets worse! Once I got the set home and opened it, I saw that the discs are stored in shallow trays in the back of the book, making it nigh impossible to pry them out of the thing. I'd end up scratching the discs all to hell sliding them in and out of those tight, narrow slots.

I decided there was no way I was keeping the discs in this stupid book, so I decided to do something about it.

First thing I had to do was find a blu ray case that holds eight discs. That was a lot easier said that done. Lots of stores carry single disc cases, but you're never gonna find eight discers at Target or even Best Buy. 

Found some on Amazon, but they were inexplicably priced at an absurd $36 EACH. For what is probably a dollar's worth of material at most. Yeah, I don't think so. Eventually I found a blank eight disc case on eBay for a reasonable price and ordered one.

The next step to tackle was the cover. I scrounged around online and found a hi-res scan of the official front and back of the book. I then opened the scan in Photoshop and rejiggered it (Oh, c'mon, spellcheck! You don't flag "rejiggered?"), shrinking it and altering the proportions so it would fit the standard blu ray insert dimensions.

I had to re-typeset most of the text on the back, because it was too small and blurry after I shrank it down. Eventually I managed to wrangle it into a smaller reasonable facsimile of the book cover. 

I gotta say I don't much care for this box set's gaudy cover art. It's way too pop-art for my tastes, and doesn't seem to match the subject matter at all. That's surprising to me, as Criterion usually prides themselves on their top-notch graphic design. This looks more like a child's Little Golden Book about Godzilla rather than a high-end collectible box set. Ah well. I worked with what I had.

I printed out the cover and then slipped it into the outside of the disc case.

And there you go! A Godzilla box set with normal, human proportions that'll actually fit on a shelf. The only caveat— this new case is blue, as most blu ray packaging is. Criterion typically uses clear plastic cases for all their releases. I couldn't find any clear ones anywhere, so again, I had to work with the materials on hand.

This is what their release SHOULD have looked like in the first place. I shouldn't have had to go to all this trouble to fix the goddamned thing. If they wanted to include a book of art and movie facts, they could have easily made one that'd fit inside a case like this.

Or here's an idea— if they wanted to make special 1000th release packaging, give the consumer the option of ordering a giant oversized novelty book or a nice, normal case that goes with all your other discs.

Timey Wimey!

Last year the BBC began releasing full season box sets of Classic Doctor Who on blu ray. As you might expect, they started with Tom Baker's first season on the show, since his Fourth Doctor is arguably the most popular version of the Classic Series.

I already owned most of Baker's run on DVD, but I went ahead and bought his first season on blu ray anyway, mostly due to space. The new case is about an inch thick, and takes up about one percent of the space of the DVDs.

Here's where things start to get confusing though. As you can see, the case is labeled Tom Baker, Complete Season One. But chronologically, he debuted in the series' TWELFTH season! Wha...? 

OK, I can kind of understand why they labeled the box set as Season One, as it would likely be confusing if it said the Complete Season Twelve. Casual buyers might be reluctant to buy it, thinking they'd missed the first eleven sets. So I get it.

They did the same thing a few months later when they released Peter Davison's (aka the Fifth Doctor) first season on the show. His was labeled Complete Season One as well, despite the fact that he actually debuted in Season Nineteen! Confused yet?

And now to make things even more convoluted, another Tom Baker box set just went up for pre-order. Inexplicably, the next release is of Tom Baker's SEVENTH year on the show. Which of course is technically Season Eighteen.

So what happened to Seasons Two through Six box sets? Why the hell would they jump straight to Seven? Now when people see them side by side on the shelf, they're definitely going to think they've somehow missed several releases. 

It's almost like they're deliberately designing these releases to fail!

Maybe it's only natural that a series about an alien who travels back and forth in time should be chronologically nonsensical as well.

Hi-Def Revelations: Independence Day

I spent part of today rewatching the 1996 blockbuster film Independence Day, as I do every July the 4th. It's become sort of an annual tradition for me.

I've probably seen the film fifty times now, and I get a lot of crap about it from friends and co-workers. I don't care. I know it's schlock, but there's something about it I just like.

Anyway, this year I watched it on blu ray in glorious 1080p resolution, and it's been, pardon the pun, eye opening. I'm seeing all kinds of things I never noticed before when I watched films in low-def, like a common peasant.

Like this, for instance. At the El Toro military base, Capt. Steven Hiller (played by Will Smith), drops a small box on the floor. His pal Capt. Jimmy Wilder (annoying played by Harry Connick Jr.), bends down to pick it up.

Jimmy opens the box and gasps, exclaiming "Stevie, this is a weddin' ring!"  Hiller sheepishly explains, "Jasmine kinda has a thing for dolphins..."

He's not wrong! Earlier in the film, we saw that Hiller's fiance Jasmine (played by Vivica A. Fox) is wearing earrings shaped like dolphins! Cool! I can't believe I never noticed that detail the previous forty nine times I've seen this movie! Thanks, blu ray!

Other things I noticed during this hi-def viewing:

In this scene, Secretary Of Defense Albert Nimziki (on the right) is in the Oval Office, speaking with an Aide. Obviously the aliens have already landed and infiltrated the White House at this point. How do I know? Because one of them's hiding on the Aide's head!

Get a load of that horrible looking hamster's nest on top of that guy's head! Jesus Christ, you know a toupee's bad when you can spot it on film! Why not just yank that moldy rug off his head and toss it in the dumpster? Surely he couldn't have looked any worse bald than he does with that thing! Keeee-rist!

This has nothing to do with high definition, but it's always been one of my favorite nonsensical scenes in the movie. As the alien ships approach, David Levinson (played by Jeff Goldblum) chats with Marty Gilbert (played by Harvey Fierstein) at the cable company where they work. 

Note the giant wall of monitors behind them. Every single one of them is tuned to a different channel.

Suddenly President Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) appears on TV, to make a special announcement. Note that for some reason, several of the screens in the center of the wall have somehow merged together to display three large images of the President.

A few seconds later, the Prez urges the public to flee the cities as quickly as possible. In an effort to emphasize his words, ALL the screens combine into one massive display featuring Whitmore's solemn face.

How the holy hell could ANY of that happen? I suppose it's physically possible to program a wall of screens to combine into one display. But someone would have to control it. There's no way it could happen as shown, without human intervention. You'd have to invent some kind of sophisticated A.I. that could comprehend what it's hearing, and combine the screens at relevant and dramatic moments!

One last thing, that's fun to look for. When David announces the aliens are counting down to humanity's destruction, Marty gasps in horror. He says, "Oh my god! I gotta call my brother! I better call my housekeeper! I gotta call my lawyer! Ah, forget my lawyer!"

It's a funny moment, but the "Ah, forget my lawyer" line has obviously been dubbed. That's because if you look closely, Marty actually says, "Ah, F*CK my lawyer!" 

I'm betting the MPAA told the producers that line would earn them an R rating instead of PG-13, so they hurriedly dubbed over Marty's line with the less provocative "screw."

A Short Trip!

Have you ever seen Roger Corman's 1983 scifi classic Space Raiders? It's not bad, as Corman movies go. It's about a kid who stows away on a ship full of space pirates, and ends up becoming part of their crew (well, for a little while).

The only downside is that in true Corman fashion, the movie recycles virtually everything from his earlier (and superior) film Battle Beyond The Stars. And I do mean everything. Corman was never one to spend a dime when he didn't have to, so Space Rangers reuses Battle Beyond The Stars' props, sets, spaceship miniatures, space battle footage, matte paintings and even the entire score!

This blatant recycling mars Space Rangers a bit in my eyes, but if such things don't bother you, it's worth a look. The movie's out right now on blu ray, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Like it was made yesterday.

But forget about all that and let's talk about the blu ray box art, shall we? Specifically that tag line. "He's ten years old and they've taken him ten million miles into space."

OK, I get that they're doing a thing here— ten years, ten million miles. Got it. But ten million miles is really not that huge a distance, especially where outer space is concerned. For example, the Earth is about 93 MILLION MILES from the Sun! A little over nine times farther than this kid allegedly travelled! And it's about 33 million miles from the Earth to Mars!

The space pirates were supposed to take him on a thrilling intergalactic adventure, but he didn't even make it out of our solar system!

A*P*E On B*L*U

We live in interesting times. It is now possible to buy the wonderfully cheesy 1976 King Kong ripoff A*P*E on blu ray. Yes, now you can watch a man in an ape suit wrestle a sedated "giant" shark for twenty minutes in glorious 1080p high definition.

But you still can't be the original un-messed with versions of The Original Star Wars Trilogy on blu. There ain't no justice.

By the way, I'm sure the fact that Kong: Skull Island premieres in theaters this week had absolutely NOTHING to do with the timing of this blu ray release.

From The Department Of Shameful Situations

From the Department Of Shameful Situations:

Why is it that all of these wonderfully terrible movies (and many more like 'em) are currently available on blu ray in glorious 1080p resolution...

...but I still can't buy a similarly restored version of the unf*cked, unaltered theatrical versions of the original Star Wars trilogy, without all of George's endless, asinine, unwanted and unasked for "improvements?" Why does Chopping Mall get more loving treatment than one of the most influential films in cinematic history?

Shameful.

Answer The Call!

Just when we thought the mediocre Ghostbusters remake had finally faded into obscurity and we'd never have to hear about it again, it's back, much like the unstoppable villain in a slasher film.

Apparently when the film comes to home video, it'll now be titled Ghostbusters: Answer The Call.

I assume they made this change to differentiate it from the original, and avoid confusion in inventory catalogs and online shopping sites. 

I'm actually OK with this! I appreciate the fact that from now on, anytime I want to order the one true Ghostbusters online, I won't accidentally choose the second rate, uninspired reboot.

But "Answer The Call?" What the hell does that even mean? Did they ever say that at any point in the movie? I honestly can't remember, as I've already forgotten most of the film. I'd have to see it again to find out, and that ain't happening.

Maybe "Answer The Call" is supposed to be a response to the original tagline, "Who You Gonna Call?" Or maybe it refers to the Kevin character in the remake. I seem to dimly recall he was so stupid he didn't understand how a phone worked, and Melissa McCarthy screeching (the only way she can communicate) at him to "Answer the call!"

Sony insists that they're not renaming the film, as it's been subtitled Answer The Call all along. Eh, that's not quite true.

The first trailer didn't feature the title at all, simply ending with a shot of the slightly revamped Ghostbusters logo (grrr…). It then cut to a quick shot of the original "Who You Gonna Call" tagline over the word "SUMMER."

It wasn't until the second trailer hit that the "Answer The Call" Subtitle appeared. I saw this trailer, but I honestly never noticed the change. Or realized it was supposed to be part of the title.

It popped up on some (but not all) of the posters as well. Once again though, it's so small that I just assumed it was a tag line, not a title. Why were they doing their best to hide it?

This isn't the first time a movie title's been changed after it premiered. Raiders Of The Lost Ark now goes by the incredibly succinct name of Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark (even though no one but George Lucas ever calls it that). And the horribly titled Edge Of Tomorrow was retitled Live, Die, Repeat when it came to home video.

I'm puzzled by that "Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes" label on the blu ray cover. Is that some sort of ersatz Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval, added in a desperate attempt to convince me to buy it?

If you mosey on over to the Rotten Tomatoes website, you'll see that the movie got a 73% score from critics. That's really not anything to crow about. On the classroom grading scale, a score of 73 equals a middling C+. And audiences gave it 57%, which is lower than an F! Is Sony sure they want to link their film to this site?

Hi-Def Revelations: Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Back in 2014 I finally retired my twenty year old picture tube TV and bought a hi-def set— some ten years or so after the rest of the world did so. Hey, don't judge. I was waiting to see if all this hi-def jazz was just a passing fad or if it was going to catch on. I ain't no early adopter!

Anyway, the past few months I've been rewatching a lot of my favorite movies on blu-ray in glorious 1080p resolution, and it's been, pardon the pun, eye opening. I'm seeing all kinds of things I never noticed before when I watched films in low-def, like a common peasant. 

For example, here's a high-def detail for you: I'm starting to suspect that Yoda was not just a little person in elaborate prosthetic makeup as I used to think, but actually some sort of Muppet. Who knew?

Anyway, on to tonight's Hi-Def Revelation. I recently watched the new blu-ray release of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. It contains both the theatrical version and the Director's Cut, which includes several additional minutes of footage.

I noticed something odd this time around during the opening scene. Is… is that a NO SMOKING sign there on the bridge, just behind Dr. McCoy?

Yes. Yes it is. There it is again, just to the left of Spock (you may have to zoom in to read it). 

Huh. People generally don't put up signs unless they're needed, so I guess this means that Starfleet officers puffing away while on duty must have been a real problem on the Enterprise.

I'd have thought that in the bright and shiny world of the 23rd Century, a filthy, disgusting habit like smoking would have fallen out of favor long ago.

So who was lightin' up butts on the bridge? I doubt it was Captain Kirk— he needs all the lung power he can get to do that move where he jumps up and kicks an alien in the side while falling on his back. There's no way it's Spock, and as a doctor, I would hope McCoy would know better.

Sulu seemed too health conscious to smoke, and Uhura would probably worry about what cigarettes would do to her skin. Chekov, maybe. Although he'd have to be careful to keep a lit cig away from his toupee.

That leaves Scotty. I could definitely see him as a smoker. He certainly had no problem with alcohol, as he was alway getting sh*tfaced drunk in every other episode. Definitely Scotty.

As Spock would say, "Deliberately inhaling heated carcinogenic vapors is not logical!"

Tales From The Video Store: Pitch Perfect

Unlike the majority of the world, I don't go in for all this convenient video-on-demand and FlixNet nonsense. Nosiree! Give me an old fashioned, inconvenient Video Store any day! The farther away from my house the better! You just never know what you're gonna find— or hear— when you browse the Video Store!

This Tale From The Video Store is 100% true.

So last weekend I was in the video store a few blocks from my home. While there I overheard a typical Kentuckiana couple as they browsed the shelves.

Man: Whut you wanna see?  

Woman: I don't care, whutever you wanna see.

Man: (clearly looking in the children's section): You see Pitch Perfeck anywhere?

Woman: Pitch Perfeck? I'll go ask.

(The Woman goes to the counter and returns a few minutes later)

Woman: They says they's got it, but it's on blu ray.

Man: Dang it.

Woman: (giving him the stink eye) Why you wanna see Pitch Perfeck anyway?

Man: Cuz, it's about softball.  

Woman: What!? No it ain't, it's about singin'!

Man: Nu-uh, it's about a softball team.

Woman: It's about a bunch of girls who sing! 

Man: It ain't neither, it's about a kid that pitches a perfeck game on his softball team! 

They wandered out of earshot after that. I dearly wish I could be a fly on the wall the day this man finally gets his hands on a copy of Pitch Perfect, so I could witness his reaction when he pops it in his player and learns the cold, hard truth.

Girl Power!

A couple of months ago Marvel Comics' sales must have been down, so they announced that from now on the comic book version of Thor would now be a dumb old girl. She Thor? Shor?

As if that wasn't bad enough, this week I walk into Walmart and see this. Is this some kind of exclusive or special cover? Because I don't remember Captain America being so... zaftig.

Sigh... What next, a female version of The Thing? Oh, wait.