Anime

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009 - Live Action) Coming to Blu-ray in October

By brenden ⋅ July 3, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Can’t say I was a huge fan of the 2000 animated version of Blood: The Last Vampire. I mean, I really wanted to like it. I tried. But it just came up short for me. And I’m not referring to the 48 minute runtime here. The film just left me wanting. I loved Production I.G.’s animation. Blood looked great. It just didn’t feel like a great vampire story to me.

That being said, I am kind of excited to check out the Blood: The Last Vampire live action film when it opens in theatres here, in Canada (perhaps it’ll be playing at the Fantasia Film Fest in the next couple of weeks?) Despite the film only just making it’s cinematic debut overseas, the Japanese Blu-ray release has already been announced. The Asian Blu-ray Guide got the scoop today: …Continued…

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season One Blu-ray Box details emerge

By brenden ⋅ June 30, 2009 ⋅ 7 comments

We’ve known for some time now that Lucasfilm was planning a boxed-set of the first season episodes for release on Blu-ray (they’ve been releasing random collections of episodes on DVD), most likely hitting store shelves sometime this fall. And now, thanks to a scooper on the forums of Blu-ray.com we’ve got our first look at what we can expect from the set.

He notes that the discs will include: …Continued…

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies comes to Blu-ray September 29 (Updated with Package Art)

By brenden ⋅ June 29, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I love waking up to a good press release!

Warner Home Entertainment has forwarded details of their upcoming Superman/Batman: Public Enemies film, coming to Blu-ray and DVD on September 29. Too bad they left out the package art. Weird. They had it plastered all over the Warner press event a couple of weeks ago. Maybe that was just a temporary tease. Dunno.

Sigh

I’ll post it up here when they get their act together.

In good news: KEVIN CONROY AS BATMAN! TIM DALY AS SUPERMAN! CLANCY BROWN AS LEX LUTHOR! …Continued…

[VIDEO] Blu-ray Wish List: Animated Transformers: The Movie (1986)

By brenden ⋅ June 26, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Why the hell don’t we have this movie on Blu-ray yet?! Urrrr…

All right. Let me explain. Transformers: the Movie, the animated giant-robot extravaganza that shaped my youth, came out in 1986. You know the film. The one with that song that goes, “YOU GOT THE TOUCH. YOU GOT THE POWER!” Yeah. That one. In the last number of years, the film has arrived in the home video market on DVD, in a variety of versions. Some full screen, attempting to show the full animated frame but looking way too loose, compositionally. Some widescreen, attempting to replicate the matted cinematic presentation (where movie theatres chop off the top and bottom of the picture - really, it happens ALL the time!) but looking way too tightly composed. Each version suffered additional problems in colour fidelity and compression. It seems that no studio, no release is able to get Transformers: the Movie quite right. …Continued…

Live-action Dragonball Evolution Prepares to Assault Your Senses on Blu-ray

By brenden ⋅ May 27, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I remember a time, years ago, when I considered checking out the animated Dragonball series. A lot of my friends were going on about how amazing it was and how, if I was any kind of real anime fan I would sit my ass down and watch all the episodes from the beginning. Luckily for me, I didn’t end up becoming a fan (read: too lazy to get through it all) and therefore harbour no ill-will toward Fox’s much-maligned live-action adaptation, Dragonball Evolution, outside of the criminally poor-use of Chow Yun Fat in yet another of Hollywood’s mass-market martial-arts film (I guess I should really take that up with his agent or manager - ARE YOU LISTENING GUYS? HARD BOILED? THE KILLER? A BETTER TOMORROW? BRING THE REAL CHOW BACK!!)

Blu-ray Picks for the Week of May 26 - The Sky Crawlers (Review)

By brenden ⋅ May 26, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I would never count myself among the legion of Mamoru Oshii fans. In fact, I find Ghost in the Shell a hard slog, tough to sit through. Like watching water boil.

All right, I’m exaggerating here. Oshii never fails to deliver beautiful moments and thrilling action in his films but in order to uncover the candy he forces you to suffer the interminable plastic wrapping of verbose philosophical monologues, pretentious classical quotations and ham-fisted expository detail. I’m happy to say that his latest animated film, The Sky Crawlers manages to side step these complications. For the most part.