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I received Howards End as a Christmas gift. It is one of my favorite dramas of all time, so I was very excited to see the Blu-ray. I was horrified to discover that somehow Criterion Collection totally botched the transfer. It is the worst looking blu-ray I've seen so far, with digital noise and mess all over the image. I scanned through the disc and it was consistently unwatchable, full of weird lighting glow and little digital critters dancing across the screen.
I went to Amazon to do some research and found that there have been many complaints about this Blu-ray, so I suspect that all the discs are the same. I have written to Criterion directly to find out if they ever bothered to produce corrected discs, but according to some other consumers, the disc I have is as good as it gets and even replacements sent out by Criterion are the same garbage. What a disappointment. One of the great films of all time is on Blu-ray, but the old DVD is more watchable. WAHHH!
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Yeah, what Disney does with some of their older titles definitely isn't too the liking of everyone. In the case of Beauty & the Beast, I think they also altered the aspect ratio slightly so that it would take up the entirety of a 16:9 display, rather than playing with slight letterboxing bars in the original theatrical ratio. Having just seen the 3-D showing in theatres, and owning the 3-D Blu-Ray, I do have to say it was still a reasonably impressive presentation. I saw the film in theatres as a little kid, and maybe once after way back on my sister's VHS copy; but I doubt I'd seen the movie in over 15 years before seeing it in theatres recently (and then buying/watching the 3-D Blu-Ray to compare my TV experience with the theatre).
Disney's modern films all look gorgeous, though, and they're possibly among the best samplers of everything that Blu-Ray and HDTVs can do. The Pixar movies, in particular (both 3-D and 2-D) are all incredible. The non-Pixar stuff looks good too, though; this weekend I bought Bolt on 3-D Blu-Ray, and it was also quite nice. While it doesn't quite recapture the magic of Disney movies in the B&tB/Aladdin/TLK era, Bolt was still quite a bit better than most stuff they produced in the first decade of the 21st century.
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AMERICAN BEAUTY
Well, this one was a shocker in terms of PQ and perhaps I'm being too critical but this is a bad transfer of a high profile film.
I own BRAVEHEART and that film looks SPECTACULAR so why doesn't this film which is a bit older?
MAGNOLIA, ROAD TO PERDITION, and THE PRESTIGE all look MILES better then this film in terms of DVD to Blu-Ray.
Still, for 9.99 I can't really complain but I certainly didn't expect such a high profile release to look OK.
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Just watched my first 3D Blu, on my new system, and all I have to say is, "HOLY SHIT!!!!" The other REALLY cool thing is turning any 2D broadcast into 3D. Watched part of the Patriots-Ravens game in 3D. Excellent! Have had a 42 inch LG set and standard Blu, for a while. Love that, as well. That has now gone into the basement (guest room).
http://www.lg.com/us/tv-audio-video/televisions/LG-led-tv-47LW6500.jsp
By the way, the movie I watched was FINAL DESTINATION 5
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Just watched my first 3D Blu, on my new system, and all I have to say is, "HOLY SHIT!!!!" The other REALLY cool thing is turning any 2D broadcast into 3D. Watched part of the Patriots-Ravens game in 3D. Excellent! Have had a 42 inch LG set and standard Blu, for a while. Love that, as well. That has now gone into the basement (guest room).
http://www.lg.com/us/tv-audio-video/televisions/LG-led-tv-47LW6500.jsp
By the way, the movie I watched was FINAL DESTINATION 5
Neato! I watched FD5 the day it came out (2D) and thoroughly enjoyed it! I wonder if the FD films will ever get old to me. Probably not. Keep 'em comin'!
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Neato! I watched FD5 the day it came out (2D) and thoroughly enjoyed it! I wonder if the FD films will ever get old to me. Probably not. Keep 'em comin'!
My favorite film series. Yes, keep 'em comin'!
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Neato! I watched FD5 the day it came out (2D) and thoroughly enjoyed it! I wonder if the FD films will ever get old to me. Probably not. Keep 'em comin'!
My favorite film series. Yes, keep 'em comin'!
I'm glad you two liked them but man has this films series gone to shit.
The first one was rather new and fun and the bus scene alone was classic. The second certainly upped the deaths but had some sense in bringing one someone from the first.
Everything from that point on is just the same shit with lame set ups, horrible actors, and predictable endings [all three of the last films have ended the EXACT same way].
I know people like these films for the kills but I keep hoping for the films to make me CARE about those in this films but its pretty clear that 2/3 of the people are the likeable leads and the rest are just stereotypes to slaughtered [Dick guy or Bitch girl, Lazy or Stoner guy, Slut girl or Jock Guy, Nerd guy or Shy girl, etc].
Its a shame Devon Sawa looks NOTHING like his younger self so that an in between from the First Film to the Second could exist.
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Posted: |
Jan 25, 2012 - 7:05 AM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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I agree with you, BJBien. I thought the first was a fun concept, and the second stepped up the game . . . and then the third and fourth went nowhere with it. Five . . . it was better than three and four, but again didn't really do much new, aside from the slight twist. I've been thinking about how they could redeem this franchise. They either have to have the guts to expand the concept, delve into why certain people get these warnings even if there's nothing they can do about it or something, or . . . they could cross genres and make it either a mockumentary or found footage thing. Sometime after The Final Destination, some college kids look at all these Rube Goldberg style deaths and notice the pattern and decide to make a documentary about it. In the first act, they speak to people who knew those who died, kind of figure out what's going on . . . and then they themselves survive a horrible accident when someone (not part of their crew) has a premonition and saves them. That way you'd have the novelty of seeing these deaths not from the God's-eye-view but from the point of view of the people on the scene, and you'd also have a group of people who are somewhat forewarned because they have some idea what's going on, and don't have to waste time doing the whole confusion and denial thing that we've now seen five times. Never happen, but I think it might be a fun twist to the concept.
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