October 2009

Blu-ray Update

A selection of movies on Blu-ray for October 2009.

Fringe: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros. Television)

Overall enjoyment: 4.0
Picture quality: 4.5
Sound quality: 3.5
Extras: 4.0

Though Fringe seems to be everywhere, I hadn’t heard much about it, which is odd because I usually pay close attention to the sci-fi genre. After watching the pilot, I thought it had potential, but after the first episode I was hooked, probably for life.

Produced by J.J. Abrams, whose track record includes this summer’s Star Trek and the television hits Lost and Alias, the show pays homage to many standard science-fiction storylines while still managing to be original. The most important thing about Fringe is that it’s fun. The show presents likable characters in life-threatening situations, and the suspense keeps you coming back for more. Some of it harkens back to the classic monster movie, while at other times you’ll be reminded of mutants from the atomic age, like the giant ants in Them. And with its government and corporate paranoia, Fringe bears more than a slight resemblance to The X-Files.

The story centers on a special FBI unit that’s been formed to investigate odd occurrences, which have been increasing in frequency. We’re told every episode that these strange happenings are part of some overall plan. Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is the main character, an FBI investigator with brains and beauty who uses her wits to solve cases and avoid danger. Two men work with her: young Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), who has something of a shady past, and his father, Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble). The FBI needs Dr. Bishop to solve its weird cases, but because he’s been in an asylum for a number of years, Peter has had to sign him out and become his guardian. Lance Reddick plays the tall, intense Phillip Broyles, the man in charge of the special unit, and Kirk Acevedo, who some might remember from Oz, takes on the part of Charlie Francis, an agent who seems to do most of the investigative legwork.

It’s a strong cast, and I’ve omitted some of it for lack of space, but Torv and Noble anchor it. The quirky, lovable Noble, who’s liable to say anything and who has a fetish for specialty foods, is so perfect for his role that it’s hard to think of any other actor who could handle it.

The first season comes on five Blu-rays with a booklet listing all of the episodes and extras. The latter is helpful, as the copious and enlightening extras are spread throughout the discs. The image is way above average for television, and it’s even better than many movies. Most of the time, it’s very sharp, especially in exteriors, so you can really perceive depth. By comparison, most television shows now look flat to me. One neat visual signature of the show is that the location signs aren’t just white type superimposed over the picture -- they’re three-dimensional blocks of type that actually become part of the picture. It’s a neat touch and one that Blu-ray shows off well.

For some reason the sound isn’t offered in an advanced-resolution format. It’s merely Dolby Digital 5.1. The mix is heavy to the front, with dialogue in the center channel. Once in a while the surrounds are used, but not nearly enough for my money. I’ve already mentioned the extras, which include commentaries, scene extensions, deleted scenes, and much more. It’s one of the best sets of the year, and it shouldn’t be missed.

Eight other Blu-rays should prove interesting to most readers:

Adam Resurrected (Image Entertainment)

Overall enjoyment: 3.5
Picture quality: 4.0
Sound quality: 3.0
Extras: 3.0

Jeff Goldblum turns in the performance of a lifetime in this movie based on the controversial novel by Yoram Kaniuk. The time is 1961, and Goldblum plays Adam Stein, a resident at an experimental mental institution for Holocaust survivors. Having been a famous cabaret entertainer in Germany before World War II, Stein is popular with his fellow inmates and has a hot affair going with the head nurse, Gina Grey (Ayelet Zurer), but he can’t seem to escape his demons. When a wild child (Tudor Rapiteanu) who walks on all fours and barks like a dog is brought into the institution, Stein bonds with the boy as he recalls his days in a Nazi death camp, where he cheated death by entertaining the sadistic commandant (Willem Dafoe) by pretending to be his dog and suffering constant humiliation. Goldblum amazes with his powerful performance, for which he convincingly ages nearly 40 years and deftly walks a tightrope between sanity and insanity.

Stein’s flashbacks begin in black and white for events in the 1930s and ’40s, they become a washed-out sepia for the early ’50s, and they’re full color for the 1961 asylum scenes. The Blu-ray handles these delicate gradations with ease, always appearing detailed and clear, no matter what the film stock looks like. The sound design is tailored to the visuals, but it has one major flaw: whispered words are hard to understand, especially since the actors speak with heavy accents. There are deleted scenes and an intelligent commentary from director Paul Schrader, as well as a question-and-answer sequence with the director, producer, and author from the Haifa Film Festival. Because of its subject matter, this movie is hard to watch at times and certainly impossible to love, but it’s worth seeing for Goldblum’s performance.

Earth (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment)

Overall enjoyment: 3.5
Picture quality: 4.0
Sound quality: 4.0
Extras: 3.5

Planet Earth, BBC’s outstanding miniseries, meets Walt Disney’s tradition of True-Life Adventures in Disney’s first release under its new Disneynature label. The results are very good and can be summed up as Planet Earth "lite." True to Disney’s idea of family-oriented movies, the narration talks about animals as mothers, fathers, and children, and it focuses on several animal families, which were filmed over an extended period. We first meet a family of polar bears in the Arctic, as ma bear and her two cubs emerge from hibernation. On land an elephant herd treks over arid deserts in search of water and food while the camera focuses on a mother and her calf. And in the sea a mother whale guides her new baby on a journey far across the ocean so they can participate in a feast. Only once or twice did James Earl Jones’s commentary become patronizing and overly cute, but there did seem to be too much of it. Seeing many of the events captured on film made them self explanatory, but the script droned on nevertheless.

The feature film includes re-cut scenes from the original BBC series as well as new outtakes. The video quality is very high, but because of the lengthy period of filming it’s sometimes inconsistent. When it’s good, you can see every detail and there’s a good sense of depth. The music by George Fenton is lush and romantic and sounds great as DTS-HD Master Audio tracks. There’s some use of surrounds to create atmosphere, but most of the sound is up front. The orchestra is nicely spread on a wide soundstage, with the voice of James Earl Jones dead center. There’s also a good commentary track that mixes picture-in-picture commentary with pop-up trivia facts and clips about making the movie.

Hot Fuzz: Ultimate Edition (Universal)

Overall enjoyment: 4.0
Picture quality: 4.5
Sound quality: 4.5
Extras: 4.5

The Blu-ray Disc of this popular comedy comes labeled as the "Ultimate Edition." It’s a pretty high claim to live up to, but I think this disc deserves it. First off, the manic comedy, in which Simon Pegg stars as Nicholas Angel, holds up very well to repeated viewing. Angel is a London police officer who’s been reassigned to a country post because his victories were making the rest of the force look bad. He bonds with an inept local officer (Nick Frost) and discovers that though the small village appears to be the perfect town, there’s serious crime under its placid surface. The quick cuts resemble those of an action movie, but you can easily miss many of the film’s subtleties the first time around.

You’d probably expect Universal, so often careless with its HD DVD transfers, to simply port over the HD DVD release of Hot Fuzz and let it go, but, as with The Last Starfighter (reviewed below), they’ve apparently done a new print that pushes the 4.5 rating almost to a five. The picture is sharp and crisp with gorgeous deep colors, perfect contrast, real jet blacks, and excellent shadow detail. It falls just barely short of Baraka, my measuring stick for the best Blu-ray. Hot Fuzz’s sound is just as good, engaging the surrounds for most of the movie but building on that pattern and saving some until the last 25 minutes, when all the stops are pulled. There were already four commentary tracks on the HD DVD, but Universal has added a fifth for Blu-ray, one in which Hot Fuzz director, Edgar Wright, discusses the movie with Quentin Tarantino. Forget that the two are world-famous filmmakers. For this commentary they’re the ultimate film geeks, sharing detail upon detail about the movies Hot Fuzz satirizes. They get a little shrill at times (especially Tarantino), so you may prefer smaller doses, but don’t miss this commentary -- it’s one of the best out there. There are also some new extras on the Blu-ray, including a documentary that has its own hilarious commentary. The extras alone will probably take two or three days to watch. Ultimate Edition? You bet. Don’t miss it!

Lie to Me: Season One (20th Century Fox)

Overall enjoyment: 3.5
Picture quality: 4.0
Sound quality: 4.0
Extras: 2.5

This intriguing show is based on the real-life experiences of Dr. Paul Ekman, an expert in the fields of facial expression and body language. Ekman claims to be able to tell if a person is lying simply by observing those two factors, regardless of their culture or background. To turn these ideas into a weekly show, the producers created Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), who heads up the Lightman Group to help third parties discover whether someone is telling the truth. Often these employers are federal agencies or police departments trying to solve crimes. The Lightman Group has many employees, but the ones the audience gets to know are Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams), Eli Loker (Brendan Hines), and Ria Torres (Monica Raymund). Ben Reynolds (Mekhi Phifer), an FBI agent, joins the cast late in the season, and he’s slated to be a regular during season two, which started airing in September. The show is smart and somewhat daring. Roth plays Lightman like Hugh Laurie plays House, as an eccentric, uncompromising searcher for truth. He alienates many people, including some of his employees, with his take-no-prisoners attitude, but his spot-on findings earn him everyone’s respect.

The Blu-ray Disc boasts a sharp, clean picture with fairly good depth. Had I not seen Fringe this month, I’d probably have given Lie to Me a higher picture rating. The audio conveys the dialogue and music well, and though there’s not a lot of surround, once in a while the back speakers kick in, and the overall sound design is lively and reliable. Extras include a moderately interesting production featurette and several deleted scenes. This fascinating show is worth watching, and it has the potential to grow into a favorite.

The Last House on the Left (Universal)

Overall enjoyment: 3.0
Picture quality: 3.5
Sound quality: 3.5
Extras: 1.0

This horror film is a remake of a Wes Craven flick from 1972, and both are variations on the theme of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. Bad guys kill a young girl (or come close to killing her, depending on the version), and by coincidence they end up at the home of the girl’s parents, asking for a place to stay. The parents discover that the visitors have harmed their daughter, and they exact their revenge. In Bergman’s movie there was atonement, which isn’t present in the 1972 and 2009 films. This latest version is particularly nasty; its rape scene is so brutal that it’s almost unwatchable, and its blood and gore are over the top, even for its genre. It does, however, have better acting than most horror films, as well as solid direction from Dennis Iliadis.

Unfortunately, The Last House on the Left has been carelessly brought to Blu-ray. The picture is grainy and soft a lot of the time, though this was probably the director’s original intent. Nonetheless, its dark scenes are often murky and unpleasant to watch. The audio is good and has some pertinent surround effects, but it isn’t terribly special. The extras, which include a brief featurette that plays like a trailer and some scenes that were cut, might as well be absent. Since Craven, who directed the 1972 version, was an executive producer, there was a perfect opportunity to compare versions and discuss the plot, but it’s been totally missed. Ah, but you do have BD-Live and a way to create your own list of favorite scenes. This one is definitely a rental for most viewers -- if that. It takes a pretty strong constitution to sit through almost two hours of such nasty doings, no matter how well they’re portrayed.

The Last Starfighter: 25th Anniversary Edition (Universal)

Overall enjoyment: 4.0
Picture quality: 4.5
Sound quality: 4.0
Extras: 3.5

Twenty-five years ago, this movie was heralded as using the latest and greatest computer technology for its special effects. The film was partly made to cash in on the popularity of video arcade games, and its special effects look more like a sophisticated video game than anything else. They’re no longer impressive when compared to even basic CGI created today, but in 1984 they were pretty awesome. The sweet story of a kid (Lance Guest) fulfilling his dreams still strikes fire, and there’s lots of heart-welling emotion when, after becoming a starship hero, he returns to his trailer park for his girl (Catherine Mary Stewart), simply because they vowed to always be together.

Fans of the film can rejoice along with me, as it has finally been done justice in the video and audio departments. Rather than just carrying over the woefully inadequate HD DVD transfer, Universal has struck a new one, and it’s a beauty. The colors are rich, the blacks are truly black, the shadow detail is exceptional, and the computer effects are sharp as a tack. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound, though mostly up front, has excellent separation and clarity; the upper-frequency effects in the music, bells, flutes, harp, and other instruments are singularly clear; and the overall orchestra track has solid bass. Some effects, like the explosions, don’t have the lower-bass authority that today’s tracks command, but they’re solid nonetheless. Overall, this older film has been made to look three times more current by applying care to the audio and video transfers. There are some good extras here as well, including an entertaining and illuminating commentary featuring director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb. The Blu-ray offers hope that Universal might redo more of its HD transfers instead of simply porting them over from the HD DVD master.

Sugar (Sony)

Overall enjoyment: 4.0
Picture quality: 4.0
Sound quality: 3.5
Extras: 2.5

The ads might make this movie seem like a typical sports success film, but it’s much more than that. The story starts in the Dominican Republic, where young men know that getting a contract with an American baseball team might be their only ticket out of a life of poverty. Miguel Santos, nicknamed "Sugar," is 20 years old and dreams of becoming a Major League Baseball star. He’s a good pitcher, and he’s eventually sent to spring training in the minors. He ends up in Iowa and then Kansas, and even though he can’t speak much English, he likes the culture and the perks. We’re shown what it’s really like to be an immigrant baseball player who faces tremendous pressure to succeed. Sugar is about baseball, and even though many of the actors are real baseball players, including Algenis Perez Soto, who’s pitch-perfect in the leading role, I didn’t think of it as a "baseball movie." It’s more of a coming-of-age film about finding yourself when you’re far away from familiar things.

The Blu-ray Disc has an excellent picture with rich colors and good detail. It’s a bit gritty at times, but I think the filmmakers planned it that way. The subtitles are curious. Much of the movie is in Spanish, but there’s a lot of English too, and the subtitles display all the dialogue, even when there’s no need for translation. Yet one important speech from Sugar, when he explains the injury on his head, isn’t translated at all! The sound is mostly front channel with a few excursions to the rear for ambience. There’s not much heavy bass except for a few nightclub scenes, but the movie really doesn’t seem to call for it. That’s what’s refreshing about Sugar; it’s largely devoid of the usual Hollywood clichés and manipulators. There are a few extras, including a featurette on making the film and another about how important baseball is to the young men of the Dominican Republic, but the movie itself is really what matters. It’s a good example of how a fine home-theater system can entertain on a different level than the action-adventure genre.

Surveillance (Magnet)

Overall enjoyment: 3.0
Picture quality: 4.0
Sound quality: 4.0
Extras: 3.0

The second feature directed by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David, is so violent and twisted that it’s unlikely that anyone will love it, but it’s so skillfully put together that admiration is in order. It starts with a bang, showing us, behind the credits, scenes of a nighttime home invasion during which a family is brutally murdered. Switch to daylight, and we find ourselves in a small town somewhere in the desert, where we meet two FBI agents (Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond) who’ve arrived to help solve the crime. We’re then given a modern twist on the classic movie Rashomon, as the back story is told from three different points of view. We discover that there have been many other violent and grisly crimes committed by the same folks. Perhaps the most interesting of the storytellers is Officer Jack Bennett (Kent Harper), who sets up his own arrest scenes by shooting out the tires of passing vehicles. There are lots of twists and turns that won’t be divulged here, but I will tell you that even though I spotted the final twist way down the pike, I didn’t anticipate the nasty manner in which it would arrive.

The Blu-ray picture fluctuates between gritty and "wow," depending on the scene. The flashbacks are predictably obscure, and the present-day scenes are crisp, clean, and colorful. The soundtrack is robust, with good placement of gunshots, and the music is perfectly mixed with the sound effects. The extras include an alternate ending, two deleted scenes, a trailer, a production featurette, and a raucous commentary track in which Lynch and actors Mac Miller and Charles Newmark laugh and clown around so irreverently that it sounds like they’ve been hitting the sauce. Surveillance is a clever movie that you probably won’t want to buy, but if you’re not squeamish about violence, it’s worth seeing once.

. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com

• Go Back