New to Blu Ray is our monthly look at the latest Blu Ray releases. This month we look at some new action, comedy, horror and cable TV releases
Inglourious Basterds – Universal put out the home video release of this Weinstein coproduction so it ends up looking like all Universal movies. The colors are saturated so they glow a little bit supernaturally. That’s fine, but it’s starting to seem a bit uniform, not specific to the look of each movie. Did Quentin Tarantino want all his characters to be highlighted by light halos? Plus it smooths out the grit in some of the rustic locations.
The clarity is so sharp that you are able to see dust flying around the farmouse, same with the debris in the tavern shootout. Brad Pitt’s neck scar shows up very distinctly. You can distinguish all the crust above the theater marquee in the quick crane from the sky. Closeups of the needle and bullet wound on the operating table are nice and squirmy, and the projection booth shows all the wear and tear of an old moviehouse.
Maybe Tarantino’s intention was to point at certain details, but not all of them. There’s ornate stuff too, particularly where the Nazis frolic. The whole film has a sort of polished Hollywood effect, which could also be what Tarantino was going for, an old timey aesthetic. Unfortunately, Nation’s Pride is not presented in HD.
Public Enemies – Digital cinema shows its flaws right away in the opening of Public Enemies. A haze covers every other shot with white speckles. There’s awesome minute grit and detail of the prison. Then it gets covered with a screen. Wasn’t HD recording supposed to be better than film? Shouldn’t it convert to HD Blu Ray automatically?
The good stuff is great. When it’s clear you can see all the crafted detail of the period or the actual detail that still remains on location. The gritty crime life, crisp faces and hair, distinct light and shadow would look stunning if the film itself held up consistently.
It gets rough every time they go into a bank, which is kind of a key location for the John Dillinger story. They should get that right. It looks like a fuzzy cable connection, only it’s on the source. So much for my theory that all Universal Blu Rays looked the same.
Terminator Salvation – This looks awesome. There’s total clarity. Even the altered burnt out color palette is clear with all the detail in the robot debris lining the ground, the wear and tear of the battlefield and all the burnt out locations of the post-apocalypse.
There are a few detours underground, in the factory, but they hold up. There’s less light so less detail to see, but it never goes bad. Some close-ups in the humans camp and the sterile factory hallways grain up, but it still looks like film. It never looks like bad transfer.
The intensity of images works. The light on the actors and highlights of the stark environment make it real. The metal under human skin looks real. Even the “Arnold” composite looks real. It doesn’t behave like the real Arnold but it looks like the real thing.
The director’s cut does indeed show Moon Bloodgood’s side boob. It’s a long shot, but thanks to HD, it’s all clear.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – This movie is all in a super saturated sepia tone. It’s been so long since I saw it, I forgot that it didn’t just look like a normal movie. Given that, it holds up really well in HD.
It’s grainy and faded, but a sort of crisp and detailed faded grain. There are some shiny parts, and different sources of colored light reflect intentionally. Blue neon signs or yellow hallways color specific locations to make them stand out.
You see some textures, from the cover of the tanning booth and the subtle cracks of a leather jacket to the gritty hoodlum faces and run down slums. The colors you do see really pop out from the sepia. It’s almost like Guy Ritchie’s home movie in HD.
