Review: Bond 50 blu ray boxed set

Thanks to the folks at play.com shipping their Monday releases early, we were able to get our hands on the eagerly awaited Bond 50 blu ray boxed set a full two days before its September 24th release date. Here are some initial impressions for anyone who’s undecided about buying the set.

The Packaging

The sturdy cardboard slip case contains two sturdy hardcover books which hold the discs for the films. The first carries the discs from all the movies from 1962 – 1981, with the other book holding the films from 1983 to 2012 (there’s an empty slot for Skyfall when it comes out) and the bonus disc.

There are two films per page (slots are cut into the page with some sort of liner material on the part in contact with the disc) with the left-hand facing page offering a montage of images from the films – there are no liner notes or text.

The packaging is fairly nice, however getting the discs out of the books – especially the ones near the spine is a little tricky, requiring you to hold both page and the cover at the same time to stop the cover from bending back on itself. It’s not the worst I’ve seen but it is slightly annoying.

The Discs

Having popped a few of the discs in for a preview – the first thing I noticed is that the animated menus for the discs are identical to those in the old DVD ultimate edition. Extras on the films also appear to be identical to the ultimate edition. The discs appear to be region free.

On the plus side, the transfers do look quite nice – especially on some of the Connery Bonds with strong detail and vibrant colours. I’m not sure if these are new transfers, but given that this release appears to be little more than an HD upgrade of the ultimate edition it’s likely that they are the same as the previous blu ray releases. That said, the films do look and sound wonderful so if you are after the best home video presentation of Bond – this is most definitely it.

The Bonus Disc

Considering that this is Bond’s 50th anniversary year, you could be forgiven for expecting a little more from this release than an HD retread of the old Ultimate Editions. However, that said the bonus disc is frankly a disappointment.

Clearly intended to promote Skyfall, what you get are a collection of short featurette documentaries on the production of the new Bond film (no more than 3-4 minutes apiece), all of which are available online.

There are some new documentaries which are promoted on the notes on the back of the box:

• Being Bond: All six actors who have played the legendary 007 are brought together through fascinating and revealing interviews.
• Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style – a unique showcase of key moments in Bond history that reflects on the changing design and styles of the last 50 years.

These new documentaries only amount to about 3 minutes of run time each and are cobbled together from archive sources, so there’s nothing really new. There’s certainly nothing that will make you give them a second viewing – unlike the excellent ‘making of’ documentaries narrated by Patrick MacNee which are on the discs of the films.

The only other feature on the disc is World of Bond, which seems to be little more than a collection of montage clips from the films (each amounting to about 2 or 3 minutes each) under different categories (vehicles, gadgets, villains etcs), along with a scene list of time codes for where you can find them in the movies. As with the new documentaries, there’s very little here that’s going to make you come back to this material.

The possible exception to this is that you now have the option of watching all of the title sequences from the films in sequence. It’s interesting, but hard to see why anyone would want to do this.

Conclusion

For £90, you get the best presentation of all 22 Bond films to date and at £4 a film it’s hard to really argue about the price. However if you were expecting a little more in the extras department (such as isolated scores) to celebrate 007’s fiftieth anniversary, you’re probably going to a little disappointed.

At the end of the day it will come down to how much you want those HD transfers and how bothered you are about a bonus disc that’s little more than a marketing ploy.

StoryBundle: Pay what you want for indie books

If you've got an ebook reader you know that ebooks can be just as expensive as their paper counterparts. Luckily it's not too difficult to read for free (or almost free) if you know where to look.

StoryBundle is a new digital bookstore that allows independent authors to self-publish their work and sell it direct to the reader. It's the latest 'pay what you want' service that allow consumers to set the price they pay for a product.

It works like this. Each month StoryBundle offers a bundle of up to seven books, written by independent authors. You can preview the books on the site and if you want to buy them you choose the price you want to pay. Not only that, but you can even specify what percentage of your money goes to charity, to StoryBundle and to the authors. The books are DRM free too and come in both .epub and .mobi formats, so you can put them any device.

StoryBundle is a bold experiment in digital publishing that represents a slap in the face to the commercial book publishing industry which still favours heavy-handed DRM in ebook offerings.  It's also a great way for budding authors to get their books out to readers.

StoryBundle launched last week and is already claiming to have made 2000 sales, so it's definitely one to watch!

Click here to visit StoryBundle

Skyfall Official Trailer

Hard to believe that we're barely 3 months away from the new Bond film. Not sure about Javier Bardem's hair, but it's looking like a good one, even if they have given away the pre-title sequence in this trailer...

Cinema Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Bane & Batman fight it out!

If like me you’ve found this year’s summer movie season a little underwhelming, the one film you might expect to buck the trend is Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film. After all, having directed two of the most successful and critically acclaimed superhero films ever made and with Academy Award-winning thrillers like Inception and Memento under his belt could Christopher Nolan do any wrong?

Before I go any further with this let me say first off that I really loved Batman Begins. Not only did it completely banish the memory of the godawful Joel Schumacher years, but it created an entire mythology around the Batman character that both celebrated and transcended the comic book source material. Then with The Dark Knight Nolan took things one step further and showed that comic book movies could be entertaining while at the same time taking on mature themes.

Unfortunately with The Dark Knight Rises, not only has Nolan made the weakest of his Dark Knight trilogy, but also his worst film to date.

Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is at peace, having all but eliminated organized crime due to the Dent Act, a miracle piece of legislation named after the late Harvey Dent. Physically crippled from the injuries he sustained as Batman, Bruce Wayne has become a recluse; no longer fighting crime but unable to move on and live a normal life, much to the dismay of faithful butler Alfred. But the peace can’t last and when a masked terrorist threatens the city, Bruce Wayne finds himself being drawn out of retirement.

Like a lot of people I went in to The Dark Knight Rises with some pretty high expectations – how could Nolan top a masterpiece? Could it even be done? Surely after so many quality movies Nolan couldn’t disappoint. And the fanboy in me really wanted to like this, I really really tried.

But half an hour into Rises, I knew I just wasn’t getting it. Worse, I was bored. It wasn’t that Batman was barely in it over the near 3 hour running time, or that Tom Hardy’s Bane sounded like a Darth Vader impersonator at a gay pride parade, it’s that at its heart, Rises suffers from a distinct lack of focus on what story it wants to tell.

The Dark Knight Rises takes clear inspiration from the Knightfall story arc which sees Batman being forced to take on a physically superior opponent, but the concept just isn’t developed enough. After the initial confrontation between Bane and Batman (as brutal a fight as you’d expect), the story sags noticeably, focusing instead on a bizarre plan involving stock market fiddling, corrupt bankers, left-wing revolution and weapons of mass destruction. If you thought that Ra’s Al Ghul trying to poison the citizens of Gotham with airborne LSD was nuts, it’s got nothing on this.

What’s worse, Rises lacks the emotional core that set its predecessors apart. While many people criticized The Dark Knight for losing the focus on Batman to satisfy the demands of a more epic storyline, it still put Bruce Wayne and his relationships with the supporting characters – Alfred, Lucius Fox, Jim Gordon and Rachel Dawes at the centre of the drama.

Rises loses even that focus. While there’s a reminder of the old magic in a few scenes between Bruce Wayne, Alfred and Lucius Fox they are few and far between, and mainly serve the purpose of blatant exposition. Alfred even inexplicably vanishes halfway through the film meaning that his relationship with Bruce Wayne is never given the closure it really deserves.

Rises introduces a number of new characters but few if any of them are given enough to do to justify their presence in the film. While there’s a brief attempt to create a new love interest for Bruce Wayne in the form of Marion Cotillard’s Miranda Tate, it simply doesn’t have the emotional weight of Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Rachel Dawes. Similarly, Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman seems to spend a lot of time standing around waiting for things to happen, and even Joseph Gordon Leavitt’s John Blake, who has the makings of an interesting character, feels underdeveloped.

In short, this film has neither a strong romantic interest for Batman/Bruce Wayne to fight for; nor does it have a charismatic real-world character like Harvey Dent to ground the film in reality. It’s almost as if the tone of Rises is at odds with the script – you can’t very well create a sense of realism in a film when your characters are cartoonish clichés.

In fact, the only character who receives a decent treatment is Bruce Wayne, which is arguably more to do with Christian Bale’s performance than with any strengths of the screenwriting. Bale imbues Bruce Wayne with a sense of world-weariness and real melancholy. Even before he puts on the batsuit again it’s clear that Wayne is a broken man, both physically and spiritually. It’s a remarkable performance from Bale and is arguably his best in the series.

Tom Hardy’s Bane on the other hand is a bit of a mixed bag. Having packed on nearly 30lbs of muscle while in training for the role, Hardy certainly carries a serious physical presence and is rather reminiscent of the Humungus from Mad Max 2. Unfortunately Hardy’s dialogue is so muffled by the mask he wears as to be nearly indecipherable. Reports surfaced about this earlier in the year when preview footage of Rises was aired at IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Since then Hardy reportedly redubbed his lines to improve the diction, but it’s still difficult to make out what he’s saying, so much so that I found myself secretly hoping that he’d stick to words of one syllable.

At the end of the day, Bane just isn’t a very interesting villain – even though the film goes through the motions to give him a bit of a backstory, it’s little more than lip service to character development. Unlike Heath Ledger’s Joker, who created a real sense of unease whenever he appeared on-screen, Bane is entirely predictable. He shows up, shouts a bit and beats people. That’s it, if you’re expecting any more than that, you’re going to be disappointed.

Rises offers a few interesting action sequences, most notably with the Batpod and the new flying vehicle, The Bat, but there’s nothing that tops the high of the truck chase in The Dark Knight. There are some good fight scenes between Bane and Batman, if a little over the top in parts.

For me The Dark Knight Rises is one of the biggest disappointments of the 2012 summer film season. Threequels rarely live up to the promise of the earlier films, but you’d think that if anyone could make it work it would be Christopher Nolan. Sadly, all we’re left with is the promise of what might have been.

Skyfall Olympic TV Spot

You might think that James Bond had his hands full escorting the Queen to the London Olympics, but it seems he's been a bit busy elsewhere too!

The Dark Knight Rises - Trailer 3

The clearest look yet at Christopher Nolan's Batman swansong coming to cinemas in July. I can honestly say I have no idea how this is going to end!

Bethesda announces Skyrim DLC - 'Dawnguard'

If you've been anxiously waiting for some news about DLC content for Skyrim, the wait is over. Kind of... It's called Dawnguard, its out in the summer and there's a nice teaser for it. The bad news is that that's about it barring a few vague rumours about snow elves, crossbows and vampire animations. Secondly, if you're playing Skyrim on PC or PS3 you're going to have wait a whole month before you'll get your hands on it as Xbox players are getting it first.