UHD Review The Ten Commandments UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[B-ROLL]

Is there anyway to redeem the digital copy onto Amazon (it seems to only offers Hulu or Apple) ?

Paramount is not currently part of MoviesAnywhere so it won't flow.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Is there anyway to redeem the digital copy onto Amazon (it seems to only offers Hulu or Apple) ?

As Bryan stated, Paramount isn't part of MoviesAnywhere so you only have two streaming options to redeem with which are Vudu and Apple.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Fantastic film along with a transfer of perfection ruined by one of the most annoying discs ever in it user friendliness. As it’s nearly a 4 hour film there is no way I would ever watch it straight through especially as it has an intermission and yet every time I would restart the disc it made me go through everything from picking the language to watching warnings. Is this common on all Paramount discs or only 4K discs but it really is annoying that it can’t take you right where you left off like most discs do. No I had to scroll through all the chapters every time I would restart it on top of all the waiting and waiting. Not good for the 4K format as it’s aggravating when it should be simple. Did anyone else notice this annoyance?

 

[B-ROLL]

Fantastic film along with a transfer of perfection ruined by one of the most annoying discs ever in it user friendliness. As it’s nearly a 4 hour film there is no way I would ever watch it straight through especially as it has an intermission and yet every time I would restart the disc it made me go through everything from picking the language to watching warnings. Is this common on all Paramount discs or only 4K discs but it really is annoying that it can’t take you right where you left off like most discs do. No I had to scroll through all the chapters every time I would restart it on top of all the waiting and waiting. Not good for the 4K format as it’s aggravating when it should be simple. Did anyone else notice this annoyance?

Well actually quite a few ...

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/a-few-words-about-tm-the-ten-commandments-1956-in-4k-uhd-blu-ray.371460/page-6

 

[Robert Crawford]

Fantastic film along with a transfer of perfection ruined by one of the most annoying discs ever in it user friendliness. As it’s nearly a 4 hour film there is no way I would ever watch it straight through especially as it has an intermission and yet every time I would restart the disc it made me go through everything from picking the language to watching warnings. Is this common on all Paramount discs or only 4K discs but it really is annoying that it can’t take you right where you left off like most discs do. No I had to scroll through all the chapters every time I would restart it on top of all the waiting and waiting. Not good for the 4K format as it’s aggravating when it should be simple. Did anyone else notice this annoyance?

Yes, it was very annoying as I watched my 4K disc yesterday. I thought about watching the 4K digital instead because of it, but due to the superior audio format on the disc I decided against doing so. Also, I think the disc looked a little better than the digital which I sampled earlier last week.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Fantastic film along with a transfer of perfection ruined by one of the most annoying discs ever in it user friendliness. As it’s nearly a 4 hour film there is no way I would ever watch it straight through especially as it has an intermission and yet every time I would restart the disc it made me go through everything from picking the language to watching warnings. Is this common on all Paramount discs or only 4K discs but it really is annoying that it can’t take you right where you left off like most discs do. No I had to scroll through all the chapters every time I would restart it on top of all the waiting and waiting. Not good for the 4K format as it’s aggravating when it should be simple. Did anyone else notice this annoyance?

This is sad news to me. I bought the iTunes version for $4.99 (which has since upgraded to 4K), but was considering buying the disc as well once the price dropped. However, I will pass now -- I really dislike when studios do things like this. Universal was one of the worst with their BluRays, forcing me to watch their logo numerous times, forced trailers, and non-standard controls. We buy discs to watch the film, not interact with the discs as if they were a video game.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I thought about watching the 4K digital instead because of it, but due to the superior audio format on the disc I decided against doing so.

We watched it on iTunes yesterday and had a nice long intermission, interrupted only by the Apple TV screensaver. The movie resumed without a problem though.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Fantastic film along with a transfer of perfection ruined by one of the most annoying discs ever in it user friendliness. As it’s nearly a 4 hour film there is no way I would ever watch it straight through especially as it has an intermission and yet every time I would restart the disc it made me go through everything from picking the language to watching warnings. Is this common on all Paramount discs or only 4K discs but it really is annoying that it can’t take you right where you left off like most discs do. No I had to scroll through all the chapters every time I would restart it on top of all the waiting and waiting. Not good for the 4K format as it’s aggravating when it should be simple. Did anyone else notice this annoyance?

This is sad news to me. I bought the iTunes version for $4.99 (which has since upgraded to 4K), but was considering buying the disc as well once the price dropped. However, I will pass now -- I really dislike when studios do things like this. Universal was one of the worst with their BluRays, forcing me to watch their logo numerous times, forced trailers, and non-standard controls. We buy discs to watch the film, not interact with the discs as if they were a video game.

As I'm not equipped for 4K, I do appreciate the ability to change the Blu-ray discs at the Intermission with this film. Those Universal screensavers annoyed the hell out of me until Big Shot explained that a simple press of the Enter button fixes that, though it is still slightly annoying. Having to go through all the B.S. as described by Noel for THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) 4K disc would drive me nuts!

CHEERS!

 

[benbess]

Way back in about 1980, when I was in my first year of high school, one of my friends would once-in-a-while say in a joking Yul Brynner voice, when our lunch group had decided on something, "So let it be written! So let it be done!" We would laugh, because this movie was so well known that everyone knew what he was mimicking, even if we hadn't seen the whole thing. It was in fact him saying that that made me finally watch most of the movie during one of its Easter TV showings, and I found it both fascinating and wonderfully over-the-top.

In college I started to have a deeper feeling about the film after I read for a class a book called "Exodus and Revolution," by Michael Walzer. It's a close reading of the meaning of the original story, and the book concludes with these words: "Standing on the parted shores of history we still believe what we were taught before we ever stood at Sinai: That wherever we are, it is eternally Egypt; that there is a better place, a promised land; that the winding way to the promise passes through the wilderness; that there is no way to get here to there except by joining hands, marching together."

Neil Middlemiss, in his excellent and perceptive review above, writes: "Released in 1956, many years before the passage of the American Civil Rights Act, it is difficult to imagine how the subject of Moses’ contemplative pursuit to find himself, questioning how any man could be a slave, could have been viewed by audiences with anything but compassion for those in American society still relegated and mistreated by those in power. That may seem a tangential thought from this grand telling of the biblical stories told in the great book, but at the core of The Ten Commandments is the question of ‘what makes man’ and why is man so cruel to man; as is stated early in the film “God made man, man made slaves”.... DeMille’s film, then, is a remarkable feat of popularity, spectacle, and statement for the treatment of all men...."

The movie was also a cultural part of the Cold War, with DeMille in his introduction contrasting authoritarian states with comparatively more free societies.

As a 4k disc this is a subtle but significant improvement over the already excellent blu-ray in terms of sound, color, and definition. As I've been doing recently, I sat fairly close to our 65" tv to experience something like a theatrical showing of this nearly 4-hour movie.

The cast for this movie is, of course, excellent. DeMille saw that Heston looked with a beard a lot like Michelangelo's famous sculpture of Moses. I think DeMille knew how to appeal to the women in the audience, and Heston, Brynner, and others are on display for much of the picture.

Anne Baxter later recalled her casting and approach to the role, saying in an interview: "DeMille asked me to come in. His office at Paramount was bursting with books, props, rolls of linens. I told him I'd have to wear an Egyptian false nose and he pounded the table. "No. Baxter, your Irish nose stays in this picture." He acted out my part and I kept nodding, and I walked out with the part. The sound stage sets were magnificent. It was all corny, sure, but DeMille knew it was corny—that's what he wanted, what he loved. I loved slinking around—really, this was silent film acting but with dialogue."

Anne Baxter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Baxter was seemingly an actor who could cry on demand, and strangely mixed with her rather theatrical scenery chewing are some rather effective and real tears, including when Moses first starts to learn from her of his real identity, as well as in the death scene for Ramses I. I felt that the 4K UHD enhanced the emotions here in these scenes, as well as of course displaying the wonderful artistry of the costumes and sets.

Anyway, old fashioned though it is I still love this movie.

Oh, and it has that fantastic musical score, of course, by Elmer Bernstein, five minutes of which is performed here live by the Makris Symphony Orchestra.




Michelangelo, Moses, 1515

 

[John Maher_289910]

About10 billion times more entertaining than EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS

 

[RobertMG]

About10 billion times more entertaining than EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS

Watched on ABC last night and was broadcast very dark