Yes, Another Blog

The world can always use another blog.

Monsters Inc. was scheduled to be released in the US last month alongside with A Bug’s Life. For some unexplained reason it was cancelled and pushed back to either Sept., Dec. or even 2010 depending on who you ask. In Japan, it was released last week and in the UK it will be released in July.

So, I bit down and went to Amazon.jp and ordered it with several other titles not yet available in the US. This set me back about $50-55 with shipping for this title alone. The main menu is in Japanese so they will be hard to navigate. I will not spoil the fun but the first option is the “Play Main movie” and the third option is the Chapters selection with small thumbnails. I will let you explore the rest. It’s fun trying to guess what comes with each menu.

In few words, the video transfer is pretty much perfect. The colors and saturation is beyond beautiful. I would even venture to say that it may be better than A Bug’s Life. The 1.85:1 transfer comes in AVC that averages about 31.76Mbps. The total disk is 28.65GB in a dual layer.

The audio is as good as the picture. The main audio track is a stunning 24bit/48kHz DTS-MA English track that comes in at about 4060kbps. There is also a Japanese DTS-ES track at about 1509kbps and also a commentary track in standard DD 2.0 at 192kbps. With the DTS-MA you will be treated with a full rich audio experience that will envelope you in goodness. The room of doors scene is by far the best use of rear channels that I found in the movie.

(Click to see full version PNG’s)

Don’t ask me why but I absolutely love zombie movies. It has nothing to do with the gore but more to do with the fact that more and more film makers have realized that the zombie movie has a comedic element that is way too easy to pass up. I have also found that most zombie flicks follow such a basic mythology (or Zombie canons) that it is by far the hardest genre to be original.

Dead Snow (Død snø), which comes from Norway, gives a new twist to the zombie genre. Nazi zombies. Every other element of the movie follows all other zombie movies. Young people, lots of booze, a secluded spot, some sex, and inept zombies that follow Zombie mythology to a tee.

This IMPORT Blu-ray was sent to me by a good friend in Norway but I was not told that it did not have English subtitles so I had to find some from Subscene and remux the video/audio tracks in order to watch it.

The video comes in at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 AVC but be prepared for a big surprise. This is a 1080i/50 (25fps) disk so if your Blu-ray player cannot handle this be warned. The ATI video card in my system did not have any problems with de-interlacing it and I could not see any judder from the 25fps. The video rate is quite low though (around 14-16mbps) so some of you may see some video noise and artifacts in some scenes. Other than that most scenes look quite good but let’s face it, this is a zombie movie. Don’t expect top notch video or audio quality.

The audio track is a simple ac3 5.1 track at a DVD range of 448kbps. Nothing spectacular but not awful either.

(Click to see full version PNG’s)