Recommandations de Blurays par Robert Harris

[Manolito]

Robert Harris est un restaurateur de copies et de films faisant autorité dans son domaine, il a notamment dirigé réédition de prestige, tels les ressorties en 70mm dans les années 90 de "Spartacus" ou "Lawrence d'Arabie". Il participe régulièrement au Home Theater Forum, forum très actif sur le home cinéma américain. Il avait notamment à cette occasion pourfendu le bluray de "Patton", entraînant une véritable prise de conscience chez les vidéophiles des méfaits des gadgets du genre réducteurs de bruit vidéo utilisés abusivement dans le cadre d'un transfert HD.

Il y laisse divers avis sur les disques HD qui sortent que j'ai commencé à compiler sur une liste, en fonction de ses recommandations. sa principale référence est que le film garde sa texture cinéma d'origine telle qu'elle était à l'époque de la sortie. Il n'est toutefois pas complètement opposé à certaines retouches bien faites (système Lowry pour purger le grain sans affaiblir la définition et les qualités photographiques de l'image, par exemple utilisé sur les James Bond en bluray ou les Star Wars en dvd).

Ses recommandations sont un mélange d'avis subjectifs sur la qualité artistique des films ainsi que sur le bluray. pour les avis un peu particuliers, je laisse une note entre parenthèses en plus (French Connection, Le jour le plus long...)

Je vous mets cette liste ici et la mettrai à jour en fonction de ses nouveaux avis et de ce que je relèverais sur le forum home cinema. Attention, il s'agit des éditions américaines des bluray ! Certains disques en France proposent des copies différentes (Trois jours du Condor par exemple qui n'est pas chez Paramount en Europe, mais chez studiocanal). Certains titres ont été testés en hddvd et ne sont pas encore dispos en bluray (Grand Prix, etc...)

Les derniers ajouts seront insérés en italiques...

Enjoy...



Extremely Highly Recommended
The Wizard of Oz
Braveheart
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned...
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Pinocchio
Field of Dreams
Goodfellas
The Adventures of Robin Hood
That's Entertainment: The Complete Collection
Casablanca
Batman Begins
How the West Was Won
Bonnie and Clyde
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Sting (hddvd)
Kingdom of Heaven
The Wild ("As a film... great for children.As a disc... a demonstration piece, par excellence")
Space Cowboys
The Interpreter
The Phantom of the Opera
good night, and good luck
Ray
Million Dollar Baby
Sunrise
Gone with the Wind
Days of Heaven
The Red Shoes
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Alien Anthology
Apocalypse Now
The Ten commandments
The misfits
Barry Lyndon
Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
Citizen Kane
The Tree of Life
Singin' in the Rain

Very highly recommended
M*A*S*H
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
The Seventh Seal
Fly Away Home
An American in Paris
The Silence of the Lambs
Kramer vs. Kramer
Ghandi
Sideways
The Fugitive
Body Heat
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Shine a Light
The Devil Wears Prada
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Reds
Speed
X-Men: The Last Stand
We Were Soldiers
Sky Captain
Syriana
Lethal Weapon
North by Northwest
Fight Club
Gangs of New York (seconde édition)
Walk the Line
Lola Montes
Atonement
The Hurt Locker
Toy Story & Toy Story 2
Avatar
Dr. Zhivago
The Natural
Kick-Ass
King Kong - 1933
The Maltese Falcon
Avatar
The Pacific
Disney's Beauty and the Beast
Fantasia
The Sound of Music
The Color Purple
Black Swan
Some Like it Hot
The Comancheros
Lolita
The Hustler
Fritz Lang's M (bluray allemand)
American Graffiti
Amelie
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Extended Edition
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Prohibition
Three Colors
The Lion King 3D
Toy Story 3 - 3D
To Kill a Mockingbird
Downton Abbey - Season One
Midnight in Paris
The Killing - First Season
Notorious
The Lady Vanishes
Gangs of New York (seconde édition)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Meet Me in St. Louis
To Catch a Thief
Hugo 3D
Ben-Hur
War Horse
The War
Casablanca (70th Anniversary)
The Grand Illusion
Wings
The Pacific
David Lean Directs Noel Coward
Titanic
Jaws
Chariots of Fire


Highly recommended
Van Helsing
State of Play
A Bridge Too Far
This is Spinal Tap
A River Runs Through It
Sling Blade
12 Monkeys
Midnight Express
Air Force One
Glory
The Searchers
A Bug's Life
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost / Nixon
From Hell
Apocalypto
3 Days of the Condor
The French Connection (avec précision : "The other point that needs to be noted is that what one is seeing in this Blu-ray incarnation, is no longer the Best Picture of 1971. It is a re-vision. Like many of the Disney animated classics, it has been visually "re-imagined.")
Raging Bull
Goldfinger
The Princess Bride
Sin City
Quantum of Solace
South Pacific
The Pink Panther
Milk
In Cold Blood
Changeling
Election
Sleeping Beauty (mais copie nettement retouchée)
The Bourne Trilogy
Appaloosa
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Men in Black
Carrie
Rocky
Baraka
Halloween ("I'm not going to be the naysayer and gripe about grain that isn't there, as the home video audience doesn't seem to care about how closely a DVD compares to the original film, and I don't know what cinematographer Dean Cundey's intentions were.")
A Room with a View
Dr. No
Hot Fuzz
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
L.A. Confidential
Kill Bill: Volumes 1 & 2
The Mummy
Transformers
End of Days
There Will Be Blood
Master and Commander
Hulk
The Deer Hunter (HDDVD)
Superman Returns
Mutiny on the Bounty
Red Dragon
Spy Game
Animal House
Blazing Saddles
Full Metal Jacket
Silverado
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Easy Rider
Heat
Forrest Gump
Monsters, Inc.
(1980) Fame
8 1/2
Lost: The Complete Fifth Season
Up
Rome
Leon
The New World
The Princess and the Frog
Minority Report
The African Queen
Saving Private Ryan
Walkabout
M
Monsters vs. Aliens - 3D
Green Zone
A Star is Born (1954)
Black Narcissus
Gladiator (2nde édition)
City Island
Charade
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Last of the Mohicans
Moulin Rouge
Saving Private Ryan
A Christmas Carol -- in Blu-ray 3D
Deadwood
Rome
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Social Network
Sweet Smell of Success
All About Eve
Pleasantville
Alice in Wonderland
The Walking Dead
Topsy-Turvy
Chaplin
Taxi Driver
The King's Speech
The Fighter
Gettysburg
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Once Upon a Time in the West
13 Assassins
Legally Blonde
Das Boot
The Egyptian
Dexter: The Fifth Season
X-Men The First Class
Page One:   Inside the New York Times
The Guns of Navarone
The Collector
Greece: Secrets of the Past & Arabia 3D
Bite the Bullet
Young Adult
Picnic
Dangerous Liaisons
Stars and Stripes Forever
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Anatomy of a Murder
A Star is Born (1937)
Adaptation
CSI: Grave Danger
Sherlock: Seasons 1 & 2
Lethal Weapon Collection (2012)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Being John Malkovich
A Night to Remember
The Help
Thurgood
The Iron Lady
Contagion
The French Connection : Filmmakers Signature Series
Beauty and the Beast 3D
Game of Thrones
Born on the Fourth of July
The 39 Steps
Walkabout
Malcolm X
Deliverance (40th Anniversary)
The Caine Mutiny
Out of Africa (seconde édition)
The Gold Rush
Rebecca
Breaking Bad - Season Four
The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season
Harvey
The Last Temptation of Christ
Ghosts of the Abyss
MI: Ghost Protocol
There's No Business Like Show Business


Recommended
St. Elmo's Fire
My Cousin Vinny
Watchmen
The International
Repulsion
Enchanted
The Diary of Anne Frank
Gran Torino
Grease
Ghostbusters
Valkyrie
Fatal Attraction
Inside Man
Taken
The Longest Day (mais avec beaucoup de réserves sur l'emploi du réducteur de bruit "While I enjoyed seeing The Longest Day on Blu-Ray, I was unable to recognize it as film. There was no look of the cinema, except for some occasional white vertical scratches that remain.")
Fargo
The Robe
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Transsiberian
Hellraiser
Moonraker
The World is Not Enough
W.
Little Miss Sunshine
Dead & Buried
The French Connection II
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Friday the 13th (l'original)
King Kong (2005)
The Duchess
Nixon
Ghost
Thunderball
Mamma Mia!
From Russia with Love
Planet of the Apes
Heathers
Romancing the Stone & Jewel of the Nile ("Romancing the Stone, and from what I gathered from a sampling of its sequel were transferred either from poorly produced interpositives, or via an imperfect transfer, as both films have lateral movement. The films seem to tw.. twitch... from side to side during play")
Iron Man
Casino ("although this is a quality disc, it seems to have a bit of an electronic feel to it")
American Gangster
U-571 ("grain has been reduced. This is acknowledged, but the overall qualty of the release goes undiminished.")
Leatherheads
Lonesome Dove
The Perfect Storm
The Lost Boys
Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus
Grand Prix
The Mummy Returns
Pan's Labyrinth ("This is an acceptable high definition version of the film when viewed on monitors not over 50", as above that size DNR and softening of the image becomes noticeable.")
Doomsday
Breakfast Club
The Scorpion King
Pearl Harbor
Waterworld
The Bone Collector
The Manchurian Candidate
Lara Croft Tomb Raider
Sahara
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Hannibal Lecter Collection (manhunter + le silence des agneaux + Hannibal)
The New York Ripper
Labyrinth
Wolf
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Angels & Demons
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
Grease
Inglourious Basterds
District 9
Public Enemies
The Mask of Zorro
Star Trek (2009
Rocky: The Undisputed Collection
2012
Presumed Innocent & Frantic
Sherlock Holmes
An Education
Tombstone
The Edge
True Blood: The Complete Second Season
Shutter Island
Alice in Wonderland - Burton
Harry Brown
Tommy
The Evil Dead
The Ghost Writer
Robin Hood - 2010
The Twilight Zone: Season One
Psycho
The Twilight Zone: Season One
Splice
Hard Candy
Winter's Bone
Toy Story 3
Knight and Day
Back to the Future
Let Me In
Thelma & Louise
Daughters of Darkness
Unstoppable
Bambi
Blow Out
Rio Lobo
Deep Red
Vera Cruz
The Lincoln Lawyer
Torchwood
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Animal House
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
The Conspirator
TrollHunter
Straw Dogs
Hanna
Dumbo
Jane Eyre (2010)
Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides
The Birth of a Nation
A Farewell to Arms
Nothing Sacred
Fright Night (1985)
Melancholia
American Pie
Spellbound
Fort Apache
Grand Canyon
Mysterious Island
Super 8
The Apartment
A Soldier's Story
Love Story
The Borgias
Gremlins 2
The Big Trail
Chicago (1927)
Pillow Talk
Definitely, Maybe
Dirty Dancing
The Odessa File
Camelot
Road Trip
Clueless
Desiree
Chinatown
Pal Joey
Point Blank (2010)
The Deer Hunter (bluray)
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Twins of Evil
Hondo
The First Nudie Musical
As Good as it Gets
The Horse Whisperer
Evita
Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows
The Saphead
True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season
Goon
The Artist
The Tuskegee Airmen
Ransom
Meatballs
Force of Evil
Pursued
Bye Bye Birdie
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
WarGames
Zorba the Greek
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Hunger Games
Blindness / {Proof}
Clue
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines...
Mean Streets
Barbarella
Cleopatra (UK)
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Bluray de bonne qualité technique
Adventureland
Fast & Furious
The Deep
The Incredible Hulk
Predator 2
Burn after Reading
2010 The Year We Make Contact
Pitch Black
Chronicles Of Riddick
The Fast and the Furious 1, 2 et 3
Pretty Woman
The Host
Sixième sens (1999) ("The resultant image has not turned to plastic, however turning the deadly knob of grain reduction a bit further may have done just that.")
Lady in the Water
M:I:III
Enter the Dragon
16 Blocks
Assault on Precinct 13 (remake)
Whip It
Paranormal Activity (mais écart entre dvd et bluray quasi inexistant)
Date Night
Score
El Topo & The Holy Mountain
Legends of Flight
The Fox and the Hound (As a Blu-ray disc, the film looks good, but certainly not great.)
Bambi II (And one of the few newer films that can actually be recommended for children)
Camelot (série TV)
Dragonheart
Battle Royale
The Roots of Heaven
Fascination & Lips of Blood
Shame
Albert Nobbs
The Asphyx
Newsies
The Woman in Black
Tora Tora Tora
Men in Black II
Red Tails
The Ring
Coma

Bluray à problème ou insuffusant
Gladiator (1ère édition) (OK sur un écran de 40 pouces environ, problématique au-delà)
Do the Right Thing (petit souci de texture « électronique »)
Gangs of New York (première édition) (Extremely Highly NOT Recommended.)
A History of Violence (textures plastifiées)
Gigi
Gulliver's Travels
Amadeus
Patton
It's a Wonderful Life (It's a Wonderful Life is most assuredly Not Recommended! )
Apollo 13 (ajout de réducteur de bruit pour la sortie en bluray)
Out of Africa (Out of Africa on Blu-ray gets a total and undeniable Fail)
Spartacus (As it is, Spartacus receives an absolute and undeniable… Fail)
Predator (2010 re-issue)
Hamlet (Branagh)
Dances with Wolves (For those with average size screens, inclusive of projection, the disc should be fine. Others may find it lacking)
An Affair to Remember (Filmed in CinemaScope, and with a top notch cast and crew, it would stand the test of time if not for moderate yellow dye failure, which has been somewhat corrected from the scanned original negative. Some shots show the problem in a far worse manner than others, but overall most of the film is very acceptable.)
White Christmas (But while we have rich blacks, superb blues, and outstanding reds, it is in the flesh tones, at least during the opening reels, that the Blu-ray falters. Flesh tones take on a decidedly cyan-blue tonality, making Mr. Crosby's eye pop, but giving everyone an unpleasant pallor. )
Scream (Scream is by no means a disaster or Blu-ray crisis harkening to Patton or Gangs of New York. It is quite viewable, even on a large screen, but it does have an edginess that it needn't. Color, densities, black levels all seem very reasonable, but the overriding digital look of the transfer just isn't necessary for a 9000 foot film from 1996.)
The Stunt Man (Worth holding off purchasing in the hope that someone else might take the rights and do a proper job, especially at a $20 street price. As an aside, audio is compressed.)
The Horse Soldiers (mention technique "acceptable" sans plus)
The Big Country (image légèrement étirée horizontalement) (Once the distortion problem is licked, the disc will be Highly Recommended, as I presume there will be a replacement program in place.)
Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology (bonne qualité technique, mais : "$90 is just too expensive for this set").
The Black Pirate (An interesting artifact)
The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Unacceptable)
The Town (coffret director's cut trop cher)
Lost Keaton
Mildred Pierce (HBO) (disque ko)
Swamp Water
The Sting (bluray)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
Jeremiah Johnson
Meet Joe Black (bluray)
Match Point (import australian)
Buck Privates
Stallone (3-Film Collector's Set)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Cover Girl
My Fair Lady
The Color of Money
Erin Brockovich
Scent of a Woman
Sea of Love
Cocktail
1900
Total Recall
Sixteen Candles
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (prix seulement)
Downton Abbey - Season Two
Rio Grande
Johnny Guitar
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
High Noon
Full Metal Jacket (25th Anniversary SE) (même disque que l'édition précédente)
Smokey and the Bandit
West Side Story (une édition en partie corrigée est sortie après)

[Manolito]

La synthèse est complète et à jour, depuis le lancement du hddvd...

[Superfly]

Il avait notamment à cette occasion pourfendu le bluray de "Patton", entraînant une véritable prise de conscience chez les vidéophiles des méfaits des gadgets du genre réducteurs de bruit vidéo utilisés abusivement dans le cadre d'un transfert HD.

[rusty james]

Eheh ! content de voir dans cette liste (bien placé) le dracula de coppola que tout le monde conchie (et que je trouve pour ma part également plutôt réussi).
Mais où est Commando ?...

[alf]

Y a Van Helsing aussi.

[Mercador]

Il manque le blu-ray de Disco.

[Manolito]

Pour répondre individuellement, d'abord à propos de ses articles sur le DNR, il a fait un excellent texte sur digital bits en réaction à des tests qui ont encensé en leur temps "Patton" en bluray sans réserve, comme bluray.com. C'est un article absolument passionnant, très simple à comprendre et très pédagogique, et dans les sites chroniquant les bluray et hddvd, il y a vraiment eu un avant et un après ce petit manifeste...

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ ... 62408.html

"Dracula" avait aussi donné lieu à un débat. Highdef digest avait beaucoup critiqué le bluray dans cette chronique, en le comparant notamment au dvd superbit :

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/252/bra ... acula.html

Ce à quoi Robert Harris a répondu un texte très détaillé et précis, sans ambiguité :

"« Now that I've received a BD copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and have spent quality time with it, my immediate reaction is that finally I have a high definition (BD) version of a film that I've always enjoyed.

This is somewhat tempered, however, by the public reaction which has been coming from any number of directions. And these reactions, commentaries and reviews have virtually all been wrong.

Nothing that we're discussing here is opinion. Something either correctly brings a film to video, or it does not. This is the first time that I've been totally happy with Dracula on video.

My happiness is however, not the point.

Sony's mastering staff is happy. Zoetrope's people are happy. And they should be. They have jointly worked to see that this release is as perfect as possible in recreating the look of the film as it was seen in it's original release, and that effort has been successful.

They have not accomplished this by some seat-of-the-pants, I've got a curtain in the attic, "Let's put on a show" ethic.

Nor have they guessed.

They've screened the original approved answer print and have meticulously matched the HD master to that print.

This is done in the same way that one would restore a film.

Earlier versions of FFC's Dracula were properly tuned for earlier video systems, that among other problems turned black into video noise. For that reason they were never what they should have been, as electronic goals needed to be met. To put it simply, the ability of the reproducing medium was not yet in tune with the art to be reproduced. They always came as closely as they could. And understanding the limitations of the medium, were approved. There was no way around this.

That is the reason why earlier video releases don't matter.

One of the extraordinary points of the high definition medium is that finally we can reproduce films to look as they did on film.

The new transfer of Dracula is a magnificent work, which along with the audio with it's heavy lows, delicate highs and aural details -- the sound of mice walking quickly across a beam -- is miraculous to behold on home video.

Dracula is a dark film. It has always been a dark film.

It is also a film created not by digital pyrotechnics, but rather by analogue effects and cinematic slight of hand. This is an old fashioned horror film. Print it too bright and the magic is revealed; the horror disappears; the story vanishes, and one sees through the magic.

The color in this release finally matches that of the original prints -- controlled, colorful when necessary -- but dark. The blacks on this release work well, and shadow detail, when needed is at hand.

Resolution is beautiful. Flesh tones, for both the living as well as the dead, replicate the original tones of the first 35mm prints. Dupe generations are less finely resolved, but work as they did originally.

So here's the bottom line.

Not only is there nothing wrong with this release, it is one of the most perfect to come from the Sony vaults. Those of you who know of me, are aware that Sony and I don't always agree. But when they do something correctly, they are to be honored for their efforts. And this time, they are to be honored.

Everything here is correct, handled with precision, professionalism and a obvious love for the art that is our cinema.

Bram Stoker's Dracula, from FFC and Sony is Extremely Highly Recommended.

RAH "

Il n'a pas chroniqué "Commando", tout n'est pas chroniqué évidemment, mais c'est une liste indicative et utile que j'ai dressé pour mon usage (quelques heures de travail quand même) et que j'ai mis ici pour vous en faire profiter.

Par ailleurs, c'est une liste complètement américano-américaine, ne vous attendez pas à trouver des titres internationaux.

Robert Harris est un fan de "Van Helsing" pour lequel il a écrit cette note :

"My initial exposure to the horror genre was to the Universal films of the 1930s and '40s. These little gems, of generally short running times, set the standards for me for decades to come for the look, feel and texture of the genre. So for me, seeing the Universal logo turn to black & white, and then morph to the fireball at the tip of a villager's glowing torch...

The opening sequence of Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing is a brilliant black & white return to that classic era, brought up to date with absolute perfection by cinematographer Allen Daviau. Had the original cinematographer of Frankenstein (1931), the brilliant Arthur Edeson, who also photographed All Quiet on the Western Front, The Old Dark House, Mutiny on the Bounty and Casablanca been available, I would bet that his work would have looked very, very close to Mr. Daviau's loving tribute.

The cinematography for the rest of the film, all 132 minutes of it, flows beautifully and quickly, as the tale moves from locale to locale, and with our hero played by Hugh Jackman, finally joining forces with Kate Beckinsale.

For those who may not have guessed, I'm a sucker for this film, and Universal's new Blu-ray release, now with audio upgraded to DTS-HD, is a modern treasure, especially for those whose childhoods are ingrained with those delicate little Universal horror classics generally available via their Legacy releases.

Van Helsing is a gorgeous Blu-ray, terrific entertainment, and, with its greater bandwidth, a nice upgrade from HD. Don't for a moment think about taking it seriously. Just sit back and allow it to entertain.

Highly Recommended.

RAH"

[Manolito]

Liste mise à jour : avec notamment le bluray anglais de "L'aurore" qui rejoint le club des "extremely highly recommended"...

[Maxcrom]

J'ai pas trouvé de topic dédié à Braveheart et comme j'ai un peu la flemme d'en créer un ; je pose ma question ici :

--> Le BD Braveheart qui sort le 4 novembre en france est-il exactement le même que le superbe disque ricain ( même master ? bonus ?) ?

[celia0]

Je comprendrai jamais concernant Patton. Le réducteur de bruit a pour défaut de réduire la précision des détails. Hors, le bluray de Patton est le plus précis que j'ai vu. Il n'y a qu'à juger le début on voit le moindre trait sur le visage de georges Scott.

Quant à the sting ,j'ai le hd dvd. J'espère que le bluray a une plus belle image car le gain sur le hd par rapport au dvd est très subjectif.
Harris oublie par contre tous les paramount qui pourtant battent haut la main tous les éditeurs de HD. Il n'y a qu'à voir le hd de black rain ou des incorruptibles pour s'en convaincre; Et l'image HD des indiana jones passés sur la télé japonaise conforte paramount dans cette position.

[Manolito]

"Les incorruptibles" n'avait pas été très bien accueilli à cause, encore, de remarques sur l'usage de réducteurs de bruit vidéo.

Le texte - assez technique - sur le hddvd de "L'arnaque"...

"I have been silent over the past several weeks, as time has been short, and a move to an LA hotel to begin a project, has left me without the ability to properly screen and digest new releases. Setting up has not been easy. Aid has come in the form of advice from several people in the industry that I both trust and admire, and all have pointed me toward a single piece of equipment to properly do the job.

Since I regularly screen via 2k projection, I wanted to stay in that format but found LCD rear screen units, as good as they have become, to be inadequate at reproducing blacks.

Via the advice of friends, and a great deal of cooperation from Pioneer Electronics, which has been my vendor of choice since the early laserdisc days, I can now fully appreciate the images captured on the tiny CD-like discs. The stunning image as set before me on the Elite Pro FHD-1 has no equal in the industry. Every facet of the HD image (and shortly that will include BD) is there to see, precisely as intended by the filmmakers.

Grain structure, shadow detail, black levels are all reproduced to absolute perfection. Every emulsion of cinematographic stock has a particular and unique grain structure, and each film is measured by the stock on which it has been shot, and in the manner with the photographic emulsion has been exposed.

Some of the great films of our time have been photographed on an Eastman color negative stock known as 5254. It supplanted 5251 in 1968, which was rated at EI 50. The new stock had twice the speed at 100.

The second itineration of 5247 (Kodak seems to like to confuse us by re-using their emulsion codes) arrived in 1974, with a finer grain structure than 54, but the stable 54 was not removed from production until 1977. During that decade, some of the most important and enduring productions were captured on that delicate stock. Whether exposed in daylight or under bright studio illumination, or "pushed" in low light situations, the 5254 stock, with it's painterly grain structure, never fails to enrapture.

One of the films shot on 5254, The Sting, was the Best Picture of 1973, an extraordinary piece of entertainment directed by George Roy Hill, photographed by the great Robert Surtees, with a cast that could neither be beat nor replicated. First released theatrically 33 years ago, Universal has delivered a disc that captures the dye transfer look as seen in theatres.

I make note of the film stock and grain structure, because Universal, in this HD incarnation of their earlier SD Special Edition, has not only replicated it for home video instead of reducing it, as we've seen in other films from other distributors, but has in doing so, created one of the great HD DVDs of one of the great films of any era.

Viewing this marvelous disc, one will note the occasional bit of minus density, those tiny clear spots, known as "sparkle," which might have been removed, but in this case add a tiny reminder that we are indeed viewing film as represented on video, and not video programming.

And that's a good thing.

Thanks must go out to Universal for releasing one of the great films of all time on HD. This is a perfect film on a perfect format.

If more films from the era can arrive in the condition of The Sting, the home video world will be a far better place.

The Sting comes Extremely Highly Recommended.

RAH "

Le thread :

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/t ... ting-in-hd

[Manolito]

Mise à jour, "Autant en emporte le vent" écope de la recommandation maximale" mais "La vie est belle" se prend un carton rouge ! "Le massacre des morts-vivants" est recommandé...

[Manolito]

Mises à jour (en italique dans le premier message du thread=, avec notamment de "très hautes recommandations" pour "Lola Montes" de Criterion et la nouvelle édition de "Gangs Of NY"...

[Manolito]

Mise à jour d'Avril, avec notamment un bonnet d'âne pour "Out of Africa" et, dans une moindre mesure, le bluray d'"Appolo 13" ; et une recommandation maximale pour le bluray Criterion de "Days of Heaven"/"Les moissons du ciel"...

[Forestranger]

apollo 13 blu ray à probleme, vous racontez n'importe quoi... le film n'a jamais si bien paru, tu ne le possède surement pas?