The Green Mile 4K (1999/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/National Champions (2021/Universal Blu-ray)/The Whaler Boy (2020 aka Kitoboy/Film Movement DVD)

4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B/B-/C Sound: B+ & B/B-/C Extras: B/C/C Films: B+/C/C+

Here's a few dramas for you to know about...

Frank Darabont's The Green Mile 4K (1999) is a powerful film that simply shines on the 4K UHD format. The level of detail in the production design and faces of the actors really stands out here and shows you just how impressive this format is. The film itself hasn't aged at all since its initial release and remains one of the best films based on a Stephen King novel to date. Just about anyone can appreciate and enjoy this film, as it's nothing like King's other scary stories, and is so well crafted that it remains enthralling from start to finish. The late Michael Clarke Duncan is very very good in this convincing role and Tom Hanks leads the film with presence and power. If you're a fan, this new release on 4K is definitely worth the upgrade.

The film stars Tom Hanks, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Clarke Duncan, Sam Rockwell, and James Cromwell. It was written for the screen and directed by Frank Darabont, who also did a stellar job with King's The Shawshank Redemption (reviewed in 4K elsewhere on this site). The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture.

Cold Mountain Penitentiary is home to 'the green mile,' which is the nickname for death row there. The cell block only contains a handful of prisoners, but they are all shook when John Coffey (Duncan) is brought in by the Warden (Hanks) and his small group of officers. While Coffey at first seems intimidating, it's soon discovered that he has a unique supernatural ability and the power to heal. As Hanks and his officers get to know what Coffey is capable of, they realize that he may not be even guilty of the crime he supposedly committed. Another prisoner (Rockwell) is introduced and he is pretty much as bad as it gets. Are he and Coffey interconnected?

Special Features:

Audio commentary by Frank Darabont

Additional scenes

Walking the Mile: The Making of The Green Mile documentary

Miracles and Mystery: Creating The Green Mile Featurette Gallery

Tom Hanks Make Up Tests

Michael Clark Duncan Test

The Teaser Trailer: A Case Study

and Theatrical Trailers

While some people are complaining about the so-so cover art, The Green Mile on 4K is an impressive release for a wonderful film. For more thoughts on the film, see our coverage of the old DVD set here:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4703/The+Green+Mile:+Two+Disc+Special+Edition+(DVD

Ric Roman Waugh's National Champions (2021) is yet another sports drama that is unsure of how to tell its story, this time offering football players of color in a college national championship game deciding to strike and stop the game until they get equal pay. Coming so soon after a big ruling in favor of college players getting money, the script is trying to stay ahead of possible upcoming developments, but even with the ever-savvy J.K. Simmons leading a solid cast as a coach who lands up in the middle of it all, I never bought it.

Tim Blake Nelson, Jeffrey Donovan, David Koechner, Timothy Olyphant and Kristin Chenoweth are among the name supporting cast joining a set of newer, younger, mostly unknown actors, but none of them can stop the monotony of the productions built-in issues that are also technical (see below) and just is not very memorable much. A shame, because with some concentration and organization, this could have been much better.

Extras include Digital Code, while the disc adds clips Behind The Scenes and on the music.

Philipp Yuryev's The Whaler Boy (2020 aka Kitoboy) is another coming of age indie production, this time out of Russia, but this often graphic (cutting up the whales, et al) tale of 15-year-old Leshka (Vladimir Onokhov) has the internet-age twist of him being interested in meeting the gal of his dreams from a sex chat room, apparently located in The United States. He wants to leave his Barring Strait home and meet her, but (pre-Ukraine invasion) can he make it?

This has some good moments here and there, but save the novel twist, we have seen our share of this before, done with more visual and narrative clarity, but at least this takes itself seriously enough that I can see why some might like it more than this viewer did. Running 94c minutes, they could have made somewhat better use of their time, but it is worth a look for the most very interested.

Extras include brief text on the film inside the front cover of the sleeve/cover inside the DVD case, trailers and the 15-minutes short film Before The Typhoon Comes, directed by Chen Yun.

Now for playback performance. The Green Mile 4K is presented in 2160p ultra high definition in native 4K UHD with HDR10 and a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 paired with a new lossless Dolby Atmos track (Dolby TrueHD 7.1, 48kHz, 24-bit mixdown for older systems) and a lossy French Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps) mix. The detail in the production design is very apparent in this release with tiny details seen on the jail cells and costumes that certainly were never seen in previous versions. The HDR10 gets every little detail out including beads of sweat on the actors faces. This is a gorgeous looking release. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the regular Blu-ray is an older transfer and has not aged well, but it DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix is not bad, though dated versus the new Atmos on the 4K edition.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Champions goes out of its way to be slick and choppy, deciding that the full length of this tale should look like an actual game with too much editing, shaky camera work and it has the opposite effect of being exciting. Color is not bad, but definition is not good and looks to be shot on an old HD camera(s) with too much softness and motion blur to boot. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix has its share of location audio issues, some of which seem to be intentional, but it does not work al the time and is not consistent by any means, so the combination can be trying and overdone.

The 1.33 X 1 image on Whaler is a little on the weak side recorded on what looks like a cell phone of just older digital source that is barely HD if that, so you get constant softness (not helped by this older format) and the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo mixes also underwhelm with location audio issues and the 2.0 sounds a little better than the 5.1 at times. They did what they could to fix the sound, but that only goes so far.

- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/