How's the new release?
Is the picture quality better? I've seen this a few times, and like it, but it was always so dark. Hopefully its been fixed up?
It looks beautiful. But the movie sucks, in my opinion.
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MovieChat Forums > To All a Goodnight (1980) Discussion > How's the new release?
Is the picture quality better? It'd be hard to be worse than the Media Home Entertainment transfer. The picture quality of the telecine is fine with regards to what the film looks like - which is to say that in many shots it is dark. The day-for-night scenes, which were murky on the old 1983 tapes, look about as good as day-for-night can look.
Now comes the negative. It is presented at 1.78 and is horrendously overmatted at that ratio. It's obvious looking at the whole thing side by side with my old VHS that Hess made no provisions for matting. Gore in the throat slicing scenes is partially covered up, as is full frontal nudity and, occasionally, the tops of people's heads. If they had to mat, it should have been at no more than 1.66. As there are no boom mics visible in any shots that I am aware of, it would have been preferable for Kino to present it at 1.33. While the cropping on the top isn't that terrible, there is simply way too much picture cropped out on the bottom - picture which contains composition elements that I have no doubt in my mind Hess intended audiences to see. The mattes move up and down from scene to scene, which tells me that whoever did the transfer knew they were cropping it too much - and didn't care.
There's nothing wrong with the matting on the Blu-ray. There's more than enough headroom in most scenes. Believe it or not but sometimes you aren't intended to see full frontal nudity that was visible on open matte VHS.
shareThanks, Kino Lorber employee, for getting in touch with me. Now I am going to point-counterpoint your assertations, if you don't mind.
There's nothing wrong with the matting on the Blu-ray.
Yes, there is, and I told you why.
There's more than enough headroom in most scenes.
No, there isn't. Again, I told you why.
Believe it or not but sometimes you aren't intended to see full frontal nudity that was visible on open matte VHS.
When is that? When they are supposed to be naked but the unmatted portion reveals they were wearing a bathing suit? That isn't the case in this. Let me guess, you are one of those people who prefers seeing made-for-television productions shot and composed for the 4x3 era cropped to 1.78 because it fills up your 16x9 screen. And you also preferred seeing scope pictures cropped to 1.33 in the 4x3 era because, again, it filled up your screen. And anything and everything released in Academy Ratio cropped to 1.78. Again, fill up the screen. Am I right?
I stand by my claims. Looking at this matted and unmatted, David Hess did not intend for "To All a Goodnight" to be matted. (That goes for pretty much all of Sandy Cobe's no-budget junk produced around the same time frame, but especially this one. "Demented" was the only one where it looks like the director anticipated a 1.85 matting.) When in doubt, contact the director. If you can't do that, because you waited so long to put it out that he died in the interim, then DON'T MATTE. share
Ummmmm no. You're an idiot, and here's why.
1. The Blu-ray looks very good. I'm pickier than most when it comes to these transfers, so I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true.
2. I don't work for Kino. Do you work for a rival company?
3. Thanks for assuming what my preferences are. No, actually, I don't prefer full frame movies to be cropped to fit my screen. I want to see the film as it was intended -- and the fact is that most movies made in the 80s were framed for widescreen. Even if they went direct to video as To All a Goodnight did, they protect the frame just in case. The framing on To All a Goodnight may not be artful but I did not see any heads being cut off. The headroom was adequate.
The Kino Lorber release looks and sounds gorgeous.
I am the Duke of IMDb bio writers! I am A#1!
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