No buzz/reviews for the 9/30 Warner classics yet? (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

Well that doesn't mean anything. Pauline Kael had negative things to say about 99% of the films she saw. There's a rumor she once wrote a positive review, but I think it's just an urban legend .

Just some examples of her opinion

Blazing Saddles - "Mel Brooks' comedy...with a scarcity of comedy...the old gags here never were very funny; rehashed, they just seem desperate."

Casablanca - "It is far from a great film"

Fantasia - "The total effect is grotesquely kitschy"

Gandhi - "Kingsley is impressive, the picture isn't"

Goodfellas - "The movie lacks the juice and richness that come with major performances"

It's a Wonderful Life - "This is doggerel trying to pass as art"

Lawrence of Arabia - "The picture fails to give an acceptable interpretation of Lawrence, or to keep it's action intelligible"

Raiders of the Lost Ark - "the picture is an amalgam of Lucas's follies...there's no exhilaration, and no surge of feeling at the end."

Star Wars - "Lucas has got the tone of bad movies down pat"

etc.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Hear, hear! Steiner's score for Treasure of Sierra Madre is one of the best things in the film.

I haven't seen TREASURE... in years, but I can't imagine any Max Steiner score being bad.

 

[DeeF]

George Kaplan hasn't actually read what I wrote about Pauline Kael.

I didn't suggest she didn't like the film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In fact, she thinks it is one of the best American films ever.

And I agreed with her. But something about the film annoyed me. It was the music score. I wondered if I was hearing things, so I turned to other critics to see if anybody else noticed what I noticed.

As it turns out, almost everyone did.

Max Steiner did a lot of great work. He invented the kind of music score we now take for granted: underlining the actual content of each scene, rather than simply setting a mood. As actors would smile, the music would smile.
Even though his style of composition isn't really good stand-alone music, it was acceptable, in most cases, as the underscoring for Hollywood movies.

But this man made 250 film scores, and only a handful of those can truly be called masterpieces. The rest are simple journeyman work, and many might be considered pedestrian at best, mostly culled together from disparate sources, including some of Steiner's previously-scored movies.

When I listen to Sierra Madre, I think that Steiner was somewhat defeated by the movie, and didn't know what to do with it. The opening section in Durango is terrific, both Mexican and urban, lonely and chilling. But as the men go out seeking the treasure, that 'cowboy' theme is played, over and over, often transposed to 'minor' key.

It's not his best effort, clearly.

But, I repeat, it doesn't seem to ruin the movie, for most people, although it may have played a part in the original failure of the movie to find an audience.

There are many movies which are ruined by their scores, though this is rarely mentioned as a cause of failure. A recent movie which had a very divided audience had a very odd (read: poor) music score, Gangs of New York. Whether a different music score might have made a difference, we'll never know.

 

[george kaplan]

Calling the score terrible is saying something negative about a film. I never said she didn't ever say anything positive, I just said she almost always had something negative to say. And I followed that up with some examples. Some of those are from mostly positive (for her) overall reviews.

 

[John Hodson]

DeeF; you (and Pauline Kael ) don't like the score. No jury of critics will change my view on it (or about Max Steiner in general). You voiced your opinion, I, and one or two others, have taken a contra view.

I'm happy with that, and I'm happy with the fact that you don't like it - no biggie is it?

---
So many films, so little time...

 

[DeeF]

But no one has mentioned my other little tidbit: There's a problem in the transfer at Chapter 28.

I suppose it's because none of you have received your copies yet.

When you do, please remark here if you see what I see. Because I will need to trade my disk, if my disk alone is at fault.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

These "reviewers" on these sites are all kids and they have NO idea what these films should look like and are probably comparing the transfer to newly shot films.

Oh, please - what a broad and unnecessarily nasty statement. So if I didn't see the movie during its theatrical run I can't comment on it? With enough experience reviewing DVDs of various eras, one CAN gain an understanding of the way the movies in those periods looked. No, I DON'T expect a movie from 1938 to look like one shot in 2003, and I don't know anyone else who does. It's absurd to think that unless a reviewer possesses intimate knowledge of the film his opinion of it's not useful...

 

[Walter Kittel]

Regarding The Adventures of Robin Hood and expectations; Obviously I'm at the disadvantage not having seen the new disc, but if the DVD release equals or exceeds the Criterion CAV presentation, which I believe looks grand, then I will be one happy camper.

Dee - If you would post the time stamps for the horizontal striping on Treasure of the Sierra Madre I will examine my LD copy to see if those scenes on the MGM/UA LD release exhibit the same phenomena.

- Walter.

 

[jonathan_little]

I remember seeing Adventures of Robin Hood about a year and a half ago on TCM and it looked fantastic. I'll be very happy If the DVD looks as good as that. I'm really confused as to why a reviewer would even attempt to compare the picture quality of 1952's Singin' in the Rain with Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Mmmmm, tripe.

Oh, no not Kael's name on my screen again! Gah!


Gordy

 

[DeeF]

Dee - If you would post the time stamps for the horizontal striping on Treasure of the Sierra Madre I will examine my LD copy to see if those scenes on the MGM/UA LD release exhibit the same phenomena.

How do I do this? I'm not really up on the technology -- where do the "time stamp" numbers appear?

--

About Robin Hood, I watched it on TCM some months ago, and I found the colors to be too bright, too saturated, particularly the outdoor scenes -- the green didn't look real. I know that Technicolor has this tradition of super colors, but this seemed a little too much.

When you watch the disk, all doubts vanish. The colors ARE bright, but the saturation level is perfectly reasonable. Remember, when this movie came out, in addition to the 3 matrices, there was a fourth, "key" film, usually 50% of the blue matrix, which was printed with black and used to improve contrast and give depth to the colors. This key was later retired, and would not have been used for Singin' in the Rain.

The greens look lush, and rich, but not superficial and surreal. Curiously, on the disk, when you watch the trailer, you see those superbright colors, so obviously the trailer wasn't "restored" with the same process as the movie.

I can't recommend this movie highly enough.

--

Pauline Kael was a great, great critic, and no greater lover of movies existed. She saw things that nobody else saw, and she was more often than not right on the money. But even when one disagreed with her opinion (I myself think musicals like West Side Story are gems, though she disdained them) her writing was exemplary.

Many movie critics today call Kael the supreme master of the form.

 

[DeeF]

OK, I figured it out.

The "striping" can be seen (Treasure of the Sierra Madre) at 1:30:48, the beginning shot of the campfire scene where Bogart and Holt finally have it out.

The stripes disappear with the next shot at 1:30:59.

Later in this scene, there is a series of vertical sparkles that look like video problems more than grain or contrast problems.

My equipment includes a Fujitsu 5001 50" Plasma monitor, and a Bravo D1 DVD player, which goes into the plasma at a one-for-one precision.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Due to the side changes, the time stamping may not exactly match up; but I examined the scenes where Bogart and Holt talk during the day, followed by the nighttime sequence, and the next day on the trail and I didn't see notice any striping. There are some white specks in the scene, which are plainly visible due to the darkness of the scene around the campfire that evening, but that was the only thing that stood out.

- Walter.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

About Robin Hood, I watched it on TCM some months ago, and I found the colors to be too bright, too saturated, particularly the outdoor scenes -- the green didn't look real

That's how I felt about the MGM/UA Laserdisc; the color almost looked artificial. I prefer the older Criterion release. And I'm sure the DVD is gonna look better than either of them!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I'm really confused as to why a reviewer would even attempt to compare the picture quality of 1952's Singin' in the Rain with Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938.

I think it's because both were from the same DVD studio as part of the same sort of reissue campaign, and IIRC, Lowry Digital remastered both of them. I don't think the reviewer in question directly compared Singin' and Adventures - instead, I think his disappointment came because he expected Adventures to look as objectively excellent as Singin'. It was a level of general quality he expected...

 

[DeeF]

I believe Lowry is only partially responsible for these movies. The "UltraResolution" process used to digitally restore these movies was separately developed by Warner Brothers. I think Lowry did some digital cleanup, but the major amount of work to these movies was done before Lowry was brought in.

I watched Robin Hood again today, and I am mightily impressed with it. It has a different look than Singin', softer, and more realistic. Personally, I love how the movie looks, like it was made yesterday.

 

[StevenFC]

Personally, I just want these films and other favorites to be released in the current supported format. It would be great if they looked pristine because of the possibilities of the DVD format. But as long as they don't look horrible and are in their AOR, I'm happy. What with the extras on these discs and the fact that they're some of my all-time favorites, I don't see how I can possibly be disappointed.

 

[BruceKimmel]

Um, Dee F, my post was not directed at you in any way, shape, or form, and how you could surmise this is beyond me. My post was a) aimed directly at Mr. Scott, to whom it was addressed, and its point was simple - wait until you actually see the disc before being disappointed. I'm betting it will look as superb as you're saying it does. My post was b) aimed directly at those "reviewers" who, in fact, don't know much about anything regarding these transfers and/or the way a film should look. Sorry, Colin, but most of what I read on the Internet, "review"-wise, is tripe and not very knowledgable about the film being "reviewed". I'm sorry to have to say it, but that includes many of your own "reviews". Did I see Robin Hood in its original release? I'm OLD but not THAT old. Did I own a 35mm Technicolor print of the film? Yes, and it was a print from the early fifties, so yes, I do think I know exactly what the film should look like. It's not a question of how old or how young - it's the fact that most of these "reviewers" (who ARE mostly youngsters) have never seen the films they are reviewing theatrically - yet they are commenting on the quality of the image as if they knew what they were talking about. Therefore, you get a lot of "reviews" of 70s movies saying things like, oh this transfer is not very good - it's soft and hazy-looking. Had they actually SEEN the film they would know that that was the style then - that the film was most likely shot with filters to give it that exact look. So, they blame the transfer rather than saying the transfer is perfect because it replicates the way the film was made.

 

[Joe Caps]

Question about packaging. It looks like these three new classics come in little foldover type boxes. Is this same packaging for all three films IN the Warners Legends set?

 

[CherylWI]

Great post BruceKimmel