Coming to Blu-Ray June 5th
Just noticed this on upcoming releases yesterday.
shareTo bad it got an absolutely HORRIBLE transfer.
shareYes, the transfer stinks. Shame on Disney. They must hate Scorsese. After "Gangs of New York" that is their second piss poor release of a Scorsese film. Let's hope there will be a new transfer made as with Gangs.
shareIt's not as good as today's movies, but I think it's much better than the UK or USA DVD. It's sharper and brighter with more contrast and color. It was shot in dim rooms around 27 years ago and outdoors on dull overcast winter days. It will never look like "Seven" or "Fight Club" or some movie shot with studio lighting and so on, but it looks real and natural. The Blu-ray has some noise artifacts, esp on pool tables with the fixed color, but it does look and sound much better than it did before on home video. I've seen the US and UK DVD, UK is anamorphic with lower contrast - which is good in some scenes, but in general the Blu-ray beats it hands down, as DVD Beaver and other honest reviews say.
shareThe transfer stinks. If you want to know why, you can read it here (from the guy who restored such marginal films as "Lawrence of Arabia", "Vertigo", "The Godfather" and "Spartacus"):
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/315143-a-few-words-about™-the-color-of-money-in-blu-ray
I'm just saying it looks better than any of the DVDs, but the UK DVD has better contrast in some ways. The movie was overexposed, like in the scene where Eddie shows Carmen his Cadillac. It seems to have been shot largely with normal light in dimly lit bar rooms, cafes, restaurants, and over-cast winter days. It looks brighter, sharper, and clearer on Blu-ray, with some noise artifacts.
Lawrence of Arabia, Vertigo, The Godfather, and Spartacus were big studio films. They had better lighting. The guy from that forum is romanticizing the past and having nostalgia, IMO. TCOM isn't a classic movie anyway. It has lots of flaws: continuity errors, superficial women characters, dumb dialogue ("the man in the Bible with the many-colored coats" had nothing to do with anything)...
The Hustler had better photography, continuity, and writing, and knew the rules of the game, but was still flawed and superficial. The female characters in the movies are empty. I mean, at the beginning, Carmen seems to exist for no reason but to sit and watch Vincent play video games and shoot pool, hold the money he wins, smoke and drink, flash her breasts and vagina and wear scanty clothing to come on to Eddie, etc. Why is she with Vincent to begin with, before Eddie came along and what purpose did she serve after except helping con a few people in a despicable way, driving a get-away car (like she did for ex-boyfriend), running messages between Vincent and Eddie, etc. Do women relate to such a lame shallow characters? This is a male fantasy with cardboard female characters.
I don't accept the premise that a marginal video transfer ruins a movie. I think great movies would be great even seen on a 4x3 CRT screen. The problem is modern movies are getting badder and dumber, they reject visual story-telling and spell everything out, they rely on music and narration to set mood (Scorsese does this to death), superficial CGI that's obviously fake and immediately dated, etc. At least the constant music fits, since it's set in bars and pool halls, but to say TCOM is a "classic" film leads one to question the guy, I don't care what movies he's restored. Great movies can be made on grainy film like "Following," "Pi" or "La Jetee / Sans Soleil." To say the video quality ruins something is an excuse, perhaps, because you and others have outgrown the movie. It's a movie made for a white male audience of a certain age, with little appeal to others IMO.
I just watched the Blu-ray recently and having seen the USA letterboxed DVD and UK anamorphic PAL DVD, I think the Blu-ray is clearly a lot sharper & brighter, with more contrast. However, the contrast is too much in some scenes, IMO, like when they are talking in the diners and you see traffic going outside. Still, I think this is the best it will ever look. You can tell the movie was shot using mostly available-light in dimly-lit pool halls. It probably looks as good as it can mostly, given the source material and when it was made.
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