After taking a HD DVD break, I'm back to buying a few discs. Picked up the Mummy Returns yesterday using BB's deal this week. Damn, that's a niiiiice looking disc. Audio is awesome as well. This one is a step above the first one. Super bright colors.

This is one of the best DD+ mixes I've heard. I had to turn the volume down 10 db to avoid pissing off my apt neighbors. Usually I can keep the db level near 20, but this movie's audio has a lot of extra oomph.

Cool.
Thank you for sharing this. I've been thinking about picking this up.

What is BB's deal this week for this movie?

If you buy 2 HD DVD or BD titles, you save $10. If you buy 3, you save $20. If you buy titles that are $24.99, it works out to being almost the same as Amazon's pricing. Amazon is probably still a few dollars cheaper, but you don't have to wait for shipping. I picked up 3 titles, including Mummy Returns and the total before tax was about $54, so $18 per disc is a decent deal.

Mummy Returns is definitely one of the best audio/video presentations I've seen since the format launched last April. I was overly impressed.

Ok you've talked me into the Mummy Returns. I love those movies and I've got the first one, but I've been REALLY trying not to double dip. Can't pass up that high of a recommendation though, I'm just too weak.

Thank you.
Assuming they've got it in stock, I'll swing by today to pick up The Mummy Returns, Babel, and one other.

I think the transfer on Mummy Returns is certainly a step up from the first one. The colors are just amazing, especially those golden shots of the desert. Excellent overall. I was surprised and glad I picked this one up.

First Casino Royale Blu-ray review here.

9/10 PQ, 10/10 AQ, HD extras

Dissapointed with those extras... the next Bond is scheduled for Holiday 08' right? Obviously a better version will be out then... hmm...

I bet this will be a great disc though I dont like IGN reviews for movies.

Great great PQ. The Mummy's PQ was crap, well below average.

Yep. So far, The Mummy Returns is the best looking/sounding HD DVD I've encountered this year.

Regarding Casino Royale, the theatrical presentation was great. Should translate well on BD. I know I can get this for $25 at Amazon, but this is a movie I want guaranteed next Tuesday. So I'll pay the $29.99 Best Buy will be charging and get it on release day. For such a high profile title, they should have plenty. The most copies of any film I've seen there is The Departed on BD. Counting replenishment, they had about 15 total. Usually, the max total is 3-5.

LOL!
I know what you mean. It's pretty sad when the highest is a '15' count.
Take Circuit City, for example. Their highest stock for any HD or BD movie is 6 to 8 which was for Superman Returns. :D

If anyone is holding out, the NIN DVD is phenomenal, especially the TrueHD track -- definitely the most aggressive 5.1 mix I've ever heard. I was at one of those concerts and didn't think the physicality of a NIN performance could be captured on film. This DVD might prove me wrong. I didn't watch the whole thing, but what I sampled was very very good. Production on that disc is a 10.

For some weird reason my Best Buys have about 20-25 copies of Enemy of the State on the shelves. It's not like they're on sale or anything.

I agree about the sound, it's demo-worthy. I had a few issues with the image, but any NIN fan should own the disc.

Just watched Broken Arrow last night. I had recently got it during the 50% off sale at Amazon. I'm glad I didn't pay $28 for this. Slightly washed out looking print. This most definitely looks like upconverted dvd. Still, it's hard to complain since there is no region 1 dvd with a proper anamorphic transfer. I was expecting a little more detail and life to the colors, but it's just drab looking. The DTS track is superb, as with every other Fox disc, but the picture leaves alot of room for improvement.

Re: Casino Royale
Excellent review! I especially liked your look at the entire Bond series and its ups and downs.

While I thought Casino Royale was a solid effort it was a bit grim for my taste. I would have preferred more of the traditional Bond humor in it (although I realize that others were glad to see them get away from that and focus on slam bang action movie stuff and gritty character).

[Figured that this post was more appropriate for the Reviews thread than the Casino Royale thread so I put it here. Hope that you don't mind.]

Josh, in answer to your question about Chris Cornell, he was the lead singer for both Soundgarden and Audioslave.

Well dont really know where to put this, but I figured why not here. Seen my first Blu-Ray title tonight. House Of Flying Daggers....

As you probably all already know...ugh and WOW. The picture was at times good and other times god aweful. But OMG the audio blew my mind. I mean seriously jesus I seriously totally feel my home theater just fullfilled my "HOME THEATER" experience. So even though the movies picture quality was poor, the audio sure kept me interested throughout. Be it the drum sequence to the later running through leaves and forest or trees. I mean I could really care which format wins or doesn't . But blu-ray certainly has my attention now.

A little more on the audio. I see several people mention blue-ray LPCM is better than true-hd on hd-dvd side. Even though we all know or at least assume we do that can't be possible. Well I've heard a handfull of true-hd and only this one LPCM my take on it , maybe its something like tv's when they all have their brightness all cranked up , which leads people in the store to say oh look that is a better picture. When really it only tricks you. Maybe the blue-ray is coming through louder somehow and is over-shadowing the true-hd tracks. I don't know either way I had a pretty damn big smile on my face tonight.

The "who?" in my review was just meant to be sarcastic. I Googled him before writing it.

Should have picked a less known singer to make fun of then. Soundgarden was huge in the 90s, and most of us know who he is. I saw them play back in 1989, on a triple-bill with Faith No More and Voivod.

If some other lesser-known singer had performed the Casino Royale theme song, I would have made fun of them instead. :)

Seriously, even if Soundgarden was "huge" with teens and college students a decade ago, I doubt many people in the general public could recognize or identify the lead singer, especially now. Bond themes are usually performed by truly iconic singers or bands, and Chris Cornell just plain doesn't qualify as that. (Nor do Garbage or A-Ha, I'll be the first to admit. Note that I said usually).

As mentioned above, he went on to form Audioslave with ex-members of Rage Against the Machine, and had 2 or 3 multi-platinum albums with them, one of which went #1. This is recently (their last album came out in 2006).

With Soundgarden, he also went #1 with Superunknown (maybe you've heard Spoonman or Black Hole Sun?), and most of their albums went multiplatinum, and won multiple grammys.

So I came across this rather amusingly arrogant blog that deprecates my (and others') review of the Casino Royale Blu-ray:

http://whiggles.landofwhimsy.com/

Well now, the anonymous Whiggles.com guy says that I'm wrong. I guess I stand corrected, then. :rolleyes:

Highly anticipated discs can have a way of being overrated by some people.

A little further down the page, I spotted this little nugget that may interest some:

Hmmm.

If the Casino Royale BD from Australia is region-free and uncut, it sounds like that might be the one to get.

I believe the Korean release is also meant to be the so-called "uncut" version. Their DVD edition is.

From what I've read, the differences between the two cuts are extremely minimal.

I hadn't even heard of a second cut.

Apparently several countries got their own sets of trims.

The US release of the film had a couple of shots trimmed from the opening b&w fight and the later brawl in the stairwell to get a PG-13 rating. That's about it.

Speaking of the Casino Royale opening scene, I finally got around to watching my District B13 BD and I have to say the opening scene of that is similar in vein to Casino Royale, but it just blows CR's away. Not sure if wire work is involved here, but the jumping around seemed too incredible to believe. Reminds me of that Nike commercial and I'm trying to remember if it could be the same guy. Anyway the movie was surprisingly enjoyable and looked/sounded great.

Casino Royale is the best looking Bluray that Ive seen so far. Looked wonderful.

Same here. I'm expecting the same from both Pirates films. If Disney delivers on those, then BD will have 3 terrific exclusives.

Just bought an HD-DVD player yesterday. Any discs I should pick up? Got King Kong for FREE!!!

Some of what I would consider staples would be "Batman Begins", "Superman Returns", "The Departed", and "Serenity". Not knowing what your tastes are, I'd say check the reviews here and at highdefdigest, and you're bound to find something you like.

Congratulations and welcome to HD DVD!:)

Crap, Children of Men won't play in the HD-XA2. Compatibility problems. Guess my review won't be coming any time soon.

Have you tried multiple times? My copy doesn't play the first time I try it on my 360 add on. After it tells me it cant read it a few times, it ends up playing.

What is it with Universal discs and compatibility errors? Hollywoodlland was wonky as well.

I've tried it a bunch of times. I got it to start playing exactly once, but the disc freezes up in the middle of the movie and then stops playback with the error message "Cannot play the disc. Error code: 408bc504".

Ironically, Hollywoodland gave me no problems whatsoever.

By the way, Josh, I rented The Matador based solely on your recommendation and really, really enjoyed it. What a completely unconventional climax too. Any other movie would've been unable to resist the temptation to toss in hijinks-exclamation-point or to show every step of what happened, but it works flawlessly without it.