What's Going On In the Land Of the Dead?

Land Of the Dead is the fourth film in George Romero's historic Dead films.  It came out in theaters in 2005 and was released on DVD later that year, later hitting blu-ray in 2008.  So Scream Factory's brand new blu-ray edition, due to be released on Halloween, will actually be the film's second blu-ray release in the United States.  In addition to all new special features, they announced that their release will be a new 2k scan of the interpositive.  Great, right?  Well, the scuttlebutt surrounding this release is that despite being shot on film, it was completed digitally... because, after all, it's full of digital special effects.  And the 2008 blu was struck from that digital intermediate.  But to play the film in theaters, the DI was struck back to film, creating an IP that was then used to make prints.  So if Scream made a new scan of the IP, they'd actually be using a generation further removed and therefore of inherently lesser quality than the 2008 blu, presumably just for the sake of being able to announce "new 2k scan!" to fans who don't know any better.

...But is all of that accurate?  The theory sounds right based on what we know, but it still relies on speculation and presumption.  Do we know for a fact, for example, that the Universal blu was taken from the DI and not the IP, or are we just assuming?  And one interesting detail is that while all of Scream's announcements (on Facebook, their store website, etc) have clearly said "interpositive," the case itself repeatedly says "internegative."  But really, the best way to know which blu-ray came out better is to look carefully at both of them and see for ourselves.

Update 10/16/17 - 10/21/24: Scream has given us a fancy, new 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.  This time the packaging says it's a "2024 4K Restoration From The Original Camera Negative."  Really?  So does that mean they scanned the original negatives and then re-finished all the digital effects?  You wouldn't think so.  Do they mean the "internegative" again, if that wasn't a mistake before?  Their listing on their website does correspond with the packaging, unlike last time.  I'd love to hear someone from Shout explain what was done, precisely, each time.  But in lieu of that, we can at least crack this sucker open and see how these discs look for ourselves.
If you've never even seen Land Of the Dead, well, I reckon you should if you're a horror fan.  Yeah, it's got a decidedly lesser reputation compared to the previous films in the series.  But then again, Day of the Dead enjoyed a pretty similar lesser reputation until being reappraised by fans and critics alike in more recent years.  And I think Land is due for a similar reevaluation; and Scream Factory including it in their collection may be the first sign of that happening.  I mean, for all the Walking Deads and Zombie Flesh Eaters we've had over the decades, this is the original, core zombie series that started it all, written and directed by the man himself.  Then, will we see the same thing happen for Romero's final two films, Diary and Survival, a few further years down the road?  Well, let's not go crazy.  But really, I think Land deserves more credit than it gets.
Not that I don't get the criticism.  First of all, some of the digital effects are shaky.  Romero's dead films are famous for having some of the greatest, cutting edge horror effects in the genre.  ...Up until this one.  There is still a ton of fantastic practical effects, but the digital blood and crazier CGI moments don't entirely blend in with the rest of the film.

And even more critical than the effects, the story is, well, awfully ambitious.  I mean, this is the only film set in the series that basically takes place in a sci-fi future.  Okay, technically you could say Day of the Dead has to be set a couple years ahead of the present in order to be able to present half the world as having already been overrun by zombies.  But it's basically contemporary people dealing with the situation the way contemporary people would.  Land, however, imagines a whole new, society that's developed after the world as we know it has crumbled.  And that's taking a big risk with a series that got most of its strength by tackling a supernatural horror in the most credible, authentic way possible.  The original Night Of the Living Dead was the most powerful "what would it be like if this unnatural horror actually happened to us in the real world right now?" that had ever been made up to that point, and arguably since.
Meanwhile, Land sets a scene in an underground saloon where Asia Argento is dressed in black leather wrestling two zombies in a cage match scored with Spanish rap music, while our other heroes have a shootout with a midget pimp dressed in purple shouting "they ruined my suit!"  One of the soldiers rides a skateboard in every single scene.  At this stage, the tone of the series has veered dangerously close to Escape From LA; so I can see why fans shunned this entry.  But if you can get past the most egregious moments, this film is actually pretty effective, both as a compelling zombie story with good, if not so subtle, social commentary, and in delivering genuinely atmospheric horror that also never skimps on the goods.  For the most part, it plays far straighter than Escape From NY, let alone LA.
Land's got a pretty great cast, too, including Dennis Hopper, Simon Baker The Mentalist, John Leguizamo who can be quite over the top but here gets it just right, and even Tom Savini, bringing back his character from Dawn Of the Dead for a cool cameo.  The score's effective, the film's shot really well, and George was finally able to bring his Dead Reckoning dream to life.  The story gives us a nice follow-through on the set-up of Bud from Day Of the Dead, and if you just want to see cool zombie kills, Greg Nicotero (who also has a cameo... in fact, this film is laden with cameos) and Howard Berger do their damnedest.  I guess this is one of those films like Halloween 3 or Hellraiser 3, where you have to let go of your expectations from the previous films in their series to appreciate; but if you can just do that, it's hard to imagine anyone not having a good time with this sequel.
A shot only in the theatrical cut.
Now, you may've noticed that Scream's giving us multi-disc sets.  That's not just because they're overflowing with extras (although they are), but because they've included two different cuts of the film: the R-rated theatrical version (92.54 minutes long) and the unrated director's cut (96.48 minutes long).  You might be wondering why anybody would bother with the shorter cut version.  Well, that's because the difference between the two versions amounts to more than just extra CGI blood squirts and extra frames of gut munching.  There are substantial changes made between the two edits, and not only does the unrated version also have extra lines of dialogue and a whole, long dramatic scene where Leguizamo fights a zombie in a high-rise, but the theatrical cut also has some alternative shots and tiny pieces not seen in the unrated version.  It can be rather confusing, and movie-censorship.com has even created two distinctly different comparisons of alternate Land Of the Dead cuts (here and here).  I carefully checked both, and can say that the latter is the one that accurately reflects the two different cuts on the Scream sets, while the other changes seem to be unique to the old, R-rated DVD.  So anyway, certainly the unrated version is the one you want to watch, but there's good reason to preserve both, and credit goes to Scream for doing so.
A scene only in the unrated cut.
And alright, now I'll finally stop beating around the bush and get into comparing the blu-ray releases.  I've also still got the original, widescreen unrated DVD, so I'll throw that one into the mix, too.  So that means we've got Universal's 2005 DVD, their 2008 blu (which also consists of the unrated director's cut) and both versions on Scream Factory's 2017 blu-ray set.  Both of Scream's 2017 transfers are taken from their 2k scan; but their unrated cut required HD inserts, because they weren't part of what played in theaters.  The shot above this paragraph, of Leguizamo and the butler, is one of those inserts, so you can see how it compares to the bulk of the film in the shots below.  Then, of course, we've got the 2024 release, which includes 1080p BD transfers of both cuts and the UHD of the unrated (they didn't put the theatrical cut on UHD), all of which they specify come from the new 4k restoration.
1) 2005 Universal DVD; 2) 2008 Universal BD; 3) 2017 SF theatrical BD;
4) 2017 SF unrated BD; 5) 2024 SF theatrical BD;
6) 2024 SF unrated BD; 7) 2024 SF unrated UHD.



So, the framing (2.35:1), color timing, etc is pretty much identical across the board.  Maybe the newer transfers are a smidgen cooler, and the 2024 scan pulls back to reveal a sliver more image around the edges.  Anyway, except for the inserts, addressed above, the two 2017 Scream Factory transfers are taken from the same source; but I threw them both in to be thorough.  And the same goes for the 2024s.  There are effectively no differences between the uncut and theatrical transfers.  Though interestingly, even though the shot appears in both cuts, they seemed to use different sources for the second set of shots above.  Watching this on a large (65") TV, though, I didn't notice the "seams" between between the newly scanned footage and the inserts at all.  The biggest difference in quality is of course the DVD, which naturally has a blurrier look.  Detail was definitely smudged off by the standard definition compression, which the Universal blu did a fine job of restoring, without any noticeable flaws like DNR or artificial edge enhancement.  But what about detail between that and the Scream blus?  That's what we really care about these days.  And, well, especially looking at the second shot there, I have to say the Scream blu looks sharper, with maybe a little extra detail drawn out of the heavy shadows.  Let's zoom in for a close-up.
Universal blu left; 2017 Scream Factory right.
Scream's transfer is definitely grainier.  But is that because it's a better scan, or just due to the fact that they used a more filmic source?  Or a combination of the two?  It doesn't appear that we're actually getting any new detail, though the added grain makes it look that way, though we haven't lost any either.  So at least it's not the downgrade some of us were fearing.  But now let's take a close look into the 2024 UHD.
2024 Scream Factory UHD.
Well, bye bye grain.  This looks like a return to the 2008 BD.  But that's a good thing if that grain was just the remnants of a later generation source, anyway.  Again, we don't seem to have had much of a gain or loss in detail.  It feels like we've sort of peaked once we jump from SD to HD.  But, with that said, the Dolby Vision HDR does give us some legit benefits on the UHD.  In fact, it's there in the 1080 BDs, too, just harder to see without bumping up the gamma.  There is definitely more detail now in the shadows, like the folds and creases in Baker's coat in that second set of shots, that wasn't there in any of the past releases.  And the contrast levels are a little more naturalistic.  So by clearing away the "fake" grain (in quotes because SF didn't actually add fake grain, which is a thing some labels have been said to do... it's just grain we probably don't want, as it comes from a lesser source and only interferes with the original image) and re-scanning in 4k, Scream really have given us a legit PQ upgrade, which they arguably failed to do in 2017, and delivered the best version yet.  But these are all very slight distinctions casual viewers won't even notice.

By the way, the audio options keep shifting with this flick.  The DVD gave us the choice subtle choice between DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks, with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles.  Then the 2008 blu-ray dropped the Dolby, just giving us the DTS 5.1 in HD, along with the same subtitles and a Spanish dub.  In 2017, Scream Factory gave us the DTS-HD 5.1 track plus a new DTS-HD 2.0 stereo mix, as well as English subs.  And in 2024, they've carried all of that over, and also thrown in a new Dolby Atmos track.  So that's a net positive.
Universal's releases were already pretty swagged out with goodies, including probably the most important extra, a George Romero audio commentary (also with producer Peter Grunwald and editor Michael Doherty).  There are a few momentary lapses of dead air, but for the most part, it's everything you want it to be.  There are also a whole bunch of featurettes (Undead Again: The Making Of Land Of the Dead, A Day With the Living Dead, Bringing the Dead To Life, When Shaun Met George - a fun behind-the-scenes look at a cameo by the stars of Shaun Of the Dead, which was still pretty new at the time - Scenes Of Carnage, which is just a skippable montage of gory scenes from the film, Zombie Effects: From Green Screen To Finished Scene, Bringing the Storyboards To Life and Scream Tests: Zombie Casting Call), that range from fifteen to as short as one minute.  There's also a few brief deleted scenes and bonus trailers, including one for a Land Of the Dead video game.  The blu-ray converted a couple of those features into picture-in-picture commentary with their funky U-Control gimmick, which is slightly annoying, but it's all the same stuff on either release.  The DVD also came in a nice slip cover.
Road To Fiddler's Green, the Land Of the Dead video game trailer.
Scream Factory has carried over all of that, even the stupid Scenes of Carnage montage (though not the video game trailer).  And they've also added plenty more.  There's now an additional audio commentary by four zombie extras (Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, plus Matt Blazi, Gleena Chao and Rob Mayr... I haven't listened to this one yet; I'll get back to you guys.  It's okay.  Very self-indulgent.  It would've made a great featurette, but they don't have enough to say to fill 97 minutes) and the additional television documentary, Dream of the Dead, which Roy Frumkes, director of the original Document Of the Dead, shot for the Independent Film Channel to promote the film.  This is apparently a slightly altered "director's cut" of the doc as opposed to what originally aired on television, that runs about twenty-five minutes and also includes its own collection of deleted scenes and audio commentary by Frumkes.  It's a great addition that nicely ties Land to the previous Dead films.

Then you've got new on-camera interviews with actors John Leguizamo, Robert Joy who played Charlie, Pedro Miguel Arce and a featurette that edits together interviews additional cast members Eugene Clarke, Jennifer Baxter, Boyd Banks and Jasmin Geljo.  Disappointingly, Baker and Argento gave Scream a miss; but Leguizamo was a good get.  Anyway, there's also a new photo gallery, the original theatrical trailer (surprisingly absent from the Universal discs), and a cool slip cover.  It also came in reversible artwork and included a poster if you ordered it directly from their site (and it's rolled; they stopped folding them!).

Scream's 2024 release doesn't have any new extras, but it's hard to complain given how packed their set already was; and they've hung onto all of it.  They've also got a better cover and slipcover, returning to the original poster art, which I appreciate.  Plus, if you order direct from their site, you can get two exclusive 18"x24" posters (yes, rolled) and a second, exclusive slipcover.
So at the end of the day, yes, Scream Factory's latest Land Of the Dead is an upgrade and the definitive edition going.  If you're going to pick this movie up, and you should, their new 2024 Collector's Edition is the one to get.  That said, if you've already got the 2017 edition... yes, this is still better.  Not so much in the resolution, but in the dynamic range.  Still, I'd prioritize upgrading other BDs in my collection to UHD before this one, especially since that one already netted you all the latest and legacy extras.  I was worried when this I saw this title get announced, but no, they didn't muck it up.  And, if anything, maybe they've corrected a slight misstep from their previous version.

Some Kind of Heaven On DVD, Both Essential and Disappointing

Ladies and gentlemen, and low lifes, there is a new superstar to keep your eye on in the field of documentaries.  Reminiscent of classic Errol Morris, with a touch of Urlich Seidl that'll have you questioning just how authentic some of these these seemingly too perfect moments can be, we have Lance Oppenheim.  2020's Some Kind Of Heaven is his feature film debut, following a series of intriguing short films and succeeded by the fantastic Spermworld and his more commercial but still gratifying venture, the recent Ren Faire miniseries for HBO.  This remains his best work, and unfortunately, still the only one available to own on disc in any capacity, via Magnolia Home Entertainment's 2021 DVD.
Produced by The New York Times and Darren Aronofsky (his best film!), Some Kind Of Heaven is set in The Villages, America's largest retirement community.  Located in Florida, This massive, heavily cultivated living experience is probably not how you imagine a retirement community to be.  It's wholly unique, if not straight up weird.  Similarly, if you go in expecting some quirky, light-hearted look at seniors living a slightly more active lifestyle than the stereotype, this movie will prove to be far more than you imagined as well.  It turns into a surprising exploration of the sometimes rather dark, and always impassioned personal lives of a handful of its residents.  From drug arrests and hustling to finding love while being financially trapped.  It's delicately told, funny and startlingly candid, without sliding into trashiness or exploitation.  And you definitely don't need to be predisposed to the subject of retirement villages to be moved by the experience.
2021 Magnolia DVD top; Youtube trailer (I'll explain) bottom.
Magnolia presents Some Kind Of Heaven in 1.33:1, which yes, is the correct aspect ratio.  It's a stylistic choice.  It also has a rather soft, fuzzy look, which presumably isn't a stylistic choice.  That's the bummer of only getting this on DVD, and a single-layer disc at that.  Still, I fired this up on Kanopy real quick, and yeah, it was a bit soft and fuzzy on streaming, too.  So maybe it actually is a stylistic choice, at least in part.  To settle it, I've downloaded the Youtube trailer in 1080p and compared it to the DVD...  Yeah, look how much clearer it is, with sharper detail and better color separation.  See how much more legible the letter on that guy's wings are?  Things would be at least that much easier on the eyes (probably even slightly better, with a proper encode) if we ever got this on blu.  C'est la vie.

At least this DVD offers the correct 5.1 mix in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles.
To further the frustration, though, this disc is completely barebones, apart from a handful of bonus Magnolia trailers that auto-play on start-up - not even Heaven's.  Now, a barebones disc is always annoying, but it's especially so in this case, because there could easily have been some great stuff on here.  First of all, Oppenheim has a short film called called The Paradise Next Door, which is about the same place and comprised entirely of footage shot while making Some Kind Of Heaven.  It's a great, little companion piece... Oppenheim even refers to it as a "DVD-extra" on his Instagram page.  Come on, Magnolia; your filmmaker is laying them at your feet!  Another of his shorts, The Happiest Guy In the World, is also pretty great and shares a number of themes with Some Kind Of Heaven, so that could've been nice.  And Youtube is full of interviews with Oppenheim talking about Heaven, so he seems game to talk about it and has interesting things to say.  Even if maybe The New York Times was going to be difficult about licensing the shorts, surely Magnolia could've slapped a quick interview on here.  But not even the trailer?  That just makes this feel like a quick, "no care given" release.
Hopefully, if we're lucky, some boutique label will recognize Oppenheim's body of work and issue us a proper special edition collection, maybe overseas where there isn't already this preexisting DVD competitor in the market.  But unfortunately, documentary seems to be a tough genre to sell collectors on, so it'll probably be a very long wait.  So at least we have this.  And I'm eager to see what Lance will do next, even if I'll probably have to watch it on my computer.

Could That Be... Clockwatchers I See?

Wow, talk about "under the radar!"  1997's Clockwatchers has been one of my most-wanted titles on blu for years.  One: because it's a favorite film, and two: because it's one of the few remaining non-anamorphic discs in my collection.  I check disc announcements every day, but still had no idea Shout Factory was releasing this on BD until McBastard's Masoleum posted that it was already out and in hand.  I nearly fell out of my chair.  Shout Factory didn't even have it listed on their own site until a week after its release; it just popped up there like three days ago.  It's not on Amazon, or the usual boutique shops that carry Shout releases, like Diabolik or Grindhouse.  Weird.
Clockwatchers is the first and still the best film by the Sprecher sisters.  All three are worth watching, but this is their sole masterpiece.  It's a timeless examination of rudimentary working class life, both comic and tragic, similar in tone to, say, Friends With Money.  It probably has suffered somewhat for audiences going in expecting a more sitcom-level out and out comedy like Office Space.  But despite its scarcity on home video, it's maintained a consistent audience thanks largely to its stellar cast.  It's an important early role from Toni Collette, one of the signature, career defining performances by Parker Posey, and a rare mid-Friends co-lead by Lisa KudrowAlanna Ubach is the final part of the quartet who didn't go on to such heights as the others, but she's just as good as the rest of them here.  And the supporting cast is just as strong, including Bob Balaban, Paul Dooley and yes, Jamie Kennedy.  I know, it's easy to think of his MTV rap career and grimace, but he excels in offbeat comic parts like this one.
Fox Lorber released Clockwatchers on DVD in early 2000.  So, as you might guess, it's non-anamorphic.  It was reissued by Wellspring in 2006, and there have been DVD editions in other parts of the world, but none of them are anamorphic either.  And until this month, that's all we've had, until Shout Factory surprised us with their new blu-ray.  Apparently it's a Made On Demand disc, which I guess counts for its limited release; but I'm happy to report that it is a properly pressed disc, not a BD-R.
2000 Fox Lorber DVD top; 2024 Shout Factory BD bottom.
So again, the biggest selling point is just jumping to 16x9 enhancement.  We've got it; we won.  But besides that, how is it?  Well for starters, the aspect ratio has shifted from 1.84:1 to 1.78:1, at the expense of some info on the left-hand side, but if that has to be the price of going from non to anamorphic, I'll take it.  You can see that there's been extensive color correction, too - look how much lighter Toni's hair is - which I'll take on faith is more accurate.  Going from SD to HD gives a cleaner, sharper look; but there's still little to no film grain visible on the blu.  I'm guessing this is an old master.  It's a big upgrade, but more because the only available DVD is so poor, not because the new blu is particularly impressive.

The DVD just has a clean Dolby Digital 5.1 remix, which Shout has replaced with a the original Dolby stereo mix in DTS-HD.  They also added HoH subtitles, which the DVD lacked.
The DVD only has the theatrical trailer, while Shout's blu doesn't even have that.  You'd think they could have at least ripped that off the DVD, but I guess being no frills is protocol for MOD releases.  Oh well.  I'm way too happy to complain.  😁

Controversial Blus: Anything But Anything Else's Botched Discs, Please

Alright, this post has been a long time coming.  I guess I kept holding off because I was waiting for a happy resolution to this story.  But at this point, it's safe to say that just isn't coming.  At least not in this decade.  So here swe go.  I'm talking about the not just controversial, but straight-up botched, blu-rays of Woody Allen's underrated 2003 comedy Anything Else.
Admittedly our romantic leads, Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, aren't the most dynamic movie stars Allen's ever cast.  In fact, I'd put them near the bottom of the list.  But at least they're age appropriate.  And they're bolstered immeasurably by a smart script and a fantastic supporting cast, including Stockard Channing, Danny Devito, Fisher Stevens and Allen himself in one of his funniest roles.  Also look for a pre-Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon.  Anyway, the central romance is a little inert, though Ricci manages to make things somewhat interesting, but the story around goes to some surprisingly bitter and compelling places.  It's an honest film about failure, and I think it's one of his best from this period.  But  it tends to get overlooked because Dreamworks tried to market it to the American Pie crowd (Allen isn't even shown in the trailer), and this is definitely not what that audience was looking for.
Dreamworks Entertainment released Anything Else on DVD as a new release back in 2003.  It was barebones, naturally, but otherwise a pretty solid presentation.  And that's a good thing, because it languished in standard definition for years.  Eventually, in 2016, it came out in Germany, from Concorde Video.  It's unfortunate it was our only option, because as we're about to see, it had a problem.  More recently, it's been released in the US (more on that in a bit) and Spain, but it's all the same.  Let's take a look.
2003 Dreamworks DVD top; 2016 Concorde BD bottom.
So, hard to miss, the sides have been completely shorn off the picture.  It takes me back to the old days, as a teen, when I learned the Star Wars movies I saw on television didn't look like they originally did in theaters.  Here, we're going from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.  And to be clear, this is not an open matte situation, where Concorde is just showing extra picture along the top and bottom that shjould've been cropped out.  This just fully chops off both sides of the image, neutering the cinematography of DP Darius Khondji (Se7en, Uncut Gems) and making this one of those rare cases where the DVD is better than the blu.  And that's a shame, because otherwise this is a decent HD upgrade with a much clearer and sharper image.  The little sign on the counter in front of Allen is unreadable mush on the DVD, but on the blu, we can read it plainly, "AMERICA, FLY OUR FLAG PROUDLY!"  And just to be clear, yes, the new American and Spanish blus use this same, cropped HD master.
When Quiver announced their big Woody Allen Collection blu-ray set in 2021, all of us fans were hoping we could finally replace our Anything Else discs, whether we had the Dreamworks or the Concorde.  We were even more excited by the inclusion of Sweet & Lowdown (or "Lockdown," as they spelled it on their cover mock-up there) and Deconstructing Harry, both making their worldwide blu-ray debuts.  Well, their 9 nlu-ray set turned into an 8 blu-ray set, with Sweet and Deconstructing nowhere to be found.  I think it's a safe assumption that's because they bought the rights and announced the set before they learned the reason why those two films had never been released on blu anywhere else in the world: there were no preexisting HD masters.  And I guess Quiver is too small/ under-equipped a company, or just not interested enough in these films, to commission them.  And that would also explain why they released the same European 1.78 master of Anything Else.  That's just what they were handed.  At one point, Quiver responded about it publicly on Twitter that, "we understand the frustration! We are reviewing this internally."  But that was in 2021, and they've yet to follow up on that, so I hope nobody's been holding their breath.
Anyway, both of the discs we're looking at here feature the original English mono in 2.0, in DTS-HD on the blu.  Dreamworks disc also includes optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, while Concorde's only has German, plus a German dub, also in DTS-HD.  One point you have to give to Quiver: their release does include optional English subtitles if you need 'em.  Neither disc has any extras, not even the trailer.  So I guess I'd just suggest grabbing whichever release is cheapest and easiest for you to acquire in the moment, even if that's still the DVD.  Definitely don't bother double-dipping.  None of these discs are worth recommending, but this film deserves a spot on any Allen fan's shelf regardless.