Why So Blu?: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World vs. the Blu Ray vs. Me

I am a die hard fan of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World by Bryan Lee O'Malley, but, I did not become a die hard fan of the graphic novel series until after seeing the film meticulously created by one of my favorite directors, Edgar Wright. This man single-handedly stopped me from making many regrettable decisions with his television show "Spaced", during a very dark period in my life. After seeing his film "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", I fell in love with it (seeing it twice in one night, 3 time total in the same weekend, and one last time a week after its release). Of course after the first viewing, I progressed to blow 50 U.S. dollars (67 C.A.) on the graphic novel series, and as time drew closer to a home release, a DVD rip slipped my way from a friend of mine. But I am a true fan, so this weekend, I dropped 80 bucks on a Blu Ray player, and a copy of the film in Blu, just so I could delve into the extras, commentaries, all of that bullshit. I refuse to review the film for the blog, primarily because I feel it would be unfair and unbiased, but for those who are interested, or those teetering on the edge of whether to drop the cash on this film in BD, I will give you a breakdown of what this 25 dollar disc has to offer.

The deleted scenes granted are mostly great, stuff that really should have made the original film to be a little bit closer to the source material, but it is understandable that they were left out to cut a time on what was already a close to 2 hr long film made for viewers with ADHD. These scenes have optional commentary with Edgar Wright which is always nice. In terms of commentary, the film itself has 4 separate tracks, 3 of which obviously are cast and crew, but the most notable is the one with just Wright and Lee O'Malley. It is interesting to hear the novel's creator delve into the films little subtleties that only a hardcore Pil-geek like myself would enjoy to hear.

Most impressive in the set of extras definitely has to be the 2 centerpiece documentaries. The main documentary clocks in at close to an hour and fifteen minutes, and covers pre-production to action choreography, and the second just focuses on just the music from the film that was created for the fictional bands in the movie. This piece really explores how the whole cast was trained professionally to play their tracks, which after viewing, I hold even more respect for the cast.

The rest of the extras a tid bits that still add justification to the purchase of the film; marketing archives; bloopers; and mini-docs that focus on visual effects and costume design. If you haven't seen this film though, get the hell out there and at least rent it, but if you have a BD player, watch it in hi-def, the transfer is damn near flawless, and it is really meant to be viewed in at least 720p. In an interview with Guillermo del Toro and Edgar Wright, he [del Toro] was asked by a fan about the film, and why Hollywood doesn't make more creative films like it, his response was, "It's the audience's fault, someone like him [Wright] makes an awesome film, and not a single mothefucker sees it, then films that change the face of cinema will not be made."

Well, thats enough of this dissection, time to go back to watching one of my other favorite films almost everyone else hated, "Watchmen:The Directors Cut", in hi-def baby! And on that note... later this week I will bitch about why I hate to love director Zack Snyder.

Under the Radar:"Cropsey"

A few months back I was scanning through my usual film-whore websites and read about a documentary called "Cropsey" on Bloody Disgusting which details the story of a child abductor and serial killer on the grounds of the Willowbrook Mental Institution on Staten Island. On the surface, it very much is a documentary that you would expect to see on The History Channel or Court TV, but what makes it so special is that the two creators, Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, were raised in the surrounding neighborhoods. Solidarity of the community is what separates Staten from the other Boroughs of the city and this community pulled together back in 1987 when 10 year old Jennifer Schweiger goes missing. The results of their efforts has a man named Andre Rand who was once also a patient at Willowbrook arrested for the murders, and the documentary investigates the history of this man and the resonance of Willowbrook's presence on the island.

A Very Special "The Marxer Report": The Walking Dead: Pilot Review

Okay, lets get something out of the way before I review this show. I am a huge zombie-anything fan, be it a video game, a film, a comic, standing at a mall on Black Friday. Anything that used to be released involving flesh eating, shambling corpses, I had a grade-school hard-on for. In recent years though, the "zombie" genre is getting stale and I recognize that, so please, see where I'm coming from.

Recently, due to some very slick connections, and the anticipation to see this show, I was able to view the pilot episode for The Walking Dead, a television adaptation of a successful comic series written by Robert Kirkman and inked by Tony Moore. I have read up to 3 volumes of this series (going onto 13 now), so I was not only elated to see and adaptation in the works, I was anticipating this like a Star Wars geek for the Phantom Menace release. In short all I can say is, WOW, AMC has titanium balls.

From The Vault: Zatoichi (2003)

In 2003, Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman was released to surprisingly good reviews, and since then I have always wanted to see it but never had the chance. The film is a remake acted and directed by famed Japanese film & TV Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, who is known for breaking genre conventions. For the uninitiated, Zatoichi is a fictional Japanese character created by novelist Kan Shimozawa who is portrayed usually as a blind masseur who has bad ass sword fighting skills. Along with the Lone Wold & Cub films, this series is partially responsible for the ultra-violent samurai film genre, complete with spraying blood, and all the shit that makes any action film fan squirt. Kitano handles the film well by staying true to the character conventions of the series, but adds a bit of light hearted humor that is not forced. The violent sequences play out well in contrast to the dramatic sequences, and every bit of blood spilled in the film by Zatoichi is done so with good reason. Every aspect of the film bleeds with a unique nature, from the color design that emulates a washed out Eastman color filming systems prevalent in the 1950's to late 60's cinema, to the Jeunet-esque method of incorporating background ambient noise into the soundtrack, to a tap-dance number at the end. Walking away from it, 7 years was a long time to wait to watch a great film. So...

Final Verdict:Worth Owning

Side note: As you may have noticed, this review is much shorter than my analytical reviews of current films being released. I have decided to keep them short and sweet since I have gone out of my way to watch them for pure entertainment, and not to see how it stands up to current standards.

The Marxer Report: Let Me In

When I first heard that Cloverfield director Matt Reeves was going to be re-making, no, re-imagining, no, re-doing, or re-whateverthehelling one of my favorite films, specifically horror films from 2008, Låt den rätte komma in a.k.a. Let The Right One In, I pretty much gave up on the Hollywood system. As interesting as the press for this film was, I told myself "Justin, you need to word-of-mouth this before you see it.", so I did what any hard working lazy critic would do, go to Metacritic and get an aggregate score of the film for myself, even though I am personally opposed to numerical scoring systems (which I'll go into at a later time). After giving the website skim and a week of mulling it over, I decided to take a trip to the theaters and witness what I thought wasn't possible, Reeves didn't make a good remake, he made a great one.

The Marxer Report: Monsters

After reading some press on the film Monsters a few months back, I was slightly compelled to see it, I mean, who doesn't like a good monster movie. Then I rent it on iTunes for video on demand, and instead what I get is a great monster movie, that really does not have anything to do with exploiting monsters at all. As the concept goes, a satellite crashes from orbit over central Mexico, carrying an alien lifeform(s), which over the course of six years, causes the US to essentially wall off themselves from central to northern Mexico to protect themselves from the creatures. The true plot for the film follows an American photographer (played by a very capable Scoot McNairy) who must escort his boss' daughter (Whitney Able) from the heart of what is labeled an "infected zone", back to US soil. After missing a ferry that will take them back safely to American shores leaves without them, it is up to the two to trek through the most dangerous parts of the country (post-invasion) to return.