Midnight Cowboy and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1 Viewer)

[Scott Calvert]

FYI, these are on sale at Best Buy right now for 9.99 each. The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three never even got an anamorphic release on DVD, I was pretty surprised to see it sitting in the endcap. If you want them I would suggest trying to pick them up this week, not sure how long the 9.99 deal will last.

 

[David Wilkins]

Midnight Cowboy has been released on BD?

 

[Bleddyn Williams]

Yes, today. But for now its a Best Buy exclusive.

 

[Harry-N]

Also posted in the Pelham (Anamorphic?) thread:



I just finished watching the new Blu-Ray of THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE and thought I'd make a few comments here.


Video:

The whole movie looked darker to me than I'd remembered it from the last time I looked at the non-anamorphic DVD. The Blu-Ray image was clear as a bell for the most part, with noticeable grain in spots, but everything just seemed a shade too dark to me. Images were lost in dark shadows and corners. So I compared it to the DVD with a side-by-side feature on my Sony television. There's a definite difference in the brightness levels between the DVD and the BR. The DVD looked like a TV with the brightness setting too high, so that black areas had a grayish look to them. The Blu-Ray again looked like it was a shade too far the other way, losing some image in a black crush.


Color:
The Blu-Ray color balance looked natural to me. If you look on one of my earlier posts in this thread, you'll see a comparison of the DVD and the old LD transfer, and I discuss there the overly pinkish hues that were prevailing on the LD. That was toned down on the DVD, but compared to the BR, the DVD is still too pink-looking. In one scene, part of a wall of the subway car looked a natural greenish color on the Blu-Ray, where the DVD had washed that color out to a gray.


Audio:

It's mono all the way here with the main English track being a 2.0 dts track. There's also a Dolby Digital 2.0 French and another one in Spanish. The mono 2.0 dts track acted strangely on my audio receiver. Instead of pushing all of the audio to my center channel speaker, it fed the mono track to my two left-right channel speakers. With most Dolby Digital movies that are in 2.0 mono, the sound processor forces everything out to the center channel speaker. This one just seemed a little odd to me - not bad, just different from my usual. The audio track on the English 2.0 dts sounds clean, clear and crisp - quite good for a mid-70's audio track.

Lost in the upgrade is the old static menu on the DVD had David Shire's theme music in stereo. On the Blu-Ray, there IS no static menu at all. The movie plays after the legal notices without operator intervention. There is only a pop-up menu to get to the "Play", "Chapters", "Setup" and "Extras" sections. Upon finishing, the movie simply restarted rather than going to any kind of menu.


The disc's packaging has both MGM and 20th Century Fox logos. When you play the disc, you get a 20th Century Fox Home Video logo at the start, and on the film itself is a UA logo.


Overall I'm thrilled to have one of my favorite seemingly forgotten movies upgraded to the latest technologies, but I guess I'm just not used to seeing it so dark. Now, I know that subways are inherently dark places, but even the bright, sunny streets of New York look a little underdone here. I'll be interested to see what others come up with on their viewings.


Harry

 

[ahollis]

Picked up both titles today. Best Buy has a special display at the end of one of their racks and have all their exclusive titles. I agree with Harry on the Pelham transfer, but I think the darkness adds to the mystic of the film and does not distract. Midnight Cowboy also is a pretty good transfer, which is sharp, good color, some grain, and good sound. I think it looks better than the DVD. The Cowboy Blu-ray also carries all the extras over from the DVD, but no trailer.

I am happy with both titles and purchases.

 

[Scott Calvert]

I just finished watching Pelham and I agree with Harry, it seems just a hair too dark. I'm not too bothered by it, for the most part it looks great.


I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm loving all of these MGM budget releases. The great majority of these transfers are of recent vintage with a minimum of digital video tinkering or other BS.


Edit to add: MGM are also giving us original theatrical trailers, in HD no less. I wish all studios would do this.

 

[airman210]

BestBuy.com Website states free shipping over $25. Tried to buy Midnight Cowboy [SIZE= 12px]and[/SIZE][SIZE= 12px] The Taking of Pelham One Two Three[/SIZE] ($20) plus a $20 title for a total of $40. They insisted on charging me over $7 shipping without explanation of why it wasn't free. End of attempted buying at BestBuy.com.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by airman210

BestBuy.com Website states free shipping over $25. Tried to buy [SIZE= 12px]Midnight Cowboy [/SIZE][SIZE= 12px]and[/SIZE][SIZE= 12px] The Taking of Pelham One Two Three[/SIZE] ($20) plus a $20 title for a total of $40. They insisted on charging me over $7 shipping without explanation of why it wasn't free. End of attempted buying at BestBuy.com.

One of the options I use is buy off the site and request store pickup. I then go to the store and the service desk and pickup and pay for my order there. Out the door I go.









Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

By the way, the recent HD Net Movie channel HD showing of Pelham was dark too and I recall it being a rather dark film during its theatrical run which isn't surprising since most of the film occurs underground.







Crawdaddy

 

[Charles Smith]

(I spent half an hour yesterday morning trying to get my free shipping on one item at Borders.com finally giving up and calling so that someone in India could enter the order for me. Before calling I was "this" close to abandoning the order and canceling my Rewards Plus membership half a year early.)

 

[TonyD]

One of the options I use is buy off the site and request store pickup.  I then go to the store and the service desk and pickup and pay for my order there.  Out the door I go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crawdaddy

That's what I do too but it only works if the item is in stock.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by TonyD




One of the options I use is buy off the site and request store pickup. I then go to the store and the service desk and pickup and pay for my order there. Out the door I go.









Crawdaddy

That's what I do too but it only works if the item is in stock.[/QUOTE]

Right, fortunately my BB had all the titles in stock including The Firm even though their website said it was coming soon.







Crawdaddy

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I will keep checking Best Buy online everyday in hopes it suddenly

becomes available, but right now, 6 stores in the immediate area all

show "unavailable."


I wonder if the information being reported from their website is incorrect.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

I will keep checking Best Buy online everyday in hopes it suddenly

becomes available, but right now, 6 stores in the immediate area all

show "unavailable."


I wonder if the information being reported from their website is incorrect.

Ron, I would try the closest store to you as the website was wrong about The Firm and I read from others, it's been wrong about some of these other titles.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by Scott Calvert

I just finished watching Pelham and I agree with Harry, it seems just a hair too dark. I'm not too bothered by it, for the most part it looks great.


I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm loving all of these MGM budget releases. The great majority of these transfers are of recent vintage with a minimum of digital video tinkering or other BS.


Edit to add: MGM are also giving us original theatrical trailers, in HD no less. I wish all studios would do this.

Agree with you on aspects especially the opportunity to get these catalog titles in Blu, at $10.00 without the tinkering. Can The Hallelujah Trail be far behind?

 

[Bob Cashill]

Looked at TAKING and MIDNIGHT COWBOY last night. TAKING is fairly impressive; it's dark, but the darkness is now legible. A solid advance on the non-anamorphic DVD.


But MIDNIGHT is only worth the $10 I paid for it. It's a very patchy and inconsistent transfer. This is one title that needed work and it didn't get it. If you don't have the two-disc SE, go for it without expecting miracles, but if you do there's little reason to upgrade for improved PQ.

 

[Scott David]

That's a shame about Midnight Cowboy's transfer. I watched it recently on an HBO HD channel and that transfer was virtually flawless. I wish now I'd kept it instead of deleting it after finding out about the impending BD release.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Originally Posted by Bob Cashill

But MIDNIGHT is only worth the $10 I paid for it. It's a very patchy and inconsistent transfer. This is one title that needed work and it didn't get it. If you don't have the two-disc SE, go for it without expecting miracles, but if you do there's little reason to upgrade for improved PQ.

This is complete nonsense. Midnight Cowboy looks exactly like it should and the film-to-digital transfer is excellent, as well as given a high-bitrate encoding. Plenty of resolution and sharpness, played back on 1080/24p front projection it looks almost like a first-run print.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Scott David

That's a shame about Midnight Cowboy's transfer. I watched it recently on an HBO HD channel and that transfer was virtually flawless. I wish now I'd kept it instead of deleting it after finding out about the impending BD release.

It's one person's opinion about Midnight Cowboy. It's best to wait and see what others have to say about it.








Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Scott Calvert





This is complete nonsense. Midnight Cowboy looks exactly like it should and the film-to-digital transfer is excellent, as well as given a high-bitrate encoding. Plenty of resolution and sharpness, played back on 1080/24p front projection it looks almost like a first-run print.

Even if you're right, there is no reason to be disrespectful here.






Crawdaddy