My goodness, I have a distinct feeling I will be slapped on the wrist here...and probably by none other than Robert Harris himself, but, here I go...
My Netflix copy of disk 1 came in the mail and I've just breezed thru a few scenes to see the image improvement. I saw the older release about 6 months ago, and I'll be darned if I was slightly underwhelmed by the new image quality. Even the dissolve at about 18:18-18:21 looked the same. I'd love to see an A-B. It does appear to be a new encoding, based on the VOB file date of March 9, 2005.
Felix, you're not alone. i had pretty much the same impression too.
this new one looks a little more 'contrasty' (to the point of crushing it seems in some scenes- most noticeable to me in some of the police station shots). apart from that, and the colors looking a little more vibrant (or pumped up, choose your adjectives) i see the same softness in some scenes, and the same graininess in others.
not sorry i upgraded, 'cause i went thru the extras and those alone made it worth it, but i am a little disappointed i don't see the same improvment others are seeing.
I'm yet to watch the East of Eden disc, but was anyone else fascinated by some of the costume tests?
Particularly the one with James Dean and Lois Smith... Smith is totally stunning, and Dean seems to be trying to annoy, and/or hit on her - hey I would've as well if I was James Dean.
Smith is getting increasingly annoyed but someone (maybe Kazan?) says something that makes her laugh. It was great of Warner to include the footage... I can't wait to watch the film.
My only dissapointment is in the screen tests for East of Eden. I have seen in other docs the screen test where Paul Newman is testing for the part of Deans Brother and I just assumed it would be on here and I am puzzled that it is not. this is the first time I am seeing the dvd of giant and expected something truly ghastly from what I've read about it, but I thought it was not great but pretty good.
I rented the Giant disc and didn't think it looked very good, but since then I bought a new TV and better DVD player, so I'm hoping it at least comes up looking better than when I watched it a first time.
I just watched East of Eden and have officially fallen in love with that film all over again.
The main problem is with the awful haloing during the many optical shots. This is made worse by the fact that the problematic stock used for the opticals extends from the first cut prior to the optical until the first cut after the optical, and there are a lot of optical fades -- many of which are single shot long takes followed by a fade into another single shot long take. It is even more maddening on a very large screen TV (or film screen). Other than this, the A/V is pretty good for a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 presentation.
seemed to be working earlier Arnie- showed a good bit of difference. to me it looks like a case of new color timing, with the old one looking more subdued (color-wise) and cooler, and the new higher contrasted and warmer.
for me, i was most looking for improvment in fine detail, and less exacerbated grain, in this new transfer and in that regards i don't see a big difference between the two ( just going by that screenshot i'd say the older one has a hair more detail- in the hair, but the screenshot is not enough to make a substantial comparision in this regard).
as for Giant, as an SE package the disc is fine- the only area it is weak is the transfer for the film itself, and its a shame but that was the only thing Warner needed to rectify. i popped it in a couple weeks back just before i sold it, and for the most part, it wasn't as bad as i recalled. it brought to mind the look of the original Gone With The Wind single disc- a bit harsh, edgy, plugged up in the blacks. but when the halos pop up, boy are they truly horrendous. they're G#*damn supernatural looking.
Well, I found a bad fact checking error on the Rebel Without a Cause commentary track:
At one point, when the cast are walking into school, (as James Dean steps on the school's seal), which he has to apologize for, the speaker on the commentary track says that something we won't see "anywhere" are blue jeans school because they were unacceptable for school wear. He says this as several kids, both credited cast members and extras, walk in and out of the frame wearing blue jeans.
Uh, oopsy!
Oh, man! What a stoooopid mistake that anyone who is not blind will catch! Frankly, it casts doubt on every other little tidbit of info this guy has, as far as I am concerned...kinda rendering the commentary track MUCH less worthy of listening to.
The thing that bothers me about the documentary material is when the guy who wrote "The Making of Rebel Without A Cause" talks about Ray studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact he ran a Playhouse at Wright's Taliesin complex, and didn't study architecture at all. It is one of those stories that gets repeated so often that it has fully mutated into "fact". It is a bit disturbing when someone who is supposedly an authority on one of Ray's most famous films repeats it.
Anyway, the book "Nicholas Ray: An American Journey" by Bernard Eisenschitz is a wonderful film book for anyone remotely interested in Ray and his films.
Thanks Dee for those screencaps. I'll slap my own wrist. While not without its visual problems, the new release certainly is an improvement over the last go-around. And then you have all the great extras...