Movies, Movies, Movies!

What is DVD, you ask? Well, it's quite simply the best way of watching a movie in your own home. Although I am an anorak, I'm a film fan first and foremost, so I shan't bore you with the technical details about MPEG-2 video compression, Dolby Digital Surround Sound, anamorphic prints, etc. Check out the DVD faq for all that stuff. For the latest (UK oriented) news, visit The DVD Debate, which always seems to have the latest on releases and problems.

What I love most about DVD:

• The picture is Widescreen, as God intended.
• The digital sound gives a large dynamic range with no background hiss; the louds are very loud, and the quiets are very quiet.
• The extras, especially the Director's Commentary.
• Er... that's about it.

All DVDs are regionally encoded, where American discs are known as Region 1, and European as Region 2. Needless to say, the US version of almost everything is superior, so if you're going to get a player, make sure it's been chipped to accept both types, or has a handy remote hack.
One final caveat: US discs are recorded in NTSC format, not PAL, so you must make sure either your telly can playback NTSC pictures, or your DVD player can translate NTSC signals into PAL or PAL 60. This isn't a big gotcha, but best to check before buying.

My machine is a Samsung 909 with a modification from Futuretronic, which has so far worked perfectly. Currently about 80% of my discs are American imports, usually from Play 247 as I've been hit for import duties on the last couple of purchases from Amazon.com. Play absorb these taxes themselves. Whilst I love Amazon.co.uk for books I don't recommend them for UK discs, as they tend to be rather pricey.

My top DVDs, in no particular order, are:

Annie Hall

Quite simply, my favourite Woody Allen film. There is no other film-maker whose work I so consistently admire -- I love his serious Bergmanesque stuff (Another Woman, Interiors), his slapstick comedy (Love and Death, Bananas), and his sophisticated rom-com (Manhattan, Husbands and Wives). But if I had to pick one though, 5 days out of 7 I would choose this. It has the most perfect pacing and tone for a comedy; at no point does it lag or become too solemn, and you're left with just the sheer enjoyment of it all. It helps that Allen is still young enough here to be convincing with beautiful women (Julia Roberts in Everyone Says I Love You? I don't think so!), and Diane Keaton is not so much the foil as the comedy side-kick. One of the many subtle touches it has is beginning and ending with a simple stand-up joke, which adds a sense of symmetry.

Wild Strawberries

I'm not much of a fan of pretentious cinema -- I don't like David Lynch, and I don't accord a movie magical powers just because it has subtitles. I'm not even that great a Bergman fan; he can wallow in deathly silence at times but this is simply beautiful.

Films have to be given time to make their mark; not every movie can be (or should be) a 2 hour adrenaline rush, and sometimes they need some space to make their mark. This is one reason why I become a tv Nazi when I put a good film on; I've seen how often patience brings its own reward.

Fight Club

Guess I'm breaking the first and second rules right here, but there's so much to say it's difficult to know where to start. For me, Fight Club was an exploration of nihilism, a look at how liberating it is to abandon all values and beliefs, including reason. The film is specifically a young man's vision, and when I've tried explaining this to older critics it seems to get lost in the translation. Having others beat the crap out of you isn't an attractive proposition when you're 40 years old and married with two kids, but when you're twentyone without any responsibilities or goals, it has its own meaning.
Partly due to the ambiguous nature of the movie, people often take vastly different messages from Fincher's flick, but personally the line that I keep repeating is "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake." We seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time convincing ourselves that we're special, but it's amazing how liberated you feel once you realize you're nothing. I very much doubt I'd be studying kung fu if I hadn't seen this; when you recognize you're just another piece of decaying organic matter that's dying one second at a time, you don't feel constrained by what other people think of you, or indeed by what you think of you.
Remember to buy the US version for three extra audio commentaries.

Dazed and Confused

When asked what my favourite film is, this is the one I select most frequently. At this point I should come out of the closet and state quite categorically that teen movies are my kind of films, and I'm quite prepared to sit through any old crap containing kids struggling with their identities, rebelling, learning to drive, etc, etc. But this stands out even if you don't like teenagers.
Director Linklater's films typically follow a looser narrative structure, but this is well plotted from beginning to end. All the action takes place in near real time, set on the last day of school in the Summer of 1976. The film focuses on two groups: the incoming High School freshmen, and the older seniors. From then on the story progresses into just the right level of incredible adventures without ever seeming far-fetched, and the whole movie is laced with an outstanding 70's soundtrack.
Everyone I've shown this picture to has loved it, or at least told me so in an effort to shut me up. The cast list is also quite impressive, with some familiar faces in early roles: Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams & Milla Jovovich all feature, although the outstanding performance award belongs to Rory Cochrane as the school stoner.
The disk itself is nothing special -- just two screens of production notes. But then, what more do you need? This is everything a movie should be: a good story well told.

LA Confidential

Undoubtedly one of the best mainstream movies of recent years, the fact that THAT BOAT FILM won Best Picture instead of this still rankles. (Is that a word? Well, it pisses me off, let's leave it at that.) One of things I really look for now is unconventional protagonists, which itself is becoming something of a cliche. All three central characters are completely unlikable at the start, and as Robert McKee in Story advises, films are all about people who change.
When I'm demonstrating the benefits of DVD to the unconverted, Ed Exley's interrogation scene is first on the list -- a classic cinema moment with beautiful photography.
If the disc contained just the film, it would still be an essential purchase. However, this little beauty comes loaded to the brim with making-of documentaries, location reports and cast details. Steal from your Grandma to get this.