Revisiting I Think We're Alone Now

This is one I never expected to see on blu-ray because, as we'll see, blu-ray really couldn't help this movie.  And that's not me taking a shot - this movie is great, I've been a huge fan of it since it first came out on DVD back in 2010.  But considering how this film was made, I don't think it could benefit from being in HD.  Vinegar Syndrome partner label ETR Media, however, seems to disagree.  Or at least they have some reason to reissue this on blu, so I'm hooked.  Let's see what they're bringing to the table.

If you've never heard of it, 2008's I Think We're Alone Now is a documentary that takes a very intimate look at two Tiffany (as in the 80's pop star who sang the hit record "I Think We're Alone Now") stalkers.  This is a very personal story of two very different (from each other and most anybody else) people, that certainly puts their eccentricities up for display, and is a very eye-opening look at the sort of person who almost never get spotlight.  But it's not exploitative like, say, 1998's Jefftowne.  I remember several co-workers of mine getting very excited about the Troma DVD of Jefftowne, which is also a very intimate look at, in this case, someone with Down's Syndrome, and the hook there was that he drank beer, cursed and was essentially a bad boy shit-kicker type - isn't that a funny?  And there is something very compelling about that film, too, just because the filmmakers get very close.  But I was mostly struck by how cruel the people were around him, encouraging his bad behavior for laughs and toying with him, embarrassing him by talking about his crushes and porn to the camera, even though he ostensibly didn't mind.  Thankfully, this film isn't like that.  It has all the good but none of the bad.

I mean, first of all, neither of the two characters in this film, Jeff and Kelly, have Down's Syndrome.  Jeff tells us he has Asperger's Syndrome and they're both suffering a weird an extreme fixation, but they're both have complete mental faculties and clearly know what they're getting into and sharing with us.  There are certainly humorous elements here, but we're not just being set up here to point and laugh at the weirdos.  In fact, this is can be a pretty wrenching film in terms of how much you wind up feeling for everyone involved.  You feel sorry for Tiffany, because she has had to get restraining orders and things.  This film starts out with the newspaper headlines of some of the things she's had to go through with Jeff.  These aren't just really big fans of her music; they feel they are fully, completely in love with her.  And in some way we're just sinking into their inevitable heartbreak.  But fortunately they have enough spirit to keep us from spiraling into utter depression - scenes like the one where Jeff tells his pastor, who's trying to sing a hymn, how he talked to Tiffany at a porn convention (apparently she went because she once posed for Playboy), and she was the most Christ-like person in the world put a great big smile on my face.  The movie's a roller coaster.

2010 MVD Visual DVD top; 2022 ETR Media BD bottom.

I Think We're Alone Now is another one of those early digital shot-on-SD films, and in this particular case, seems to have been shot with a mix of different consumer cameras.  So there's no additional detail to restore.  The BD is a smidgen wider, going from 1.33:1 to 1.35:1, which I suppose is a slight correction.  The DVD was interlaced, and so is the BD; again, because it's surely baked into the original footage.  I owned a couple digital cameras in those days, and unless you spent the money for serious professional cameras, this is what you've got.  The camera struggles especially in low-light, yielding almost as much digital noise as actual detail.  Putting it on a higher def disc doesn't help that.  It does look like efforts were made to color correct the film, look at the second set of shots.  Well, results vary scene by scene, but in the above shot, I think the original DVD looks more natural.  Not that I'm saying the DVD is superior than the BD, but in terms of PQ at least, it's pretty much a dead tie, with all the little variances mostly just being arbitrary and minor enough viewers wouldn't notice anyway.

And the Dolby 2.0 audio is at least lossless DTS-HD on the blu, though it's still pretty raw, low-fi stuff.  They've also added optional English subtitles.  So we start to see the BD pull ahead now.

The real reasons to double-dip are the new extras.  Not that the DVD was lacking in this department.  There are two audio commentaries: one by Jeff and one by Kelly.  Both offer fascinating additional insights into these two characters, though Kelly's track has a lot of dead-air.  So that one's a bit of a chore, but there are moments that make it worth the struggle.  Then there's a collection of deleted scenes, which are often just as compelling as the rest of the film, and given its short running time (the film is just 61 minutes long), I'm surprised they cut most of this out.  There's a great chunk on Alyssa Milano, and a fascinating look at the man who sold Jeff his "radionic, psionic, psychotronic devices" he uses to tune into Tiffany's "resonant frequencies."  There's also a music video and the trailer.

Thankfully, the BD keeps all of that wonderful stuff, except for the trailer.  And there's new stuff.  There's a new director's commentary, which is pretty interesting and insightful.  There's a short animated featurette about the origins of the film.  And best of all, there are new updates interviewing both Jeff and Kelly about where they're at now in 2022 - there are some new twists for sure, and it takes you even further along their emotional journeys.  Oh, and there's a new interview clip of Jeff explaining the surprising reason why he knows for certain how Natalie Wood was murdered.  The first 1000 copies also come in a limited edition slipcover.

So in the most direct way, the blu-ray is not an upgrade over the DVD, and could even be argued to be a slight downgrade.  You know, we're used to judging whether to replace a DVD with a BD based on picture quality, and in this column it rates a "no."  But factor in everything else and it's an absolute must double-dip.  The audio: meh, but sure.  The subtitles: handy, for some viewers more than others.  And the extras: essential.  It's like a little sequel.

Alright MVD, You're Crazy For This One! Highball

If you had asked me to point to the one DVD in my collection least likely to ever see a blu-ray upgrade, I would have pointed to 1997's Highball from ::checks notes:: Avalanche Home Entertainment.  But Hallelujah, hey, here we are.  MVD Visual, as part of their MVD Marquee Collection, has not only bumped this rare title to blu, they've restored it from its original film elements, created an all new feature-length 'making of' documentary and given it a really loving, first class edition.  Of Highball.

And I don't say that because Highball sucks or anything.  I'm actually a pretty big fan and have had this new edition pre-ordered for months.  But to get an idea of why I'm so surprised this has happened, well, take a look at that DVD cover for a start.  The first thing that draws your eye, surely, is how clumsily both Annabella Sciorra and Justine Bateman's heads have been 'shopped onto the same unnaturally posed body.  And that's surely not Eric Stoltz from the neck down either.  But now let's look closer, at the credits... written by Jesse Carter and directed by Ernie Fusco?  Those are pseudonyms.  This is actually a Noah Baumbach movie, made on the cheap in just six days with the shorts ends from Mr. Jealousy, but he took his name off of the picture because it was taken away from him before he could finish post production.  What he's famously dubbed a "failed experiment" only came out on DVD because the bank took possession of the film and released it against his will.

But that doesn't mean it's bad!  There's a big AV Club quote on the front cover of this blu that reads, "Noah Baumbach has basically disowned one of his funniest films."  You can definitely feel the six week shooting schedule, though. 100% of the film takes place packed inside a single NY apartment, and the lighting mainly consists of a huge flood lamp pointed directly at the actors from off-camera, casting hue shadows behind them on the deep blue walls.  Oh, those walls are as much a character as anybody else in this film; you'll never forget them as long as you live.

But they stand behind an all-star cast of great characters.  Besides the three listed above, there's Ally Sheedy, Chris Eigeman, Peter Bogdanovich, Baumbach himself, Rae Dawn Chong, Luna frontman Dean Wareham, Dean Cameron... as well as Baumbach's then regulars from his previous films: Lauren Katz, John Lehr, Carlos Jacott and Christopher Reed.  The latter two also co-wrote the film with Baumbach, and that's the main thing.  This film may've been filmed in just six days, but a lot of time and consideration was clearly put into the writing, which packs a rather ingenious structure (the film finds and revisits its characters at three parties, finding them in different stages in their lives over the span of a year) full of clever exchanges, astute character moments, and real heart.  Sure it's unpolished, but it's endlessly rewatchable, and maybe the perfect demonstration of how a perfect sound mix, elaborate set-ups and all the other technical and superficial trappings that might cause a director like Baumbach to write off his work aren't really what matters when it comes to connect with audiences.  In fact, we're told in the accompanying documentary that this film actually wound up performing better for Lions Gate than Mr. Jealousy has.  And to this day, Baumbach's big, Paramount feature starring Nicole Kidman and Jack Black* has never been released in HD while Highball just got a first class special edition this week.

In fact, I need to point one thing out about Highball's DVD before we get into the comparison proper.  When I first bought it as a new release back in 2004, I found a weird glitch around the 59 minute mark.  The film jumps frames, gets heavily interlaced (happily, the DVD doesn't otherwise have a problem with interlacing) and the sound goes completely out of sync.  This last for a couple lines of dialogue until the next scene, where it snaps back to normal.  At the time, I thought my DVD was scratched or otherwise defective, and I replaced it with a second copy, which does the same thing.  If you rip the disc, it stays with the video file, so this seems to just be a production error baked into all copies of the Highball DVD.  And well, I'm happy to report, the blu-ray doesn't have that problem.  I'm also happy to see Baumbach's name back in the credits, which had clumsily faded to black to add new title cards for the fake names on the DVD.  And that's just the beginning of the good news.

2004 Avalanche DVD top; 2022 MVD Visual BD bottom.

MVD doesn't spell out in the packaging, on their website or anywhere exactly how they restored this film, but they seem to have gone back to the original film elements, because this is much more than the same old 2004 transfer slapped onto an HD disc.  We're finally getting the film in widescreen, for a start, which helps make this film look more like a legit movie, downplaying the bare blue walls and the and the massive shadows, and framing the actual actors better instead.  We go from 1.32:1 to 1.78:1, cropping some of the excess on the top and bottom while revealing considerably more on the sides.  The DVD was also vertically stretched (probably trying to squeeze more of the image into the full-frame box to keep the image at least coherent), which this BD fixes.  Grain on the blu is also very distinct and cleanly captured, whereas the DVD is a smeary mess.  And information that was crushed in the DVD's shadows has been revealed in this new scan.  All told, it is a vast improvement - a totally different visual presentation.

The audio, too, has been bumped up from a lossy Dolby stereo mix to LPCM.  And while the DVD only had optional Spanish subtitles, the BD keeps them but has also added new English ones.

And as if all that wasn't enough, we get actual extras.  The DVD just had the trailer (which, amusingly, still had Baumbach's name, despite it being removed from all the packaging and film itself) and a few bonus trailers.  Well, the blu still has that trailer, and its own bonus trailers (including Mr. Jealousy, which MVD recently restored as well), but most excitingly, it has a brand new, feature-length documentary: The Making of Highball.  No, Baumbach didn't participate, and I suspect he still disowns this film.  His name is back in the credits, but that could just be because they went back to the film elements for this transfer... the back of the box still has "Ernie Fusco" listed as the director.

So he's missing, and Carlos Jacott is a big absentee, too.  But they've got so many others, including star and co-writer Chris Reed, Lauren Katz, John Lehr, Rae Dawn Chong, Dean Cameron, producer Joel Kastleberg (or Castleberg, as it's alternatively spelled in the movie credits) and even Peter Bogdanovich.  They're all enthusiastic and have a lot of great memories and love for the film, and they get into everything from the film's origins to its disowning.  It gets a little repetitive - every participant tells us this film was shot in just six days about five times each - but fans are going to get some very satisfying answers to this film's mysteries as well as insights into the characters and plot points (there are many theories for whatever happened to Felix before).  It's great because I never expected to see any kind of special feature for this long-neglected feature, but it's also pretty great even by the standards of any retrospective on a beloved film.

I hope this film has enough fans to make this release pay off for MVD, because it feels like they went all out just for me.  And I guess that guy from the AV Club.  But while Highball doesn't pack the dramatic heft of Marriage Story or the cinematic gloss of The Meyerowitz Stories, and at a few points crosses the line into being too silly (seriously, can anyone out there justify Catherine Kellner's role in this film?), it's still really funny, expertly played, and even a little touching.  We should all make films as good as the ones this guy disowns.


*Seriously, Paramount Presents needs to give us a 4k restoration of Margot At the Wedding.

Mr. Jealousy Is Finally Anamorphic!

If you've been following this site since the beginning, you've probably caught on to the fact that I'm a pretty big Noah Baumbach fan.  But I've been anticipating this one especially because Mr. Jealousy is one of my last remaining non-anamorphic DVDs that, until now, has been impossible to replace in any region.  Now I really just need Clockwatchers, Happiness, Turn Of the Screw, House of Yes, Hilary and Jackie and The Wife.  Maybe The Imposters.  But this is one I was beginning to think would never come off the list, so happy day!

Mr. Jealousy, 1997, is early Baumbach, the biggest symptom of which is that it just feels a little more conventional.  Even compared to his first film, Kicking & Screaming, this seems more directed by romcom conventions.  Eric Stoltz and Annabella Sciorra are a cute and charismatic young couple whose relationship is challenged by a series of increasingly outrageous misunderstandings.  And it works as that, with genuinely clever plot contrivances and relatable humor.  Its wit is brought to life thanks particularly to a brilliant supporting cast, including Whit Stillman all-star Chris Eigeman, Peter Bogdanovich, Kicking & Screaming alumni Carlos Jacott and John Lehr, Marianne Jean-Baptiste who was nominated for an Oscar for Secrets & Lies during filming and Bridget Fonda.

But unlike its peers, this one is also working on another, more substantive layer with something real and thoughtful to say about jealousy in its many forms.  It's creatively shot, at least sporadically, using old fashioned irises, and makes excellent use of an eclectic soundtrack including old Georges Delerue themes long before critics would fawn all over him for doing the same thing in Frances Ha.  It's at once a far better than average romantic comedy and more than one, sure to satisfy any Baumbach fan that's only jumped on his more recent, award winning fare.

Fox Lorber released Mr. Jealousy on DVD all the way back in 2000, so it's not too surprising that it was widescreen but non-anamorphic.  The disappointing part is that it was just never reissued.  No special edition, not even a quick and dirty upgrade to shake it free of obsolescence.  I did spend some time, years back, pursuing the rumor that the Italian DVD from Prism was anamorphic, but no.  It's 4:3, too.  And the fact that it only had their Italian dub for audio would've made it an impossible alternative anyway.  Happily, however, none of that matters any longer.  A Mr. Jealousy listing quietly appeared as a preorder link on Amazon last year.  Its release date came and went with no actual product, but eventually it was announced that our film was indeed coming from MVD Visual; and finally, this July, it's here.

2000 Fox Lorber DVD top; 2021 MVD BD bottom.

Besides being non-anamorphic, and therefore left floating in a sea of black on a modern television display, Fox's DVD was matted to 1.85:1 (or, more accurately, 1.84:1), while MVD opens it up to 1.78:1.  But MVD does more than just lift those little mattes.  MVD's comparatively new scan brings in more considerably information along all four sides.  I say "comparatively," since it looks like an older master, with a bit of tinkering done to it and quite light on grain.  But as opposed to the extra low resolution SD we've been left with up 'till now, it's a massive jump forward.  It has a cooler color timing than the DVD, though I'm not sure if it's necessarily better.  It's different and it's perfectly fine, though.  The real joy is just to see this in HD, which does help this feel less like a scrappy early effort and more like a Real Movie, which especially makes the lavish conclusion hit home all the more.

Both discs offer a the original stereo mix in a fine, clear track.  But the BD provides it in LPCM and also includes optional English subtitles, which the DVD was lacking.

All the DVD did have for us was a fullscreen trailer.  That same trailer is back on the blu, but the disc's biggest surprise is that it also includes a great, 40-minute retrospective documentary.  It includes new interviews with producer Joel Castelberg, along with Bogdanovich and actor Brian Kerwin.  But it also edits in additional vintage interviews with Baumbach himself, as well as EPK interviews and B-roll with other cast members.  This was clearly put together by a fan; it offers a lot of insight and intriguing trivia (wait 'till you hear what other actors were nearly cast in some of these roles).  It even gets into Highball; and in fact, the Highball trailer is also included, along with a couple bonus ones.

Could this be a sign than Highball is soon to follow?  I sure do hope so [edit: it was!].  But right now I'm far too satiated with this Mr. Jealousy blu to start banging the drum for more.  For the moment.

Better To Import: 24 Hour Party People

This is one of those movies where most fans who bought the DVD here in America probably just have no idea that they would've been better rewarded importing it, in this case, from Australia. In fact, they would've been better off importing from several other countries, but out of all of them, Australia seems to be the best. The film I'm talking about is 2002's 24 Hour Party People, directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Update 3/29/20: Welcome to the new millenium!  This film is now available on blu-ray!  And it... doesn't look any better at all, really.  But we anticipated that.

I put it that way because, even though it's unquestionably directed by Winterbottom, one tends to think of it as more of a Steve Coogan film. On paper, you'd say Coogan's just the star, he doesn't even have a co-executive producer credit or anything. But despite having a screenplay by Frank Boyce (who would go on to do Winterbottom and Coogan's next film as well, Tristram Shandy, and then more recently The Trip and The Look of Love), it's a highly improvised film. And although he plays a different character, Coogan is clearly bringing in his style of comedy from his Alan Partridge shows. It almost feels like a Partridge movie, except it's about someone and something else: specifically Coogan is now television host (see? not so far removed from Partridge) and record producer Tony Wilson; and the film presents the rise and fall of his label, Factory Records.

A Marx Bros reference?

And that's what's so compelling about the film. Is that it takes improv comedy, a style which was booming at the time, and puts it into a "real" movie. This is a highly informed and authentic music biopic that works perfectly well as a straightforward drama - I mean, point where it's genuinely compelling - but with Coogan's work mixed in. So, unlike its silly peers, like Reno 911!: Miami, this is an improv comedy that's really about something (a concept we'd see Coogan continue to run with in later work). It's a great music film in its own right. In fact, some of the comedy is pretty soft, with gags like Coogan insisting to one of his partners that James Bond producer Albert Broccoli invented the vegetable broccoli. It's a dumb joke, but it doesn't matter because the film has you absorbed on so many other levels that it doesn't need to have you laughing. plays as just an amusing character moment in between heady moments like when Wilson points out that when audiences have now begun, "applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musicians, not the creator, but the medium." Or just strong emotional moments that genuinely come across, like suicide of Ian Curtis. By the time Control rolled around, I felt like I didn't need it; it was just a heavier-handed expansion of what was already conveyed in this film.

We see Werner Herzog's Stroszek on Curtis' TV.

So, 24 Hour Party People was a new release when it hit DVDs worldwide in 2003. In the US, MGM released it with several extras, including two commentary tracks. But Pathe! put out a more substantial 2-disc set in the UK, and Madman put out an even fuller 2-disc set in Australia. I actually had a bit of a problem when I first imported this, brand new, it just had 1 disc.  I emailed Madman and they were excellent about getting out the second disc to me, but it makes me wonder how common getting stuck with 1-disc versions of their release was, and if most people even knew to get the second disc. But who knows? Maybe mine was just a one in a million case. I've got the full Madman set, I've got the MGM DVD, and now I've also got the 2019 US blu-ray edition from MVD Visual.

1) 2003 MGM DVD; 2) 2003 Madman DVD; 3) 2019 MVD BD.

None of these images are too pretty, huh? That's because this was an early digital film, shot on standard def DV tape, and then blown up to 35mm. In the original version of my post, I wrote, "so you might be looking at those shots and feel tempted to hold out for a blu-ray; but I wouldn't hold my breath. This seems to be all the resolution we're ever going to get of this film," and that has borne depressingly true.  In fact, if you'll pardon me quoting myself one more time, I wrote, "the original footage seems to have interlacing baked into it, which the filmmakers have tried to correct for, making it all a soft and mushy."  And yup, the ghosting, combing, haloing and general digital mushiness of the DVDs is perfectly replicated on the new blu.

However, even though they're all ugly (although it at least suits the film's half-mockumentary, hand-held aesthetic), they're not entirely identical.  Madman's disc is full widescreen, so to speak, at 1.78:1, while the American discs are almost matted to 1.85:1.  MGM's DVD is 1.83:1, and MVD gets even closer at 1.84:1.  The difference between the US discs is that the MGM is the same as the MVD except slightly stretched, thus cropping a smidgen along the top and bottom.  The Madman disc, without the matte at all, reveals even more.  The other difference is that the black levels are higher on the Madman disc, making even the darkest areas a murky grey rather than the true black both US discs have.  So, in short, I guess I do have to concede that I prefer the MVD blu to the previous DVDs, but just barely.

The blu really scores its points in the audio department, however.  The Australian DVD had a minor advantage over the US DVD because it offered both the straight forward 2.0 Stereo mix in addition to the shared 5.1 track.  On the other hand, the US DVD had optional English subtitles.  MVD cleans up by offering both the 2.0 and 5.1 in lossless formats (and considering music is so important to this film, fans should really welcome that upgrade), in LPCM and DTS-HD, respectively.  It also has the optional English subs, plus French, Portuguese and Spanish to boot.

But the real story here is in the special features. After all, Madman's got that whole second disc.  And it's not like MGM or MVD are barebones. They actually have two audio commentaries: one by Steve Coogan and producer Andrew Eaton, which is rather good, though a little slow with quiet spots. And then the other is by the real Tony Wilson, who has plenty to say.  Additionally, there are two brief featurettes, totaling about 15 minutes together, which interviews the cast, crew and again, the real Wilson. There are also eleven deleted scenes, the trailer, and a photo gallery. A pretty nice package on its own terms, and to be clear, it's exactly the same between MGM and MVD, except MVD also slaps on a couple extra bonus trailers.

But Madman has pretty much all of that and more. I say "pretty much" because they don't have those two exact featurettes, but they have their own featurettes which use exactly the same interview footage; they're just edited differently. They've got the commentaries, deleted scenes and the trailer. So now let's talk about what you've probably been missing out on in the USA: the more.

To start with, MGM/ MVD had eleven deleted scenes?  Madman has twenty-four.  And one of the deleted scenes that's on both discs is a minute longer here than the US version, with a whole extra section.  So it's really fourteen unique scenes on the AUS DVD.  If you're serious about the film, that extra footage should be a big selling point ...although, I'll warn you up front, they lack a "Play All" button. Then, one of the biggest new features is called "From the Factory Floor," which is essentially a video commentary track, where we see a big group of the real musicians and industry people portrayed in the film all together watching and discussing the movie, which is shown in a tiny window in the lower left-hand corner. This is probably of more interest to fans of the music scene, as opposed to just the film, but it's pretty fun either way.

Along those lines, too, is a series of short interviews with eleven(!) of the real people depicted in the film. There's also quite a nice featurette that profiles the director, Winterbottom, and his career, and a lengthy (49 minutes) audio commentary over a gallery of artwork by Peter Saville. And they throw in two music videos by bands from the film.

Since I got so caught up quoting everything I predicted accurately above, I suppose I should own up to it and quote what I got wrong in my summation: "seeing as how there's not likely to ever be a blu-ray release of this film, you should just get the best DVD edition you can of this film."  Okay, whoops.  But my reasoning still stands: it was never going to look substantially better on blu, and now that it's happened, we can see that for ourselves.  The standard def video looks how it's always looked.  The lossless audio and minor improvements are welcome, though.  But considering the extras, I hardly feel like we've really upgraded from the Madman set.  Actually, there's a UK blu from Kaleidoscope that has almost all the Madman extras, plus the lossless audio, albeit no subs.  So, eh, none of it's terribly exciting.  The ideal package would probably be the US blu combined with the AUS DVD, but if you're not looking to splurge on multiple editions, you'll still probably be happier with one of the imports.