Josh's Blind Buys: Watching The Unseen Collection (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Joel, thanks for sharing your thoughts on 1984. I'm glad you took a moment to write about it even though my posting was from a little while ago - I want you and everyone here to feel free to go back to any older reviews if the inspiration strikes.

Not only do I agree with your review of the film itself, but with your assessment of the film elements, also. Overall, in great shape considering they’re from MGM. It appears that some restoration work has been done.

I'd be curious about that as well. Part of me suspects that since the film wasn't exactly a box-office smash, the elements weren't beaten to death from overuse. I think it also came out after the industry had developed low fading film stocks, which if true means that it was in less danger of having the color fade away. I wouldn't think that most films from the 1980s and onwards would need any real restoration - at most, I would guess that a lot of films simply need new digital transfers made, or just need the studio to make a fresh print to replace an older battered one. I find the Criterion booklets where they talk about the transfers to be occasionally unintentionally hilarious. For instance, I think in their Before Trilogy set, they talk about how Before Midnight is a new restoration - the movie was shot and finished digitally, and the same master used on the original Blu-ray was provided to Criterion. There was nothing to "restore," no need for anything to be restored. Similarly, for the other two films in the set, which came out in 1995 and 2004, Warner simply made new scans of the interpositives. But if you ask Criterion, the most amazing restoration in the history of restorations was done for that and every other title they've put out. Sorry to get off on a rant, I just find some of the restoration verbiage that studios use to be unintentionally hilarious.

One of the real shames with MGM's catalog, in my view, is that there are plenty of titles where the elements don't appear to be in disastrous shape. So many of the transfers that I've seen from MGM that get slammed for being bad aren't the worst things I've seen in the history of the world - they're just done lazily. It seems like they just grabbed a scanner and a bunch of film cans and started scanning the stuff without rhyme or reason or historical context. There are decisions about aspect ratios, color timing, and dirt cleanup where it would be simple and inexpensive to frame it properly, get the color right, and do minimal cleanup, but it's almost as if some of the people working on these don't have a clue for what "right" is, or have been asked to focus on quantity over quality. That's what frustrates me most about MGM transfers - not that they're pure garbage, but that they're often so lazy.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

#45 - Jubal (1956)
Viewed on: March 14th, 2017
Viewing Format: Blu-ray (Criterion)

Jubal is a 1956 CinemaScope western that I picked up during a recent Criterion flash sale. I had been thinking about buying it since last summer, but I was really spurred on after seeing Glenn Ford in the Twilight Time release of Cowboy last year. I enjoyed Ford in the role, realized I hadn't seen him in much, and that made Jubal a little bit more of a priority for me. (The Robert Crawford recommendation also didn't hurt.)

Though technically a western, I think this story could work in any genre - it seems to borrow elements of Shakespeare's Othello. Rather than a king, Ernest Borgnine plays the owner of a ranch, and Glenn Ford is the drifter he finds and gives a home to. He's got a young wife (Valerie French) who previously had an affair with another of Borgnine's employees (Rod Steiger). French has broken off the affair before the film begins, but Steiger wants it to continue; when she rejects him, he sets his sights on Ford, and goes about convincing Borgnine that Ford is trying to steal his wife. Delmer Daves' direction is solid, as always, and he makes great use of the 2.55:1 CinemaScope frame, a format that I really enjoy. Glenn Ford grabbed my interest from the start, and Ernest Borgnine is equally great. Rod Steiger is a menacing presence, and Valerie French is good, providing the required amount of trouble. And I enjoyed Charles Bronson, who shows up a little later in a small, early role.

The disc from Criterion, using a master provided by Sony, look and sounds fantastic. According to the liner notes, the original camera negative was scanned at 4K resolution, and then restoration and cleanup work was performed at 2K; the disc was made from the finished 2K restoration. It was like watching a brand new film. English subtitles are also provided. This is the rare Criterion release which doesn't include any bonus features; in recognition of this, Criterion offers this title at a reduced price.

Jubal was a good find - ostensibly a western, it's really more about characters, and the actors here are fantastic from start to finish. At the heart of the film is the friendship that starts growing between Ford and Borgnine, which Steiger ultimately seeks to sabotage. Like a lot of films by Daves, it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but is content to tell a good story with good technical skill and great performances, which was more than enough for me.

 

[PMF]

#9 - The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years (2016)
Viewed on: January 23rd, 2017
Viewing Format: Blu-ray (Capitol/Universal)
[...] I have the two disc special edition, but I haven't looked at the second disc yet; the packaging indicates that it contains a wealth of bonus performances and other archival footage.
[...] The bonus disc makes it something I'll be glad to have to explore at a later time.

"Once I was BLIND, but now I see".
Love this thread, Josh; but I think you're short-cutting just a tad bit; at least on this title.
That 2nd disc is no filler...and you'll be more than Please, Pleased.
BTW, nice to know that "The Big Trail" passes your eye;
as I feel that having the "Fox Grandeur" ratio intact and available is worth the price of admission, alone.

 

[bujaki]

Josh, I just came back from a screening of The Quiet Man. I smiled throughout the film. The Technicolor was outstanding. The DCP must have been from the UCLA restoration that RAH has been talking about. No anomalies of any kind; perfect color registration. A joy to behold. What a wonderful film!

 

[bujaki]

Josh, you missed it in the theater, but Criterion is releasing it for you: the Pagnol trilogy. Now that you have The Before Trilogy, you must get The Marseille Trilogy directed by Pagnol, and The Apu Trilogy (if you don't already have it), and you'll own three of the greatest trilogies in the history of cinema. There are more that I can recommend, but I can start with these...

 

[bujaki]

I love Jubal.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

#46 - Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Viewed on: March 14th, 2017
Viewing Format: Blu-ray (Paramount)

I won a copy of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back as part of an HTF content; my thanks to Home Theater Forum and Paramount for providing the Blu-ray. I had seen the original film as a streaming rental when it first came out at home, and figured I would be doing the same for the sequel. It was nice to receive a free copy instead!

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back functions as a stand-alone film; as best I could tell, there wasn't a single reference to the original film, which I rewatched earlier in the week. The plot concerns a major (played by Cobie Smulders) that the ex-Army Reacher has developed a long distance friendship with. When he drops by Washington DC to visit her, he is surprised to discover that she's been arrested for espionage. Suspecting that it's some kind of setup, Reacher is warned to stay away, and when he doesn't, he finds himself also being framed. The Army also dangles the possibility that he fathered a child years ago, something Reacher denies, but nonetheless comes to the rescue when the bad guys threaten the teenager who may or may not be his (Danika Yarosh). The film is directed by Edward Zwick; he previously directed Cruise in The Last Samurai.

I found the movie to be very generic; it was easily the most generic Tom Cruise film I've ever seen. While I didn't love the first Jack Reacher, I appreciated that it had a decent puzzle to solve, and was filled with some great actors rounding out the supporting cast. But in Never Go Back, all of the elements that made the original film somewhat interesting have been stripped away. What's left is a generic thriller, that's competently made, with good if involving performances from the leads. Nothing in the story comes as a surprise, and there's very little mystery to figure out. The film never entertains the notion that Cobie Smulders could be guilty, so we as an audience don't have to either. So what we're left with is a film where the protagonist is right and knows everything, and we simply follow along with him as he pieces together all of the obvious clues, and as the film twists and turns down avenues it has long been telegraphing it would be heading down.

The transfer from Paramount is perfectly satisfactory, with a perfectly clear picture and Dolby Atmos audio. My system is limited to 5.1, but the film sounded fine to me played back in a 5.1 system. There were some EPK-type bonus features provided, but after finishing the film, I was not inspired to watch them.

Jack Reacher: Never Goes Back represents one of the blandest and most uninspired pictures Tom Cruise has made in his long career. I don't think it's worth a blind buy, but is the perfect kind of movie for a rainy day when you're just looking for something to pass the time. It's not great, but it's not awful either. Mostly, it's just uninspired. I wish that a better script had been written, one that had some actual mystery for our protagonists to solve.

 

[PMF]

I finally watched one of my unseen buys: THE FRENCH CONNECTION. It is a well-crafted movie to be sure. And compelling with good performances. But in HD the blood effects seem over the top to me, and they don't particularly look like real blood, so that occasionally took me out of the gritty realism of the movie. But I can see how this fits right in with all the really good--but depressing--classics of the early 70s. Glad I saw it. Yet doubt I will ever rewatch it.

I admit I've never seen The French Connection either. I think my mom has it, maybe I'll borrow it one of these days.

Ah, yes, but which French Connection BD is Carabimero speaking of?
And which French Connection BD is owned by Josh's mom?
Talk about Blind Buys; as one BD has the controversial revisionism of color by William Friedkin, while the other BD that followed has the original color from 1971.
I always felt that the original needed to be available and finally was;
but I am also one of the rare few who remains glad to own other.
My particular Blind Buy, concerning The French Connection, was in my willingness to experiment and see what Mr. Friedkin was up to.
And it did change things, no doubt.
But if its your first time out with The French Connection; make certain its not the experimental version.

 

[Carabimero]

But if its your first time out with The French Connection; make certain its not the experimental version.

Something tells me I watched the experimental version, because the color and amount of blood was ridiculous for a film that aspired to such otherwise gritty realism.

 

[RMajidi]

...BTW, nice to know that "The Big Trial" passes your eye;

The Big Trial? Wasn't that the one co-directed by Raoul Walsh and Orson Welles, set in Monument Valley, where the various tribal chiefs gathered to pass judgment on John Wayne without ever revealing the charges against him?

Good to see you here, Philip. Fellow Beatlemaniac?

 

[bujaki]

I thought The Big Trial was the flat version. I find it almost unwatchable, and I saw it in 35mm.

 

[DavidJ]

#46 - Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Viewed on: March 14th, 2017
Viewing Format: Blu-ray (Paramount)

I won a copy of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back as part of an HTF content; my thanks to Home Theater Forum and Paramount for providing the Blu-ray. I had seen the original film as a streaming rental when it first came out at home, and figured I would be doing the same for the sequel. It was nice to receive a free copy instead!

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back functions as a stand-alone film; as best I could tell, there wasn't a single reference to the original film, which I rewatched earlier in the week. The plot concerns a major (played by Cobie Smulders) that the ex-Army Reacher has developed a long distance friendship with. When he drops by Washington DC to visit her, he is surprised to discover that she's been arrested for espionage. Suspecting that it's some kind of setup, Reacher is warned to stay away, and when he doesn't, he finds himself also being framed. The Army also dangles the possibility that he fathered a child years ago, something Reacher denies, but nonetheless comes to the rescue when the bad guys threaten the teenager who may or may not be his (Danika Yarosh). The film is directed by Edward Zwick; he previously directed Cruise in The Last Samurai.

I found the movie to be very generic; it was easily the most generic Tom Cruise film I've ever seen. While I didn't love the first Jack Reacher, I appreciated that it had a decent puzzle to solve, and was filled with some great actors rounding out the supporting cast. But in Never Go Back, all of the elements that made the original film somewhat interesting have been stripped away. What's left is a generic thriller, that's competently made, with good if involving performances from the leads. Nothing in the story comes as a surprise, and there's very little mystery to figure out. The film never entertains the notion that Cobie Smulders could be guilty, so we as an audience don't have to either. So what we're left with is a film where the protagonist is right and knows everything, and we simply follow along with him as he pieces together all of the obvious clues, and as the film twists and turns down avenues it has long been telegraphing it would be heading down.

The transfer from Paramount is perfectly satisfactory, with a perfectly clear picture and Dolby Atmos audio. My system is limited to 5.1, but the film sounded fine to me played back in a 5.1 system. There were some EPK-type bonus features provided, but after finishing the film, I was not inspired to watch them.

Jack Reacher: Never Goes Back represents one of the blandest and most uninspired pictures Tom Cruise has made in his long career. I don't think it's worth a blind buy, but is the perfect kind of movie for a rainy day when you're just looking for something to pass the time. It's not great, but it's not awful either. Mostly, it's just uninspired. I wish that a better script had been written, one that had some actual mystery for our protagonists to solve.

I really liked the first one and like you felt let down by the sequel. It has some good moments, but it also has some ridiculous ones too. It seems like a sequel that falls prey to the more must be better cynicism of studios.

 

[PMF]

The Big Trial? Wasn't that the one co-directed by Raoul Walsh and Orson Welles, set in Monument Valley, where the various tribal chiefs gathered to pass judgment on John Wayne without ever revealing the charges against him?

Good to see you here, Philip. Fellow Beatlemaniac?

Yes, a fellow Beatlemaniac, fer sure.
I am no longer on "Trial"; as I went back and corrected the spelling.
The only "Trail" of evidence that remains is your quote box; which now makes it a collector's item.
P.S. Envious of Josh;
both for his home theater set-up and for coming up with a topic that gets him a bunch of "Likes" towards more Trophy points.
P.S.S. But, then again, its Josh; so these reviews are clearly written with thought and a good degree of technical acuity.

 

[PMF]

Something tells me I watched the experimental version, because the color and amount of blood was ridiculous for a film that aspired to such otherwise gritty realism.

To clarify on The French Connection BD's, the original 1971 color timing is found under the banner of The Director's Signature Series from FOX. That's the one to see first.
As for that blood looking fake, I know what you're saying. I've seen so many incarnations of The French Connection; and to my collective memory, all versions had that problem. Maybe the victim was taking blood thinner at the time.

 

[Carabimero]

To clarify on The French Connection BD's, the original 1971 color timing is found under the banner of The Director's Signature Series from FOX. That's the one to see first.

I didn't see the BD; I saw an HD digital download.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I really liked the first one and like you felt let down by the sequel. It has some good moments, but it also has some ridiculous ones too. It seems like a sequel that falls prey to the more must be better cynicism of studios.

For sure. I think it's also a sign of how the international market can come into play. The first movie under-performed domestically, but it did well internationally, and I think that's the sole reason it got a sequel. Rewatching the first film earlier in the week, it still has a bit of an "American" feel to it. It felt like a lot of the material, which certainly could play internationally, had a more domestic flavor - like the sequences with Robert Duvall as the former Marine who now owns a shooting range and teams up with Cruise at the end.

But in the second film, most anything that felt uniquely American seemed to be gone. The characterization across the board also seemed less substantial - but probably made for easier translation. In the second film, we don't learn any more about Reacher beyond what was in the first movie, which was pretty much nothing. We learn very little about the character played by Cobie Smulders. We learn very little about the girl who we're told might be Reacher's daughter, and we certainly are never told what the mother's reasoning was for thinking Reacher could be the father.

The plot is much simpler; there's never any question in the audience's mind that the Cobie Smulders character is innocent. It seems that every time there's a potentially new plot point or twist to the story, the movie immediately telegraphs that it's not going to twist that way. (So, for instance, with the possibility that Reacher could have a daughter - Cruise emphatically denies even knowing the mother, and his denial is so sincere and complete, that I immediately believed him. So while the movie played a couple "is he or isn't he?" games throughout, since I believed the Cruise character saying he had never met the alleged mother, that was enough for me to not buy into the subplot.) Actually, now that I think about it, I think the first movie is guilty of this as well. The movie opens up with a sniper attack, and we immediately see that the sniper who did the killing is not the one who the police suspect of doing the job. This means that there's absolutely no suspense for the audience in the first two-thirds, as the plot is focused in that point on Reacher discovering the guy was innocent.

All in all, both films but especially the second one, really seemed designed to be digested very easily.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

#47 - Passengers 3D (2016)
Viewed on: March 16th, 2017
Viewing Format: Blu-ray 3D (Sony)

I wanted to see Passengers when it came out in theaters in December, but wasn't able to. I preordered the movie despite the less-than-stellar reviews (which I did my best to avoid), and have been looking forward to it since then. And as it turns out, I really enjoyed the movie. The only thing that I didn't like -- and it's a big thing -- is that the trailer completely spoils the majority of what happens onscreen. I feel like I would have enjoyed this movie twice as much if I hadn't watched it with a nagging feeling of knowing what was around every corner. Instead of giving a traditional summary, instead I'm going to describe the beginning of the movie as I think the trailers and marketing should have.

Imagine yourself some years into the future - maybe even centuries. You're a mechanic by trade; you always loved fixing things and had an intuitive understanding of how things worked, so there was no doubt that it was your calling. Unfortunately for you, life on Earth has advanced to a point where mechanics aren't needed anymore. Things rarely break; if they do, you buy a new one. No one builds houses anymore, because all of the land has been taken. You find out that a company is launching ships to colonize far away planets; 5000 passengers are sent, in hibernation, on a one-way journey that takes 120 years. You're considered a desirable person to have on the trip because of your mechanical skills, which means they'll discount your trip, and you don't have any strong connections to life on Earth anyway, so you sign up, and like everyone else, are put on board in hibernation. And then, one day, you wake up. You walk around the vast ship, but there's no one there; everyone else is still asleep. And then you find out the horrible truth: your hibernation pod has malfunctioned, and you've woken up 90 years too early, with no way to go back to sleep. Because the ship's itinerary involved waking up the passengers several months before arrival, there's plenty of food and activities onboard to keep busy, but you will die on the ship before reaching your destination. You're so far from earth when you awake that it would take 55 years to get a response to a distress signal. You're on your own. So what do you do? You try to make the best of the situation, but after a year with only a bartending android to keep you company, you're losing your mind and starting to think about maybe just ending it all. Then an awful realization hits: you're a mechanic, and you could figure out how to break into one of the hibernation pods and wake someone else up. You wouldn't be alone anymore. But you'd be condemning that person to the same shipboard death that you've been sentenced to. You know it's wrong to even think about it, but like an itch you can't scratch, the thought won't go away...

That, to me, is all I would have needed to have been sold on this movie - everything I described above happens in the first 30-45 minutes or so. Everything in the trailer seems to happen around the movie's 75-90 minute mark, so they really used the middle and end of the movie to sell it. And that's a shame, because the extended opening with Chris Pratt as the only human onscreen is very compelling stuff. This is a movie that's filled with delights big and small, many of which have been spoiled by the stupid trailer, but that I was still able to enjoy despite knowing they were coming. Chris Pratt is fantastic; I think it's the strongest performance I've seen from him in one of these blockbusters. Jennifer Lawrence, despite top billing, has more of a supporting role, but she's also pretty good here. (I recently rewatched X-Men: Apocalypse and it felt like she had phoned it in for that movie; here, she seems more present.) Michael Sheen has a series of great moments as the previous-mentioned android.

Spoiler

Laurence Fishburne and Andy Garcia are also very effective in smaller roles. I think even the knowledge that there are other actors in the film can serve as a spoiler, so I appreciated that the movie opened with a simple display of the title, and saved all other credits until after the conclusion of the feature.

The script, by Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts, has some elements which might seem familiar to fans of that film, but is mostly able to deliver a fresh spin on some timeless themes. Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography, combined with production design by Guy Hendrix Dyas, yield a movie that never looks anything less than stunning.

I viewed Sony's 3D Blu-ray disc release of the movie, which is available in a combo pack that also includes the UHD version and a 2D Blu-ray version. Interestingly, the UHD and BD discs are pressed with a generic Sony design, while the 3D disc is given nicely designed artwork. The picture quality is near-reference. While the 3D isn't an aggressive in-your-face affair, it effectively utilizes the ship's long hallways and empty spaces to emphasize the loneliness of being on your own so far away from home. The audio on the 3D disc is DTS-HD MA 5.1, though the UHD disc includes Dolby Atmos instead. (My system is only 5.1, so this didn't bother me.) The UHD and 3D discs include no bonus features; the included 2D BD offers several featurettes, which I did not get to view.

Passengers was a surprisingly entertaining and thoughtful spacebound sci-fi film that was unfortunately sabotaged by a too-revealing trailer which emphasized the wrong things, and a release schedule which represents a level of reality-denying from a major studio seldom seen. (Did Sony really think they could open their space-themed movie a mere four days after Disney opened its latest Star Wars, and not suffer any kind of consequence for going after the same audience at the same time? Due to Disney's ironclad contracts with exhibitors, Star Wars was contractually obligated to play on the biggest and best screens at each theater, which meant that Passengers could not be booked for IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and the proprietary theater formats like AMC Prime, Regal RPX, etc., and was instead shown on smaller, less impressive screens. I know that in my neighborhood, it only played in 3D for about a week before switching to 2D only, and then was gone within a couple weeks of that. I blinked and missed it, unfortunately.) Despite an ad campaign that misrepresents the story while revealing far too much, and a release strategy that put the movie out at a time when its audience was guaranteed to be busy elsewhere, the film itself has a lot to recommend about it. I will definitely be rewatching this movie, and now that I know everything that happens, I'm hoping I'll enjoy the second viewing even more than the first.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Josh,

I can't remember if you watched The Quiet Man yet?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Josh,

I can't remember if you watched The Quiet Man yet?

Hopefully tonight.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Hopefully tonight.

Well, I hope you like it, but comedies are so subjective when it comes to our individual sense of humor.