Import Week 2025, Day 3: Bright Star

Angel At My Table and The Piano may be her most famous films, but Bright Star is probably my favorite Jane Campion (to really call it, I'd have to go back and rewatch Portrait Of a Lady).  At the most basic level could be described as a John Keats biopic, but it's so much deeper than that.  It's also actually the story of Keats' fiancee rather than the poet himself.  It's also a rich exploration of Keats' work, poetry in general and a tragic romance, while still being quite sharp and witty.  There's a debate in-film about whether poetry should spark the head or the heart, this film does both.  I wasn't particularly familiar with any of the cast, but they're all pitch perfect, even the kids.  And as beautifully shot as this movie is, it's really the strikingly original soundtrack, which has some nice strings and stuff, but most notably features a full vocal choir performing these gently lyrical pieces of Mozart.

So like yesterday's post, this is another DVD-only release from Sony, who released this as a new release in 2010, and at least it's not entirely featureless (more on that below).  But it did come out on blu that same year in different parts of the world, including Australia, Germany and Norway.  I went with the Pathe disc from France because they gave it the fullest special edition.  They released it as both a BD and BD/ DVD combo-pack, plus a stand-alone DVD version and a single disc BD reissue in 2015.  I went with the combo-pack, so we can look at three versions today.

1) 2010 US Sony DVD; 2) 2010 FR Pathe DVD; 3) 2010 FR Pathe BD.

As is the norm for Import Week, these discs are using the same master for their transfers, so the biggest distinction between the two DVDs is just that the French one is PAL.  It's not the only distinction, though, as the Sony disc is 1.84:1, which Pathe corrects to 1.85:1 (the Sony has a basically imperceptible vertical stretch, which you'd only catch in a direct screenshot comparison like this).  But PQ-wise, the only real pertinent difference is the BD bumping the image up to HD.  It sharpens the picture and gives the edges cleaner lines.  This film sometimes has a softer look, which can disguise the benefits, but there are also a number of gorgeous, richly detailed wide shots that significantly benefit from the additional clarity.

The blu also bumps the 5.1 track up to DTS-HD, and the French discs both include a French dub in 5.1, also in DTS-HD on the blu.  The one downside is that Sony included optional English and English HoH subtitles, while the Pathe only has optional French ones.  French discs often have a bad (and deserved) rep for forced subs, but they're perfectly removable here; they don't even default to on.

Working With Jane

So again, the Sony isn't entirely bereft.  It has one deleted scene and three very short featurettes (ranging from two to three minutes each) which interview Campion.  Stitched together, that's a 7-minute interview with the director, which is better than nothing.  It also has a whole bunch of bonus trailers, but none for Bright Star itself.

Pathe, on the other hand, has a whole bunch more.  It has the same deleted scene as the Sony, plus another one.  And it has a really nicely-crafted half hour behind-the-scenes documentary entitled Working With Jane.  And it has three of Campion's early short films: A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983) and An Exercise in Discipline (1982), making this a bit of a treasure trove for Campion fans.  It also includes a photo gallery and the film's French-language trailer.  Plus it comes in a cool, purple case.  I think some also came in a slipcover, but AmazonFR didn't send one with mine.

Pathe doesn't include the three featurettes from the Sony, though.  So if you want to be a hardcore completist, you can pick up the US disc and pair 'em together for a fuller special edition.  But honestly, they're awfully short, so I'd only consider it if it was a cheap used copy.  Or if, like me, you already had the DVD and are just double-dipping to the blu as an upgrade.

Import Week 2025, Day 1: Return To Seoul

Okay, gang, it's time for a new "Week:" Update Week 2025!  For starters, as you can see, we've got 2022's Return To Seoul, where the import blu is superior to the domestic release.  Every Day hereafter will go another step even further: each release is DVD-only here in the states, and only available on blu via import.  Of course, as always, this is written from my local US-centric point of view in regards to what constitutes an "import."  Depending on where you live, dear reader, you may instead be learning some ways you're better off than your American compatriots.  Either way, you're going to be looking at some lesser known, yet higher quality, releases of some great films, so let's get started.

Return To Seoul is the second, but really the international break-out, feature by Korean writer/ director Davy Chou.  Park Ji-min is a French citizen whose holiday gets diverted to her birth country of Korea, where she gets unexpectedly gets put on the path to finding the parents who put her up for adoption/ emigration as a baby.  What's great about this film, besides its luscious photography and incredible lead performance, is how militantly unsentimental it is.  This is the polar opposite of some sappy, Hallmark family drama, and the plot goes in some directions I can guarantee you won't predict unless you've had it spoiled for you.  Is it dark?  Yeah, but more to the point, it just stubbornly refuses to replace honesty with your typical Hollywood romanticism.  This is the rare movie with an ending that hits because it cut no emotional corners along the way.

So Sony Pictures Classics released this on DVD and blu in 2023.  I've just got the DVD for us today, because it was barebones and so undesirable.  I mean, I would've gotten the BD if that was all there was, but in the UK, Mubi released it just a couple months later as a nice, little special edition.  There's also a French 2-disc set, which looks enticing as it also includes Chou's debut, 2016's Diamond Island, but neither blu is English-friendly at all, so that's off the table.  But Mubi's in the UK, so it's perfectly English, right down to the packaging (I don't know why, but I see some people online get really hung up on that).

2023 US Sony DVD top; 2023 UK Mubi BD bottom.

This is a new release, so it was safe to expect the same DCP to be used as a master on every release of this, as we can see is the case between Sony and Mubi.  It was also shot digitally, so there's no questions of film scanning or grain hunting.  But you can definitely see the quality jump between SD and HD.  First of all, Sony is slightly horizontally pinched to 1.83:1, while Mubi has the exactly correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  But more critically is just the jump in resolution.  Chou's imagery is full of fine detail, which gets soft and distilled on the DVD.  Furthermore, the many underlit club and night scenes get hazy, where it's harder to discern facial expressions on the Sony.  So it's really worth spending that little bit extra for a blu.

Of course, it helps that both blus have the original 5.1 audio in DTS-HD.  The DVD is obviously lossy.  Mubi also throws in a 2.0 mix, also in DTS-HD.  Both discs include optional English subtitles, parsed out into three separate versions on the Mubi: full, HoH and only for the non-English dialogue.   Sony drops the third, but throws in French and Spanish subtitles for international viewers.  So all in all, I'd say that makes the Mubi slightly preferable for English-language viewers.

Cambodia 2099

But of course where it really shines is in the extras.  All Sony has is the trailer, and a collection of bonus trailers.  Though, to be fair, the trailer is curiously absent from the UK release.  But that's hardly competitive to what Mubi's got, starting with an on-camera interview with Chou.  He speaks in English, though there are still optional English subtitles as well.  Then there's his 2014 short film, Cambodia 2099.  Presented in 1.86:1 HD with removable subs, it's not as powerful a work as Return, but it's still rather good.  Finally, there's a behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsal for Ji-min's famous dance scene.  Interestingly, here her friends are also dancing, which they do not do in the final film.  Mubi also springs for the fancier packaging, including six art cards and a slipcover.

So sure, if you just want to watch the film, the US release will do just as well.  But fans who care will definitely want to spring for the Mubi. And if you're thinking of getting any of these international releases this Import Week, I'll just throw in a gentle reminder that you might want to do so before our president locks us ever deeper into our tariffed off fortress nation.

The Latester and Greatester Night Of the Creeps

Night Of the Creeps came out right on the cusp of me getting a blu-ray player. So it's one of those last titles I bought the DVD of instead, and then quietly regretted it for years. I'd keep looking up online blu-ray prices online every so often, hoping it would suddenly go on sale for some bargain basement price... Who wants to double-dip on a DVD they just bought new for a simultaneous release with no new features or anything? But it was also annoying being stuck with the standard def version of a favorite horror film I'd grown up on since I was a kid. Well, finally, Umbrella Entertainment has come along with a brand new blu-ray edition, which isn't all that far beyond the Sony's 2009 blu-ray. But it is an improvement, the best edition yet, and that was enough for me to shake loose the old DVD.

Update 5/1/16 - 8/19/19: Another new edition??  Yes, Scream Factory has picked up Night Of the Creeps so they could release it this summer with a giant action figure or whatever.  Or you can also just buy their new 2-disc set by itself... but would you want to?  It's Update Week, so there's literally no better time to find out!

Update 4/2/25: Scream Factory circles back around to bring us Creeps in 4k.  It's a proper UHD release, with a couple new extras to boot, but they dropped something significant.

Night Of the Creeps is pure crazy, 80's fun. Slugs from outer space turn a bunch of college students into homicidal zombies. It's full of fun set pieces and shifting tones, but it never loses sight of its characters, or stepping too far into the comedy that it stops being effective as a horror film. Tom Atkins steals the show as a Mike Hammer-esque detective who's finally gone off the deep end, but the three young leads, including European Vacation's Jason Lively, are all charming and well-rounded enough to carry the heart of the picture. Round that off with a great supporting cast, including Dick Miller and David Paymer, a catchy soundtrack, clever script and the special effects work of KNB, and you've got yourself a genuinely great movie.

It's a delicate balancing act that takes some serious talent to pull off, but first time director Fred Dekker rises to the challenge. He went on to create another masterful blend of humor, heart and horror with Monster Squad, but that one's a little too kiddie for me. It's like a well made Disney film; I can appreciate how well made it is on all these different levels, and even laugh at some of the jokes; but give me something a little edgier and more adult. And in fact he already had given it in Night Of the Creeps. Unfortunately his third film, Robocop 3, was a colossal misfire and he hasn't directed since.  It's such a shame, because the world could've used a string of similar, smart and atmospheric cult films over the past two decades.

And he has started making a bit of a comeback working with Shane Black, co-writing a TV movie called Edge and the latest Predator sequel/ reboot, The Predator.  Okay, that one didn't turn out quite as many of us had hoped, but most recently he's done a short film called Dent that's fun and weird in the best way.  Somebody give this man another shot at a feature!

Night Of the Creeps took forever to come out on DVD; especially for such a beloved cult title. This was one of those titles where the laserdisc kept going for good money, because it was still the best release there was, well into the 2000s. I remember being really excited to find a bootleg of a high quality TV rip that also included the original ending, which was different than the one that had played on cable and VHS for all these years. So when the special edition DVD/ blu-ray was finally announced for 2009, with a heap of extras and the original ending restored, I was through the moon. And even more so when it turned out to be the official debut of Dekker's Director's Cut, with the original ending (and that's the only difference, by the way, between it and the regular theatrical cut). So I've got that DVD for us today. Then even better, I've got Umbrella's 2016 region B blu-ray special edition (which is also of the Director's Cut), with a little something extra over the US Sony blu.  Still not enough?  Okay, how about Scream Factory's latest 2019 2-disc BD set?  It's two discs because they include the director's cut and the theatrical cut, which includes the other ending most of us grew up on.  And finally, we've got Scream Factory's (mostly) upgraded 4k restoration on UHD.  One thing, though, Scream's done what they've been making a habit of lately, and dropping the additional cut that they'd originally included on their 4k upgrade.  So now we get the director's cut, but that's it.  No more theatrical.

Well, at least this time they picked the right cut.

1) 2009 Sony DVD; 2) 2009 Sony BD; 3) 2016 Umbrella BD;
4) 2019 Scream Factory theatrical BD; 5) 2019 Scream Factory director's BD;
6) 2025 Scream Factory BD; 7) 2025 Scream Factory UHD.

So we see that these subsequent Umbrella and Scream Factory blu-rays, at least until 2025, are essentially the same as the Sony.  Same framing (slightly matted to 1.85:1), same colors... same original master. And that's alright, because Sony made a pretty high quality release the first go around, so we weren't exactly gasping for an improvement.  Of course, they both trump the DVD, as there's naturally a compression difference. Detail is much clearer and more accurate here, with visible film grain as opposed to the digital mushiness on the DVD.  There's a bit more of a shift on Scream Factory than there was between Sony and Umbrella, but it's hard to declare one objectively better or worse than the others, and it's the kind of distinction you'll only see in zoomed-in screenshots anyway.

But in 2025, Scream Factory went back to the OCN for an all new 4k scan, and... even then it's not hugely different.  While still 1.85:1, you can see that the framing has shifted slightly in some shots.  Above, for instance, you'll notice the tops of the Ts are now visible in that "BETAS ARE BETTER" sign in the second set of shots.  And the colors have been adjusted.  In the first set of shots, you can watch that middle guy's sweatshirt turn more orange, and in general a purplish hue has been pulled to give more natural whites and greys.  That's a subtle improvement.  And the resolution is smarter.  Even just comparing the two BDs, edges are cleaner and grain goes from mushy to sharp.  And on the UHD, every speck of grain is fully accounted for, something you couldn't say for the earlier transfer, as impressive as it was for its time.  The upgrade may not be enough to make casual fans feel the spring for a new edition, but it is unquestionably an upgrade, so purists should be pleased.

There's an important distinction in the audio department, as well.  Sony's DVD, Sony's BD and Umbrellas BD, all feature a remixed 5.1 track, with the latter two in lossless DTS-HD.  Scream Factory (on their 2019 and 2025 editions) has the same track, too, but they're also the first to restore the original stereo track, in DTS-HD as well.  So that's pretty sweet.  All five sets also have optional English subtitles.

And now it's time to talk extras! Sony's release (both their DVD and blu have all the same bonus content) is pretty packed. There are two audio commentaries, one by Fred Dekker and one by the four lead actors, the latter of which is fun but pretty light on content. Every time Steve Marshall starts to an anecdote or bit of information, the rest of the cast interrupts him to keep laughing and kidding around. Then there's a great hour-long documentary, which is broken up into five sections and winds up interviewing pretty much everybody involved including Dekker, producer Charles Gordon, stars Jason Lively, Jill Whitlow, Tom Atkins & Steve Marshall, editor Michael Knue, effects artists Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman & David Miller, and composer Barry De Vorzon. Then there's a featurette just dedicated to talking with Tom Atkins about his entire filmography, film by film. Then there are several deleted scenes used in the extended television version, plus the alternate ending most of us were familiar with before the director's cut. Plus there's a subtitle trivia track and the original theatrical trailer.

A shot from Dekker's incomplete film, Baton.

All of that, right down to the trivia track, has been carried over to the Umbrella release. All it's missing are a couple of autoplay bonus trailers and an annoying commercial for blu-rays. But it has one really nice new addition. It's a 32 minute HD featurette called Creator Of the Creeps, and it's primarily a sit-down interview with Dekker. This was made more recently than the other extras, but yes, he does cover a lot of the same ground he does on his commentary and in the documentary. But he has some new stuff, too, including his script for House. And one of the best parts is that, in both his previous commentary and interview on the doc, he talks about how a lot of the ideas and a couple of the lead characters for Night came from an independent science fiction film he started shooting but never finished called Baton. He only shot about five minutes of it, he says, but we get to see some of it for the first time here in this feature. So it's a little redundant, but still a pretty great new feature, and it's exclusive to this release. Umbrella's blu also has reversible cover art, with the original art shown above and this crazy original piece [right] on the reverse. Both of Sony's covers suck, so Umbrella gets an extra point there, too.

Horror's Hallowed Ground rocks!

But then a new contender came to town.  Scream Factory has everything from the Sony release, except technically for bonus trailers and the alternate ending, because of course, they have the entire second disc with that ending attached to their theatrical cut.  Then, they've also come up with a whole bunch of new stuff.  Mostly what they've added is a series of upbeat HD on-camera interviews, with Jason Lively, Alan Kayser who played The Bradster, Ken Heron who played the 50's kid who becomes the first zombie, Vic Polizos who played the coroner, Killer Klowns' star Suzanne Snyder, who played a bit part as a sorority sister, and editor Michael Knue.  They're all tightly edited and include many people left out of the documentary, so these are very rewarding additions.  Then there's a brand new episode of Horror's Hallowed Grounds, where they revisit almost all of the film locations, with Dekker and Lively showing up to add some additional backstory.  This version also includes reversible artwork and a slipcover that finally uses the classic cover art.  Kudos to Scream for not sticking us with more cheap comic book art.  If you look at all the covers up top of this page, you can watch the artwork slowly evolve from terrible to excellent.

Oh, and of course, you could've sprung for the deluxe limited edition version with the 8" action figure, plus a (rolled, not folded) poster and second slip cover.  About the only thing it doesn't have is Umbrella's still-exclusive Creator Of the Creeps.

And in 2025, yes, Scream carries over everything from before and adds even more, though honestly, it feels like they're stretching now.  First up is an audio commentary, which is almost more of a fan commentary than an expert one, by two younger filmmakers.  They engage in a lot of casual small talk and delve into some cliche commentary sand-traps like debating physical special effects versus CGI.  A lot of the info they provide is taken directly from the preexisting special features, and they get some things wrong in the transition.  But on the plus side, they have Suzanne Snyder along with them.  As you can imagine, she can't carry a whole commentary by herself, seeing as how she only has roughly 20 seconds of screentime in this.  But she has some good memories and a good attitude, so the three of them provide an easy listening experience, even if we're not learning anything new at this point.

And while they still don't have Umbrella's Creator Of the Creeps, they've conducted their own exclusive interview with Dekker called A New Breed of Terror, which runs just about as long.  And while they've ditched the theatrical cut, they did throw in that ending as a deleted scene.  This new release comes in a slipcover, too, which is better than those old ugly covers, but as good as the classic artwork from their last slip.  You could get a second, alternate slipcover (but it's worse) if you ordered it direct from Shout, which also would've netted you two posters and yes, another 8" Detective Cameron action figure, this time decked out in his white formal-wear dance attire from the famous dream sequence.

So yeah, we can no longer complain that Night Of the Creeps isn't well represented on home video.  I didn't recommend replacing your Sony blu for the Umbrella just for their one featurette, but now in 2025, there's no question which is the definitive version, and I think we've progressed enough now that it's worth upgrading to the UHD.  Getting both cuts in 4k would've been ideal, but this is the next best thing, with the preferable cut in 4k, the alternate ending as an extra, the most features and both audio tracks.

Ken Russell's Best Tommy

The first thing you need to know about Tommy is that you don't have to give a crap about rock & roll or The Who to enjoy it. Yeah, it's a musical of their work, and if you're a big fan, obviously there'll be that extra appeal. But it's a Ken Russell movie. It's one of the craziest Ken Russell movies, which you know is really saying something if you're familiar with Ken Russell films. It's a big, bombastic visual roadshow, with a fascinating, dark undercurrent.

Update 5/9/17: I've gone back and added the original, 1999 US DVD.  Not only does it provide a nice bit of history to this post, but shows us a little something new, as it includes a fullscreen version.

Update 8/16/24: So, we looked at the US barebones DVD, the UK special edition DVD and the US blu-ray... Wouldn't it be great if there was a release that combined the best of both worlds: HD quality and all the UK extras?  Well, there is!  It's Update Week 2024 Day 3, and today I've also updated the pages for A Room With a View and Shoah with the Criterion DVDs I'd glossed over by jumping right to the Criterion blus.

Ken Russell has said he wasn't familiar with The Who or Tommy (it was a rock opera album years before it was a film) when he was approached to make the film. But not only did he like it when he listened to it, but he realized it had a lot in common with The Angels, a script about false religion he'd written to follow The Devils, but was unable to get funded. So this would be a sort of way to make that movie while still being able to be more faithful to the story of all the album than most previous attempts to turn it into a screenplay had been by other writers. So things just sort of dovetailed nicely into an adaptation that could deeply satisfy The Who and their fans, while still being unquestionably a Ken Russell film. After all, breaking boundaries between music and film was more than half of this guy's career.

So we meet Tommy as a young boy. His father, Robert Powell, goes off to war (originally WWI, but updated to WWII in the film), and his mother Ann-Margaret has an affair with Russell regular Oliver Reed. When Powell returns home, they kill him in front of the boy and he goes blind, def and dumb. Cut to a decade later and of course the boy grows up to be Roger Daltry.  He's abused and neglected, drugged and taken advantage of all his life - even psychiatrist Jack Nicholson can't help him - until it turns out he has an inexplicable gift for breaking records at pinball. He becomes a celebrity and even a sort of youth culture messiah, but obviously that can't work out for long.

Giving Russell a massive rock star budget lets him return with unparalleled spectacle. And I'm not a rock and roll guy, but even I have to admit the music's pretty good. I mean, when Tina Turner sings "The Acid Queen?" Come on! But beyond all that, the performances, even though they're all sung and often highly exaggerated, are quite good (Ann-Margaret was nominated for an Academy Award for this, after all) and the story is genuinely involving. This movie is super 70s, and got a lot of mileage out of simply being an epic music video before music videos existed. Nothing like it would fly today. But at the same time, if you love cinema, it holds up completely and shouldn't be missed.

So Tommy first hit DVD in 1999, and even Superbit DVD in 2002, both via Columbia Tri-Star. But those were disappointingly absent any features, and the one to own became the British Prism Leisure import from 2004, because it was a brilliant 2-disc special edition. And then the next noteworthy release was in 2010, when Sony brought it up to HD on blu-ray.  But it was barebones again. Grrr.  Fortunately, UK label Odeon came out with their own blu-ray, which included the Prism Leisure extras, now properly coupled with an HD transfer.

1999 Columbia widescreen DVD first; 1999 Columbia fullscreen DVD second;
2004 Prism Leisure DVD third; 2010 Sony BD fourth; 2013 Odeon BD fifth.

Well, say what you will, Sony really gave us a nice image with their blu. The UK DVD looked pretty good: anamorphic, un-interlaced, strong colors, 1.85 framing. It was a good DVD. Though surprisingly, the older US DVD, despite being from the 90s, actually looks a bit better, with cleaner lines and more precise colors.  But Sony does more than just present the same transfer on a less compressed blu-ray disc. The image is much sharper and cleaner, with more natural colors and clearer detail. The framing is slightly different, still 1.85:1, but the blu is pointed a little lower, with a bit more picture on the bottom, while the DVDs have a bit more on the top. I can't say one is really better than the other in that regard, but they're different so I'm pointing it out.  Oh, and of course the fullscreen DVD has a lot more on the tops and bottoms.  It's almost entirely open matte, just losing a little on the sides.  But of course 1.85:1 is the proper composition.

As for the Odeon blu, it's virtually identical to Sony's.  They're clearly using the same master.  Zooming in way close, though, the grain is a smidgen softer in places, which I'd put down to compression.  You'll never see the difference in motion, but technically Sony comes out a tiny step ahead.

Both DVDs have a Dolby stereo track and a 5.1 mix. Audio is especially important in a musical, after all. And Sony appreciated this as well, giving us DTS-HD master tracks for the 5.1 mix, and a 5.0 Quintophonic Sounds mix. "Quintophonic Sounds" was a special 4-way stereo mix designed for this film.  Anyway, Odeon has both tracks in DTS-HD, too, and each release also includes optional English subtitles.

But yeah, for whatever reason, Sony didn't carry over any of Prism's extras. They don't even have the trailer, just a couple of random bonus trailers.

Well, the UK discs do have the trailer, but that's nothing. They start out with a Ken Russell commentary. He always did great commentaries, and he delivers a great conversation here alongside moderator and famous British film critic Mark Kermode. This alone is a treasure, and it's crazy to think it never made it to the US, but anyway. Russell also has a nice on-camera interview. Ann-Margaret, Roger Daltry and composer Pete Townshend also give fun on-camera interviews, and they're some pretty big gets! Finally, there's The Story Of the Sound, which is a terrific twenty-minute feature on the Tommy's Quintaphonic sound, including interviews with the film's dubbing mixer Ray Merrin, music editor Terry Rawlings and Robin O'Donoghue, head of sound at Shepperton Studios. Well, technically there's one more extra on the DVDs: a 20-minute "Press Promo,' which is a sort of an advertisement featurette, combining clips from the film and the interviews already on this disc. There's no new content, so it's just as well Odeon didn't bother with it.

Instead, they have an extra, albeit brief, television interview with Russell that even Prism Leisure doesn't include and is easily preferable. The 2-DVD set does also come in a nice slip-sleeve and includes an exclusive 12-page booklet with vintage posters, cards, notes by Matt Kent and an essay by Pete Townshend, though.  But I'll always take proper video content over swag.

Odeon's exclusive interview.

So for years, most serious fans had both the UK set and the US blu - one for the extras and the latter for the superior presentation of the film. That's still a winning combo today. But if you don't already have both and are deciding what to pick up today, the Odeon's the clear way to go.  At least until UHDs start coming out, which feels somewhat likely.  But if just Sony does it in the US, they still probably won't have the extras, so the Odeon feels like a fairly safe investment.