Yes, he is Iron Man

I cannot imagine anyone better for the part of Tony Stark - Robert Downey Jr. simply nails it. Iron Man was a brilliant start for a franchise, and even though it's RDJ's show, the others are solid too. If a superhero movie can make a man who can fly thrilling again, it must be on the right track.

Going country

I went to the local indie movie theater (should do that more often, as it's just around the corner) to watch Crazy Heart, and I'm very happy I did. Jeff Bridges was great, Maggie Gyllenhaal was good, and so was the music by Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett. I don't listen to country much, but this was good stuff.

Not the Hitch you're used to

Today we watched Under Capricorn. It's basically a period costume drama with few typical Hitchcock touches. Quite worth seeing nevertheless.

Apocalypse Australia

A couple of days ago I watched two films set in Australia after a nuclear war: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and On the Beach. I was slightly sad to discover that either Max or I have changed since my youth, as I found that film only average, with some great stunt work. I think this BD is not a keeper.

On the Beach I had not seen but knew the basic story, not from the novel but a Finnish song. It proved to be one of the most chilling films I've seen. I wonder how it got made in 1959.

You can have any brew you want

Ah, The Fast and the Furious. The BD release features the loudest engine noises I've heard at home. It's the best thing Rob Cohen has directed and by far the best entry in the series. Sure, a guilty pleasure, but it feels like an actual movie nevertheless.

Ten long takes

Rope is pretty contrived, but I have always liked it. And did so again.

HD is a drug

So, The Hurt Locker, first film directed by a woman to win the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture. I don't know if it was the best movie last year, or Kathryn Bigelow's best, but it's certainly damn good and worth some accolades. The Blu-ray release looks and sounds wonderful.

790

After two evenings spent inventorying my DVDs, that was the frightful number of titles I reached. Movies in boxed sets were counted separately, as was each season or box of a TV show.

Holy mackerel, that's all I can say.

Word is Bond

I think I need a new label to show when I watch BD movies instead of DVDs. Luckily they are cheap!

Tonight's programming was two versions of James Bond: Dr. No and Casino Royale, the first cinema screen 007 and the first with the current actor. Dr. No is the first actual Blu-ray disc I've watched, and it immediately convinced me that this technology was money well spent. The restoration work was done from the original camera negatives, scanned at 4K resolution, and the film now looks astoundingly vibrant. I find the film one of the better Bonds, as it's not overladen with gadgets and corny jokes and Sean Connery is in fine form from the get-go.

Casino Royale was a very promising start for the latest incarnation. Daniel Craig is a proper blunt instrument, Eva Green is stunning and actually has a character to play, and the supporting cast is fine. Implausible gadgets and jokes are in mercifully short supply. My only major complaint is the end of the film: I found the last big fight scene entirely unnecessary. Without it, the film could've been shorter and they could've used something more akin to the novel's ending. My copy is "just" a DVD, but it looked fine, if not mind-blowing like its predecessor.

Test drive, 2nd leg

After watching The Paradine Case I noticed Breakfast at Tiffany's was on TV, and suddenly wanted to see how it looks on DVD with my fancy new gear. I happened to have the disc but for some reason hadn't watched it yet. I'm happy to report it looked wonderful. All kinds of color and detail seemed to pop out of the screen.

Did I like the film, you ask? Is water still wet?

Test drive

After getting a new toy, I just had to watch something. What better way to try out a shiny Blu-ray gadget than watching a black & white film from 1947 on DVD, I ask? We continued the Project with The Paradine Case, which is not one of Hitchcock's greatest but actually worked well as a trial run, being about a trial (ha ha).

In all seriousness, it was a good candidate because my American disc benefits from some pretty impressive restoration work. When the upscaling performed by the BD player was added to this (I don't claim to know which was the more important factor), the picture quality was very good for such an old film.

Toys!

Because I was ill recently and also because my birthday is coming up, I treated myself to a Blu-ray player; a Samsung BD-C5500 to be precise. It's pretty compact and plays nicely with my Samsung TV using some arcane art known as HDMI-CEC Anynet+. Mostly this means that I don't always need both remotes.