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Review: The Gray Man

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The Gray Man (2022)

review | The Gray Man

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This may not be a Bond or a Bourne but Netflix’ big-budget Ryan Gosling vehicle is still an entertaining and fast-paced actioner

by Roger Kanno
July 27, 2022

With an estimated budget of $200 million, The Gray Man is Netflix’ latest, and most expensive, big-budget thriller. Starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, and Regé-Jean Page, among other award-winning actors, it is co-directed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, who have co-directed two each of the Captain America and Avengers movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on the book of the same name by Mark Greaney, as with other recent Netflix projects, it is expected to be the start of a film franchise. And like other films from the streamer, The Gray Man received a limited release in theaters on July 15 prior to being made available digitally on July 22. 

Gosling plays Sierra Six, a CIA operative and part of an elite unit of highly skilled assassins. He becomes involved in an operation that goes awry and ends up having to run from the very people he works for. The plot is reminiscent of spy thrillers such as those from the Bourne series or James Bond, and like those other franchises, this film features an outstanding cast. Evans is the main antagonist, Lloyd Hansen, a ruthless killer for hire who plays his character menacingly enough but with just the right amount of douchiness and along with de Armas as a highly skilled CIA operative, Dani Miranda, these three are constantly at the center of the plentiful action. The set pieces are impressive with many memorable action sequences including an incredibly complex fight and chase onboard a tram-train that provides pulse-pounding excitement.

While there is plenty of great action, the character development can be a bit uneven. There is some good chemistry between the leads but, at times, their dialogue and interactions seem stilted. At other times, it is snappy and organic, moving the story along smoothly. It’s not the fault of the actors as they do their best with the material they’re provided. De Armas and Gosling are especially convincing as reluctant heroes, when given the opportunity and the means. The Gray Man may suffer in comparison to some of the accomplished spy thrillers that have come before it but taken on its own terms, is an entertaining and fast-paced actioner.

Although the film may be called The Gray Man, the visuals are anything but gray or drab. Establishing shots of a fireworks display are obviously CGI and stylized to look a bit like a graphic novel, but the Dolby Vision grade provides impressively rich, bright colors and deep, dark blacks. As the scene shifts to the celebration indoors, the constantly changing lighting from the fireworks and spotlights on the dance floor looked fantastic on my OLED display. The composition of shots with infinite blacks in the deepest of shadows contrasted by brilliantly illuminated objects such as colorfully backlit keyboards and LCD displays in an internet gaming café didn’t look particularly natural, but the atmospheric lighting and sharply defined images were certainly impressive. In a particularly challenging scene where smoke from an explosion fills the inside of an apartment building, the clouds of smoke appear with such fine detail that there’s a sense of depth and dimensionality as Six fights a team of Lloyd’s henchmen and the smoke swirls and moves around them in perfect unison. 

The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is excellent, as should be expected from a big-budget action picture. During the tram-train fight sequence, the sounds of small-arms fire, explosions, speeding cars, and hand-to-hand combat mixed with the suspenseful music is dizzying in its clarity and ability to create a holographic aural effect. In addition to the aggressive, directional effects during action scenes, the object-based surround mix is used to effectively place eerily echoing voices and atmospheric music in the surround and height channels and move them smoothly around the room during a flashback scene. There is also some great use of popular music as introduced by characters playing records, such as Mark Lindsay’s “Silver Bird” on 45, which is played a couple of times in the film.

If you’re looking for something light and breezy to pass some time and give your home theater a real workout this summer, give The Gray Man a shot.

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 | The Dolby Vision grade provides impressively rich, bright colors and deep, dark blacks

SOUND | The Atmos soundtrack is excellent, as should be expected from a big-budget action picture

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Review: Jurassic World Dominion

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

review | Jurassic World: Dominion

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Expect to see lots of dinosaurs, cast members, and action-scene mayhem in this latest entry in the Jurassic franchise

by John Sciacca
July 18, 2022

Can you believe it’s been nearly 30 years since Steven Spielberg first threw open the gates and welcomed us to Jurassic Park? It’s no surprise that monster hit spawned two sequels; and then, after lying dormant for 14 years, the franchise saw a reboot in 2015 with Jurassic World, featuring a new cast and—of course—bigger and meaner dinos.

I was in the theater opening night in 1993 for Jurassic Park’s debut, and what I remember about that movie is the wonder, mystery, and magic of seeing dinos up on the big screen, more realistic and believable than ever before. Similar to how he handled Jaws, Spielberg showed his digital (and practical) dinos somewhat sparingly, using what you heard off camera and just caught glimpses of to keep the tension and making the moments with the dinosaurs that much more exciting. 

Since that movie, it seems the filmmakers have come to rely on the dinosaurs and visual effects as the crutch, and in Dominion we have dinos of all types and sizes everywhere and in nearly every scene, with almost all ready to attack. Perhaps I’m jaded, but 30 years after the original film, the wonder of seeing dinosaurs on screen has passed, and I now expect them to be wrapped in a compelling and somewhat believable story. Just giving me some new, bigger, faster, meaner genetically modified apex predator isn’t enough.

With Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth entry in the franchise, we have the stars of the original Park—Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and everyone’s favorite chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum)—united for the first time with the World cast of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). If that sentence alone suggests Dominion has a lot going on, you’re right. 

Trying to bring all of these sub and side stories and plotlines together leaves Dominion jumping around a lot, and trying to pack as much as possible into its 146-minute runtime. It also features a franchise-low Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of 30%, dropping from the original Jurassic Park’s 92% and reboot Jurassic World’s 71%. On the flip side, it is nearly tied with the second highest audience score of 77%, just a nick behind World’s 78%, and with some nice, nostalgic call-back moments to the first film, you could say director Colin Trevorrow gave the people what they wanted. 

Taking place four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the opening documentary-style footage tells us dinosaurs are now freely roaming the world and people are “learning” to live with them. This has created some obvious issues, and in an effort to control the dinosaurs, a company called Biosyn Genetics has been assigned global collection rights and created a dino sanctuary in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains where they are studying dinosaur DNA to look for ways to improve human life. 

In one major storyline, Grady and Dearing are living together in a remote cabin, where she works to save dinosaurs from a growing black-market industry and he wrangles and relocates stray dinos. They’re also hiding and secretly raising 14-year-old Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), a genetic clone of Charlotte Lockwood, the daughter of Jurassic Park’s co-founder, who scientists want to study for her DNA.

And in the other, Sattler is investigating a series of devastating mutant-locust attacks that are wiping out crops around the globe, except these super-sized locusts are sparing any Biosyn-enhanced crops. When one of the locusts is captured alive, she takes it to Dr. Grant and asks for his help. They decide to visit Biosyn in Italy, where they meet CEO Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), who gave me a very Apple CEO Tim Cook vibe, and are reunited with Dr. Malcolm. (You might recall that Biosyn and Dodgson—played by a different actor—had a brief but important role in the original Jurassic Park, where he recruited Dennis Nedry [Wayne Knight] to steal dino embryos from rival InGen and deliver them in a special Barbasol shaving can.) These stories develop separately until about 105 minutes into the film, when they almost literally crash into each other and the casts are brought together to save each other and ostensibly the world.

My daughter Lauryn best summed up the film about halfway through by saying, “I’m equally bored and excited.” To me, Dominion is really a series a great-looking and -sounding demo scenes with a thin filament of story binding and stringing them together. My guess is that after the initial viewing, you’ll be more likely to turn to one of the six pre-bookmarked scenes on the Kaleidescape download to wow guests than to actually rewatch the movie from start to finish. 

The technical specs show that Dominion was filmed on 35mm and 65mm stock, along with Red cameras at 8K for some scenes. The home transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, and for most of the movie, the images are reference-quality. There’s some light grain present from the film stock in some scenes, but it was never objectionable.

For the most part, what I noticed was tons of sharpness and detail, with clean, clear images. There was also a lot of depth to images while still retaining sharp focus. Closeups revealed loads of textures, such as the scales, claws, teeth, and scratches on the Velociraptor Beta or the grain and stitching in Malcolm’s black leather jacket. You can also see fine facial detail in actors’ faces and clearly see individual strands of hair.

One of the more visually compelling scenes was the bright, gleaming sun-drenched outdoor vistas of Malta. Here, long establishing shots show beautifully clear and razor-edged rows of buildings and roofs, with closeups showing the stonework and mortar lines, letting you appreciate the fine cracks and weathering in the stone blocks and floors. 

There are loads of dark scenes, whether at night or creeping around inside of caves, giving the HDR grade plenty of room to deliver. Black levels are dark and clean, with nice shadow detail for natural images with lots of depth. There are quite a few instances of bright headlights and flashlights probing the dark, or bright, red-orange fiery torches lighting a cave system, and other fiery, burning objects, and bright glowing buttons and screens that all receive extra pop from the HDR pass. 

Other than a brief, almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, scene near the beginning shot underwater where a bit of banding is visible in the water layers, the video was impeccable. There were several scenes—one where multiple shafts of light are over a forest and another with bright lights and flames in a cave—that could have easily been video torture tests but looked terrific. Visually, Jurassic World Dominion will make your home theater shine.

Another interesting “nerd fact” is that the original Jurassic Park was the first theatrical film to feature an audio mix from DTS, a competitor to Dolby Digital. To this point, none of the Jurassic films released to the home market have included an immersive Dolby Atmos mix, instead opting for the DTS:X surround mix. But for Dominion the Kaleidescape download does have a Dolby TrueHD Atmos mix. (Whether that will be the audio format featured on the disc remains to be seen.) 

I found the mix immersive, engaging, and exciting, with near constant use of the surrounds and height speakers for either ambient sounds that open and expand the listening space, or big, dynamic sounds during the action. Frequently you’ll hear sounds of dinosaurs growling, skittering, or making other noises from all around the room, alerting you to danger, or have the sounds of soft blowing breezes rustling leaves, with birds and insects off in the distance in jungles and forests, or city street and traffic sounds. Height speakers are frequently called into play, such as when dinosaurs fly and roar past overhead, leap over vehicles, or during a locust swarm that engulfs the room, when characters are plunged underwater, and during a plane crash.  

Bass is also quite deep, room-filling, and tactile. Whether it’s the thundering herds of running dinosaurs, the collision of vehicles, or dino growls and roars that will hit you in the chest with authority, expect Dominion to give your subs a workout in the best way. Even with all of the sonic mayhem, dialogue remains clear and locked into the center channel.

One of the best audio demos is during a chase in Malta involving vehicles, a motorcycle, dinos, and a plane. There are engines revving, tires squealing, dinosaurs leaping overhead and charging, collisions with impacts and debris spilling and crashing all around the room. It’s exciting, intense, and a little ridiculous, but it looks and sounds great. And that kind of sums up the film—go in expecting to have a big, loud, fun time with your family and friends, where you’re wowed by the picture and sound, and you’ll likely enjoy it. 

I’m a fan of the franchise, and even though this film had its flaws, Jurassic remains the surest bet for a big summer blockbuster featuring a spectacle of big VFX, a killer surround mix, and the best digital dinosaurs you’re likely to see. Even though they didn’t share much time on screen, it was great to see the old Park crew united with the new World bunch, and if they decide to return for another, I’ll surely come along for the ride. 

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 | Aside from some light, unobjectionable grain present from the film stock in some scenes, the images are reference-quality

SOUND | The Atmos mix is immersive, engaging, and exciting, with near constant use of the surrounds and height speakers

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Review: Ralph Breaks the Internet

Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

review | Ralph Breaks the Internet

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The sequel lives up to the original, giving the characters a new, Easter egg-strewn, adventure

by John Sciacca
February 17, 2019

Ralph Breaks the Internet, the followup to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph, is one of those rare sequels that, if not better than the original, stands equal to it. Like many modern Disney (and Pixar) films, even though it’s animated, Ralph’s story and themes are designed to appeal across a wide range of ages, and offers plenty of laughs and emotion for everyone in the family. 

About six years has passed since the end of the first movie, and life remains mostly unchanged in the arcade for Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), who spend their days playing as characters in their video games, and their nights hanging out together, traveling to different games and throwing back root beer at Tapper’s. 

When the steering wheel in Vanellope’s racing game Sugar Rush breaks, the machine is unplugged, leaving all of the characters “gameless” (in other words, homeless). Ralph and Vanellope turn to the Internet to find the part needed to repair the game, starting our heroes on their quest. But the film is really about friendship enduring as people grow and change, and the insecurity one person feels when they are totally happy with the status quo and want nothing to change and the other wonders what more the world has to offer and feels like they need to move on. Ultimately, your friends don’t need to be exactly like you to be your friends and we need to let the ones we love be free to pursue their dreams, even if that means potentially losing them. Heady themes for a kid’s movie.

Ralph checked all the boxes for me: video games, nostalgia, technology, Disney, and Easter eggs aplenty, rivaling Ready Player One for things hidden in the background. (Google the license plate in the shark’s mouth for one great one!) 

The film does a great job of visualizing how technology works—from the concept of packetizing data and sending it through a router and off to the Internet, how searches, viral videos, and pop-ups work—what causes the Internet to drop, and imagining what it might look like if it were a physical place that data actually visited. 

Without a doubt, the scenes at OhMyDisney.com were my favorite parts, and quite possibly some of my favorite scenes from any movie in recent years. This area of the ‘net brings together virtually every Disney property—classic Disney, princesses, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, hidden Mickeys —into a lengthy segment featuring some fantastic Easter eggs throughout that had me smiling until my cheeks hurt. Instead of just being a cheap franchise tie-in, this scene brings these franchises together in a fantastically organic and entertaining manner. And kudos to Disney for getting all of the original actors back to reprise their voice roles. Great stuff!

Similar to how the first film used different animation styles to differentiate between the worlds of Fix-It Felix (Ralph’s game), Sugar Rush (Vanellope’s game), and Hero’s Duty (Calhoun’s game), Breaks has different looks and styles depending on where we are in Ralph’s world—the arcade, inside different games, the Internet, or the Dark Web. 

One of the marquee locales is Slaughter Race, a gritty, smoggy, bathed in eternal dusty-golden-light, crime-ridden world à la Grand Theft Audio. Here we meet ultra-racer/gang leader, Shank (Gal Gadot), who ends up becoming an unlikely mentor and pivotal in Vanellope’s journey as well as contributing to a big-time song & dance number that’s an homage to classic Hollywood pieces of old. 

Animation generally looks fantastic in 4K HDR, and Breaks definitely doesn’t disappoint. Colors are incredibly bright and punchy, almost neon when called for, especially in the Internet. Blacks are also deep, with a lot of detail. 

Breaks sounds as good as it looks, with an aggressive Dolby Atmos soundtrack that’s used effectively throughout, both to create environment and to add impact to the onscreen action.  The overhead speakers are smartly used to create a wonderfully immersive experience, such as the echoing, swirling sounds when Ralph and Vanellope travel into the Internet or the multiple announcements that occur throughout. The carjacking scene in Slaughter Race also sounds great, with a lot of dimensionality and solid bass accompanying the crashes. 

While mostly family friendly, there were a couple of scenes in the film’s final act—notably Ralphzilla and Double-Dan (you’ll know him when you see him)—that were a little too intense and frightening for my almost three year old. Definitely continue watching through the end credits for one last great Ralph meme—probably the most perfect end-credits scene a movie about breaking the Internet could possibly have.

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 | Colors are incredibly bright and punchy, almost neon when called for, especially in the Internet, and blacks are deep with a lot of detail

SOUND | The aggressive Dolby Atmos soundtrack is used effectively throughout both to create environment and to add impact to the onscreen action.

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Review: Toy Story 4

Toy Story 4 (2019)

review | Toy Story 4

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Pixar adds a new chapter to the series without feeling like it’s succumbing to sequelitis

by John Sciacca
October 2, 2019

When I initially heard about the plans to release Toy Story 4, I was actually upset. Not because I’m not a fan of the franchise—rather, exactly the opposite. It’s because I’m such a big fan and I felt the story arc had been so wonderfully and perfectly completed in Toy Story 3 that I feared any additional movies would only dilute the emotional conclusion of that film, one that never fails to cause me to tear up no matter how many times I watch it. 

Sure, give us some further exploits of our toy friends playing with Bonnie such as the Toy Story Toons Hawaiian Vacation, Small Fry, and Partysaurus Rex or the longer shorts Toy Story That Time Forgot or Toy Story of Terror, but let Toy Story 3 remain the perfect end note to the main story. However, with its early release in 4K HDR at the Kaleidescape Store (a week prior to the UltraHD Blu-ray), I decided to take the plunge and complete my Toy Story film collection. 

I’ve watched Toy Story 4 twice now, once in theaters and once at home in 4K HDR, and my heart has definitely softened to this latest entry in the series. While much of the story feels more forced than the more organic events of 1—new toy, Buzz, comes in and shakes up things in the toys’ world; 2—Woody is stolen and discovers he is a celebrity; and 3—the toys come to terms with Andy growing up and leaving them behind, it gives our toys another great adventure while advancing Woody’s story and ultimately giving his character some nice closure (and a new beginning).

The movie opens nine years in the past, showing us what happened to Sheriff Woody’s true love, Bo Peep, when she is given away to another child. We then cut back to the present where, following the events of Toy Story 3, young Bonnie is growing, and Woody finds himself being played with less and less. On the first day of kindergarten, he sneaks into Bonnie’s backpack to make sure she has a good first day, and while at school, Bonnie crafts a new friend, Forky, from miscellaneous scraps of trash. When brought into Bonnie’s room, Forky magically comes to life and spends much of the movie trying to throw himself in the garbage. 

When Bonnie’s family takes a road trip, Woody tries convincing the other toys—and Forky himself—that Forky is important to Bonnie, but Forky throws himself out of the RV’s window and Woody goes after him, setting the stage for a variety of adventures, and the reunion of old friends and new acquaintances. 

All of your favorite characters from the previous films are here including Buzz, Jessie, Dolly, Trixie, Rex, Hamm, and Slinky Dog. Significant among the new characters are Gabby Gabby, Ducky and Bunny, and ultimate stuntman Duke Caboom. 

Toy Story 4 is Pixar doing what Pixar does best, which is putting a bunch of interesting characters together in humorous situations and milking each scene for maximum humor and heart. They nail the little moments like Rex being impressed with how long Forky’s pipe-cleaner arms are or Snow Combat Carl (Carl Weathers) missing out on a high five. This is definitely not the best of the Toy Story films, but it is still a lot of fun to watch.

We’ve been having a bit of a resurgence of Toy Story watching in our house, as my three year old has become obsessed with the first three films, wanting to watch them on our Kaleidescape system over and over. What you really notice is the generational leaps in animation improvement from film to film. Whereas the first movie now looks almost like a student project, this one has many moments that border on photorealistic. The opening scenes look stunningly real, with incredible depth and detail in every frame. Taken from a 4K digital intermediate, there is striking micro detail in every closeup, a testament to the fanatical level of attention paid by the Pixar team. From the ultra-fine texture in Bo’s bonnet to the detail in every one of Bonnie’s eye lashes to the scuffs and scrapes on Woody’s hat (visible only in certain lighting and angles, mind you), each frame is bursting with detail. Just sit and watch as each rain drop in the beginning hits, splashes, and ripples. It’s amazing work.

The outdoor scenes all look unbelievably real—from the exterior of Bonnie’s school to the road and landscape while Woody and Forky are walking to the interior of the Second Chance antiques store, it’s all 4K eye candy. One scene in the antiques store where Bo and Woody look at a variety of illuminated chandeliers is especially fantastic-looking. 

The colors throughout were a bit subdued and muted. Whether this was to give it a more grownup, filmlike, and realistic look or due to some other creative choice, colors aren’t as overly saturated and pumped up as they are in many animated titles, including the other Toy Story movies. There are still scenes where colors pop, such as the shimmer of Bo’s deep purple cloak, the flashing colored lights in the secret club inside an old pinball machine, the midway at the carnival, and especially the carnival lit up at night. This film is gorgeous to behold throughout and reference-quality video in every way.

The Dolby Atmos audio track was mostly restrained, with the vast majority of the audio action happening in the front of the room. There were some nice moments where the height speakers were called into creative use for some expansion of on-screen dialogue—for example Woody hearing things inside Bonnie’s backpack or Ducky and Bunny talking off screen—or where the audio soundstage is expanded with a variety of ticking clocks in the antique store, but Toy Story 4 is not really an audio showcase. Having said that, this is frequently a dialogue-driven film and the dialogue is always clear and easy to understand, and there is appropriate use of surrounds when called on, but just not aggressively.

If you have kids or grandkids, or just want a fantastic-looking movie with a bunch of heart, Toy Story 4 is sure to please.

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 photorealistic animation is filled with detail, and while the color palette is a little subdued, there are plenty of moments that pop

SOUND | The Atmos mix is mostly restrained, with most of the audio happening in the front of the room, but there are some moments where the height speakers are called into creative use

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Review: Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2 (2018)

review | Incredibles 2

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Fourteen years after the first film, this sequel picks up where the original left off without skipping a beat

by Dennis Burger
November 6, 2018

Incredibles 2 shouldn’t work—at least not as well as it does. It’s been 14 years since the original film, after all, and the world—our world, the real one without superheroes—has changed. A lot—socially, politically, cinematically. So, to pick up this sequel right after the end of the original film seems a myopic decision. One can’t help but wonder, as the film opens on the familiar closing scenes of its forebear, if Incredibles 2 will ever rise above the level of nostalgic romp. 

Thankfully those apprehensions are unfounded. Perhaps it’s due to the retro-futuristic tone, style, and aesthetic of the Incredibles universe but somehow the film manages to catch up with a decade-and-a-half worth of sociopolitical progress and regression while managing to feel like a fluid and organic extension of the original. And it does so while somehow managing to be less preachy and more nuanced.

Another reason Incredibles 2 feels like something of a risky move is that it has the courage to be a lot of films at once. It’s an unabashed superhero flick, sure. It’s also a girl-power anthem and a slapstick masterpiece rolled up into one, with a side helping of commentary on all forms of media (new, social, and mainstream). There’s teenage romance, there’s thrilling action, there are poop jokes and technological warnings that are about as subtle as a 1958 Pontiac Parisienne. There’s also an epic (and epically hilarious) battle between a trash panda and an infant, for goodness’ sake. But somehow this mélange of themes, tones, and styles coalesces into something that works wonderfully and cohesively.

If there’s one criticism to be leveled, it’s that from 30,000 feet its main plot is sort of just a gender-inversion of the original film’s main storyline. In many ways, that works to its advantage, though. It gives the longtime fan something to latch onto—a sense of comforting familiarity that in many ways makes the narrative and thematic departures hit home with a little more oomph. 

More than anything, though, the themes of Incredibles 2 build on those of the original in a seemingly seamless way. Whereas the first film dealt largely with issues of individuality, the sequel in many ways wraps its arms around the internal struggle between defining ourselves as individuals and accepting that who we are as people is often a function of who we are to the other people in our lives, especially when viewed through the lens of the family.

That isn’t really any sort of insightful observation on my part; it mainly comes from the film’s exceptional collection of bonus features. If you saw Incredibles 2 in cinemas and thought you were done with it, you owe it to yourself to explore the shockingly revelatory and honest supplemental material. If you’re on Kaleidescape, that means downloading the Blu-ray-quality version of the film as well as the 4K HDR, since the extras are limited to the former.

It’s well worth downloading both, though. The Kaleidescape HDR version sets itself apart from the other home-video releases thanks to unique color grading that focuses less on the absolute blacks and eye-reactive highlights and more on the subtlety and richness of shadows that simply look more cinematic to my eyes. Kaleidescape’s TrueHD Atmos soundtrack (otherwise found only on the UHD Blu-ray release) also has a leg up on the Dolby Digital+ soundtrack found on the streaming versions. Not necessarily in the booming bass of big action sequences (of which there are many, with oodles of sonic impact, something Disney hasn’t always gotten right as of late), but more in the subtle details that deliver ambience and atmospherics. And above all else, Incredibles 2 is nothing if not atmospheric. 

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 HDR version sets itself apart from the other home-video releases thanks to unique color grading that focuses less on the absolute blacks and eye-reactive highlights and more on the subtlety and richness of shadows 

SOUND | The TrueHD Atmos soundtrack delivers plenty of sonic impact during the big action sequences as well as all the detail of the more subtle atmospheric cues

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Review: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

review | Breakfast at Tiffany’s

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Miss Golightly, I Must Protest!

Some thoughts on Yunioshi

Because this film has been so viciously damned, and Blake Edwards was so relentlessly hounded, for Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi, and because those misperceptions still hang over Tiffany’s like a shroud, I would be remiss to review the film without weighing in. 

Talking about the merits of Rooney’s performance is probably not the right way to tackle this, but I think partly what irks the political reeducation crowd is that Yunioshi actually is funny, even at this late date. Yes, there are a couple of moments that are a little too broad, but we are talking about Mickey Rooney after all. 

The better tack, probably, is to talk about the glaring double standard that’s been applied to the film. Why hasn’t anybody gotten their dander up about Sally Tomato? Here’s a Jewish-American actor—Fred Flintstone, for chrissakes—playing an Italian in a stock-ethnic way just this side of Chico Marx. If one ethnic caricature is offensive, then they should all be. The seemingly endless number of warnings at the beginning of this innocuous film includes “yellowface.” It should say “goombah” as well. And yet Tomato raises nary a peep.

Following all this to its logical conclusion, Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone—a mongrel Midwesterner playing an Italian mobster—ought to be damned as well. But—and maybe I’m just being short-sighted—I don’t ever see that day coming. If it does, we should all give up on the movies and play solitaire instead. But then someone would take issue with how the figures are portrayed on the playing cards. 

If you want to get pissed off at anybody in Tiffany’s, it ought to be Paul Varjak. That was a creaky conception from the start that unintentionally exposed all the many biases of the time and ultimately created more problems than it solved. And George Peppard could never act his way out of a rain-soaked paper bag. That’s offensive.

—M.G.

Ignore all the culture-wars propaganda—this ultimate Audrey Hepburn vehicle still reigns as one of the great romantic comedies

by Michael Gaughn
July 17, 2022

There are so many things to be said about Breakfast at Tiffany’s—not in a nostalgia-dripping stroll-down-memory-lane kind of way but more in a “this thing still reverberates like crazy—why?” kind of way. And, like anything with potency in the present moment, those reverberations have an inevitable dark side.

But let’s tackle the upside first. It’s a little too obvious to begin with Audrey Hepburn, but how can you not? What she does with her character is still breathtaking, somehow managing to stay true to the depth and nuance of Truman Capote’s original conception of Holly while shepherding her through all the standard-issue Hollywood attempts to blandify her, emerging with a conception that somehow manages to synthesize and transcend both.

She owns this film, in a way very few other actors have ever owned a film. And, yes, I know that’s what everybody loves about Tiffany’s—but that tends to be because of all the charming, kooky stuff, not because Hepburn succeeded in investing Holly Golightly with a soul. 

Usually, you’d give the director some credit for that, and Blake Edwards was brilliant in many ways, but no other female character in his work even comes close to being as fully developed or compelling. Golightly exists leagues beyond what he was able to accomplish elsewhere.

And keep in mind Edwards was still pretty much a yeoman when he made this film, with really only a couple of slapstick-driven service comedies (The Perfect Furlough and Operation Petticoat) under his belt. The sudden growth in his maturity as a filmmaker is more than obvious, and, as much as I love the original Pink Panther film and some of his other work, it’s a tremendous loss he never did another movie like this one—which suggests that Tiffany’s was one of those born-of-the zeitgeist miracles, like Casablanca, less the product of individual will and more the product of spontaneous generation. 

Other things to praise: Like The Apartment, Tiffany’s manages to capture the spirit of New York at that early-‘60s moment when the city was at its peak, unknowingly perched on the edge of a precipice. And it does this despite—or maybe because of—having been made mostly on LA soundstages and only partly on location in NY. It remains a beautiful film to look at—much more beautiful than it deserved to be considering the production values of other similar productions from the time.

When I was a kid, one of the Toronto stations would broadcast movies after midnight that weren’t available on American TV. I would sneak downstairs after everyone else was asleep and gorge myself on fare I was probably too young to be watching. (In the case of Bloody Mama, definitely too young.) That’s how I first saw Tiffany’s, and it was the first time I remember being entranced by the look of a film. It was so much more vivid than anything else I’d ever seen that it seemed almost magical.

If I saw it again today presented that way, I’d probably be horrified. But there was something inherent in the quality—maybe best called “power”—of those images that wasn’t quashed by the limitations of the medium or the device. Tiffany’s, seen in 1080p on Prime, was faithful to that experience. I can’t say I was entranced—too much time has passed—but I was engaged and impressed. Can 4K improve on that? Possibly—but only if Paramount can resist inflicting the same “grain—bad; digital—good” revisionism that made a travesty of The Godfather. 

The dialogue tracks are surprisingly clean—so clean you can easily make out whenever there’s a dubbed line. Originally mixed in mono, there’s nothing particularly good or bad about the stereo version here, except for a couple of jarring instances of hard panning. My biggest beef is that Henry Mancini’s score is presented in the Living Stereo style of his soundtrack albums, with that unrealistically wide soundstage making it feel like the music exists somewhere outside the film. 

It’s hard to watch Tiffany’s and not get a little wistful about Mancini. His scores for this and The Pink Panther three years later are probably his best—evocative, ingenious, tasteful, never bombastic, setting the appropriate mood instead of telling you what to feel, polished expressions of the second American renaissance. But the British Invasion left him lost without a rudder and he could never recover his bearings long enough to ever summon up anything half as good as what he did so effortlessly in the early ‘60s.

The film’s biggest problem is structural, and might come from Edwards never having dealt with material this complex before. The whole thing starts to unravel around the 2/3s mark, which is when most movies start to come apart when the director doesn’t fully grasp his material. The problem is, Tiffany’s isn’t just a light and fluffy romantic comedy. Edwards and screenwriter George Axelrod had retained enough of Capote’s novella that its darker undercurrents start to deeply trouble everything at the point where the filmmakers have to start pulling all the threads together, causing the movie to go full-blown schizophrenic, oscillating wildly between dramatic scenes and silly vignettes that tend to rob the more serious moments of their power. This created an insoluble dilemma that led to the infamous “I own you” conclusion, with the now thoroughly unpleasant George Peppard asserting his blond-haired, blue-eyed straw-man’s rights over the beaten Golightly. All of that somehow doesn’t sink the film completely, but it’s a hell of a note to end on.

Miss Golightly, I Must Protest!

Some thoughts on Yunioshi

Because this film has been so viciously damned, and Blake Edwards was so relentlessly hounded, for Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi, and because those misperceptions still hang over Tiffany’s like a shroud, I would be remiss to review the film without weighing in. 

Talking about the merits of Rooney’s performance is probably not the right way to tackle this, but I think partly what irks the political reeducation crowd is that Yunioshi actually is funny, even at this late date. Yes, there are a couple of moments that are a little too broad, but we are talking about Mickey Rooney after all. 

The better tack, probably, is to talk about the glaring double standard that’s been applied to the film. Why hasn’t anybody gotten their dander up about Sally Tomato? Here’s a Jewish-American actor—Fred Flintstone, for chrissakes—playing an Italian in a stock-ethnic way just this side of Chico Marx. If one ethnic caricature is offensive, then they should all be. The seemingly endless number of warnings at the beginning of this innocuous film includes “yellowface.” It should say “goombah” as well. And yet Tomato raises nary a peep.

Following all this to its logical conclusion, Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone—a mongrel Midwesterner playing an Italian mobster—ought to be damned as well. But—and maybe I’m just being short-sighted—I don’t ever see that day coming. If it does, we should all give up on the movies and play solitaire instead. But then someone would take issue with how the figures are portrayed on the playing cards. 

If you want to get pissed off at anybody in Tiffany’s, it ought to be Paul Varjak. That was a creaky conception from the start that unintentionally exposed all the many biases of the time and ultimately created more problems than it solved. And George Peppard could never act his way out of a rain-soaked paper bag. That’s offensive.

—M.G.

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 | Tiffany’s, seen in 1080p on Amazon Prime, is amazingly faithful to one of the most beautifully shot Technicolor films ever

SOUND | The dialogue tracks are so clean you can easily hear when there’s a line dub, but the stereo mix of Mancini’s score fails to integrate it with the rest of the film

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Review: The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast (2022)

review | The Sea Beast

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This solid animated adventure from Netflix features an impressive, but somewhat inconsistent, visual style

by Roger Kanno
July 14, 2022

Netflix Animation’s fantastic new full-length feature, The Sea Beast, received limited release in theaters on June 24 and debuted on its streaming service beginning July 8. If you didn’t know that Netflix Animation is a thing, you’re likely not alone. Formed only in 2018, it has had a few critical successes but remains relatively undiscovered. And with the recent upheaval at Netflix, some projects have been cancelled and some staff have left the studio. Still, they have many projects in development and Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated version of the classic tale of Pinocchio is expected to be released in December. With that and the release of The Sea Beast, the studio’s profile looks to receive a significant boost in recognition.

Chris Williams, who worked on numerous high-profile Disney projects, including co-directing Bolt, Big Hero 6, and Moana, co-wrote the screenplay with Nell Benjamin and directed this film. The Sea Beast can be a little predictable at times but its story about a time when sea monsters ruled the oceans and posed great perils to sailors is more thought-provoking and character-driven rather than a typical action-adventure tale. There is plenty of action, though, to keep the story moving, some of which might be frightening to young children, but it is otherwise suitable for viewing by the entire family.

The cast includes Karl Urban voicing the character of Jacob, one of the celebrated hunters who fight the sea monsters under the command of Captain Crow (Jared Harris) on their storied ship, Inevitable. He takes a young girl, Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator), under his wing and together they embark on a journey to capture the Red Bluster, the most dangerous and feared of all the sea beasts. The story is filled with a diverse cast of interesting characters and manages to avoid most of the clichés of a nautical animated adventure.

The CGI animation presented in Dolby Vision can look fantastic. Sunlit scenes have a very natural look with the light glistening realistically off the water and the motion of the waves perfectly mimicking that of real life. The movement of the tall ships as they cut through the water and the gentle swaying of their rigging is perfect down to the the most minute detail; the faded individual strands of the ropes, the green oxidation on the brass fittings, and weathered decking all look amazing. The attention to small details is stunning. The captain’s long, dark-gray jacket exhibits great specificity in its stitching and differences in the texture of its well-worn surface that reflect light in different directions. It also moves convincingly with each stride he takes along with his baldric and heavy shirt that each move with the same cadence, but independent of one another. I was often mesmerized by these visuals.

While there is much to admire about the quality of the animation, there were still times when it could look a little cartoonish. Somewhat surprisingly, the rendering of the Red Bluster is quite simplistic, with a mostly smooth body and skin and uniformly red coloration that is fairly nondescript. In contrast, the crab-like sea beast it battles looked much more impressive with its spiky claws and legs with varied textures and colors exhibited by its gorgeous purply-blue, mottled shell.  

The Dolby Atmos audio presentation is also very good at times, even though there could have been more use of the surround and height channels throughout the film. The sound design begins promisingly in the first scene when a young Jacob is lost at sea and attempting to cling to a piece of wreckage from his ship. The sound is enveloping and exciting as the crashing waves and wind surround him, and as he becomes submerged, the ambient sounds of the water fill all of the channels. However, during the subsequent battle scenes with the sea monsters, there was relatively subtle use of the non-front channels to provide a sense of envelopment but little in the way of exciting directional effects. And while the sound always remained clean and well-delineated, there was only occasional use of subsonic bass to provide a real visceral punch to accompany the terrific visuals. 

Chris Williams’ The Sea Beast is not perfect but it brings all the charm and well-crafted storytelling of his previous efforts for Disney to his new partnership with Netflix Animation.

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 | The CGI animation presented in Dolby Vision can look fantastic, with natural-looking sunlit scenes and stunning attention to detail

SOUND | The Atmos audio presentation is very good at times, even though there could have been more use of the surround and height channels

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Review: Klaus

Klaus (2019)

review | Klaus

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Netflix’ new animation division gets off to a good start with this vividly rendered origin story

by John Higgins
December 8, 2019

We’ve been inundated with new origin stories over the past few years. We’ve had Spider-Man, the Joker, and now . . . Santa Claus? There is, of course, the historical origin story, which likely begins in what is now Turkey, with influence from Scandinavia and Coca-Cola. In movies, Santa pops up quite a bit, although there are only a few notable films that address where he comes from (the most popular being the stop-motion Rankin/Bass film Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town from 1970).

Klaus, the first original animated movie Netflix has released, is a brand-new take on the Santa story. It was conceived, written, and directed by Sergio Pablos, who is best known as the animator and creator of the Despicable Me franchise. The Klaus story follows the privileged son of the head postmaster, Jesper (Jason Schwartzman), as he is tasked to establish a post office at the remote island town of Smeerensburg (an intentional misspelling of the actual Dutch town of Smeerenburg) and postmark 6,000 letters or risk being ostracized from the family and his indulgent lifestyle.

As he arrives, he is made aware by the sardonic boatman Mogens (Norm MacDonald) that the dreary, snowy northern town is inhabited by two extended families that have been feuding for centuries. They have no interest in speaking to one another let alone carrying out a lengthy written correspondence. But moods in town begin to change, starting with the children, after Jesper meets Klaus (J.K. Simmons) and the two brighten up the lives of the children by delivering toys. This must be done in secret, lest they be discovered spreading joy and goodwill by the angry adults.

As their mission continues and they evade capture, the legend of Klaus grows, giving explanation to all the traditional Santa Claus lore—flying reindeer, coming down the chimney, Santa’s elves—in new, interesting ways. While most of Klaus is based in the expected rules of our own world, there are some mystical elements that keep the story of Santa magical. The movie is beautifully heartfelt with some lovely tear-jerking moments and shows how ingrained negative philosophies can be changed with just one new generation of open minds. Speaking as a father, there are moments that toddlers might find scary, but the overall message is an excellent one.

The 4K animation is gorgeous with excellent detail in the character design and scenery. The 2D style is beautifully shaded to give a feel of 3D, and the use of color throughout serves the story and helps to drive the narrative. While the HDR doesn’t deliver the bright highlights you might see in something like Blade Runner 2049, the increase in bit depth and color gamut add to the intensity of the animation. Even if the story is of little interest to you, the animation will completely draw you in.

The 5.1 Dolby surround mix supports the storytelling without being obtrusive. There were a few moments where the dialogue moved away from the center channel to follow whoever is speaking that were a bit more drastic than I expected. For most of the film, though, the sound did an excellent job conveying the changing atmosphere of Smeerensburg.

Klaus is a joyful new take on Santa and, at least in our house, has already earned its place in our list of yearly holiday movies.

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 4K animation is gorgeous with excellent detail in the character design and scenery, and with HDR adding to the intensity of the animation

SOUND | The 5.1 Dolby surround mix supports the storytelling without being obtrusive, with the sound doing an excellent job of conveying the changing atmosphere of the movie’s mythical Dutch town

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Review: Brian and Charles

Brian and Charles (2022)

review | Brian and Charles

Quirky, sweet, and utterly devoid of cynicism, this British film about a man and his robot definitely goes against the current comedic grain

by Dennis Burger
July 12, 2022

Brian and Charles—a new feature-length adaptation of the 2017 short film by the same name—is a delightfully quirky little parable that’s refreshing in its lack of concern for being everything to everyone. It obviously wasn’t focus-tested to see how it would play in, say, China—or the US, for that matter. 

It leans heavily on jokes whose impact require you to know the difference between a Victoria sponge and a blancmange, and it’s mostly about a lonely Welshman who builds a cabbage-obsessed A.I. companion out of a washing machine and a mannequin head he pulled out of the trash. If you’re in for that sort of thing, the film is now available on select digital platforms as a theater-at-home release, in addition to currently making the rounds in the art-house circuit in the Colonies and playing in mainstream cinemas in the UK. 

This is one of those rare films you can gauge your ultimate reaction to with a quick look at the trailer. If the teaser does it for you, you’ll dig the film despite its faults. If it rubs you the wrong way, there’s nothing in the film’s 91-minute runtime that’ll change your mind. 

I fall into the former camp, but I do somewhat take issue with the fact that the filmmakers seemed to have gotten bored with the mockumentary conceit about 20 minutes in. Somewhere around that point, the folks behind the camera stop talking back, the fourth wall is all troweled up, and that whole silly trope is abandoned until the very last scene. 

Otherwise, Brian and Charles is sweet and wholesome and a wholly pleasant diversion that expands on the themes of the original short film in some interesting ways. It definitely maintains the vibe of the original, though, which exists on a spectrum spanning from Nick Park at one extreme to Neill Blomkamp at the other, although it hews far closer to the former than the latter. (If you must quantify it, on a ruler with Park at 0 and Blomkamp at 12, Brian and Charles would be, like, a 2.)

If you’re going to rent or buy the film while it’s still in cinemas, by the way, do be careful about the platform you opt for. On iTunes, Amazon, and a few other services, Brian and Charles is only available in HD. Vudu and Kaleidescape seem to have the exclusive rights to presenting it in UHD HDR, at least for the moment.

I bought it on Vudu, and although I can’t claim that the extra resolution of UHD adds much to the experience—the film was shot in 2.8K, after all—the HDR10 grade does occasionally add something meaningful. Not consistently, mind you—it’s a rather gray film, dominated by gray skies and gorgeous gray Welsh landscapes, and even the occasional splash of color in the environment seems to be fighting a losing battle. But four or five times, the enhanced dynamic range of HDR10 is employed to, for example, enhance the effect of a rare sunny day, or add some sparkle to a fireworks display, or make you feel the intensity of a bonfire. 

In short, HDR is used the way a seasoned writer uses exclamation marks—almost never, always intentionally, and with the understanding that overuse will diminish the effect. But it does add something to the experience, so opt for it if you can. 

The 5.1 mix (presented on Vudu in Dolby Digital Plus, although Kaleidescape has it in DTS-HD Master Audio) is exactly what the soundtrack for a film like this should be. Dialogue is the focus—so much so that you’d almost expect to be surprised by anything other than music leaking into the front left and right speakers, much less the surrounds. There isn’t much going on in those speakers, but when the mix does expand out from the center, it does so gracefully and effectively, and there isn’t much more to say about it than that. Dialogue intelligibility is aces, which can’t be taken for granted given the film’s apparent low budget and the thick rural accents employed throughout.

In the end, Brian and Charles is a weird and awkward and often uncomfortable comedy, and perhaps its most salient (and controversial) characteristic is its utter lack of cynicism. Most people will find that fact alone off-putting. But if you’re up for it, and you don’t mind its structural quirks, it’s such a sweet little romp. And I think we could all use a bit more of that right now.

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

PICTURE |  The extra resolution of UHD doesn’t add much to the experience of the film but the HDR10 grade does occasionally add something meaningful 

SOUND | This is a dialogue-driven center channel-heavy mix but when it does expand out from the center, it does so gracefully and effectively

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Review: Downton Abbey: A New Era

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

review | Downton Abbey: A New Era

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The second—and possibly final—film based on the series might be overripe with characters and twists but still adds up to a satisfying whole 

by John Sciacca
July 5, 2022

Full disclosure: I have no interest in Downton Abbey. I never even watched a single episode from the six-season run on PBS or saw the self-titled film from 2019. My wife, Dana, however, is a huge Downton fan. And she was all set to dress up in era-appropriate attire and go to a viewing party of A New Era with a group of girlfriends that had rented out a local theater for the event when I brought COVID home from work, and then promptly infected the entire family. So when the film became available in 4K HDR from Kaleidescape, it felt like downloading it and watching with her was the least thing I could do.

Since I was totally out of my element, I asked Dana to offer some commentary and context to the movie, though after about 30 minutes of “Who’s this?” and “Why are they important?” and “Are they related?” she grew weary of my company and said I just needed to keep quiet and try to keep up. To the uninitiated, A New Era is a crash course in learning about the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era and their doings at the family’s Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey. There are loads of characters and seasons’ worth of backstory and complex relationships, and jumping in is just a bit less complicated than keeping up with the families and backstabbing among the family houses of Game of Thrones—but with none of GoT’s sex, violence, (literal) backstabbing, or dragons. 

A couple of years have passed since the events of 2019’s film, and the Crawleys are getting ready to head into the 1930s. There are essentially three separate stories going on, and it feels like there’s a lot of jumping and cutting back and forth between the different subplots. I imagine some of this is fan service, as it’s difficult to give a cast this large any meaningful screen time, even with Era’s 124-minute runtime, and trying to give the major characters something interesting and compelling to do. Even so, Dana complained that many of the servants don’t play as big a role, Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle) and Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan) are barely in the movie, and Lady Mary’s (Michelle Dockery) husband, Henry Talbot, is completely absent.

The film opens with Tom Branson (Allen Leech) marrying Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), which I gather from Dana is a relationship fans have been following. This also blossoms into the big subplot of why a villa in the south of France has been mysteriously willed to Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) by the recently deceased Marquis de Montmirail. Violet is the Dowager Countess of Grantham, which basically means she doesn’t own the mansion but kind of runs the show and everyone walks around in fear of her. (My six-year-old asked, “Is the she Queen?”) Dana was happy Violet is back after hinting at a serious illness in the last movie. The Dowager intends to leave this villa to her great-granddaughter, Sybbie (Fifi Hart), who is Tom’s daughter from his marriage to Sybil Crawley. To get to the bottom of this “Why did the Marquis leave you his villa?” intrigue, Lord Robert Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife Lady Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), along with ex-butler/faithful manservant Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) and others travel to the villa.

The second plot involves a crew coming to shoot a silent film at Downton, the income from which will help pay for upkeep of the house and cover replacing the abbey’s leaking roof. This gives the film an opportunity to introduce new characters and relationships, including director Jack Barker (Hugh Dancy), and stars Guy Dexter (Dominic West) and Myrna Dalgeish (Laura Haddock). Lady Mary stays behind to deal with the production, and Downton’s “new” butler Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier) must attend to the staff and juggle the demands of the cast. Oh, and adding to the drama, the production company wants to pull the plug because silent films aren’t making money any longer and they only want to fund talking pictures. 

There’s a third story about another couple—Andy (Michael Fox) and Daisy Parker (Sophie McShera)—and a family house or something that honestly didn’t seem really important. But, if you’re a Downton fan, I’m sure you’ll pick right up on it, and Dana commented she liked that they were happily together.  Ultimately, Dana felt there were too many little plot twists, and that they tried to cram too much in, give everyone happy endings, and tie up loose strings in case this is the last movie.

The technical specs say New Era was shot on Sony CineAlta Venice 6K cameras, with no listing of the resolution of the digital intermediate for the 4K HDR transfer. I found the picture quality to be mostly terrific, especially in closeups or long establishing shots. During the opening scenes both inside and outside the wedding, faces are held in clear, sharp focus as the camera pans through the pews of attendees and crowds. Outdoor scenes look lovely, especially the beautiful exterior shots in the south of France, with white walls, emerald-green grass, vibrant blue waters and skies, and colorful boats and walls. Some long establishing shots either of castles or groups of people had great depth of field and focus, letting you see nearly every leaf and branch on a tree, but when the focus changed to a foreground character it could turn the background to mush.

With the enhanced sharpness, clarity, and resolution, it has never been easier to appreciate the fabrics and finery of the set dressing. You can really see the rich interiors of the mansion and practically feel the sumptuous fabrics and textures on clothing and furniture. Closeups reveal the intricate detail of wood carvings and stonework or the fine checks, tweeds, plaids, and patterns in clothing. 

The HDR grade certainly isn’t aggressive but designed to give images a natural, lifelike quality. There are some nice interior scenes with deep shadows from lamps or the glow of lights from under shades, and some extra pop to the gleaming whites of men’s shirts, vests, and bowties.

While the Kaleidescape download includes a lossless Dolby TrueHD Atmos soundtrack, don’t expect this to be a title you queue up to wow guests. Much of the sound is restricted to the center channel with a bit of left/right spread, with the surround channels used sparingly and mainly reserved for bits of outdoor atmospherics like the twittering of birds, rustling of wind, and far-off voices in crowds. The score is also spread out beyond the front channels, expanding the soundstage. There was a scene with some background rain and thunder with rain pattering down overhead that actually engaged the height channels, but suffice to say, this isn’t the stuff of sonic demos. Downton is primarily a dialogue-driven film, and fortunately the speaking is clear and anchored to the center channel, though it can be a tad forward-sounding at times. 

Honestly, even though the plot didn’t do much for me as a non fan, Downton was beautiful to watch and appreciate for all the attention that went into crafting its look. Also, I know this is a series my wife likes to revisit, so having it available in our library at best quality means it will likely get a rewatch or two.

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 picture quality is mostly terrific, especially in closeups or long establishing shots, with the HDR grade designed to give images a natural, lifelike quality

SOUND | The Atmos mix is restricted to the center channel with a bit of left/right spread, with the surround channels used sparingly, mainly for bits of outdoor atmospherics

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