Ahoy, squirts! Quint here.

I have a few stories I need to pop out tonight as I begin the packing process for Comic-Con. Tomorrow’s going to be nuts as I’m sure that 90% of my still hanging interview requests will work themselves out then. So tonight’s the night if I’m going to get this shit done.

I wanted to talk a little bit about some DVDs I’ve seen recently. I don’t get nearly as many as Moriarty or Harry do as I don’t have a regular column. I’ll just review whatever happens to come to me as long as it gets here before release.

So, let’s talk a little about high definition before I jump into my reviews. I’m hesitant to jump into the giant next generation DVD battle at all. It’s so heated and seems to create instant and bitter enemies.

People are so invested in it one way or the other, there’s not going to be any mind-changing.

I’m not claiming I’ve picked the clear winner, but I will tell you why I decided to purchase a high-def player at the time I did and what my experiences with it have been.

Harry’s been pretty out of his mind happy with his Toshiba HD-A2 player. He had me come over and watch some stuff. The first title he put in was ROAD WARRIOR and my main fears with HD as a format kind of dissolved.

In a lot of the advertising and demonstrations I’d seen for both Blu-Ray and HD the older films looked either unusually bright or the grain had been so pronounced as to be distracting. But on ROAD WARRIOR it didn’t look too fake or bright or sharp. It was sharp, of course, but it looked more like film.

I ended up again at Harry’s place when a couple guys named Kevin Collins and Dane Estes dropped in to demonstrate the potential of Harry’s player, help optimally configure his entertainment system and show off any HD-DVD we wanted to see. Kevin had everything that had ever been pressed in HD both domestically and internationally and we ended up spending about 6 hours watching segments from about 60 different titles.

He was honest to us about the weaknesses and strengths of both systems.

I was ready to jump into the high-def pool then, so I did some research when I got back home.

Having not really ever been a huge Playstation fan, I’m not going to buy a PS3 until it drops under $400, so the cheapest Blu-Ray player available to me was around $500 off of pricegrabber.com. On the other hand, there was a big push on those Toshibas and I found I could get a brand new player off of price grabber, from a high rated dealer, for $279.00 including shipping and taxes.

With that I got 5 free movies in the form of a mail in rebate. I was already in the market for an up-converting player, so when you factor in 5 movies at $25 a piece that means I’m getting the player for around $150.

So, I just kind of broke it down.

The possible outcomes of this format war: Blu-Ray Wins, HD-DVD wins, both win or neither win.

Based on what I’ve read, I’d say the most likely outcome will be they both win. Warner Bros has announced a dual format disc that will be able to play both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I don’t know if that’ll be the future, but you also have to consider that the majority of studios are neutral. There are some exclusive to HD and some exclusive to Blu-Ray, but at the end of the day it’s foolish for any studio to be exclusive one way or the other. They’re just losing revenue.

Basically, for me, it came down to money, to my investment. If I’m wrong about HD either not winning the war or at least surviving it until everything is neutral anyway, then I’m out much less if I had picked Blu-Ray. Considering I was always going for a stand-alone player (I hate watching movies through my video game system… always have, since PS2) there really wasn’t much choice. Get roughly the same visual quality for $500 or $279.

I understand if you’re getting a PS3 anyway, then you don’t have this choice, so I’m not knocking it. Just saying where I’m coming from this made it a safer investment.

So, say the dust settles next month and Blu-Ray dominates the market and HD-DVD disappears. I would be left with about 30 titles that look fantastic on my HD player and I have a great up-converting player to last me until Blu-Ray gets cheap enough to afford.

But that all goes back to why I was hesitant in the first place. I am so heavily invested in standard def DVDs. I have well over 1000 movies plus probably near 50 seasons from different TV shows that range from THE SHIELD to CARNIVALE to 24 to LOST to ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.

And I have to tell you… there is a noticeable difference with HD, but it’s not that huge. Sure, now that I have HD I’ll go for the high-def versions… why not go for the best possible versions of the movies I want to own? But I still buy standard def. titles that aren’t available in high-def or are exclusive to Blu-ray. The jump from 480p to 1080i (my TV set is an older HD TV that only goes up to 1080i) isn’t the same as the leap of quality from VHS and laserdisc to DVD.

I honestly think that studio exclusives might sway the early adaptors, but it really is a race to who can get a $150 player out there first. Blu-Ray has a lot going for it with the PS3 and exclusive contracts… they’re also really great at publicity. Like how they made it seem like that Blockbuster going Blu-Ray really meant anything. Since when has Blockbuster been relevant? They’re going out of business… and their online service, the one trying to compete with Netflix (remember, the company that’s driving them out of business?) still provides both formats… both do.

That’s all important now, but if HD is just staying in the fight (and that certainly seems to be their game plan) until they get the price of their players down then that won’t matter much in the end. The studios will all go neutral if the mainstream Joe Blows start buying HD-DVD players en masse. The stand-alones already outsell Blu-Ray stand-alones, if these numbers I’ve read are true.

But there’s room for both. I think the future really is going to be neutral, either a different version available for each side or these discs that carry both in one pressing. And all this is just a place holder until direct download becomes the norm anyway.

Blu-Ray is certainly a valid format. I haven’t seen too much of it outside of store displays and conversations with acquaintances that have PS3s, but what I have seen isn’t much different from my player. It’s just more expensive.

I have been sent one high-def title to review and I’ll do so now.

In terms of special features, this release is exactly the same on standard definition and Blu-ray.

I’m not the world’s biggest tech nerd, so forgive me if I don’t go into codecs and artifacting talk. My system is an older Toshiba 65” 1080i rear projection TV. My audio system is a pretty decent Panasonic with Dolby Pro-Logic II and DTS capabilities.

I have to say the biggest difference for me on these high-def titles have been the audio. So much clearer. Louder, but with less noise.

THE HOST is a pretty good test for the system. It’s a beautifully shot movie, so I can test the cinematography as well as compare the CG work on the creature. The sound design is also pretty nice. I told you I’m not a tech-head, so I won’t dwell on this stuff. I just know that it looked and sounded good to me.

If you haven’t seen this flick yet and are at all a fan of monster movies then it doesn’t matter if you have to find it on VHS, you need to watch this movie.

Coming out of Korea, director Joon-ho Bong (MEMORIES OF MURDER) creates this flick that’s equal parts family drama, political satire and monster movie. The creature in this film is born out of the deeds of a US Army man stationed in Korea who decides some chemicals are no longer needed and orders them dumped down the drain.

The sewage system feeds into Seoul’s Han River, where it forces a mutation.

This creature is one of the best designed and executed movie monsters in recent memory. And Bong knows it, too. He doesn’t hide it for long. Within the first 20 minutes the monster has the most amazing entrance… full sunlight, complete havoc and destruction. It’s not huge, but it’s big. The size of a large truck.

The film is kicked off when it grabs a young girl and stashes her away for later feeding. Her family, including a goofy single father, a hard-ass grandpa, an educated uncle and an aunt who is a competitive archer, goes after the monster.

The special features include a commentary by Joon-ho Bong, at least 100 minutes of documentary footage, cast interviews, a gag real, the original Korean trailer, deleted scenes and a “coming soon to HD-DVD” trailer section.

The commentary is actually a pretty fun listen. Bong’s English is very good and he’s kept on track by a longtime British friend who joins him on the commentary. They talk about the origins of the story, the creature design process and the Korean film community as a whole. I also found it interesting when it pointed out connecting threads between this and his first two films, MEMORIES OF MURDER and BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE. Lots of returning actors and themes.

The documentaries are fine, too, but they’re broken up into two groups. MAKING OF THE HOST and THE CREATURE. Each of these tabs have 4 segments covering 10-20 minutes each. There is no play all feature, which is a pain in the ass and they didn’t make it one big doc, so there’s no flow.

However, the behind the scenes info and footage is really good. A little talking heads heavy, but the creature evolution is fascinating. They have some amazing artists in Korea who came up with the most amazing creature designs… and those were the rejects!

I also love the section that goes step by step showing how The Orphanage digitally created the monster. It’s not new to see a comparison between storyboards to animatics to rough animation to the final composite, but they do take a good amount of time to illustrate how the process works, making it clear and simple to follow.

The Gag reel is really from The Orphanage, not the shooting of The Host. It’s a lot of funny rough animation of the creature back-stroking or digital double dancing in the streets or a little cape added to the creature as he takes a long, soaring dive from land to water.

The actor interviews are a bit of a wash. It’s pretty much each actor just saying who they play in the movie and that’s it. That is followed by a fun section were they’re being trained in weapons they use… like a bow and arrow for actress Du-Na Bae and shotgun training for the male leads.

For upcoming HD-DVD titles, we got trailers for Andy Garcia’s LOST CITY, DISTRICT B13 and WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN. I haven’t seen Garcia’s flick, but it looked the nicest in HD.

Sam Fuller’s films mean a lot to me. I came to them at a really important time in my development as a film lover.

I met Harry for the first time when I bought a FRIDAY THE 13TH one-sheet off of him, his father and his sister at a collector’s expo here in town. Shortly thereafter, I ran into them again my first Austin Film Society event. I’d been to a few AFS screenings before, but this was the first time I bought and paid for my membership. It was the first QT Film Fest.

We started hanging out then… this was 1996. In ’97 the AFS did a Sam Fuller film series. I was 16 and I had never heard of Sam Fuller before. If I remember correctly, Harry and his dad did not have reliable transportation, so I ended up driving them around a lot. Every week I’d go to pick them up and head to the Texas Union theater on the UT campus and watch a new Sam Fuller film. I must have seen a half-dozen films there. CHINA GATE, THE BIG RED ONE, VERBOTEN, STEEL HELMET, SHARK! and WHITE DOG come to memory. I think SHOCK CORRIDOR was in there, too.

Sam Fuller’s voice was unique. He reminds me a lot of a mainstream, non-genre George Romero. His films are very entertaining and he always made a point to push a strong political message.

His first three films are being put out by Criterion in their Eclipse Series next month (August 14th to be exact). They are I SHOT JESSE JAMES, THE BARON OF ARIZONA and STEEL HELMET.

None of these films have special features. This is all about celebrating the difficult to find early works of an under-known master.

I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949)

This is the story of Robert Ford, the traitor in Jesse James’ gang who shot him in the back in order to collect a reward and immunity. He wanted to start a life with his girl free of persecution.

While it is a little blocky and theatrical, it’s a surprisingly complex look at Robert Ford. He’s not painted as an evil man and you even believe you might have made the same choice in his position. His act was cowardly. He knows it and it tears him apart.

John Ireland plays Bob Ford with a tortured intensity. There’s a moment in the film where he buys a drink for a busker and is rewarded with a song all about the Coward Robert Ford. Without a doubt, this is the biggest moment in the whole movie, the most intense.

The singer stops early in his tune, noticing something is wrong. Ireland growls that he is Bob Ford and forces this lanky musician to finish the song for the whole bar. Fuller cuts between close ups of Ford taking this public humiliation as a sort of penance for his act and the sweating, terrified face of the singer.

Fantastic moment.

On the whole, it’s an interesting film and a definite recommend, but it is also my least favorite of the three films in this collection.

THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950)

I had no idea what to expect from this movie. Because I got check discs (three test discs in their own little slips, not the final product with full packaging) I didn’t even know this movie starred Vincent Price until the menu came up.

I always find it fascinating to see these horror icons who I know so well in that genre appear in a completely different film.

This film is a lot of things, but first and foremost it is a con man movie. No shit. A real deal creepy con man flick. I figured it was some drama or straight up fun western, but I was completely mistaken.

Vincent Price plays a man who tries to con the United States out of Arizona. It seems he figures out that the US government is honoring land grants made by Spanish royalty while they owned the territory. So, he figures why not invent a baroness and forge a long line of historical documents that says the entire territory of Arizona is hers?

His plan is intricate, brilliant and also really fuckin’ creepy. He finds there’s a young girl who was abandoned on a doorstep, mentors her, teachers her to become a woman, the whole time deliberately nurturing a desire for him in her.

While she “blooms” he runs out to Europe and pretends to be everything from a gypsy to a monk in order to alter the documents he needs to. He spends 6 years calmly setting up this Con.

Of course, he comes back and marries the girl, making himself the Baron. They put in their claim and the second half of the movie is a cat and mouse game between Price and the government worker assigned to prove that he’s a fraud.

Price is outstanding in this film. He’s kind of a creepy looking guy doing creepy things, but his charm is such that you’re always on his side. He’s doing despicable things, kicking people off their land, his whole marriage is disgusting, but dammit… you want him to win. That’s how good Price is in this movie. He’s human.

The biggest conflict isn’t the setting up of the con or the cat and mouse game with the government agent, it’s his own internal struggle with greed and love. He groomed his wife for a very specific, monetary purpose, but he finds that his love is real and he becomes ashamed of what he’s done and terrified she’d ever find out, so when he’s fighting the fraud allegations, he’s doing it for more than just staying out of prison.

Fantastic flick and one that deserves to be seen.

THE STEEL HELMET (1951)

Now it might be common knowledge, but I’d be willing to bet that Spielberg saw this film at a young age and it had a big impact on him. There are direct connections, like a young Asian sidekick called Short Round and there are also pacing and character parallels.

The film, set during the Korean war, opens with a soldier slumped on the ground surrounded by the bodies of his platoon. His helmet has a bullet-hole in it. It turns out this is Sgt. Zack, a true hardass who was lucky enough to survive a headshot. The bullet punched through the helmet, zipped around the inside and shot back out, grazing his cheek.

Now it’s his lucky helmet, but his group is dead and he’s alone in enemy territory. A young Korean boy ends up tagging along and you have that great dynamic of a gruff old bastard and the young boy who idolizes him as they try to get out of enemy territory.

Here’s where Fuller really starts to form his style and his trademark political edge. This film was made only 6 years after WW2 and there’s a frank discussion of Japanese internment camps. The character work is top notch as well. Even the gruff old bastard has more than one dimension to him.

But there are cowards who find strength, the strong who become weak. There’s lots of grey area in this film and lots of suspense.

I don’t know if I’d called it Fuller’s best movie, but it’s definitely his first truly great movie and one of his best films overall.

In fact, I’m surprised someone hasn’t remade this yet. I probably just started that revolution. If you’re an assistant to some exec, don’t go running to the boss with this title now. I don’t want to see Russell Crowe as Sgt. Zack next year… well, maybe that’d be okay, but I want a goddamn cut!

So, I started with a Korean monster movie and I end it talking about a Korean War movie. I think that’s pretty circular, don’t you?

Alright, I’m already getting tired and I have a couple more reviews to crank out before I can sleep.

I’ll end it by saying that no matter which side of this format war you’re on, or if you even care in the first place, we’re starting to get some really great special features and interactivity. These films are looking great, with 1080p being almost as good of a resolution as 35mm film it’s a really amazing time for home theater geeks. I hope whatever happens works out well for either side. If I had my way there would only be one clear option out there right now, as obvious a leap as DVD was to video. I know that my THE THING, THE STING, UNTOUCHABLES and BLACK SNAKE MOAN discs look and sound fantastic and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. Watching a film you love in the best way you can.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com