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A few words about...™ Spy Game -- in HD-DVD
Universal's High Def release of Tony Scott's 2001 Spy Game must be one of the more difficult productions to technically make its way to HD.
With an image that has been modified in many ways, this is a film that could have been a technical disaster waiting to occur.
And it wasn't. The transfer is beautiful.
What it turned out to be was yet another very, very film-like release from Universal's HD unit.
There are shots with deep rich blacks broken by shafts of light that have reveals of incredible shadow detail and depth. Color is extremely accurate to the original film production.
It has been noted elsewhere that there is some dirt on the element.
True.
I noted a few, and by that I mean literally three or four over two hours of "sparkle," or negative dirt printed through to the IP. If you want to see "sparkle" pop Rear Window into your DVD player.
This is nothing, and as I've noted before, adds to the film look.
There are also a couple of passages, generally with bright skies (one around the 49 minute mark) that have a quick run of positive detritus, and then is gone.
I'm wondering if the final QC is viewed on a home theater size monitor, or a professional grade studio monitor of 30" or thereabout. If this is the case, the problem will be extremely difficult to spot.
Should it occur. Probably not.
Does it damage the viewer perception of this film.
Not in the slightest. My perception is that this is not a new film element.
Watching Spy Game, which was produced before, but released just post 9/11 brings to mind, two other films that are heroic, intelligent and cause the audience to think.
The first, concerning honor and chivalry goes back just prior to WWII, Jean Renoir's 1937 Grand Illusion, available from Criterion, that small indie label. For those unaware, this is one of the greatest films ever made.
The other, and which I feel now forms an interesting bookend to Spy Game, is Stephen Gaghan's Syriana, a film so literate and involved that it can make the unwary viewer's head hurt.
Spy Game is a beautifully rendered HD-DVD, a great entertainment, with some known talented actors, that also serves to make the audience think about precisely what and how a modern government deals with the needs of the public, and the loss of those who are now retiring, who manned the walls in more civilized and personal times.
Highly Recommended.
RAH
Last edited by Robert Harris : 09-10-2006 at 09:24 PM.
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