Tideland HD-DVD

Well, something in favour of HD-DVD and not Blu-Ray is that the first next-gen disc of Tideland to be released will be the German disc pictured below. Oh the torment! All down to there being a format war, which is all down to the HD-DVD camp so... yeah, back to my typical pro-Blu-Ray ways.

Full Lovely Bones Script Review

After the preview the other day, I thought I'd now give you something more of a full Lovely Bones script review. I've had a couple of reads, from top to bottom, and some days for the impact to settle. I'm really still rather impressed.

Apparently, each copy of the script has one word different than the others. It stands to reason that this will be a word that can be changed without drawing too much attention, and a word that has many alternatives. I'm guessing the code word is a colour - the colour of make-up mentioned on page 2, in fact.

And which colour do I have? That really would be telling. Somebody could get fired for that.

The only other review I've seen so far was a negative one. Out of interest, let's take a look at their allegations - but be warned, SPOILERS LIE AHEAD!

Jackson doesn't get into Susie's head - well, I beg to differ. I know Susie Salmon almost as well from this script as I did the novel. With an actress, and with costume, lighting, camera, editing and so on adding their input too, the movie Susie is bound to be fully rounded. You may think that Susie's remove from the other characters - she's dead, in heaven, and narrating - will deny her the chance to define herself through interaction. The truth is, Susie gets plenty of chance to interact with the events on Earth - and the events on Earth even get a little moment when they can interact with her (more on which in the next paragraph).

The incursion of the supernatural into everyday life feels showy rather than integral - again, I don't agree with a word of the claim. Susie is in heaven - that's pretty darn integral to the very core concept of the piece. And as for Susie's interactions with life on Earth, see my previous point. Make up your mind, dissenter: do you want Susie to sit back passively or do you want her to react to the events she sees unfolding?

Jackson's screenplay leaves in most every plot point from the book, including the crucial scene in which Susie returns to earth, inhabits the body of another girl, and has sex with the boy she loved at 14 - nobody has sex with anybody. It may be implied that it takes place off screen, but frankly, it didn't read that way to me. The kiss that occurs is possibly quite enough. And Jackson does an incredible job of weaving all of the plot points into a trim narrative, tightly paced with strong cause-and-effect maintained throughout.

So much of the novel's action is stuffed into the screenplay, in fact, that little of it registers as important - I think, perhaps, this reaction might be expected from somebody who hasn't read a lot of scripts but not from somebody who has. All of the events are there, but to a reader without a sense of how the pace is related on the page it may seem simply like one-thing-after-another. To my eye, however, it was very clear where the emphasis was placed. Some scenes are very big, some not so much, and the arrangement is very well judged.

We lose the sense of Susie as both caring participant and omniscient narrator, seeing into the souls of those left behind - Susie is clearly shown to invest and care, and while the voice over takes care of the narration her ability to see all takes care of the omniscience. In fact, Susie's heaven works quite a lot like cinema, in many ways, blowing up huge images of the scenes she surveys, putting them behind the proscenium of a gazebo. Once the film is finished and in the cinema, the way Susie relates to these images will be identifiable to an audience, at some very basic level - and it will even enhance their sense of immersion in the film overall as a result.

Let's just hope Jackson doesn't punt and cast Dakota Fanning in the role - I wouldn't expect anything of the sort. I predict AnnaSophia Robb might be a serious contender - but, so far, only Jackson and co. know what they're really thinking.

So, I don't think any of those criticisms fly. Do I have any of my own? One main one, really.

Sometimes, and thankfully not too often, the script feels a little too square-on-the-nose. It certainly isn't heavy handed, but there's not much required to see what they're getting at, and they still put in quite an effort to make sure you're up to speed. This is the sort of stuff pruned away in post-production, most of the time, as it proves obviously redundant. And if rehearsals go well, I wouldn't be surprised to see half a page or so, in a line-here and a line-there, evaporate before they even shoot.

As I was reading the script, one word kept coming to mind, over and over: Zemeckis. If there's one film that The Lovely Bones most resembles, it's possibly Contact. Clearly, there's a lot of difference between the two plots - but there is some carry-over. They both feature very personal heavens, for one thing. And the flashback scene in Contact in which David Morse dies and leaves a constellation of popcorn? That's very similar to some of Susie's chases through heaven (in fact, cross that scene in Contact with the chase through Malkovich's subconsious that Spike Jonze stole from Michel Gondry's Smirnoff ad and you're probably halfway to imagining the finished item already). The most salient comparisons are less narrative, however, and much more subtle, and mainly formal.

Contact aside, the main reason I kept thinking of Zemeckis is because this script reads like the kind of film he excels at. There's a rich vein of thematic material, some shocking scenes, a very sly, subtle sense of humour and some great characters for the cast to get their teeth into - and there's a truly unfettered, wildly creative visual design to several sequences that requires cutting edge visual effects and digital image technology. Wait until you see the scene with Mr. Harvey in his bathroom, washcloth over his face. It's pure Zemeckis - if perhaps a little more cruelly nightmarish than most of his sequences.

There's quite a lot in The Lovely Bones that is violent and disturbing (as there should be for a film about the rape and murder of a 14-year old girl), and it is sometimes portrayed graphically, sometimes simply implied - animals being killed, their corpses being dismembered; Susie's murder, of course; a very gory-sounding fantasy sequence of her father avenging her death against her killer, Mr. Harvey; several moments of real danger and jeopardy, including Susie's sister at risk of the same fate as Susie. I think a few viewers might find this sits a little uncomfortably with them - films about little girls shouldn't contain images like these, should they? That's what the hordes boringly roared about Tideland, if you remember. Personally, I think a film about child murder simply has to contain scenes that are shocking and affecting, that it would be irresponsible to take the sharp corners and hard edges off of this subject matter.

Jackson is a great director, and if he can keep a tight hold on the reins, this is going to be one of his best, a genuine classic. As this is the man who kept an iron grip on nine units for Rings, I think we're safe.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that while Heavenly Creatures is the number one point of comparison in all discussions of The Lovely Bones, The Frighteners crosses over plenty too (a film, incidentally, produced by Robert Zemeckis). Both deal with how the dead posess the living (figuratively, and for brief moments literally), both deal with small communities gripped by grief, both deal with characters in the afterlife, both deal with terrible murderers, both deal with terrifying chases through nightmare worlds. And, counting this one script review for Bones, both have been rather unfairly maligned.

Gilliam Chats With Sydney Morning Herald: Parnassus, Quixote, No Mention Of Gorillaz

In a new interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Gilliam covers all of the typical bases from his interviews of late: Spamalot, Tideland, upcoming projects.

Do go read the whole thing, but here are choice excerpts. Firstly, on Tideland:

What's been interesting is I go on the web and look at Rotten Tomatoes and see that 70 to 75 per cent of the critics don't like it. Then you read the public comments and it's just the opposite - 70 to 75 per cent of the public who write in like it. So I'm not sure who's out of touch.

It's totally innocent. What's interesting about it is all the reviews I read that use the word pedophile. I think, 'What are they talking about?' They're not talking about what's there on the screen. They're talking about how they've been brainwashed by the media.

On Depp being The Man Who Killed Don Quixote:

We can't make it without him and we can certainly make it a lot more easily now with him. It's quite extraordinary because at the time, Johnny meant nothing to the studios. Now they'll kill to have him there.

The article, not Gilliam, says:

But first - finance permitting - comes The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, set in a travelling show which has an attraction that allows patrons to go inside a man's mind.

For more on that one - a LOT more - read film ick's exclusive script review.

[EDIT: Josh Tyler at Cinema Blend has this morning seen fit to slate Parnassus, calling it a Being John Malkovich knockoff. How very, very wrong he is. Again]

More Sense And Another Dose Of Sensibility

Filming is now underway on the BBC's latest Jane Austen adaptation, Sense and Sensibilty. The director is John Alexander, previously responsible for episodes of Teachers, Life on Mars and Holby City as well as Bondmaker, a docudramatic biopic (four words for the price of two - bargain!) about the life of Ian Fleming. I wouldn't get too excited about his involvement.

The scriptwriter, however, is much more appealing - it's the rather brilliant Andrew Davies who did a phenomenally good job with Pride and Prejudice.

The cast for Sense includes David Morrissey, The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, Janet McTeer - who was incredible in Tideland - and the newcomers Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield as Elinor and Marianne. Expect much fanfare when the three-parter rolls out on BBC and PBS next year.

Dreamachine

Hanway Films - financiers of the best film of 2006, Terry Gilliam's Tideland - and Celluloid Dreams - financiers of the best film of 2007 so far, Garth Jennings' Son of Rambow - have merged.

Variety announce that the new company will be called Dreamachine and have a library of 500 films. It will be run by Hengameh Panahi and Jeremy Thomas. Thomas will continue to produce films independently through The Recorded Picture Company, but these will then be handle by Dreamachine.

Upcoming films from the new super sales entity include Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and Johnnie To's Triangle, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. Hopefully there'll be even more of this calibre to come now they've pooled dollars.

Looks like Cannes this year is going to be dominated by this wonderful new beast.

Children Of Men, Superman Series And Tideland: The Sad State Of DVD Publishing Today

If you live in the UK, your first chance to buy Children on Men came in December. The single disc edition was virtually bare bones and when news broke about a replacement 2-Disc edition coming little more than three months later, it felt like a slap in the face. Early adopters had been had.

Luckily, now, Universal are agreeing to replace UK R2 copies of the single-disc edition with the full monty. And virtually for free.

Send your disc with a jiffy bag for the return item, stamped to the value of 70p, to this address:

Children of Men DVD Amnesty
PO Box 188
Woodford Green
Essex
IG8 7RW

You have until June 30th. Ex-rental copies are not elligible. Tell them who sent you.

You won't believe how hard it was to get that address. I called, was put on hold, cut off; called again, was put on hold, given an e-mail address to try; I e-mailed and never received a reply; called again, was cut off again... I could go on. Somehow I don't think Universal want a large number of returns - but they are doing the right thing. Well, almost - they should offer something in return for the postage costs, really. Maybe a discount voucher from other Universal releases?

The Superman series boxset that was issued lat last year was, I'm told, a bit of a botch job. In R1 at least - can anybody confirm the status of the R2 discs? America will find the repressed, corrected set on shelves from May 19th. Frankly, I wouldn't touch Superman IV with a barge pole and way prefer Richard Lester to Richard Donner... I'm not the audience for this box. Not until it gets real cheap.

And finally, the biggest DVD debacle in recent years goes on and on and on. Tideland is still not available in the correct format outside of the UK. ThinkFilm's final official statement?

That they will be replacing the 1.78:1 disc currently on shelves with a 2.35:1 reissue later this year. No amnesty announced, no replacement scheme in place. And worst of all... 2.35:1 isn't the aspect ratio Gilliam wants used anyway. They should be repressing to the 2.25:1 (approximately) master that he supplied.

At least when discs area thing of the past and everything comes as a download, botches like these should be easier to rectify.

Peter Pan Gets Tidelanded

Seems that Peter Pan has been Tidelanded. Oscar Grillo's warning about the new 'special edition' release has been posted by Cartoon Brew.

[EDIT: The link was bust, but now it's fixed. Silly me]

Tideland DVD Brouhaha Finally Wrapped Up

Phil Stubbs at Dreams has compiled all of the information he can regarding the various DVD releases of Tideland. The short version: get the UK version. Just like we told you in the very beginning.

Phil has been running a Gilliam site for years now, and as such, Gilliam sends him semi-official statements. That's the main thing to go over to the piece for, to see Gilliam definitively say once more what we've known for weeks:

That the ThinkFilm DVD is a hatchet job and the UK release from Revolver is just as the director intended.

Now... how do we get ThinkFilm to reissue the DVD, apologies and instigate a free disc-replacement scheme? Surely nothing else will do. Ideas in the comments section, please. Your support on this issue will be greatly appreciated.

Tideland Round Up

Okay then, here's a round up of Tideland news.

I never did receive the copy I was promised from Revolver. After all of the publicity they've recieved over the last week or so from my campaigning, I'm surprised.

Despite initial reports to the contrary, it seems that the Canadian release is faulty too.

Phil Stubbs' Dreams page have been running a forum on the issue. Phil is a good man and has done a lot to support Tideland, and Gilliam in general.

Aint it Cool, Cinematical, Davis DVD and The Digital Bits ran big pieces on ThinkFilm's faux pas, and were kind enough to link back here so that readers might get the full force of my ranting. I have to thank Drew McWeeny in particular for his forceful and effective piece.

Quick Stop Entertainment have published a new statement from Terry Gilliam himself. I'll post it below, but sadly, he appears to have been miseld again. He believes the North American discs are all simply unmatted presentations, whereas it has now been demonstrated to me that they do suffer notable cropping on the right and left sides of the picture. Why people are lying to Gilliam or feeding him bad info, I do not know. Shameful.

Don't forget, by the way, to get your R2 UK Tideland disc from Revolver. And if you speak to them, let them know I'm still waiting for the copy I was promised months ago. I'll review it all nicely and everything.

Here's Terry...

I'm embarrassed! Having been assured that the Canadian DVD was the correct format, I now discover I was completely misled.

What was I thinking? Why hadn't I jumped a plane and flown to Toronto to buy a Tideland DVD on the 1st day of sales? I would have known the truth before opening my big mouth. What a fool!!! I can begin to see why Stanley Kubrick went a bit whacko trying to keep an eye on every print of his films in every far-flung corner of the globe... and he had a full-time guy doing the legwork.

Any volunteers?

What I recommend for all the owners of the North Americamn Tideland DVD is to get a roll of wide black tape... sorry, before you do that, go out and buy a dozen more copies of the DVDs and pass them out to your friends, then... pause the disc at the Capri Films logo when it flares out into a blue sky. What you see is the correct proportion of 2.35:1. Then, unrolling the tape, mask off the black areas on the screen above and below. If you want to leave a little bit more space top and bottom of the logo you will end up with the UK proportion. Then you should just sit back and enjoy. All the information left to right is there. There was no panning and scanning. Just stupidity.

-Terry

p.s. Check next day to see how many of your friends will still look you in the eye. They are the people you should be spending time with. F*ck the others!

ThinkFilm Calling Canadian Tideland DVD A Bust Too

According to an e-mail from ThinkFilm's Senior Vice President, the Canadian release of Tideland uses the same master as theirs. So that one's off the shopping list too. [EDIT: Except, it isn't - he's either lying or giving us bad information by mistake]

Oh dear. He continues to refer to Gilliam's 2.25:1 ratio as 'faux 2.35'. This must be very embarrassing for ThinkFilm. They've made a terrible blunder and are spouting silliness now that they're confronted with it.

[EDIT: There is at least one version of Tideland available in Canada that is in the correct 2.25:1 aspect ratio. This exposes the comments from ThinkFilm as either a lie or completely misinformed. They really need to start checking their facts - that's what got them into this mess in the first place. Todd at Twitch has kindly performed all kinds of analysis on his Candian DVD - which is to say, he got the ruler out - and has been able to approximate a 2.25:1 ratio. There's complications if, in fact, there turns out to be more than one Canadian release, but what are the chances of that happening, eh?]

ThinkFilm Think They Know Better Than Terry Gilliam

Gilliam has spoken. His preferred ratio for Tideland on DVD is...

drumroll please...

2.25:1 - which, I'm sure you know isn't a standard aspect ratio. He opened the matte up a little from the 2.35:1 cinema release, and this is the master he provided to both ThinkFilm in the US and Revolver in the UK. Revolver issued it, ThinkFilm thought they knew better...

Here's Gilliam's statement, via Phil Stubbs:

"I mastered the DVD and decided that opening it up a bit vertically from the strict 2.35 looked better on the small screen. It's probably about 2.25. It is the choice of the director. Tell the fans to relax. I prefer it this way"

Revolver adhered to this, and released the film as Gilliam desired. ThinkFilm did not. Here's a statement from David Hudkoc at ThinkFilm:

You are correct that a 2.35:1 version is the most desired. We had in fact requested one early on in the DVD creation process; however, one was not created. Eventually, a faux 2.35 was created by the UK distributor, which ended up being closer to a 2.25 - a quick, but not complete solution. We are only in position to put out what materials are delivered to us, and although we all knew that the 1.78:1 was not ideal, nor true to the film, we had to proceed. We are currently working on getting a 2.35:1 master to work from and will plan a re-release when it is made available.

We apologize for the disappointment with the 1.78 version. Again, we will release a proper 2:35 as soon as it becomes available.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Kindly,

Dave Hudakoc.
ThinkFilm

[email protected]

So, essentially, provided the 2.25:1 master from Gilliam, Hudakoc decided this was 'a quick soultion', declared it 'faux' and decided to make his own 1.78:1 version. Why? Why not release the 2.25:1?

Now they're talking about a 2.35:1 re-release at ThinkFilm... which, again, isn't Gilliam's preference. Oh dear. Make good use of Mr. Hudakoc's e-mail address, telephone number and fax line to make sure he gets up to date on all of this.

We aren't campaigning for a 2.35:1 Tideland anymore. We're campaigning for the 2.25:1 to Gilliam intended. Thankfully, Revolver have already issued one, here in the UK, and from websites like CD-Wow you can order it for delivery to many countries of the world.

[EDIT: A second statement from Terry Gilliam to Phil Stubbs reads "I think we have to get the word out NOT TO BUY the American version of the DVD. The Canadian version is correct. It's Region1... so Americans can see the film as intended" but, sadly, Mr. Gilliam had been deceived about the US release and may yet be wrong about the Canadian one. Is there ANYBODY out there who can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that the Canadian release is in the correct 2.25:1 aspect ratio?]

[EDIT: David Hudakoc has requested I remove his address and telephone number information from this post. Of course, I complied. Anybody who can use Google should have no trouble finding them anyway. Luckily they weren't in the comments, which I can't delete]

[EDIT: ThinkFilm are now slurring the Canadian release. Tut tut]

ThinkFilm Damned In A New Statement From Terry Gilliam

Phil Stubbs has posted an open letter from Terry Gilliam on his Dreams website. It is a rather scathing attack on ThinkFilm for how they rendered Tideland ineligible for the Academy Awards. Yep: it couldn't even be nominated due to an 'oversight' on ThinkFilm's part.

And we thought the aspect ratio issue was as bad as it got. I had proposed a boycot on ThinkFilm's Tideland DVD. I'm now just a hair away from calling for a march on their headquarters.

Stupid, ignorant, selfish, greedy people. Foolish people. What sort of distributor doesn't do the necessary for their films to be eligible for the Oscars? Its not hard - just a little bit of paperwork. ThinkFilm are clearly not fit for purpose.

I'm hoping this scenario prompts other filmmakers to think twice before signing a contract with these idiots.

Call This Number

Call ThinkFilm on 001 212 444 7900, from anywhere in the world, and let them know that, in fact, you will be boycotting their DVD release of Tideland and importing the Revolver one from the UK as it is in the correct aspect ratio.

Stress the point about the aspect ratio.

Now... does anybody have a good e-mail address for these butchers?

ThinkFilm's Tideland Butchery Not Approved

I have received an e-mail from Nicola Pecorini, the phenomenally talented cinematographer of Tideland. He tells me that neither he nor director Terry Gilliam approved the decision by ThinkFilm to release the DVD version of Tideland in a 1.77:1 aspect ratio, instead of the original 2.35:1 of the cinema release.

In fact, Pecorini didn't have any nice words for ThinkFilm's handling of the film overall - but really, who does?

I would advise that readers worldwide seek out the R2 UK DVD of Tideland from Revolver. Sadly, my long promised review copy has still not arrived, but hopefully, it will soon.

Hopefully. And then we can talk more about what a good job they did with it.

[EDIT: A new review by Randy Miller III has praised the content (that is, the film and the features - which you can see on the properly formatted Revolver set) of ThinkFilm's DVD, but knocked off points for the incorrect aspect ratio presentation. ThinkFilm aren't going to live this one down easily]

Tideland Aspect Ratio Debacle: Update

The Tideland aspect ratio debacle sprawls on.

Cinematical have joined the cause, linking back here. There's also much discussion on the 'Dreams' Terry Gilliam messageboard. The latest info?

Well, that the UK R2 DVD appears to be a 2.25:1, very near the 2.35:1 screened in cinemas. This appears to be Gilliam approved. I could confirm this for sure if Revolver had sent me the copy I was promised, but the last I heard it was 'going in the post today' - a week and a hlaf ago.

Well done Revolver for getting the aspect ratio (nearly?) right, nonetheless. However, almost all other versions of the film are cropped to 1.85:1 for those ol' 16:9 screens we're all snapping up these days. That includes the US, Canadian, French and Belgian releases.

Watch this space for further details and a full and frank apology to Revolver when my disc finally arrives.

ThinkFilm Thoughtless?

I'm now reading reports that the US R1 DVD of Tideland from ThinkFilm has been cropped from the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio to 1.85:1. This would be tantamount to butchery.

Please check carefully - and not just on reatiler websites - before you shell out. If you have the disc, please confirm or deny these claims in the comments below. And if you have a copy from another publisher in another territory, could you please let us know how yours has been formatted?

Guild Gongs Gilliam

At the Art Director's Guild Excellence in Production Design Awards last night, Terry Gilliam was granted the special prize for Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery. They're not wrong.

In his acceptance speach Gilliam commented on the great production designers of the last century plus. "The worlds they created were so wondrous. Not so many people are allowed to do that now, to create worlds so magical. I'm one of the lucky ones to slip through the net and do it."

"I'm still trying to make movies that don't depend on the computer to do it. The digital world that I have are these digits [holding up his hand] that make things and build things. Let's keep doing great work."

Tideland, sadly, won nothing in the year's best categories, however, losing out to Casino Royale in Best Contemporary Production Design and, I suppose, Pan's Labyrinth in Best Fantasy Production Design.

Onetime Gilliam collaborator Jeffrey Beescroft (see: Twelve Monkeys) did win Best Production Design in a Commercial, Promo or PSA for his work on the Victoria's Secret (What Is) Sexy spots.

Genies Snub Magic

Tideland has been snubbed at the Canadian Genie awards, the only major prizes for which it had been nominated. Instead - and in the typical partisan style that always marrs the Baftas, Cesars, Oscars and so on - the gongs were handed out in a genuinely confusing fashion.

The Rocket scooped Best Director for Charles Biname plus Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume, Editing, Lead Actor and Actress and Supporting Actor and Sound Editing - but not best film.

That went to Eric Canuel's Bon Cop, Bad Cop (the Canadian Hot Fuzz) which was also rewarded with Acheivement in Overall Sound and the Golden Reel.

I know - it doesn't add up. A film supposedly towers above its competition which, somehow, is actually better in most regards. Typical. This stuff drives me nuts. It seem like all they were doing was rewarding Bon Cop, Bad Cop for it's record breaking box office.

Grrrrr! And please 'don't get me started' on the Dayton/Faris snub in the Directing category of the Oscars this year. I'll go supernova.

Details: Gilliam Has Completed His Latest Script, Now Securing Funding

Earlier this week, Terry Gilliam presented his latest, Tideland (number one in film ick's films of 2006 and released on a glowingly well-reviewed R2 2-disc DVD this very Monday) to an audience at Hatfield's University of Hertfordshire (my old alma mater). After the screening, Gilliam took part in a typically riveting-yet-irreverent Q&A; session, the most interesting nugget from which - as reported in This is Hertfordshire - is that Gilliam has recently completed a new script, and is planning to get it into production as soon as possible. Hurrah!

The script was co-written with Charles McKeown, one of Gilliam's collaborators on the scrrenplays for Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Going on previous comments, as reported here at film ick, the film would seem to have a lot in common with the Baron's tale, telling as it does the story af an immortal storyteller finding that today, his brand of fantasy isn't widely accepted any longer.

Sounds somewhat autobiographical too.

If all of Gilliam's recent comments on how he is going to approach future projects apply here, we can expect the film to be budgeted at around $20 million, use Dave McKean-inspired CG imagery, tread fearlessly into controverial subject matters, be shot in the UK and definitely not feature Johnny Depp.

Tideland DVD Review - Part One

At the time of writing, I haven't yet received a finally-finished-final copy of the 2-Disc Tideland set, but have been viewing the screener copy with almost all of the special features in place and, for now, will be basing any comments only on this preliminary disc. As a result, I can't comment on the quality of the transfer - it won't compare between the timecoded copy I have and the release version.

As regards the supplements most notably missing is the commentary track for the feature, with Terry Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni, but I'll certainly be reviewing that in it's own right when a copy of the finished set comes my way. If you're a fan of chat-tracks, I'd imagine this one is on your want list. It's been heading mine since it was confirmed by Revolver before Christmas.

The main supplement that is present would be Vincenzo Natali's documentary Getting Gilliam. Natali is the director Cube, Cypher and Nothing but this is his first released non-fiction film, I believe.

Getting Gilliam was filmed during the making of Tideland and as such, does focus on the making of this one film in particular though it's obvious that Natali's scope and ambitions are bigger. He's interested not only in the construction of one work but in Gilliam's underlying artistic temperment and in the director's approach to making movies generally. While this would be enough subject matter for a very long film, Natali unfortunately has only some forty-odd minutes (despite the film being listed as 60 minutes long on the DVD's print ads and press release) and it's very disappointing when everything comes to such an early end.

Not unlike The Hamster Factor and Lost in La Mancha before hand, Getting Gilliam does feature a number of pseduo-Python animations to link sections, accompany bursts of voice over and illustrate ideas. It's a technique that's already getting a little tired, unfortunately, but at least they're fairly good animations in this instance. Hopefully, however, the cardboard cut-out albatross can now be slipped from around Gilliam's neck and documentarians might seek to characterise him in a new way.

As is always the case in his behind-the-scenes appearances, Gilliam is incredibly candid, not only allowing the filmmakers full access but virtually upending the litter cans so they might have something better and more revealing to snout through. There always comes a time in a Gilliam documentary when you are made to feel like a snoop, perhaps - and the first time that occurs here is right off of the bat. I don't want to spoil it, but if you're an armchair stalker, there's a little sprinkling of suff here you will really enjoy.

Gilliam, of course, has nothing to hide - well, as a filmmaker, at least - and it's no surprise that his best tactic in the handful of dirty fights he's been embroiled in (see Brazil and The Brothers Grimm in particular) has been to pull the sheet right back and show everybody the filthy bed he's been asked to lie in. Either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your interest, Tideland was not subject to any bitter power struggles, art-versus-commerce wars or rationality-challenging sequences of disaster, so Getting Gilliam might seem a little light on scandal by comparison to Gilliam's reputation...

..but, of course, that's the very best thing about it. Gilliam's widely held reputation is absurd, ridiculous and unfounded. This is no loose cannon lunatic driving movies, crews and millions of dollars recklessly into the ground: any overspend on Munchausen was not of his making; there is nothing overblown or impenetrable about Brazil; most of Gilliam's films have come in either on budget and schedule, or frequently, under budget and ahead of schedule. No, this is a truly great filmmaker, always inspired, inventive and, above all else, responsible.

Gilliam is responsible to the investors, to the audience, to himself - and most of all, to the film, and what the film means.

So Natali does well just to show another (more real) side of Gilliam, and to hint at his creative processes which many, apparently, find inscrutable. There's not a minute in this film that you won't enjoy, even if you do find it only partly lives up to it's own potential. All the same, for a Gilliam fan - or a Natali fan, of which I hope there are may reading (there's certainly one writing) - this documentary alone makes the disc an essential purchase.

Outside of Getting Gilliam, there are numerous interview snippets on the disc too, with Grisoni, Jeff Bridges, Brendan Flecther, Janet McTeer and Jodelle Ferland. While they all have something to say, it's rarely earth-shaking stuff, and a few of the stop-off points on the menu will only be visited once. A few surplus glimpses at Gilliam, cast and crew on set are in one short featurette, but alonsgide Getting Gilliam, it seems particularly slight.

Better, though, is a Q&A; from the Hay literary festival in 2006. This is where Mitch Cullin, the author of the original Tideland novel, makes his big appearance. Cullin has always been a vocal supporter of Gilliam's film, Gilliam always speaking out about the novel and why he loved it so much - but thankfully, this Q&A; does not descend into a mutual appreciation session. Like most things Gilliam it's often irreverent, just a little unpredictable and easily quotable. Again, a rather short feature, but ceratinyl enjoyable and, for many viewers (that is, anybody with a more casual and less rabid interest in the film than us at film ick) informative.

Gilliam appears in a stand alone interview too, seemingly filmed at the same time as his notorious introduction to the film. Outside of the commentary, this is probably the best place to get the official line on Tideland, on how and why it came to be, and came to be the way it is. As ever, Gilliam gives good interview but that virtually goes without saying.

In essence, the disc's special features are only icing, the cake's the thing - and what a rich cake it is. Once you have Tideland at home to watch anytime, I defy you not to gorge yourself upon it, virtually make yourself sick, feel terrible in the morning but then soon enough come crawling back for more. And as soon as I have the full, finished discs in my hands, it's becoming a staple on the menu in my classroom. My students might feel a little uncomfortable at first (generally preferring not so controversial, ire-inducing or challenging material) but I promise, they'll all thank me eventually.

Revolver's 2-Disc R2 UK release of Tideland is in the shops next Monday, 29th January 2007. Hopefully, before then, I'll be able to tell you about the commentary track and a other features not on my early disc - so keep an eye out.

Here's the official run down of contents:

Introduction to film by Terry Gilliam
2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Dolby Sound
Commentary with Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni
Interview with Terry Gilliam
Getting Gilliam, the making of Tideland, a film by Vincenzo Natali
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
Green Screen
Deleted Scenes
Interview with Jeremy Thomas
Q&A; with Terry Gilliam and Mitch Cullin at the Hay Festival, 2006
Theatrical Trailer