By Fred Topel | Image property of respective holders
Field of Dreams
Universal made a significant dent in their catalog releasing titles on Blu Ray this month. Here’s a roundup of some of their recent entries:
Universal Blu-Rays
Children of Men – Alfonso Cuaron’s gritty, single take look at the future maintains all its awesomeness on Blu Ray. As those takes go on forever, you see every detail in the run down locations and sets, scratches on glass and tables, scuffs on floors, rubble everywhere. When color comes into the blue washed world via blood or greenery, it totally stands out. The golden lighting of the traitorous compound gives a nice look to that escape scene. It always looks real though. Those are the real colors and those are the real lights. This is just the best way they can possible look.
Cinderella Man – This depression era boxing movie has the sepia palette. It’s still color, but the sepia overtakes skin tones and lighting. It also softens a little bit of the detail, so you see clarity with a gloss that keeps it from looking gritty, even in the harshest settings. So no major standouts, just a faithful reproduction of the film’s aesthetic.
Field of Dreams – This classic looks better than ever as you go out in the fields with Kevin Costner. The clarity and color bring the field to life. There’s a tiny bit of grain, but it’s a 20-year-old-film, so it looks authentic, still with more detail than I ever remember in this film. A few dusk shots fade the colors because it’s underlit but the majority of the film glows in the farmland heat and once they light up the field, the lush colors pop vibrantly.
Fletch – The menu screen shows the best looking scenes so don’t get too excited. The opening shots look super grainy, not horrible, but clearly a struggle to bump the film up. There are scenes that show clear detail but it’s half and half. The beach and nighttime shots look particularly bad, but then the airplane hanger is nice and shiny. The Stanwyk mansion doesn’t look particularly ornate but you can see the detail in Fletch’s costume makeup.
Inside Man – Set entirely in a bank and police HQ, Inside Man offers gritty realism on Blu Ray. Shot in Spike Lee’s slightly heightened but not surreal style, you see the detail and shine in the stark, industrial settings. A minor amount of grain is Lee’s added touch but they do not obscure the detail. Occasional departures in Jodie Foster’s storyline show wealthier areas in the same quality.
Seabiscuit – The historical drama shows the Great Depression in glorious detail. They contrast the lush, ornate opening with the grimmer, emptier lean times. The horses and horse tracks look gorgeous with bright grass and deep reddish brown horses. The vistas of ranches and mountains are pretty and the colors pop.
Spy Game – Covering many decades and exotic locations, Spy Game has a lot of different looks on Blu Ray. Tony Scott’s style shifts from realistic clarity to heightened saturation, but all reproduced faithfully on Blu Ray. Vietnam has a golden glow. Modern Hong Kong has a crisp grit. Of course each sequence may cut back and forth to different stock, but the Blu Ray does what Scott wants it to.
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