24 Hour Party People Blu-Ray

Just in case you weren't aware, the Blu-Ray of this movie has now been released (last week).

Sadly, there isn't much improvement in picture quality. Apparently the film wasn't shot in HD, so no amount of tinkering with the picture will improve it much.

Despite the bold, accurate (but kind of misleading) quote on the BD cover, boasting "For the first time on Blu-Ray: a huge 4.5 hours of bonus material", there's nothing new on this. I guess that tagline reads better than 'Available once again: most of the stuff previously available in 2002!'

Anyway, the BD contains the following (previously available) bonus features:

Wilson commentary Coogan/Eaton commentary Unknown Pleasures - 24 deleted scenes From The Factory Floor video commentary Pills N Thrills & Bellyaches interviews Saville gallery (with commentary by Saville and Wilson) Portrait of a Filmmaker profile of Winterbottom

But it sadly misses out the following from the UK 2-disc DVD:

Sleeve Notes text commentary UK Trailer 'Here To Stay' video

And it also misses out all the additional stuff that was on the US, Australian and German DVDs; namely:

Genesis Of 24 Hour Party People featurette (Australia & Germany DVD) The Real Tony Wilson featurette (Australia & Germany DVD) Playing People Who Are Still Alive featurette (Australian & Germany DVD) Manchester The Movie featurette (US DVD) About Tony Wilson featurette (US DVD) US Trailer (US DVD) Behind The Scenes (B Roll) featurette (Germany DVD) Photo Gallery (Germany DVD)

So it's a bit of a disappointment, all told. Not much point in upgrading from the UK 2-disc DVD set. There's nothing new on it and some of the bonus stuff hasn't been carried over. It would've been nice to include some of the extra features included on the foreign territories' DVDs mentioned above.

Still, it's a fun movie, and always worth another watch.

Sorry - I'm not exactly Barry Norman, am I?

Just as an aside, I now have this movie 6 bleeding times!!!

1. Standard UK 2-disc DVD
2. HMV UK 2-disc DVD (with limited edition silver 'FAC1' style cover)
3. US 1-disc edition DVD
4. German 2-disc edition DVD, with booklet (can't bloody read it though, as my German linguistic skills are lacking)
5. Australian 2-disc edition DVD
6. UK Blu-Ray

I bought 2) above simply because I was really annoyed back in the day seeing this in HMV after having bought the standard (i.e. rubbish) cover of 1). I eventually ended up getting the limited edition at a later date.

I bought 3), 4) and 5) for the extra features mentioned above. It was really flipping annoying that all the multitude of bonus features were spread out over different releases. I guess that other territories needed some background on who Wilson and some of the players were so included featurettes on Tony and the others. But there was no reason why some of the other stuff (the B-Roll footage, the Genesis OF 24HPP feature) didn't make it onto the UK DVD.

Hmm - looking at it, I seem to possess 4 copies of 'Control' as well:

1. German DVD
2. US DVD
3. Australian DVD
4. German Blu-Ray.

I must be obsessed. Weird though, that I don't seem to have a UK edition of that one. Maybe I have another lurking somewhere.

I do know that I didn't buy the film for years after. Went to the cinema to see it at the time and, despite me knowing the story very well beforehand, I found it quite emotional and hard-going (even though I liked it). I think that this put me off buying it; not wanting to relive some of the uncomfortable moments in it.

Still, it appears that I made it up to Anton by buying it (at least) 4 times a few years later... I never learn.