A few words about...™ Mildred Pierce (HBO) -- in Blu-ray - Page 2

Originally Posted by Douglas Monce 

Because I only have one blu-ray player and its in the living room. I often like to watch movies in the bedroom before I go to sleep. Also my portable DVD player of course won't take blu-rays, so I need a DVD for when I'm traveling. In addition to that, I frequently take movies to friends houses, and I don't know anyone else who has a blu-ray player.
Doug

Originally Posted by Robert Harris 

 

Several years ago, I gave up on a very high end Pioneer player, when every few months as Fox changed their piracy mechanisms, they needed firmware updates.  Which took months!

 

RAH

Originally Posted by rsmithjr 

I have difficulty with things filmed in 16mm. Historically, there was some justification for 16mm, especially for documentary titles and things that required small cameras hand-carried into difficult settings.
For studio productions, however, I still would like to see everything that is put on film use 70mm (65mm negative of course). This went out of style over 40 years ago in favor of 35mm capture with blow-ups to 70mm release prints, but you can really tell the difference. Even Blu-ray transfers improve markedly with 65mm capture.
At the very least, use 35mm capture for the best results.
BTW the argument that 16mm is an "artistic" choice to capture the period look is pretty bogus. The original Mildred Pierce was photographed in 35mm B&W and it is sharp as a tack. The 40's was definitely not fuzzy! And color films made in the 40's were not the muted orange colors we see in the HBO Mildred Pierce, they were largely beautiful dye-transfer Technicolor. See the MGM and Fox titles from that era for example.
FINALLY: artistically, the new Mildred Pierce is far inferior to the Joan Crawford/Michael Curtiz Warners production, which still holds up. Oddly enough, the new version may be "bolder" in some ways, but overall the original is much tougher as well as being more tightly constructed.