176 The Killers

[Napier]

I don't believe there is a connection "intentionally", just coincidentally. In The Hit, the prey in question says he's not afraid to die. He's accepted it. But he sure didn't look ready when it came time.

[swo17]

Blu-ray upgrade July 7

[domino harvey]

I'm surprised that they haven't added any extras, especially in the wake of Arrow's releases, but that works out okay for me. I can continue holding onto the original Criterion DVD for the exclusive extras and then pick up the Arrow Blus without guilt or worry now

[Minkin]

Blu-ray upgrade July 7

Can anyone tell what was dropped from the previous DVD? It looks like some of the stills/production notes might have been lost (as sadly seems to be the case with Blu upgrades).

[captveg]

It's worth noting that they haven't updated the specs on the individual film pages yet. I'd wager the 1964 film will be widescreen this time around (or, even better, both widescreen and academy).

[tenia]

It's worth noting that they haven't updated the specs on the individual film pages yet. I'd wager the 1964 film will be widescreen this time around (or, even better, both widescreen and academy).

So far, it only states a 1-disc release, I doubt there'll be space to offer both ratios.

[Emilio]

Any chance that Tarkovsky's short will be in HD...?

[MichaelB]

It's worth noting that they haven't updated the specs on the individual film pages yet. I'd wager the 1964 film will be widescreen this time around (or, even better, both widescreen and academy).

It would be a very bad idea to offer it widescreen only, so I hope they haven't. Although it was clearly protected for widescreen, it was made specifically for American TV, and Academy is the primary ratio as far as I'm concerned.

[cdnchris]

The sell sheets only mention the Academy ratio so if they only offer one I'm sure it will be that one.

[MichaelB]

Any chance that Tarkovsky's short will be in HD...?

My money's on "no" unless otherwise confirmed. There definitely wasn't an HD master available for licensing last November.

[Emilio]

Any chance that Tarkovsky's short will be in HD...?

My money's on "no" unless otherwise confirmed. There definitely wasn't an HD master available for licensing last November.

Ah, too bad really...

[captveg]

It's worth noting that they haven't updated the specs on the individual film pages yet. I'd wager the 1964 film will be widescreen this time around (or, even better, both widescreen and academy).

So far, it only states a 1-disc release, I doubt there'll be space to offer both ratios.

Space wouldn't be as big of a problem as one would think. 4.5 hrs can fit on a BD50 just fine, something Criterion has done before.

[swo17]

Again, the sell sheets only mention one ratio, and this is simply a Blu-ray upgrade as opposed to a reissue, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

[MichaelB]

Space wouldn't be as big of a problem as one would think. 4.5 hrs can fit on a BD50 just fine, something Criterion has done before.

The combined running time of both versions is 200 minutes. Throw in an additional copy of the 1964 version and that's 295 mins. And that's without taking the extras into account.

It's certainly possible, but I'd advise against it: I can't see how you'd do it without compromising somewhere during the encode.

(Full disclosure: I produced both the Arrow BDs, so I'm very familiar with this material!)

[captveg]

Right. 4.5 hrs. Just saying it's been done before.

At this point they'll likely stick to just 1.33 of course. Which is unfortunate because it's a case where both ARs are correct based on how it was produced.

[MichaelB]

Right. 4.5 hrs.

Nearly five hours, not including extras.

I repeat: it can be done - hell, you could cram fifty hours onto a single disc, if you didn't mind the end result being unwatchable - but I'd strongly advise against it, especially when dealing with HD material with plenty of film grain.

[captveg]

Michael, I work in the industry too. No need to talk down to me about compression, please. I'm just stating that it's not unheard of - Hollis Frampton's main content runs 4.5 hrs before accounting for bonus, for example.

[EddieLarkin]

It should also be said that whilst you certainly can shove such a huge amount of content on a single disc, Criterion's past efforts have not been very impressive. Though it'll be too bad if Criterion don't offer a widescreen version somehow; whilst the 1.33:1 version absolutely deserves to be there, I'm confident that the people who made this film would have wanted it to play 1.85:1 on screens that are shaped that way (which sure enough it did in the theaters it played in). Sort of like how Kubrick's AR preference changed depending on how the film was being watched (cinema vs. 4x3 TV).

[MichaelB]

Michael, I work in the industry too. No need to talk down to me about compression, please.

I'm not remotely talking down to you about compression - it's your calculations I was taking issue with! You said four and a half hours, I'm saying five hours plus.

In fact, assuming Criterion upscales the SD material as per usual, that's around five hours and fifty minutes of video, plus a further seventy minutes of audio (presumably with some kind of visual accompaniment).

Mind you, it's probably worth noting that the second part of Shoah is included on a single BD (both Criterion and Eureka), and that runs a full five hours - although that's without any extras, of course.

[DeprongMori]

Another bit of evidence supporting The Killers Blu Ray release being a simple upgrade is the the DVD release had been unavailable for a year or so, then it started showing up again in stores a month or so ago with all the old elements. I don't expect they would have done this if they had anything new they were adding.

[dwk]

According to the Blu-ray.com review, Tarkovsky's short is in 1080P.

[MichaelB]

According to the Blu-ray.com review, Tarkovsky's short is in 1080P.

According to the Blu-ray.com review of Kes, Cathy Come Home is in 1080i. Which is technically correct in terms of the file format, but otherwise it's a glaringly obvious upscale from an SD source.

But I'd be very interested to know if the Tarkovsky is in genuine 1080p, because I was told by the rightsholder when I tried to license it for the Arrow edition last autumn that they didn't have an HD master - and while I was prepared to pay their asking price for HD, I wanted a substantial discount for SD. They wouldn't budge, so I walked away.

[dwk]

When Criterion upscales special features they are usually (always?) 1080i.

Anyway, Svet posted the following in the Blu-ray forum:

Please note that Criterion's upcoming Blu-ray release has all three film adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's short tale in HD (1080p):

1. Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946)
2. Don Siegel's The Killers (1964)
3. Andrei Tarkovsky's The Killers (1956)

Hopefully he'll clarify if the Tarkovsky short is truly from an HD master or if it is upscaled.

[EddieLarkin]

The caps certainly suggest to me that it's true HD. Though it certainly looks like an older scan, and doesn't look too different from the SD caps from the 2003 DVD, indicating that it could be that same old transfer rather than something new, and that the rightsholder was unfortunately mistaken when advising that their asset was in SD.

[MichaelB]

That's definitely a very marked advance on the 2003 version, which is fairly poor-quality NTSC SD.