Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Blu-News

Blu-ray.com has just posted a brief overview of some notable catalog titles making their way to Blu-ray this year from Warner Home Video. Mainly, I'm interested in Forbidden Planet (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), The Maltese Falcon (1941) and of course, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Oh yeah, plus Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) - an inaccurate yet highly watchable and mostly stirring interpretation of the classic story of the mutiny of Captain Bligh.

The others, The Goonies, Three Kings, What's Up Doc? (and more) are mid-level interests to me - rentals at best. And although I haven't seen David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999) in a long time, I am a fan, just not enough to double-dip.

4 comments:

  1. Three Kings is good, but I don't understand why it gets soooo much praise from everyone I know. I still need to watch Mutiny on the Bount... thanks for the reminder!

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  2. FORBIDDEN PLANET looks stunning on HD-DVD (the dead format) and it's about time they release it on Blu! I'll hold on to my other copy until I'm sure they haven't "tweaked" the quality by applying DNR.

    Of course FALCON & MADRE are "must own" BDs.

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  3. Oh damn, I forgot about the HD-DVD of "Forbidden Planet" - it makes a whole lot more sense now. I never got to see the transfer.

    It seems to me that most of the time they just use the same transfer as the HD-DVD if it's passable.

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  4. Universal applied some damaging DNR to its blu-ray of Carpenter's THE THING, so the HD-DVD is of much better quality...and has a boatload of extras not on the BD! But that's the only disc I can think of that hasn't been of equal quality of the HD version.

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