Cleopatra

[Lino]

This was one of the earliest truly Special Editions to come out on the digital format and one that really delivered for its time. First 3-disker perhaps?

Anyway, just curious to know some of our members opinions about it. Personally, I watch it mainly for Liz's tongue-in-cheek performance and for some of the wildest visuals ever created for this sort of film genre (yes, I'm refering to that unforgettable Cleopatra's entry).

[tryavna]

I've gotta admit that I've only seen this movie all the way through once. Ever since, I can't make it past the mid-way point. I think the first half is very good, but it runs downhill into extreme tedium after Caesar's assassination. Except for Taylor's body, which was probably at its sexiest in this film, Rex Harrison's performance as Caesar is the best thing about this movie, and he's sorely missed in the second half.

Well, and Alex North's score is pretty damn good, too -- one of the best of all non-Miklos Rozsa epics.

[Barmy]

Saw it for the first time today at MoMA. C-.

[Norbie]

Does anyone have news of a bluray version in the near future?

[kinjitsu]

Blu-ray.com on the region free UK edition.

[david hare]

I've had the UK BLu now for nearly two weeks and I have to say I am so disappointed with it I don't want to play through it again.

I have had for over a year a 720p HDnet download of it, presumably from the same master (also running 4 hours 6 minutes) which was absolutely flawless.

The 1080p improves on this in every department except one: the color temprature has swung right over to the blue end of cool - you can see this very clearly on the last three of Svet's caps. Aside from unbalancing overall color palette it has the effect of making fleshtones in almost every scene almost gray. The only images in which fleshtones return to normal (Tan for Rex, Blush pink for Liz) are in setups which contain substantial amounts of red, and the red end of the specturm. It's just awful, as though somone pusheed a gamma dial too far over, or simply pushed the blue fader up. In any case I would defy anyone with calibartion and colorimetric tools to read 6500 White level out of it.

It's horribly disappointing because everything else is so fine. If people dont believe me I'm happy to waste six hours of today ripping the Blu so I can makescreen caps to compare with the 720 HDnet.

[Paul Moran]

I'm still waiting for the UK blu to arrive (ordered from Play.com last week for £6 ($9), but presently out of stock). I'm not going to cancel my order, but perhaps I'll also need to hang on to my 3-disc UK SD set (bought in 2002 for £13 ($20)).

[david hare]

OK here are the grabs. I only ripped disc 1 for convenience.

Not having played the 720p download for quite a while I now see while the images are slightly brighter than the 1080p BD image so both encodes have the same slightly blue edge. Clearly the new master is on the blue end. Anyway you can make up your own minds.

Top image BD; Lower image 720p Broadcast

[aox]

It's been about 10 years, and I don't particularly remember liking this film, but this restoration is so enticing I am looking forward to viewing this again.

It looks gorgeous.

[david hare]

But for my reservation about the blue edge it IS sensational. The Alex North score has never sosunded better too.