Gremlins

[pro-bassoonist]

Warner-France are set to release Joe Dante's Gremlins (1984) in Gallic territories on October 7th.

BY ROGER EBERT / January 1, 1984

GREMLINS is a confrontation between Norman Rockwell's vision of Christmas and Hollywood's vision of the blood-sucking monkeys of voodoo island. It's fun. On the one hand, you have an idyllic American small town, with Burger Kings and Sears stores clustered merrily around the village square, and on the other hand you have a plague of reprehensible little beasties who behave like a rodent road company of Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in THE WILD ONE.

The whole movie is a sly series of send-ups, inspired by movie scenes so basic they reside permanently in our subconscious. The opening scene, for example, involves a visit to your basic Mysterious Little Shop in Chinatown, where, as we all know, the ordinary rules of the visible universe cease to operate and magic is a reality. Later on, after a kid's father buys him a cute little gremlin in Chinatown, we have a new version of your basic Puppy for Christmas Scene. Then there are such basic movie characters as the Zany Inventor, the Blustering Sheriff, the Clean-Cut Kid, the Cute Girlfriend, and, of course, the Old Bag.

The first half of the movie is the best. That's when we meet the little gremlins, which are unbearably cute and look like a cross between a Pekingese, Yoda from EMPIRE, the Ewoks from JEDI, and kittens. They have impossibly big eyes, they're cuddly and friendly, and they would make ideal pets except for the fact that they hate bright lights, should not be allowed to get wet, and must never be fed after midnight. Well, of course, it's always after midnight; that's the tip-off that this isn't a retread of E.T. but comes from an older tradition, the fairy tale or magic story. And in the second half of the movie, after the gremlins have gotten wet, been fed after midnight, etc., they turn into truly hateful creatures that look like the monster in ALIEN.

The movie exploits every trick in the monster-movie book. We have scenes where monsters pop up in the foreground, and others where they stalk us in the background, and others when they drop into the frame and scare the Shinola out of everybody. And the movie itself turns nasty, especially in a scene involving a monster that gets slammed in a microwave oven, and another one where a wide-eyed teenage girl (Phoebe Cates) explains why she hates Christmas. Her story is in the great tradition of 1950s sick jokes, and as for the microwave scene, I had a queasy feeling that before long we'd be reading newspaper stories about kids who went home and tried the same thing with the family cat.

GREMLINS was hailed as another E.T. It's not. It's in a different tradition. At the level of Serious Film Criticism, it's a meditation on the myths in our movies: Christmas, families, monsters, retail stores, movies, boogeymen. At the level of Pop Moviegoing, it's a sophisticated, witty B movie, in which the monsters are devouring not only the defenseless town, but decades of defenseless clichés. But don't go if you still believe in Santa Claus.

Pro-B

[Kynch]

Ecranlarge.com states the specs:

Disc 1: The movie
Casing: Blu-Ray Case
Duration: 105 min
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Disc type: 1 BD-25
Encoding: VC1
Disc standard: PAL
Resolution: 1080p

English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
English Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1
English and French subtitles

Pre-orders are up:

Fnac.com: Gremlins - Blu-Ray - 19.82€ (price will most probably drop closer to release day)

Amazon.fr (they state an October 5th release): Gremlins [Blu-ray] - 13.49€

[DetroitSportsFan]

Is that really going to be the case art?

[Kynch]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

Is that really going to be the case art?

Is that a good eek or a bad one?

And seriously, sometimes the cover art is totally different than advertised. We'll know more by October.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Kynch

Is that a good eek or a bad one?

That's a good eek. That is the original poster art, which is something not normally used anymore.

[pro-bassoonist]

Warner-France will be introducing a new pricing for catalog releases: 12.29 Euro.



Pro-B

[DetroitSportsFan]

That price seals the deal for me. If that's the cover for France, I'm importing.

[Princess Barbie]

Im not getting my hopes up yet, because this blu ray was cancelled 2 years in a row !!!! But, if it actually does come out, ill get the french version.It has the original poster art, plus it comes out 2 weeks earlier than the uk version.English audio included , right ????

[demiscy]

Does this mean that Un Long Dimanche Des Fiancelles is going to have english subtitles as well? (being a warner/french production)

[Happy_Evil_Dude]

Originally Posted by bammer

English audio included , right ????

Obviously

[Princess Barbie]

I was asking because, ive never bought a blu ray outside of amazon uk, and amazon usa.

[ulri4651]

why obviously?

[Princess Barbie]

Yesterday , when I was browsing amazon.fr , there was a gremlins/ goonies 2 pack blu ray .It said usually ships in 2 - 3 weeks .For some reason today, it changed to usually ships in 9-11 days!!!! When I saw the change,I immediately cancelled my order for the gremlins blu ray, and ordered this instead.There has to be some reason they changed it fom 2-3 weeks, to 9-11 days???Perhaps Warner bros told amazon france, that they are shipping sets out soon ???

[matt_hargett]

What is up with all these BD-25 releases? I had returned almost every BD-25 disc I have bought because they generally feature loads of DNR, then pile on the edge enhancement to try and make it look better, and then include a lossy audio track to boot.

I sincerely hope that Gremlins comes on a BD-50 with a 24-bit lossless track when it is released in the US.

I'm really not sure what Warner Brothers is up to with this crap

[zardoz]

Originally Posted by ulri4651

why obviously?

because it is a warner release.

[Princess Barbie]

dvdfr.com states that gremlins will be on a bd 50 , with all the extras that were on the special edition dvd.Ecranlarge states, it will be on a bd 25 but no extras , which site should I believe ???? ?????

[Q?]

This annoys me, why not release both as a 2-disc edition?

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by matt_hargett

What is up with all these BD-25 releases? I had returned almost every BD-25 disc I have bought because they generally feature loads of DNR, then pile on the edge enhancement to try and make it look better, and then include a lossy audio track to boot.

I sincerely hope that Gremlins comes on a BD-50 with a 24-bit lossless track when it is released in the US.

I'm really not sure what Warner Brothers is up to with this crap

That's the way Warner rolls. The disc that is being released soon in France, Canada, Japan, and the UK will most likely be the same disc we eventually get in the U.S.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by matt_hargett

I sincerely hope that Gremlins comes on a BD-50 with a 24-bit lossless track when it is released in the US.

I'm really not sure what Warner Brothers is up to with this crap

There is no chance of that happening. Warner is consciously pumping out catalog titles in large quantities while trying to keep their fixed costs very low. It is why many of their titles are priced much lower than the other studios, but it substantially affects quality on occasion.

[Princess Barbie]

At this point with all the delays for this blu ray , the past couple years, I could care less, if theres some slight edge enhancement, and a lossy audio track.I just want the movie on blu ray already !!!!!!!!!! Itll still look better than the dvd .I just couldnt take another postponement.