A Few Words About A few words about...™ My Fair Lady (Take Two) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[nara]

Since this thread has gotten a recent bump, I'll ask: What are the chances of a 4k disc?

I know it was restored last year in 8k.

Covered a few pages back iirc.

 

[usrunnr]

I saw Patti stop the show until a young man put his phone away and exited the theater in Las Vegas a few years ago. She does this whenever necessary. Apparently other performers are doing this as well. It's all good. I witnessed some ladies reading their programs by the light of their cell phones at a performance of "The Music Man" not long ago. Possibly their first time attending a theatrical performance. I've also seen people check their messages on their phones during stage shows. I wish ushers would stop this.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Seems to me such revivals should come w/ multiple alternate versions we can choose just like a good, complete movie release on disc... Afterall, ticket prices are much higher than movie discs...

_Man_

 

[Chelsearicky]

Glad nothing came of it.

I have enjoyed multiple cast versions of many Broadway shows, but always it's the actors doing justice to the integrity of the material and not actors leading to changes in the *storyline* to suit agendas. That is not staying "relevant" it's pandering at its lowest common denominator. The whole reason why "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" is a memorable number is because Lerner did the impossible of giving us a love song without the word love. Finding the only way a character like Higgins can express how he really feels about Eliza. It's not going to give us an ending in the conventional sense but as Lerner's libretto states, when Higgins says, "Where the devil are my slippers?" Eliza's reaction is "she understands." For me, that's intelligent writing and a great payoff to the greatest of musicals. The new ending comes off as organically ridiculous. (Is Eliza that petty and vindictive she'd follow him back just to do that after she gave him her exit in "Without You?" The whole thing smacks of the ultimate breaking of the fourth wall to pander to select members of the audience.)

I for one reject the notion that those of us who don't applaud such revisions are perpetually locked in the past and are not being "relevant."

 

[Chuck_Kahn]

Sigh. Some people just don't understand that films of a certain vintage don't need to be gussied up with HDR, not to mention the issues you had with this particular film.

Grover Crisp of Sony points out in this 2019 talk about restoration that the advantage of HDR is its ability to bring out more detail in restoration work, detail that was captured and was always there but we couldn't see because of the limitations of SDR. Here's the clip (starts at 20:18 mark) :

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Grover Crisp of Sony points out in this 2019 talk about restoration that the advantage of HDR is its ability to bring out more detail in restoration work, detail that was captured and was always there but we couldn't see because of the limitations of SDR. Here's the clip (starts at 20:18 mark) :

Perfectly valid points, but the point I'm trying to make is that, depending on the age of the material, either HDR is not going to make a difference, or it's going to expose detail deliberately obscured as an artistic flourish or for special effects purposes. It's great that we have these tools, but I know that RAH agrees with me and Grover Crisp would also agree that the "HDR suite" in 4K UHD is a set tools to be used judiciously or sometimes not at all depending on the film in question.

 

[OliverK]

Perfectly valid points, but the point I'm trying to make is that, depending on the age of the material, either HDR is not going to make a difference, or it's going to expose detail deliberately obscured as an artistic flourish or for special effects purposes. It's great that we have these tools, but I know that RAH agrees with me and Grover Crisp would also agree that the "HDR suite" in 4K UHD is a set tools to be used judiciously or sometimes not at all depending on the film in question.

It basically amounts to putting SDR plus higher resolution, higher bit depth, bigger color space and better compression in that UHD / HDR container. And while it is possible to add a tiny little bit of HDR highlights one has to be careful not to overdo it.

 

[Reed Grele]

I've seldom heard oohs and aahs from the audience members when contestants were introduced, but there were many on this occasion.