Digital Dent

I've been told by a rock-solid source that Cinesite in London are to be handling the CG FX for Two Face in The Dark Knight, with their work due to start in earnest in November. I mention this just so you know it isn't an entirely make-up based look.

[EDIT: Actually, my source has read this published post and told me, actually, it's Framestore CFC and I 'misinterpreted their clues' to the FX house. My mistake, and quite a dumb one, really. I could explain the confusion in how I thought they meant one and not the other, but they asked me not to, as it might just reveal who they are...]

But why not make-up, I wonder? The only solid reasons I can think of are all mouth-based - teeth showing through a wound, maybe, or impossible mouth movements. But I don't know for sure. Hopefulyl more info will be forthcoming.

Cinesite are, frankly, brilliant and have a great back catlogue of work - from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Hot Fuzz.

[EDIT: And Framestore CFC are similarly excellent, if not more so. Their work on Children of Men is amongst the greatest FX work ever completed. As well as the digital Dent they'll also be creating the virtual set extensions for the Hong Kong scenes and some CG stand-in Batmen]

Children Of Men, Superman Series And Tideland: The Sad State Of DVD Publishing Today

If you live in the UK, your first chance to buy Children on Men came in December. The single disc edition was virtually bare bones and when news broke about a replacement 2-Disc edition coming little more than three months later, it felt like a slap in the face. Early adopters had been had.

Luckily, now, Universal are agreeing to replace UK R2 copies of the single-disc edition with the full monty. And virtually for free.

Send your disc with a jiffy bag for the return item, stamped to the value of 70p, to this address:

Children of Men DVD Amnesty
PO Box 188
Woodford Green
Essex
IG8 7RW

You have until June 30th. Ex-rental copies are not elligible. Tell them who sent you.

You won't believe how hard it was to get that address. I called, was put on hold, cut off; called again, was put on hold, given an e-mail address to try; I e-mailed and never received a reply; called again, was cut off again... I could go on. Somehow I don't think Universal want a large number of returns - but they are doing the right thing. Well, almost - they should offer something in return for the postage costs, really. Maybe a discount voucher from other Universal releases?

The Superman series boxset that was issued lat last year was, I'm told, a bit of a botch job. In R1 at least - can anybody confirm the status of the R2 discs? America will find the repressed, corrected set on shelves from May 19th. Frankly, I wouldn't touch Superman IV with a barge pole and way prefer Richard Lester to Richard Donner... I'm not the audience for this box. Not until it gets real cheap.

And finally, the biggest DVD debacle in recent years goes on and on and on. Tideland is still not available in the correct format outside of the UK. ThinkFilm's final official statement?

That they will be replacing the 1.78:1 disc currently on shelves with a 2.35:1 reissue later this year. No amnesty announced, no replacement scheme in place. And worst of all... 2.35:1 isn't the aspect ratio Gilliam wants used anyway. They should be repressing to the 2.25:1 (approximately) master that he supplied.

At least when discs area thing of the past and everything comes as a download, botches like these should be easier to rectify.

Children Of Men From The Foreign Office

A reel of background graphic work as seen on screens in Children of Men has gone up on The Foreign Office website. Think Gap meets Cats in Bomber Jackets.

Thanks to Solace in Cinema for the tip off.

Children Of Men Double Dip Already Lined Up

The 2-Disc special edition of Children of Men, as discussed here just a few days ago, is due to hit UK shelves on March 19th. That's not even three weeks away.

Is this the quickest double dip ever?

There's almost a half hour of exclusive features on the HD-DVD release, but the hi-def war is far from over, says I, so buy at your peril.

What's On The 2 Disc Children Of Men DVD?

The first PAL version of Children of Men to come as a 2-Disc special edition appears to be the Australian one, released just one day after the R1 NTSC release (28th and 27th March respectively). No sign of it on the horizon here in the UK, where we got an early, but skimpy, single disc release at Christmastime.

The special features as listed by retailers are:

• Children of Men comments by Slavoj Zizek
• Futuristic Design - from concept to creation, see how director Alfonso Cuarón’s dynamic vision of the future was brought to life
• Visual Effects - Creating the Baby
• Men Under Attack - Making of Featurette
• Theo & Julian - get the inside story from Clive Owen and Julianne Moore
• The Possibility of Hope - a documentary by Alfonso Cuarón that explores the themes in Children of Men
• Deleted Scenes

You may have seen Slavoj Zizek's A Perverts Guide to the Cinema, which started very well but ended up taking a few tumbles after the odd crazy leap of speculation and supposition. Dealing with just one film, and one so ripe for Zizek's flavour of psychoanalaytical-come-philosophical film essaying, could prove to be much more successful.

The prize item appears to be The Possibility of Hope, but I'm sad there's still no commentary track.

Half Time Oranges At The Baftas

The BAFTA ceremony is on hold for twenty minutes of news and about seven hundred man hours of urination, so I thought: well, why not blog a little on part one.

Well, so far I was disappointed by Andrea Arnold not thanking Lars von Trier; for Happy Feet beating Cars; for anything beating Children of Men for special effects - and I mean anything. Ever. In the history of film. That it was Pirates 2 just made it even more silly.

I was pleased by Michael Arndt winning for his Little Miss Sunshine screenplay; for Pan's Labyrinth winning Film Not in the English language; for Emanuel Lebezki netting best cinematographer.

The rest? No strong emotions, or divided feelings at least. I'm still hoping that The Departed is shut out and doesn't take a thing, even though my hopes of Babel being cold-shouldered entirely are over.

Cusack And Duff Together Again

John Cusack and Hilary Duff are currently filming Brand Hauser together, but they will apparently be reteaming shortly afterwards for Mark Roper's Talking to the Dog. Not only do Cinema Blend compare this new movie unfavourably to Children of Men, which at the very least seems premature, as well as being rather shortsighted - the two films' dystopic similarities apply equally to countless other films - they also squint and moan a little about Cusack and Duff's pairing. Clearly, they're not aware of Brand Hauser, let alone eagerly anticipating it, like yours truly.

Moviehole have compared Talking to the Dog to both Blue Velvet and Mad Max. Intriguing. Odd that nobody has mentioned LQ Jones' A Boy and his Dog yet, though.