Yay For Free Movies

Today I was pleasantly surprised when I went down to the post office–with slip in hand–to pick up a package that was delivered which I unsurprisingly slept through. I wasn’t expecting anything at the time, but when I got home and opened it up, it turned out be five free Blu-Ray movies from that offer the Blu-Ray Disc Association is having to promote their hopeful pretender to DVD’s throne. Part of the deal was that each of the five movies came from a particular “tier” where various selections (I think it was by studio) were available, so here’s what I ended up with:

My first–and only–theatrical viewing of Species occurred in the mid-90′s when I was living for a year in Thailand. The Thais have a strange way of censoring movies. They don’t make cuts, they merely go for the film reel itself and block out objectionable portions, since they didn’t seem to have much of a ratings system at the time. As a result, viewers in a theater with scenes of nudity can expect to see either a) black bits of “paint” or “marker” blocking out the naughty bits, or b) something akin to vaseline smeared on the screen to blur everything out. When I saw Species, it was the latter.

So now here, once again is the movie, in High Def glory, and I picked it largely because Species has… in the immortal words of the South Park credits, “That chick from Species.” Only this time without vaseline.

This one is kind of a downer for me in light of recent events. I initially picked up Black Rain because it was the only film on the list that was directed by Ridley Scott. Now it turns out that it’s about to become a collector’s item. As of two days ago, Paramount, the studio that owns the film, has “defected” over to being HD-DVD exclusive, and will no longer be producing movies in Blu-Ray. This is unfortunate, because with them on the “Blue Side” the format war was actually shaping up to be pretty one-sided in favor of Blu-Ray and many were predicting that Christmas might be a clear cut end to it. Now, thanks to a rumored $150 million “incentive” from Microsoft, they are dragging out the format war, confusing consumers, and making this disc a soon to be rare, out of print collector’s item. I am not happy about the callous way Microsoft is making consumers suffer so they can “save us” from the format war by introducing downloadable content via Xbox Live and Windows Vista, but what can ya’ do…

I’d seen the first Underworld and while it was an uneven and not amazing film, it had some slick cinematography, some very interesting ideas, and, of course, Kate Beckinsale running around in a latex bodice, dual-wielding a pair of pistols with near infinite supply of bullets. Ever since I’d heard of the sequel, there had been a curious part of me that actually wanted to watch it, but didn’t want to buy it. And every time I went down to the video store to rent movies in Singapore, I kept finding other films that I had a stronger preference for watching, so Underworld: Evolution continued evade my semi-apathetic curiosity. Now, for the price of a postage stamp, I can safely justify a “purchase” so I can watch this relatively guilt-free in the “I spent money on this” department, even though the film student in me is still probably drooping its head in shame at this vacuous, guilty pleasure.

This movie on the other hand, I am EXTREMELY happy with. Being a fan of most of Tim Burton’s work (I’m still trying to pretend Planet of the Apes never happened) and the amazingly tedious work that Henry Selick had done for The Nightmare Before Christmas, this kind of animation is a treasure to me. It’s kind of like a high-budget, much more polished version of the Christmas specials I used to watch by Rankin/Bass as a kid such as The Year Without a Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We’d rented this film, loved it and wanted it, but for some reason they were never selling the Region 1 version of the DVD in Singapore. Now however, we’ve got it in High-Def which is a much better proposition anyhow, so I guess it all worked out in the end. The only thing I am left wondering about now is just how many more films is Tim Burton going to stick Helena Bonham-Carter in.

And finally there’s this.

Because it was either this or Pearl Harbor.