| Video Roundup February 2009
Blu-ray Update
Here are some of the better Blu-ray Discs that I enjoyed
during the holiday season. I recommend them all.
 The Dark Knight (Warner
Home Video) ****
Weighty, provocative, insightful, and just plain
entertaining, The Dark Knight is one of the most significant fantasy films of the
past decade. Yet it’s not without flaw. The villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger), is
more the focus of the movie than is Batman himself (Christian Bale), and when I watched it
a second time, Christopher Nolan’s direction seemed ponderous and unwieldy, and the
film overlong at 152 minutes. Correctly projecting that The Dark Knight would be
its biggest seller on Blu-ray, Warner Bros. spared nothing in bringing it to the hi-def
format, and the result justifies that effort. The picture is rich, with singular clarity
even in the darkest scenes. The transfer alternates between widescreen (2.35:1) and IMAX
format, here opened up to 1.75:1. Some might find this distracting, though I did not. If
your monitor is adjusted properly, the black bars won’t be all that noticeable in the
first place with this very dark film, and alternating with full widescreen is no different
from going in for a close-up. And it’s worth it -- the IMAX sequences have more
definition and detail. The Dolby TrueHD sound mix is one of the best I’ve heard. The
LFE channel gets a good workout, and not only when the low-frequency sounds are loud. The
surround channels are handled intelligently, both for effects and for ambience --
they’re solidly there without undue spotlighting. The extras on disc 2 are
interesting, if not nearly as extensive as one might expect for such a major release. The
third disc in this three-disc package is a digital copy that you can port over to your
computer or portable digital device.
 Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (20th
Century Fox) ****
Having suffered through live-action misfires of Dr.
Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I
avoided this film until it came out on Blu-ray. My mistake. Dr. Seuss’ Horton
Hears a Who is a delightful computer-animated film from 20th Century Fox Animation and
the makers of Ice Age. Its look and spirit are close to those of the original
children’s book; there’s no radical attempt here to improve on that
classic’s success. Narrator Charles Osgood intones Seuss’s original text; the
characters are explored more completely in dialogue skillfully written by Dinco Paul and
Ken Dauro to mesh with the original book. Those characters are voiced with energy and joy;
Carol Burnett is outstanding as the vitriolic Kangaroo. The visuals, faithfully
transferred to the Blu-ray format, are bright and colorful, with deep primary colors and
solid blacks. The image quality warrants a rating of at least 4.5, perhaps even a coveted
5. The audio tracks are robust, making use of the surrounds at just about every turn --
the sequence in which Horton (Jim Carrey) and the Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell) get all
the Whos to play musical instruments in order to attract attention is a tour de force for
the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The extras are plentiful if not very deep, but a
portable digital copy is included, as well as a new animated short starring Ice Age’s
squirrelly Sid.
 The Duchess (Paramount)
***1/2
I agree almost completely with Mischa
Hayek’s review of the SD DVD last month. This is the sort of period costume
drama that the Brits can do with their eyes closed. Keira Knightley brings dignity, spunk,
and pathos to the role of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and Ralph Fiennes is
dastardly as the Duke of Devonshire, who keeps reminding her that the England of the mid-
to late 1700s was entirely a man’s world. The "yellow" tint to which Mischa
referred seems to me to be a filtering effort to make things look sunny, and it’s
evident in the Blu-ray as well. The detail, however, is quite a bit better on Blu-ray than
on DVD, especially in the crowd scenes, in which the backgrounds are in much better focus.
The warm, detailed sound conveys the dialogue and Rachel Portman’s score with equal
success, yet it oddly seems to have little presence. The extras are the same as those on
the DVD, and merely whet the appetite for more information about these fascinating
characters.
 Lost: The Complete Fourth Season --
The Expanded Experience (ABC/Buena Vista Home Entertainment) ****
Already an intriguing show, Lost became more
interesting last year because it featured flash-forwards that let the audience learn, in
part, what happened to the survivors who escaped the mysterious island on which their
Oceanic Airlines flight had crashed -- enough to make up a 54-minute supplement that
places them in chronological order. That’s just one of a multitude of extras included
here, most of them collected on a separate fifth disc, but each of the four discs devoted
to the episodes themselves comes with commentaries, extras, and Easter eggs. Overall,
there’s enough here to keep one busy for many long winter nights. The video and audio
are among the best I’ve seen for any TV show on Blu-ray. The vivid colors never seem
oversaturated, and the soundtracks make good use of the 360-degree soundstage. My only
complaints are of stupid but irritating stuff, such as the packaging, which doesn’t
match that of The Complete Third Season Blu-ray set -- if you place them side by
side on a shelf, Four is quite a bit shorter than Three. And maybe it’s
me, but I could never get the "SeasonPlay" feature to work. It’s supposed
to keep track of which episodes I’ve watched, but it often got the sequence wrong.
Maybe that’s appropriate for Lost, a show in which the truth is what you make
it.
 Traitor (Anchor Bay) ***1/2
Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) is a terrorist assigned to a
project that will simultaneously destroy a large number of passenger buses across the U.S.
Cheadle’s performance is shaded and subtle -- through his eyes, we see the determined
mind of a terrorist willing to sacrifice his own life to achieve his goal. Were it left to
Cheadle’s considerable talents alone, this taut action thriller might have won a much
higher rating. However, he’s surrounded by characters not nearly as well drawn as his
own. Guy Pearce and Neal McDonough play the FBI agents who relentlessly pursue Horn, and
though both are excellent actors, they’re given little to work with here. Jeff
Daniels is intermittently interesting as Carter, a go-between operative. The first-rate
video transfer accurately presents a color palette that has become almost standard for
this sort of film, with blown-out whites and slightly washed-out colors. I presume this is
done to give such films the look of TV news stories, though these days TV news seldom
looks like this. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack uses the rear channels more than usual,
and to great effect. The extras are rather lame. There’s a good if pedantic
commentary featuring Cheadle and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, but the five-minute
"Action" and "International Espionage" featurettes barely get going
before they’re over. A digital copy is included. There are also supposed to be BD
Live features, but I couldn’t get them to work. This is a solid action flick with an
outstanding central performance, and will make a great rental.
 The Universe: The Complete Season One
(History Channel) ****
One of the most marvelous sights I saw in 2008 was the
triangular configuration of the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. Where I live, it was in full
display for hours. Already, one of 2009’s most remarkable visions has been the Moon,
which in January was much closer to Earth than usual, and so looked larger and more
three-dimensional. The History Channel series The Universe delves deep into such
wonders of the cosmos. Merging satellite photography with digital re-creations, these
hour-long programs are wonderful. From a total of 14 programs on four discs, the
highlights include: The Moon; Mars: The Red Planet; Secrets of the Sun;
Alien Galaxies; Most Dangerous Places; and Search for E.T. The
Blu-ray transfers have been handled well, if not perfectly. Sharpness is good; one is
never in doubt that this is hi-def programming. There is occasional edge enhancement and a
few other artifacts -- nothing bad enough to keep me from being thoroughly entertained,
but enough to keep The Universe from earning five stars. The soundtrack is only
two-channel stereo. It’s serviceable and doesn’t detract from the show, but left
me feeling as if I were looking in from outside, rather than the total immersion a
surround-sound track might have offered.
 Wanted (Universal) ***1/2
I saw this movie cold, not knowing it was yet another
graphic novel given cinematic life. The opening action sequence, however, clearly
established that Wanted is not based on anything realistic. There were lots of
close-ups of bullets in slow motion, shots fired from impossible distances, and bullets
following curved trajectories to avoid people who haven’t been targeted. All of that
SFX spectacle and Angelina Jolie, too, as the voluptuous, tattooed Fox, member of a secret
society of assassins. It’s hard to pick out many scenes from this movie that
don’t involve CGI, motion capture, or some other form of modern movie wizardry.
Thinking of it as a giant video game, I have to admit that Wanted is lots of fun,
and much better suited to the home theater than to the cinema. Universal’s video
transfer is tops, letting you see breathtaking detail, and the DTS-HD Master Audio
soundtrack will give a 5.1-channel system a real workout. Extras include Universal’s
patented "U-Control," with which you can decide which picture-in-picture items
you want to see. There are featurettes on the cast, the special effects, and the origins
of the graphic novel on which the film is based. If you have BD Live (meaning you have a
2.0-profile Blu-ray player connected to the Internet), you can chat with fellow viewers .
. . I think. I have the right player and connection, but BD Live doesn’t seem to want
to let me in. I’m still working it; maybe I need a password . . .
. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
