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Review: Dracula (2020)

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Dracula (2020)

review | Dracula (2020)

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This three-episode Netflix series takes yet another stab at the Dracula legend but, except for the second episode, fails to hit the mark

by John Higgins
January 21, 2020

The myth of Dracula isnt one I think needs retelling. It, and vampires in general, have been done to death over the past couple decades. But whenever Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss write a project together, Im intrigued.

For the uninitiated, Moffat and Gatiss worked together on the sci-fi favorite Doctor Who before continuing their working relationship with the series Sherlockan intricate and deeply satisfying retelling of the Arthur Conan Doyle character in modern day with fantastic performances. Even before watching Dracula, I noticed that there were already a few similarities between the two series (both being based on existing material with the season being only three 90-ish-minute episodes). If they could do for Dracula what they did for Sherlock Holmes, it would be an excellent, smash-hit TV show.

It certainly is a TV show. Excellent smash hit? That would be a bit of a stretch. There are aspects that stay true to the source material—such as character names, Draculas trip to England, and his typical phobias—but the structure of the retelling is different and the purposes of the different characters are often skewed in some way. That said, it doesnt go far enough in its reinvention to feel distinct and new.

The three episodes are incredibly uneven and while theres some great writing peppered throughout, theres an odd mixture of modern vernacular and attitudes that doesnt fit with the 1800s time period of the first two episodes. (The third episode time jumps 123 years to our present day.) The series can be a bit schlocky, and relies too much on trying to reinvent the myth without truly accomplishing the feat. Theres also rarely any subtlety to the acting or directing. Its very in-your-face throughout.

Of the three episodes, I enjoyed the second the most by far. It takes place almost exclusively on the ship Demeter that brings Dracula to England. There are some interesting glimpses into the character’s past, the relationships between the passengers on the boat, and a mystery of who is traveling in one of the cabins that stays locked. It could almost be treated as a standalone story, save for some references to the first episode.

Where the show does succeed is in its practical effects and accompanying sound design. There are moments that made my body contort and my brain not want to see what was about to be revealed (although I always did, deep down, want the reveal). The sound mix felt very much intended for a television, as it was almost entirely present in the front channels with only obligatory reverb and music sent to the surrounds.

The HDR presentation is used mostly in the visually dark moments, such as Draculas castle in Episode One or the corners of the Demeter in Episode Two. Not unexpectedly for a creature of the night, most of the episodes are dark. One moment of blaring sunlight at the (somewhat disappointing) end shows off the bright end of the HDR spectrum. 

The Dracula delivered to us by Moffat and Gatiss feels like it isnt sure what it wants to be. It doesnt go far enough to be full-on camp but theres too much campiness to feel truly terrifying. Unless youre aching for more Dracula, it might be best to limit your intake to just the second episode.

JOHN HIGGINS lives a life surrounded by audio. When he’s not writing for Cineluxe, IGN,
or Wirecutter, he’s a professional musician and sound editor for TV/film. During his downtime, he’s watching Star Wars or learning from his toddler son, Neil.

PICTURE | The HDR presentation is used mostly in the visually dark moments, such as Draculas castle or the corners of a ship at sea

SOUND | The sound mix feels very much intended for a television, being almost entirely present in the front channels with only obligatory reverb and music sent to the surrounds

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Review: The Masque of the Red Death / The Raven

The Masque of the Red Death / The Raven

review | The Masque of the Red Death / The Raven

Two high-camp Corman/Price horror classics, with recent events adding a new layer of thrills to The Red Death

by Gerard Alessandrini
October 30, 2020

For special Halloween viewing, you can always depend on a Vincent Price/Roger Corman movie such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Tales of Terror, and The Pit and the Pendulum. They are dusted off every year for cable streaming and home video viewing. But this year, one Roger Corman film takes on an added dimension of horror. 

The Masque of the Red Death, loosely based on the short story by—who else—Edgar Allen Poe, has a special modern application in 2020. The film itself is a heightened and slightly campy tale of a pandemic plague that sweeps medieval Italy. The city-state is cruelly ruled by an egotistical Satan-worshipping prince. The bombastic and obnoxious ruler is played with wild abandon by Vincent Price. He is loud and vicious and will listen to nothing and no one. 

Recklessly deciding he knows best how to handle the “Red Death” plague, Vincent simply locks up his castle door and throws a big masked ball for his recklessly hedonistic upper-class friends. All must come in masked costume, but The Prince is convinced he needs no mask since the Devil himself will protect him and him alone from the gruesome pandemic. But (spoiler alert!) neither his power position or evil protector can keep him from catching The Red Death, and by the end of the movie not only does Vincent have blood poring out of his pores as he shrivels up and dies but so do all his upper-crust guests. By the end, only three people are left alive in the entire kingdom: An innocent young lover, a baby, and an old man.

Any other year, this over-the-top horror story might seem broadly campy, but in 2020, it is indeed as horrifying as Roger Corman may have intended it to be back in 1964. It may seem even more disturbing! 

Many now consider this the best of the Corman/Price/Poe movies. It’s more literate than most of its predecessors and with its devious “Little People,” animalistic partygoers, and deviant sexual innuendos, it is genuinely macabre. Add to the committed performances from Price and his fabulous leading lady Hazel Court, who always adds a good measure of superb British articulation and Hollywood glamour, and you have a horror movie that’s a cut above. The verbiage even has a touch of the tragic tone of a Shakespearean play. 

The production quality is also a cut above other Corman creations. It’s filmed in vivid Pathécolor with an intensely multi-colored production design (perhaps to make up for the fact it’s not in the lush and more subtle Technicolor). The set is also quite authentic-looking—supposedly because Red Death was filmed on leftover sets from the historical epic film Becket, also released in 1964. Corman must be given an “A” for effort and “A+” for inventiveness for bringing a good-looking production in under budget. However, it is still a budget horror film from the 1960s, and its pacing and lack of a great music score (Bernard Hermann was not in the budget) make it hard to take as an authentic film classic. 

Yet, all entertainment changes from year to year, and right now this spooky tale might just put you in a real Halloween mood. And, beware—when you watch it with friends, don’t be a fool like Vincent Price—wear your mask to the Masque.

While we are on the subject of Roger Corman and Vincent Price, let me recommend their 1963 entry, The Raven. This film had no intention to be authentically scary in any way. Peter Lorre plays the Raven in bird and human form in a highly comedic performance. And it has a fabulous supporting cast: Boris Karloff, a very sexy Hazel Court, and a very young Jack Nicholson—in tights, no less.

It’s all tongue-in-cheek and wryly funny. Again, the garish Pathécolor livens up the dreary plaster-of-Paris castle walls. There’s also a good amount of animated sorcerer’s magic rays to add to the fun. Unlike The Masque of the Red Death, this films survives solely as camp. But Halloween is also a time for kitschy fun and macabre frolic. 

As a nine-year-old boy, I loved the silly satirical suspense, and it had just enough scary moments to amuse but not disturb me. It even made me a fan of Edgar Allan Poe. Inspired by the film, I tried making a couple of Corman/Poe type “Grand Guignol” horror movies of my own with my Super 8 movie camera. 

But years later, I realized I must have loved Poe even more that I thought. When I grew up and moved to New York, my apartment on West 84th Street was built on the site where he wrote The Raven. In the 19th century, the address had been his family’s farm house! Now it’s “The Raven Court Apartments.” It still has a big black stone raven right outside. My apartment looked right over the statue. But just as Edgar Allan Poe wrote, “Quoth the Granite Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

Tony-winning director Gerard Alessandrini is the creator of the legendary review Forbidden Broadway and of the hit Hamilton parody Spamilton. His work also includes musical versions of Moon Over Parador and Madame X, voice work for Disney’s Aladdin and Pocahantas, and creating special material for performers like Carol Burnett, Bob Hope, and Barbra Streisand

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Review: Muppets Haunted Mansion

Muppets Haunted Mansion (2019)

review | Muppets Haunted Mansion

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Another uneven offering from the Muppets—entertaining enough, but it could have been a lot better

by Dennis Burger
October 8, 2021

The Germans, in all their linguistic inventiveness, need to coin a new word for the unique mix of eagerness and hesitation that Jim Henson fans feel when a new Muppets project is announced. The simple fact is the Disney era of the franchise has been a roller coaster, reaching heights of delightful silliness like 2011’s The Muppets and plunging to depths of pointlessness like 2005’s The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz. Thankfully, Muppets Haunted Mansion is far from the worst we’ve seen from the franchise this century, but it is a bit of a mixed bag.

Let’s start off with what doesn’t work about the hour-long Halloween special. For one thing, it all feels a bit formulaic in its structure and narrative. You could argue that’s a consequence of the premise, and you’d have a pretty good point. But I still miss the days when the Muppets were so utterly off the rails that you felt uncomfortable watching a new movie or TV show with kids, at least the first time around, for fear Animal or Floyd might drop an F-bomb. Not that they ever would, but the Muppets at their best once gave you the impression they might. And Muppets Haunted Mansion feels far too safe and by-the-numbers to even hint at such a possibility. 

There’s also the fact that some of the voice acting is just atrocious. This is the first major Muppets production since Steve Whitmire, longtime performer of Kermit the Frog, was fired and replaced by Matt Vogel (and yes, yes, I know about Muppets Now, but I’ve never been able to suffer through enough of it for it to leave a lasting impression). And no disrespect to Mr. Vogel—he does a perfectly fine Floyd and a darned good Sweetums—but he’s not and never will be Kermit. He just doesn’t get the character.

A problem more specific to this special is that the music is, for the most part, awful. There are a handful of original songs, and every time I could sense another one coming, my body tensed up in anticipation of the awfulness. There are two exceptions, though. The special opens and closes with a cover of King Harvest’s version of “Dancing in the Moonlight” performed by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. It’s simply fantastic and there’s really nothing else to say about it. It rocks. 

There’s also a really fun duet between Pepe the King Prawn and Taraji P. Henson, who stars as Constance Hatchaway (aka the Black Widow Bride from the theme park ride that inspired this crossover). Not only is the song well written and well performed, it also hints at the naughtiness of the Muppets at their best. 

But the best thing about the number is that it’s just a prime example of Pepe being Pepe. Seriously, every second that fuzzy little king prawn is on screen is pure comedy gold. It probably helps, that longtime Pepe performer Bill Barretta wrote the story for Muppets Haunted Mansion, and I could take issue with the fact that he gave all the best bits to his own character, but who cares, really? If you’re a Pepe fan, this one is a must-watch, even if it is a bit uneven, even if the music mostly sucks, even if Kermit has been replaced by a half-assed imposter. 

Another great thing about Muppets Haunted Mansion is that production values are through the roof. The special boasts a level of cinematography and special effects you’d expect from a proper feature film. Disney+’s Dolby Vision presentation is also so flawless that I was, at times, startled. The opening sequence, for example, features a particularly difficult-to-encode shot of Pepe and Gonzo driving to the haunted mansion in the midst of the sort of pea-soup fog HEVC would have nightmares about if video codecs had a subconscious. And while that shot is the most extreme example, there are a lot of sequences throughout that must have required a few passes through whatever video encoder Disney+ relies on. Unsurprisingly, given the subject matter, Haunted Mansion sports some pretty dark cinematography, and the Dolby Vision grading gives the imagery a lot of depth in the shadows while also leaving some dynamic range for the specular highlights of spectral apparitions. 

Production- and presentation-wise, the only complaints I have are related to the audio, which lacks a little in terms of dynamics and could have benefited from a bit more activity in the surrounds, or at least a bit more consistency in the surround mixing. Dialogue is always presented cleanly and clearly, and the music—whatever you want to say about its compositional quality—is always delivered with good fidelity. But whoever did the final mix for the special seemingly couldn’t decide between a full-on cinematic surround experience or a front-heavy TV-special vibe, and switched between those two extremes from scene to scene with apparently no rhyme or reason. 

For all the nits picked above, though, Muppets Haunted Mansion ends up being a pretty good time, mostly due to the antics of Pepe combined with the gorgeousness of the imagery. If you have kids, I’m also pretty sure they’ll love the whole thing. And that is the thing I like best about this special. Fun Halloween specials that can be enjoyed by the whole family are few and far between and it’s nice to see another one added to the mix, even if it’s not quite as good as it could have been.

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 | The Dolby Vision presentation is so flawless it can be, at times, startling

SOUND | The audio lacks a little in terms of dynamics and could have benefited from a bit more activity in the surrounds

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Review: Midsommar

Midsommar (2019)

review | Midsommar

This arthouse horror film eschews jump scares and plot twists for atmosphere and style

by Dennis Burger
October 14, 2020

One relatively recent trend that warms my dark heart is the reemergence of horror as a legitimate genre of cinema. This isn’t to say that I don’t get a kick out of schlocky B-movie suspense but for most of my adult life, horror movies have been little more than that, leaving legitimate attempts at making serious films in the genre—like Rosemary’s Baby and Kubrick’s The Shining—in the distant past. So to see Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, and Ari Aster’s Hereditary embraced in recent years as art is, if nothing else, a step in the right direction.

Aster’s follow-up to Hereditary, 2019’s Midsommar, keeps the horror-as-art train rolling, not simply due to its gorgeous cinematography, deep reliance on symbolism, or its 148-minute run time, but because it actually has something to say. While Peele used horror for the purposes of societal allegory in Get Out and Aster himself used it to explore familial angst in Hereditary, Midsommar broadens its reach to explore both cultural issues and deeply personal struggles. And it’s the constant tug-of-war between the individual on the one hand and the expectations of the herd on the other that give the film so much of its tension. 

That’s simply one element of what makes the film work, though. In telling the tale of a group of anthropology students (and the girlfriend of one of them, herself a psychology student) as they travel to Sweden to study and document the cultural traditions of an isolated Scandinavian commune, Aster uses personal relationships the way Kubrick used architecture in The Shining. In other words, if you’re paying attention, there’s an internal consistency to it all that’s nonetheless contradictory, which results in a foreboding sense of unease. 

That in itself wouldn’t be worthy of praise but it’s the way Aster and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski convey the ties that bind (and the wedges that divide) the characters that makes Midsommar so fascinating. In one early scene, for example, the film uses mirrors brilliantly to convey a sense of othering. The characters viewed directly by the camera? They are the “Us.” Those that can only be seen in reflection? They fall (or move) into “Them” territory. And what’s fascinating here is that the film’s “Us” and “Them” are right opposite of the audience’s “Us” and “Them,” which further builds tension. 

What I appreciate most is that such compositional sleight of hand is almost always employed with such subtlety that it never comes across as a gimmick. Only one scene crosses the line into artsy-for-arty’s-sake territory, and it’s an establishing shot, demarking the transition from one culture into the other, so it’s easily forgiven. 

That scene is far from the only one that could be construed as cinema-for-cinema’s sake. So much of Midsommar is pure audiovisual experience—style as substance, if you will—intended to invoke feeling rather than trigger thought. Perhaps my favorite thing about the film is that it strikes such a perfect balance in alternating between storytelling and tone poetry that it’s nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime never becomes a slog. 

That’s aided by the fact that it never resorts to jump-scares or twists to keep you hanging on. It telegraphs exactly the direction in which it’s heading and then takes its time getting there, which only adds to the suspense and tension. 

The one big surprise—at least for me—is that Midsommar wasn’t shot on film, but rather captured in a combination of 8K and 4K, and finished in a 4K digital intermediate. Despite this, it boasts a very film-like aesthetic, although the palette is intentionally muted. And Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR presentation is wonderfully true to Midsommar‘s intended look, delivering it with exceptional detail. Far more importantly, the Kaleidescape download doesn’t muck up the background textures the way streaming providers do. Perhaps it’s a result of the resolution at which the movie was shot, but Apple TV’s stream in particular suffers from occasionally messy and noisy textures that serve as a bit of a distraction, whereas the Kaleidescape download maintains its composure from beginning to end, even when the film is at its densest, visually speaking. 

The high dynamic range does little to change the look of the film overall, largely due to that muted palette. When HDR does make itself known, it’s generally in the shadows, especially during those scenes in which a darkened interior is viewed from a sunlit exterior. HDR allows the viewer to see into those shadows without brightening the image as a whole. 

Kaleidescape’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is also true to the film’s theatrical audio mix. You may have seen Midsommar presented in Dolby Atmos on certain streaming platforms, but these Atmos tracks were created using Nugen Audio’s Halo upmixer software, based on the original 5.1. Given my druthers, I’ll take the original mix, thank you very much. It’s unusually aggressive, in a way I normally don’t love, but in this case it absolutely works. 

The soundtrack leans on the surround channels hard, often panning dialogue into them so fully that if your rear speakers aren’t up to the quality of the rest of your system, you’ll likely hear a shift in the quality of the sound. Even if your system is well-designed from front to back, it’s still a disorienting and frankly distracting effect. But that’s the point. The mix rarely goes whole-hog on the surrounds when there’s something crucial happening onscreen. And when it does, it’s because the film wants to you feel disoriented at that moment. 

The only thing missing from Kaleidescape’s download is Aster’s original 171-minute cut, which A24, the film’s distributor, made him trim down for wide theatrical release. Given that the cuts were made simply to cram more butts into seats and not due to content, it’s strange that A24 is so precious with the original edit. In the US, the only ways to see it are via Apple TV (it’s included as an iTunes Extra with the purchase of the film) and by way of an incredibly limited 4K Blu-ray release that’s already fetching six times its original asking price on the secondary market. 

What I wouldn’t give to view that cut of the film in the quality of Kaleidescape’s presentation. Despite its nearly three-hour length, the director’s cut is even better paced and frankly feels like a shorter film. But the improvements over the theatrical cut aren’t so substantial that I would choose Apple TV’s compromised stream over Kaleidescape’s pixel-perfect download.

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 | Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR presentation is wonderfully true to Midsommar‘s intended look, delivering it with exceptional detail

SOUND | The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is unusually aggressive but true to the film’s theatrical mix, leaning hard on the surrounds

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Review: Stranger Things 3

Stranger Things 3 (2019)

review | Stranger Things 3

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Season 3 goes for the gruesome, balancing the horror by taking the series’ first stab at zany

by Dennis Burger
July 8, 2019

Stranger Things 3 is such a tonal, structural, and narrative departure from what’s come before that it can take hardcore fans of the series (raises hand unapologetically) a few episodes to get into this year’s batch of eight episodes. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the first couple episodes. In fact, the show’s creators—collectively known as the Duffer Brothers—demonstrate time and again their ability to lovingly mash up, remix, riff on, and reassemble 1980s pop culture in new and inventive ways. It’s simply that this time around, they’re being a little cheeky about it. 

There’s a poolside scene in the first episode, for example, in which they nab the Cars’ “Moving in Stereo” from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and it’s played in such a way that you can’t help but anticipate exactly what’s coming if you know that film. That anticipation is hilariously subverted, though, setting the stage for a new season that is, at times, something Stranger Things has never really been before: Zany.

Get a few episodes in to Stranger Things 3 and the reason for this starts to become clear. While leaning hard on all the influences that have made the show so beloved to date—Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Richard Donner, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper, Rob Reiner, and all the other giants of genre and coming-of-age fiction from that era—the Duffers also start to bring other, darker influences to the forefront, like early-’80s Sam Raimi and mid-80s David Cronenberg. As such, things can get a little more gruesome this time around.

To balance that, the creators introduce a lot more levity. They’ve mentioned Fletch as a big inspiration for Stranger Things 3, and indeed, elements of the Chevy Chase screwball comedy can be seen in the side-quest of Hopper (the show’s irritable chief of police) and Joyce (the mother of Mike, the unfortunate victim of Stranger Things and Stranger Things 2). 

Add to that some unlikely influences such as Spies Like Us and Red Dawn (the latter of which is ribbed more than revered here), and you’ve got a weird and wonderful pastiche that, on paper at least, seems like it would struggle to hold itself together. But hold together it does. Whether it’s tweaking mall culture, reliving the Cold War tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R, or once again bringing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign to life in the creepiest of ways, Stranger Things 3 succeeds primarily because it’s not merely a gimmicky nostalgia romp—it’s a legitimate love letter to a bygone era. 

As a result of that, some of its tropes may feel a little dated. The show isn’t interested in shades of grey: There are good guys and there are bad guys. And the bad guys are bad because they’re dirty commies hellbent on world destruction or something. Why are they hellbent on world destruction or something? Because they’re the bad guys. Duh. 

But none of the above matters so much as the show’s amazing cast, which features a few new additions this year. Cary Elwes positively chews the scenery as the corrupt mayor of Hawkins, Indiana, whose shady political dealings allowed for the construction of the Russian-financed mall that serves as a front for the nefarious Soviet experiment at the heart of this season. And Maya Hawke (daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) absolutely shines as the misfit mall employee who helps crack the case at the heart of Stranger Things 3. But the original cast, including the impossibly talented Millie Bobby Brown, is still the emotional heart of the show, and it’s their relationships, their emotional ups and downs, their successes and failures that keep us coming back.

Another thing that makes Stranger Things 3 such a fun and effective followup to the first two is that, despite all of its shake-ups in terms of tone, structure, and inspiration, there’s an undeniable through-line in the look of the show. The aesthetic is, unsurprisingly, 1980s through and through, and while capturing that look doesn’t leave a lot of room for super-vivid imagery, the 4K presentation relies heavily on HDR to add depth and texture to the shadows. There’s some nice use of spectacular (though not really eye-reactive) highlights from time to time, but most of the dynamic range is reserved for the lower end of the value scale. As such, you’ll definitely benefit from watching on a display that can handle the distinction between black and oh-so-very-nearly black. 

The 5.1-channel soundtrack also deserves to be experienced on the highest-quality surround sound system possible. That shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Stranger Things 2 was the impetus behind Netflix’s new adaptive studio-quality sound technology. Still, it’s a little shocking just how effective—indeed, aggressive—the mix is this time around. I don’t think my subwoofer has gotten such a raucous workout since Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and the surround channels are pushed to their extremes in all the right places, especially in remixing the gloriously nostalgic soundtrack.

My only beef is that Netflix doesn’t give us any bonus features for Stranger Things 3. While another season of Beyond Stranger Things would have been ideal, any sort of extra goodies would have been appreciated. 

Thankfully, the show stands on its own as a binge-worthy romp, especially for those of us who grew up in the era being mythologized. And for what it’s worth, there’s one tiny extra worth mentioning: If you’re the type to hit the stop button as soon as the ending credits start rolling, be sure to stick around past the end of the final episode. There’s a mid-credits sequence that sets the stage for Stranger Things 4, which by all accounts will likely be the show’s swan song.

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 | Capturing the look of the 1980s doesn’t leave a lot of room for super-vivid imagery, so the 4K presentation relies heavily on HDR to add depth and texture to the shadows 

SOUND | It’s a little shocking just how  aggressive the mix is this time around. The surround channels are pushed to their extremes in all the right places, especially in remixing the gloriously nostalgic soundtrack.

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Review: The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

review | The Nightmare Before Christmas

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This Tim Burton classic would seem like it would benefit from a 4K HDR upgrade but turns out to be almost flawless when seen in HD on Disney+

by Dennis Burger
December 22, 2020

In retrospect, it’s kind of amazing that The Nightmare Before Christmas works at all. The film, after all, wasn’t really based on a story so much as it was cobbled together from some poetry and sketches and ideas from Tim Burton, who intended to turn it into a half-hour TV special à la Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or maybe a children’s book, or maybe something else altogether. There’s also the fact that the screenplay by Caroline Thompson ended up serving almost more as a skeleton for the film than an actual script, given that much of the final product was developed visually by director Henry Selick and was constantly in flux. 

If anyone deserves the utmost praise for the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas, it would be Danny Elfman, who worked with Burton to flesh out something resembling the major story beats then wrote the soundtrack that, in the end, actually serves as the story rather than merely as accompaniment. So much so that Chris Sarandon, who was cast in the role of the speaking voice of Jack Skellington was left with very little to do. Elfman ends up being the primary voice of Jack, the spirit of Jack, and the driving force for the film, while Selick filters Burton’s aesthetic through his own similar style and every other aspect of the production just gets dragged along for the ride.

It ought to be a mess, and yet Nightmare remains one of the most charming and heartfelt holiday films I’ve ever seen. And, yes, it would be more accurate to call Nightmare a “holiday” film than a Christmas film because although it appropriates all the trappings of our modern commercialized, paganized melting-pot celebration of the nativity, the story makes it abundantly clear the trappings of Christmas are hardly the point.

Instead, Nightmare cuts to the heart of why this time of year has been the center of celebration for millennia, from Saturnalia to Yule to Hanukkah to Ayyappan to Calan Gaeaf to Yaldā Night to Christmas and so many other holy and secular holidays that I’m forgetting at the moment. It’s a recognition of the fact that this holiday season represents the return of the light after a period of encroaching darkness beginning around the harvest/Halloween/Samhain/Día de los Muertos. It goes straight to the cyclical and seasonal reasons for these festivals far too many of us have forgotten, living as we do indoors and disconnected from the earth. 

There’s also a thematic aspect of Nightmare that resonates outside of its connection to the holiday season, and it’s a theme few storytellers have explored so effectively. (Really, only Tolkien comes to mind, most notably with the story of Míriel from the Quenta Silmarillion and Morgoth’s Ring.) It’s the simple lesson that when we attempt to be who we are not, to defy our true nature, nothing good can possibly come of it. In attempting to assume the role of “Sandy Claws” merely as a means of rejecting or pacifying his own dissatisfaction with the doom and gloom of Halloween without truly understanding why or how people celebrate Christmas, Jack makes a mess of pretty much everything. And while the resolution of this story thread is all wrapped up a little too tidily, what more do you expect from a 76-minute cartoon? 

Any fan of the film probably already realizes all of the above, though, so why am I going on about it all? Because the original premise of this review fell out from under me. I had every intention of writing a scathing (and perhaps pleading) criticism about the fact that The Nightmare Before Christmas deserves a 4K HDR remaster more than just about any of the Disney animated films that have already received such. 

But when I sat down to watch the film again—mostly to take notes on all the scenes I thought would be improved by a modern home video transfer—I realized the current HD master (which has been with us since 2008) is pretty much flawless. Fans revolted when Disney dropped a 25th-anniversary re-release on the marketplace in 2018 with nothing more than a new singalong mode and a bit of extra bandwidth for the film itself. And I was right there, pitchfork raised alongside theirs.

But even the HD version of the film on Disney+ looks flawless. The limited color palette is presented perfectly. Blacks are richer than liquid gold and there’s nary a hint of crush to be found. Highlights don’t clip, midtones don’t seem in any way lacking in subtlety, and the level of detail is incredible. Simply put, all the shortcomings we now associate with HD video are pretty much nowhere to be seen. I think I’ve seen Nightmare on the big screen at least 10 times, and frankly even the Disney+ stream looks better than any of those commercial exhibitions, revealing fine textures and little visual Easter eggs I didn’t even notice in IMAX from the fourth row. 

Granted, the Disney+ version doesn’t include all the supplemental material that has appeared on various home video releases through the years. It does include several deleted scenes and storyboards, along with a few other goodies. But it lacks a couple of essential gems, namely the audio commentary by Selick, Burton, and Elfman, as well as Christopher Lee’s reading of Burton’s original “Nightmare Before Christmas” poem. You can find those on Kaleidescape, though, and they’re all worth a watch/listen.

More than anything, though, I wanted to point out that if you’ve been waiting on a UHD release of The Nightmare Before Christmas, you should probably stop. If it were going to happen anytime soon, it would have been two years ago. Given Disney’s penchant for tying home video releases to anniversaries, our next shot at a remaster probably comes in 2023. And that’s too long to wait before diving into this charming little holiday gem again.

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 | The HD version on Disney+ looks flawless. The limited color palette is presented perfectly, with the blacks richer than liquid gold and with nary a hint of crush to be found.

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Review: It (2017)

It (2017)

review | It (2017)

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This adaptation of the Stephen King novel is a major reworking of the source material but that yields big dividends in its relevance, themes, and atmosphere 

by Dennis Burger
October 20, 2020

Had I known going in just how drastically Andy Muschietti restructured Stephen King’s It when adapting the 1,138-page novel into two movies, I probably never would have given it a chance. In case you’re not familiar with the book, it follows the adventures and tribulations of seven friends known collectively as “The Loser’s Club,” cutting back and forth between their adolescent and adult encounters with a shapeshifting, homicidal cosmic horror who takes the form of a clown known as Pennywise. 

The intercutting between the characters as adults and adolescents is crucial to the plot (not to mention the emotional impact) of the novel, so if you had told me ahead of time that Muschietti shuffled the story like a deck of cards, then laid out the events in chronological order, with the first movie focusing on the story of the Loser’s Club as kids and the second serving as a sequel focusing on their adult experiences, I would have explained to you (probably with as much condescension as I could humanly muster) that such an approach would miss the point of the book entirely.

And although that may be the case, what Muschietti has done is turn this story into two distinct stories, each with its own themes, and each of which—much to my pleasant surprise—works as its own self-contained experience, with a proper beginning, middle, and ending. 

The other big change Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman made to the source material was an update to the timeline. Rather than starting in 1957, as does the book, It moves the Loser’s Club’s youth to 1989, and also adds a couple of years to their ages. The former change not only allows the cinematic sequel to take place in the present day, but also allows Muschietti to rely on cultural references that will likely be a bit more familiar to modern audiences. The latter change keeps the film from veering too far into exploitative territory and also makes the story somewhat more believable. 

Muschietti and Dauberman also removed some of the cosmic/spiritual aspects of the story that strain credulity to its breaking point, and what we’re left with is a movie that, in many ways, sort of feels like a scary, R-rated riff on The Goonies. There are also shades of Stranger Things here and there (and not merely because Finn Wolfhard, that series’ star, plays a key role in the film). 

Despite the comparisons, It manages to carve out its own identity. A lot of the credit for that goes to Bill Skarsgård, whose performance as Pennywise is unforgettable. Rather than borrow anything from Tim Curry, who played the role first in ABC’s two-part miniseries adaptation from 1990, Skarsgård makes the character his own, bringing a wholly alien physicality to the performance that makes one thing abundantly clear from the giddy-up: This isn’t your garden-variety sewer-dwelling murder-clown we’re dealing with here.

The look of the film also contributes to the sort of distinctive and effective personality lacking in so many of today’s horror movies. Shot on ArriRaw in a combination of 2.8K and 3.4K, the movie has a rich and gorgeous palette that makes even its most pedestrian scenes visually engaging. What’s more, you’d never know from looking at the imagery’s crisp edges, luscious textures, and fine detail that it was finished in a 2K digital intermediate. It is further proof that this sort of thing just doesn’t matter as much as some people would have you believe. The important thing is that Kaleidescape’s download is above reproach in terms of definition and detail.

HDR is also put to good use, not only in delivering the movie’s rich colors but also in allowing a good bit of extra depth in the shadows. Make no mistake about it—It is an incredibly dark film—one that should be viewed in a completely light-controlled room. But even with the lights out, the Blu-ray release made portions so inscrutably dark that it was difficult to tell what was going on at all. The 4K HDR transfer rectifies that at least enough to make even the darkest scenes discernible. Long story short, it may come from a 2K DI, but the 4K HDR release of It—at least as presented by Kaleidescape—is amazing video demo material, and comes darn close to being a reference-quality transfer. 

The Dolby TrueHD Atmos is also everything you would expect the soundtrack for a movie like this to be. Directional sound effects are aggressive as hell, the bass is absolutely britches-leg-flapping, and the overall creepy ambiance of the movie is handled fantastically by the soundtrack. My only real beef is that voices occasionally get lost in the mix. Don’t blame your center speaker if you find some of the dialogue a bit unintelligible—instead blame the sound engineers. That said, this problem isn’t nearly so bad here as it has been in the past few Chris Nolan films.

As for the movie itself, my only real beef is that it feels a little short. An odd statement to make about a 135-minute horror flick, I know, but It is so packed with characters, most of whom have their own compelling individual storylines distinct from the group dynamic, that it just whizzes by. A few extra minutes’ worth of runtime would have allowed Muschietti to flesh out a couple of characters that seem underserved here. Stanley Uris, for example—played wonderfully by the young Wyatt Oleff—serves such a minor role in the overall story that he could have just as easily been written out of the screenplay and it hardly would have been the biggest departure from the novel. The relationship between Eddie Kaspbrak and his mother is also a bit undeveloped, leaving the resolution of their storyline feeling somewhat unsatisfying.

Those quibbles aside, It is a surprisingly good horror movie that thankfully relies more on scares than gross-outs to keep you glued to the screen and huddled under your blanket. Don’t go into it expecting a faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s book (although, given how poorly that one has aged, that’s probably a good thing) but do go in expecting a very satisfying reinterpretation of parts of the novel—one that absolutely works on its own terms, whether you have any intention of watching the sequel or not.

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 | Above reproach in terms of definition and detail, the Kaleidescape presentation of the 4K HDR release is amazing video demo material and comes darn close to being a reference-quality transfer

SOUND | Directional sound effects in the Atmos mix are aggressive as hell, the bass is absolutely pants-leg-flapping, and the overall creepy ambiance of the movie is handled fantastically

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Review: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

review | Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The first Body Snatchers movie and the precursor of the modern zombie film, the original still packs a bigger punch than any of its descendants

by Michael Gaughn
October 7, 2022

I create Top 10 lists but never as a permanent enshrinement of anything but more as a snapshot of how I value things at a certain moment in time. To believe you’ve permanently decided on the definitive of anything—let alone believe anything as fluid and zeitgeist-driven as movies can be correlated in any meaningful way—is pure hubris, and to etch your choices in stone is to essentially embalm, not appreciate, them, like pinning butterflies to a board. All of which is to say that I once had the original, 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers in my No. 1 slot. That troubled me a lot at the time but it also felt somehow right.

I don’t know if I would ever put it back at No. 1 but it still feels somehow right. If there’s an inherent value in a piece of pop cinema being able to both capture the angst of an era and use it as a springboard to perfectly project the trajectory of the culture, then Body Snatchers has that, and in spades. The film was too easily dismissed at the time and subsequently as an expression of Red Scare paranoia. It’s not. It’s a low-budget B-movie depiction of the loss of self, or soul—depending on how you want to parse that—uncannily prescient, and done with a power that lends it a continuing relevance it never would have achieved as an A-list project.

I can’t think of another movie that’s done a better job of portraying that fatal pivot in the culture, nor any that come close to it that approach the subject with as much restraint. That restraint compresses the film’s energy, allowing it to resonate just as strongly (more so?) 66 years on, eclipsing all the remakes, off-shoots, and imitators.

I’m not saying Body Snatchers is what would traditionally be considered a masterpiece, in the technical or even the cinematic sense. At the end of the day, it’s still a B movie, with all the basic flaws that come with pandering to that segment of the audience. But it captures something tremendously important, and captures it better than could have been done if it had been put in more accomplished hands. Its B-movie weaknesses are its virtues, forcing its makers to keep the action intimate and the practical effects modest. And the material seems to need the rough energy, the inherent luridness, that comes with aiming for the cheap seats. 

The wraparound—tacked on after the fact because the ending was considered too depressing—remains pointless. The film means nothing, packs no punch, if it’s not hopeless, and to enjoy it (in the troubling sense of the word) you have to edit those bookends out in your mind as you watch it. (But there is a certain giddy frisson to seeing the ubiquitous Whit Bissell, the embodiment of bland, benign mid-‘50s authority; Richard “The Dick Van Dyke Show” Deacon; and the hit man who tried to rub out Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross all being called up for active duty to do a couple of completely unnecessary scenes.)

The movie’s Santa Mira is a typical small American city the way Santa Rosa is in Shadow of a Doubt, but Body Snatchers doesn’t waste any time establishing that because, like in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, that almost mythic sense of place was so thoroughly understood, was such a shared and reassuring cultural reference point, that any kind of stage-setting would have been unnecessary and just slowed everything down. Unlike most horror movies and thrillers, Body Snatchers jumps right into laying down its “there’s something wrong here” vibe, which makes it infinitely creepier.

From that opening scene on, the film is breathless—but without once seeming to break a sweat. The mood deepens, the shadows thicken, and the thrills are placed as quietly and cunningly as the seed pods, building to an overwhelming sense of inevitability and dread. There’s no big rush to get to a big effect—the first developing pod doesn’t even appear until the halfway point—and yet no scene lingers. Each says exactly what it needs to say and moves on.

Body Snatchers is really a chamber drama with a perverse sense of humor and the occasional practical effect. Everything is grounded in basic human interaction and kept plausible for as long as possible. It never overreaches. For all the cheesy horror makeup and monster suits with zippers in ‘50s films, the effects here remain remarkably convincing, which has a lot to do with the film’s staying power. 

That’s not to say there aren’t problems—it’s a B movie, so it’s brimming with problems. Dana Wynter’s entrance is so badly handled it always gets a laugh, you have your pick of cringe-worthy lines, and poor Kevin McCarthy seems to be in over his head throughout. And then there’s the constant churning and over-insistence of the Carmen Dragon score. But the premise is so strong and the film clings to it so tenaciously and develops it so powerfully that the fumbles almost feel like grace notes.

The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers spawned the modern zombie movie—although not in the ways you’d think. The characters recoil upon discovering their pod doubles not because they’re alien but because they’re so much like themselves. Similarly, zombie movies aren’t about the undead being other—they’re one of us, just a too easily taken step away from who we are now. Depending on your angle of approach, Body Snatchers can induce an even bigger shudder today than it did in its time because it’s a pretty accurate depiction of who we once were and who we’ve, c. 1985, become.

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

PICTURE | The usual Amazon Prime spiel—watchable, with occasional standout moments, with little that could be called exceptional. But this was always meant to be a second-on-the-bill potboiler, never exquisite or pristine.

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Review: Hocus Pocus 2

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

review | Hocus Pocus 2

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A step up from the original, the sequel is still mainly a nostalgic sugar rush that could have been thought through a little better

by Dennis Burger
October 6, 2022

Whether or not Hocus Pocus 2 is a good movie is hardly even a coherent question. Of course it isn’t a good movie. The real question is whether or not you’ll like it, and I think the answer to that is simple. 

Are you an elder Millennial who developed a Pavlovian affection for the original through repeated exposure on The Disney Channel in the late 1990s, and you now want to try to beat a love for it into the heads of your children? Or are you in the grips of Stockholm Syndrome after being forced to become familiar with the 1993 cult classic just to understand half the memes in Memeville? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes,” I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll get something out of this Disney+ original, which at times blurs the lines between sequel, reboot, and remake. 

It’s a better movie than the original—better acted, more artfully shot, with a more coherent script and more competent direction at the hands of Anne Fletcher (Step Up, 27 Dresses) but such praise is relative. This is still a glorified after-school special with a false edge, filled with out-of-touch musical numbers and lazy references to modern culture that will lose what chuckle-worthiness they have before the inevitable Hocus Pocus 3 comes out in a few years. 

The premise of the plot is also flawed from the foundation up. It all hinges up on the fact that the Sanderson Sisters—played once again by Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker—can only be conjured during a full moon on Halloween, and by a virgin at that. The sequel makes it quite clear that the last time the witches rampaged through Salem was in 1993, and it’s now exactly 29 years later. 

In other words, the script goes out of its way to set this sequel in 2022. And yet there’s no full moon on Halloween this year—nowhere near it. There was one in 2020 but a big whole-town Halloween celebration wouldn’t have quite made sense that year. There’ll be another one in 2039, but that wouldn’t quite work for a story whose novelty hinges upon evil women from ye olde tymes being baffled by modern technology and customs. 

Could they have just dropped the full-moon requirement and glossed it over with some retroactive continuity? Sure, that would have been the easiest way to make sense of it all. But this movie doesn’t give a hoot whether it makes sense, nor whether you care if it makes sense. It’s here to give you a nostalgic sugar rush and create an alibi for you to foist your childhood pop-culture fetish on a new generation. (And trust me: As a Star Wars devotee, I feel your pain.) 

Given that, the movie’s Dolby Vision video presentation on Disney+ almost seems wasted. The enhanced resolution is a mixed blessing as on the one hand the 8K source imagery and 4K digital intermediate allow you to appreciate some of the surprisingly nice set designs and lighting. But on the other, that resolution makes some of the constraints of the relatively meager budget a bit too apparent, especially in the compositing of some of the digital effects. 

Still, there are some details I would expect HEVC to struggle with at any bitrate, streaming or not, such as a few swirly, sparkly, extremely specular magical effects that require higher frequencies to render, all laid atop rather dark backgrounds that lean harder on the lower-frequency corner of the discrete cosine transform table. Content that demands equal reliance on high and low frequencies simultaneously is always the toughest for any hybrid block-based codec to encode and decode, and I was frankly shocked by how well Disney+ handled it. I never saw it struggle.

The Dolby Digital+ Atmos mix is best described as “perfunctory,” and if for whatever reason you plan on watching this movie in your home cinema, just know that it’s mixed about 2.5 dB below reference levels, so go ahead and turn the volume up. 

Again, though, you’d probably be better off watching Disney+’s Dolby Vision remaster of the original instead if you need to scratch this itch. It may not be as good, but at least you’re already addicted to it—otherwise, why are you even reading this?

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 | The Dolby Vision presentation on Disney+ allows you to appreciate some of the surprisingly nice set designs and lighting, but the enhanced resolution makes some of the constraints of the relatively meager budget a bit too apparent

SOUND | The Dolby Digital+ Atmos mix is best described as “perfunctory”—it’s also mixed about 2.5 dB below reference level

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Review: Blonde

Blonde (2022)

review | Blonde

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This lurid take on Marilyn Monroe’s life sometimes hits the mark but just as often wallows in the muck

by Roger Kanno
October 5, 2022

Andrew Dominik’s Blonde received a standing ovation after its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 14. And while it has a striking visual style and a mesmerizing performance by Ana de Armas starring as Marilyn Monroe, this sensationalized depiction of the iconic film star’s life will not suit everyone’s tastes. Available on Netflix since September 30, it is the first film produced by the streamer to be given an NC-17 rating. It can be difficult to watch with many scenes depicting Monroe’s troubled life as she struggles to deal with the less desirable aspects of fame and the predatory people who surround her.

At times, it feels as though the film is exploiting her legacy more than it’s honoring her memory. However, Blonde does elicit a sense of admiration and sympathy for Monroe, even though it can be both voyeuristic and exploitative. There are a lot of seedy and sensationalistic events depicted whose veracity could be questioned, but whether they are accurate or not is less important than recognizing the toll fame extracted from the intelligent but naïve Norma Jeane Mortensen in her transformation into the screen icon Marilyn Monroe. Bobby Cannavale and Adrien Brody provide excellent supporting performances as the Ex-Athlete and the Playwright, but it is de Armas’ inspired performance that is the center of this film.

Dominik’s bold vision utilizes surreal, dreamlike imagery; slow-motion; closeups; and several different aspect ratios ranging from 1:1 to 2.39:1. Most of the film is composed at 1.37, like many of Monroe’s early films, but I found the constantly changing ratios to be distracting. The film also alternates between color and black & white with perplexing frequency. The color shots, especially those towards the beginning featuring a very young Norma Jeane and her mother are slightly washed-out with a yellow-sepia tinged character. This conveys the stark and unfulfilling nature of her austere childhood, and although later color scenes feature slightly more color saturation, they still retain a grim, subdued appearance. 

Dolby Vision color grading is used more effectively in scenes incorporating actual footage from Monroe’s films, with vibrant colors that really pop in contrast to Norma Jeane’s real life away from the Hollywood glitz. When the “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is projected in a theater during a gala screening, de Armas is digitally composited into the scene and the gorgeous bright fuchsia of her dress contrasted by the rich, dark blacks of the men’s tuxedos and the blood-red backdrop is visually stunning. This is juxtaposed with the more muted colors in the wider shots of the theater and the audience members as Monroe exclaims, “That thing up on the screen, it isn’t me.”

Black & white scenes also occasionally exhibit a slightly washed-out quality, but dreamlike sequences such as the recreation of the subway-grate scene from The Seven Year Itch looked absolutely gorgeous. There were deep, inky  black backgrounds that beautifully framed Monroe’s bright white dress moving in slow motion with mesmerizing detail in the curves of its flowing fabric and the perfectly and crisply defined pleats.  

Audio is presented in Dolby Atmos and is quite good, with a wide stereo soundstage for music and effective use of all channels to provide a pleasing ambience. The surround and height channels are used occasionally for discrete Foley effects such as the screams of patients in the hallways of the state hospital where Norma Jeane visits her ailing mother. And when she and her mother flee a forest fire in her childhood, the crackling embers of the fire are all around them, but the overall effect, even with the atmospheric music, is not as enveloping and holographic as could be expected.

Writer and director Dominik’s liberal use of artistic license and unorthodox filmmaking techniques in telling the story of the legendary Marilyn Monroe is risky. As often as it works, there are equally as many times that it comes across as lurid and cringey. Blonde is sometimes beautiful to look at, with a heroic performance by de Armas, but its content is bleak and disturbing.

Roger Kanno began his life-long interest in home cinema almost three decades ago with a collection of LaserDiscs and a Dolby Surround Pro Logic system. Since then, he has seen a lot of movies in his home theater but has an equal fascination with high-end stereo music systems. Roger writes for both Sound & Vision and the SoundStage! Network.

PICTURE | Frequently alternating between color and black & white, the film mostly has a washed-out, subdued look, with Dolby Vision most effectively deployed in the scenes that use footage from Monroe’s actual movies

SOUND | The Atmos soundtrack is quite good, with a wide stereo soundstage for music and effective use of all channels to provide a pleasing ambience

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