Thursday, May 12, 2011

#1058: Deep Red

11:43 AM / Blu-ray / Comments20 Comments

BD

(BD, Blue Underground, Region ABC, USA)

I realised recently that DEEP RED is the only Dario Argento film I haven't written a full, in-depth review of - a bizarre state of affairs given that for many it is his crowning achievement (his best, for me, is SUSPIRIA, but DEEP RED would be a close second). As such, I may take a little longer to write a more substantial piece on the film to be posted alongside the inevitable technical review/comparison with the Arrow BD and Medusa WMV-HD releases.

 
20 Comments

1. Toecutter said:

Got this on the way.

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 12:51 PM)

2. Phil Quail said:

Looking forward to the review and your comments on the Blue Underground Blu-ray.

Speaking of all things Argento, have you seen DVD Beaver's new Bird with the Crystal Plumage comparison? Mr Storaro has definitely been a bit "revisionist"....

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 1:12 PM)

3. Author Profile Page Michael said:

I saw the DVD Beaver captures this morning and was pretty horrified. Even taking into account that all DVD Beaver's Blu-ray captures for the last few months have been unnaturally softened, the new BIRD master looks shocking: cropped, blurry, ringing at the top and bottom of the frame... and what's with the excessively cold colour palette? I really want to know what Argento thinks of this revisionism.

Here's the comparison, for those who don't know what we're talking about:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews44/bird_with_the_crystal_plumage_blu-ray.htm

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 1:21 PM)

4. Phil Quail said:

Argento's opinion would be interesting. I wonder how much notice he takes of the numerous and varied home video presentations of his films, given the fact that he very rarely gets directly involved in them.

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 3:04 PM)

5. EvilFactor said:

Wow, am more glad than ever that I have a couple copies of the OOP BU release of Bird. Anyone have any info on who holds the region A rights now that their licence has expired?

IMO, Arrow's BD releases have been mostly tolerable yet (as we all know) massively overprocessed. But this is a whole new level of tinkering ala The French Connection. Gross.

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 6:09 PM)

6. BobaFett said:

OMG, now I'm really glad that I got the BU Blu-ray while I could, some months ago. That Arrow disc looks horrible, even taking into account generally lowered expectations for Arrow releases.

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 8:28 PM)

7. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

That Arrow BD for Crystal Plumage looks terribly lifeless. One of my favorite aspects of the film is how rich with color and warmth it is. Hard to imagine the film's own DP would completely recreate the look in such a way. This is much worse than French Connection in my mind. Why can't all artists leave their work the way it was originally made?

(Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 9:52 PM)

8. The Phantom said:

Arrow's treatment of "Deep Red" was pretty horrendous. This was my most anticipated release of 2011 (thus far) and it was a botch job. Did anyone even check the disc before it was rushed to mass production?

I have the Blue Underground release on order, but I'll hang on to the Arrow version. In future though, I'm waiting for detailed reviews before I order any further Arrow releases. I hope "Tenebrae" is a somewhat better release.

That Arrow "Bird" release is simply baffling. I'm going to try and get 'another' copy of the Blue Underground Blu-ray just for kicks. :P

(Posted on Friday, May 13, 2011 at 7:49 AM)

9. Kentai said:

"For kicks?" Is that what the kids are calling eBay these days? ;)

(Posted on Friday, May 13, 2011 at 7:53 AM)

10. The Phantom said:

Haha, no just for me, not for ebay. :P

There are still plenty of copies of the Blue Underground Blu-ray available... if you don't mind paying (minimum) double the regular price.

(Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 12:20 PM)

11. BluBrew said:

Whoever's mastering these titles in Italy, is trying very hard to be consistent in mediocrity.

http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/content.php?1476-Cat-O’-Nine-Tails

Same problems as Deep Red, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond etc.

(Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 12:15 AM)

12. FoxyMulder said:

Hey BlueBrew, without me clicking the link can you tell me and others what problems these releases have and why you feel they are mediocre. ?

(Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 6:20 PM)

13. BluBrew said:

It's difficult to formulate precisely, but the titles I mentioned (along with for example Django) all display a certain type of smearing combined with a noise-like, almost artificial, layer of grain on top.

If you click the link and look at the third and sixth picture, I think those illustrate my issues with these transfers most.

With some titles like NY Ripper and Stendhal Syndrome, the overall 'damage' is less - but there's still some easily identifiable funky stuff going on in these transfers that prohibits them from looking truly filmlike.

(Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 7:20 PM)

14. Author Profile Page Michael said:

The CAT O' NINE TAILS captures have got me VERY worried indeed. If they're an accurate reflection of what's on the disc (and I see no reason to doubt that they are), then it'll be the first Argento release from Blue Underground to genuinely disappoint. Those shots remind me a great deal of CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD.

(Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 7:42 PM)

15. FoxyMulder said:

If there is artificial grain then there has to be a reason for doing that and usually its because the original film prints are in a bad way or the print they had access to is in a bad way, i'm pretty certain the first three Bond films have artificial grain added back in and i recall Robert Harris stating the film grain in From Russia With Love is from the late sixties and not from 1963, i certainly think it's preferable to have artificial rather than none, of course thats assuming they do it right and it doesn't add more issues than it fixes, i'm convinced Aliens also has artificial grain added back in.

Given the choice i'd take this over a smoothie Arrow release but of course i'd prefer real film grain over fake.

What do you think of Grease. ? That one has also got people wondering about fake added in grain.

(Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 11:52 PM)

16. Brian said:

I'd take a Warner Smoothie over these transfers, personally. The grain keeps looking like what was found on the Spartacus HD DVD.

(Posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 3:59 AM)

17. Brian said:

Also wanted to say that when CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD was released, the look of the 'grain' was praised, and said to be representative of 16mm. Yet there were others looking just like it, including this one. Yes, it does look like a revelation compared to the DVD, but how many more of these titles are going to end up looking like this?

(Posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 4:04 AM)

18. FoxyMulder said:

Thats noise on the Spartacus release, not grain.

For 16mm we have a great reference with The Evil Dead release, that one is superb.

I thought City Of The Living Dead was 2 perf 35mm. ?

I wonder if the film scanners they are using on some of these transfers are the problem or if the film prints being used are just not perfect and they need to "fix" some scenes when making the master.

(Posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 4:50 AM)

19. Brian said:

You're right on COTLD. That was clarified before. My only point was that these transfers keep having an almost signature look to them. It's well known that Spartacus was full of noise, RAH brought this up before. The noise on that title doesn't seem that far off from what I keep seeing on these BU titles.

(Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 5:05 PM)

20. Brian said:

10K Bullets site has a review up for the Cat O Nine Tails BD...

http://10kbullets.com/reviews/c/cat-o-nine-tails-blue-underground-bluray/

Looks like it is going to be much improved over the DVD (too bad they once again leave off the Stills Gallery). I looked at the earlier review in these comments and the caps look like they do have that noisy look to them.

On Deep Red, I thought it would have the noisy look to it also but I was wrong. I didn't find that to be the case at all, and thought it was a nice transfer. Yes, it's a bit yellow, but not to where it caught my attention while watching.

(Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 5:54 PM)

 
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