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Review: Minari

review | Minari

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A deceptively simple story that could have easily wandered off into cliché, masterfully told

by Dennis Burger
March 22, 2021

There’s a certain frustrating injustice in the fact that Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical Minari came out in 2020. While this gorgeous slice-of-life drama is being hailed as one of the year’s best films, that recognition carries with it some tallest-kid-in-kindergarten connotations. The truth is that Minari would be a triumph of cinema in any year, but to be plucked from the dustbin and heralded as such this year almost seems like a consolation prize.

I’ll admit that I have some significant bias as far as this film is concerned so maybe take my adulation with a grain of salt. I’m a sucker for a simple story. Writing complicated tales is easy—you string together a bunch of “what had happened was”es, cut between disparate narrative threads when one has gone on too long, throw as much as you can at the wall, and hope enough of it sticks to be honed in the editing. Writing a simple story is significantly more difficult, and writing one that holds together narratively and thematically is an admirable accomplishment.

Minari is the simplest of tales, and a familiar one at that: A family, facing unendurable financial hardship and lack of opportunity, moves to a strange new place in search of a better life. Familiar though that plot kernel may be, Chung tells it in the most unexpected ways, never going for the obvious twists or beholden to the traditional three-act narrative structure.

A lot of what you’ll get out of the film depends upon what you bring into it because Chung’s thumb never rests too heavily on the scales. Speaking purely for myself—a Caucasian southern man whose familial roots grow in rural soil very similar to the setting of Minari—I was drawn almost as much to the setting as I was to the human drama of it all. I’ll admit, though, that I tensed up the first time a white southerner appeared onscreen. You almost can’t help but expect the residents of rural Arkansas to be portrayed as caricatures, as overtly racist and malicious bumpkins. They aren’t, though. They’re portrayed as ignorant to be sure but the exact sort of ignorance that feels 100% authentic to the film’s setting, the sort of ignorance that I’m met with at every big family gathering. This is simply one of the most accurate portraits of the rural south in the 1980s I’ve ever seen.

The story that unfolds against that backdrop is one of duty—to one’s parents, children, partner, and oneself. And most of the drama comes from trying to find the right balance between those interdependent dials. Duty to his parents is largely to blame for the financial struggles Jacob Yi (played to perfection by Steven Yeun) and his family suffer in California. Duty to their children is what forces Jacob and his wife Monica (played to equal perfection by Han Ye-ri) to the Ozark Plateau. Frustration with this tug of war and a disproportionate attempt to be dutiful to himself contributes to Jacob’s Sisyphean struggles in his new home, both within his family and on the land he obsessively farms.

The farm serves as an unnamed character in the film. It embodies the tension at the center of the struggle between an untenable past and an uncertain future. Those two forces receive their embodiment in the forms of David—Jacob and Monica’s ill son—and Soon-ja, Monica’s mother, who comes to live with the family to care for her grandchildren while their parents work at a nearby hatchery, and who plants the perennial herb that gives the film its name and so much of its meaning.

David and Soon-ja not only serve as the heart of the film, they also serve as its funny bone, adding much-needed levity exactly when it’s needed most. As with the rural whites, it would have been all too easy to paint both characters with too broad a brush, but Chung packs each with the sort of contradictions essential to any human. In the case of David, that’s not all that surprising, since the boy serves as the writer/director’s proxy. But Soon-ja must have been a much trickier character to write, no matter how much real-life inspiration Chung had for her. She represents tradition, but she’s an idiosyncratic, eccentric force of nature who defies tradition at every turn. That Chung didn’t chisel off her rough edges to force her into the symbolic mold she fills in the film is a credit to his skills as a writer and his faith in the audience. Individually, David and Soon-ja are fascinating (and indeed somewhat tragic) characters. Together, they’re absolutely hilarious—the sort of duo that Taika Waititi would write if he made dramas instead of comedies.

But don’t dwell too much on that comparison. I’ve simply been so primed by a culture that’s obsessed with every new thing being categorized as “this meets that” that I found myself drawing that parallel before I could catch myself. If forced to draw deeper parallels of the same sort, I would call this film “Waititi meets Faulkner meets Sinclair.” But that’s hardly fair. Minari is boldly, unapologetically its own thing.

It’s also beautiful to behold. The film is currently available on PVOD, or “Theater at Home,” as described by Vudu, where I rented it. Vudu presents Minari in Dolby Vision with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, both of which serve the material well. Although shot digitally, the cinematography has a very organic look that’s vaguely reminiscent of Kodachrome stock. It’s incredibly contrasty, with inky shadows and dazzling highlights; but its most prominent aspect is the richness and warmth of the colors, all of which are captured beautifully by the transfer.

Despite the 2K digital intermediate, there’s a wealth of detail, in everything from the tattered interior of the Yi family’s mobile home to the chaotic kaleidoscope of patterns caused by overlapping layers of flora blowing in the breeze. If the film’s presentation proves anything, it’s that lenses are more essential to the final look of a cinematic work than are capture resolution (3.2K in this case) or the pixel-count of the DI.

Interestingly, when I switched between my Roku Ultra and my Apple TV 4K purely for the sake of thorough comparison, the latter didn’t hold up quite as well. The Vudu stream was marred to a degree by some banding, digital noise, and lack of definition on the Apple hardware that was nowhere to be seen on the Roku.

Minari doesn’t seem like the sort of film that would benefit from an Atmos mix, but does it ever. It’s another case where, if Atmos were handled this gracefully by every sound mixer, I would be a bigger fan of the format. The extra channels are used in this case to construct the film’s world in three dimensions. Heck, if you took away the dialogue and music, it seems like 90% of what would be left would be the chirping of crickets and tree frogs and—to borrow a beautiful turn of phrase from Randy Newman—the song that the trees sing when the wind blows. Once you get over the novelty of sounds coming from overhead, the film’s mix just sounds authentic, like strolling through the wild acreage of my dad’s property with my ears attuned to the aural landscape.

And in a way, that’s an apt metaphor for the film itself as a whole. It’s obviously contrived—every story is—but give yourself to it and there’s nearly nothing about Minari that feels contrived. It’s as honest and unforced a work of cinema as I’ve experienced in ages. Its show-don’t-tell approach to grappling with the struggles of the working poor and the realities of cultural assimilation, combined with its pitch-perfect performances and effortless artistry, make it an absolute must-see.

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 | Although shot digitally, the cinematography has a very organic look, vaguely reminiscent of Kodachrome stock, that’s beautiful to behold

SOUND | This doesn’t seem like the kind of film that would benefit from an Atmos mix, but the extra channels are artfully used to construct the film’s world in three dimensions

Review: Star Wars: A New Hope

review | Star Wars: A New Hope

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Despite all of Lucas’s tinkering with the original film, the 4K HDR transfer captures what was best about the 1977 release

by John Sciacca
May 3, 2020

As I mentioned in my review of The Empire Strikes Back, this year’s May the Fourth celebration (or Revenge of the Fifth, should you prefer the Dark Side) will be particularly festive thanks to the recent release of the Star Wars franchise in 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos soundtracks. Even better, internet services are currently discounting the titles, with each movie available for download on Kaleidescape for $13.99. So we thought it would be worth taking a look at the film that started it all: Star Wars—or, as it’s now known, A New Hope.

While the modern usage of “blockbuster” started in 1975 with Spielberg’s Jaws, Star Wars took that to the next level in 1977. In our modern era where movies are in and out of the theater in a little over a month, Star Wars enjoyed a theatrical run that lasted over a year, including one theater in Beaverton, Oregon that ran it for 76 weeks! Images of lines wrapping around the block waiting to get a seat were commonplace.

I was seven when the film came out, and I can clearly recall seeing it for the first time. My family was visiting Carmel, California, and my parents dropped me and my cousin off at the theater while they went shopping. I can’t recall having any anticipation about seeing the movie, or even hearing anything about it prior to walking into the theater, but my world changed when the lights dropped and that opening fanfare blared from the speakers. When that Star Destroyer flew overhead for the first time, I remember thinking this was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and how was this even possible?!?

For two hours, my cousin and I sat engrossed, taking it all in. When it ended, we ran out to the lobby, told my parents that we had just seen the most incredibly movie of all time! and then turned around and went back inside to watch it again! We then spent the rest of the vacation lightsaber fighting each other with anything we could grab that could be imagined into a sword.

I was also fortunate enough to see Star Wars at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood—which also showed the film for a staggering 57 weeks!—where my biggest memories are of the giant auditoriums and eating an entire box of Red Vines I also used as straws to drink a large Coke.

Today, there are basically three different generations of Star Wars fans: Those who grew up with the original trilogy, those raised on the prequel trilogies, and those who have come in recently with the sequel trilogies. And, with no disrespect to the newer fans, it’s difficult to fully appreciate just how important Star Wars is to someone who didn’t grow up with it. From 1977 to 1983, it played a massive role in our lives. It was what we played, what we talked about, what we imagined, what we dreamed.

With Star Wars, George Lucas created a universe so real and so unlike anything that had come before that it transcended just being a movie. And to have this come about at an age when you were old enough to understand just how special and different it was, and then grow up with it over the next six years . . . well, it’s not an exaggeration to say it shaped many people’s lives.

If you grew up during that time, you fantasized about making that trench run in your X-wing and using the Force to fire those proton torpedoes, or waving your hand and changing someone’s mind, snapping open your lightsaber and standing down Vader. playing space chess (technically “Dejarik”) with Chewie aboard the Falcon, or having a Princess place a medal around your neck while the galaxy cheers.

And, to think, it was nearly not to be. Multiple studios passed on the film early on, and first edits were said to be nearly unwatchable. The film was basically saved in post production as the incredible models and special effects came together and was finally bolstered by one of the greatest soundtracks ever thanks to John Williams. (If you haven’t watched the fascinating and fantastic two-and-a-half-hour documentary Empire of Dreams—The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, I assure you it’s worth the price of a month’s subscription to Disney+ for that alone!)

Taken from a new 4K scan, this transfer is sourced from a 4K digital intermediate, and images are incredibly clean and detailed throughout with little film grain, but also little damaging effects or softening from heavy-handed use of DNR (digital noise reduction). It’s hard to believe you’re watching a film that’s 43 years old, especially when you get to the finale, which has visual effects that still impress. (Granted they’ve been digitally helped over the years, but still . . .)

Closeups reveal incredible detail, such as the scratches and textures in the metal of R2-D2’s dome, or the streaks of white paint on his body. You can see the fray in Obi-Wan’s (Sir Alec Guinness) robe along with every line in his face, and practically feel the velvet texture of Vader’s cape. In one scene on the Death Star, I was able to clearly read the THX-1138 on one of the monitor screens in the background, a homage to Lucas’ first film. You could also see that the masks of the Stormtroopers influenced by Obi-Wan were a bit sloppily finished, with paint that isn’t perfect.

Colors look terrific and natural, with laser blasts and lightsabers appropriately bright, as well as the bright blue of the Falcon’s engine and the red of the X-wings’ thrusters. (I’m also happy they fixed the saber “fizzle” during Obi-Wan and Darth’s battle.) You can see the crags and textures in the rocks near Obi-Wan’s cave and all of the fine details put into the interior of the Falcon to make it look like a ship that has logged a lot of miles, errr, parsecs, traveling the galaxy.

Black levels are deep and space looks appropriately inky but not at the expense of crushing shadow detail. This really gives nice pop to all of the spaceships, as they stand out in stark contrast to the blackness of space around them. Notice the early scenes aboard the Tantive IV as Leia and the droids move around darkened corridors and passageways or the prisoner detention bay on the Death Star with its deep-black walls, but you can still make out detail in the guards’ black uniforms.

HDR brightness is used sparingly—the Falcon’s glowing engines, big explosions—but the contrast added by the extra dynamic range provides enhanced images throughout, adding depth and dimension.

Sonically, Star Wars was game-changing, winning an Academy Awards for Best Sound and a Special Achievement Award for Ben Burtt’s sound effects. And they’ve definitely done an admirable job of amping up the sound mix for the 21st century while retaining the classic elements that made it so memorable. From the opening, the Star Destroyer flies overhead, explosions bombarding Leia’s ship. And when the tractor beam grabs it, you hear and feel the ship being pulled overhead. When the Falcon escapes the Death Star, TIE fighters fly over and around in pursuit but the biggest sonic moment is held for the end, during the attack on the Death Star, with trench guns blasting all around, TIE’s screaming past and roaring overhead.

Every scene is brought to life with its own sonic space. You get the winds blowing overhead in the Tatooine desert, the background hum of life and little mechanical noises aboard the Death Star, the sounds rattling around in the cantina, the appliance sounds in Owen and Beru’s kitchen, and the squeaks and groans of metal twisting and crushing in the garbage compactor.

Blaster fire is nice and dynamic, and bass is deep and engaging, such as the deep thrum of the Falcon’s sub-light engines, the Death Star priming its main weapon, or the buzz of lightsabers. Deeper bass comes from the Falcon jumping to hyperspace and the massive explosion of planets, with the Death Star’s explosion sounding particularly good, featuring a massive bass wave that then ripples and travels back the left side of the room.

Yes, you can bemoan that this isn’t the original theatrical cut we grew up with and that Lucas has tinkered yet again with the (now) infamous “Who shot first?” Cantina scene. (Just Google “Maclunkey,” if you aren’t aware.) Or that the added CGI creatures outside Mos Eisley bring nothing to the film—rather, now appearing jarringly out of place—and that the added Jabba scene just steals the greatness of his reveal later in Return of the Jedi. I’ll grant you all of that. But to that, I’m still going all in with this: This 4K HDR version of A New Hope is hands-down the definitive, best the movie has ever looked and sounded, and if you don’t watch it you are punishing only yourself.

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 | It’s hard to believe you’re watching a film that’s 43 years old, especially when you get to the finale, which has visual effects that still impress

SOUND | They’ve definitely done an admirable job of amping up the sound mix for the 21st century while retaining the classic elements that made it so memorable

Review: Moonfall

review | Moonfall

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Can a really bad movie make for a satisfying two-hour-plus wall-to-wall home theater demo? Yes.

by John Sciacca
April 11, 2022

You’ve probably heard of movies that are “so bad, they’re good,” and I’m not even sure whether Moonfall is too bad or not quite bad enough to be considered good. But, before you write it off completely, let me just tease you with this: If you give Moonfall a watch—particularly on Kaleidescape where it includes a lossless Dolby TrueHD Atmos soundtrack—it will likely be one of the most immersive and demo-worthy audio experiences you’ll have.

Written and directed by Roland Emmerich, who also brought us such global-disaster films as Independence Day, Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012, this continues his affinity for taking the planet right to the brink of destruction while also being less concerned or constrained by things being fixed in reality or filling all the plot holes.

In a nutshell, I’d describe Moonfall as a film meant for people who thought Michael Bay’s 1998 Armageddon was a well-thought-out strategic think piece but just a bit too rooted in science and reality. Or those who enjoyed the spectacle, mayhem, and landscape destruction that is Emmerich’s signature move, à la White House Down or Midway.

And if your suspension of disbelief isn’t fazed by the proposition of having a couple of days to yank a long retired and decommissioned (and graffiti-laden) Space Shuttle Endeavor out of a museum, somehow trailering it down the highway, loading it onto a plane that ferries it to a launch pad and fully fueling it, mating it with experimental Chinese technology, and then letting two retired astronauts and a conspiracy theorist fly it to the moon to save the planet, well then, you’ll be right at home.

When I first saw the trailer, I thought this was going to be a big-budget self-aware disaster comedy, or something akin to Don’t Look Up. And that it starred Halle Berry—an Oscar winner for Best Actress!—I figured . . . well, I don’t know, that it would be good.

But, no.

I kept waiting for the actors to give some hint that they were in on the joke, kind of like in Airplane!, like it was OK to laugh at some of this ridiculousness, but every line, no matter how absurd, is uttered with 110% over-the-top sincerity. And if the KC Houseman character played by John Bradley (who’ll you’ll likely know as Samwell Tarly from Game of Thrones) reminds you of Josh Gad, it’s probably because Gad was originally cast for the role but had to drop out due to a schedule conflict.

Fans of cataclysmic disaster films will find much to love here. The moon’s orbit is deteriorating, bringing it into a rapid collision course with the earth, which would obviously make for a very bad day. As the moon—but is it even a moon at all?!?—gets closer, the earth experiences tsunamis, gravitational abnormalities, earthquakes, and radical atmospheric changes, with large chunks of the moon breaking off and pelting the planet. Looting runs rampant, cities are destroyed, mayhem ensues. And when you think it can’t get any crazier, there are hijackings, car chases, and crazy gravity-destroying things all around as the moon draws impossibly closer to the earth. As one character so accurately quips, “This is a whole ‘nother level of insane.” Cue ex-astronaut/current Deputy Director of NASA Jocinda Fowler (Berry) and disgraced former astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson)—who also happened to serve as Fowler’s crew mate a decade before—and Houseman taking the Endeavor to the moon to figure things out before it’s too late.

Throw in some interpersonal family relationships, self-aware nanobot alien technology, tons of explosions and CGI, numerous references to Elon Musk, and a third act that attempts to explain the origins of life, the universe, and everything (and, no, it isn’t “42”), and you’ve got the 2 hours and 10 minutes that are Moonfall.

If you can get past all that, and just sit back and enjoy the images up on screen and the sound swirling around you, Moonfall is actually a home theater masterpiece. Shot on Redcode Raw at 8K resolution, this transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, and images look terrific. They’re clean and sharp with many shots having incredible, near three-dimensional depth. Closeups have tons of detail, such as seeing every tooth in a jacket’s zipper or each individual whisker on Donald Sutherland’s face.

One drawback to all these pixels of resolution is that some of the CGI effects can look a bit cheesy. There was a scene where multiple cars were being destroyed by flooding, and I couldn’t tell if I was looking at bad CGI or just a bunch of miniature models being moved around. Also a bit odd, considering this is set in current times, is that many of the computers and TVs are old CRT monitors.

The HDR grade gives plenty of pop to bright images, such as the gleaming white space suits astronauts wear, the Shuttle’s tiles, or numerous bright lights from flashlights, searchlights, fluorescent overheads, indicator lights inside the shuttle, or sunlight pouring in through windows. An opening shot of the earth has it surrounded by a vibrant blue band of atmosphere; explosions have bright, vibrant red-orange fireballs; and another scene has a cabin lit in golden-orange glows from fire and candlelight.

I did notice that blacks are more a dark grey in some parts rather than the true, deep black of the letterbox bars. This was apparent in shots in space and also during full screen cuts to “black” that are clearly more deep grey, which is especially noticeable when watching in a light-controlled room on an OLED.

Now, we arrive at the main course: Moonfall‘s Dolby Atmos audio track. It is, how you say, “chef’s kiss.” From the get-go, the sound mixer clearly understood the assignment and pushed his dials to 11. Virtually every scene is packed with some sonic moment that will show off your surround system.

This movie has nearly every sound element and moment Atmos was created to enhance, and I dare say, if there was ever a film mixed for the full complement of 34 speakers Dolby Atmos supports, it was Moonfall. Sure, it has plenty of those scene-defining moments like traffic and office noise, or sounds off in the distance like shouting, explosions, and sirens, but that’s just the sonic amuse bouche.

The main course serves up rainfall pattering overhead, multiple helicopters passes around the room and overhead, the echo of voices expanding interior spaces, the boom of announcements overhead, things smashing, crashing and swirling around the room, nano particles that reach out and engulf and surround you, meteorites streaking overhead and plummeting into the objects all around you.

Oh, yeah—and bass. Plenty of it. Deep, massive, tactile couch-shaking, room-energizing bass. Whether it is the deep rumble of the Shuttle’s rockets, the massive sounds of floodwaters rising up overhead, the crackling of things being destroyed, or the planet being pummeled by chunks of the moon, your subs will get plenty of work. Be aware: This mix is loud and dynamic, so play it back at reference volume level at your own peril!

I found dialogue to be mostly intelligible, but there was one scene during a space launch where there are tons of effects and rumbles and sonic cacophony happening and with -the characters are wearing masks, making some of the lines difficult to understand. But, honestly, I doubt anything they said was really important.

Ultimately, Moonfall is a big, dumb, high-budget disaster film where tons of stuff is destroyed. But it is perhaps better to think of it not as one of the most expensive independent films ever made but rather as a lengthy Dolby Atmos demo sizzle reel that happens to feature some well-known actors interwoven with a space movie. Taken in that context, it’s a lot of fun.

PICTURE | Images are clean and sharp, with many shots having incredible, near three-dimensional depth

SOUND | This movie has nearly every sound element and moment Atmos was created to enhance. If there was ever a film mixed for the full complement of 34 speakers Dolby Atmos supports, this is it.

Review: Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood

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Richard Linklater uses animation to tell this semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Houston during the Apollo program

by Dennis Burger
April 7, 2022

There was a moment, maybe six minutes into Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, where I felt I’d been had. The film seemed to part ways not only with the premise sold to me in the trailer but also from the conceits built into the opening scenes. But I was wrong about that; I hadn’t been deceived. Instead, I’d been pulled into something far more compelling than anything hinted at by the film’s marketing—something that, quite frankly, I’m glad I didn’t have to figure out how to market.

To understand what I’m on about here, it might be helpful if you pause for a second and watch the trailer for Apollo 10½ (which we’ve embedded below for your convenience). But if you’re in more of a reading than a watching mood, here’s the gist: It’s the late ’60s, and NASA has a problem on its hands that can only be solved by a brainy fourth-grader. The first lunar lander has been built too small and they need this kid to do a trial run of the moon landing before the actual event.

It’s a cute premise for a fantasy film and exactly the sort of story I would trust Linklater to get right. But Apollo 10½ is not that film. That plot thread takes up nearly no more time in the actual narrative than it does in the trailer. Instead, the bulk of the story is a semi-autobiographical reminiscence about Linklater’s childhood in Houston during the Apollo era, with the young character Stan (and his adult self, voiced by Jack Black) serving as Linklater’s self-insert. It’s not exactly a love letter to a specific time and place, but more of a time capsule.

And it was that realization that made my heart sink a bit, because nostalgic romps of this sort have not only been done to death—in everything from the original Wonder Years to Netflix’ short-lived Everything Sucks!—but also often function as nothing more than cheap dopamine fixes on the one hand or circus sideshows on the other. But with Apollo 10½, Linklater manages to do nostalgia right by never leaning too hard on lazy revisionism or rose-colored glasses. It seems to me that what he’s trying to say is, “This is, to the best of my memory, what it felt like to live in the world I grew up in. These are the experiences that shaped me. But keep in mind that memory is fallible and storytellers always have a penchant for spit and polish.”

Perhaps my favorite thing about the film is that, with a runtime of just 98 minutes, it feels deliberately and perfectly paced. And this is despite the fact that it occasionally lapses into seemingly meaningless digressions, such as the two minutes spent exploring meal planning and the ways in which Stan’s mom would recycle Saturday’s baked ham into the rest of the week’s leftovers.

It takes a bit to realize that such episodes aren’t digressions, though, but the entire point of the film. Because more than anything else, Apollo 10½ is about the weird little details of our youth that stick with us into middle age and beyond. It’s also about what it feels like to live through a moment in history and how our recollections are colored as much by cultural perspective as by actual events.

Apollo 10½ is the third film Linklater has shot live-action and then animated over, following A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life. Creatively speaking, the use of rotoscoping here is at least as legitimate as it was in those films, and in some ways more so. Much of this one involves people watching screens—either cinema screens or the communal family-room TV—and different animation techniques are employed to make subtle distinctions between fantasy and history within the context of this fantastically historical film.

It also serves as a subconscious reminder that engaging with a moving image isn’t the same as engaging with reality, even if what’s being shown on the screen is ostensibly non-fiction. But then there’s also this really neat unspoken rumination on the allure of speculative fiction and popular culture and how it can all feel more meaningful in the moment than a straightforward account of actual fact.

Whether the animation works for you or not as a narrative device, there’s no denying that Netflix’ Dolby Vision presentation is flawless, even when the animation itself isn’t. There isn’t an expansive color palette to capture here, but shadow detail is always fantastic (and occasionally crucial to the experience of the story), and the imagery is clean, tight, crisp, and well-detailed throughout. I didn’t spot a single artifact in the presentation that could be attributed to its streaming bitrates.

It’s a shame I don’t have such glowing praise for the Dolby Atmos soundtrack. It’s honestly the one aspect of Apollo 10½ about which I’m not absolutely gaga. Music and sound effects are so aggressively mixed and fire-hosed over every surface of the room that it’s frankly distracting. Jack Black’s narration also gets deprioritized in the mix far too often at the expense of aural whizz-bangery that just doesn’t fit the film’s aesthetic, mood, or intent. And the 5.1 mix isn’t much less abusive.

On my second watch-through (I couldn’t resist going back for seconds), I decided to downmix the 5.1 to stereo, and the entire film worked much better. But don’t let my curmudgeonly attitudes toward Atmos scare you off. It’s a minor annoyance that frankly wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much if the rest of the experience hadn’t been so wonderfully gratifying. If we make it to the end of 2022 without Apollo 10½ standing high on my list of the year’s best films, I’ll be shocked.

PICTURE | Netflix’ Dolby Vision presentation is flawless, even when the animation itself isn’t. Shadow detail is always fantastic and the imagery is clean, tight, crisp, and well-detailed throughout.

SOUND | The music and sound effects are so aggressively mixed and fire-hosed over every surface of the room that the Atmos track is ultimately distracting

Review: The Burning Sea

review | The Burning Sea

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This Norwegian film ventures into Hollywood disaster-film territory, but much more intimately

by John Sciacca
April 5, 2022

IMDB lists the combined US and Canada box-office gross for The Burning Sea as $493. And, no, I’m not missing any digits there—it made less than $500 at North American cinemas. So it’s probably a pretty safe bet that, like me, this isn’t a film you saw or even heard about. In fact, it wasn’t until reading a comment about its 4K HDR release on the Kaleidescape Owner’s Forum that I was even aware it existed. And at just $14.99 to purchase, I was willing to give it a watch.

My wife and I are fans of foreign films, but typically these end up being romantic comedies, period pieces, or dramas, and less so major disaster films. According to the film’s tagline—“First came The Wave. Then came The Quake. Prepare for . . . The Burning Sea”—this is the third disaster film from the same creative team. But it doesn’t appear to have anything in common with the other two films other than being about “natural” disasters set in Norway.

The film opens with documentary-style footage showing drilling-company exec William Lie (Bjorn Floberg) recounting that Norway has enjoyed 50 years of prosperous offshore oil drilling. But after drilling thousands of holes in the ocean floor, a major crack has opened, causing an oil rig to collapse and threatening to destroy up to 350 other rigs on the water, which could produce an apocalyptic catastrophe that would affect the Norwegian coastline and much of Europe for decades.

The most obvious comparisons here are with Deepwater Horizon, the 2016 film starring Mark Wahlberg that chronicled the true story of the BP oil-rig disaster off the Louisiana coast. But The Burning Sea is certainly smaller and more intimate, focusing less on the disaster and rescue of entire crews and more on Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp), a scientist who controls an Eeelume (a kind of eel/torpedo-looking submarine exploration robot), who makes it her mission to find and rescue her boyfriend, Stian (Henrik Bjelland), after he’s abandoned aboard one of the damaged rigs. While there are certainly explosions and rigs collapsing, and some decent CGI, those looking for a massive effects-laden, Hollywood-blockbuster-style disaster film will likely be disappointed. This is more character driven than just a massive explosion-fest.

In a way, Sofia’s arc reminded me a bit of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day Sandra Bullock’s character experienced in Gravity, but on water instead of in space, as she is bounced from one calamity to the next. While the story is a bit predictable—you can see that Stian is going to be the character in peril about a mile away—it’s still interesting to watch, and the 104-minute runtime keeps things moving fairly quickly after the opening act establishes the characters and story. Also, it appears that much of the action is filmed aboard actual oil rigs, giving authenticity to the sets.

There are certainly some barbs about climate change and the damage man has inflicted on the planet, but Burning Sea is more a cautionary tale of what could happen if a series of events caused numerous rigs across a wide section of the ocean to fail. Also, the film really focuses almost solely on the plight of Sofia and Stian and doesn’t really address or deal with the aftermath of the “solution” that would have been an environmental disaster exceeding the oil fires Saddam Hussein lit during the first Gulf War.

Shot on 35mm film, there is no information on the resolution of the home transfer, but I found the images to be mostly high quality. There are a few scenes—long shots of the rigs on the water or really low-lit scenes inside darkened environments like the rigs or the robot lab—that had some noise or were a bit grainy and lacked fine detail and dipped into HD quality, and there is certainly some grain visible in the grey, cloud-filled Norwegian skies. But for the most part, images are clear and sharp throughout, particularly closeups that have actors in tight focus, or things like the textures in blankets and jacket patterns. Like all films, images really look their best in well lit exterior shots when the lens can take in all that light.

Much of the color palette features earth tones—browns, beiges, rust, and tans—and kind of a steely grey and blue of overcast skies and seas, but these are contrasted with the bright reds of the rescue helicopters, vibrant yellows of emergency vehicles, and the orange safety suits worn by rig workers.

The HDR grade gives plenty of pop to the blazing red-orange flames of explosions and oil fires, as well as punch to bright overhead lighting inside offices and the rigs, though I did notice a couple of computer screens where the brightness looked a tad blown out. Another area where the grade really helps is in the detail and definition in the grey-cloudy skies, letting you see far more individuality to the shapes rather than just a mass of one color. Also, I never noticed any banding or other noise in the underwater shots, where the bright lights from the Eeelume shining through the water produce myriad shades of similar colors and transitions that can often be problematic without enough bandwidth.

Home theater fans will love the Dolby TrueHD Atmos audio soundtrack included with the Kaleidescape download. While there is a dubbed English-language audio track (also in Atmos), I implore you to turn the subtitles on and listen to the film with the original actor’s speaking in Norwegian. I turned the English track on just for a moment to check the sound, and the actress voicing Sofia was so off—reminding both me and my wife of Pam from The Office—that it was impossible to take seriously.

This mix is filled with all the things Atmos owners love—from the small environmental details to the big, obvious height effects. The sonics transform your listening room into a completely different environment when the action goes underwater, giving more weight and texture to the sounds of bubbles and rumbles and undersea noises. Every environment has its own sonic quality, whether it’s the whine of hydraulics and machinery, water drips and echoes, or wires and motors in the robot lab and aboard the rigs, or the sounds of phones ringing, keyboards clacking and chatter happening inside offices, or the sounds of waves lapping outside.

Your height speakers will also come into frequent use, whether it’s the sounds of an aircraft hangar door squealing up overhead, heavy rains lashing a rig, the cacophony of sirens, bells, and alarms, or a pair of jet fighters (F35s?) streaking past overhead. Helicopters also make frequent appearances and flyovers throughout, and the sounds of helos passing overhead and rotor noise abounds.

While this isn’t a super bass-heavy mix, subwoofers are called into action when appropriate, and can deliver some massive, room-rumbling bass, such as when the rigs explode and vessels are ripped underwater or when large ocean waves are smashing into the rigs.

If you are looking for an alternative to Hollywood’s typical take on disaster films, The Burning Sea offers a more personal, heroine-led approach, more focused on people than destruction, with an active Dolby Atmos mix that is sure to excite and won’t leave you wondering whether your height speakers are working or not.

PICTURE | A few scenes have some noise or are a bit grainy, lacking fine detail and dipping into HD quality, but for the most part, images are clear and sharp throughout

SOUND | The mix is filled with all the things Atmos owners love, from environmental details to big, obvious height effects, transforming your listening room into a completely different environment when the action goes underwater

Review: Death on the Nile (2022)

review | Death on the Nile (2022)

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Kenneth Branagh, all-star cast in tow, takes another stab at a Christie whodunnit

by John Sciacca
April 3, 2022

Growing up, my mother got me interested in Agatha Christie mysteries, and there was a time in high school when I had lofty plans of plowing through all of her novels. (A mountain I did not even come close to summiting.) But what remained was a love for watching the film versions of her famed detectives Miss Marple and Mr. Hercule Poirot piecing together seemingly incomprehensible clues to determine whodunnit. And the films usually had enough time between remakes that it was always a bit of a surprise to remember who the guilty party—or parties—were. (My particular favorite is Ten Little Indians, though it includes neither Marple nor Poirot.)

Hollywood has an affinity for revisiting Christie’s classics, and Kenneth Branagh is the latest director to have caught the remake bug. In 2017, he brought Murder on the Orient Express to the big screen, along with taking on the starring role of mustachioed sleuth Poirot, and now he again returns as both director and star of Death on the Nile.

Christie’s novels are nearly always packed with characters—all the easier to spread the suspicion around!—and have been able to attract star-laden casts throughout their many remakes. Branagh certainly followed this lead, packing Express with multiple A-listers, including Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, and Michelle Pfeiffer; and he continues that trend here, though dialing the star power down a bit, but still drawing Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Annette Bening, and Tom Bateman (who is the only other returning character from Express, in the role of Poirot’s friend, Bouc).

The film opens in 1914 with a bit of non-canonical backstory, showing Poirot developing skills of perception during a battle in World War I and also offering an explanation for his character’s iconic moustache. (Though the ‘stache has never been quite as magnificent as the one Branagh wears here.)

From there we cut to a London nightclub in 1937, where we meet Jackie Bellefort (Emma Mackey) passionately dancing with fiancée Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer). Shortly after, Doyle is introduced to heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gadot), and it is pretty clear the two are smitten from the start. Cut to a hotel in Egypt, where we are celebrating the wedding of Doyle and Ridgeway, and we continue adding to the cast of characters and eventual suspects.

Jackie is not one to take this jilting lightly, and she has been obsessively following the newlyweds around trying to convince Doyle he still loves her. To escape Jackie, the couple charters a cruise ship for their honeymoon, and the wedding party boards the S.S. Karnak for a luxury cruise down the Nile where the champagne flows nearly as freely as the water. But as the title states, there is a death—more accurately a murder—aboard the Karnak, and it is up to Poirot to investigate and interrogate the passengers in his aggressive manner—“He accuses everyone of murder!” “It’s a problem, I admit.”—and determine the identity of the guilty party before the boat returns to port.

Shot on 65mm film and taken from a 4K digital intermediate, the film is beautiful to look at, with great attention given to the sets, decoration, and costuming. According to one of the extras, building the Karnak took nearly a full year, and it looks and feels it. Unfortunately, the film was all shot in studios in England—not Morocco, as originally planned—and the exterior scenes are sets, green screen, and CGI, and frequently look it, particularly when showing exteriors of buildings like the hotel in Egypt. But having much of the action take place aboard the Karnak helps anchor it somewhat in reality—even if all the waters and exteriors aren’t. The recreation of Abu Simbel does look impressive, though, and the resolution helps you appreciate the care that went into its construction.

The film opens in black & white, which can look great in HDR, with its clear extremes of contrast. While we don’t get truly inky blacks in this opening, we do get loads of contrast in the trenches and can nearly taste the grit of the war. The movie looks its best in exterior scenes where that huge film frame just soaks up the light and delivers beautiful images, and in closeups, where you can marvel at the detail and attention given to the costumes and numerous fabrics. Notice the texture in jackets, hats, shirts, and dresses, where you can clearly see the different details, the pinpoint stitching, weaves, weights, and sheens of each. The Karnak’s exterior, with its clean, tight lines and rows of slats covering doors and windows down the side of the ship, also looks appropriately sharp.

The large film frame also provides great depth of field, making long shots clear and in focus. While they aren’t real, notice the pyramids Poirot studies or the crowds in the market and how everyone is sharp and clear. This also delivers terrific detail on actors’ faces as the camera comes in tight.

The HDR grade is used to deliver some punchy, bright whites when needed, such as the stage and dance-floor lighting in the club or the beautiful golden hues of fire-lit rooms inside Abu Simbel or the warm red-orange-gold Nile sky and waters illuminated at sunrise/set. There’s a shot of the Karnak all lit up at night that also looks particularly stunning. The HDR grade also provides some nice pop to the bright white of Poirot’s suit against the Egyptian desert sands, but also has enough range to easily distinguish the white color differences and layers between shades of white in dinner jackets and shirts.

Via Kaleidescape, Death on the Nile includes a Dolby TrueHD Atmos surround mix, and while it isn’t overly aggressive, it certainly serves the story. I found some of the dialogue—particularly in the nightclub with blues singer Salome (Sophie Okonedo)—to be a bit “chesty,” but otherwise it is pretty coherent.

The audio mix is mostly used to serve up atmospheric sounds that place you in the scene, whether it’s the cacophony of the crowded markets in Egypt with voices and shouts around, the way voices echo within Abu Simbel, or the swirling winds of a sand storm. It is often the quieter moments in Nile where the mix proves its mettle subtly, such as when characters are standing outside talking, where you’ll notice the gentle sound of water lapping, insects buzzing, birds, or the soft sound of wind rustling, or aboard the Karnak where there is the background sounds of the bassy engine and paddle turning.

Don’t expect your subwoofer to give a lot of flex here, but there are a couple of moments where deep bass is called on and it delivers, such as an explosion during the opening flashback, when the Karnark drops its heavy anchor, or when a heavy stone breaks away and falls.

At over two hours, Death on the Nile is a bit long and drags in parts. And even though the character list has been trimmed from Christie’s novel, keeping up with everyone and their relationships and backstory can still be a bit much. (As with all of her works, just assume that everyone is connected to the victim and has a motive, no matter how abstract.) But, for the sharp-eyed, the clues are there and this is a solvable mystery, even for those sans moustache. Nile’s true saving grace is its look and style, and it certainly makes for a beautiful evening up on a luxury display.

PICTURE | The movie looks its best in exterior scenes where the huge film frame just soaks up the light and delivers beautiful images, and in closeups, where you can marvel at the detail and attention given to the costumes and numerous fabrics

SOUND | While the Atmos mix isn’t overly aggressive, it serves the story well—although some of the dialogue can be a bit “chesty.”

Review: Annie Hall

review | Annie Hall

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Woody Allen’s first truly great film is less a romantic comedy than an incisive and beguiling cultural document of New York in the mid ’70s

by Michael Gaughn
January 5, 2021

It’s impossible to talk about a Woody Allen movie without having to first weigh in on the ongoing efforts to vilify Allen and obliterate all traces of his career. He’s been spattered with so much bile by Hollywood types like Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page who’ve blindly bought into the Me Too herd mentality that there are fewer and fewer people even willing to approach his films let alone consider them objectively.

I’m hoping to do an appreciation of his career where I can go into all this a little more. What I would ask for the moment is that you try to ignore the grating cacophony of squeaky wheels and appreciate the works of one of the most accomplished filmmakers of the ‘70s and ‘80s for what they are.

Annie Hall is known as a romantic comedy—a perception that had a lot to do with it snagging a Best Picture Oscar. The thing is, it’s not really a romantic comedy—at least not for me.

That I’ve never found Diane Keaton to be very attractive, or a very good actress, has helped me develop a different—and I think more accurate—take on the film. Annie Hall is actually a very ambitious, incisive, and candid attempt to capture the essence of a particular culture at a particular moment in time via its embodiment in a particular personality—and that personality is not Keaton.

There had to be a reason why Allen suddenly shifted away from all of those gag-driven early movies that served as his film school and allowed him to build the fan base he was able to ride for the next four decades. And there has to be a reason why he suddenly went from being a good-enough comedy director to a fully fledged and inspired filmmaker.

And I think the answer lies in this exchange from the film:

“The failure of the country to get behind New York City is anti-Semitism.”

“But, Max, the city is terribly run.”

“But we’re not discussing politics or economics. This is foreskin. . . . Don’t you see? The rest of the country looks at New York like we’re Left-Wing Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way sometimes, and I live here.”

New York City had pretty much imploded in the wake of the social upheaval of the ‘60s and was in a wretched state by the mid ‘70s. Very much like the way it’s portrayed in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, it had become a kind of repository for all of the country’s sins. This was probably the city’s darkest period, years before the unfettered avarice of the ‘80s turned Manhattan into a playground for billionaires and Brooklyn into a day-care center for their kids.

Allen’s identification with the city was so strong that this all had to have sent him reeling. Knowing that it was the prime source of his inspiration—and of his creativity in general—he needed to work out what it meant to be a popular entertainer trying to create within a metropolis that the rest of the country was treating like it had the plague.

That’s what Annie Hall is really about—Diane Keaton was just his Trojan Horse, a way to open some doors and to make sure the studio got its money back.

The movie comes very close to being a drama. Just slightly shift the emphasis of almost every one of the scenes and it becomes a sobering look at people desperately trying to define themselves at a time when there were very few reliable guideposts to lean on. Had Allen approached the film that way—although he wasn’t yet that good of a filmmaker—Annie Hall would have been wrenching instead of hilarious.

Consider how Allen treats his own character—which is the same as saying, how he treats himself. This is not a very flattering portrayal—miles away from the narcissism he’s too often accused of. Alvy Singer displays a lot of bluster, and uses his jokes as his armor, but you can tell the guy is hopelessly lost—which Allen expresses through the movie’s loose, improvisational structure, trying on different styles and techniques and attitudes to see what will stick.

But that shouldn’t be mistaken as Allen himself flailing from behind the camera. Just consider the famous scene of him and Keaton on line at The New Yorker, where Allen humiliates the pontificator by dragging a seemingly embalmed Marshall McLuhan into the shot. It’s a nuanced and logistically complex near-3-minute single-take piece of bravura comedy filmmaking that only a self-assured and truly inspired director could have pulled off. And that’s just one example among many.

True, this isn’t the film Allen set out to make, and a lot of Annie Hall did come together in the editing room. But the list of genius directors who’ve confided that the real filmmaking happens in the editing is long. And they’re not wrong.

Allen started out with a film that was true to his intentions but was all cake and no icing, and he sweetened it just enough to make it palatable for his audience, which was expecting another Sleeper. In the end, he found himself named King of the Romantic Comedy with a couple of Oscars left at his door—an experience he likely wasn’t expecting and that probably scared the bejeezus out of him.

Annie Hall was Allen’s Rhapsody in Blue—a loosely structured, jazz-inflected work that announced that he had ambitions that went beyond being a successful pop performer. And, as with Gershwin, he was never able to do anything quite that fluid and intuitive again, instead trying on different genres defined by others with decidedly mixed results.

But Hall holds up. A surprising number of the jokes and gags still land, his approach to the material and the scenes remains fertile unexplored territory for other filmmakers, and the way he took the careening wreck of New York City and turned it into the most vital and romantic place on Earth is still seductive. The City owes him a statue—but then some group of Yahoos would come along and demand that it be taken down.

Talking about seeing the film in HD is difficult. Gordon Willis’s cinematography is known for being dark and bold, but it’s very subtle, almost documentary-like here. In HD, it feels flatter than it should—not unwatchable, just flat. And then there’s the weird dilemma of having to separate the shots where he deliberately and beautifully exploited grain—like the famous shot of Annie and Alvy standing on a pier at twilight with the East River bridges arrayed behind them—from the ones that are overrun with grain because the elements for the transfer probably weren’t the best.

As for the sound—come on, this is a Woody Allen movie. One of Allen’s greatest strengths as a filmmaker is the ability to make his material compelling without relying on CGI, flashy editing, explosions, or other gratuitous effects. This is moviemaking stripped down to its essence, and it can be cleansing to luxuriate in a piece of cinema that doesn’t pivot on its ability to mercilessly abuse you.

Forget that this is supposed to be a romantic comedy. Forget about its Oscars. Forget about the well-heeled mob of Hollywood conformists bleating for Allen’s blood. Approach Annie Hall as an adventurous and innovative and unusually honest piece of filmmaking and you’ll get the chance to experience—or re-experience—one of the best American films of the final quarter of the last century, the movie that helped start the wave that brought New York back from the dead, for better or worse.

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 | This HD presentation feels flatter than it should—not unwatchable, just flat

SOUND | Come on, this is a Woody Allen movie

Review: Jojo Rabbit

review | Jojo Rabbit

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Seemingly about a Hitler-obsessed German youth, Taika Waititi’s absurdist comedy turns out to be aimed more at the cultural absurdities of the present

by Dennis Burger
February 7, 2020

In any other year, Jojo Rabbit would be fighting for the top spot among my favorite recent films. This absurdist lark from Taika Waititi (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople) is exactly what you would expect upon learning that the crazy bastard who actually made a great Thor movie against all odds then turned his weird attention toward the Holocaust and the Hitler Youth.

On the surface, Jojo Rabbit is the tale of a young lad so infatuated with der Führer that he conjures Hitler out of thin air, Calvin & Hobbes-style, not only as a best imaginary friend but also as a fellow agent of unwitting chaos and something of a conscience. Things take a turn for the weirder when little Jojo discovers a Jewish girl hiding within the walls of his home and is forced to choose between the safety of his family and his commitment to an ideology he doesn’t understand in the slightest.

And if that’s as far as you decide to dig, there are loads of laughs to be had, assuming you’re not horribly offended by the premise. So many, in fact, that by the time the closing credits rolled, my cheeks legitimately hurt and I swear I felt abs forming under my tubby middle-aged tummy.

But just as Waititi used the laugh-a-minute Thor: Ragnarok as a vehicle for some very real ruminations about colonialism and the lasting impacts thereof, he uses Jojo Rabbit to not only take the piss out of fascism, but also to explore its appeal. Seriously, what causes a precocious little boy to Sieg Heil! and buy into all manner of horrible conspiracies about the Jewish people? Furthermore, why is it that bumbling idiots seem to hold such sway over massive swaths of the general population? Waititi seems to be saying that if we can’t understand that, we’re ill-equipped to combat it.

Unlike so many other filmmakers who have recently grappled with notions about why inherently good people do bad things, Waititi actually has answers. Pretty simple ones, when you get right down to it, but answers nonetheless.

His primary conclusion: “We’re asking the wrong questions.” Right from the opening scene, Waititi uses a German dub of the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” cut together with screaming crowds of Nazis that are almost indistinguishable from fawning crowds of Beatlemaniacs to slyly point to the fact that cults of personality—any personality—are at least part of the problem.

Along the way from that cheeky beginning to the inglorious end of World War II, Waititi takes shots at groupthink, cognitive dissonance, nationalism, and identity politics in equal measure, but when you get right down to it, what he seems to be saying is that the root of all our problems is a lack of genuine human connection. And he uses the anachronistic disconnect between his setting and his choice of soundtrack music, language, and mannerisms to point out that, for all our pontification about social media and modern life, this isn’t a new phenomenon.

None of this should come as a surprise if you’re already familiar with Waititi’s work. What does come as a surprise is how often he plays it safe with this one. I guess he figured he had to tug on the reins from time to time to keep from offending literally everyone, and maybe he has a point. I wouldn’t know, since I’m not offended by much of anything. But sometimes the tonal shifts toward the conventional seem a little forced and insincere. Thankfully, the expected turn toward the sentimental at the end of the film is pulled off with such heartfelt authenticity that it’s difficult not to wooed by it all.

My only remaining niggle—and this is entirely subjective—is that Scarlett Johansson is somewhat miscast as Jojo’s mother. And I say this as someone who thinks Johansson is actually underrated as an actor. She positively transforms her body language and her entire demeanor for the part, but something about it all doesn’t feel quite right. Especially when the rest of the casting—especially the two adolescent leads—is so spot on.

Another unexpected thing is how gorgeous the film is from beginning to end. Mihai Malaimare, Jr., in his first collaboration with Waititi as far as I can tell, proves himself to be an absolute master of color theory, bathing nearly every scene with a deft mix of rich warm hues and crisp, cool punctuation that’s delivered beautifully by Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR presentation. Jojo Rabbit was shot at 3.4K and finished in a 2K digital intermediate, so it might not satisfy the dermatologically obsessed or those who chase razor-sharp edges. But the expanded color gamut of HDR10 does wonders for the mix of subtle pastels and retina-shocking primary hues.

Whatever concerns you may have about resolution, this is one you’ll want to watch on as large a screen as possible, by the way. Malaimare goes for some unexpected long shots at times to capture the beauty and scope of the scenery during some dialogue-heavy scenes, where other cinematographers might have opted for tight closeups instead. In a world where streaming video is squeezing commercial cinemas out of the equation more and more every year, he defiantly composes for a massive canvas, assuming (hoping?) that the images will take up as much of the viewer’s field of view as possible.

The sound mix isn’t quite as expansive but Kaleidescape’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is a faultless presentation of it. The sound design is far more interested in servicing the needs of the film than exercising your speakers, and as such it’s largely a three-channel mix, spread across the front, with surround channels only used to add ambience and a sense of space until late in the film when the action gets a little Looney Tunes. But that’s exactly the approach this film needs.

As I said, in any other year, Jojo Rabbit would be hovering right near the top of my annual favorites. If there’s anything truly working against it, it’s not the instances in which Waititi plays it safe, or in which Johansson’s knack for emotional complexity works against her in a role that should be more one-note until it isn’t. No, the only thing really holding the film back is that it’s forced to share oxygen with a comedy like Parasite, which is more unapologetically unflinching and navigates its tonal shifts more effectively.

But don’t let that keep you from watching this one. Any film that can make me guffaw as hard and as frequently as this one did without insulting my intelligence has a spot in my film library. It may not be perfect, but it’s a necessary film right now.

PICTURE | The film’s deft mix of rich warm hues and crisp, cool punctuation is delivered beautifully by Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR presentation

SOUND | The sound design is far more interested in servicing the needs of the film than in exercising your speakers, and as such it’s largely a three-channel affair that’s faultlessly presented by Kaleidescape’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix

Review: The Godfather

review | The Godfather

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The Godfather—The Greatest, or Just Great?

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The 4K treatment of this cinematic landmark can seem stunning—until you watch the new transfer of Part II

by Michael Gaughn
April 1, 2022

I was all prepared to write a review that boiled down to: Yes, there are problems—maybe a lot of problems—with The Godfather in 4K, but it’s ultimately worth watching because it wipes away the memory of all previous home releases, allowing you to reconnect with the film anew. But then I watched The Godfather Part II in 4K. And I realized I’d been had. I’m a little ashamed to admit that had I not watched the sequel before I wrote this, you would be reading a completely different review—one I would have had to repent for later.*

I’m going to be stepping onto Dennis Burger’s turf a little here, but that’s unavoidable. And, unlike with most any other two movies out there, I don’t think it’s unfair to review the first Godfather film in the context of Part II because it’s extremely likely vast numbers of people will watch both of these films in 4K, possibly back to back, and will end up having an experience somewhat similar to mine, although they might not reach the same conclusions.

It all comes down to this: The Godfather Part II looks like the film Gordon Willis shot and that Paramount presented in 1974. The transfer is visually consistent throughout, whatever tweaks were made to the images are judiciously subtle, and there’s a constant flow of organic grain that gives it an appropriate analog energy and warmth. The first Godfather, though, is all over the map visually, with HDR accentuating the flaws of the not infrequent patches of compromised footage and with a lot of heavy-handed digital manipulation scrubbing away far too much of that gorgeous, essential grain. Yes, it does sometimes feel like you can reach into the frame, but that’s not the movie Willis lensed. The 4K transfer can be dazzling when you first experience it—I readily admit I fell for it like a brick—but it’s ultimately just a kind of gimmick that couldn’t run more counter to the gritty elegance that helped define the original film.

Reviewers rarely find themselves in this position—a double-edged one that puts their necks way out there because it allows them to be held so easily accountable—but feel free to take any of the examples below from the first film and compare them to how similar material was handled in the transfer of the second. I just don’t see how anyone could argue that The Godfather transfer is the more faithful presentation of the two. And, beyond that, I don’t see how anyone could find the overall experience of The Godfather in 4K superior to the experience of Part II in the same format—unless, of course, you just never much liked Part II.

Let me cite a few things, then try to pull the threads together.

The first moment that got my attention and that, in retrospect, felt off, was early in the opening scene when it cuts to a medium shot of The Godfather sitting behind his desk. Everything until then had looked OK, but that shot had the video-like sheen that always sends my antennae shooting out a mile whenever I’m watching something in HDR. Fortunately, there are few instances that egregious in the rest of the transfer, but it was the first strong signal that this presentation might not adhere closely to either the letter or the spirit of the movie.

A more frequent problem was that, once you decide to start cleaning and enhancing shots, you inevitably expose and accentuate the flaws in the most compromised footage, which can seriously disrupt the experience of watching the film. It’s not news that many of the outdoor shots during the wedding sequence have never synced up well visually. All of that is only hammered home here. Similarly, the reliance on stock footage was beginning to die off at the time The Godfather was released, but audiences were still willing to buy into the illusion. But all of the too crisp, too vivid original footage to either side of the stock stuff here makes the use of the latter seem inept. The shot under the el, which has always been borderline, goes full-bore late-period Monet in this transfer, in a way that would make an uninitiated viewer question the filmmakers’ competence.

Then there are the seriously crushed blacks—not consistently but often enough to stick out sorely. All of which is ironic for a film that’s legendary for its chiaroscuro style. Two easy-to-spot examples: When the Don is getting ready to leave the Genco offices with Fredo, right before he’s gunned down in the street, and the tighter shot on the black car that stops in front of the hospital while Michael and Enzo stand at the foot of the stairs. Instead of having the sense of someone lurking in the back seat, you get a glimpse into an impenetrable void.

My biggest slice of beef, though, is reserved exactly for the shots that look most stunning. With almost all trace of the grain banished, they’re pristine, vivid, and yes, like you can reach into them—but that’s not the movie that captured the public imagination back in 1972 and influenced practically every film made since. You won’t find anything like that in Part II—not because some of the footage couldn’t have been distorted that way but because whoever handled that transfer decided not to go there. The scene in the first film where Michael finds out his father has been left unprotected at the hospital loses much of its tension because, without the constant low simmer grain provides, the shots of the empty corridors just look impressive, not menacing.

I doubt any of my arguments will sway anyone in the “Look—pretty!” crowd that sees anything that’s been given an HDR buff and shine as an improvement, but chances are they’re just watching Godfather the conformist shibboleth—the something-to-have-on-in-the-background that cable’s AMC has managed to marathon into the ground—rather than the movie itself. All I can say is that they don’t know what they’re seeing, therefore, they can’t know what they’re missing.

Look: 4K will always be a very mixed blessing. When done right, it can result in transfers like The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and The Godfather Part II that honor the films they’re meant to serve. But then there are Jabberwocks like Citizen Kane and The Godfather, disjointed experiences that take you someplace other than where the filmmakers wanted you to go. Watching The Godfather in 4K HDR can be an enjoyable, even edifying, experience, but you have to understand and make allowances for what’s feeding what you’re seeing. The Godfather Part II, though, is pure viewing pleasure, something you can surrender to utterly without ever once having your critical brain get in the way.

*This is, for me, a very unorthodox review because it focuses, from start to finish, on the transfer of the film. Traditionally there would also be some commentary on the film itself, its cultural or historical context, etc.—which, in most reviews, adds up to little more than obligatory throat-clearing. Here, it’s actually important—but not as important as telling the tale of two transfers. Which is why I’ve shuttled my comments on the movie itself to a separate column.

PICTURE | Crisp and bright and visually dazzling, with blacks frequently taken deep into the netherworld—but that’s not the movie that changed filmmaking forever

SOUND | It was originally mixed in mono so it should be listened to in mono. Unfortunately—and inexcusably—that’s not an option here.

Review: The Godfather Part II

review | The Godfather Part II

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This release sets a new standard for how an older 35mm film should be transferred to 4K HDR—unlike the new release of the original Godfather

by Dennis Burger
April 1, 2022

As I write this, Mike Gaughn and I have been frantically calling each other at odd hours for the better part of a week, trading notes on the 4K HDR releases of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II and trying to make sense of them both. He, unfortunately, drew the short straw on purpose and has to wrap his mind around the new restoration work done for the original film, which is an order of magnitude better than any previous home video release but suffers from some glaring (and, I would argue, at times unavoidable) issues that will be irksome to cinephiles and subliminally jarring to the uninitiated.

Just because he has the harder task doesn’t make me the lucky one, though, because I’m saddled with the challenge of explaining why the image for Part II—which is less obviously restored, obviously less manipulated, not as sharp, more consistently grainy, and less pronounced in its contrasts—is not merely the superior transfer but one of the finest film restoration and preservation projects I’ve ever seen of a 35mm film of this vintage.

The differences between the new UHD HDR releases of these two films are plain to see from almost the first frame of each. With Part II, blacks aren’t overly crushed, grain is consistent throughout, and although the image may appear softer, a closer look reveals that it genuinely contains more meaningful detail, not to mention much more organic textures.

Why does this matter? Let’s take the early scene in which Senator Geary meets with Michael Corleone in his office. Compare it to the opening scene of the first film and you’ll see that blacks aren’t as black, contrasts aren’t as stark, and the image doesn’t pop as much.

On a superficial level, the second film might not quite measure up to the first by videophile standards. But look closer and you’ll see that the image has more depth, nuance, and delineation in its darkest regions. Geary’s pinstripe suit, for example—nearly as lost in the shadows as it is—still reads as fabric photographed in low-light conditions. The subtle gradations come through.

Fast-forward to the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Michael and you’ll see a similar effect. As Corleone’s men scramble through darkness punctuated by spotlights, there are times in which characters are backlit, mostly rendered in silhouette, especially right around the 36-minute mark. Judged by the criteria we normally apply to home video transfers, the image here might seem a little gray and washed out, with blacks that aren’t fully black.

But ignore the standards by which you think you’re supposed to judge a video transfer and just take the image on its own terms, and you’ll see that there’s real shape to these figures—that even in near-total darkness they still have form. Try to bring the darkest parts of this image down to true, 0 IRE black and these figures would be reduced to construction-paper cutouts. Meaningful shadow detail would be lost.

I could give a million other examples (perhaps more, given the length of the film), but most would boil down to the same conclusion: Unlike the new restoration of The Godfather, the work done to Part II this time around is less obvious, manipulative, and transformative . . . but in almost every respect more revelatory.

And some of that is a consequence of the increased resolution of UHD, which allows the fine film grain and the detail inextricably intertwined within it to shine through. But much of it also has to do with the new HDR grade, which highlights the different shooting techniques used by Gordon Willis to delineate the prequel and sequel portions of the film in a way no previous home video transfer could.

The flashbacks in particular will now be my go-to demo material for illustrating the difference between contrast and dynamic range, two fundamental aspects of image reproduction that are far too often conflated in our discussions of picture quality. Watching the movie in HDR for the first time, I couldn’t shake the notion that Willis must have shot much of the film with low-contrast filters, something that has never been quite as blatantly obvious in older home video transfers. A quick internet search confirmed this.

But the relative lack of contrast is balanced by the fact that there’s a ton of subtlety in the value scale—subtlety that couldn’t be properly captured by older home video standards. In short, this new effort proves once and for all that HDR isn’t simply about blacker blacks and whiter whites but rather the number of steps between the darkest and lightest portions of the image.

The new HDR grade also allows for a color palette that is still pushed toward the warm end of the spectrum, especially in the flashbacks, but one that lacks the bad-spray-on-tan effect that plagued previous releases. And mind you, I don’t mean to imply that the skin tones are true to life. But they certainly seem to be truer to what Willis was trying to render.

There’s one other aspect of this new release I’m grateful for: That all this necessary scrutiny prompted me to go back and listen to the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix again. It sounds like exactly the same mix that was included with the 2008 Blu-ray release, but it’s been a while since I listened to that one because the 5.1 remix of the first film is so distracting I got into the habit of watching both films in mono just for the sake of consistency.

The 5.1 remix for Part II deserves reevaluation, though. It’s very well done, and suffers from none of the odd soundstaging of diegetic music and tonal inconsistencies that make the first film so hard to digest in anything other than mono. The remix for Part II is more aggressive, more adventurous, more of a departure in many ways from the original sound experience. But it has to be admitted that it simply works.

The one disappointment with Kaleidescape’s release of Part II is that Paramount has, for whatever reason, withheld the bonus features accompanying the UHD Blu-ray boxset, some of them created for this release. As such, I decided to also snag the films on iTunes, just to enjoy the bonuses.

Given what a proponent of streaming I am, I also couldn’t resist the urge to compare the image quality of the Apple and Kaleidescape releases, with the expectation of no significant differences. Boy howdy was I wrong. Even when viewing the iTunes release on Roku Ultra (a superior streamer to the Apple TV in almost every sense) via the Apple TV+ app, I was struck by how inferior it was to the Kaleidescape experience in every way except for the wider color gamut and expanded value scale. In streaming, the fine grain structure is almost entirely lost. And as such, much of the textural impact of the film is lost with it.

I’m not sure I can entirely explain this. After all, I’ve seen some seriously grainy films on Apple TV+ that stood toe-to-toe with their UHD Blu-ray or equivalent releases. My best guess is that rendering grain of this sort at streaming bitrates normally forces the encoder to lean hard on the mode-dependent coefﬁcient scanning capabilities of HEVC to prioritize higher frequencies. But for The Godfather and The Godfather Part II especially, the image requires smaller coefficients across the board to faithfully capture both high- and low-frequency image data, and that necessitates much higher bitrates.

All of which is a mouthful of a way to say that streaming just doesn’t cut it for this one. You need to experience The Godfather Part II at the highest bitrates possible to truly appreciate the work done on this restoration.

Until something better comes along, which hardly seems likely any time soon, this will be my new reference standard for how older 35mm films should be restored, remastered, and encoded for UHD HDR.

PICTURE | The increased resolution of UHD allows the fine film grain and the detail inextricably intertwined within it to shine through, while the HDR grade displays a ton of subtlety in the value scale, showing that HDR isn’t just about blacker blacks and whiter whites

SOUND | The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is more aggressive and adventurous than the original mono but is very well done overall

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