Kaleidescape Archives - Page 15 of 19

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets (2020)

Review: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets

review | Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets

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The Pink Floyd drummer covers their early catalog without turning this concert film into a greatest hits compilation

by Dennis Burger
January 28, 2022

For most people, Pink Floyd’s catalog may as well have kicked off with Dark Side of the Moon. I rarely meet anyone with more than passing familiarity with any of the band’s output before 1973, except for perhaps “One of These Days,” which was a staple of their live shows right up to the end. So Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse may be a bit of a hard sell for more casual fans given that it features Floyd’s original drummer along with a band of his own assemblage performing songs exclusively culled from 1967’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn through 1972’s Obscured by Clouds.

But hear me out on this one: I went into Live at the Roundhouse expecting to be entertained by live performances of these formative tunes as a pre-existing fan. It didn’t take long to figure out, though, that this film—and it is indeed a film, not merely a concert video—works more to instill appreciation for pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd than it does to merely delight the already initiated.

Part of that has to do with the performances. Mason and his bandmates—Guy Pratt (who played bass on Pink Floyd’s legendary Delicate Sound of Thunder), Gary Kemp (of Spandau Ballet fame), Dom Beken (perhaps best known for his work alongside Pratt in The Transit Kings), and Lee Harris (who orchestrated this whole get-together)—straddle a fine line between fidelity to the original music and making it their own. The latter, for the most part, comes from never attempting to ape the vocal timbres of Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, or David Gilmour, as well as dropping some of the weird affectations that make so much of Pink Floyd’s early stuff a bit of an acquired taste. In short, they’ve preserved the foundation of what still works about the music and eliminated some of the set dressing that doesn’t stand the test of time. As a result, these performances quickly became almost universally my favorite renditions of the 22 songs collected here.

But as I said, Live at the Roundhouse isn’t merely a concert film—it’s also something of a documentary about the formative years of Pink Floyd and the historical context in which they formed as well as the creative impulse that led to the formation of Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets. There’s a nice mix of archival footage and new behind-the-scenes segments, and although I tend to abhor that sort of thing muddying up my concert footage, it’s all artfully constructed and assembled, and works well to reinforce the intentions behind this project. If you want to skip these parts on subsequent re-watches, Kaleidescape lets you jump straight to the songs and bypass the documentary bits, but you should watch it all in a go at least once, just to get the complete picture.

Even the concert footage breaks from the traditional molds with some truly fascinating camera angles and compositions, and thankfully not a lot of gimmicky video effects. Kaleidescape also presents the film in UHD resolution, whereas the best you’ll come across on disc is a hard-to-find HD Blu-ray release or, more commonly, a two-CD/DVD combo. Not having seen the film in HD, it’s difficult to say how much those extra pixels really matter, but there are quite a few nice textures and details that enhance the experience, and I never saw any of the aliasing or moiré that so often afflict concert films of this sort. Overall, it’s a wonderfully colorful and dynamic presentation, and although I might have liked to see the sort of enhancements HDR grading would have added to the stage lighting, I didn’t miss them in the moment.

Kaleidescape’s 4K download carries over the 5.1 soundtrack from the Blu-ray release but encodes it as DTS-HD Master Audio instead of Linear PCM. It isn’t an easy mix to sum up in a few pithy sentences without sounding like I’m tripping over caveats but the bottom line is that the sound is as weirdly effective as it is fascinating. The key thing defining the mix is that there seems to have been an effort to capture the sound of the Roundhouse itself, especially its tonal colorations. My immediate instinct as soon as the show started was to characterize the sound as somewhat thin, part of which is a consequence of the fact that the mix starts very straightforward and centered. But even once it begins to expand laterally and then into the surround channels (which it does quite dramatically and quickly), there’s still a lot of room sound that you don’t often hear in concert videos.

But you get used to that pretty fast. Once immersed in the presentation, the only complaint you could have about the audio is that it’s ever-so-slightly bass-light. Your subwoofers won’t feel completely left out but neither will they run up your power bill. On the other hand, the whole soundtrack up-mixes gorgeously into Dolby Atmos, and if your system has such capabilities, I’d recommend engaging them.

Honestly, though, all of the observations about presentation take a backseat to the experience of Live at the Roundhouse. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and that extends to everything from the cinematography and sound mix to the performances to the interwoven history lesson to the energy of the audience, which is far from the geriatric crowd you’d see at, for example, a Phil Lesh and Friends show. The fans obviously didn’t buy their tickets in anticipation of a lazy Greatest Hits compilation. There’s this beautiful and magical moment early on when the crowd just spontaneously decides, seemingly telepathically, that they’re going to handle the backup oohs and ahhs for “Fearless.” And I’m honestly not sure if it’s the fact of the proficiency of the performance that turned this deep cut into one of the highlights of the whole affair.

It’s at this point where, in any other review of this sort, I’d tell you Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse is a must-purchase for fans of early Pink Floyd music but this is not that sort of release. I think you’ll actually get more out of the film if you’re only sort of casually aware of the existence of the band’s first seven albums. If nothing else, there’s a good chance you’ll walk away from the experience with a new favorite Pink Floyd tune you’ve never even heard before now.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | UHD resolution allows for quite a few nice textures and details that enhance the experience without any of the aliasing or moiré that often afflicts concert films.

SOUND | The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix, which seems to be trying to capture the sound of the concert venue, is a little bass-light but up-mixes gorgeously into Dolby Atmos.

Review: The Birds

review | The Birds

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The 4K HDR transfer tends to emphasize the film’s many flaws, technical and otherwise

by Michael Gaughn
October 16, 2020

Without The Birds, there would be no Jaws—and, arguably, no Spielberg, since he lifted so many of his filmic mannerisms from this brutal and detached end-of-the-world tale. The really ironic thing is, while this is far from Hitchcock’s best film, it’s still better than Jaws. I realize that conclusion is heresy to the popularity = quality crowd but it underlines the vast difference between what an adult with adolescent tendencies and a perpetual adolescent with no interest in growing up can do.

As I mentioned in my Psycho review, Hitchcock, in that film, managed to intuit the entire course of the movies from that point on. But for whatever reason he wasn’t able to assimilate and exploit what he had achieved there and spent the rest of his career sputtering, trying to remain relevant while leaning on his past glories from the Studio Era. But, increasingly consumed by bitterness, he just couldn’t make any of those old conventions hold.

The Birds was his next film after Psycho, and seems meant to function as a kind of companion piece, but because he had lost so much confidence in himself and in the very nature of the movies, his attempt to make a shocker with studio polish resulted in a very uneven affair. This is especially obvious on the technical level, where the heavy reliance on process shots and matte paintings means things rarely sync up visually for large [swathes] of the film. That’s not to fault Robert Burks’ cinematography, which is beautiful and effective when it just gets to record things without having to allow for any trickery. And it’s not really to fault the heavy reliance on Albert Whitlock’s matte work, which almost succeeds in giving the film a warped pastoral quality, like the action is playing out on a vast theater stage. But it’s kind of sad to see Hitchcock’s reach constantly exceed his grasp and sense his slipping ability to maintain a proper sense of proportion.

The things in the film that go well go very well and more than justify the time spent watching it. Since it really doesn’t have any stars, just the semi-talented Robert Taylor and Tippi Hedren as the leads, Jessica Tandy gets to steal the show with her rock-solid performance as a deeply needy yet domineering mother. The scene where she discovers Dan Fawcett’s body still plays—and is one of the things Spielberg lifted pretty much straight for Jaws. And he didn’t just pilfer The Birds for that reveal of a mangled corpse. The subsequent low-angle shot where Tandy stagers out of the house to stand gape-mouthed next to the farm hand would also become a Spielberg staple.

As would the low-angle track-back late in the film where Tandy, then Hedren, then Taylor are revealed, with the ceiling looming low above them, as they listen for signs that the bird attack has subsided. Not only would Spielberg get an absurd amount of mileage out of this, ’80s filmmakers leaned on it so heavily that they eventually broke it.

What really doesn’t work at all is the famous attack on the school children—which I would have to shift into the “infamous” category, and not just for its technical blunders. The animation at the beginning of the crows welling up from behind the school house is crudely done and all out of proportion. And the pacing of the rear-projection shots creates the weird sense of everyone running in place. A cineaste would argue Hitchcock was trying to evoke a nightmare sense of frantic effort with no progress. He wasn’t—he just couldn’t pull it off.

The equally famous attack on the town almost works, creating a borderline apocalyptic feel larger than what’s being shown on the screen. But it’s marred by that hokey series of shots of Hedren reacting to the stream of flaming gasoline and especially by all of the heavily processed rear-projection stuff while she’s trapped in the phone booth.

But it wasn’t ultimately the technical miscalculations and gaffes that undermined Hitchcock—they were just the symptoms, not the disease. There’s something really disturbing, but not in any entertaining way, about how he obviously relishes showing children being attacked and witnessing atrocities. Even more foul is how he sets up the doll-like Hedren just to have her brutally taken down—especially during the elaborate bird-rape in the attic at the end. It’s as if his faith n cinema to protect him from the outside world had been shattered and he felt he had to lash out at the audience in his fear and rage.

All of that said, Hitchcock deserves tremendous credit for doing a horror/thriller film without a score. Yes, the absence of music tends to lay bare a lot the movie’s flaws, but it also makes many of the scenes—like the discovery of Fawcett’s body, the later discovery of Annie Hayworth’s body, and the final attack on the Brenner home—tremendously more effective. There’s no John Williams here to Mickey Mouse everything by dragging you through the film by the nose, clobbering you with cues, telling you what to think and feel. You’re thrown into each of the scenes without any ersatz late-Romantic bluster to act as a buffer, which is not just bracing but kind of liberating.

The 4K HDR transfer is for the most part faithful—which means it gets the good moments absolutely right, but also tends to emphasize all that frequent mismatching between shots. Probably the worst shot of the film is the very first one, done on location in San Francisco, which looks like it was grabbed surreptitiously on a 16mm camera. (It wasn’t—it just looks that way.) Get beyond that, and you’ll be able to experience some patches of Burks’ best work.

The one shot I can fault the transfer for—although its problems lie in the original image—is the very last one in the film, an elaborate high-contrast matte shot that borders on monochrome. The HDR crushes the blacks and punches up the whites so much that it becomes not just too blatantly artificial but visually chaotic.

If ever a film cried out for a surround mix, this one would seem to be it. So much of it hinges on things happening from just out of frame and on characters being engulfed that it’s a natural for the 5.1 or Atmos treatment. And yet the original soundtrack is so well designed that the DTS-HD Master Audio stereo mix here is surprisingly effective. The staccato bird cries followed by the sudden, muted crescendo of fluttering wings that signals the beginning of the final attack is so chilling that it’s hard to say whether a surround reworking would be an improvement. But I’d be curious to know.

I’m not going to resort to one of those “You can tell I had problems with this film but it still makes for a great night at the movies” conclusions. But I will say this: With very few exceptions, time spent with a Hitchcock film is time well spent. Even if you just watch The Birds to pick up on all the Jaws/Spielberg parallels, you’ll have, in a way, improved your life. The Birds is a suitably disturbing thriller; it’s just not quite the film Hitchcock intended to make.

Michael Gaughn—The Absolute Sound, The Perfect Vision, Wideband, Stereo Review, Sound & Vision, The Rayva Roundtable, marketing, product design, some theater designs, a couple TV shows, some commercials, and now this.

PICTURE | The 4K HDR transfer is for the most part faithful to the original film—which means it gets the good moments absolutely right but also tends to emphasize all the frequent mismatching between shots.

SOUND | The Birds is a natural for a 5.1 or Atmos treatment. And yet the original soundtrack is so well designed that the DTS-HD Master Audio stereo mix here is surprisingly effective.

Review: A Journal for Jordan

review | A Journal for Jordan

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This Denzel Washington-directed true-life tale of a too-good-to-be-true solider and father has slipped unnoticed into the home market

by John Sciacca
January 22, 2022

I try to keep up with movies—both those being released theatrically and those available for home viewing—but somehow A Journal for Jordan totally slipped under my radar. Even though it’s directed and co-produced by Denzel Washington, whom my wife loves, and stars Michael B. Jordan, whom I’m a big fan of, it managed to sneak quietly into theaters on December 25 and then became available as a PVOD offering from retailers like Kaleidescape on January 11. It wasn’t until I started scrolling through the “New Release Movies” section on Kaleidescape’s mobile app that I realized it was even a thing.

Washington flips around through time to establish the relationship and love story between First Sergeant Charles Monroe King (Jordan) and Dana Canedy (Chante Adams), going forward and back to different points pre and post the birth of their child Jordan (Jalon Christian). And the 2-hour 11-minute runtime gives us plenty of time to learn about these characters and develop some attachment to them, even though we learn right from the beginning that King won’t be around to see the end.

The film begins with flashes of images and bursts of sound from the fateful day when King is killed in action in Baghdad and then cuts to Canedy struggling to raise their son as a single mother working at the New York Times. Prior to deploying, Canedy gives King a journal designed for fathers to fill out so their children can get to know them. A late-night epiphany then inspires her to start writing a journal for her son to learn about the man his father was, which ultimately became the memoir A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor, which is the basis for the film. As Jordan grows older—and starts being bullied at school over his light complexion—Canedy gives him the journal King left behind and starts sharing more about him.

Films based on true stories can certainly have an elastic presentation of the truth, and Jordan definitely presents an idealized version of King as the near-perfect gentleman and soldier—which isn’t to say King wasn’t near perfect. It’s just that Washington shows him as nearly too good to be true, with his only “flaw” being that he frequently cares more—at least as much—for the men in his command as he does for his wife. While Jordan does an admirable job in the role—and at times feels like he’s channeling Washington’s acting style with expressions, mannerisms, or minimalistic line delivery—King doesn’t provide a lot of depth for Jordan to explore.

Available now from Kaleidescape as a Premium Rental in 4K HDR, Jordan is presented in a 2.4:1 aspect ratio. There’s no mention of the format it was shot in or the source of the transfer but images are certainly clean, detailed, and sharp, and my guess is this was taken from a true 4K digital intermediate.

At first it felt like the images in the initial flashbacks were a bit sharper and clearer, making me wonder if it was perhaps a storytelling device Washington was employing to play with how memories often stand out clearer in our mind. But I think I was getting a bit too deep here, and it’s just that the opening scenes are mostly in interiors and don’t have the clarity provided by natural, exterior lighting. There are a lot of exterior day shots in New York City and these look gorgeous, with the camera just swallowing up all that daylight and delivering bright, sharp, beautifully detailed images. Closeups reveal the textural differences in facial detail between Adams and Jordan—her skin smooth and soft, his with some pocks, whiskers, and lines. You can also count each bead in the military dog chain around his neck.

Focus is consistently sharp and tight, letting you see details like the fine lines, edges, and stitching of King’s camouflaged uniform top, the long, tight rows of a tile roof-line, the tight ribs on a shirt Adams wears, or the crisp edges and architectural lines inside a museum. There’s also a lovely outdoor driving scene where the camera pulls back to show a lot of trees alongside the road, where you can clearly see each leafless branch and twig.

The HDR grade is used mainly to deliver consistently natural images, with nice depth and some extra pop from bright sunlight when required. Cities always look beautiful at night in 4K HDR and we get at least one lovely shot of New York all lit up and it doesn’t disappoint. During one scene, Adams goes to a bar with friends, and there are rich golden hues in the lighting behind the bar and in a stairwell. At another point they’re talking with multiple candles lighting the room and the scene has a very natural glow to it. Another scene shows the wonderful depth, shades, and variety of black levels, with King, wearing a black apron over a black shirt, hugging Adams, who is wearing a black dress with her black hair. All black, all visible, all subtly different.

Jordan has a Dolby TrueHD Atmos soundtrack but don’t expect too much from this primarily dialogue-driven story. Fortunately, the dialogue is clear and easy to understand throughout, though some of the early scenes feel a tad forward and louder in relation to other sounds. And there are several scenes where music comes in quite loud, booming from all the channels, which seems a bit heavy-handed and might have you reaching for the volume control.

Mostly, the surround and height speakers are used to deliver a nice bit of ambience to establish environments—things like wind blowing through the room or rustling leaves, or the sounds of rolling thunder. When we cut to external shots in New York, your listening space evolves into the cavernous sounds of the city, but then they are quickly replaced with the tight confines of an office space, with little clicks, chatters, and conversations happening around. There are some more dynamics when scenes involve King and the military, with the sounds of planes or helicopters passing overhead, or the sharp crack of rifles on the range. Short of one big explosion, there isn’t a lot to get your subwoofer engaged.

Journal for Jordan sits at that intersection of films panned by critics—currently sitting at a “Rotten” 45% on Rotten Tomatoes—but loved by viewers, with a 95% audience score. This generally means it’s pretty approachable and designed to entertain. After 2021, I’m happy to sit back and watch a feel-good, inspirational film based on a true story, and watch Michael B. Jordan portray a different kind of hero.

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

PICTURE | The numerous exterior day shots in New York City look gorgeous, with the camera delivering bright, sharp, beautifully detailed images assisted by the HDR grade, which lends some nice depth and some extra pop from bright sunlight when required.

SOUND | Don’t expect too much from the Atmos soundtrack in this primarily dialogue-driven story. While there’s some nice ambience in the surrounds, music cues tend to come in way too loud.

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

review | A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

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This would rank as one of Woody Allen’s best films—if he’d just spent some more time figuring out the ending

by Michael Gaughn
February 3, 2021

It’s got maybe the worst title ever and probably the worst ending of any Woody Allen film, but wedged between the opening-title card and that Third Act that got away is one of Allen’s best films, an almost perfectly balanced ensemble piece that’s probably the best evocation ever of midsummer, which is especially amazing when you consider how much Allen hates the country.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy was his first film with Mia Farrow and kicked off the diverse and more subdued but still fecund era that followed the tremendous creative explosion of Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories. Allen shot Sex Comedy simultaneously with Zelig, which he now admits wasn’t such a great idea but led to two amazing miniatures. He and Farrow would then do such standouts as Broadway Danny Rose (one of his best), The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and the superb but troubling Husbands and Wives. After their all too public breakup, Allen would spend the following decades wandering in the woods, producing far more misses than hits, but occasionally conjuring up gems like Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, and Blue Jasmine that, at the end of the day, still give him a higher overall batting average than any other first-rank filmmaker.

What makes Sex Comedy different from almost every other one of his films (and there are a lot of them) is that he apparently decided to start by capturing a certain time of year—the feel of the peak of summer—and then build a movie around it. He and Gordon Willis had already done something similar with Manhattan, where no other film has done a better job of evoking the sense of the Upper East Side at night. You’re not just watching the people stroll the streets—you’re right there with them, which creates an irreplaceable bond with the characters.

Here, you’re placed in the midst of the country that sits just on the cusp of the city—more specifically, Westchester County, just north of Manhattan—which is conveyed in such a way that it feels like both the city’s complement and dialectical other. This is some of Willis’s best cinematography, which is saying a lot, managing to capture that elusive sense of warm days, abundant nature, and lingering light. There is a reliance on day for night, which creates some unevenness toward the end, but is only really egregious in a shot of Tony Roberts leaving the front of the summer home to go off into the woods.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well Willis’s images came across in Kaleidescape’s Blu-ray-quality HD presentation. The subtle gradations are for the most part there and it’s possible to get lost in the frame while being only occasionally jarred by blown-out bright spots like the full moon. Of course, this film would likely look superb in 4K HDR, which would pull out the abundant detail in the fields, the interiors, and especially the period clothing, but I have no significant nits with the look of the film in its current incarnation. (And, given where this film stands in Allen’s body of work, and his current status in general, it’s not like Sex Comedy and 4K are likely to cross paths any time soon.)

Sex Comedy marks a big step forward in Allen’s evolution as a director, displaying a new maturity with his handling of the cast. Mary Steenburgen, Jose Ferrer, and Farrow all give nuanced, engaging performances that help reinforce the heady atmosphere of the film. Allen is even able to make Julie Haggerty shine within her very limited range. The one false note is Roberts, who was always tolerable when relegated to playing Allen’s sidekick but just isn’t that good of a film actor and whose beats always feel a little forced here. But nothing he does is enough to ever disrupt the ensemble’s seemingly effortless momentum.

Allen shows an increased mastery of film technique as well, with that new-found confidence carrying over into an increasing reliance on lengthy master shots, which reinforce the film’s ensemble nature while also lending it an appropriately pastoral rhythm. The Allen of his earlier movies would have been unable to pull off the extended exchange where Steenburgen confronts his character about lying about Farrow, which is masterfully blocked and performed.

This is just about the last film where Allen allowed his character to be well-rounded and witty, for some reason opting to just spew jokes via a borderline caricature from that point on. I’m not sure why he wandered off down such a self-defeating path—it’s obvious from the documentary Wild Man Blues that he was still capable of ringing resonant changes on the persona he’d so carefully wrought—but Sex Comedy pretty much represents the swan song of the Woody who defined an era.

Now, about that ending: Allen does an unimpeachable job of establishing the atmosphere, then setting the tone, then introducing the characters, and then setting the various interactions in motion, fleshing out the characters along the way. And all of that is so delicious and, yes, charming that it makes it that much more dispiriting when you have to deal with the train wreck of the final act. My surmise—and I’m really winging it here—is that working simultaneously on Zelig prevented him from seeing the flaws in the Sex Comedy script and likely kept him from doing the kind of reshooting that allowed him to elevate many of his other films from pedestrian or confused to extraordinary.

Had he been able to solve the puzzle he created for himself, Sex Comedy would have easily ranked up with Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah in the mass mind. But anyone who hesitates because of what they’ve heard, or who has heard nothing at all about this film, is missing out in a big way. This is what a great movie feels like when it feels like it doesn’t need to strut its stuff. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is so light and energetic and infectious, it’s like a bracing tonic—the cinematic equivalent of a good saison. It moves and feels like no other film. It’s Allen’s most underrated work—and it’s a much needed infusion of summer light during what is, in many ways, the darkest time of the year.

PICTURE | The Blu-ray-quality HD presentation is really, really good, making it hard to find any serious flaws—not that you couldn’t find problems if you really wanted to hunt for them but nothing ever happens to pull you out of the film, which is all that matters at the end of the day.

SOUND | It’s not like Woody Allen makes silent movies and audio doesn’t matter—the all-important dialogue can be clearly heard, the mix helps create atmosphere in the scenes, and the music cues carry an appropriate weight. But it’s all in modest service of the material, as it should be.

Review: Blue Jasmine

review | Blue Jasmine

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Woody Allen’s best late-period work is an almost perfectly balanced drama that still resonates almost ten years on

by Michael Gaughn
February 8, 2021

Fast forward 30 years from the last Woody Allen effort I reviewed, 1982’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, and you arrive at Blue Jasmine, his best late-period work and the film that nabbed Cate Blanchett a Best Actress Oscar. That at first glance it can be difficult to see the common DNA between these two movies shows how much Allen evolved as filmmaker over the decades and helps dispel the jaundiced myth that he is little more than an assemblage of mannerisms treading in a rut.

What isn’t a myth is that Allen has struggled ever since his break with Mia Farrow after 1992’s Husbands and Wives. He earned much praise for Match Point (2005), but that film is ultimately undone by its implausibility, and its success can mainly be attributed to the public’s fascination with the bright, shiny Scarlett Johansson. Midnight in Paris (2011) was celebrated as a return to form, and made Allen a crapload of money, but it’s basically a lazy recitation of his greatest hits that’s ultimately thinner than fast-food coffee. Wonder Wheel (2017) earned Kate Winslett some kudos (but the real standout is Jim Belushi, who’s so good it’s shocking) and the film almost works, if you’re willing to roll with its early acts, but is ultimately a noble failure.

Of the later films, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Vicky Christina Barcelona, the dramatic sections of Melinda and Melinda, and, much more modestly, Cafe Society, join Blue Jasmine as the ones worth a good look. (I’ve been trying to see the Sean Penn vehicle Sweet and Lowdown for years but it flits in and out of circulation so arbitrarily that I’ve never been able to seize the opportunity on the rare occasions when it’s bobbed to the surface.)

Jasmine exists at a higher level than any of his other late-period work, on par with the much earlier Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, and The Purple Rose of Cairo. But it’s not easy to pin down why everything suddenly clicked here. Unlike his other masterworks, it’s not a comedy, although it does have some humorous touches. The Allen persona is nowhere to be seen, even in surrogate form. And even though he has an incredibly uneven track record with dramas, Allen shows an effortless command here.

I suspect many would attribute its success to Blanchett, but that shows a fundamental ignorance of how movies work. She didn’t write the script, plan or execute the shots, or labor in the editing room. Without that elaborate support—which is essentially the entire edifice of a film—a performance, no matter how good, isn’t worth bupkis. I think the success of Jasmine, and the reason Allen rose to the occasion, can be actually attributed to class. But I’ll get to that.

Blue Jasmine exhibits a bounty of great acting, and it’s not really possible to appreciate the film without first considering Allen and actors. From the late ’70s on, and even in his subpar efforts, Allen has offered a place where actors can show their abilities without fear of being humiliated, relegated to reciting genre cliches, treated like the director’s marionette, or subjugated to green screen. Because he provided an oasis, a place where an actor’s abilities were treasured and given room to flourish, a tremendous diversity of talent flocked to his projects—that is, until Me Too happened (but we’re not going to go there again).

(It’s ironic, by the way, that someone with no traditional training turned out to be the best actor’s director of the last half century.)

What’s always intriguing about Allen is that he can get me to appreciate performers I can’t stomach elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to spend a nanosecond with Andrew Dice Clay outside the boundaries of this film, and yet he’s perfectly cast here. Pretty much the same can be said for Louis C.K., who’s insufferable as a comedian and elsewhere only borderline acceptable as an actor. (He does do a strong turn in American Hustle, though.) Here he shines. Ditto for Alec Baldwin, who’s become a caricature of himself over time but rises above his limitations in Jasmine.

Other standouts: Bobby Cannavale (Boardwalk Empire) brings depth and some surprising twists to what could have been a thuggish performance as Sally Hawkins’ boyfriend. And Michael Stuhlbarg, who out and out stole Men in Black 3 as the pixieish multi-dimensional alien Griffin, is far more understated but still strong here.

As for Blanchett: As one of those performers, like Penn and Streep, far better at “acting” than acting, I’ve always found her work rough going—her attempt to play Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator was so cringeworthy I wanted to avert my eyes from the screen—but she is perfectly in sync with Allen’s material and makes a potentially unsympathetic character compelling. And while Blanchett got most of the attention, Hawkins—another actor I could usually take or leave—I think actually bests her here.

The two weak spots in the chain are Peter Sarsgaard, who just doesn’t bring enough heft to his role as the aspiring diplomat, and Alden Ehrenreich as Blanchett’s son, who barely registers as a presence.

About the whole class thing: Allen has taken a lot of heat over the years, some of it justified, for being overly enamored with Upper East Side society. And a lot of his portrayals are so fawning they take on a peepshow quality for almost every human being on the planet who wasn’t to the manor born. But the 2008 recession caused him to put all that in perspective, and Blue Jasmine is a perceptive, even biting, look at the great class divide that doesn’t have an ax to grind for either side—and thankfully doesn’t fall into the oppressive cliche of saying the members of the lower classes are forever doomed to do themselves in. It’s his ability to pull from his vast experience with both sides of the class equation without peddling an agenda that allows him to go deeper than most mainstream attempts to fathom the issue.

(Let me pause to note that Allen is one of the last filmmakers left from the era before you had to be a member of the top one percent to gain admittance to Hollywood, when lower-bred outsiders were at least tolerated as long as their movies made money, when they could still have a voice.)

Blue Jasmine looks really, really good in Blu-ray-quality HD—which I suspect can attributed to the existence of a DI. I was hard pressed to find any serious flaws—not that you can’t find problems if you really want to hunt for them, but nothing that was happening with the images ever pulled me out of the film, which is all that should matter at the end of the day. My one criticism is the introduction of too many golden tones in post. Yes, I get where they were going with that, but I still suspect that future generations are going to look at the early efforts of digital filmmaking and want to slap us silly for not being able to resist fiddling with the knobs.

And now I once again come to the pointlessness of talking about the audio in a Woody Allen film. It’s not like he’s making silent movies and audio doesn’t matter—few directors rely as heavily on dialogue—and it’s not like the mix doesn’t help create atmosphere in the scenes; and it’s not like music cues don’t have a huge impact in his work. The point is that the audio is in modest service of the material, as it should be—there are no bravura flourishes that would make you exclaim “Nice audio!” So let’s just say that it works, and works well.

You don’t need to know anything about Allen’s other films to appreciate Jasmine, but saying that at this moment in time sounds defensive and weak. Allen has created a tremendous and unparalleled body of work, one that deserves to continue to be appreciated. Few directors are capable of making movies that are as human, and Blue Jasmine, as a study of pride and vulnerability, might be his most human film of all.

Review: A Quiet Place 2

review | A Quiet Place 2

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A bigger budget helps this sequel to the 2018 sleeper horror hit really up the atmospherics—especially with the surround mix

by John Sciacca
July 21, 2021

John Krasinski has clearly attended the Chris Pratt school of “how to reinvent your acting career after playing a lovable goofball for years.” Best known as office-nice-guy Jim Halpert from his nine seasons on The Office, Krasinski has left quiet-Jim behind to become more of an action star, playing the roles of a special-forces operator in 13 Hours and young CIA operative Jack Ryan in Amazon’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series.

Krasinski has also stretched his talents into writing and directing, most notably with the surprise hit A Quiet Place in 2018, which he wrote, directed, and starred in along with his wife, Emily Blunt. After that film raked in over $350 million at the box office against a budget of just $22 million, a sequel was all but inevitable, and Krasinski once again returned to bat the writing/directing/acting cycle.

A Quiet Place 2 took the usual pandemic-postponed path before finally making its way to big screens. Originally planned for a March 2020 release, it was pulled when cinemas across the country closed and then continued to be pushed back. But Krasinski was fairly insistent this movie be seen in a theater as a shared experience and not be pushed to a streamer or PVOD release. Quiet Place 2 ultimately hit theaters on May 28, where it had one of the biggest post-pandemic openings before finally coming to Paramount Plus and becoming available for digital download via other retailers—including Kaleidescape—on July 12 after a shortened 45-day exclusive theatrical window.

Although this sequel can be viewed on its own without having seen the original, you’d really be doing yourself a disservice by doing so. Not only does the first film give you a lot of context to better understand the characters and events of the second film, it’s also a terrifically entertaining movie in its own right with a deeply engrossing and engaging Atmos sound mix.

While the original film begins some 89 days after a sudden and unexplained invasion by a horde of blind, armored alien creatures with hypersensitive hearing and super speed intent on killing every human they encounter and follows the Abbott family as they learn to survive in near total silence to remain hidden from the creatures, the second begins at the first day of the invasion. Not only does this provide a bit of exposition for new viewers, it provides a chance to bring Lee Abbott (Krasinski) back for a bit.

After the opening, Quiet Place 2 jumps ahead to Day 474, a short time after the events of the first film. The Abbott family of Evelyn (Blunt), hearing-impaired teenage daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and adolescent son Marcus (Noah Jupe) are still living on their farm, caring for the infant child born near the end of the first film. After noticing some signal fires on the horizon, the family sets out to try to find a safer place and other survivors, where they meet up with an old family friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who is living in an abandoned steel factory that provides a measure of sonic security from the aliens.

While scrolling through a radio dial looking for any signals, they stumble across a station playing “Beyond the Sea” on repeat. Millicent believes this is a clue as to where other survivors are living, and she sets off on a quest to find them and see if she can weaponize her cochlear implant by playing the high-frequency feedback it produces through the radio’s transmitter. But not all of the human survivors are good, which adds another element to the danger.

Similar to the first film, the sequel has a taut sub-90-minute runtime that moves along at a brisk clip. By splitting the family into three groups with separately evolving storylines, there’s always some measure of tension and suspense. And because characters are generally whispering or communicating via sign language, it forces you to pay attention, almost leaning forward in your seat, making you even more susceptible to the film’s several quality jump-scare moments.

This has more action and excitement than the first one and certainly gives a far better look at the aliens. With a much larger budget, it also feels like a “bigger” movie without losing the focus of the first one.

A fair bit of Quiet Place 2 looked a bit soft and grainy, which made a lot more sense after I learned it was shot on 35mm film. While the home transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, it definitely doesn’t have that tack-sharp look of digitally-shot productions. While there are plenty of shots—specifically closeups—that have abundant sharpness, clarity, and detail, there are also quite a few moments—specifically long shots or scenes with extreme low lighting—that are soft and a bit grain-heavy, and more resemble a good Blu-ray transfer than a true 4K film.

Many of the scenes are shot in dark or very low-lit interiors, such as one of the principal locations inside an abandoned steel foundry and often inside an old forge with the door closed. Here HDR gives us nice shadow depth and detail, delivering very natural and realistic image quality. There are also quite a few scenes filmed by firelight (actual fires, candles, or lighters) that benefit from HDR’s wider range.

For a film with “Quiet” in its title, you might not expect the sound mix to play an important role but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, both this and the original film have absolutely terrific Atmos mixes that really help throw you into the scenes. Sound is a vital element to the story, and the mixers take every opportunity to provide directional cues to what is happening, heightening the suspense and tension of the action.

There’s so much tense silence in the films where little clicks, creaks, and noises inform you what is happening—or when you are thrust into the Regan’s silent hearing-space when she is without her cochlear implant, where sound can go almost totally silent, emotionally placing you in the intensity of her character’s peril.

By decreasing the noise floor of other sounds—and knowing that every noise could trigger an attack—you are more in tune and aware of all the tiny sounds that make up the sonic fabric of the world. Whether it is the sound of birds chirping and wind rustling, the clicking and skittering noises of the creatures moving around and overhead, the tinkling of glass bottles, or the flooding rush of a fire sprinkler, you are frequently immersed in the action.

My one sonic nit was that some of Murphy’s dialogue could be a bit difficult to understand. He often speaks with a semi-closed-mouth husky whisper that can make understanding a bit of a challenge, so if your processor offers some form of “dialogue lift,” you might want to engage it.

A Quiet Place 2 is like a classic horror film where suspense and what you don’t see provides much of the scares, which is perfect for people who don’t like what the modern horror genre has become. The violence is mostly bloodless, and not the focus of the film. Not only does it make for a great night at the movies, I think it actually plays better in a well-designed home theater outfitted with an array of Atmos height and surround speakers for the full experience.

PICTURE | Shot on 35mm film, a fair bit of the movie looks a bit soft and grainy, but HDR lends it nice shadow depth and detail, delivering very natural and realistic images

SOUND | Sound is a vital element to the story, and the terrific Atmos mix takes every opportunity to provide directional cues to what is happening, heightening the suspense and tension of the action

Review: Midway (2019)

review | Midway (2019)

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The most recent stab at this pivotal WWII battle gets most of the history right & has lots of action but has a few too many stars

by John Sciacca
February 11, 2020

Midway opens four years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, with Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (Etsushi Toyokawa) ominously telling US intelligence officer Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) that Japan will attack if its oil supplies are threatened. Cut to December 7, 1941 and the Japanese surprise attack , which delivers the US Navy its biggest defeat in history. Midway concerns itself with the events following that attack, and how the US regroups and looks to not only save itself but deliver a counterpunch to the Japanese navy, leading up to the attack known as the Battle of Midway.

With the modern-day might of the US Navy, we don’t often think about just how close to utter defeat its forces were following Pearl Harbor. On that day, more than 2,300 sailors were killed along with another 1,000-plus wounded, 18 ships were sunk or damaged, and 180 planes were destroyed. To restore naval operations, Admiral Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) is brought in to take control of the Pacific Fleet, described as “the most difficult job in the world.”

Following Pearl, the US had just three functional carriers, compared to Japan’s ten, and no functional battleships compared to Japan’s nine, with the Japanese also having more cruisers, bombers, and fighters; and much of their equipment was more modern. If the gamble at Midway didn’t pay off, the United States would have likely been sidelined for much of the war.

The movie does a good job of presenting these stakes, as well as compressing the timeline into an easy-to-follow narrative. If it’s guilty of anything, it’s of trying to cram so many stars into so many roles that none of the characters are really fleshed out. It’s hard for viewers to really care for anyone when they have just a bit of screen time before another new and famous face is trotted out. And there’s more than enough drama in the true events of the war that we don’t need to be distracted by cutaway stories about USO parties or brief shots of home life.

A perfect example is Mandy Moore cast as Ann Best, wife of hotshot pilot Dick Best (Ed Skrein), who feels like she’s just there to put her name in the credits and serves no real role in the film. Dennis Quaid is also underused as Admiral Halsey. Aaron Eckhart is given a small role as Jimmy Doolittle, a pilot awarded the Medal of Honor for leading a near-suicidal bombing mission on Tokyo who must bail out in China and evade capture from the Japanese army, which killed 250,000 Chinese civilians for aiding in Doolittle’s escape (events covered in the 2017 film In Harm’s Way). Musician Nick Jonas is brought in to portray real-life hero Aviation Machinist Bruno Gaido, receiving enough dialogue and backstory to give his character a bit of depth.

It’s tough to build much suspense when retelling a story where most viewers already know the outcome but Midway manages to give the action scenes enough tension that you can’t help but groan as bombs and torpedoes slide just past their targets, missing by scant feet. The film also blatantly telegraphs its heroes. We know early on that cocky pilot Dick Best is going to be play a big role in the air campaign, and when we see him perform a ridiculous landing maneuver onto an aircraft carrier very early on, we know we are going to see this move again later in the film. When Nimitz instructs Layton to make sure the intelligence mistakes of Pearl aren’t repeated, you know the time will come when Layton will have to convince Nimitz to trust him. Or that the friction between Dick Best and Wade McClusky (Luke Evans) will turn into a grudging respect.

Shot on Panavision DXL cameras at 8K resolution, Midway is taken from a 2K digital intermediate, not unusual for a film so heavily laden with CGI effects. Closeups feature lots of detail but don’t seem to have that Nth degree of resolution of films with a true 4K DI. There’s still plenty of detail to appreciate in clothing, from a crocheted top worn by Moore in one scene, to the wooly texture of Japanese officers’ uniforms, to the collar stitching on Americans’ shirts, to the leathery texture of the pilots’ seats.

Since none of the ships portrayed in the film still exist (at least not in their WWII-era state), they all had to be created, and the resolution does lay bare several instances of pretty blatant CGI, where things just look a bit video-gamey. The opening shot of an aircraft carrier with sailors doing PT on the deck just doesn’t ring true, especially if you focus on individual characters long enough. Nor does a scene at a graveyard in Pearl, which just looks . . . off. Any time there are so many computer-generated ships and planes on screen—which is often—there are bound to be a few instances where some shots aren’t perfect but it’s often the long shots that seem to suffer most.

HDR is used to good effect, not just to enhance the brilliant red-orange fireballs that erupt from exploding ships and planes, burning with a vibrant fury and intensity, but also to bring an extra layer of depth and punch to interior shots aboard ships where sunlight in pouring in through port holes or walkways. The ocean gleams in shades of blue, with bright highlights as the sun glints off its surface, and exterior scenes are bright enough to make you squint into the sunny skies. Blacks remain deep and dark, with no banding, which is a challenge with the varying shades of blue and grey in the skies as planes fly in and out of different lighting and cloud cover.

Beyond the visuals, Midway offers a fun ride that sounds fantastic in a home theater. In fact, you might call it a 2-hour 18-minute Dolby Atmos spectacle masquerading as a war movie. The sound mix plays a dynamic role in nearly every scene, and if anyone has every wondered if their height speakers are working or if Atmos can add to the immersion of a movie, just show them any of the aerial attack scenes where the audio lends a wonderful third dimension to plane flyovers.

Planes rip along the side walls and into the back of the room or roar past overhead, diving down on unsuspecting pilots, bullets shredding things around you. Flak shells explode left, right, above, and behind you, with bullets ricocheting all around the room.

Midway will also test your subwoofer’s mettle, with deep bass present throughout. Beyond the bombs and explosions, ships crash through waves with appropriate weight and AAA guns thump you in your seat with repeated blasts. There’s also the constant low, steady, bassy rumble as a steady background reminder that you’re aboard a warship, along with other ambient mechanical sounds to place you on board, or the deep, throaty roar of the planes’ engines. There’s also the carnage of the USS Arizona breaking up after explosions and then ripping itself apart with groans, creaks, and the rumble of crumpling steel.

Available for download now at the Kaleidescape Store ahead of its 4K disc release on February 18, Midway hits enough high points to overlook its flaws and makes for a rollicking night in your home theater, with one of the most dynamic and immersive Dolby Atmos audio tracks I’ve heard in a while.

PICTURE | HDR is used to good effect, not just to enhance the brilliant fireballs that erupt from exploding ships and planes but also to bring an extra layer of depth and punch to interior shots aboard ships where sunlight in pouring in through port holes or walkways

SOUND | You might call Midway a 2-hour 18-minute Dolby Atmos spectacle masquerading as a war movie, with the mix playing a dynamic role in nearly every scene

Review: Kong: Skull Island

review | Kong: Skull Island

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An especially dynamic Atmos soundtrack seriously ups the ante on the kind of roaring, stomping mayhem Kong does best

by John Sciacca
March 9, 2021

With Godzilla vs. Kong getting ready to debut theatrically and streaming on HBO Max on March 31, it seemed like a good time to revisit an earlier film in the franchise, Kong: Skull Island. In the opening of my “4K HDR Wish List,” I wrote, “These are probably films you already own—or have definitely watched—and a new 4K transfer would be a great reason to revisit them,” and that definitely holds true for Skull Island. Released in 2017, I hadn’t watched it in a few years even though I’d upgraded the HD version to the new 4K HDR version with Dolby Atmos some time ago when it became available at Kaleidescape.

While it doesn’t totally apply here, the quote “comedy is tragedy plus time” comes to mind. Skull Island didn’t really stand out in my memory as anything special but on watching it this time, the movie was far more entertaining. Maybe it was the improvements in the audio/video quality, maybe it was having a better projector, maybe it was my daughter seeing it with us for the first time. Whatever the case, Skull Island just worked, having solid pacing, story, acting, and the right amount of quirky just-shy-of-crazy humor courtesy of John C. Reilly.

I’d also forgotten how much star power was brought to bear. Along with John Goodman as head of the government agency Monarch, it unites four actors from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which might be a record in a non-Marvel film, something I’d need resident MCU-expert Dennis Burger to confirm), including Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Brie Larson (Captain Marvel), and Corey Hawkins (small part in Iron Man 3 listed as “Navy Op”).

What Skull Island does right is to focus on what it is: Kong on Skull Island. There isn’t a long preamble or slow build-up but rather a small bit of pre-credits setup that establishes a later payoff, a short explanation of the science of how this island has remained off the charts for so long and why it’s so important to investigate it now, a bit of introduction to the team, and then boom! You’re thrust straight into the action. Within the first 25 minutes, we’re transported to the island and in the thick of it. Kind of like with the recent Monster Hunter, you aren’t tuning to a film called Kong: Skull Island for a deeply philosophical examination; rather, you want an engaging and entertaining story wrapped around Kong battling and smashing stuff. This film plays by believable rules and allows you to maintain a suspension of disbelief with none of those head-shaking moments where the visual effects team does something solely for the case of impressing with their skills.

And speaking of the VFX, they’re surprisingly terrific. If Kong looked fake the film would fail, or if they shied away from showing him in all his glory you’d know it was a cheat, but there are plenty of closeups of the giant ape, and his size, scale, and speed are all realistic and impressive. In fact, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for its effects work (losing to Blade Runner: 2049).

Set in 1973 with the Vietnam war winding down, warmonger Lieutenant Colonel Packard (Jackson) is thrilled to have one final op with his Air Cav unit to investigate an uncharted island before returning home stateside. The soldiers head off to the island aboard a convoy of helicopters along with a small team of scientists, including Goodman, an ex-British Special Forces tracker Conrad (Hiddleston), and a photographer Weaver (Larson). The idea is to test Brooks’ (Hawkins) “Hollow Earth” theory by flying around and dropping seismic charges on the island, but this gets the attention—and ire—of one mammoth 100-foot ape, who quickly dispatches the helicopters, leaving the team separated on the ground and trying to survive amidst other threats that are larger than life-sized.

Packard reminds me a bit of the saying, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to look at everything as a nail.” He’s an unabashed warrior and he’s looking for a fight, and Kong is the obvious threat. If Kong has a social message underpinning the story, it would be looking for fights where there aren’t enemies and learning to co-exist with those around us. But the film doesn’t beat us over the head with this, rather making a way to care about and root for Kong.

Eager to avenge his fallen soldiers, Packard goes off on his own agenda, ordering his men to hunt and destroy the ape, and he becomes the obvious antagonist to Kong’s role as island protector. Meanwhile, the separated team of Conrad and Weaver discover Hank Marlow (Reilly), a WWII-pilot who has been stranded on the island for 28 years and learned to co-exist with the natives. Together, they try to regroup with the remaining soldiers and travel across the island to the planned rendezvous point to get off the island.

Shot on Arri at 3.4K resolution, Skull Island is taken from a 2K digital intermediate. While it doesn’t have that hyper-sharp detail and resolution of some modern films, it still looks fantastic, with very clean image quality and sharp, well-defined edges. Still, some scenes are so clean and detailed they could have been filmed yesterday. Closeups can have terrific detail, showing individual stitching in the soldiers’ uniforms and exhibiting pore-level detail on all the actors’ faces save for Brie Larson, whose face always looks angelically smooth.

Early, pre-island scenes in the film have a warm, earth-toned image with picture quality that was a bit reminiscent of The Brady Bunch, and the opening blue skies from the aerial dogfight have a bit of digital noise. On the island, colors are green and lush, with a variety of shades for grass, trees, and foliage.

HDR gives plenty of depth and realism to the many scenes at night or in deep shadow. An early scene in a downtown area in Vietnam lit by bright neon lights pops off the screen. Elsewhere, there are brilliant flashes of lighting and vibrant, rich red-orange flames in the dark night of the island. The Kaleidescape transfer’s high bitrate also does a nice job keeping the island’s fog and smoke from becoming a digital mess.

Sonically, you get a glimpse of what you’re in for in the opening seconds, with planes flying and fighting overhead and buzzing around the room. The overhead flyover—or tracking objects as they pass around and across the room—is a favorite of Atmos theater owners, and this delivers, with plenty of other similar sonic moments such as helicopters swirling around, announcements from PA systems, or the blare of master caution alarms. This dynamic Atmos soundtrack almost constantly has something going on, including big dynamic effects and tons of ambient jungle sounds like bugs and wind rustling leaves in trees.

The soundtrack is heavily influenced by psychedelic, Vietnam-era rock from the late ’60s, which is given a lot of room to play across the front channels and into the height speakers. The mix also does a great job of tracking audio objects, such as when things move left/right of center and then pass into the surrounds off camera. We also get a near-videogame use of localizing threats, as you’ll hear things coming up on our characters from the surround channels. We also get to enjoy a healthy amount of low-frequency effects courtesy of Kong’s stomping footsteps and roars, and from explosions.

Kong: Skull Island give a glimpse of the kinds of battles we can expect in Godzilla vs. Kong as Kong fights the Skull Crawlers, and be sure to stick around all the way through the end credits for a scene that leads us into the sequel. As Marlow said, Kong is young and still growing, and we need him to keep growing to defend us from other threats. If GvK takes place in the current day, this will have given Kong almost 50 years of growing to prepare for the fight, and we’ll want him ready! Skull Island is a surprisingly fun time that makes for a great-looking and -sounding event in your home theater.

PICTURE | Shot in 3.4K and taken from a 2K digital intermediate, Skull Island doesn’t have the hyper-sharp detail and resolution of some modern films but still looks fantastic, with very clean image quality and sharp, well-defined edges.

SOUND | The dynamic Atmos soundtrack almost constantly has something going on, including big dynamic effects, lots of flyovers, and tons of ambient jungle sounds like bugs and wind rustling leaves in trees.

Review: Old

review | Old

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Not one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best, this not-quite-a-horror movie is worth at least a one-time look

by John Sciacca
October 12, 2021

Old is based on the 2010 French-language graphic novel Sandcastle, which I had never heard of. Of course, Shyamalan added his own tweaks to the source material, and with Sandcastle being only 112 pages—and those all filled with illustrated panels—he had some fleshing out to do to get a complete story.

Old reminded me a bit of Season Four of The Twilight Zone, where Rod Serling and team broke away from their tried-and-true formula of taut 30-minutes episodes and went to stories that ran an hour long. The result was some things felt padded and stretched a bit thin, and they learned—when they returned to the 30-minute form for Season Five—that an idea that worked for 30 minutes didn’t necessarily work better when prolonged to 60. (The reverse is true for long material that filmmakers try to excise down to a theatrical run time, as evidenced by so many of Stephen King’s failed adaptations . . .)

While the film certainly has an interesting premise, which is how Shyamalan manages to hook you, at 108 minutes, it feels a bit long and like it is treading water in the middle, with some of the beats repeating themselves, and like something that would have worked better in a shorter form.

A family goes on a vacation at a luxury tropical resort and we discover pretty quickly that Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are headed towards a divorce. The holiday is kind of a last family hurrah before they break the news to the kids, Trent (Nolan River) and Maddox (Alexa Swinton). While at the resort, the manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) approaches them and says he likes the family and that he wants to send them to a beautiful and secluded part of the resort he doesn’t just share with everyone. The family piles into a van along with married couple Dr. Charles (Rufus Sewell) and Chrystal (Abbey Lee), their young daughter, Kara (Mikaya Fisher), and Charles’ mother, Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant), where they are driven to a secluded area by a resort employee played by Shyamalan in one of his many not-so-cameo roles. When they arrive, Shyamalan loads them up with baskets of food and drinks, and the group walks down a path and through a cave to emerge onto a beautiful beach.

There they see another person sitting alone whom Maddox recognizes as famous rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), who seems to be nursing an almost constant nosebleed. While swimming, the naked body of a dead woman washes into Trent, and when it is revealed this woman came to the beach with Mid-Sized Sedan, it sets the group into a bit of paranoia. With no cell signal, they try and go back through the cave and find they can’t (anyone trying is hit with a massive headache that knocks them unconscious), and then everyone starts aging at a rapidly accelerated rate to the tune of about one year every 30 minutes.

With the rapid aging, any negative traits like vanity, paranoia, and racial tension quickly come out, and infirmities like blindness, deafness, schizophrenia, and tumors can develop in literally moments. The kids grow in what feels like the blink of an eye, with new actors taking on the roles in nearly every scene. (For example, four different actors play Trent.)

Why is this happening? Is there any way to stop it? What is the deal with the name Mid-Sized Sedan? (Not germane to the movie, but, I mean, come on?! Is that a commentary on something?) And why does it appear that someone is observing them from far away?

Like most of Shyamalan’s films, Old is pretty slow to get going but part of the allure of his movies is seeing where the winding path leads you and what interesting things will happen along the way to see how things play out.

One issue I had is that a lot of the characters really just aren’t that likable. It’s hard to be vested in what happens to people you don’t care about. Plus, they often act in ways that seem completely obtuse to what is happening, almost acting in an odd, robotic manner that makes them unrelatable. (And, no, they aren’t all robots—that isn’t the twist.) And while they are aging rapidly, there seems to be no lingering emotion, thought, or feeling to things that have happened. “Well, so-and-so is dead. Guess we just move on . . .” Further, some of the dialogue is just bad. There were a couple of parts where I literally groaned. Guy is an insurance actuary and he wastes no opportunity to remind us of that and cite some actuary table percentage of the likelihood of something happening.

Also, calling this a “horror” movie seems a stretch. And if you’re a fan of that genre, I think you’ll be in for a real disappointment. It’s as much a horror movie as an episode of The Twilight Zone or a Shyamalan film like, say, The Village. Yes, there are a couple of violent moments, multiple people die, and there are some intense images, but horror? I don’t think so. More like supernatural, but not in an occult-ish way.

Filmed in 35mm and taken from a 4K digital intermediate, Old has a lot of cinematography that is great to look at, especially up on a big screen, with plenty of wonderful vistas of the beach and ocean against the rock and lush jungle backdrop. I never noticed any grain issues, certainly nothing that was distracting, and found images to be clean and sharp throughout, though not having that tack-sharp look of a movie shot digitally.

Closeups have tons of sharp, vivid detail, where you can literally make out single grains of sand or see the fibers in characters’ garments. The detail also makes it easier to appreciate the aging the characters go through as they develop wrinkles and the like. Longer shots—specifically when they are looking back up at the mysterious person watching on the hill—are noticeably softer and devoid of detail, with the trees just lacking the sharpness, almost like they are slightly out of focus.

With most of the film taking place on the beach during the day, the HDR grading certainly helps with the look, giving brilliant highlights and nice shadow detail. You can really appreciate the texture of the rocks and cave walls, and when the sun goes down, there are some nice highlights and added contrast from a fire the characters sit by.

The Dolby Atmos mix was actually a highlight for me, as Shyamalan really leans into the possibilities of immersing the listener in sound and using all the speakers. Jungle sounds frequently fill the room, with birds and wind creating a nice canopy of sound overhead and all around. You also get nice moments like the sounds of the hotel’s lobby Muzak pumping out of the ceiling speakers like you’re walking through the hotel, or the sounds of water dripping down from overhead in the cave complex, or the noise of crashing waves and surf all around.

One thing the mix really plays with is the location of voices. Most films anchor about 90% (or more) in the center speaker, but here we have dialogue that literally swirls 360 degrees around the room as a character is turning and listening to people talking. This is almost a video-game like effect but it really puts you in the moment. It will also lay bare if your speakers have any timbre-matching issues, as you’ll really notice a change in the tone and quality of the dialogue. Bass is mostly restrained—dialogue is a big driver of the movie—but it can be deep when called for, such as when characters enter the cave or when there are powerful waves crashing.

My wife and I did have a bit of problem understanding some of the dialogue. Some of it is a bit forward-sounding, some of the characters have a bit of an accent, and occasionally it can be masked by some of the other sounds going on.

While Old isn’t the best of Shyamalan’s catalog, it certainly isn’t the worst, and it kept me involved enough to see how it was going to wrap. And, I didn’t see the particular “twist” coming but it wasn’t on par with the big “I see dead people!” moment of The Sixth Sense. It was more like, “Yeah, OK, I guess that makes sense.” Also, I felt like he tried to over explain and over resolve the ending, and it would have been better had he, ummm (keeping this spoiler-free . . .) stopped about five minutes before he did and let it be more open-ended.

PICTURE | Even though Old was shot on 35mm, there are never any grain issues and images are clean and sharp throughout, though without the tack-sharp look of a movie shot digitally

SOUND | The Atmos mix is a highlight, with the director really leaning into the possibilities of immersing the listener in sound and using all the speakers

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

review | Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

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Scott Pilgrim fans will rejoice at both the new remaster and new Atmos mix

by Dennis Burger
July 22, 2021

This review was supposed to be done weeks ago. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was technically released to UHD Blu-ray on July 6, 2021. The day it was supposed to arrive, though, Amazon informed me they didn’t have an estimated ship date. So I went to Best Buy—no Scott Pilgrim. I hit Walmart—no Scott Pilgrim. I scoured every online source for shiny silver discs and no one could get me a copy in physical form in anything approaching a predictable timeframe. Thankfully, the disc finally arrived from Amazon this past weekend.

If I hadn’t already decided this would be my last disc purchase, this whole experience would have pushed me hard in that direction. The reality is, discs are a niche product at this point. There’s only one replication facility left in North America that can produce UHD Blu-rays, as far as I know, and when they get backed up, or when there’s more demand than expected for a title like Scott Pilgrim, getting your hands on a copy becomes a frustrating affair.

But you’re not here to read a treatise about the current state of a dying format. You’re here to read about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and whether the new Dolby Vision remaster was worth the wait. And indeed it was—but not quite in the ways I expected.

I’ve always just assumed that this, one of my favorite movies, was shot digitally. But about ten seconds into watching the new remaster, I jotted a quick note on my notepad: “This looks like 35mm!” Indeed, the movie was shot on photochemical film and as good as the old Blu-ray was, it just wasn’t revealing enough to deliver the nuance of fine film grain.

There’s just no denying it in 4K. And mind you, this is a remaster, not a full-on restoration. The original 35mm camera negatives weren’t rescanned. This is an upsample of the old 2K digital intermediate. But it still represents enough of a boost in resolution and fine detail that the film’s analog origins are there to be seen, clearly and unambiguously.

And as subtle a difference as that is, it’s enough to change the entire vibe of Scott Pilgrim for me. It’s a weird movie, if you’ve never seen it—it’s another one of those films that is simultaneously a thing and a critique of that thing. It’s a pop-culture-reference-packed comic book movie that playfully mocks all of the shortcomings of pop-culture-reference-packed comic book movies. It’s a sendup of everything ridiculous about video games, made by and about people who completely adore video games. It’s a takedown of hipsters despite being hipsterish as heck. It sort of takes the piss out of vegans and feminists and the LGBT community but with complete and utter love and respect for anyone who falls under any of those umbrellas. It walks the fine line of laughing with rather than laughing at.

But perhaps the biggest seeming contradiction at the heart of the film is that it’s a grungy garage-band rock-and-roll picture (with, by the way, the single best original motion-picture soundtrack since Almost Famous, thanks to the songwriting talents of Beck and the vocal and musical talents of the actors, all of whom performed the music seen in the film themselves), but it’s also a super-slick special-effects extravaganza.

And again, that element has always worked on Blu-ray, but it works so much better in Dolby Vision, since you can see the grit and organic chaos of film stock under the computer graphics and other special effects. It’s not simply that Dolby Vision makes Scott Pilgrim look better—it legitimately allows it to work better as a piece of art, as a story about the weirdness of nostalgia, as a big old bag of very intentional contradictions.

There are still one or two brief moments where you can see the consequences of the 2K digital intermediate—a bit of lost resolution here and there in the backgrounds or in quickly panning shots. But they’re so fleeting I’m not sure it would be worth the effort to do a ground-up restoration.

One thing I want to be very clear about is that the Dolby Vision color grade and dynamic-range expansion are very rarely in your face. By and large, the chromatic character of the imagery remains the same. There are a few splashes of color that ring through with more vibrancy and purity. There are also some nice specular highlights on display from time to time. But the new color grade really keeps those splashes of color and brightness in its back pocket and only pulls them out for punctuation. The biggest difference in terms of dynamic range is that blacks are blacker, shadows are better resolved, and the overall image has a more natural dimensionality and depth.

The new Dolby Atmos remix, on the other hand, rarely shows similar restraint. It’s big, bold, loud, and an outright violation of your subwoofers’ rights. Normally, I would hate this kind of mix, but for such a ridiculous spectacle as this movie is, it just works. I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

Of course, none of this will make a lick of difference if you’re not a fan of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And if you’ve never seen it, all I can say is that a quick watch of the trailer will tell you whether you’ll love it or loathe it. (I’ve never met anyone who thought it was “just OK.”)

But if you’re already a card-carrying member of the Scott Pilgrim fan club, this new Dolby Vision release is an essential upgrade. Just maybe skip the hassle of trying to get it on UHD Blu-ray. I spot-checked the disc against the Vudu and iTunes streams and there’s virtually no meaningful difference between them in terms of picture quality. Level-match the soundtracks and there’s no real difference in audio fidelity, either.

So, yes, grab this new Dolby Vision remaster at your earliest convenience. But if you don’t have a Kaleidescape, just go ahead and buy it via MoviesAnywhere. I’m glad I have the disc on my shelf, since I know it’ll be there when my internet service is out and I need my Scott Pilgrim fix right this very now. But if I had to do it over again, I would have just bought the digital copy and saved myself a massive headache.

PICTURE | The new color grade really keeps splashes of color & brightness in its back pocket and only pulls them out for punctuation. As for the increased dynamic range, blacks are blacker, shadows are better resolved, and the overall image has a more natural dimensionality and depth.

SOUND | The new Dolby Atmos remix rarely shows restraint. It’s big, bold, loud, and an outright violation of your subwoofers’ rights.

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