captainsolo

Moth3r said:

The Dolby Stereo (Dolby Surround) format only has a mono surround channel. Unless you're feeding it through a Pro-logic II decoder?

Yes, I was really meaning separation, but as mentioned here in a review by the Widescreen Review of the LD, that single mono surround is so well done that it gives the impression at times of being split into two.

http://www.widescreenreview.com/ld_detail.php?recid=8

Then again, my receiver is 5.1 and only does ProLogic so the rear surround info is copied  over both surrounds, giving the impression of one mono channel being in the center, like 2.0 mono.

msycamore said:

I have noticed that several Dolby 2.0 surround tracks sound incredibly good through ProLogic II, The Empire Strikes Back is one of them, but I have also noticed that some sound a little weird in places, Star Wars is one of them, I usually force my receiver to regular ProLogic on that one. Was Batman ever re-mixed for the DVD/Blu-ray? I have both the old and new DVD release, maybe I should compare them.

I think it's like what I mentioned above, some Dolby Surround titles are better mixes for separation when compared to others, and some even can sound remotely like 5.1.

Batman immediately sounded off to me on the 2005 Special Edition. All four films got new HD masters and sound mixes (DVD: Dolby/DTS Blu: TrueHD). The mixes seem to come straight from original stems or something but lack in presence for some reason at points. Returns was the first major Dolby 5.1 release, so I think it was just the first film that was remixed. I think the original DVDs were pretty much straight transfers of what was on hand, but IIRC there was already a 5.1 remix there for Batman. IMO once you get the LD, there's no need for anything else. And the Surround track on Forever bests the ac3 and DVD mixes.

TServo2049 said:

I wonder what the 6-track sounded like compared to the Dolby Stereo. For a lot of these movies, I wonder if the 70mm was just a higher-quality, discrete version of the mix used for the 35mm, maybe with a little "baby boom" added. I don't recall the 70mm prints of Star Trek II or Ghostbusters sounding different.

I've wondered about that myself. Everything I've read on Batman points to the 35mm and 70mm being identical in content. It should indeed be matrix encoded versus discrete from my understanding.

msycamore said:

Lucky you!

I've heard reports that the newly restored prints should've the same mix as on the DVD's, no newly added content. The reflection that was removed back in 2003 is apparently removed this time as well but the reflections on the shots of Marion is still there, and the odd CGI cliff-shot is not included.

Since the DVD release I've heard some say that a guide-track for the boulder was removed and that some mattelines were cleaned up, is this bullshit or what? Would be nice to get this straightened out.

captainsolo said:

I'm actually hoping that the repertory dept. just shipped an original 35mm print with Dolby Stereo. I quite liked the DVD's mix, but wished that the Stereo surround had been included somehow.

Except the superior format, in terms of content there wasn't any differences on Raiders like with Star Wars between the 35mm Dolby Stereo and 70mm 6-track. Also, if it was originally mixed with split surrounds in mind, the 5.1 DVD mix might be even more faithful to the makers intent than the original presentations in '81 (if it now was only with mono surrounds back then). But I understand your thoughts on it, even if the 2003 re-mix is faithful.

captainsolo said:

And the LD mix is some kind of home video version like the '85 Star Wars mix, correct?

It depends which Laserdisc you're talking about, the old pan & scan CAV should have the original 35mm Dolby Stereo in analog which would be kind of nice to preserve. I have never seen or heard the widescreen release myself, but it was apparently a re-mix, a different sound effect for when Indy dropped the staff into the map room is one thing I have heard mentioned by several people.

Thanks! I've been planning on noting every little detail possible in both PQ and AQ, not to mention plexiglass reflections... ;) I figured the reflection would be gone, along with some of the sfx shots with matte lines.

And I did mean the WS LD, perhaps they had to tweak a few things here and there for home surround. In any case, I'm just too used to the VHS Dolby Stereo I grew up on.

bkev said:

RIP revival theaters. According to this petition, movie studios have promised to stop shipping out 35mm films entirely - whether they have them in the vaults already or not! This applies to both new films, and old (the latter being the bigger problem IMO). For those interested on reading more, here's an article about the disappearance of 35mm in general.

20th Century Fox said:

"The date is fast approaching when 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight will adopt the digital format as the only format in which it will theatrically distribute its films. ... We strongly advise those exhibitors that have not yet done so to take immediate steps to convert their theaters to digital projection systems."

 

I passed that article around myself, and it really seems as if they're going to try very hard to shut off the print market entirely, though it really hinders them in no way-and not everyone can afford the digital switchover. Fox switched their Asian market to all-digital a few months ago, and that being their largest market was a major step towards dropping film.

SilverWook said:

James Bond as a yank has been done already. ;)

And Bond hates being called "Jimmy". ;)

FanFiltration said:

But on a more serious note, I don't like this product placement decision at all.

Why can't he have two drinks in the story line, and they could work the beer into the story in some way as not to damage the developed and well loved cultured integrity of this iconic character?   

Think back to Tomorrow Never Dies, Heineken had a big product placement deal with the film, and all it led to was promo tie ins and a bunch of broken cans in the motorcycle chase (Ala the Perrier cans in Goldeneye's tank chase). It's not really a big thing, and if you look at it-very few Bond films actually feature the martini or Bond ordering one. And it's not like they're doing traditions any longer.

That trailer is damn depressing. Because it looks and feels completely awful.

Akwat Kbrana said:

^Agreed.

I've had mixed feelings about Craig's Bond ever since his debut in Casino Royale, but this is really a bridge too far. Why not just make James Bond a blond American FBI agent while they're at it?

If they'd just admit that he's 005 I'd be perfectly fine. This new character is really some ex-SAS thug who gets promoted to being one of the other two 00 agents.

I'm going to see the new Raiders 4K restoration this weekend at my local arthouse, but it's being advertised as a new 35mm print. I had been curious as to what sound mix would be present with the restoration should I ever get to see it, but was under the impression that this was shown in digital screenings only.

I'm actually hoping that the repertory dept. just shipped an original 35mm print with Dolby Stereo. I quite liked the DVD's mix, but wished that the Stereo surround had been included somehow. And the LD mix is some kind of home video version like the '85 Star Wars mix, correct?

Speaking of Dolby Stereo, Batman sounds like crud on DVD/Blu-ray. Very confined and almost tinny in places. The LD features the original Dolby Stereo with really exceptional split surrounds, that in my rig (5.1 setup playing ProLogic) almost sounds like 5.1 in places. I really enjoy the film more this way, and have made excuses to watch my LD many times in the past few months.

Update: Recently stumbled across three new additions to my LD shrine of sorts.

1. Pioneer DVL-700 mint in box. Image is a bit washed out, but it isn't malfunctioning like my CLD-D702 and has an ac3-RF out.

2. Sony EDP-800 found at a Goodwill for a few bucks. Works like a charm and despite the low bitrate, LD ac3 is incredible.

3. Sony Trinitron KV-36fs17. This is a massive 36" flatpanel CRT that was free on craigslist. It was advertised as a 32" set but only after lugging this behemoth home did I measure it. Trying to get it into my setup currently, but nothing I can think of can actually hold this beast. So it's floor time for now.

I think I'm setup for LD for a while now... ;)

Remixes on the Bonds for me. The new 5.1 tracks are hideously overdone, especially for the mono films. Too wide of separation and notable added sound effects.

And other classic films that were originally mono do not need remixes.

I've never seen the need for remixing Dolby Stereo and SR films into 5.1. They weren't discrete in the first place!

Hmm...I really need to see Escape from New York.

Ed Wood still shows that characteristic Burton emptiness. The only reason his Batman films work is because there was too much material to mine from and both several writers and many drafts were used.

Dark Shadows.

Terribly mindless, dull, boring, pointless, unresolved and genuinely uninteresting. Two hours of Burton's concept drawings would have been more interesting. Johnny Depp is great however, and the moments where he appears in Vincent Price's costume from The Tomb of Ligeia makes you wonder what a modern horror film with those sensibilities would be like.

And for a Burton film to look this uninteresting is saying something. To add to all that, it doesn't even work on a silly level of juxtaposition as in Dracula AD 1972.

Balless and somehow worse than the sleep inducing overlong Alice in Wonderland.

And why must they shove in Christopher Lee? He's in the movie for all of 5 seconds and his presence makes you wish they had simply made a film with him instead.

You_Too said:

The script is now using a motion-compensated antialiasing which also reduces the flicker a lot. It digs up even more detail from within the grain than the old script so what comes out is about as good as the GOUT can possibly look.

There's some other stuff included too like stabilization of the gate weave and some slight automatic dirt removal. Before the older script I spent weeks on finding the best setting for the dirt removal, since not only did it's default settings remove stars in space-scenes, it also caused even more smearing. Now it's set to only remove dark dirt, which means it leaves the stars and other bright stuff intact. It's also very careful with what dirt it removes so it's not all removed, only some of the worst. This especially works great in scenes where most of the picture isn't moving. And yes, it is carefully tested in all kinds of scenes so no worries!

Indeed. These are some really tricky but great things to take a look at improving. That bit about increased grain detail is already wetting my appetite!

What we're currently working on is what we called cleanup of bad frames. We've been going through the films frame by frame, writing down every point where there's something very distracting like glue marks, burn marks, big dirt spots, dirt in people's faces or other points of focus, sudden scene-shift flashes etc. DJ then extracts these parts as image files and I clean them up in photoshop.

Naturally, this means a lot of work for both DJ and me since there's hundreds of these frames in each film, but we both agreed that it will be worth it in the end. (I even tried making a script that did this automatically but it looked horrible compared to doing it manually.)

Note that we won't clean up color errors, (such as Vader's green lights being red) DVNR errors, (like blaster bolts being completely removed from some frames) or stuff like the 4-eyed trooper. All those things would take an eternity to fix and require even more frame by frame analyzing work.

It's already going to be a chore cleaning frames. I don't know how you'd go about repairing DNVR erased information other than matching to adjacent frames.

Wow, that looks really good-especially the glue and flash removals!

As you probably understand, this process will take months to complete and we can't possibly tell when it will be finished. Once the cleanup is done, DJ has some huge script work to do to reinsert all the extracted parts.

We hope that all who are interested in this project will wait, no matter how long it takes, because we believe it will be worth it.

GOUT now becomes Glorified Original Unaltered Trilogy. ;)

Harry Palmer no. 2 and 3, both are long OOP and just to finally see them was something:

Funeral in Berlin

An interesting straightforward spy story of double and triple crosses in Berlin. The use of location shooting at the Berlin Wall really adds to the effect. Caine is just as arrogant and fantastic, and overall the film is good if not a bit draggy and underdeveloped.

3.5 balls out of 4 spies with glasses.

Billion Dollar Brain

This is a really strange one. Not only is it completely bizarre, but it is also hauntingly mesmerizing. Caine's Harry Palmer is thrust into yet another situation on behalf of England, beginning with a computerized voice ordering him to smuggle a thermos of eggs containing viruses to Finland. And this is just the opening.

We are kept in a state of confusion that matches Harry's constant bewilderment. Thus we must pay as much attention to crucial story elements as if we were spies as well. The real plot that eventually begins to take shape is bizarre, over the top, and also completely all too real.

A Texan oil tycoon has built a billion dollar supercomputer to help him and his private army to rid the world of Communism.

The film is a nightmarish dreamic landscape that never once is fully realistic in any way. The score adds to this effect immensely, always eerie and melodic and featuring one of the greatest title themes I've ever come across.

The cinematography is pitch perfect, aptly matching the maintained state of confusion, which is also held up by inventive editing. This film also features some of the best snow landscapes put to celluloid.

A highly recommended blend of 60's spy film, quasi-realism, Michael Caine and an art movie. Plus it's a Ken Russell movie to boot. There's really nothing like this, even in his canon.

4 balls out of 4 "Because my arm is long and my vengeance is total."

If the 97 DVD is from a 70mm blowup as stated in the DVDBeaver review, the differences would make sense. It acts color-wise as a point between the 06 and Final Cut. But the artifacting is just awful. The LD trumps it.

To my eyes after seeing numerous copies and the Final Cut in 35mm, is that the 06 and Archival versions are likely the closest thing to what was actually shot. They are straight with little or no tinkering and you can clearly see all of the image onscreen coming across as very naturalistic looking.

The Director's Cut may have had some tweaking, but I think this is more akin to what was actually seen printed on 35mm, due to it being an all-film process and based primarily off the 70mm workprint. These elements were then incorporated into the original film and prints were made. Very few steps done so that there'd be little to no extra processing.

I wound up going through my stack of animated Batman videos:

Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero is little more than an expanded episode of TAS. There's about 20 minutes or so of padding on top of a two-parter episode, and this makes the movie become tiresome. There is no additional development made so this added time was made to simply fill out the video time. There are several uneccessary CGI shots and sequences to boot.

2.5 balls out of 4.

Return of the Joker uncut-This is more like it. I have a big soft spot for Batman Beyond, and always thought it deserved a darker tone. Unfortunately after setting up a great premise, and having a fantastic plot twist, ROTJ remains stuck in the 70 to 80 minute children's animated video format. I wish this one had had more time to develop the storyline and enhance the overall drama. And whatever you do avoid the edited version. There's somewhere north of 50 edits made to tone down the violence.

3 balls out of 4 badass elder Bruce Waynes.

Mystery of the Batwoman-an even more tiresome regular episode expansion. The story revolves around a single plot idea that seems to have been thought of and then thrown into a bowl with other leftover random elements. Really tossed off and a waste of time. 

1.5 balls out of 4.

Batman Vs. Dracula-An idea that seems silly at first, but that is treated with relative seriousness. Unfortuately this is designed for young children so there is little to no story depth. However there are a few fleeting moments of inspiration. (Vampire Joker!)

2 balls out of 4.

Batman: Gotham Knight-Pointless tie-in to Batman Begins composed of different anime directors making Batman segments, Animatrix style. One or two work pretty well , some drag terribly, and several of the anime styles do not work well at all for the Dark Knight. The real draw though is Kevin Conroy as always.

2 balls out of 4.

The IPCRESS File-the greatest spy film of all time. Michael Caine's definitive role is blue-collar spy Harry Palmer; the working class, gourmet, spectacled, cooking anti-Bond. Smart, detached, urban, paranoiac, and beautifully shot in Techniscope by a crew consisting of many members of the Bond film team. John Barry's score is haunting and perhaps his finest work. Some of the most inventive cinematography to ever be featured in a feature film. Caine gives us a man with Connery's superman swagger, but who is also painfully human too. He is defined by his arrogance and indifference to authority.

I'm obsessed with this film. 4 champignon mushroom balls out of 4 B-107s.

This is one of the very few supposedly bad SW games I haven't played. Is it as bad as Jedi Power Battles?

Sounds good for the source material if a bit soft. Dynamic Range of 11 (out of 20, I'm obsessed with this meter), but why is it PCM at 1536 kbp/s instead of 1441?

This is going to be fun. I've always regretted the time when theaters took out all their big systems and setups at the end of the Dolby-DTS war and all mixers toned their surround assaults down. You can't even find DTS theatrically any longer, if you're lucky enough to be watching 35mm chances are there's no DTS equipment.

For the 97 mixes (can't believe this is actually possible now) I'd say the easiest thing would be to match the DTS to a straight Laserdisc cap. Then you could add it to one of the broadcast versions, or even incorporate into other fan efforts. (I'm thinking this would give hairy_hen much to play with on his 70mm mix. He used the LFE on the lossy LD 5.1)

Whoa! That is really exciting news! I had actually been wondering about this since my local art house announced a 35mm screening of Jurassic Park but I doubted that would feature the DTS mix because I don't they're equipped for that.

The discs for films pop up occasionally and sometimes trade between 35mm collectors. The trick has always been the decoding and so I've never thought about getting any myself.

I'm guessing the LFE will be detected via processor and sent out to the sub prologic style?

What does it sound like? And what's the bitrate of these?

Drooling over the thought of the DTS disc for the SE trilogy mixes. And other theatrical tracks in DTS: Batman Forever, Ronin, The Matrix, Goldeneye, Tommorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough to name a few.

Kinda funny that the LD still can't be cracked and the 5.1 decoded.

Upgrades in format will also go hand in hand with equipment upgrades. It took a long time to go across the board 16:9, then HD, then 1080p. To go to theater standard 2K is not much of a jump from Blu-ray but it will require new software, new TVs and this is something people will not want to do.

The better idea would be going for a 4K format/system to justify the upgrade. This is what is used in the better standard theaters and is the digital rough equivalent of a 35mm print. (Being a physical medium, film can never properly be measured for digital pixels.) Of course, this would also render every digital theater at 4K or lower obsolete. (And with the terrible presentations now, you can already get a better experience with lower resolution Blu-ray at home, and that's not even getting into sound nowadays which theatrically is godawful.)

I dislike streaming primarily because I love to have the physical copy in my hands. Books, LPs, LDs, and film itself need that physical connection. That said, my big reason for avoiding streaming besides limited bandwith is the fact that you have no control over the content. It can be mastered or released in any way with little to no regards for quality. And people eat it up! Just because it is portable does not mean it is necessarily better. Never have I been satisfied with any streaming I have purchased, with image quality being sporadic at best. Then it's usually cropped to an improper ratio, downmixed to mp3 standard or less 2.0 stereo, and then you have the joys of buffering or losing the HD feed.

Sometimes I think they should just pay people to make 720p rips of Blu-rays and rent those to consumers. It's ridiculous that you pay for such terrible quality and yet those who illegally download for free are getting the superior content.

I think and hope that there will be a physical successor to Blu-ray but that it will likely become more and more of a niche market compared to the streaming/media downloads crowd.

As those who've been reading in the Dark Knight Rises thread know:

The Dark Knight

Still seems confused to me, and the more I think about it, less like Batman.

2.5 balls out of 4 hockey pads.

Mask of the Phantasm

Just felt like I needed to rinse my mouth out. Or something like that. Harmed only by its initial direct-to-video origins and time constraints, MOTP is one of the two complete Batman films, the other being Returns. Here every shot is telling a story while being extremely creative with the composition. Though one could argue that this is merely an expansion of an episode from the already mind-blowing Animated series, it isn't. (Subzero is however.) The story is rather simple and though the plot twist is visible early on, the sheer amount of subtext is fascinating. There is a reason why you can watch this little animated movie dozens of times and not be bored. Like Returns, you sit in the dark and can just drink it all in, wallowing in the thematic sorrows of the winged avenger.

And the Technicolor printing adds hues never seen on the TV screen, further separating this from the series.

I've never realized how shoddy the DVD is however. The full-frame version seems more of an open matte, revealing more image on the top and bottom but losing on the sides. The 35mm grain was heavily magnified in the transfer, and I'd be surprised if this wasn't simply the 90's LD master simply ported over. But it's got a freaking great Dolby Stereo surround track. I think this film is the reason why I still love Dolby Stereo to this day. This movie was my first theatrical Batman experience, and I much later realized that I saw it in one of the big state of the art THX built theaters. Talk about overwhelming to a 3 year old. Inside it was cold, dark, empty-much like the Batcave.

4 balls out of 4 dense long-chained macromolecular polymers.

I'm tired but I'll give it a whirl. Ok, so here goes..I just re-watched TDK for the first time in a long while. It is not a bad film by any means. Now that's out of the way.

The Blu-ray transfer does help immensely. Here the IMAX scenes are shown at a more open 1.78:1 (orig. 1.44:1) and then it jumps back and forth to regular 2.35 scope. I only saw the film in 35mm and the IMAX sequences looked a bit odd cropped down to standard scope. Plus there are many establishing shots that are IMAX as well.

There are moments of depth and great insight, but these are like the IMAX sequences, in a word: fleeting. The film doesn't know what it wants to be and neither does Batman himself. This is the key problem. I felt at times as if I were watching some other guy in body armor and not Batman. And this time around, Christian Bale does little other than say lines in a relative monotone, have some smarmy bits as Bruce and of course give new meaning to gravel in the throat. The performances that stand out are those that have presence, vitality and energy. Caine and Freeman again steal every scene they are in, and Ledger's characterization is one of those increasingly rare performances that is truly captivating.

To further compound this, some of the editing is nonsensical and extremely confusing. I think in the editing process it was decided to make the viewer's mind to work at a higher level. By changing shot order, dropping linking shots, and other subtle little tweaks and cuts this creates a highly kinetic but downright muddled vision for the brain to comprehend. There are even several jump cuts in the film that make absolutely no sense, even for a jump cut! Here's a great example of what I'm referring to, detailing the editing of a part of the police convoy chase: http://vimeo.com/28792404

And to my eyes the cinematography is a bit too drab with its overreliance on blues and fluorescent lighting. The IMAX scenes are almost a relief to get away from the style used on the Panavision scenes. The use of Chicago as a generic backdrop works until it becomes a nonentity altogether. What's the point of having a Gotham City if the city itself could be anywhere? Finally there are several endings too many, and Two-Face is shoehorned in much as Harvey Dent was for the entire story. We are left with a conclusion that rings a bit hollow, but if that's the way they want to play it, it's their movie.

Perhaps empty is the wrong word for me to have used. It's really more confused than empty.

Knowing it was a big summer movie clocking in at 2.5 hours, I thought it would be really tightly plotted and cut to match. Coming out of the theater, I was convinced that WB or someone else had done a big hack job on Nolan's final edit to get something more releasable out quickly. After the well laid out Begins, this just couldn't be the way they wanted to continue. But it was. This was the final cut, and there wasn't some longer and more relaxed edit out there. In the final release version, there's just no time to savor, enjoy or even take in what the heck is going on. (Once again, thanks a lot Bourne Supremacy for starting this editing mess!)

I really want to like this movie. I did going in and still do after watching it three times, but darn it if I still don't come out with a bad taste in the mouth.  Despite my misgivings here, I have high hopes for TDKR....I think. I liked Begins, and though I felt the film glossed over some elements to quickly, it has a much more complete narrative and thus to me at least is much more satisfying as a movie.

BTW I meant hockey pads as a joking reference to Batman's poetic and airy diction.

And finally one thought: can there be a Batman movie without a love interest? And featuring hardcore detective work as both Bruce and Batman? Sounds a tough as making a spy film with actual spying. I guess there's no love for Matches Malone: The Movie. ;)

It just felt darned empty. I felt like I was reading an interesting Batman graphic novel that was highly acclaimed but sorely lacking in a well defined story arc, and just got too convoluted for its own good. Add in the overlong run time, messy editing, weird color scheme and "HOCKEY PADS" and I guess that about sums it up for me. It's not a bad film, just not the great movie everyone claims it to be.

I'm going to revisit it tonight anyway and see what I think all this time later. And I still haven't seen Inception, which of course will get me ignored by some people...

Batman & Robin

Every time I come to this again, I think..."Oh, it can't as bad-it's just like an overly cheesy attempt to make an episode of the TV series."

No. It isn't. The TV series though being a satire/spoof, had a certain sense of dignity that elevates it to a level of Shakesperian tragedy over this mindless dreck.

This film is truly godawfully terribly frustratingly infuriatingly bad. Everything in the production is merely recycled from Forever-right down to the same exact music cues. It was a rushed production, since there had been a big hit with the previous film-and no one thought to double check anything-especially the script!!!

FREAKING ICE SKATE BOOTS? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

The dialogue is beyond mere cringe-inducing, and hopefully you aren't a fan of puns on the cold. The acting is terrible across the board and there is absolutely no reason to care a damn bit about anything going on onscreen. Clooney is so one-note that you literally want to punch Batman. This desire becomes so great, that the constant whines of Robin are almost a welcome reprieve from the terrible cardboard Bruce Wayne.

When the biggest draw of your Batman film is a mere subplot about a sick Alfred, you know you have screwed up royally. When Batgirl throws off her cowl for no apparent reason, you know you're screwed. When you've cast Ahnuld and Uma Therman, you're beyond screwed. There is too much junk added on to the visuals, so that a bad film is made even worse with all kinds of gunk onscreen. There's even a freaking gang dressed up as Alex DeLarge & Co.! WTFH?!?!?!?!

In a word, BALLESS!!! There are worse films, but this one has you stark raving mad by the end.

DuracellEnergizer said:

captainsolo said:

And now...oh crap it's time for Batman & Robin. W H Y ?

I don't know. Maybe the chicks in green spandex/black rubber make it worth your while? =P

Nope. Definitely not. Not even that could save this big toy commercial. And to top it all off, they freaking ruined Batgirl. Go figure.

Batman Begins

I went into the theater not really knowing what was going to unfold. The gestation period had been going on for so long, with so many failures that I wondered if there would ever be another Bat film. I liked Begins immediately, but while watching it just felt like something was always missing. the production design was great and with all of the yellows and browns effectively created yet another film Gotham that we hadn't seen before. Performances were great, but something was just off a bit.

This something was the story. Begins felt like yet another "clever" Batman graphic novel that had great potential, but lost sight of both it's story and connection to the character in the pursuit of greatness. The film just didn't have the full development that I would want from a Batman, let alone an origin story. Thus, to me it was a good movie that had several disappointing aspects. After the sequel, I realized that we were lucky to get as much development as we did.

Then I happened to stumble across the novelization of Begins. Figured I'd see if there were any dropped bits from the film and read through it...and realized that it had been written by Dennis O'Neil. Here is the depth I had been looking for. There are only some minor additions and re-shuffling, but the pacing, tone and detail that were input into the book are far beyond what the film just glosses over. Though the book has the luxury of inner character thought, the detail and energy are much greater than the colder film. And of course, you'd expect this from the guy who helped to bring back the serious Dark Knight in the 70's. Not to mention the fact that he created Ra's Al Ghul in the first place.

The film: 3 balls out of 4 defective cowls.

The book: 3.5/3.75 balls out of 4 bloody ninja suits.

The book has really enhanced my enjoyment of the film, and I'm interested to find his novelization of TDK.

I've added several LDs but nothing else.

LD, all Letterboxed:

A Fistful of Dynamite-Uncut edition, Ryan's Daughter, The Man Who Would Be King (with original alternate ending), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid Director's Cut.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Almost all of Nolan's films feel - for lack of a better term - constipated, constipated and unnecessarily convoluted, to me. So far, the only films of his I've actually found enjoyable are Batman Begins and The Prestige.

YES!! Every single one of his films I've seen is disconnected from its own story. I agree with all of his filmmaking theories and commitment to quality films, but so far the only one I actually enjoyed to a degree was Batman Begins. And even then the novelization was much better.

Regardless, though, The Dough Dark Knight Rises will probably still be a far better film than anything connected to those overrated CG turds Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor.

Yes, but I know that I probably won't enjoy it very much.

It's not uncommon for early DVDs to just recycle LD transfers. Surprised because I thought since Columbia did their own LD afterwards that they wouldn't have just licensed the Criterion transfer. LDDB lists the Columbia LD at 1.75:1 instead of 1.85:1, but that could either be a re-crop or submission error.

The mono track is probably untouched which is why it would seem softer. The later releases will be highly equalized, scrubbed, compressed and tinny. Thus they seem louder at first listen. The former is how Get Carter is on DVD, an original mono track @ 192 kbp/s unfutzed with and in a very low 1.0 track. 

Kubrick's films never stop being fascinating...even their ratios...I refuse to see Strangelove at a flat 1.66:1, though it looked fine theatrically this way. I just got used to the alternating 1.33/1.66 ratios. He also used this on the Criterion Lolita LD, but I've yet to see that. The Criterion 1.66:1 framings of The Killing and Paths of Glory are fantastic looking after years of worn VHS and undefined MGM DVDs. But both framings work, like Night of the Hunter.

The Shining I think looks fine in any matte, but the 1.85 works best overall. And 2001 was still 2.21:1 on all 35mm prints.

Barry Lyndon is the only one I can't decide on. 1.66 or 1.75? I think 1.66:1 is what it was really composed for, but Kubrick wrote letters proclaiming the intended ratio of 1.75. In any case, the Blu-ray is still cropped form the intended image.

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