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rwaits wrote:Not that it means much, but the commenters at bluray.com don't agree concerning PQ. Are there any caps of this release anywhere?

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Black ... serReviews" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seems like they are mostly nit-picking scratches and film debris, not necessarily digital fuckery, which is a good sign.

Well, I suppose I'll forgive sins originating with the print source--as opposed to digital mucking about--since my baseline for comparison remains 35mm release prints. I don't always need an idealized viewing experience; just a "film-like" one. Indeed I don't mind a scratch or two if the faces don't look made of wax (as they do, for example, on the lauded Twilight Time Blu-Ray of Leave Her to Heaven I watched recently). IMO scratches have their own beauty and appeal but I can't imagine that idea going over too well on a website named "blu-ray.com."

That said, the Academy Film Archive did recently (maybe ca. 2007?) do a 35mm restoration of The Black Stallion, presumably with MGM's cooperation--the resulting print(s) played a few places on the West coast. My guess is that whoever was in charge of putting this Blu-Ray together was unaware of or indifferent to this restoration.

As for the sdtk, I don't notice a "strong echo" but there is a muddiness to the dialogue that I believe was deliberate, in part because it's been a constant in every format I've seen this film on (in?). It's a film in which dialogue plays a much lesser role than it typically does. Not always giving dialogue priority in a Hollywood soundtrack is an unusual choice, but it's consistent with Ballard's short films and I believe it's one this film makes again and again--most notably in the climactic sequence.

jonah.77 wrote:That said, the Academy Film Archive did recently (maybe ca. 2007?) do a 35mm restoration of The Black Stallion, presumably with MGM's cooperation--the resulting print(s) played a few places on the West coast. My guess is that whoever was in charge of putting this Blu-Ray together was unaware of or indifferent to this restoration.

The Academy making a print is useless in regards to a HD transfer. For a transfer you work with an interpositive or a negative, not a print.

Caleb Deschanel did indeed come in and spend two days supervising the transfer, so anyone unhappy with the color can send their complaints to him.

The Academy making a print is useless in regards to a HD transfer. For a transfer you work with an interpositive or a negative, not a print.

I had imagined the new prints had been—since IIRC they were described as a "restored"—struck from a restored-in-some-fashion interpositive or negative created for that purpose, which could have also been used to create a new HD master. that's what I implied by the phrase "resulting prints." if they were simply new prints struck from an exisiting element, then I stand corrected.

as I noted, I like the image and sound of the Blu-Ray quite a bit; it's true both to the film as I've experienced it on 35mm and to what I believe to be the intentions of the filmmakers.

Finally got around to upgrading Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York" to blu-ray.

I had the old 2-disc Japanese dts DVD which had only the longer cut and all the bonus features, but didn't have the theatrical cut like
the imports. Still non-anamorphic widescreen.

I had the assumption that the blu-ray had both cuts, but it has only the longer cut. And another baffling cost cutting measure: None of the bonus features have Japanese subtitles, which they could have just easily ported over the text from the existing MGM Japanese DVD.

MGM has been doing this quite a lot with their catalog releases: foreign subs for the main feature only, which the extras have none, even though the older DVDs did. Baffling.... Well, at least I don't have to worry about non-anamorphic anymore with this one.

manicsounds wrote:And another baffling cost cutting measure: None of the bonus features have Japanese subtitles, which they could have just easily ported over the text from the existing MGM Japanese DVD. .

Try setting your player firmware menu language to Japanese. Most studios only have Japanese content on the Japanese menus (because the Japan market hates having languages on their discs other than Japanese and English).

captveg wrote:

manicsounds wrote:And another baffling cost cutting measure: None of the bonus features have Japanese subtitles, which they could have just easily ported over the text from the existing MGM Japanese DVD. .

Try setting your player firmware menu language to Japanese. Most studios only have Japanese content on the Japanese menus (because the Japan market hates having languages on their discs other than Japanese and English).

Yes, my player IS set to Japanese, and all the extras are available, but they all say 「日本語字幕未記録」: Japanese subtitles not included.
But not just Japanese, no subtitles for the extras in any language. The MGM Blu-ray has loads of dubs and subs for the main feature and nothing besides English for the extras. Just lazy. I'm glad I know English, but there must be a lot of frustrated customers around the world. The Japanese Amazon page for "New York New York" Blu-ray has some frustrated customer comments for example.

But this is not just Fox/MGM. Warner, Sony, also have this in which there are foreign language subs for the main feature, but nothing on the extras. Universal and Disney are pretty much the only majors that subtitle pretty much all their extras in multiple languages, instead of the "Extras may or may not be subtitled"...

Fargo Remaster gets high marks at blu-ray.com.

Weird that it seems they coordinated the cover to look similar to the logo/imagery for the FX series that's coming out soon.

The new cover is based on the original theatrical poster:

I just watched it lastnight. It looks great, far, far better than the original Blu-ray, which I think used the DVD master.

The first Blu-ray release was so terribly oversharpened it hurt my eyes.

The new Man with No Name trilogy box set is scheduled for 6/3/14

The Japanese edition of "The Good The Bad And The Ugly" 4K remastered edition will be available on 7/2/2014., in standard and steelbook packaging.

There will be 4 new featurettes on the new disc in addition to all the extras from the previous BD.
(The Japanese disc doesn't list the Sir Christopher Frayling commentary, the previous disc didn't, but it was physically on the disc)

manicsounds wrote:There will be 4 new featurettes on the new disc in addition to all the extras from the previous BD.
(The Japanese disc doesn't list the Sir Christopher Frayling commentary, the previous disc didn't, but it was physically on the disc)

A friend who knows Japanese translated the specs, and I didn't see anything that looked like a new featurette, let alone 4 of them. An interview with one of the Italians who worked on the new restoration was suggested to Fox, but couldn't be arranged in time.

Says in the Amazon description:

●スペシャル映像集
・怒りの芝居
・イタリアン・ランチ
・ニューヨークの役者
・銃の扱い方

Special Featurettes:
-Aggressive Acting
-Italian Lunch
-New York Actors
-Handling Guns

(My translation)

manicsounds wrote:Says in the Amazon description:

●スペシャル映像集
・怒りの芝居
・イタリアン・ランチ
・ニューヨークの役者
・銃の扱い方

Special Featurettes:
-Aggressive Acting
-Italian Lunch
-New York Actors
-Handling Guns

(My translation)

I think those were Easter Eggs on the original DVD, IIRC.

You're right. My mistake, nothing new....

So, guess what? Pumpkinhead is getting a Blu-Ray release via Scream Factory. It counts, MGM owns it. They just license it to them like some of their other films.

Screenshots have been unveiled of the new restoration of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Not sure how I feel about the color difference. The level of detail is greatly improved though.

It got reverse-Do the Right Thinged!

The blue tint never seemed quite right to me. Will have to wait to see for myself how I like the pendulum swing to the other side of the coloring spectrum.

Well, the Italian release had already been yellowed up a bit, but nothing like that! Here is a comparison between the Italian disc and this new one:

Italian
New MGM
Old MGM

Detail wise it is very similar, but it doesn't look like someone took a whiz on it (note Tuco's silver cap in the Italian pic, and how it's now yellow in the MGM).

I'll be keeping my Italian disc I think, which I have synced up to the original mono.

criterion10 wrote:Screenshots have been unveiled of the new restoration of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Not an expert on the coloring of the film by any means, but that yellow sky in the first shot strikes me as highly unnatural

It looks like they're trying to match the color schemes of the 21st century westerns. Looks like the Italian is the way to go

As I think I mentioned a few pages back, the restoration of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY was done by L'Immagine Ritrovita in Italy. For the color, they checked a vintage Italian Technicolor print or two and consulted with Assistant Cameraman Sergio Salvati. Salvati insisted upon the yellow look, saying this was what Leone had wanted and intended.