Matt’s festive Blu-ray guide!!

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…

I love this time of the year. I almost feel like I work the other 11 months just to get to this point where I can find time to collectively get all my Blu-ray DVDs together, review my feelings of the last year of film and reminisce with some old classics that I wouldn’t usually have the time to spend company with.

I’ve started doing that this week and there’s nothing more humbling than re-visiting the problems of George Bailey or Ebeneezer Scrooge. I thought it was time you guys did the same…

This is my personal guide to the best that the incredible Blu-ray technology can offer, a format that has really changed the way I see movies. Every time I put a new disc into my PS3 it’s like visiting a movie for the first time. I’m blown away by how good they look. If you are still a virgin to the Blu-ray experience then surely this Christmas is the time that you finally jump ship and convert.

So Christmas day is tomorrow and as money is often the preferred gift among my friends and family, so if you’re anything like me you’re probably going to have a bit of spare cash lying about. There really is no where better to spend your money than at Zavvi, with it’s fabulous festive offer of FREE SHIPPING ON EVERYTHING and it’s superb selection of Blu-ray titles.

Here’s my recommendations and remember to click on the images to purchase them!

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

In the next few days, barring any unusually heavy snow around these parts (which is still the reason I can’t get to see Avatar), I will get my annual run down of the year’s best movies posted and I have to say 2009 has been pretty damn good from where I sit.

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is gonna be in my top three of the year, no doubt. I’ve now seen it three times, having watched the glourious Blu-ray transfer recently but it’s packed out critics screening I saw over my July birthday week is my fondest memory of this film, and it’s one of the best screenings I’ve ever attended. The critics dug it completely, and Tarantino had them transfixed. Simon says it was similar at Cannes… the crowd loved it. So what happened when it came to the print reviews, and so many got a little nervy-nervy about proclaiming their love to Quentin?

No matter. The movie made a bomb and it’s gonna be there or there abouts come Oscar time. It’s gone live longer than any of the bitter critics who just couldn’t sign off on how awesome this movie is.

I have the version above, a limited edition release that costs a few quid more than the standard one. It’s worth it for the gorgeous poster artwork which by the way, looks STUNNING in this format. I love this Blu-ray, Robert Richardson’s cinematography is so lushly transferred, you really do feel like you have been dropped into Nazi occupied France.

My only quarms with the release were the severe lack of extra’s and Tarantino’s decision to hold back on deleted scenes, specifically the shot Maggie Cheung scene, which is a tremendous loss and I don’t agree with Tarantino’s reasonings for it, which he explains in one of the extras. But the film itself is what you put your money down for and this DVD is worth twice as much as what Zavvi are selling it for.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST – 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

From modern classic cinema to classic cinema that is 50 years old from the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve seen North by Northwest a thousand times, it’s one of my all time pleasures in life. I imagine myself lying on my death bed knowing an endless abyss is awaiting me and my only thought is… “but I will never seen North by Northwest again”.

Seriously.

This is hands-down, the best Blu-Ray transfer I’ve ever seen, and believe me I know this movie inside out. The clarity for a half a century old movie is insanely good but as I’ve said before, it’s often the testament to the quality of the original film, especially the cinematography when it lives up to the standard on Blu-ray. The rich blacks, the depthness of the image, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in full close-up dissection, and they pass.

Now, they need to put out a Blu-ray of Vertigo, and quick. More Hitchcock Blu, more Hitchcock Blu!

STAR TREK 1-10 REMASTERED FILM COLLECTION

So the recent Star Trek movie has brought back an interest to the Star Trek franchise and there probably isn’t a more perfect time to go back and revisit all ten of the previous movies in the series.

This box set of all ten movies, including the incredible Wrath of Khan, the borg spectacle that is First Contact and the odd send off that was Nemesis are all included and should keep any a geek busy over the Christmas period.

The box set will set you back £126 but there’s ten movies here remember, and you get an awesome Enterprise box to collect them all in. Highly recommended!

STAR TREK

BEST STAR TREK MOVIE EVER

BEST BLU-RAY OF 2009 (commentaries, deleted scenes, making of’s, etc!!)

SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright know exactly how to put out a good Blu-ray DVD. For a start, there’s FOUR audio commentary tracks, which especially in the advent of the bigger Blu-Ray disc space should become the absolute norm.

The movie itself is one of the best from the last decade. It demands viewing with Hot Fuzz Blu-ray in a back-to-back movie marathon kind of way. I watched Shaun again recently and I really forgot how dark this movie gets a time. This film is something special.

MOON

Moon is a spell-binding movie about the human condition seen through the eyes of poor Sam Rockwell, isolated on a moon colony with a dead-end, pretty ineffectual job that is keeping him away from his beloved wife and daughter hundreds of thousands of miles away.

Moon has at least two of the saddest moments put on film this year and will hit you right in that place in the stomach that you can feel deep down in your gut. There’s not much fun here, so if you are wanting a happy Christmas then stay away from Moon. But for those looking for a bit of melancholy, for a rare piece of smart science-fiction and for good old fashioned film-making (miniature models!!) then this is the right purchase for you.

My full love letter to the movie I wrote in November.

FIGHT CLUB – 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Fight Club, has it really been ten years?

As you guys know, I would be breaking the first two rules of Fight Club if I were to talk about this Blu-Ray DVD release, so instead I’m just going to direct you to this. I haven’t seen this movie in years, but I really dug revisiting this brief scene. The writing, the performances, Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and David Fincher! .

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DRAG ME TO HELL

The funnest movie of 2009!

Drag Me To Hell is Sam Raimi’s return to the genre that made his name, and boy does he come back with some balls here. This is the movie out of all the releases on this list that I’ve shown to the most people, it’s a movie that has a universality to it that everyone I know loves. The movie kicks so much ass.

We all love the cursed horror genre but Sam Raimi has given us a movie that we can all now point to as being the benchmark. Will we ever see a sequel… could Drag Her Out of Hell ever become a possibility? I would love to see it!

PUBLIC ENEMIES

Public Enemies is my favourite movie of the year. Santa has promised me this title for Christmas, so I can’t really specify how good the transfer is is just yet but holy smokes, did this movie rock my world over the summer. And really, I saw it with a lot of shuffling people at my early advance screening, clearly a crowd who were expecting to see a movie in the ilk of The Taking of Pelham 123.

Instead, this is a thinking man’s gangster thriller, in the same way Road to Perdition was five years ago.

Johnny Depp’s John Dillinger, a man who never thinks about tomorrow, a man who robs banks purely because it’s the only thing that gives him a thrill in life – it’s a performance of a lifetime from Depp. Will it be enough to win him that Oscar?

My theatrical review in June, probably the best article I wrote this year.

THE BOURNE TRILOGY

The Bourne film series is an enigma. Not since the James Bond franchise has a triple bill of movies existed like this, where a franchise just keeps growing and getting better. The Bourne Identity, much like the first James Bond movie Dr. No showcased a performance and character from Matt Damon that we were fascinated by and we wanted to get to know better, and a universe that we wanted to revisit. Even if the movie itself was only good, not out of this world.

Then came The Bourne Supremacy, and just like Bond’s second movie From Russia With Love, it was a HUGE step forward. Paul Greengrass took this series to a whole new level, and then The Bourne Ultimatum is undoubtedly the Goldfinger of the series.

Going by recent quotes, it sure sounds like we aren’t getting anymore films in this series anytime soon from Damon and Greengrass, and if this is our lot, then it’s ended with a perfect trilogy. Naturally, the two Greengrass movies play better on Blu-ray, because they were made by a true master. It’s a snip too at £17.95 for the whole thing!

DISTRICT 9

Proof enough that every major Hollywood studio royally messed up when they turned down Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp’s vision of Halo!

They must be kicking themselves now. District 9 is smart, well executed and unbelievably cheap for a movie that feels like it cost SOOO much money. It really is this year’s Cloverfield and Blomkamp has a massive, massive hit on his CV now. He is sure to walk into a huge job soon.

Harry Knowles this week said this is his favourite movie of the year. Who could argue?

BRAVEHEART – 15th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Fight Club is ten years old, and this one is 15!

Where does the time go?

Braveheart’s transfer is as stunning as anything I’ve seen on Blu-ray. You just wait until you see the gorgeous green of Scotland in 1080p!

There’s a wonderful clarity to the image here, and the blue war paint on the Scots is so clear it almost blinds you.

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

Ok, so I’ve been getting a lot of slack around these parts for my early dismissal of The Wolf Man but it’s simply because I have such a high idea of how good a werewolf horror should be. Joe Johnston’s upcoming movie isn’t simply fighting off the challenge of it’s own original film’s greatness but it’s also got to compete with John Landis’ groundbreaking work of the early 80′s.

An American Werewolf in London is a classic and they have done a good, good job with this Blu-ray.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

The perfect Christmas movie.