New to Blu-Ray - July 2009

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.
 

Knowing

As a brand new release, Knowing looks as fantastic as Blu Ray can. By this point in Hollywood production, they must have HD releases in mind as they’re shooting. Every scene or setting you expect to look great does look great.

There are some beautiful landscapes to see, either in nature or the city. In intimate interiors, you see all the detail present. Those disasters, which are way too graphic for a PG-13 but I love ‘em, represent terrifying detail as people burn up or get plowed down by a subway.

As the grand solar disaster approaches, the lighting gets really beautiful. It almost looks like an oil painting by the end, colorful and shiny. Visual effects hold up well. Perhaps you can still tell they are effects, but the detail, shine and beauty are enough to forgive any seams in the process.

12 Rounds

12 Rounds is a little easier to watch on Blu Ray. The high definition technology improves Renny Harlin’s artistic vision. On film, it was a grainy mess of handheld camera and choppy editing. Cleared up on high definition, it’s a little easier to follow the shaky, choppy action.

Set in New Orleans, there’s a lot of sweaty shiny detail. You can see Jon Cena’s freckles, and all the gritty detail of New Orleans’ better and worse streets. A few shots still look saturated. Perhaps Harlin mixed film stocks to go all Natural Born Killers. It doesn’t work artistically, but it represents better at home than it did in theaters.

When stuff explodes there’s plenty more to see. The Blu Ray doesn’t miss any of the action, even though Harlin’s cameras often do. Hey, if you’re still having trouble, just slow it down to admire the shot composition. But don’t do that, just appreciate a more palatable version of 12 Rounds on Blu Ray.

Push

Another new release that looks exactly how the filmmakers want it to look, Push is sharp with a little bit of graininess. That feeds into or from the saturated color palette that makes the greens of a fish market or reds of overhanging lights extreme. Some scenes end up looking totally clear, but that seems more of a cumulative effect of all the details in the scene than an intention to switch back and forth.

Japan looks fantastic in this light. The slick modern parts shine and the gritty, run down parts bristle. The colors are super bright and there’s plenty of detail in every set pieces to see. Restaurants, markets and business meeting places all have some sort of bright background color lit up. Those street scenes filled with neon are impressive Blu Ray demos.

The visual effects hold up under Blu Ray scrutiny too. Often you can see the seams at this level of definition, but Push’s effects still look like part of the practical scene. Any everyday objects hurled around mentally retain all the detail and reflectivity they should, even human beings. The pupil thing still looks real too. 

Spaceballs

The comedy classic holds up really nicely on Blu Ray. There’s like one layer of removal that keeps it looking like a film, but it is such finely restored and preserved film that it holds up with many new release Blu Rays.

You can see details in scuffs on Dark Helmet’s helmet, texture in the Schwartz rings, Lonestar’s banged up leather jacket. Deep space exteriors look exquisite, with all the detail in all the model work based on Star Wars, and the Winnebago in space.
There’s a bit of softness onboard Helmet’s ship, on Planet Druidia, in the desert. That’s what keeps it looking like film, but smoothed out film. Most of the movie is solid gray so it doesn’t matter that much. It’s just nice to see Spaceballs now like it was supposed to look back then.
 

Bruce Almighty

I didn’t think Bruce Almighty was that long ago that it wouldn’t be easy to preserve on Blu Ray. Surprisingly, it’s fuzzy, grainy, soft and not especially colorful. It just looks like a minimal transfer, not even good enough for DVD, which makes the film look like something from the ‘80s, not a six-year-old recent catalog title.

It’s easy to watch. Nothing looks bad, but nothing looks great. It’s all very plain, whether they’re at a waterfall, in a park, on the backlot city streets, anywhere. It’s more like the version of a movie you catch on TV than the Blu Ray.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Now I’ve happened to see I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry on HDTV where it looks great. Like wow, this little movie about dudes pretending to be gay looks awesome? But yeah, there was gritty detail in the firehouse and courtrooms, and loving lighting on costars like Jessica Biel.
 

The Blu Ray looks great too. It’s all totally clear, and bright and colorful. Firefighting scenes are like Backdraft in this little comedy. Neon lit galas from the Niagra Falls chapel circuit to the costume ball shine brightly. You see all the detail in the scenery as you listen to the jokes those people in the foreground make, so it’s a great HD transfer.  

The Unborn

 

The Unborn is a clear and crisp new release so you can see all the detail, either in the day to day scenes that keep you off guard, and all the scary stuff that happens. Of course, the creepiest is the actual medical procedure with an eye speculum, and that is in porous, realistic detail.
 

The fantasy stuff is all fine. Twisted bodies, gooey bugs, dead kids. I know that’s not real, but it looks clear and realistic on Blu Ray. It happens in realistic settings, from cool winter landscapes to gritty city nightclubs, all of which are in clear detail here.

Another horror movie cliché that provides good Blu Ray detail is the splashing water on your face. Yes, you think you see something, so splash some water to clear your vision. Of course, you still see things, but now we get to see all the detail in the droplets on her lovely face.

The Haunting in Connecticut

This new release looks a little mundane. It’s soft and fuzzy, so nothing looks Blu Ray sharp. It looks solid enough, like it’s a movie, but nothing special. Some scenes look bespectacled with white dots just because there’s not enough on screen to fill out the frame.
The whole movie is set in a rural home anyway, so it’s not like it’s a visual spectacle. There could be detail in the painted shingles and grassy yard, but it’s just not there. There are no bright colors either, although at least when scary visions start to happen, the bloody red is enough to stand out from the mundane scenery.

Sepia flashbacks are an interesting look and that actually shows off more clear detail in people’s faces than the normally lit scenes. Some creepy, squirmy details happen in the flashbacks, so that’s the highlight.  

Burn Notice

I had a feeling Burn Notice would look good on Blu Ray. It’s set in Miami, there’s lots of tropical scenery, plus gritty crime underworld. Certainly, sweeping exteriors hold up with shiny ocean reflections and all. The colors are bright out there, and the slums are dingy with gritty detail.

The bulk of the show looks really grainy. It’s intentional, a saturated look to heat up the footage. It’s a faux film look though. Obviously this isn’t a movie, so it looks fake. A lot of TV on Blu Ray looks grainy like that though, so this is on par. It’s just not one of those stellar, super clear, bright shiny Blu Rays.