Import Week, Day 4: Back To Spain for The Sea Inside

You may recall, about two years ago, I got interested in sussing out all those Spanish blu-rays... which were grey market, which were BDRs or upconverts?  Well, there's still a lot of really enticing exclusives down there, so for the next two Days of Import Week, I thought I'd swing back around there, this time for The Sea Inside, an impressive Academy Award winning film (it won Best Foreign Film and was also nominated for Best Makeup) that still remains DVD-only here in the states.

The Sea Inside is the fourth film by Alejandro Amenabar, the at least once highly acclaimed writer and director of indie cinema darlings Thesis, Open Your Eyes and The Others.  I'll be honest, admired a lot of the style and originality he brought to his work, but I also found the writing to be a little shaky.  Fortunately, The Sea Inside is based on the true story, and writings, of Ramon Sampedro (played by Javier Bardem).  So while Amenabar still wrote the screenplay, and quite well, there was a lot already established, making this a safer venture than an original work.

Sampedro, if you're not familiar, became a quadriplegic early in life, and spent decades fighting with the Spanish government for his right to die.  We see a little bit of his early life and how he fell into his situation through flashbacks, but by and large this film just examines the end of his life for him and his loved ones, particularly the ethical and moral issues his struggle raises.  It's definitely kind of a tear jerker (no scientist rushes in during the third act with a miracle cure), being both a very humanistic, empathetic experience, and also at times a rather cold, logically argued one.  Highly emotional but unsentimental.

The Sea Inside came out as a new release special edition DVD from New Line in 2005.  It was reissued by Warner Bros for their Archives collection in 2017, where they really missed their shot to put this out on BD.  Fortunately, the same mistake wasn't made overseas.  There are Japanese and German blus, but since this isn't an English-language film, there's no original English language audio track for them to preserve.  And naturally they just subtitled it into their own languages.  Only the 2015 20th Century Fox blu from Spain bothers to include English subtitles (sold separately, or as part of their 5-film Alejandro Amenabar boxed set).  Fortunately, it's a legit, properly pressed disc.

2005 US New Line DVD top; 2015 Fox BD bottom.

The color timing and everything looks the same, so we're probably looking at the same master, although you will notice the aspect ratio has changed.  We've gone from 2.40:1 to 2.35:1, which basically is just the BD slightly lifting the mattes to reveal a bit more along the top and bottom.  I do believe 2.40 is actually the correct AR, but the difference between 2.35 and 2.40 is even less than the common 1.85 to 1.78 switcharoo the major studios like to pull, so it's fine.  It's just a sliver extra picture.  The mids are also a shade brighter now on the blu.  The important thing is this is a 100% legit jump to HD, with the much sharper, clearer image picture one expects when jump to blu-ray.

New Line's DVD has the original Spanish audio in both 2.0 and 5.1, with both English and Spanish subtitles.  The BD has exactly the same options, except both audio tracks are in lossless LPCM.

One great thing about the DVD is how full it is of terrific extras.  It starts us off with a first rate audio commentary by Amenabar (in Spanish, but subtitled into English), but that's not even the highlight.  The crown jewel is the feature length 'making of' documentary that details every stage of production, from at home with the director and producer pre-production, on location and in the studio, to composing and editing in post.  There are also a handful of deleted scenes, several galleries of storyboards, photos, etc, and the theatrical trailer (and a couple bonus trailers).

The blu-ray has all of the same extras as the DVD, but unfortunately, none of their English subtitles.  The movie is English-friendly, but the special features aren't.  Language doesn't enter into it for the storyboards or stills galleries, but for everything else, you still need to hang onto your DVD copy if you want them translated.

So it's another one of those "build your own special edition" situations where you have to get the BD for the ideal movie presentation and the DVD for the extras.  Warners really blew it making their Archives release DVD-only.  But it's a relief to know that the opportunity to build such an edition exists, because yes, the blu-ray is all good.  You just have to import.

Import Week, Day 3: Let's Get Dark. An American Crime

Here's a film you have to import pretty much just because it's too dark.  Sites like Wikipedia even categorize this as a horror movie, though to that I would say no.  It's actually bleaker and more disturbing than that.  As its title suggests, 2007's An American Crime tells the all too-real of a tragic true crime case, specifically the torture and murder of a teenage girl by a single mother and her children in the 1960s, small town America.  It's a truly disturbing, morbid case, quite well told, which seems to have put US distributors off, unfortunately.

Elliot Page was a rising star at the time of this release, and James Franco has a smaller, supporting role, as did Bradley Whitford.  But really, this is Catherine Keener's film.  At this point, I think she's pretty widely recognized as a great actress, despite decades of mostly being relegated to "the wife" roles or romantic comedies.  She surely made an impression on audiences in Get Out.  But wow, this is a tour de force.  That, coupled with this film's unflinching honesty (and, to a lesser degree, its skill at capturing the period) really packs a powerful wallop.  One many audiences might reasonably choose to avoid.  But if you like your art challenging...

That said, it's uncompromising nature wasn't the only thing that gave An American Crime a hard time during its release.  Another movie based on the same murder happened to come out the same year.  The Girl Next Door is an adaptation of Jack Ketchum's novel of the same name, that basically takes the same incident and runs it through his detective fictionalization filter.  Ketchum isn't exactly known for softening up his subject matter, but I've seen both movies, and there's no comparison.  It's got so much artifice Crime thankfully lacks (although, to be fair, Crime takes one weird little liberty, too, in the last act), taking as its source just the genuine court transcripts.  But being the better movie doesn't help much when you're the second film on the same subject to hit the market.  Just ask The Last Days of Disco that had to follow all the hype of 54.  Crime wound up losing its theatrical release and debuting on Showtime.  It did win some awards, but it's still less than this film deserved.

So An American Crime was released as a barebones new release DVD by First Look Studios in 2008 and... that's been the whole story in the US.  But fortunately, there are HD options overseas, including from Norway, Sweden and, most obtainably, Germany on Capelight's 2009 BD release.

2008 US First Look DVD top; 2009 DE Capelight BD bottom.

So, as a then new release, it's naturally the same master being used.  But there are some very welcome improvements from Capelight.  Starting off as I usually do with the aspect ratio, I'll point out that First Look's 2.32:1 has been corrected to 2.35.  This doesn't actually reveal anymore along the sides, but corrects a tiny vertical stretching.  Much more importantly, the US DVD is interlaced, which is pretty shocking for a modern theatrical release disc as recent as 2008.  Thankfully, Capelight resolves that, and also gives us a generally sharper, HD image free of the soft smudginess of standard def.  It's a distinct upgrade.

And unlike Import Week Day 2, Capelight's English audio is properly lossless in DTS-HD.  Both discs have the original 5.1, with Capelight also adding a 5.1 DTS-HD German dub.  First Look's sole advantage is optional English subtitles, while Capelight naturally just has German.  First Look also has a 2.0 mix-down and optional Spanish subtitles.

Unfortunately, all options are essentially barebones.  First Look just has the trailer and a bunch of bonus trailers.  Capelight also has the trailer, in English and German, and its own collection of bonus trailers.  It also includes reversible artwork to hide that giant, ugly ratings logo.  But that's it.  Still, simply in terms of presenting the film itself, it's pretty flawless, which is a lot more than you can say for the American DVD.

Import Week, Day 2: Igby Goes Down

I get it.  If you're not one of the small circle who've seen 2002's Igby Goes Down, you probably have zero interest in it.  Rory Culkin might've grown up to prove himself as an actor in cool shit like Lords of Chaos.  But as a kid, we was just one of the "other" Culkins starring in what looks like a preening coming of age story.  I wouldn't want to watch it either.  But it's actually surprisingly good and I need it in my collection.  And for that, one has to import.

The only real hint we're given that there's more to this film is the supporting cast: Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Ryan Phillipe, Jared Harris, Claire Danes, Eric Bogosian, Cynthia Nixon, Jim Gaffigan and Amanda Peet, who actually can be good when she's cast in the right project (see: Please Give).  Any two or three of them could be slumming in god knows what trash production of the week, but finding them all grouped together suggestions something note-worthy's going on.  For one thing, it's a lot darker and cynically honest than whatever lame family film the poster suggests.  To give you a taste, it starts off with a man having a mental breakdown in front of his family, followed by two boys murdering their mother with a plastic bag.  This isn't another Home For the Holidays or Bend It Like Beckham sans soccer; there's a real Bret Easton Ellis twist to these proceedings.

Indeed, watching this, it feels very much like it's based on smart, contemporary novel that's just off your radar.  But no, it's actually a wholly original project written and directed by the actor who played Van the door man in The Last Days of Disco, Burr Steers.  He's gone on to a bunch of studio misfires I wouldn't recommend (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and some tepid Zac Effron star vehicles).  This was clearly his one, big passion project.  And now he's making a living as a gun for hire.  Good for him.  We'll always love Van.  But I can't help hoping he's still hiding another Igby inside him.

MGM released Igby on DVD as a new release in 2003.  It was a nice little special edition, but unfortunately the blu-ray update in the HD era never followed.  Except in Germany.  There, in 2020, Just Bridge released it as a fancy DVD/ BD mediabook combo-pack.  To this date, the usual standard edition BD in an amary pack has not followed, but that's okay.  We like mediabooks.  🙂

1) 2003 MGM DVD; 2) 2020 Just Bridge DVD; 3) 2020 Just Bridge BD.

So it looks like the same master at play here.  Even the two DVDs aren't strictly 100% identical, however, offering very slight improvements even before the jump to HD.  MGM's DVD is 2.30:1, which Just Bridge corrects to 2.35:1, which basically just fixes a little pinch.  Technically, it reveals a vertical sliver of info and takes away a horizontal one, but both are an arbitrary difference of a few pixels.  The newer DVD is also a shade darker in the highlights, which to me is more natural looking, but definitely a personal judgement call, and again nothing you'd notice without flicking back and forth between screenshots.  But then the BD is a nice little boost to high def.  The image is distinctly sharper with cleaner edges and natural, if light film grain in place of smudgy compression.  It's also another shade darker, even than the second DVD.

MGM and Just Bridge both give us the original 5.1 English mix, which is - wah, wah - lossy on all three discs.  Just Bridge's stupid German dub is lossless DTS-HD, though, if you care about that.  Anyway, MGM also offers French and Spanish dubs, plus optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, while Just Bridge, predictably, only offers optional German subs.

It's disappointing that Igby is DVD-only here in the states, but what isn't disappointing is the amount of extras they gave this neat, little film.  Steers give an active, informative audio commentary with Culkin in tow to lighten the mood and add a little more personal insight.  There's also a decent 17-minute 'making of' featurette that looks behind the scenes and a collection of deleted scenes, also with optional commentary.  And there's the trailer, a photo gallery and a couple bonus trailers.

Just Bridge's release includes all of the extras from the DVD except the audio commentary on the deleted scenes and the bonus trailers.  They made German subtitles for the audio commentary, and I guess they didn't feel it was worth it for the deleted scenes, so that's a little bit of a bummer.  As a mediabook, JB's set also includes a glossy, 20-page booklet, but of course the text is all in German.

So it's not perfect (lossy English audio, lost commentary for the deleted scenes), but it's a nice way to finally get this film in HD and with most of the bonus features.  Plus mediabooks are always kinda inherently cool.  It's a shame this didn't get a proper blu in the US, but if it hasn't gotten one by now, I'd say importing is probably the best shot we'll ever get, albeit holding out that slim hope that Kino will pick it up some day...

Import Week, Day 1: Vatel

Our planet may be incinerating in an unprecedented climate crisis while we suffer through war, economic crisis and burgeoning new diseases, but if you're here to read this, congratulations, you've lived to Import Week.  Import Week is a rather self-explanatory stretch of roughly six (still to be decided) posts where we look at blu-ray releases of films that are only available overseas.  I know the internet is worldwide, so apologies for writing from an exclusively American perspective, but hopefully all our foreign readers can take this "week" to cherish the moments where we here in the United States didn't get all the luck, because these essential releases are all only available overseas,

And as you're about to see, you'd be hard pressed to find a more necessary import that 2000's Vatel.  I mean, just to rattle off its credentials, Vatel is a gorgeous, Academy Award-nominated period drama by Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields and the original Oppenheimer film, Fat Man and Little Boy), written by the ingenious playwright Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz & Guidenstern Are Dead, Brazil).
Gérard Depardieu plays the titular, real-life 17th century French chef who served under Louis XIV (played expertly here by the late Julian Sands), famous for putting on the most outlandishly extravagant festivities.  But operating beneath the wild spectacle are torrid love affairs, diplomatic intrigue, betrayals and one of history's most famous suicides.  The costumes and production design are show stoppers, beautifully photographed, but it's a witty yet dark drama underneath.  The supporting cast includes first rate performances by Tim Roth, Uma Thurman, Timothy Spall and Julian Glover.  It's surprising this film isn't better known and appreciated in the US, but we can kind of thank two infamous film villains for that.

R.I.P., your majesty.

Because before we go any further, it is essential we talk about the alternate cuts.  By which I mean, the proper complete cut and the absolutely to-be-avoided hacked up version.  Unfortunately, the latter is the only one available here in the US.  As they were wont to do, Vatel's American distributor Miramax crassly cut the film for the US market (thank you, Weinsteins) by about fifteen minutes, so only the original European version is complete.  It has more scenes of the preparation, the lavish spectacle itself, a nude scene and a whole subplot with Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, now of Emily In Paris fame.  You can spot if you're watching the US version right away - it adds a voice-over scene of Spall writing an expositional letter between Roth's introduction and the opening credits.  Curiously, you won't find much info online about the US release being abridged, but yeah, it's a problem.  So that's already a pretty definitive argument for importing this title.  But it's not the only one.

Vatel first came out from Columbia Tri-Star as a new release DVD in France in 2000.  That was quickly followed up in the US by Miramax in 2001, but it didn't have quite as many features (more on that below).  And more importantly, of course, it's the cut version.  It's also, apart from an identical Lions Gate reissue, still the only release Vatel's ever gotten in America.  Eventually, in 2015, we got it on blu, but only in France from Gaumont.  Luckily, it's the complete uncut version; and yes I checked, it's region free.

1) 2000 Columbia Tri-Star DVD; 2) 2001 Miramax DVD; 3) 2015 Gaumont BD.
(This shot is missing from the US cut.)

The good news is that all three discs are anamorphic, in at least close to the correct aspect ratio, and properly progressive.  Geometrically, the French DVD is closer to the proper AR than the US: 2.37:1 compared to 2.28:1.  But you can see the French disc zooms in tighter, cropping more of the image, especially along the top.  The BD widens the frame back out to 2.35:1, while actually pulling out to reveal more of the image than either prior DVD.  It also kind of splits the difference between the two DVDs color timings: the US is warmer, the French is cooler, and the BD is the most natural of all, and considerably brighter (though not overly so; the night scenes are still full of solid blacks).  It's also a substantial boost in clarity, bringing fine detail into focus, though it still feels like an old master, with film grain ranging from soft to absent.

The Columbia DVD gives us both the proper English track and a French dub, both in 5.1, with optional English and French subtitles.  The US DVD just, naturally, shaves off the French options, giving us the English 5.1 with optional English subtitles.  And the blu-ray gives us the best possible collection of options, including both the English and French audio, restored in their original stereo tracks, now in DTS-HD, plus the 5.1 mixes also now in DTS-HD.  And they give us both English and French subtitles - everything you could want.

First off, the French release offers us an untranslated audio commentary by the production designer and costumer.  Sounds neat, but unless you're fluent, you can factor that out of your equation.  It also has a half-hour 'making of' doc, which is more of a mixed bag.  It's kind of a promotional piece, but at that length manages to get pretty deep, interviewing not just the stars but a lot of the key cast members and giving you more than your standard soundbites.  But the problem is, the English people speak English (including Joffé and most of the stars), and the French people speak French (including most of the crew), sans subtitles.  So there's a lot of good stuff and I'm glad we get it, but you have to sit through some frustratingly untranslated moments.  Anyway, there's also a brief look at the scoring of the film, and the trailer.

The US DVD doesn't have any of that, not even the trailer.  But it does have it's only, very brief (3.5 minutes) featurette, which is clearly using the same EPK interview and B-roll footage as the French doc.  But it includes multiple clips not used in on the French disc, so it does retain some value even if you have the French disc.  At three and a half minutes, though, that's some pretty thin gruel.

Finally, the blu-ray maintains all of the same extras as the French DVD, with no additions, subtractions or additional translations, though they did update the trailer to anamorphic.

So it's a shame about the untranslated extras, but it's still an absolute must-import.  Even the only partially-English friendly extras are better than the paltry US DVD.  More importantly, it's the only HD option, with a substantially improved transfer that's a lot more than just the same master on a bigger disc.  It also restores the original stereo track and overall has easily the most and best language/ audio options.  And, oh yeah, you have to import to see the complete, uncut version of the film.  You can't ask for more of a compelling mandate than that.

Three Handfuls of Dust

Here's one I've been obsessing over for a while: Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust from 1988, based of course on the 1934 novel of the same name.  I've always had just the crappy, old barebones and fullframe DVD of this film, until relatively recently, when I decided to investigate to see if there was anything better out there that might better live up to this highly underrated (I mean, it was nominated for an Oscar and a couple BAFTAs in its day) dark dramedy.  And... there kind of is.  I'm at least happy to say I've come up with something to show for my quest, even if it still isn't remotely satisfactory.

A Handful of Dust stars Kristin Scott Thomas and James Wilby as an extremely British, aristocratic couple whose marriage is just a little short on romance.  If you're worried this is going to be some stuffy, English screed that plays like a homework assignment, though, you don't know your Waugh.   It's another of his grand, globe-trotting plots full of colorful characters and more of his usual satiric edge than you would've found in more famous but atypical Brideshead Revisited.  It's directed/ adapted by Charles Sturridge and Derek Granger, who did the original Brideshead series, so you know they're capable of tackling the subject matter.  And if Scott and Wilby appear a little milquetoast, how about this supporting cast?  Rupert Graves, Anjelica Huston, Judi Dench (who won a BAFTA for this), Alec Guinness and a small part perfect role for Stephen Fry.  This is one of those stories where you might think you know where it's all headed, but I guarantee you do not.

I've always loved this movie and wish more people appreciated it, but one of the things holding it back in that regard is probably its life on home video.  Dust was first released on DVD by HBO Video here in the USA in 2004, which self describes it self as "14:9 letterboxed inside a 4:3 frame.  That was quickly followed by a UK release from Prism Leisure in 2005, that also identifies as "14x9 non-anamorphic."  Back in the US, it was reissued by Acorn Media, included in a 2010 boxed set called The Evelyn Waugh Collection.  The case for that one just says it's "4:3 letterboxed."  That sounds like all the same stats re-phrased, but these discs are not in fact all the same, and actually the distinctions get pretty significant.  So let's dive in.

1) 2004 US HBO DVD; 2) 2005 UK Prism DVD; 3) 2010 US Acorn DVD.

So the first thing you'll likely notice is that the UK disc is wider than the others.  Well, no, actually, the first thing is probably that they're all non-anamorphic, which is a real bummer, since I left the negative space around the first set of shots.  But we knew that from reading the back of their cases, as I wrote above.  And they're all kinda 14x9 like they claim.  The US discs are both 1.52:1, or 14x9.24, and the UK disc is 1.66:1, or 14x8.44.  The US discs aren't exactly identical, but in terms of framing, it's the difference of a handful (see what I did there?) of pixels.  But the UK disc is definitely matting the bottom of the frame a lot tighter.  Whether that's a good thing is a little more complicated.  Doing a little online research confirms that this film should be 1.85:1, and the UK's 1.66 is closer to that than the US's 1.52, purely by the numbers.  But, eh, let's put a pin in that.

Other differences include the US discs being interlaced, though the UK is not, which is a big mark in its favor.  And, just for the record, I'll also point out that the interlacing between the two US discs is slightly different, not that it will matter much to anyone, but you can really see it in the second set of shots.  I was also surprised by the lack of NTSC/ PAL time difference between the US and UK discs.  They all play at the same speed, which leads me to guess that the US discs are interlaced because they're PAL-sourced on NTSC discs.  Anyway, something funny is going on there.  The US discs also have warmer color timing, which I think I prefer and does appear to be more accurate judging by Shout's HD source.  Yes, let's find that pin now.

4) 2023 ShoutTV streaming.

In an incredibly frustrating turn of events, A Handful of Dust is available to stream in 1080, despite us only having non-anamorphic SD versions on disc.  A grabbed a screenshot from ShoutTV, since it's free, and ahhh... why can't they give us this on blu?  It's 1.78:1, showing even more on the bottom of the frame (suggesting the US's framing was at least slightly more accurate in leaving that on-screen) and considerably more on the sides.  It's certainly not interlaced, and just looks considerably higher quality.  And bear in mind, this is just a screenshot I took of the stream in motion; not even the downloaded file.  So it would probably look even crisper on disc.  I don't usually bother comparing screenshots from streaming services, because it's not relevant to the physical media in discussion here at DVDExotica, but I've done it here to show what we're being denied (and to better judge the US/ UK framing).  How annoying.

Anyway, getting back to the discs.  The HBO DVD has mono audio in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles (IN ALL CAPS).  The Prism DVD has both the original Dolby stereo track and a 5.1 remix, but no subs.  Acorn just has the stereo track and brings back the subtitles (now in proper sentence case).

Before you pick a favorite, though, there's another big difference between the discs.  The HBO DVD is completely barebones, and the Acorn DVD isn't really any better with just a couple ads for other Acorn releases.  Well, that is unless you count the fact that The Evelyn Waugh Collection also includes a whole second film on a second disc.  It's 1987's excellent made-for-British-television (A Handful of Dust, to be clear, was a proper theatrical release) Scoop, based on the 1938 novel, with Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus himself Herbert Lom and Donald Pleasence.  For the record, that disc is properly 4:3 but also interlaced.  The collection consists of two amary cases in a nice slipbox.

Prism's trailer.

But, in terms of proper extras, only the UK disc has our backs with a proper audio commentary by Sturridge, who has a lot to say and isn't exactly dishing dirt, but he's not afraid to be forthcoming either.  It's a good one.  At one point he expresses supreme confidence at being able to make audiences like an on-the-surface unlikable character, which he certainly pulled off for me here; but when you read criticisms of this film, that's usually where people get stuck.  Anyway, Prism also has some bonus trailers and a properly anamorphic theatrical trailer for the film itself, perhaps just to rub it in our faces.  Sure, Shout's still looks better, but why couldn't the rest of Prism's disc at least look like this?

So, at the end of the day, I'd give the slight edge to the Acorn DVD in terms of just the picture, and getting the Collection is a nice bonus if you don't already have Scoop.  Although if you have the HBO disc, it's hardly worth replacing it.  And you might very well consider opting for the UK disc instead because of the progressive transfer and commentary.  Or even buying that in addition to a US disc, since the good news about these DVDs is that they can all be had very cheap nowadays.  But man oh man, if Shout Factory is sitting on the home video rights to this film along with that HD transfer, I'm pleading with them to release A Handful of Dust on blu.  Preferably with the commentary.