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Review: Jaws

review | Jaws

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The film that launched Spielberg’s career gets a respectful 4K HDR/Atmos restoration

by John Sciacca
updated May 30, 2023

I was five when Jaws came out in the summer of 1975, and for my dad thought it would be a good idea to take our family to see it at a drive-in theater. So, I remember Jaws for absolutely ruining night swimming for me for my entire life, and for giving me a fairly unhealthy fear of the water that persists.

So, yeah. Jaws has been a part of my life for just about as long as I remember. And you know what? The film still holds up. The acting, the dialogue, the chemistry, the editing . . . it’s all still great. The best parts of the film are aboard the Orca with Quint (Robert Shaw), Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider). The dynamic between the three of them is fantastic, and Quint’s monologue about surviving the USS Indianapolis is still powerful and compelling .

Of course, John Williams’ Academy Award-winning score retains all its tension and drama, but even the shark scenes and effects remain believable and frightening. Sure, there are scarier, more brutal, and bloodier shark films out there today, but Jaws sets the standard for scary things in the water, and the bar remains high. About the only thing that really dates the film are the suits worn by Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) and the variety of clearly out-of-fashion swimwear seen on the beaches of Amity.

For its 45th Anniversary release, Universal Studios has given Jaws a full 4K HDR restoration, and this transfer is taken from a new 4K digital intermediate. The transfer retains the look of the 35mm film’s photochemical origins, with grain visible in the pale blue and low-lit evening or sunsetting skies, but it’s as if layers of age have been wiped away to produce images that are just clean and new-looking. This isn’t a movie with lots of sharp, detailed edges—though it appears to look sharper and more detailed later in the film aboard the Orca—or one that has micro-details leaping off the screen, but rather a transfer that retains the best of both its film and digital look to present something that looks both new and correct for its period.

Closeups occasionally reveal plenty of detail, with one shot of the Mayor’s anchor-festooned suit revealing fine, sharp blue single-line pinstriping detail that was horizontal on the lapel and diagonal on the breast and arms; and foreground objects have nice defined edges.But this transfer is more about the overall pristine look than moments of single-strands-of-hair pixel resolution. Some shots look a bit soft and defocused, but this appears to be more an issue with the original focal point during filming than a lack of resolution in the transfer.

They took a pretty delicate touch with the HDR grading, with occasional bright highlights such as the opening flames of the beach fires, or bright lights aboard ships, but the added dynamic range lends itself to more natural and realistic-looking images as light levels get low, and we retain deep blacks but still plenty of shadow details. There are several underwater scenes with a variety of lighting, or with bright lights probing through smoke and mist on top of the water that could cause banding issues, but images remain clean and distortion-free.

When I heard Jaws had been given a Dolby TrueHD Atmos audio makeover I was . . . curious. What could an immersive sound mix do with a 45-year-old mono master short of possibly being used to gimmicky effect that spoiled a classic? Well, much like the video, the new audio track takes the best of the Jaws soundtrack and uses modern technology to expand and improve it. This is most noticeable in John Williams’ fantastic score, which is now lifted above the front channels and mixed into an enveloping canopy overhead, filling the room and surrounding you in the iconic music.

Beyond that, they’ve used audio cues to subtly enhance other moments throughout the film. There are bird chirps, ocean waves crashing or lapping against things, wind sounds, or creaks and groans of the boat rolling in the water that all place you in scenes. On the beach, we get a nice mix of radios playing, and a helicopter flyover as it patrols the waters for sharks.

Dialogue is mostly clear and understandably—especially with Williams’ score given room up in the height speakers—except for a few moments where many people are talking or shouting at once in some of the crowded exterior scenes. Also, don’t expect much from your subwoofer, though it does get a little room to show off during the finale.

The best word I can use to describe this 45th Anniversary release is “restraint.” They used technology where available to improve the experience while careful not to do anything that would be detrimental to the Jaws so many of us remember.

While the Kaleidescape download doesn’t include any of the fairly extensive extras that accompany the 4K Blu-ray disc—which includes two near feature-length documentaries, The Making of Jaws and The Shark is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy of Jaws—these are the same extras included with the 2012 Blu-ray release, so if you have that, you aren’t missing out on anything new.

Jaws is one of my favorite films and this newly restored version illustrates why it remains a classic that belongs in every collection.

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 transfer retains the look of the 35mm film’s photochemical origins but it’s as if layers of age have been wiped away to produce images that are just clean and new-looking

SOUND | The Atmos mix takes the best of the Jaws soundtrack and uses modern technology to expand and improve it

Review: Spirited Away

review | Spirited Away

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The 1080p presentation is able to capture the look of this anime classic without compromise

by Dennis Burger
Updated May 28.2023

Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, Spirited Away makes me long for a time machine. Not necessarily so I could dial back the last 18 years and view the film again for the first time (although that would be a treat) but so I could capture my impressions after having just seen the film with fresh eyes.

I say this only because I come to Spirited Away with so much baggage that I find it difficult to discuss the film in and of itself. After nearly two decades of reading doctoral theses about linguistic symbolism, of devouring literary and film analyses, of falling down rabbit holes of spiritual, religious, and philosophical themes and the their interconnections it isn’t easy to simply sit back and consume the film as a work of art.

So I did the next-best thing. I sat beside my wife this weekend as she experienced this weird and captivating journey for the first time. Glancing out of the corner of my eye to see her giggle and applaud, weep and gasp, I was reminded of that first viewing. And I was also reminded that you don’t need to know a damned thing about Spirited Away to appreciate it as one of the best animated films ever made.

So forget all of the symbolism and the film’s deep ties to Shintoism and Japanese cultural norms (some admirable, some deplorable). What makes Spirited Away work as a two-hour adventure ?

The animation certainly helps. Not only is this Miyazaki’s most visually stunning work, it also represents perhaps the most artful (and subtle) marriage of hand-drawn 2D and computer-rendered 3D animation ever committed to the screen. The worlds of the ten-year-old hero Chihiro (both the material and spirit worlds) seem more real and tangible than most cinematic settings captured in live action.

But it isn’t merely the animation that creates this perception,. What makes Miyazaki a master filmmaker is that he understands how to lead the viewer through a story and its world in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a passive viewing experience.

Perhaps the best example is the denouement, in which Chihiro must travel to confront the twin sister of the sorceress who stole her name and employed her in a bathhouse for gods and spirits. In most films—especially fantasy films—her journey would have been written as an epic quest, fraught with danger and excitement. But in Miyazaki’s hands, though, it is a quiet and contemplative train ride. This shouldn’t work, but it does, on two levels: It gives both little Chihiro and the viewer alike a chance to reflect and to catch our breaths together.

It’s a technique Miyazaki employs in most of his films, and one he describes using the Japanese word ma, which roughly translates into “pause” or “gap”. But no film—by Miyazaki or any other filmmaker—makes such effective use of this technique as does this scene. And it works so well here because this ma isn’t simply a quiet break from the action. It also gives the viewer the opportunity to revel in Spirited Away on the level of pure audiovisual experience. It may be the first time most viewers fully appreciate how seamlessly the 2D and 3D animation are blended. It might also be the first time you have room to truly meditate on Joe Hisaishi’s melancholic score.

Spirited Away has been likened to stories like The Wizard of Oz and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with good reason. It is, on one level, an amazing coming-of-age tale. But, despite its deep roots in Japanese mythology and folklore, there’s something uniquely universal about Spirited Away.

The film rewards further exploration, sure, but that would be pointless if it wasn’t worth watching over and over again purely on its own terms, with its obvious themes about greed and kindness and the nature of the self. Force me to construct a list of films that demand to be owned rather than merely rented and Spirited Away would be on it.

Thankfully, Kaleidescape’s download is a wonderful way to own the film. We’re presented with both the original Japanese soundtrack and the surprisingly good English-language dub (overseen by Pixar’s John Lasseter) in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The film defaults to Japanese with English subtitles, but if you’re watching with younger viewers (or simply refuse to read captions), the English dub maintains the delightful score, as well as the effective and atmospheric sound mix. Both versions use the surround channels and subwoofer to extend the worlds of the film out into the room, and to give both weight and depth to the onscreen action.

Kaleidescape does present the film without the bonus features found on both Disney’s 2015 Blu-ray release and the 2017 follow-up by GKIDS, but those bonus goodies did little to enrich the film. What’s more important is that the Kaleidescape presentation is superior to the already excellent 2017 Blu-ray. You could complain that Spirited Away isn’t available in 4K but this better-than-Blu-ray-quality 1080p presentation lacks for nothing in terms of capturing all the details of the original animation. There’s a second or two here or there that might benefit from a wider color gamut but without the ability to A/B this transfer against a hypothetical 4K re-scan of the film elements, I can’t say that for sure.

What I can say is that this belongs in your collection whether you’re a fan of Japanese animation or not. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself so enraptured by Miyazaki’s magical worlds that you end up exploring the rest of his catalog almost immediately. If you’re looking for a little guidance, I would suggest next diving into My Neighbor Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle, both of which are also available on Kaleidescape, along with rest of Studio Ghibli’s long-form catalog.

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 | This better-than-Blu-ray-quality 1080p presentation lacks for nothing in terms of capturing all the details of the original animation

SOUND | The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix uses the surround channels and subwoofer to extend the worlds of the film out into the room, and to give both weight and depth to the onscreen action

Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai

review | The Bridge on the River Kwai

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The 4K HDR/Atmos version surpasses all previous home releases, breathing new life into the David Lean classic

by Dennis Burger
updated May 26, 2023

The Bridge on the River Kwai has never been a great-looking film, at least not in my lifetime. Whether via VHS, widescreen VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, or even high-definition Blu-ray, it has long been plagued by an overly contrasty, crushed, murky look that didn’t quash its emotional impact but nonetheless seemed like a missed opportunity, especially given the film’s lush setting.

Given that the biggest problem marring the look has been blacks that are too black and highlights that are too bright, an HDR release may seem somewhat pointless—or even perhaps detrimental. But if anything, The Bridge on the River Kwai’s 4K HDR release via Kaleidescape does a wonderful job of conveying the difference between contrast and dynamic range. The HDR grade does darken the darks a little, and brightens the highlights spectacularly, but the most important thing it does is introduce more steps between those two extremes, breathing subtlety and richness into the shadows and bringing the image to life in ways I never would have imagined possible. In short, it delivers the nuances inherent to the original film that have never survived before now in the transition to home video.

That’s not to say that the film now looks perfect. Kwai was shot with cobbled-together CinemaScope cameras without the benefit of zoom lenses. As such, the very first scene we see, of a soaring and circling hawk, was quite obviously blown up extensively, resulting in an overly grainy, noisy mess.

Thankfully, such scenes are rare. A more common occurrence, though, are the optical fade transitions between scenes. These have always looked rough but here they look even rougher, if only by comparison to the gorgeous presentation of the rest of the film. It appears that these fade transitions weren’t sourced from the original negative that served as the basis for the bulk of the restoration but look at least a generation removed, and my guess is that in restoring the film, they had to pull the fades from a print. So you’ll go from a vibrant, gorgeously textured scene into an overly contrasty, noisier fade, then right into another lovely scene.

Until you get used to this, the transitions can be a little more jarring in the 4K HDR presentation than they are in the Blu-ray-quality download also included with this release. So, you’re left with a choice: Do you watch the film in truly lovely quality with the occasional, fleeting downgrade to a second-generation source or do you opt for a sort of bleh-but-acceptable presentation that’s more consistent from beginning to end?

I’ll opt for the former any day, secure in the knowledge that this is absolutely the best The Bridge on the River Kwai will ever look. I’m guessing the original negatives for those fade transitions were damaged beyond repair in post-production, so there’s no good source for additional restoration. But once you accept the fact that a second or two here and there will look a little less than stunning, the HDR download—released here in its proper 2.55:1 aspect ratio, not 2.40:1 as the tech specs would indicate—is an absolute revelation.

The Kaleidescape download is also supported by a 5.1 surround soundtrack that seems to be identical to the 2010 Blu-ray release (which itself was based on the restored and enhanced audio track I believe I first remember hearing on the 1994 LaserDisc release). There are some additional ambient sound effects I don’t remember hearing on the VHS releases, which I no longer have the ability to play. The good news is, this isn’t one of those ham-fisted surround remixes that attempt to make the film sound more modern. Everything in the mix evokes the original (which I think was a four-track magnetic soundtrack).

I almost completely skipped the Atmos soundtrack included with this release since I’m not fond of that format for movies to begin with, much less 60-year-old classics. But I’m glad I gave it a listen on a whim. It sounds like the mix was mostly based on the 2010 remix, which itself was based on the 1993 reconstruction of the original audio elements, but there are a few key differences. Dialogue that was obviously overdubbed sounds less obviously overdubbed, and the height channels open up the sound field and expand the film’s ambience in a truly subtle but effective way. If you’re looking for a soundtrack that pushes your ceiling speakers to their extremes, keep on looking. But if you’re looking for an audio experience that’s true to the original, just with some extra breathing room, give this one a listen—even if you like Atmos less than I do.

As for extras, you’ll have to download the Blu-ray-quality version from Kaleidescape to check them out but it’s worth the extra effort. In addition to a trio of period promotional materials, as well as a short documentary about film criticism made for USC film students, there’s a fantastic retrospective documentary by Laurent Bouzereau made for the two-disc collector’s edition DVD release from 2000. While somewhat glossing over the film’s historical inaccuracies, the doc is a bit more forthright than most retrospectives and is certainly worth a look.

Even if you don’t care about supplemental material, though, The Bridge on the River Kwai belongs in any good film collection. This isn’t one you want to wait for TCM to air, since it rewards repeated viewings. Consider, for example, how its complex themes evolve as you shift attention from William Holden, Alec Guinness, and even Sessue Hayakawa, and focus on one above the others as the story’s main driving force. It isn’t really until you watch it again, placing all three on equal footing, that you can get to the heart of what the film is about: The consequences of ideology crashing into principles, when neither completely comports with reality.

And unless you’re still buying discs, Kaleidescape is about the only way to own this 4K HDR presentation, since for whatever reason Vudu, Amazon, and many other digital providers are limited to the HD release.

Again, The Bridge on the River Kwai isn’t a technically perfect film, but Kaleidescape’s presentation so far exceeded my expectations that all of the above nitpicking feels like pedantry. For the first time, the film lives in a form that’s worthy of the best display in your home. And if for whatever reason you’ve never seen it, I’m a little jealous that this is how you get to experience for the first time.

PICTURE | The HDR grade introduces more steps between the dark and bright extremes, breathing subtlety and richness into the shadows and bringing the image to life in ways that weren’t possible on home video before now

SOUND | The Atmos mix makes dialogue that was obviously overdubbed sound less obviously overdubbed, and the height channels open up the sound field and expand the film’s ambience subtly but effectively

Review: Easy Rider

review | Easy Rider

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Helped by a 4K HDR upgrade, this counterculture classic proves to be surprisingly relevant to the present

by Dennis Burger
updated May 24, 2023

The last time I sat down to watch Easy Rider was sometime in 1990. Sixties nostalgia was in full swing since grunge hadn’t really exploded and given the burgeoning decade something resembling its own identity. I was in my late teens and the film was barely in its twenties, and yet it felt archaic to me—a time capsule, if you will. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t compelling, but I think I mostly saw Easy Rider as something akin to a 95-minute music video for some of the best tunes dominating classic rock radio at the time. And sure, I understood its lasting influence on American New Wave cinema, but it still struck me as little more than a nostalgia trip and a disjointed one at that.

Fast-forward 30 more years, and Easy Rider feels relevant to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined before digging into Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR release. For me, Easy Rider isn’t just a hop into the Wayback Machine. It’s a relatable portrait of a turbulent and divided America; of senseless violence and othering; of rage and misplaced resentment boiling over into identity politics and spilling out into interpersonal strife; of the end of an era.

And sure, it’s not quite like looking out the window—the clothing looks more like costumes and some of the characters feel more like caricatures. But, despite all that, Easy Rider still feels like it has something to say about our present moment in history for perhaps the first time since its release in 1969. (I’m reminded of a popular adage in geek culture: “All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.” I’m also reminded of the oft-quoted observation by Marx: “All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice . . . the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”)

Part of the film’s reinvigorated applicability may have something to do with its structure—a series of loosely connected vignettes that barely add up to a plot. According to legend, most of what was left on the cutting-room floor when the film was whittled down from 220 to 95 minutes could be considered story. And what we’re left with is more of a moment-to-moment experience than anything else. And I think this forces a bit of reflection on what the film leaves unsaid: The racial tensions of the era, the conflict in Vietnam, the political infighting. Despite the fact that it doesn’t mention any of the above, all of this looms large over Easy Rider. And since they’re not explicit, it’s easy to impose some of our own sociopolitical strife in their place.

The new 4K HDR transfer also helps immensely, at least when it comes to getting immersed in the weirdness of Easy Rider. If you know the film well, you may be wondering what the enhanced resolution does for the imagery. The short answer is: Not much. In large part, really nothing. But the expanded dynamic range and enhanced color gamut bring the cinematography to life in ways home video simply hasn’t been capable of doing until recently.

I’m reminded of my observations about the new 4K HDR release of The Wizard of Oz. In similar respects, Easy Rider benefits not only from more vibrancy and purity of colors, but also from the selective intensity of primary hues. In past transfers, the entire palette had to be boosted or muted, brightened or darkened universally. With HDR, dazzling Crayola-colored reds and blues comfortably share the screen with more subdued pastels and weather-worn pigmentations, and intense flashes of light comfortably share the frame with deep shadows that nonetheless contain nuance. Peter Fonda’s flag-adorned chopper practically glows against a backdrop that’s more often than not dull and dingy. For the first time, the home video presentation of Easy Rider actually looks and feels like film, and thankfully the restoration efforts—while cleaning up dirt and scratches and other ravages of time—have done nothing to rob the footage of its wonderfully organic and grainy photochemical chaos.

Of course, there’s not much that could be done with the sound mix. The iconic soundtrack music sounds amazing in both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and stereo mixes. But the dialogue and other on-set audio still sound as if they were recorded with a couple of tin cans and some string, and there’s not much to be done about that short of egregious meddling.

The Kaleidescape download also comes with a couple of bonus goodies: An audio commentary with Dennis Hopper and an hour-long documentary from 1999 called Shaking the Cage. I would recommend skipping the former, since it provides a rather unbalanced perspective on the making of the film. Perhaps if Sony Pictures owned the second commentary track included with the Criterion Blu-ray release—featuring Hopper, Peter Fonda, and production manager Paul Lewis—it would be worth a listen.

You get everything you could want from a commentary and more from Shaking the Cage, which should be viewed as an essential companion piece—almost more like annotations for Easy Rider than a traditional making-of retrospective. You don’t get much in the way of insight into the themes and mysteries of the film, but rarely have I seen a more unbridled examination of the personality conflicts, fights, compromises, and sheer pandemonium behind the making of any film. In some ways, it’s almost more entertaining than Easy Rider itself.

PICTURE | The 4K HDR transfer’s expanded dynamic range and enhanced color gamut bring the cinematography to life in ways home video hasn’t been capable of until recently

SOUND | The iconic soundtrack music sounds amazing in both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and stereo mixes, but the dialogue and other on-set audio still sound as if they were recorded with a couple of tin cans and some string

Review: Elf

review | Elf

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This Will Ferrell vehicle has become a Christmas classic—and deservedly so—even though it’s actually not a very good movie

by Michael Gaughn
updated May 22, 2023

You’re going to need to bear with me here because I will get around to recommending that you watch Elf. But I first need to point out that it’s just not a very good movie.

The story is contrived and soulless, the casting—with one very obvious exception—is tone deaf, it’s badly shot, and the practical effects are so unconvincing that they would have been better off going with early-‘00s CGI instead.

Every character except Will Ferrell’s is one-dimensional and pretty much interchangeable. Any irascible middle-aged actor could have played the James Caan role, Mary Steenburgen is just there to be stereotypically empathetic, the kid that plays their son is just unpleasant, and a very anemic and kind of homely (before she went full Kabuki and became an “It” girl) Zooey Deschanel is just there to admire Ferrell—Nicoletta Braschi’s thankless job vis à vis Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful, although not quite that bad.

Everything about Elf feels half-baked, like a Tim Burton movie. The ending is a completely botched deus ex machina, with every kind of contrivance thrown at the audience, all but forgetting about Buddy, ladling on a ton of fake drama because the filmmakers hadn’t been able to generate any real drama before then—the kind of thing that happens when the so-called creatives only have other movies to draw on for tactical support because they don’t have any bearings in real life.

It might seem misguided to beat up on a 17-year-old film, but I’m trying to make a point about why we watch Elf, and should watch Elf.

This movie has become a tradition because it’s great holiday wallpaper, meant to be played in the background during Yuletide celebrations, but liberally sprinkled with “O wait!” moments that momentarily draw your attention back to the screen—like “O wait! This is the scene where he eats the Pop Tarts with the spaghetti” and “O wait! Here’s that thing where he gets attacked by the midget.” In other words, A Christmas Story, except made with some intelligence and a modicum of taste.

In retrospect, it’s obvious that Elf anticipated and helped create the current age of maximum repetition and redundancy where the last thing we want from a movie or a series is to be shown anything challenging or new. It’s meant to be big, warm, and fuzzy like a well-worn security blanket, something utterly predictable and familiar you can wrap yourself in so you don’t have to feel anything, except coddled.

What would seem to be the movie’s greatest vice is actually its saving virtue. Elf is ultimately nothing but a Will Ferrell vehicle. He doesn’t just carry the film, he is the film. And that’s not a bad thing but a great thing—a cause for celebration—because he’s able to pull it off, and in spades, turning an otherwise by-the-book studio effort into a virtuoso one-man show.

Ferrell has Peter Sellers’ ability to make cartoonish, completely impossible, characters feel more real than than the more realistic characters around him. And his investment in Buddy is so complete that he’s able to rise above the incredibly tepid and inept script (which apparently everybody but the second grip worked on) and energize enough scenes to make it worth tolerating all the many areas where the movie sags.

I know that’s a really back-handed recommendation, but it’s a very sincere one. It’s definitely worth anyone’s time to watch Elf and just hone in on and savor and sit in amazement of what Ferrell is able to pull off. He makes Buddy so completely embody Christmas that Santa, the elves, the North Pole, and all the other traditional trappings seem not just threadbare but unnecessary.

Elf looks surprisingly good viewed in HD on Kaleidescape. I can’t see any point in rushing this movie into a 4K HDR upgrade—it would likely just make it look even more poorly executed than it already does. The only real flaw in HD are the crawling corpuscles that appear whenever there’s a bright white patch, like the blown-out sunlight seen through the doors at Gimbel’s or out the window in Caan’s apartment.

The soundtrack is nothing special, just serviceable, but you can hear all the lines so I’ve got to give it credit for that. The extras? (of which there are many). Let’s not go there.

Nothing I’ve said is going to make even the slightest dent in Elf’s reputation as a latter-day Christmas classic. But hopefully I can jog the perception of it just enough that it seems less like an obligation, like sweaters and fruitcake, and more like a genuine source of holiday cheer.

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 | Elf looks surprisingly good viewed in HD on Kaleidescape, with the only real flaw the crawling corpuscles that appear whenever there’s a bright white patch

SOUND | The soundtrack is nothing special, just serviceable, but you can hear all the lines so you’ve got to give it credit for that

Review: Once Upon a Time in the West

review | Once Upon a Time in the West

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Sergio Leone’s legendary epic finally makes the leap to 4K HDR with mostly admirable results

by Michael Gaughn
May 8, 2023

Once Upon a Time in the West has been on the short list of titles I’ve wanted to see in 4K HDR ever since the format was announced. And now that the day has arrived, my reaction can be summed up in two words: deeply ambivalent.

There’s no denying it looks striking, worthy of all the usual praise about pristine reproduction, fine detail, piercing highlights, rich, nuanced blacks, etc. But, interrupted by a call, I had to pause playback during Jason Robards’ big entrance at Lionel Stander’s trailside store, and when I came back and hit Play again, something didn’t feel quite right. I’d been enjoying the movie, but having been jolted out of it, I suddenly realized it just didn’t look like film. And once I’d been thrown for that loop, it became hard to buy back into the illusion.

The faults in Once Upon a Time are nowhere near as egregious as they are with HDR transfers like The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, or The Godfather, where you’re forced into a cartoonish parallel universe that bears little relation to what was originally committed to film. The intentions here seem to have been more honorable—they just took it all a little too far. A Sergio Leone western from the late ‘60s ought to have grain, which brings energy and texture to the frame. And smoothing everything over once again results in skin that looks a lot like pleather. (The Victor Laszlo Award this time around goes to Robards, with Claudia Cardinale coming in a close second.)

Film has signature traits that create a kind of analog aura that makes movies of the pre-digital age feel more human. But we’ve come, sadly, to see those traits as flaws, which is why tech guys running roughshod over classics tends to elicit nary a whimper when it ought to summon up howls. To use 4K HDR to impose a radical makeover when it could instead be used to make the home viewing experience match what it was like to see the film as it was originally shown in theaters feels criminal.

To give credit, it was nice to see things like the subtle gradations of the worn black fabric in Jack Elam and Woody Strode’s hats so well rendered, and in a film that thrives on extreme closeups, you can make a parlor game out of counting nose hairs and ferreting out scars. But I’m not sure how anyone benefits from being able to make out every line in Cardinale’s crow’s feet or all the innumerable tire tracks criss-crossing the desert, or any of the other things we were never meant to see. And this is another transfer where HDR makes some of the elements pop far too much. The fire Cardinale uses to warm her coffee looks out of line with both the film and reality, and the railroad baron’s blinding white shirt collar and cuffs float in the frame like the Cheshire Cat’s smile.

It was interesting to compare this new release to the recent straight 4K transfer of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (GBU). That earlier film is alive with grain, which does at times make its presence too emphatically felt; but the movie would lose much of its warmth and grit if it was all scrubbed away. Some of the elements are in questionable shape, causing some scenes to look a little flat and washed out. But you ultimately end up with an experience that’s remarkably true to the film Leone shot, which ought to be the goal.

(Adding to my ambivalence—and to get heretical here for a moment—rewatching GBU had me wondering if it isn’t the better movie. Its looser, droller, but still epic approach makes Once Upon a Time seem a little too aware of its own importance. Both films have been equally influential but in different ways, and GBU, which has little of the pretentiousness but all the ambition of the later effort, might actually be the more satisfying of the two.)

There isn’t much point in talking about Once Upon a Time as a film. What Leone created has become so iconic and has so permeated the culture that everyone is familiar with it, even if they’ve never actually seen it. But I was struck on this viewing by how almost all the conventions that determine modern film were born during that incredibly fecund period between 1967 and 1969, and by how stagnant things have gotten in the half century since, until the movie industry has become a kind of vast—but unquestionably lucrative—necropolis.

And I’m not just talking about film techniques but subject matter, tone, attitude, acting—the whole shebang. (To take just one example, Tarantino wouldn’t have a career without Once Upon a Time, and everything he’s done has essentially been a recapitulation of Leone, just cranked to 11.) Nobody ever seems to wonder why we’ve never moved beyond—outgrown—that era. It would be too much of a digression to speculate on that here, but it does seem to be a enervating case of massive repression.

But to return to the film at hand—which, in a sense, we never left—while Once Upon a Time in the West shows evidence of the tendency toward cockiness in recent 4K HDR transfers, and would have been amazing (and a candidate for our “Essentials” list) if it had shown just a bit more respect for the source material, it is enjoyable to watch, partly because the strength of Leone’s original effort allows this release to rise above its digital sins. It will do—and do well—for now while we hope the idea of trying to stay true to the filmmakers’ intentions makes a badly needed comeback.

PICTURE | The 4K HDR release of the revered Leone epic looks gorgeous but is a little too clean, removing the necessary grit, resulting in a look that’s untrue to the original film

SOUND | Crisp and clean while staying true to the soundtrack—but, once again, where’s the original mono mix?

Review: Hannah and Her Sisters

review | Hannah and Her Sisters

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Falling short of the top tier of Woody Allen’s work, Hannah still offers up an inviting slice of New York life in the mid ’80s

by Michael Gaughn
updated May 6, 2023

Many consider Hannah and Her Sisters one of Woody Allen’s best films. Some call it his best. I find it incredibly uneven. It does have some strong sequences, scenes, and moments that represent tremendous growth in Allen’s skill as a filmmaker, but it also has some off-key and sometimes embarrassingly lame moments that keep it from achieving a satisfying balance. And it’s about 20 minutes too long.

Allen hit his stride as an actor’s director here. He was able to draw effective performances out of a large and diverse cast, ranging from the Studio Era stylings of Maureen O’Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan to the Bergmanesque solemnity of Max Von Sydow to the looser, more indie vibe of Dianne Wiest and Barbara Hershey—both of whom are exceptional, especially Hershey. Even Carrie Fisher is something other than grating for a change. The one person who can’t seem to find the right groove is Michael Caine, who has his good moments but who seems determined—like Kenneth Branagh (Celebrity) and Jesse Eisenberg (Café Society)—to do some kind of Woody impression. It doesn’t work.

And then there are Allen’s cringe-worthy efforts to begin dismantling his own persona. I understand that he didn’t want the nuanced version of the Woody character to detract from the more dramatic plot lines and hoped to use his character’s misadventures here—mainly his scramble to find a religion he can buy into—as comic relief. But while occasional lines land, his scenes just aren’t funny. Allen always had a pitch-perfect ear for comedy, so he had to have known the bits set at the ersatz SNL were painfully weak. I remain baffled by what he was going for, and how he could have so readily abandoned a painstakingly molded character that had not only served him well but had become an unparalleled vehicle for expressing, mocking, and dissecting the age.

As for Hershey, films like Boxcar Bertha and The Stunt Man had given her a reputation as something of an indie-film bimbo, so it was heartening to see her get the chance to play a fully fledged, non-objectified character and run with it. Ultimately, Hannah doesn’t revolve around Mia Farrow or Caine or Allen or Wiest but Hershey, who stands firmly at its emotional core and brings it a substance and energy it might have been lacking if the role had gone to someone else. It’s a great loss that she never again got to play a part this good.

People were pleased but not necessarily surprised when Allen was able to create characters who evoked the world around him in films like Annie Hall and Manhattan. But they were shocked to find he could craft well-rounded and not-so-predictable characters like Hershey’s—or 27 years later, Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine.

Like a lot of people, I had assumed the ugliest decade in American culture was the ‘70s, so it was a jolt to be reminded that the ‘80s were actually worse. Most of the characters here look like they got their clothes at the Salvation Army, and there’s just a kind of elevated sloppiness to the whole world that’s, in retrospect, kind of repugnant. Of course, some of this was unique to New York, which was just emerging from its nadir in the mid ‘70s and making the grunginess of midst-of-being-flipped neighborhoods like SoHo chic in an effort to inflate real-estate values. But the scene near the end where Allen comes across Wiest in a Tower Records, with its salmon and teal cutouts, glandular lettering, and Barry Gibb posters, reminded me we all would have been better off if the ‘80s had never happened.

Cinematographer Carlo Di Palma deserves praise for taking the streets, walls, and doorways of the older, decaying New York, the affluent shabbiness of lofts and sprawling Upper West Side apartments, and the carefully cultivated disregard for personal appearance and making it all look beautiful. I doubt any other film has better evoked November in New York. This Blu-ray-quality HD download is an acceptable viewing experience, but Di Palma’s shooting style is so subtle that there are moments here that look flat when they should have an understated but distinctive pop.

Di Palma is also important because he helped dispel the myth that a lot of Allen’s skill as a director came from using Gordon Willis as a crutch. By this point, Allen had developed a basal aesthetic and technique he was able to successfully translate from film to film regardless of who was doing the shooting, giving lensers like Di Palma, Sven Nykvist, and Javier Aguirresarobe the latitude to enhance his material without ever having to prop it up.

This is the film where Allen began to be accused of creating what was called yuppie porn—a not unfair swipe since Hannah did help lay the groundwork for more unfortunate later works like Match Point. But the greater sin on display here could be called “assimilation porn,” which he paid a disproportionately high price for in the anti-Semitic backlash to his custody trial, when the seemingly hip but inherently conservative New York and Hollywood elites he showcased so well turned on him so viciously.

While it’s not possible to put Hannah and Her Sisters is the highest tier of Allen’s work, that’s not to say it can’t be enjoyable. Most of the characters are well crafted, most of the performances click, most of the presentation is satisfying, and Allen almost perfectly captured New York at that moment in time. Only his uncertainty about what to do with his own persona keeps it from coming together into a more cohesive whole.

PICTURE | Thie Blu-ray-quality HD download is an acceptable viewing experience but Carlo Di Palma’s shooting style is so subtle that there are moments that look flat when they should have an understated but distinctive pop

Review: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

review | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

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The third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise receives the same excellent 4K HDR/Atmos makeover as the previous two titles

by John Sciacca
update May 5, 2023

After the dark tone of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, director Steven Spielberg looked to lighten things up a bit for The Last Crusade, returning Indiana Jones to more of the fun and light-hearted tone that made Raiders of the Lost Ark such a fan favorite. The result is a film that feels far truer to the original and is frankly just more fun to watch.

With The Last Crusade, we get both a prequel and a sequel, with two returning characters who have larger roles in this adventure, including Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), Indiana’s contact in the Middle East, and Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), the museum curator who is the recipient of many of Indy’s finds. More importantly, Crusade expands Indy’s family by adding his father, Professor Henry Jones, played brilliantly by Sean Connery. The dynamic between Harrison Ford and Connery is terrific, showing another facet of Indy’s character, and offering some additional humor and heart to the story, giving Indy something to care about more than just an ancient relic.

This film’s first act involves puzzle solving and adventuring that feels like it formed the blueprint for Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon character in The Da Vinci Code to come years later, before settling into the action that launches characters towards the finale and adventures that take them around the world. It also feels like Spielberg and Ford have settled into the rhythm and feel of Indiana, and the movie just clicks along, hitting familiar beats while also feeling new.

Filmed just eight years after Raiders and five years after Temple, Crusade’s video quality is similar to those films, which is to say the restoration and new 4K digital intermediate make for a great-looking presentation, again bristling with detail in many closeups. On the plus side, I noticed far fewer instances of softness or focus issues compared to Raiders, and right from the opening, skies here looked bluer and less grainy. Tiny details like fine bubbles rising in Jones’ champagne flute, and the texture in clothing like the tweed in his father’s suit, the heavy wool of Nazi SS uniforms, or the texture in Indy’s hat band, and the whiskers and pores on his preternaturally sweaty face are visible throughout.

As with the first film, there are scenes that have such razor sharpness, clarity, and detail that they could pass for modern digitally shot media. One such moment was where Indy and dad are on a motorcycle in front of the crossroads sign to head to Berlin or Venice, which was stunning. Outdoor scenes, specifically the day shots in Venice, look like gorgeous travelogue material, and you can really appreciate the scope of the outdoor tank battle.

The HDR color grading is again reserved but it adds depth and texture to images, especially shadowy and dark scenes or the brightest highlights of the desert. You can also really appreciate the brilliant colors of a stained-glass window in the Venetian church/library.

Like the picture, Crusade’s new Dolby TrueHD Atmos audio mix takes a similar track as the other films, never looking to go too over the top (pun intended), but to just expand and enhance the original mix. Elements like driving wind, rain, and waves crashing up over the sides of a boat, or motorcycles racing up from the back of the room along the sides to pass into the front, and the room-filling roar and crackle of fire are all enhanced and expanded with the new sound mix. We also get more expansion of echoes, such as the hammer blows as Indy is trying to shatter marble, the ambience of water drips inside of catacombs, or tank shells that fly overhead.

Sonically, some of the film’s most dynamic and active moments come when some German fighters are attacking. Here we get planes strafing Ford and Connery in a vehicle, and the planes buzz all around the room, flying overhead, along the sides, and into the back. Their engines and guns are mixed aggressively, and add to the excitement of the moment. While never overused, the subwoofer is called on when appropriate, adding depth and weight to the soundtrack for things like explosions or collisions.

With Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we are brought back to Indy’s beginnings and earlier adventures in the best way possible. Even the ending echoes moments from Raiders’ opening cave scene but in a fresh way. And as our characters literally ride off into the sunset with John Williams’ iconic score erupting from all around, you can’t help but have a great time.

PICTURE | Some scenes have such razor sharpness, clarity, and detail that they could pass for modern digitally shot media

SOUND | As with the other Jones films, the Atmos mix never goes too over the top but just expands and enhances the original mix

Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark

review | Raiders of the Lost Ark

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The film that kicked off the Indiana Jones franchise receives a first-rate 4K HDR/Atmos makeover

by John Sciacca
update May 3, 2023

Wanna feel old? How about if I tell you that Raiders of the Lost Ark is celebrating its 40th Anniversary?! Wanna feel a little better about it? To celebrate this milestone, Paramount has re-released all four films in the Indy franchise, all restored and remastered in 4K HDR with new Dolby Atmos audio mixes with all picture work approved by series director, Steven Spielberg.

Besides remembering seeing the film in the theater when I was 11, I recall when Raiders was first released to home video. At the time, most titles were priced as “Rental,” meaning they were all like $80 and up and sold to chains like Blockbuster. Paramount decided to make a splash with Raiders in the home market, pricing it at a shockingly low (for the time) $39.95, and I remember rushing down to the video store and picking up a copy on Beta the day it was released, barely able to wait until I could get home and watch the finale in slow motion. The film went on to sell over a million copies by 1985, making it the bestselling film of its time.

While the action/adventure genre is well established now, Raiders seemed shockingly fresh when it came out. For almost the entirety of its near-two-hour run time, you are pummeled with one action piece after another as Indiana is constantly thrown into increasingly impossible predicaments.

Sure, after 40 years, some of the bits—like Indy looking for Marion (Karen Allen) through the streets of Cairo as she is hidden in a basket—seem a bit cheesy and silly. But, I think the humor and B-movie-esque qualities are part of what makes it so much fun—such as when the Nazi Toht (Ronald Lacey) menacingly assembles what we think is going to be a weapon to interrogate Marion but what turns out to be a hanger for his coat, or when Indy just pulls out his gun to shoot the large sword-wielding thug, or Indy saying, “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”

Originally shot on film, this transfer is taken from a new 4K digital intermediate, and it looks mostly fantastic. Closeups can have a startling amount of sharpness and detail. The daylight market and street scenes in Cairo are bright and fantastic, showing the sharp pattern of the bricks and stones, and the textured detail of the walls, and the weave of the baskets. Some scenes look so good, they could be from a modern film, such as the opening shot of the group crowded around the drinking game at Marion’s bar, or the scene of the Nazis at the dig site, which has incredibly sharp focus across the width of characters that fill the screen. I did notice that some scenes have inconsistent or soft focus, especially in the beginning and at the very end of the film when Indy and Marion are walking down the steps. This probably more noticeable because so much of the film just looks so good. I also noticed things like single vine strands or a single, ultra-fine spider web that Indy pulls along with him.

I never found film grain to be objectionable but it is definitely there and most noticeably in outdoor shots that show the powdery blue sky. We have enough grain for the film to show its film roots and retain tons of detail, without being softened away to look like digital mush.

While there was some effects cleanup, apparently this was mainly done to remove lines from the composites, and I never found it objectionable or noticeable in the way Lucas usually likes to go in and modernize his films. One change I did notice was that it was always apparent that the cobra striking at Indy and Marion was behind a piece of glass, and now that has been removed looking like they are in more peril. I also never noticed that the German phrase “Nicht stören” (Do not disturb) was written on one of the buildings in the map room. I’m sure it was always there but the new cleaned-up transfer and sharper resolution make it easier to notice small details like this.

Colors are natural throughout and the opening jungle scenes are both brighter and more contrasty than I recall them, with bright shafts of light pouring in through the trees and wispy smoke. Golds, especially of the Ark, look bright and brilliant. One scene with the lights in Marion’s bar and the various colored bottles of liquor backlit looked really good. Everything just looks as it should, whether it is the green jungle hues, the tans and browns of the desert, or the red-orange of fires. We also get really nice and deep blacks, and good shadow detail that really benefits from the HDR grading, making dark scenes look more natural.

The sound designers didn’t look to hit you over the head (pun intended) with the new Dolby TrueHD Atmos mix but just to heighten and expand the soundtrack. Right from the opening moments, you’ll notice the sounds of the jungle—bugs, birds, rustling leaves—filling the room and coming all around you. Inside the cave, you hear water drips and splashes that help put you in the scene, plus there’s the sounds of winds howling outside Marion’s bar, the cacophony of downtown Cairo, or the clinks and clanks of machinery aboard the German U-boat. Big obvious sonic moments like the giant boulder rolling overhead are enhanced with weight and texture and it now literally rolls over your head, or the thunder and lightning while they are about to dig into the map room, or the roar of the German plane’s propeller, and the spirits now fly and swirl all around the room and overhead at the big finale. We also get some decent subwoofer involvement when called for, such as explosions, vehicle collisions, or that big boulder.

John Williams’ iconic score is also given more room to expand in this mix, letting you appreciate his music more fully than even before. And all-important dialogue is kept clear and intelligible and mostly in the center channel, except for a couple of fun moments such as Marion screaming “Indy!” as she is being carried around the city in a basket.

Raiders is one of those classic films that belongs in every movie collection, and it has certainly never looked or sounded as good as it does here.

PICTURE | Enough grain has been retained for the movie to show its film roots and display tons of detail without being softened away to look like digital mush.

SOUND | The sound designers didn’t look to hit you over the head with the new Atmos mix but just to heighten and expand the soundtrack

Review: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

review | Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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Yes, it’s a credulity-straining mess of a movie, but it’s a mess that works—and Doom looks and sounds exceptional in 4K HDR

by Dennis Burger
updated May 3, 2023

If you’re looking for a study in ambivalence, you’ve come to the right place. My thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are many, and they’re almost all contradictory. This first followup to what I consider to be one of the best action-adventures ever made is a mess. It’s erratic, tonally inconsistent, and utterly relentless. Its over reliance on gags (in more than one sense of the word) does it no favors, and it strains the bounds of credulity at every turn, never quite dipping into nuke-the-fridge territory, but coming awfully close.

And yet I absolutely adore this mess of a movie, perhaps even more than the superior Last Crusade, which was a massive course correction before the series went completely off the rails with its fourth entry, whose name I will not utter here. Temple of Doom may be flawed, but it’s fascinatingly flawed; it’s entertainingly flawed. And for all the nits I could pick, it’s never boring. And perhaps most importantly, it has a certain rugged charm, despite all the ick.

But hey, you’ve had 37 years now to figure out what you think of this movie and I’m unlikely to change those impressions. What you’re here for is a quick and simple answer to the question of whether the 4K HDR upgrade is worth it.

In a word: Yes! Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is exactly how a restoration of a movie like this should be handled. By that I mean that it undeniably still looks like film of its era. Despite some digital tinkering to improve the compositing and clean up a few practical artifacts, it hasn’t been tinkered with to the point that it looks like a modern movie, but it’s clean, well-preserved, and stunningly detailed.

The biggest improvements over the fundamentally flawed Blu-ray remasters from 2012 come in the form of much-improved contrasts and new color timing that doesn’t look like the negative was passed through a cheap Instagram filter. Saturation overall is way, way down from the Blu-ray, but the palette is punctuated by vibrant hues here and there that are way beyond the capabilities of 8-bit video. In that sense, it reminds me of the new remaster of The Wizard of Oz. There’s simply more nuance to the color overall. Every hue isn’t cranked to 11 the way it was in the previous Blu-ray release. The overall cast of the imagery is definitely warm but not cartoonishly so.

Equally important to the effectiveness of this new remaster is the expanded dynamic range, especially at the lower end of the value scale. That’s especially beneficial during darker passages, like the camping scene toward the end of the first act. Previous home video releases of Temple of Doom have either rendered the scene so darkly that you couldn’t appreciate the visual gags or so brightly that it simply wasn’t believable as nighttime. In the new 4K remaster, the scene is appropriately dark, the shadows sufficiently inky, but there’s still enough dynamic range in the image that you can actually see all the critters that torment Willie.

What’s true in that scene is true throughout the picture: The expanded dynamic range gives the image a richness and pop that makes it much more resolved, dimensional, organic, and analog in its presentation.

The audio receives similar treatment in the form of a new Atmos remix overseen by Ben Burtt. Again, the audio is undoubtedly of the era, especially in the way it leans heavily on the midrange, and some of the sound effects sound a bit thin. But I’ll take that any day over newly recorded digital effects foisted upon a soundtrack of this vintage, which almost never sound right.

Height effects are employed subtly but effectively, mostly to give John Williams’ score more room to stretch its legs. Some sound effects also get a bit of a lift but there’s nothing about the remix that’s going to pull your attention away from the screen. In fact, there were a few times when I wondered if anything was coming out of the height channels at all, only to turn off Atmos processing on my preamp and find myself surprised by the collapse of the soundfield. That is the highest compliment I could pay to any Atmos remix of an older film. I didn’t find it intrusive when it was there but I missed it when it was gone.

My only real beef with the 4K version of the Indiana Jones collection is that no new bonus features were created to mark the occasion. Well, that’s not wholly true: Paramount did sanction one new featurette about the sound design of the original film only to unceremoniously dump it on YouTube. Otherwise, the new collection carries over the bonus goodies from the last big release in 2012, of which there are plenty.

I took a sneak peek at Temple of Doom on my Apple TV 4K, and was pleasantly surprised that it looks amazing for the most part. The atmospheric smoke in the dance sequence in Club Obi Wan at the beginning looked a little noisy but not egregiously so. Switching over to my Roku Ultra, said smoke was a bit less noisy and the overall image was crisper and better resolved.

I’m sort of shocked that a bit of digital-looking noise in one shot is the only evidence of compression I could see, and inconclusive evidence at that. There are numerous scenes that function as torture tests of high-efficiency video encoding, like the quick shot of the glistening wet statue encountered by our heroes in the approach to Pankot Palace, or the jewels on the costume of the young Maharaja. Both boast a lot of specular brightness but also a lack of uniformity. In other words, there’s nothing about the patterns in the imagery that’s predictable, especially in motion, and codecs like HEVC thrive on predictability, especially at lower bitrates.

Long story short, if there are any significant shortcomings in Apple’s encoding of the film, aside from perhaps that bit of noisy smoke in the intro, I can’t see them. The bottom line is that the iTunes version in Dolby Vision makes the previous Blu-ray release look like hot garbage in every respect.

PICTURE | Despite some digital tinkering to improve the compositing and clean up a few practical artifacts, it hasn’t been tinkered with to the point that it looks like a modern movie, but it’s clean, well-preserved, and stunningly detailed

SOUND | The audio is undoubtedly of the era, especially in the way it leans heavily on the midrange, and some of the sound effects sound a bit thin, but the Atmos mix, while mostly subtle, is extremely effective

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