Round Four (Give Or Take) Dept.

On this blog, I've talked recently about two Blu-ray titles that I felt were substandard and should not be purchased: the U.S. edition of Ghost in the Shell 2.0, and the Lionsgate / Canal+ version of Ran.

I want to make it clear that despite my feelings about these titles — and despite my feelings about Canal+ generally — I am not calling for people to avoid both companies (Lionsgate and Manga Video/Starz) entirely. My concern is focused entirely on these two titles, which I feel are substandard products. (The GITS BD is not bad if all you want is the remix version of the movie, but to me that's a little like preferring the colorized Casablanca to the pristine original.)

I'm more than willing to consider that future Lionsgate BD titles in this vein will be well worth the cash. Ditto Manga; I don't at this point have a problem with either of them in an existential sense. I just feel these two titles are not worth the money. If they are reissued in improved editions in the future, I won't hesitate to recommend people run out and grab them.

Some of this concern stemmed from what has become the third (fourth?) installment in the unfolding drama of the cancelled GLBT zombie anthology, where the whole thing has actually gone back on the rails but with some wholly unneeded snark directed towards people who were having problems with the way it was handled. Well, bait-and-switch is generally a lousy business plan, so at this point I'm not surprised if a lot of people have second, third, and fourth thoughts about participating anyway.