Recently a member in my extended family narrowly escaped the clutches of succumbing to breast cancer. It took us all by surprise and really raised our awareness of things we can do to help fight it.

     So lo and behold in my inbox today is an email from “DVDs for the Cure” administrators asking if I wanted to help out. All I have to do is post some info on the MoviePatron blog about this great program. Becasue of recent family events and the fact that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, of course I said yes.

Here’s how it works:

FOX and MGM have joined up with
Susan G. Komen for the Cure on a multi-title DVDs For The Cure promotion. Fox and MGM Home Entertainment will donate 50 cents from each DVD sold to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, with a guaranteed minimum contribution of $250,000. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is one of the leading research organizations in the fight against breast cancer.

As part of the promotion the following titles will be reissued in a special pink packaging, and proceeds from the sale of each DVD will go toward this worthy cause.

An Affair to Remember
A Walk in the Clouds
Entrapment
Ever After
In Her Shoes
Legally Blonde
Mermaids
Moulin Rouge
Never Been Kissed
Say Anything
Thelma & Louise
There’s Something About Mary

     This is sort of old news, but the specially packaged DVDs should be more visible and accessible throughout October. It doesn’t take much to help support a good cause. You’re gonna buy a DVD this month anyway, might as well be one of theese. I can’t say I’m too thrilled with the color pink, but I guess it’s a color lacking from my DVD shelf. And anyway, I should’ve bought a couple of these titles long ago anyway.

     Stumbled across this little clip today and thought it worth posting for several reasons…

1) Naked chicks getting it on.
2) I like Robert Forster
3) The last 5 seconds of the clip intrigues me and gets me to want to see what happens next (much like the hockey puck scene in the surprisingly decent Paul Walker film, “Running Scared.”
4) Kevin Wheatley is in the movie and I got to meet him last year at Toronto After Dark. He’s a super cool guy who wrote, directed and starred in a potentially great movie that unfortunately fell a little flat, Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell (MP review)

     Anyway, here’s the clip. Rise (aka Rise: Blood Hunter) will be released on DVD October 9th.

     Now, I am FAR from being a Harry Potter fan. None of the films have done anything for me (although I haven’t seen the Cuarron one yet, and I’ve heard good things) and certainly wasn’t about to waste money on the last or the next one.

     However, I do like neat-o DVD sets like the upcoming Blade Runner super special edition. And although I won’t be purchasing this Harry Potter extravaganzza, I’m sure Potter fans are about shiting hemselves with excitement. And I have to admit, it does look pretty cool…

click for larger image

     Set includes Harry Potters Years 1-5, a Harry Potter DVD game Hogwarts Challenge, along with a bonus disc containing over 2 hours of enhanced content, an exclusive “Harry Potter’s Bookmark Collection”, and collectible trading cards. Retail is $119.97 SRP.

     Probably my favorite mini-series of all time was “V”. For all you kids out there, a mini-series was a multi-evening movie that was usually a pretty special thing back when we only had 4 or 5 channels to choose from.

     Anyway, “V” was a 4 or 5 night event in which aliens show up over planet earth and look remarkably like us. They promise us technology and medicine and a better way of life. But we soon find out that they’re really carnivorous reptilians and their real goal is to enslave humans and steal all of the water from our planet. A small band of resistance fighters catch on to the aliens’ plan and decide to strike back. Marc Singer (i.e. The Beastmaster) leads the pack. Along with Robert Englund, Faye Grant and the full awesomeness of Michael Ironside. It’s very similar to 1996 Independence Day (ID4)… or more accurately ID4 is similar to V. Since “V” was so awesome and was such a phenomenon, this is maybe partly why I like ID4 so much.

     After the mini-series finale, there was a short lived TV series based on the same idea that totally reaked ass. The show was cancelled and the phenom died off. Over the years though, ideas and propositions for TV and films have bubbled up here and there, then die off just as quickly as they were conceived.

     So now, almost 25 years later, Vic over at ScreenRant is reporting that a book is due to hit shelves in a couple of months entitled “V:The Second Generation” and is based off the ideas and scripts that sprang up from the aforementioned spin-off.

from ScreenRant:

The most interesting part? It remains listed as “currently being developed for TV” and, after contacting Kenneth Johnson, it appears there’s some truth in this. When asked whether a big-screen production or perhaps a straight-to-DVD release may be on the cards, Johnson confirmed “all options are open and we are pursuing them” but that straight-to-DVD is “unlikely” due to “the high production cost”.

     Now first off, I am all about this. I’ve been waiting for V to return for many years and it sort of did in the way of ID4. But that was that. I have heard rumors of a sequel to ID4, but nothing has ever come to fruition. As much as I look foreward to this though, it won’t be as cool as it was when I was 8 and without badass Marc Singer and Michael Ironside, it just won’t be the same. Still, I’m itching to see how it works out. And on the other hand, who’s to say Singer and Ironside couldn’t return. They’re not that old. Of course, it will all depend on the substance and story arc of the novel I guess. I’ll be reading when this thing hits shelves on Nov. 7.

links:
Wikipedia article on V
IMDb profile for “V”
IMDb profile for “V: The Final Battle”
DVD available at Amazon
V: The Second Generation (novel)

Current Mood: Angry & Angry

Here’s a fairly poorly written ramble I wrote on my personal blog a couple of years back. It may not be well written, but I still agree with its contents…

07/05/05

     Here’s a rant about something that has bugged me for a while now. As you may or may not know, I’m a fairly impatient person. Whether that’s a product of our “fast-moving” society or just who I am, I don’t know. Part of what I love about DVD technology, is it’s speed and simplicity; but of course studios have to make their products flashy and annoying…like Budweiser billboards. This is what I hate: overly elaborate and complex user menus. Long, drawn-out and completely useless animated menus. They’re supposed to look flashy and fun, but all they are is annoying and slow. It’s bad enough that I am forced to read through the FBI warnings in several languages; of which I used to be able to fast forward through on my VCR. Granted I can still do that on some of my older DVDs, but many of the new ones do not allow you to skip them.

     So anyway, after I get through reading the French version about how I will go to jail and how much money I will be fined if I hook my DVD player up to my VCR then sell the tape for $5, I have to watch a public service announcement about how bad it is for society and the poor Hollywood community if I download a movie on the internet. Not to mention how guilty I’ll feel for committing such an atrocious crime. By the way, this is on a DVD that I bought and/or rented. Thanks for giving me an idea though. You mean I could’ve just gotten this mediocre crap-fest of a movie for free!? On the internet!? Why didn’t they tell me so before!? So after all this general nonsense, I get to watch previews for movies that came out over 3 years ago. At least these I can fast forward through.

     So finally I have arrived at my destination… the main menu. But wait, what is this? My TV screen is flashing various parts (usually dramatic or funny lines) of the film in front of my eyes before I’ve even seen the picture yet. Also, is it me, or is this taking a really long time to get to the usual choices? Anyway, after finally seeing the building explode, the villain make some nasty comment regarding the plot of the film and our hero flying an airplane that he made from old parts from a Huey 370 and a ‘79 Ford Mustang, I finally see my choices on the side of the plane. How clever! So since I’m watching this movie with my latina girlfriend, I click my remote control on the language options icon. WHOOOOSH! The plane starts moving again and this time we follow along in a harrowing chase through the caverns of Necros and into the belly of the beast (which we’re not even supposed to be seeing as it is supposed to be a major surprise antagonist towards the end of the film). Here are my language choices. I hit Spanish and hope to continue; but not without some theatrics of course: after narrowly missing a giant stalactite, the plane containing our hero sweeps out of the opening of the cave with a witty remark straight from the film by the rear-seat passenger. Now we’re back to the main menu again and all I have to do is click the “start movie” button. I do this as an amazing orchestral extravaganza begins playing and a witty line from the film is spoken, i.e. “If you’re going to go that way, you should’ve brought the telescopic lens!” Well, that line in the film has just been ruined for me. Plus, all of these shenanigan’s have taken approximately 2 minutes of my time on top of the 10 minutes of FBI warnings, PSA’s and movie trailers.

     I am tired of this nonsense. Maybe it is a trivial thing for most, but for me, it is bonkers up the wall and through the roof! Just show me the menu with my choices and get on with it. I don’t need all of these half-ass theatrics and sound from the movie that I’m about to see. I don’t need to see the dramatic photo-montage of all the characters merging together in a blurry fashion that inspires awe and wonder at the greatness of Cate Blanchett and Jason Statham. In conclusion, stay away from any DVD that, on the back, says something along the lines of fantastic 3-D interactive menus. Just steal that movie from the internet; because chances are, the studio is trying to make up for something by incorporating these neat-o menus that make you think, “Wow! This is taking forever and I wish I could just start watching the film.”

This post is mostly just me rambling about how good my library is and to make sure everyone else thinks about checking their libraries out for DVDs. Yesterday I had to drop some educational type videos at the library for my wife. While there I decided to check out their selection of movies. They had an amazing selection of older movies and I’m sure if I browsed through their computers I’d find even more terrific movies.

Here is what I ended up taking home with me yesterday:

• 3:10 to Yuma
• Aguirre: The Wrath of God
• Solyaris
• The Sweet Hereafter

I don’t really have the time right now to watch them all so I just ripped them to my hard drive and will watch them coming up shortly. I returned them this morning and picked up:

• The Battle of Algiers
• Bicycle Thieves
• Blow Up
• and I reserved for later pickup as it was out Yojimbo

I think I’m going to stop hitting the Blockbuster Video for a while and just hang out at the Library. They don’t have all the new movies but damn they have some good old ones.

     In scanning the dailies this morning, Blockbuster’s investor relations page is announcing that they have bought out Movielink, which is one of the biggest movie download services on the internet.

From Blockbuster’s investor website:

“…Blockbuster Inc. has acquired Movielink, one of the nation’s leading movie download services. The acquisition gives Blockbuster access to one of the largest libraries of downloadable movies and a large array of television content. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

     With thousands of movies and television shows available in its digital library for downloading, Movielink offers customers the ability to legally download entertainment content for rental (VOD) and for purchase (EST)…

     …Blockbuster plans to continue to operate the Movielink service and to eventually make elements of the service available through blockbuster.com.”

     I’m a Blockbuster user and absolutely LOVE the service provided. We’ve gone over the pros and cons between BB and Netflix and for me, it is absolutely a no-brainer. BB reigns completely in terms of service and value. With this added bonus of the possibility of downloading movie just devotes me further to the BB club.

     However, with that last statement in the quote above in mind, it doesn’t appear that just by being a BB customer means you get automatic use of the Movielink service. It may end up being that way, but as of right now, I don’t see anything that says that difinitively. All we know is BB bought them. Maybe they’ll just run the site as it has been under new management. We’ll have to wait and see. Still, BB is way better (for me) than Netflix ever was; and I have been a customer of both services at one time or another.

     I remember as a kid back in 1980 running home from my friends house after watching Flash Gordon. At the time this movie had me more pumped up than Star Wars did. There is just something about the Queen music combined with the visuals of Flash and the Hawkmen fighting their way through the laser light show in order to stop Ming the Merciless from marrying Dale Arden.

     Other than Steve J. Jones as Flash, he is pretty much the weak point but I also think he was not really given much to work with, you have a pretty cool cast. Max Von Sydow is Ming the Merciless, Topol is Dr. Zarkov and Timothy Dalton is Errol Flynn, sorry I mean Prince Baron. Yes his name really is Prince Baron. Brian Blessed is also over the top as Prince Vultan, the leader of the Hawkmen.

     If you can not tell this movie really holds a dear spot in my heart and I’ll be running out shortly to pick it up on DVD. This is a movie of excess and if you are a fan of Science Fiction you need to get out there and at least see it. Otherwise I don’t think you can call yourself a SciFi fan.

Current Mood: Angry & Angry

     Well, as everyone knows, part of the greatness that is the Grindhouse experience was the inclusion of faux trailers for movies that don’t really exist. But according to ESplatter, these great trailers will NOT be included in either of the DVD releases. This, my friends, pisses me off!

     While I look forward to seeing the extended version of Death Proof, plus all the extras included for both films, I will not be spending twice the amount of money to see a butchered version of the movie that is only half of what it was in the theater.

     I can pretty much guarantee that 6 months to a year down the road we’ll be seeing a restored verion of Grindhouse that includes both PT and DP as one film along with the trailers in between. Then maybe I’ll pick it up. But to be honest, the studio has f’d up this campaign from the beginning, that I’m not sure I can support it. On one hand I really love this movie and want to see it again and again and would love to support it, but on the other, I don’t want to encourage studios to do this sort of thing. So as of now, I won’t be purchasing the hacked up version of the movie. If it comes out the way it should in the future, I may decide otherwise. But until then I am boycotting this pathetic excuse of a DVD release.

     Could it be that the next Transformers film to be unleashed will actually be a PREquel? It’s obvious this thing will turn into a franchise, but what I didn’t see coming would be that of a prequel. Over at Skewed & Reviewed, there’s an interview with Mark Ryan (the guy who voiced Bumblebee for one line) in which he talks about a the prequel.

S&R: Final question, have you heard anything about a sequel or been asked to be a part of future films?

Ryan: (Chuckles), funny you should say that so I will tell you what I can. I recently recorded more material for the DVD release of the film. It has to do with the Prequel that will set up the second film.

     Ok wait a minute; now I’m confused. So it sort of sounds like there will be a bonus feature on the DVD that will be something of a prequel BEFORE the next movie comes out? His sentence doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. Am I reading it wrong or am I just stupid? Anyone know what this could mean?

     If you’re not sure which character is Bumblebee (voived by Mark Ryan), here’s a picture of the hood to jog your memory:

Enough said.

     Usually when a hit TV show or film that hails from the US comes onto DVD it is inevitable that it will be released there first. But that has changed, at least with the release of Lost Season 3 on DVD. According to Play.com and various other online DVD retailers the Season 3 Box Set of Lost gets released in the UK almost 2 months prior to it being released in the US. The official release date for the UK is 22/10/2007 (check it out here) where as the US release date says 11/12/2007 (check it out here).

     Now since I hail from the UK myself this is obviously great news for me (us). We usually have to wait months for the release of a DVD to make it’s way over here. Why do you think they have decided to release Season 3 of the show in the UK first this time round? Does numbers show that the show is more popular over here? Surely not…

     I don’t usually make threats against people but I have to get this off my chest. If Andrew and Kurt don’t have Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Movie Patron Review) as their DVD pick of the week I am going to find out where exactly they live and I shall TP their houses.

     In all serious, my DVD pick for this week (I’m thinking of doing one every week right now) is indeed Behind the Mask. The first thing you should do is go read Andrew’s review just so you know I’m not leading you astray, then watch the trailer and finally head out to the store and pick it up today. You won’t be disappointed and if you are feel free to come back here and argue with me. I don’t think you will feel the need to do that though.

     As a side note: I just have to say how proud I am of myself. I saw someone looking at the DVD in a store at lunch. They put the DVD back but after I told him just how good of movie this really is he decided to buy it.

 Cinecast Episode 52 [155:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

this episode:
Day Watch, Ratatouille, Sicko.
…and as always our signature tangents.

Unwrap the complete Show Notes by clicking on this link…
UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

These are the show notes for Cinecast Episode #52

Bumper music from Tievery Corporation and The Appleseed Cast.

“Tracks” - -

Intro Music: 0:00 - 3:06
Opening Remarks/Announcements: 0:35 - 5:24
Air Guitar Championships: 5:24 - 10:37
Day Watch: 10:38 - 32:22
Ratatouille & Pixar: 32:23 - 1:09:02
Ranking the Pixar films: 1:09:02 - 1:20:57
Shymalan tangent: 1:20:58 - 1:28:50
More Pixar: 1:28:51 - 1:31:01
Sicko: 1:31:03 - 2:00:36
Trailer Talk: 2:00:37 - 2:16:58
– 3:10 to Yuma & the western genre: 2:00:37 - 2:11:44
– There Will Be Blood: 2:11:45 - 2:14:03
– No Country for Old Men: 2:14:05 - 2:16:58
DVD Picks: 2:17:00 - 2:30:19
Closing remarks: 2:30:20 - 1:59:01
Outro Music: 2:32:19 - 2:00:12

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In-House Announcements:

MoviePatron Forums - you can now purchase stuff in the forums using your credits.

     Join us on Facebook:
Join us on Facebook
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We’re also on MySpace

     You can post suggestions, comments, thoughts, even questions or topics you’d like discussed on the weekly Cinecast right here on the blog in the comments section (or on facebook or in the forum). You can also now leave audio comments. Leave as many as you like.

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Air Guitar Nation:
review from Filmstalker

Midwest Regionals (click for larger version):

ME

The Winner

Quote of the week:
KURT: “…man getting hit by football level of cinema.”

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Day Watch:
Day Watch (IMDb)
Andrew’s review
Kurt’s review

UNFORTUNATE third installment: Twilight Watch (IMDb)

Andrew’s Night Watch Review
Kurt’s Night Watch Review

Online DVD store mentioned:
allDVD.ca (apparently under construction)

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Ratatouille:
Ratatouille (IMDb)
Andrew’s review

Ranking the PIXAR Films:
Kurt:
8) Cars
7) Toy Story
6) Finding Nemo
5) A Bugs Life
4) Toy Story 2
3) Monsters Inc.
2) Ratatouille
1) The Incredibles

Andrew:
- - I can’t remember A Bug’s Life so I can’t rank it (I only remember it had funny outtakes).

7) Ratatouille
6) The Incredibles
5) Toy Story
4) Finding Nemo
3) Toy Story 2
2) Cars
1) Monsters Inc.

FORGOT to mention the trailer for Pixar’s Next film: Wall-E.
See our Blog post about it.
Hi-def trailer at APPLE.com

Kurt’s TOP 5 Films about food (from Cinecast episode #49)

5) Big Night
4) The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover
3) Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
2) Dumplings - Kurt’s review
1) Ravenous

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Shymalan Tangent:

Andrew’s Lady in the Water review (one of my favorite reviews I ever wrote)
- “…a conglomeration of ideas put together by a mad man”

Cherry Jones (IMDb) from Shymalan’s Signs and The Village:

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Sicko:
Sicko (IMDb)
Andrew’s review

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Trailer Talk:

3:10 to Yuma:

HI-quality trailer at Yahoo! HERE

There Will Be Blood:

No Country For Old Men:

HI-quality trailer at IGN HERE

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DVD picks:

KURT picks:
If… (Amazon)
Part of a trilogy:
O, Lucky Man (IMDb) & Britannia Hospital (IMDb)

and

36 Chamber of Shao Lin (Amazon)

ANDREW picks:
The Manhattan Project (sp ed) (Amazon)

The kid in The Manhattan Project is Christopher Collet (IMDB):

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Other Quick Things:
Miracle Mile (IMDb)
Kurt’s Review of Wierdsville
Mad About Movies - nice little film-related blog we visit often.

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This Week’s Homework:

Rank the Pixar films either in the comment section below or on Facebook

AND…

Watch Lady in the Water (IMDb) - If you like it, please tell me why in the comment section below. LOL

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Comments or questions?
Leave comments by clicking on the comments below - you can even leave AUDIO comments!
feedback@moviepatron.com (general)
andrew@moviepatron.com
kurt@moviepatron.com
- - Kurt’s BLOG - -this week: No screener this week; Kurt is migrating to America that day.

     Blockbuster has announced that they are going to start stocking High Definition DVD’s in almost 1,500 of their stores but only in the Blu-Ray format. It currently stocks both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in 250 of their stores but the numbers show that over 70% of customers rent the Blu-Ray format. The company have said that they will continue to rent High Definition titles both in-store and online.

     This leads to the question - why are more people opting for Blu-Ray over HD-DVD? Is it the company that backs it? Or at a long shot just the name? What are your thoughts?

     While I was wandering around Chinatown yesterday I saw a pretty cool looking flick running on a TV at one of the semi-legal DVD/VCD/CD stores. I’ve maxed out my DVD purchases for now but I think I’ll have to check this out after a while from YesAsia.

Here is the synopsis from IMDB:

The Restless is set in fantasy world for souls that have passed away long before they are reincarnated. This epic film combines various elements/genres like romance, fantasy, sword plays, martial arts and the never-ending fight between good and evil. The midheaven is a place for to those who have died in the real world but have failed to ascend to heaven.

     Having just got home from one of the best films I’ve seen this year, Paris Je T’aime, I was looking about for another film full of short vignettes from a conglomeration of famous or big name directors and lo and behold I run across this story from Mad About Movies about all these great directors’ short films encompassed on one DVD. They aren’t all revolving around one theme, as is Paris, nevertheless they are short films frm some of the greatest directors of our generation.

     The DVD is called Chacun son Cinéma and is available thorugh Amazon France and other international outlets on DVD for about $30. This seems to me to be a sure fire bet. If you’re going to spend some money, this seems to be the item to spend it on. I for one am in! Click the DVD cover below to get a close-up look at all the directors’ names.

     Firefly was one of those shows that had a great deal of promise but was bungled by the Fox network so badly that it wasn’t even shown for the full season. I’m still not sure why Fox felt the need to show the series out of order and why it was such a big deal for it to not be shown in wide screen.

     Oh well, I could rant for a real long time about Firefly but I’d prefer to just provide you all with the following link.

We are looking to push the envelope of episodic television by offering Season Two of Firefly in a groundbreaking new format. Each episode (or the entire season) would be made available for purchase in Standard or Hi-Definition.

It’s possible that subscribers may choose one of three playback options; monthly DVD deliveries, TV On-Demand using your cable or satellite provider, or computer viewing via Streaming Download.

It’s also possible that a box set of DVD’s would be available at the end of the season.

In order for our plan to be successful, we need to take stock of the browncoat recruits that support our cause. It will only take a minute, is strictly confidential, and each profile will take us one step closer to victory!

     Personally I think it just looks like some fans are getting together and are trying to bring the show back. I can not see it happening. Fox is not going to sell the rights for cheap, Whedon has moved on to other stuff after the box office failure of Serenity (our review). If it were to happen I think the cost would be just too high for it to be worth while.

     According to Showbizdata.com, Toshiba is planning a major price reduction and some special incentives in late May and throughout June. The story goes like this:

     Toshiba intensified its high-definition-disk battle with Sony’s Blu-ray players by offering a month-long, instant $100 rebate on its own HD DVD players. The rebate brings down the price of a high-definition player to a record-low $299. In addition, Toshiba is offering to knock $100 off the price of any of its HDTV sets that are purchased with an HD DVD player. The company recently announced that buyers of its HD DVD players would also be able to select five free HDTV movies from a selection of fifteen. The promotion is set to launch on Sunday and continue until June 16.

     I’m still not sold on the whole HD thing anyway, so I won’t be purchasing until there is a clear cut winner and when it will make a difference on my TV set anyway. But still, I think Toshiba sees that it is losing this war and this is one of their last ditch attempts at regaining some ground.

     Oldboy is one of my favorite movies of all time. It often ends up as number one on my movie list. My opinion of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is right up their with Oldboy. Both focus on revenge and violence but do so in a very different way. I just discovered that Lady Vengeance was released in two versions in theater over in Korea. Wikipedia has this to say about the different versions:

Two versions of the film exist, the standard version and the “Fade to Black and White version”. The latter version begins in full colour, but throughout the film the colour gradually fades until it is totally black and white at the end of the film. Park intended the colour fade to illustrate Lee Geum-ja’s progressively colder demeanour and her attempts to reach a stage of purity as she exacted her revenge. In conjunction with the camera technique of removing the colours, there is also a change in the environmental colours used in backgrounds, clothing etc. At the beginning of the film, the environments contain a lot of primary colours, whereas toward the end of the film pastel shades, blacks and whites are used. Lee wears a blue coat in the early part of the film, but this is replaced with a black leather coat at the end. The brightly coloured walls of the prison and Lee’s bedroom are replaced with the grey walls of the school.

     I love the idea of this. If anyone knows where I can track down a region 1 DVD version of this please let me know where.