Cine y TV en HD: junio 2012

Resumen de los aportes del usuario RIG en tehParadox.org.

Thunderbirds - All 32 episodes!
plus
Thunderbirds Are Go! HDTV 1080p
see bottom of post

Yes, ITV have reformatted the episodes to 16:9 and included the revamped 5.1 audio track, not to everyones liking, but they look brilliant. Lots of extra detail (including the strings), vibrant colours, a joy to watch. Apart from E25, all episodes have 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks and english subs (as on the original Blurays)

Thunderbirds Are Go!
HDTV 1080p

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To be honest, this is a pretty awful film, not a patch on the TV series. But hey, I got it, so i might as well share it. I did buy the VHS and DVD though.

A reader quote from IMDB sums it up pretty well -
"Thunderbirds are Go!" is just horrendously boring. The first ten minutes are taken up with the Zero-X ship being assembled. Very slowly. Later on we have a long dream sequence where Alan imagines going out for a date with Lady Penelope, which features Cliff Richard and the gang having a sing-song (a musical segment in a Thunderbirds movie - what were they thinking?!) and the entire subplot of what the Zero-X astronauts get up to on Mars has no bearing on International Rescue at all. The Tracy brothers get hardly anything to do in their own film (John, as is customary, has about 5 lines of dialogue, and Gordon just sits about looking glum - even everybody's favourite, Virgil, has barely any screen time at all). Nor, in fact, are the Thunderbird craft used all that often. In 100 minutes of film there's only one real rescue (featuring Thunderbird 2), with IR overseeing operations at the beginning of the film - which involves them sitting around and peering contentedly at control panels. You'd think with 100 minutes - double the length of one of the TV episodes - the Andersons could've plotted loads of thrilling situations and rescues that involved all the Tracy brothers and their Thunderbird machines, but it was not to be. Thunderbirds 1 and 3 swoop about for a few seconds. Thunderbird 4 isn't even in it (despite being on the DVD cover). Nor are the pod vehicles present - couldn't we even have had the Mole drilling away at something? It really is a tedious film. And that's not even mentioning Alan Tracy ignoring his girlfriend, Tin-Tin, and fantasising about Lady P instead. Way to be a good role-model for the kiddies, Alan. Then again he was a snot in the telly series too.

It.Came.From.Beneath.The.Sea.1955.720p.Bluray.Colo rized.RIG
RS and NL dlc

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The Pink Panther Strikes Again 1976 HDTV

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At a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is largely recovered from the murderous insanity that saw him repeatedly attempt to kill the thorn in his side, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. He is about to be released but Clouseau (Peter Sellers), who is now Chief Inspector and has arrived to speak on Dreyfus's behalf, comes to visit and his clumsiness and proneness to accidents drive Dreyfus insane again.

A Shot in the Dark is a better movie but The Pink Panther Strikes Again is the high water mark of the Pink Panther series. Most movie series' throw all inhibition out the window at one point or another and that is the case here. The movie is unrestrained folly with as much style as a hammer over the head. But it's so well done that the movie keeps it's pace of intense idiocy throughout with a slow storm of truly funny bits.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again was rushed into production owing to the success of The Return of the Pink Panther. Blake Edwards had used one of two scripts that he and Frank Waldman had written for a proposed "Pink Panther" TV series as the basis for that film, and he used the other as the starting point for Strikes Again. As a result, it is the only Pink Panther movie which has a storyline that explicitly follows on from the previous film.

The film was in production from December 1975 to September 1976, with filming taking place from February to June 1976. The relationship between Sellers and Blake Edwards, never very good, had seriously deteriorated by the time Strikes Again was filmed. Sellers was physically in bad shape, and Edwards says of the actor's mental state: "If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that's what Peter had become. He was certifiable." The original cut of the film ran for 124 minutes, but it was trimmed down to 103 minutes for theatrical release. Some of the footage was later used in Trail of the Pink Panther. Strikes Again was marketed with the tagline Why are the world's chief assassins after Inspector Clouseau? Why not? Everybody else is. Like its predecessor and subsequent sequel, the film was considered a box office success.

The video is not my encode, but I've added the 5.1 audio from an original DVD. The source is HDNET with the logo only visible every now again.

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Space: 1999: The Complete Series 1 (Blu-ray)
All 24 episodes plus, series 2 episode 1 and extras DVD ISOs.
This is the UK release.

I've included all 3 audio tracks that are on the Bluray, DTS, original mono and music only or commentary. There are only 2 Gerry Anderson commentaries on episodes 1 and 23, no separate music track on these. I've included the english subtitles, there aren't any other languages. Please forgive me if there are subtitle errors, but there really is better things to do in life than sit correcting subtitles that haven't scanned correctly. Why 720 and not 1080? 1080 would mean 4.7Gb per episode, overkill for 52mins of 4:3. they look great at 720 anyway. Enjoy, RIG.

About the series.

Space: 1999 is the last in a long line of science-fiction series that the Andersons produced as a working partnership, beginning with Supercar in the early Sixties and including the famed marionette fantasy series Stingray, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service, as well as the live-action alien-invasion drama UFO. Space: 1999 owes much of the visual design to pre-production work for the never-made second series of UFO, which would have been set primarily on the Moon and featured a more extensive Moonbase.

Space: 1999 drew a great deal of visual inspiration (and technical expertise) from the Stanley Kubrick classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. The programme's special effects director Brian Johnson had previously worked on both Thunderbirds (as Brian Johncock) and 2001.

The underlying story line of Space: 1999 centres on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, Earth's Space Research Centre on the Moon, following a scientific cataclysm. Mankind had been storing its nuclear waste in vast disposal sites on the far side of the Moon. The accumulated waste reaches critical mass and, on 13 September 1999, detonates in a massive thermonuclear explosion initiated by a build-up of an unknown form of magnetic radiation. The force of the blast hurls the Moon out of Earth orbit and into deep space at colossal speed, stranding the 311 personnel stationed on Alpha. The runaway Moon, in effect, becomes the 'spacecraft' on which the protagonists travel, searching for a new home. During their interstellar journey, the Alphans encounter a vast array of alien civilisations, dystopian societies, and mind-bending phenomena previously unseen by the eyes of mankind.

The headline stars of Space: 1999 were American actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were married at the time and had previously appeared together in Mission: Impossible. In an effort to appeal to the huge U.S. television market, perhaps to sell the series to one of the major American networks,[2] Landau and Bain were cast at the insistence of Lew Grade against the strong objections of Sylvia Anderson, who wanted British actors. Also appearing as regular cast members were Barry Morse (as Professor Victor Bergman in the first season) and Catherine Schell (as the alien Maya in the second season). The programme also brought Australian actor Nick Tate to public attention. Roy Dotrice appeared in the first episode as Commissioner Simmonds, and at the end of the episode it appeared that he would be a regular character, however by the second (transmitted) episode the character had vanished without a trace, only to appear partway through the first season in the episode "Earthbound", his only other appearance on the show (in which the character is permanently written out). It is likely this was originally intended to be the second episode.

The World At War: The Ultimate Restored Edition 2010 - Bluray 720p - All 26 episodes - selected extras to come
RS, NL links.

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The 9 disc direct rip has been posted elsewhere on this forum, but with each disc around 43Gb thats a very lengthy download for most of us with 'normal' internet connections, plus you would have to buy a drive just to store them. I've encoded this series in 720p because there was little extra to be gained at 1080p and means everyone can download them. Each episode is half DVD5, so you can store 2 per DVDR. English subtitles are on the Blurays, but not in the MKVs, make your own from the .sup files or use the .srt files I've converted. DTS 5.1 and original mono tracks are included. I will add the more interesting extras. RIG.

Why 16:9?
The decision to convert the aspect ratio from the original 4:3 to 16:9 was taken after months of tests and reviews. The primary reason for this that for most viewers now own a widescreen TV, so expect programmes to be in this format, and also because with any HD material for broadcast, the broadcasters expect widescreen material. As the aim of the project was to create restored masters (at great expense) for multiple use (ie Blu-ray, DVD and broadcast), there was no option other than going down the 16:9 route. It was essential that this be done as sensitively as possible. The process of aspect ratio conversion from 4:3 to 16:9 was done by firstly going back to the original materials and then using ‘Pan & Scan’ to ensure that all of the essential picture detail is retained. The panning and scanning process can be notorious if done badly where the screen is basically lazily cropped, losing vital information. With this in mind in this instance each frame was panned and scanned according to strict guidelines following the tests done to ensure that the focus of the picture is always on the most important action so that we retained the quality of the original series.

he.Invisible.Man.1933.1080p.HDTV.RIG

NL and RS

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A scientist turns himself invisible. However, the formula slowly drives him insane, causing him to terrorize the countryside as an invisible killer.

The Invisible Man is a 1933 science fiction film based on H. G. Wells' science fiction novel The Invisible Man, published in 1897, as adapted by R. C. Sherriff, Philip Wylie and Preston Sturges, whose work was considered unsatisfactory and who was taken off the project. The film was directed by James Whale and stars Claude Rains, in his first American screen appearance, and Gloria Stuart. It is considered one of the great Universal Horror films of the 1930s, and spawned a number of sequels, plus many spinoffs using the idea of an "invisible man" that were largely unrelated to Wells' original story. Rains portrayed the Invisible Man (Dr. Jack Griffin) mostly only as a disembodied voice. Rains is only shown clearly for a brief time at the end of the film, spending most of his on-screen time covered by bandages.

RS and NL links

Revenge.Of.The.Pink.Panther.1978.HDTV.1080p.RIG

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French mobster, Phillip Douvier has got a problem - hardly none of the other crime families give his family any respect. To try and fix this problem, he gives orders to murder Chief Inspector Clouseau who everybody think is a genius and only a few like Chief Inspector Dreyfus know of his true stupidity. Thanks due to a mixup an escaping criminal dies in Clouseau's car, and it crashes and explodes. Chief Inspector Dreyfus is delighted (so much so that when at the memorial service he tries very hard not to laugh out in delight and everybody thinks he's crying), but Clouseau, wondering who's out to kill him gets the help of his oriental servant Cato and Douvier's secretary and ex-lover Simone Legree to help solve the mystery.

Revenge of the Pink Panther was to be Peter Sellers's last complete entry in the series. Two years following completion of the film, he suffered a fatal heart attack. As such, this fifth entry in the Pink Panther franchise (excluding 1968's entirely forgettable Inspector Clouseau with Alan Arkin poorly fit into the trench coat) is to be cherished as a last look at a film legend in his most-recognized role. Although the series started with Clouseau being more of an ancillary character (The Pink Panther was reference to an imperfection found in a coveted diamond), Sellers's performance in the 1963 feature convinced Edwards to build a follow-up feature, 1964's A Shot In the Dark, entirely around the trench-coated dimwit. The series took an 11-year lapse before the aptly titled The Return of the Pink Panther was released with a more deliberate bent toward slapstick situations, elaborate pursuit stunts, and with distinct relation to the clever 1969 cartoon series. The next year, audiences were again tickled by the even wackier The Pink Panther Strikes Again. With these subsequent installments, Sellers's characterization as Clouseau included more slapstick elements—lingering long-takes, neck-snapping double-takes—and a progressively more outrageous French accent. Likely inspired by the completely unhinged dentist sequence of Strikes Again, this picture manages a plot device—Clouseau's supposed death—that allows Sellers to alternate offbeat disguises with frequently hilarious results (see the Swedish sailor and his inflatable parrot). New to this picture is the expanded role of Burt Kwouk's 'Cato,' relentlessly denigrated as the "yellow" manservant. It was a deft move, really, since one of the best sequences is that of their well-intentioned confrontation up and down three floors of a housing flat. Also new is the inclusion of a female compatriot to Clouseau. Dyan Cannon's performance is suitable yet lacks the sort of comedic precision that would make her scenes with Sellers more effective. She's certainly pretty to look at but offers little else beyond a plot device.

NL and RS DLC links.

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Sergeant Neil Howie of the West Highland Police receives an anonymous letter requesting his presence on Summerisle, a remote Hebridean island famed for its popular and unusually abundant fruit produce. A young girl named Rowan Morrison has been missing for a number of months and her mother is being uncooperative with enquiries. Due to the island's isolation it is unlikely she could have left by herself, abduction is suspected.

The Wicker Man is generally well regarded by critics and film enthusiasts. Film magazine Cinefantastique described it as "The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies", and during 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. A scene from this film was #45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

This is the short version (unfortunately). Useful info -

Code:

About the versions - http://www.steve-p.org/wm/
Locations - http://www.wicker-man.com/

The directors cut has existed on DVD for ages but the missing footage was sourced from an NTSC videotape telecine. As the original cut and negatives are believed lost, its unlikely an HD version of the directors cut will ever be made. Links for the 'Making of' doc from the DVD are at the bottom.

NL and RS dlc

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