Departed
4K (2006/Warner 4K Ultra
HD Blu-ray/Limited Edition Steelbook)/Narc
4K (2003/4K Ultra HD
Blu-ray w/Blu-ray*)/Night
Falls on Manhattan
(1996/Blu-ray/*both MVD/Paramount/Arrow)/Stand
and Deliver (1988/Warner
Archive Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: X/B/B/B- Sound: B/B/C+/C+
Extras: C+/C+/B-/C- Films: B/C+/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Stand
and Deliver
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for a group of dramas reissued, restored and back for a second
look...
Martin
Scorsese's The Departed 4K
(2006) brings back his Oscar-winning film that he once said is his
'old film with a narrative' albeit a consistent one, which we
reviewed years ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5029/The+Departed+(HD-DVD/DVD+Combo+Format
Not
as cinematic as his best works, it is still more so than most of the
superhero genre works he was rightly criticizing a few years before
that genre's spectacular (and odd) implosion, with its amazing cast,
true story and very book-like narrative. It is also sadly still the
only time he ever worked with Jack Nicholson, who is better here than
you might remember. The work here is more consistent than you also
might remember, but starting with a Rolling Stones classic he
revitalized interest in, he immediately admits he is revisiting his
own cinematic past in more commercial ways. It is worth revisiting
just to see all he gets right that most directors doing the same
thing do not.
Extras
are exactly the same as that edition with nothing new added, but this
is the one to own and the Steelbook is nice enough.
Joe
Carnahan's Narc 4K
(2003) is finally being upgraded and in a big way from the
then-decent DVD release it received when it first hit home video, as
we reviewed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/361/Narc
Though
I was not as impressed as my fellow writer, a very observant movie
fan, no doubt Jason Patric is a solid actor and should have had a
much bigger acting career commercially. I just did not buy the many
off moments and a few predictable ones that threw thew film off too
often for me, though not as badly as later films like Smokin'
Aces, the odd A-Team
feature film, The Grey,
Stretch
and Boss Level
where comedy entered the narratives and made the films even worse.
Copshop
was a recent attempt to return to form, but he's not there yet,
though his TV show The
Blacklist fared much
better.
Cheers
to the rest of the cast, but this is now a curio since the late,
great Ray Liotta plays a wild cop. Not a big favorite of mine, but
if you have never seen it or are very curious, here is the way to see
it now.
Extras
definitely
expand from the content from the old DVD and include...
DISC
ONE - FEATURE (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)
DISC
TWO - EXTRAS (BLU-RAY)
Vintage
EPK interviews with Joe Carnahan, Ray Liotta, Jason Patric, Diane
Nabatoff, Alex Nepomniaschy and William Friedkin
Sidney
Lumet's Night
Falls on Manhattan
(1996) seemed like a strong project with a huge amount of talent
joining one of the greatest directors in cinema history. It was
based on a book by Robert Daley, whose work also was the basis of
Lumet's epic Prince
Of The City
and Michael Cimino's underrated, influential and highly imitated Year
Of The Dragon
(both reviewed on Warner Archive Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and
he was writing the screenplay personally. Then he got a great cast
that included Andy
Garcia, Richard Dreyfus, Lena Olin, Ron Leibman, Ian Holm, Colm
Feore, Paul Guilfoyle, Dominic Chianese, Vincente Pastore, Frank
Vincent, a then-unknown Bobby Cannavale and James Gandolfini before
The
Sopranos,
yet another reason this is a bigger curio than ever.
He
case is from a real life crime where a murder takes place, involves a
major African American drug dealer, but is not cut and dry because he
is involved with more than a few police officers and in more than a
few police departments. Lumet wanted this to be part of a sort of
trilogy that started with Prince
Of The City and continued
with The Verdict,
but the strong, double classics of his Al Pacino classics Serpico
and Dog Day Afternoon
are as inescapable, though he said this was about examining the U.S.
legal system. With what has happened in recent years, this is sadly
a time capsule of 'the good old days' when more people still believed
in justice, the idea was not being openly mocked by certain elites
and people could still be shocked by corruption and crime.
This
film has some good moments, but as I felt then, it may have tried to
be more complex, but did not go far enough in other ways (just like
Gus Van Sant's To Die For,
a spiritual cousin to Lumet's own Network!)
leaving too much unsaid and to our great detriment, though no one on
either film could have imagined just how bad it got. Thus, watch
this film for what does work and who is involved and know you will
not see intelligent, ambitious films made for adults like this like
you used to. No wonder movies are in trouble.
Extras
include an archival commentary by director Sidney Lumet, plus a
second....
The
Directors: Sidney Lumet, an hour-long archive documentary from
2002 featuring interviews with Lumet, Garcia, Leibman, Jack Lemmon,
Rod Steiger, Christopher Walken and others
On-set
interviews with Lumet, Garcia, Dreyfuss, Olin, Holm and Leibman
Ramon
Menendez's
Stand
and Deliver
(1988) is part of a second wave of 'good teacher' films where the
teachers have to get stronger or tougher (think Lean
On Me,
Dangerous
Minds,
187)
where the stories have been updated (even when based on real life
people and events) with Edward James Olmos who has to teach a class
of tough Hispanic teens math and calculus. Things start to change
when he explains to them that the idea of zero in numbers was by a
person of their same ethnic origin, but the tough world outside
persists.
Lou
Diamond Phillips is the lead teen, really good hear as tough and
troubled, they've found someone who will not give up on them and it
makes for some good drama. Andy Garcia also stars and the rest of
the cast is really good here to, so good that we should have seen
more of them soon after.
Some
critics said it was fine, but compared it to a 'TV movie' or 'after
school special' meaning (at the time, anyhow) it was something you
could see at home for free on network TV, public television or maybe
cable, but it was as good and better than that. That would include
the likes of The Marva Collins Story with Cicely Tyson and
many others. Now that we do not have than anywhere nearly as much
and TV movies are coming to Blu-ray and restored for cable and
streaming as well, they did not realize how good we had it. Now, we
can see it as a special film that serves to be re-seen and a time
capsule of an entertainment industry and educational system that is
not what it used to be; a real time capsule. Definitely give it a
look!
A
trailer is sadly the only extra.
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, HDR (10; Ultra HD
Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on the 4K discs of
Departed (2.35 X 1, blowing away the old Blu-ray and HD—DVD
versions from years ago) and Narc (1.85 X 1, also with Dolby
Vision) are the best performers on the list as excepted, though the
Scorsese film is a little more consistent despite no Dolby Vision.
Departed
retains its DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix that sounds as
good here as it ever will and both discs of Narc
has an upgraded Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1) soundtrack that does
get more out of it than all previous editions, with its 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image Blu-ray passable, but no match
for the 4K. It also has a DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix you are supposed to decode
with Dolby Pro Logic (or a similar mode, like DTS: Neo or Pro Logic
II) but it is not as good.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Manhattan
can show the age of the materials used at times, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film on home
video and the closest to the 35mm prints of the time, while the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mix is not bad, but at a lower volume than usual, so be
careful of volume switching and high volume playback. I think this
is inherent to the soundmaster because this was a problem on the
original DVD release of the film as well.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Deliver is
from a slightly older HD master, so
It
only has a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
2.0 Stereo lossless mix that you are supposed to decode with Dolby
Pro Logic (or a similar mode, like DTS: Neo or Pro Logic II) and is
about as good as the audio will ever sound on this one.
To
order the Stand
and Deliver
Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
