Believe it or not—and I know you want to believe it, really I do—I’m not too often prone to professional jealousy. My dislikes and resentments, and I admit, they are many, generally stem from who people are and what they do, what they stand for and what they don’t, rather than any position they hold relative to my own. On the occasions when I do feel a pang of “I can’t believe they gave him/her that job”-ness, I try to keep it to myself. But I have to admit I felt a bit of a twinge when I read earlier in the week that Michael Atkinson was taking the position of DVD reviewer at Movieline.
Now Michael’s been reviewing DVDs for the IFC Independent Eye website for a while, I know. Hell, I even made fun of one of his DVD reviews there a couple of weeks ago. And while he and I have had our tussles on the internet (Jesus God almighty, is there anyone I haven’t had a tussle with on the internet?), when all is said and done I consider Michael a fine fellow and a distinctive writer. A little blustery at times, for sure, but you know, he owns his bluster, much as I own my…raging dickheadedness? No, it shouldn’t be that. It’s something. But I’m not sure. But anyway. The point is that it really caused me no pain to learn that Movieline now wants to pay the guy to compose prose poems on Marlon Brando’s jawline as said jawline is rendered in a leading home theater format. No, this was the sentence in the announcement that irritated me: “Michael will provide excellent reconnaissance from the DVD/Blu-ray front several times per week.”
Blu-ray? Really? Goddamnit, I didn’t write the book on Blu-ray (now that I think of it, that might not be such a bad idea), but I did write the Popular Mechanics article on it (the entirety of which appears to no longer be online, but here’s the first page), and I made only one mistake in it, mixing up Super Technirama with VistaVision, which given the technical similarities of the format, could have happened to anybody!!!! Also: I started my career at a magazine named Video Review. Editing the Test Reports. You know, the ones with the luminance numbers and the signal-to-noise ratios and the goddamn footcandles/footlamberts. I’ve forgotten more about this technology than most of these schmucks who yammer on about this and that but probably couldn’t set a goddamn clock on a VCR back in the day to save their life ever even learned. I was IN JAPAN to see the very first demonstrations of the MPEG video compression format that wound up MAKING DVD AND BLU-RAY EVEN POSSIBLE! (“This will never work,” I said at the time, so crappy did the results look back then.)
Back when I was running the Home Guide at Première, I rather developed a horror of DVD reviews that functioned as de facto late critiques of contemporary pictures. My perspective was, well, the film critics have had their say, and if you’re reviewing the disc version of the movie, then review that. (Although I recall that when Christopher Kelly was writing most of the reviews for the section, his perspectives could yield some interestingly counterintuitive results; a positive notice for The Other Sister, for instance.) Now obviously it’s a whole other kettle of fish when you’re dealing with classic or repertory fare on disc. Dave Kehr, who’s completely The Man in this department, is invariably brilliant when discussing both the films in question themselves, and also how they’ve fared in the transit from celluloid to the digital domain. This issue is, I think, particularly crucial when you’re discussing Blu-ray. I don’t mean to sound rude or anything (well, maybe I do), but with rare exceptions I’ve got to say that unless you are Dave Kehr, I really don’t give a shit what you think of any given movie on Blu-ray. I just want to know how it looks and why it looks the way it does. (See DVD Beaver…and even they can get it wrong, as they did here, a review that needs updating since the recent correctly remastered version.) The rest I can figure out myself. Whether Michael Atkinson’s gonna talk about that in his Blu-ray writeups remains to be seen—I haven’t seen him tackle a title in that format yet from his Movieline perch. But I wish him all good fortune in the gig in any event.
All this is also by way of guiding you to this week’s topics, questions, and exercises at The Auteurs’ Notebook, which contains a chat with Warner Home Video’s Vice President of mastering Ned Price, about the gorgeous new Blu-ray of Doctor Zhivago (not depicted above, in case you were wondering) and the upcoming digital rethink of Citizen Kane, and a bit more. All very wonky and technical…just the way I like it when we’re talking film preservation and Blu-ray and stuff.
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
(Just foolin’)
I moved to London in 2002 and began writing reviews for a magazine called What DVD. It was very exciting. I began with one-paragraph reviews of new back catalogue titles, eventually working my way up to my very first two page review of a major new release: The Princess Diaries.
Then the magazine folded. Brilliant!
So many films nowadays are never making it to theatrical, it kinda only makes sense for reviewers to treat DVD/Blu-Ray the way they would first-run.
As long as we’re talking ancient history, in 1979, I wrote a front-page article in the Bergen Record predicting that laserdiscs would soon replace VHS.
You wuz robbed, Glenn!
“A little blustery at times, for sure, but you know, he owns his bluster, much as I own my…raging dickheadedness?”
Glenn! You’re the only solitary movie blogger (sorry for the clumsy wording but I do keep up with one of themz group-effort movie blogz) I follow. I’m great people, and I like you!
Aw, you guys!
I’m not an expert in this subject, just a very keen amateur, but I find there is so much misinformation or general apathy regarding DVDs and especially Blu-rays because of their newness. (See Richard Brody’s post for a recent example: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/04/restoration-comedy.html .) And when people complain about transfers, it’s often for the wrong reasons–system isn’t properly set up, lack understanding of format’s capabilities, no frame of reference to theatrical version.
Dave Kehr’s column is great but it’s a weekly, and he can’t possibly cover everything or even non-region 1/region A discs). And DVDBeaver, while indispensable, has a few shortcomings, some of which Glenn mentioned.
The bottom line is there aren’t enough people who care AND know their stuff writing about DVDs/Blu-rays in an intelligent way for an informed general audience. I look forward to each of your reviews, Glenn.
You were robbed Glenn! I fondly remember reading your Première DVD reviews, I knew if you gave a title the thumbs-up it would be worth tracking down. Your finest moment for me was when you revisited A.I. – after months of being brutally abused by friends for championing the film I took great delight in shoving Première in their faces with a valedicatory flourish. Cheers for that!
The most important thing about a DVD is its availability; even at its best, it’s a faute de mieux simulacrum of the movie-going experience, and to obsess about the quality of a transfer without discussing the film that’s being transferred–what its significance is, or why readers should even bother caring that it’s available on DVD–is a kind of technical fetishism that’s skew to movie-love. (So many of us have seen so many movies we love on TV, cut by commercials, in the wrong aspect ratio, or on low-fi 16mm. prints, or in theatres that did dreamlike-bleary rear-screen projection, and, though it matters, it doesn’t matter as much as does the film itself.)
@ Richard: While I certainly nod in agreement with certain of your individual points, and think of Geoffrey O’Brien’s “The Phantom Empire” as I do so, I can’t agree with you entirely. But maybe that’s because, my hyperbole aside, I do find that a good number of DVD reviewers out there are better at tech-fetishism than movie assessment. (And yes, I know your argument here is more with one of my commenters than with me.) One thing I love, and aspire to emulate, about Dave’s work in the Times is the balance it strikes between movie love and tech savvy, AND the reasons and ways in which the two interconnect.
Incidentally, I note that I either have the least lubricious readership in all of webdom, or the most (in the case that it already knows the answer to the unposed question); nobody’s evinced the slightest curiosity about the Blu-ray derived image at the top of the post!
hrmph
Ha! My apologies, Doug. You are in fact the Chuck Berry of laser/DVD reviewing—inventor of the art/craft. Chuck is sometimes taken for granted too!
Everybody else, check out Doug’s work here: http://www.dvdlaser.com/
I assume, given the Vivid.com logo on the screen, that it’s from a pornographic film of some description. On Blu-Ray. Huh.
Years ago, I read on Usenet an hilarious parody review of “Citizen Kane” written in the style of those fanboy DVD review sites Glenn is talking about. Things like “the plot, as you can see, is stolen from the Gary Oldman Beethoven movie ‘Inmortal beloved’ ”, or “whoever did the sound mix on this should be fired; my 5.1 subwoofer was silent during the whole film!!”. Wish I could find it again.
@ Tom: Yea, verily. And yet no one has asked the question, “Who’s that girl?” For anyone’s information, it is the delightfully insouciant Sunny Leone.
Distributors often can’t be trusted to release their own materials for home video in a respectful manner. Pan and scanning, cropping, PAL to NTSC transfers, colorization, dubious sound remixes, such issues still occur with major releases, such as Lionsgate’s “The Dead” or MGM’s original Bergman set, even though DVD technology is over a decade old. Internet sites with screen captures and writers who include technical information in their reviews help, on some level, to hold the distributors accountable and to educate consumers about what matters. In order to do this properly, I think a certain level of technical facility is necessary.
Also, there are the plethora of non-region 1 discs. How to choose? I couldn’t justify plunking down the money on Gaumont’s “Histoire(s) du cinema” without first reading reviews. Is it subtitled in English? And just how good are the subtitles of such a complicated text?
If studios were willing to release everything in their holdings with relatively decent, unadorned transfers–the proverbial celestial cinematheque–then there would be less need for worry. In my most optimistic moments, I have hope that proper home video releases will create a wider, savvier audience for repertory screenings. It worked on me.
“…I rather developed a horror of DVD reviews that functioned as de facto late critiques of contemporary pictures.”
This…drives me mad. It’s like, “throw out all of the thoughtful, detailed reviews about a film during its theatrical run, because this single paragraph (if that) blurb offers the final word on a recent release.” Entertainment Weekly is one of the worst publications, in that regard…beyond their reviewers’ bloody fickleness, that is.
Check out James Quandt’s answers to Cineaste’s questions regarding the future of repertory film programming. (forgive me if this is old news)
http://www.cineaste.com/articles/repertory-film-programming-a-critical-symposium
I have a lot to say about what he writes here, especially now after reading your post, Glenn. I am forming my thoughts and would love to know what you and others think about it.