Tuesday, December 22, 2015

one

hi there


before we, as it were, begin proper, let me sort of make at least one thing partially clear. although you might, during the course of reading this, detect what you suspect as being sarcasm, snide comment or ill-informed opinion, i really don't have any problem, look you see, with the band at the heart of this post. they are out there, man, doing their thing, making stacks of cash and making a tremendous amount of people happy. nice one, that's what it is supposed to be all about.

righty-ho, with that what i feel to be a very lawyer appeasing disclaimer all done and dusted, let's get on with what has brought me to type here. i obtained yet another blu ray off of Poundland for £1. actually, i have obtained quite a few of late, but i am talking about one specific one. well, one specific one that, as point of fact, i bought three copies of, but more on that later.



yes. oh yes, indeed, yes it is. Poundland were, until very recently, selling the Ultimate Fan Edition of the film One Direction In One Direction This Is Us Starring One Direction, which hereafter we shall refer to purely as This Is Us to save me on either typing or copying & pasting.

what's that in the background? my smart One Direction "messenger" style bag. weirdly, i also paid £1 for that, but it was off of The Entertainer, not Poundland. At Discount World, or similar, i also paid £1 for my classy One Direction mug (images of which are on this blog somewhere), and indeed £1 for my absolutely massive One Direction pencil case. let it not be said that i am not prepared to spend £1 on any One Direction merchandise which so happens to meet my requirements.

a look at the inside of this blu ray set? and, by the way, it is a blu-ray set. for £1! deal!



if your eyes are considerably better than mine, which should not be too problematic, you could probably steal the "download code" off of that image so you can sneakily have my digital copy of this presumably magnificent film.

indeed the set does contain two blu ray discs; one with the enhanced 3D version of the motion picture and one standard 2D version of it for peasants. in terms of watching i am, alas, in the peasant bracket. whereas i have a blu ray player capable of 3D playback, i do not have a 3D TV set. i, as i have pointed out somewhere, consider 3D TV to be a pile of sh!t, and just got the 3D capable player for a negligible price differential on the off chance that at some point certain extras i might want featured on a 3D only disc. it has not happened yet, but you never know.

a look at the screen from when the blu ray loads up? certainly. it's a fancy thing which sees the band logo, or if you like emblem, transform from a solid state into a fancy thing made out of, presumably, spotlights.

 

of the three copies i purchased, one was posted to Payney. Payney is a man, as many of you will be aware, that has three core passions - masturbation, quality music and motion pictures presented in the highest definition possible. with that in mind, i would have been nothing short of a disgrace if i didn't get a copy for him.

i like to imagine, but most certainly not picture, him "appreciating" one of those three core passions i mentioned there in a state of excitement at the sight of the 1D logo forming from spotlights.

if, like Payney, you are impatient and aroused by the prospect of seeing something from the actual film, here you go. this is a snippet of one of the songs off of the motion picture, called It Only Takes A Minute, Girl or probably something like that.



yeah, i know it's only ten or so seconds of the magic of the band, but i am not sure what the law says about "fair use" of music clips. that Simon Cowell fella, who i believe to this day owns the arses of all of the band, looks pretty much like he can afford better lawyers than me - although Spiros does his best - so forgive me if i am being overtly cautious in just including a short clip.

speaking of the band, would you like a look at them as they appear on the blu ray menu? you would? how about a look at them in Commodore 64 mode with scan lines on? done.



what's really good about the This Is Who We Are film is that it features all five of the trio that make up the band One Direction, or if you like 1D. there they are, from left to right, something like Desmond, Danny, Dave, Dumisani and OJ. it is probably, now that i think about it, the fact that all, or most, of their names probably start with a "D" that they are called "1D". that's quite clever, that is.
 
what's the film actually about? i mean, what happens in it, you mean? well, from what i could ascertain as i skipped through it in order to get pictures and video at random, it's a combination of three things.

firstly, it features a lot of fans, like you can see in a picture near this text, holding up banners about how great One Direction are, and indeed the fans back this up by saying how great they are. secondly, you get footage of One Direction themselves, saying how great it is to be in One Direction and how great the fans are.

thirdly, and indeed finally if you wish to see things in such a way and hold me to task over my claim that it is constructed as a film from three elements, you get footage of the band performing songs which seem to wildly contradict the assertions and statements made in  the first and second parts which compose the film.

where exactly did the third copy of Remember Me This Way on blu ray end up? Sharpy, or if you like Sharpie, of course. he is very big on music memorabilia, to the extent that he has on display in his home a framed bus timetable that technically belonged to Bono for a short while. i had no doubt at all that he would love to have this, and i imagine that he does.

further, actually, i like to imagine that he also made a special celebratory banner about One Direction, much like their other fans seem to do, and waved it about as he watched the film.

blu ray discs, as you probably don't need me to tell you, usually feature a whole whack of extras. the Ultimate Fan Edition of One Direction's Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am is absolutely no different to the usual. here's a look at one of the extras.



that right there is a snippet from the promotional music video for the One Direction song which is called Best Song Ever. so long as i have breath enough to smoke, and so long as my arse faces south, i shall fight the fight to argue that this is the single most optimistically named song in the history of recorded music. but hey, each to their own.

a look at the menu image of the five member of the 21st Century's most successful quartet to date in non-Commodore 64 mode? sure. 



which is my most favourite member of the band? it's really hard to narrow it down to just one, to be honest.  they are all just so awesome and excellent. if i had to narrow it down, i suppose it would probably be, of the five i named, Winston. or maybe Lionel.
 
oh, go on then, you crazy Commodore 64 mode fans, here is a look at the blu ray disc of One Direction's That Was Then This Is Now in the mode of image you like. it really does enhance the look of it, i think.

now that i have gotten around to loading the disc up to take some pictures - and a bit of video (cheers for the tacit permission, Pete Waterman or whoever) - what are the chances of this disc ever being put in one of my blu ray players again? slim to none, dear reader. there can only be a first time once, and a second or subsequent viewing of this would not live up to the excitement of the first time.

how often do i imagine Payney or Sharpy will watch it? well, more than me, for a start. i would expect that Payney will watch it every time he has the house to himself, or when everyone else has gone to bed, and be comfortable in doing so by loosening his strides as he sits and watches. Sharpy, on the other hand, is a f*****g mentallist. he has probably taken a blowtorch or something out and welded closed the snazzy tray compartment of his blu ray player so that no one may ever watch anything in his house other than this film. which is admirable, but could be unfortunate for him if the band releases a Super Ultimate Fan Edition called More Of This Is Us or something like that.

it is, of course, total bullsh!t that we live in a world where artists like Spanga and Falco don't even get a 10 minute documentary made about them, yet one cannot move in Poundland without finding some film or other about One Direction. but hey, it's a crazy, unjust world we live in, just dig it man.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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