Category Archives: Comparison

Little Orbit title card

Little Orbit the Astrodog and the Screechers from Outer Space or Pluk, naufragé de l’espace or Arago X

‘Little Orbit the Astrodog and the Screechers from Outer Space’ also known as ‘Pluk, naufragé de l’espace’ and ‘Arago X-001‘ is an animated feature from French director Jean Image.

The feature was originally created as a 22 episode television series titled ‘Arago X’, with each episode lasting around 5 minutes starting in 1972. It tells the story of ‘Terry’ a billionaire, and his girlfriend, talking-dog and an alien robot who bounce around the cosmos together on a series of adventures.

Screenshot from the feature DVD.

Screenshot from the feature DVD.

The series was originally shown on French television in October 1973, it was re-shown several times during the 1970s. The film was first aired in 1976. In 1979 it was dubbed into English and released on videotape. It was this version that I saw, as a child a fell in love with.

Continue reading →

Desk Set movie title

Desk Set Blu-ray – Orange and Tealed ?

Desk Set is a 1957 romantic comedy staring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, based on a play by William Marchant, adapted for the screen by Phoebe and Henry Ephron and directed by Walter Lang. The film was the eighth of nine films that Tracy and Hepburn would make together, and the first in color.

So did they screw up the Blu-ray – short answer yes. Longer answer: yes, but the existing DVD also has problems.

Continue reading →

In The Mouth of Madness – Blu-ray vs iTunes

In The Mouth of Madness in the end of director John Carpenter’s informal ‘Apocalypse Trilogy’, a dark Lovecraftian horror film staring Sam Neill. Written by Michael De Luca, there are no happy endings in this story.

The film had mixed reviews upon release and did little business, and it’s not hard to see why. Lacking the real world chill and terrifying body horror effects of ‘the Thing’, and without the nail-biting tension of ‘Prince of Darkness’ it is easily the weakest entry in the Apocalypse Trilogy. Sam Neill’s character is baffled throughout, as is the audience, as there is little logic to any of the events that occur. Characters deaths are effectively Deus ex machina that occur because the story needs them to happen. You could almost draw parallels with Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s 2002 ‘Adaptation’, or perhaps the later ‘Synecdoche, New York’.

Anyway – I actually caught the film at a Cinema in London when it was first released, and watched it (almost alone), and kinda enjoyed it.

Long absent from high definition disc, I took a look at the HD iTunes version to see if it was worth recommending a little while ago, and emerged disappointed, it has a soft DVNR’d picture that looked as if it had possibly been upscaled, at best 2 out of 5. I didn’t bother posting a review.

However since the Blu-ray has been previewed on some sites, I thought I’d compare the two using some screenshots borrowed from DVDBeaver.

The verdict ?

In The Mouth of Madness, iTunes HD on the left, Blu-ray on the right. Spot the orange and teal.

In The Mouth of Madness, iTunes HD on the left, Blu-ray on the right. Spot the orange and teal. Not exactly the same frame, but close enough.

While the iTunes edition has it’s problems (sharpness, halos, DVNR), the obvious Orange-and-Teal tampering with the Blu-Ray edition makes it hard to recommend.

Verdict: Both disappointing. But at least the world isn’t coming to an end.