Written by Andre Dellamorte

It’s great to see more and more back catalog titles hitting Blu-ray, though the unfortunate part is that we’re going to see a lot of more recent special editions than stuff where it might be slightly more exciting to see some of the older titles that might benefit from a stronger transfer, etc.

The closest to something like that is Days of Thunder. It’s the 1990 car racing movie where Tom Cruise plays Cole Trickle (best screen name ever?) and was the time Tony Scott and Tom Cruise reteamed after Top Gun only to disappoint pretty much everyone by not delivering that Top Gun magic. They got Robert Towne to write the script, and basically redressed their hit with new characters, so instead of Tom Skerrit and Michael Ironside, you get Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall, and instead of Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards, you get Cary Elwes and Michael Rooker. And instead of Kelly McGillis you get Nicole Kidman. This was where Kidman and Cruise met and began their relationship. Their on-screen chemistry does not scorch at all.

The racetrack milieu is a fair enough substitute for jets, but though the film is better put together in terms of both the scripting and in terms of coverage (the races make sense), jets are way sexier and more foreign than cars, and I think that’s partly why Days of Thunder has since gained a cult affection while Top Gun is not as fondly celebrated. Strangely, sadly, film nerds often have a real fetish for the Bruckheimer/Simpson sensibility and this film has definitely blossomed due to that, partly because their films were influential on their childhood. Their films are kinda terrible and horribly Reagan-esque, but that’s almost beside the point. Bruckheimer/Simpson films become encased in their moment, and so they’re camp the moment they come out, and Cole Trickle (I could type that name all day) wears suits before racing, and falls in love with a brain surgeon. I give up, this film is a masterpiece. Sadly, Paramount’s Blu-ray comes in a gorgeous 1080 transfer, and 5.1 TrueHD. It looks and sounds wonderful. But the only extra is a trailer.

Event Horizon is one of those films that people were convinced was butchered by the studio system. That was the power of Fangoria back in the day. You get a good photo spread, and it would convince people that the gore on screen was reduced. In a lot of cases this was the truth, and sadly a number of those films were butchered permanently. That said, will adding three minutes of gore to the original My Bloody Valentine make it a better film? I would argue no.  Though Paul W.S. Anderson talks about being rushed by the studio process, his haunted space-ship movie is just kinda silly. The main reason why the film is interesting is that the effects work is rather good and not all that digital.

Dr. Weir (Sam Neill) designed a ship called the Event Horizon, which can travel at greater speeds than have previously ever been accomplished. The ship is rediscovered after being lost at sea for a while and a salvage team is sent to check it out, headed up by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne). It’s revealed that the EH used black holes to go so fast, and that the ship is now haunted. It turns out the ship may have gone to hell. So it starts haunting the new crew, who get picked off one by one, sometimes by the ship, and sometimes by Weir, who goes native. I don’t get the rules of the ship, and there’s a lot of things that happen that don’t really make sense in the film. Lots of jump scares too. The film has moments, and a damn good cast, though. This is one of Anderson’s stronger pictures, that’s for sure. The film was shot by Adrian Biddle, so it looks gorgeous.

But seriously, Weir’s response to his wife, and Katherine Quilan’s son just don’t add up. Is Quinlan’s son dead? It doesn’t appear that way. So why would she chase him around a ship if she knows it’s a figment of her imagination. You can see Quinlan struggling to make sense of it, and she almost makes it work, but no amount of cut footage would make it work. He kid would have to be dead. Which he could have been at one point. But that’s not this movie.

Paramount’s Blu-ray does pull out all the stops. The film is in 1080p, and is in 5.1 Dolby Digital TrueHD, and it looks really great. There’s a making of documentary that runs longer than the film itself (103 min.), “The Point of No Return: The Filming of Event Horizon” (8 min.) a four-parter of behind-the-scenes footage with commentary, while” Secrets” (10 min.) has three deleted and extended scenes with mostly optional director commentary. “The Unseen Event Horizon” has storyboards for a rescue scene (3 min.), and conceptual art (4 min.), with director commentary. And then there’s two trailers.

The winner here is 1997’s The Truman Show. Two things have made this film better. One is how television has changed over the last decade, with television voyeurism now not even borderline science fiction, and the other the softening of Jim Carrey. Carrey was a fine actor at the time, but he was coming off his Ace Ventura films, and his audience was waiting for him t go a bit nutty. Now that he delivered enough character work to not come across as someone high on crack, it’s easier to follow his journey, while the explosions of Carrey-isms seem the odder element.

Truman Burbank (Carrey) is the first person to grow up on TV. Everything that happens around him is staged and controlled. His wife Meryl (Laura Linney) is actually Hannah Gill. His best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich), who he’s been friends with since childhood, is also an actor. But things start falling apart in his word. A light falls from the sky. Truman hears stage directors on the radio. And eventually Truman comes to realize he has to find out the truth, he has t find out who created the show, who turns out to be Christoff (Ed Harris).

Initially the metaphor of the film is so obvious and strong that the film underwhelmed me (unless a true man casting Christ off isn’t too obvious), but the craft of Peter Weir is so strong that you can get into the minutia of the storytelling. From the overlit quality, to the poor performances by bit players, there’s so much to enjoy, and Weir brings a great strength to the final section of the film, while Carrey is actually excellent in the film. This is definitely the best of their catalog releases.

And it looks and sounds great. The 1080p transfer is perfect, and the True HD 5.1 is also excellent. There’s no commentary, but there is a Making of (42 min.) with interviews with most everyone but Carrey, and a piece of the visual effects called “ Faux Finishing” (13 min.), there’s also  4 Deleted/Extended Scenes (13 min.), a Photo Gallery, two trailers, and two TV spots.