UHD Review Sorcerer: Criterion Collection — 4K UHD review (2 Viewers)

[Preston Jones]

A William Friedkin masterpiece makes a gorgeous 4K UHD debut in the Criterion Collection.



Sorcerer (1977)



Released: 24 Jun 1977
Rated: PG
Runtime: 121 min




Director: William Friedkin
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller



Cast: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal
Writer(s): Walon Green, Georges Arnaud, William Friedkin



Plot: Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.



IMDB rating: 7.7
MetaScore: 68





Disc Information



Studio: Warner Brothers
Distributed By: Criterion Collection
Video Resolution: 2160p HEVC w/HDR



Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: English...

Continue reading...

 

[JohnRice]

I'm definitely all in on this one.

 

[Robert Saccone]

Going to get during the upcoming B&N Criterion sale.

 

[Wayne Klein]

Hopefully mine arrives tomorrow. it’s always dicey with Amazon. It says it will but they’ve lied to me before.

 

[Wayne Klein]

There’s quite the debate on the color timing for this in particular in the review at Blu-ray.com. I do think, based on the caps that it looks more film like. While I did like some of the color choices in the Warner Blu, it looked a little too digital at times to me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

There’s quite the debate on the color timing for this in particular in the review at Blu-ray.com. I do think, based on the caps that it looks more film like. While I did like some of the color choices in the Warner Blu, it looked a little too digital at times to me.

Shocking!

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah…

That never happens.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Never trust a bassoonist to tell you about color.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

One of the first laserdiscs i ever bought was Sorcerer back in 1990 and still have it. A great score by Tangerine Dream.

 

[tenia]

There’s quite the debate on the color timing for this in particular in the review at Blu-ray.com. I do think, based on the caps that it looks more film like. While I did like some of the color choices in the Warner Blu, it looked a little too digital at times to me.

The debate mostly happened because of their rubbish official review, which predictably went overboard due to the reviewer's recurring color-grading crusade. What's new.
Not that the Warner disc ever was a reference in this department, though.

 

[Harry-N]

I was initially on the fence with this one having seen screencaps of the new release that looked decidedly blue-ish, but as I thought more about it, I realized that no-one really knows what Friedkin had in his head regarding the color palette other than he was quoted as saying that the Warner disc was the way he wanted it. But when you think about all this, every TV, every movie theater, every studio monitor can have differences in their color settings, and every set of human eyes sees things differently. I'm convinced of that. How many of you have said to your significant other, "look at that purple thing over there. " And the reply is that it's not purple, it's blue.

Or look at that guy over there, doesn't he look just like John Doe? And the reply is, no, he doesn't look anything like John Doe. These are the vagaries of human vision and perception.

So, while I once was not going to double-dip on this one, I love this movie too much to not have everything there is out there. I've still got the ancient 4:3 DVD, the book-format Blu-ray, the keep-case Blu-ray, and even a revised DVD from 2014. So now I will have a UHD 4K copy (without a player!) and a new Blu-ray transfer.

 

[BaronVH]

That site is fine for sales announcements and such, but the reviewers’ taste in films tend to be particularly nuts. It is either AI or by someone that completely dislikes older classics.

 

[JoshZ]

I was initially on the fence with this one having seen screencaps of the new release that looked decidedly blue-ish, but as I thought more about it, I realized that no-one really knows what Friedkin had in his head regarding the color palette other than he was quoted as saying that the Warner disc was the way he wanted it.

Friedkin also had frustrating revisionist tendencies when it came to remastering his old work. The "pastel" nonsense he inflicted onto The French Connection (later fixed with a re-release) and The Boys in the Band (still uncorrected) was abhorrent. The Arrow Blu-ray of Cruising was heavily DNR'ed and tinted blue at Friedkin's direction, but the label remastered it again later after his death to undo all that for the 4K release.

 

[tenia]

That site is fine for sales announcements and such, but the reviewers’ taste in films tend to be particularly nuts. It is either AI or by someone that completely dislikes older classics.

Fortunately, some of the reviewers there are still pretty engaged in providing reviews as objectively accurate as possible, but in the meantime, you get a ranting old man who uses blu-ray reviews as a soapbox, a reviewer with the most template-ified reviews I've ever read, a reviewer specialized in catalogue movies but who seemingly have issues with transfers properly retaining high frequencies, and I seem to recall another reviewer who doesn't really understand how HDR and DV works.

Fortunately, they at least stopped banning useful members of their board that kept compensating for these shortcomings, so there's at least the people there to do what the official reviewers can't.

To be fair, too many AV tech reviewers with websites like blu-ray.com aren't as discerning as they should (or as other people manage to be), but it's another level of issue when you have a team of reviewers but that's mostly composed of people failing in such a way. I understand they need a certain amount of reviewers to cover as many releases as they do, but do they need reviews like these ? What are their added value ?

I realized that no-one really knows what Friedkin had in his head regarding the color palette other than he was quoted as saying that the Warner disc was the way he wanted it.

I supposed that's why Criterion also sourced a 1998 35mm print, though who knows if it was already revised as it also was approved by Friedkin.
Still, now that comparisons with the 2013 discs are popping up online, it is interesting to see that several scenes look very similarly graded to how they were in 2013. I mean...

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm buying this 4K/UHD release when Barnes & Noble's sale begins later this week.

 

[Konstantinos]

Fortunately, they at least stopped banning useful members of their board that kept compensating for these shortcomings, so there's at least the people there to do what the official reviewers can't.

Tell me about it!
I even see members that are heavily criticizing the reviewer calling names and stuff, and are not banned, and I was banned for having a "crusade" against the Criterion teal-y Fantastic Planet.
And now that the reviewer is criticizing most Criterion blu-rays for their teal colors, I really can't understand how he didn't see it on that blu-ray!
But I'm way off topic here, I apologize, but had to say it somewhere!

 

[Worth]

The older blu-ray looked pretty good, especially compared to some of Friedkin's other approved masters, but the colour was oversaturated.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The older blu-ray looked pretty good, especially compared to some of Friedkin's other approved masters, but the colour was oversaturated.

This is what I remember from the disc that came in the Blu-ray book. The colors popped, big time. I love the film, so I am most certainly picking up the Criterion. I did not have an issue with the Warner disc, but I did let out a "Wow!" when I was watching it because I had never remembered the colors leaping off the screen like that. My assumption was that was how Friedkin wanted it. I mean the greens of the jungle are amazing in it and because they are so vivid you feel totally enveloped in it. But I also think that color impacts the mood of a film. So, viewers would have to decide. I had never seen the film look like it did on the Warner Blu but, I had seen the film on a bad DVD and on TV for years and in those poor presentations it looked much more drab.

Bottom line though is, great film, get it.

 

[Worth]

I picked up the Criterion and I have to say I don't care for the new colour grading. While I generally think that accusations of colorists turning everything teal are wildly overblown, damned if this doesn't look too teal to me. Is it closer to the way it looked on release? I have no idea, but I kind of doubt it. Overall, I prefer the look of the older blu-ray.

 

[CC95]

I'll wait for ARROW or BFI to do it properly.