New Disney Streaming Service: Disney+

[Randall]

FYI: Mission to Mars has Blus in France and Germany. But yeah, nothing in English-speaking locales.

[Ben]

Yeah, I’ve been tempted on that German mediabook thingy, but the contents are still unclear. It’s a terrible film, but there’s something about it. We laughed at it in the cinema but I saw it again just before the pandemic and found it okay for what it was, with a couple of good sequences. Was hoping Kino was going to get to it eventually, along with the criminally overlooked Quiz Show…

[Randall]

Mission to Mars: The French release reportedly has poor video, with macroblocking and forced subs. The German transfer reportedly is subpar as well, though some find it okay.

The German disc is in a DVD-size mediabook:
Taken from Bluray-disc.de:

Booklet with the essay Mission de Palma by Dominik Starck

Disc 1 Blu-ray (HD, approx. 114 min.):
Audio commentary by Visual Effects Supervisors Hoyt Yeatman & John Knoll, Prod. Designer Ed Verreaux and DoP Stephen H. Burum
Making of Visions of Mars (approx. 21 min.)
Alternative ending (approx. 11 min.)
Visual effects analysis: the cyclone, leaving the spaceship, evolution sequence (approx. 5 min.)
Animatics (approx. 13 min.)
Compare 3D animation draft / film:
- The cyclone
- Woody is lost
- The planetarium (approx. 33 min.)
Interviews with Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connel, Kim Delaney, Brian De Palma, Story Musgrave, Tom Jacobson (approx. 20 min.)
BOD tone selection with sample scenes
Original cinema trailer
Photo galleries
Other highlights

Disc 2 DVD (approx. 109 min.):
Audio commentary by Visual Effects Supervisors Hoyt Yeatman & John Knoll, Prod. Designer Ed Verreaux and DoP Stephen H. Burum
Making of Visions of Mars (approx. 21 min.)
Alternative ending (approx. 11 min.)
Visual effects analysis: the cyclone, leaving the spaceship, evolution sequence (approx. 5 min.)
Animatics (approx. 13 min.)
Compare 3D animation draft / film:
- The cyclone
- Woody is lost
- The planetarium (approx. 33 min.)
Interviews with Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connel, Kim Delaney, Brian De Palma, Story Musgrave, Tom Jacobson (approx. 20 min.)
BOD tone selection with sample scenes
Original cinema trailer
Photo galleries
Other highlights

More comments: https://bluray-disc.de/blu-ray-filme/14 ... ?rating#ca

Reviews, photos here: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B085K9R9QW?_en ... aycom04-21

As for Quiz show... Yeah, surprising that that never got a Blu-ray yet (actually, there's an Aussie release!). Pretty good flick, as I recall. I remember seeing it on a date in Fort Lauderdale, after escaping from a cult with a lovely psychologist. Long story.

[Dacey]

Quiz Show is a fantastic film...but it also isn't exactly an accurate take on what happened. It paints some of the TV executives as though they were mob bosses when in reality they had very little if no involvement with the scandal.

Don't get me wrong, I love the film. But the "we're going to take down television" angle it chooses to go with irritates me for whatever reason.

[Ben]

…isn't exactly an accurate take on what happened…

What film is…?

[Dacey]

Which is fine and to be expected…except when the film is vilifying real life people who had virtually nothing to do with it, which Quiz Show apparently did.

[Ben]

Again, most films will do this to tell a days, weeks, months or years long story in under two hours. Sometimes someone who was there becomes the perfect shorthand to combine several people and/or events in a single scene. The bottom line is, usually, these things distil things down to the general gist of what happened, in a way that plays well to general audiences as both a summary of what occurred and a good storytelling movie experience (after all, why make a dramatization movie about anything that doesn’t warrant that kind of treatment in the first place?), which Quiz Show, especially in its depiction of the three main protagonists, does very well. *And* it has some awesomely subtle grading and stock tricks to give each facet of the film a slightly different look, which is pretty out there for when it was made. I’d love to see that again in a nice new HD transfer, but am happy to wait until Kino hopefully get to it. That German Mission To Mars, though, is on the cusp of being imported for a very reasonable twenty quid — you can thank me, if I go ahead with it, when Kino announce it next week!

[EricJ]

Quiz Show is a fantastic film...but it also isn't exactly an accurate take on what happened. It paints some of the TV executives as though they were mob bosses when in reality they had very little if no involvement with the scandal.

Don't get me wrong, I love the film. But the "we're going to take down television" angle it chooses to go with irritates me for whatever reason.

It's director Robert Redford punishing the Bad People, so expect a little left-washing.
Particularly when Martin Scorsese comes in at the end to play Snidely Whiplash: "So, the public thinks intellectual questions about Paul Revere are too hard? Okay, we'll treat them like idiots from now on and give them Let's Make a Deal, and it's all your fault, you meddling do-gooder, muahahahaa!"

...That said, Ralph Fiennes can play jittery guilt pretty darn well.

[Daniel]

Dropping today:


High School Musical: The Musical – The Series – Episode 11 (Season 2)
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Episode 6
Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Episode 13
Monsters At Work – Episode 4
Turner & Hooch – Episode 1
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Loki
Meet Spidey And His Amazing Friends – (Shorts) Season 1
The Owl House – Episodes 1-5 (Season 2)
Behind The Attraction
Shark Attack Files
Playing with Sharks
Stuntman
Walking With Dinosaurs
Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted – Mexico
Mickey Mouse Funhouse - Mickey The Brave!
Ice Age: The Meltdown


Love, Victor – Episode 6 (Season 2)
M.O.D.O.K – Episode 10 (Finale)
Rebel – Episode 9
The Gloaming – Episode 7
War of The Worlds – Episode 2 (Season 2)
American Dad – Episode 3 (Season 17)
Grown-Ish – Episode 13 (Season 3)
Good Trouble - Season 1-2
Tolkien
The Guardian
Chariots of Fire


Bob's Burgers - Season 1-8


Bob's Burgers – Episode 18 (Season 11)
Family Guy – Episode 20 (Season 19)
Rebel – Episode 9
The Amazing Race – Season 1-4
Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special
Chariots of Fire

[Ben]

Shoulda bought Universal. At least they’d have Jaws to go with all the freakin' shark shows!

[EricJ]

They (or at least the NGC half) wants what cable had...Shark Week. But there, the operative word was "WEEK".

[Daniel]

Now they just refer to it as "Sharkfest", a six week celebration. Three more weeks of sharky goodness left!

[Daniel]

Dropping today:

:
High School Musical: The Musical – The Series – Episode 12 (Season 2 Finale)
Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Episode 14
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Episode 6
Monsters At Work – Episode 5
Turner & Hooch – Episode 2
Chip ‘N’ Dale: Park Life – Episode 1
The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse – Batch 2
T.O.T.S. - Season 2
Sydney To The Max - Season 3
Critter Country Vets – Season 2
Built For Mars: The Perseverance Rover
Turning the Tables with Robin Roberts
Garfield
Jungle Cruise - Premier Access

:
Love, Victor – Episode 7 (Season 2)
Rebel – Episode 10 (Finale)
Grown-Ish – Episode 14 (Season 3)
The Gloaming – Episode 8 (Finale)
War of The Worlds – Episode 3 (Season 2)
American Dad – Episode 4 (Season 17)
Amphibia – Season 2
Last Man Standing – Seasons 1–8
Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)
White House Farm
Viking Warrior Women
Secrets of the Viking Sword
Hot Shots!
Hot Shots! Part Deux

:
Primal Survivor - Season 1-3
Race to the Center of the Earth - Season 1
American Housewife - Season 5
Blackish - Season 7
T.O.T.S. - Season 2

:
Rebel – Episode 10 (Finale)
Bob's Burgers – Episode 19 (Season 11)

Happy for the return of Mickey and definitely want to check out Chip ‘N’ Dale!

[Ben]

…Though I’m kind of hating the C'n'D designs.

And would it really hurt Disney to start putting out one Disneyland/Wonderful World Of Color/Wonderful World Of Disney episode at one at week? I’m not asking for all of them in one go, but the one guy missing on this thing called Disney+ is Walt Disney! How hard would it really be to start with the Alice and Peter Pan Christmas specials and continue from there? Adding a weekly "classic from the vault" would certainly build an event feeling around it too.

[ShyViolet]

the one guy missing on this thing called Disney+ is Walt Disney!

Great way of putting it!