Meet Joe Black (HD-DVD)
Picture: A- Sound: B+ Extras: C- Film: B
For years
since its release, I had hoped that Martin Brest’s Meet Joe Black (1998) would be rediscovered and two DVD versions
were issued by Universal, but then Gigli
happened and Martin Brest has had a tough time recovering critically and
artistically since. Though not
everything about the film has aged as well as I had hoped after seeing this new
HD-DVD, other aspects hold up very well and it is one of the nicest back
catalog titles in either HD format to date.
The story
of a rich man named Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins in one of his most underrated
performances) plays a rich mogul about to turn 65 who is suddenly having health
problems. He hears voices, which turn
out not to be insanity (some of them sound like his) but that of death, who
soon appears as a young man (Brad Pitt, playing the grim reaper in the great
tradition of Universal’s 1930s monsters if you pay attention) who decides to
enter the world of the living after millennia after millennia of taking human
mortal lives from the land of the living.
The twist
here is that as a human, he starts to fall in love with Bill’s daughter (Claire Forlani) and
does not know how to react to being mortal.
The Ron Osborn/Jeff Reno/Kevin Wade/Bo Goldman screenplay is based on
the book and classic Paramount film Death
Takes A Holiday and ambitiously takes on making the grand statement about
living, happiness and death. There are
some great comic touches, some dark comic touches included, violence,
corporatism, love, family, wealth and what makes up the character of the
individual. Is it just that it is a film
still ahead of its time?
Comic
performances by Jeffrey Tambor and Marcia Gay Harden are impressive, while Jake
Webber is an antagonist who represents the worst of us all. It is easy to underestimate the film when it
becomes humorous and even whimsical, but there is much detail in the remarkably
consistent three hours of running time. It
is very mature, intelligent work and this HD-DVD gives it the best chance yet
for rediscovery, especially in its playback performance.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 VC- 1 digital High Definition image was not easy for me to
evaluate. The previous DVDs looked good
for their age, but have not aged well.
There is some grain, but after weighing what a fan I am of the film and
sticking to the strict technical aspects to judge the image, it is one of the
best back-catalog HDs in either format of films from the 1990s. The money is on the screen and the sharpness,
detail and depth is very much like the 35mm prints I saw of it at the
time. Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki,
A.S.C., really delivered top rate cinematography as good as any film of the
time and this HD-DVD reconfirms that, annihilating the DVD versions. Add the costumes and production design and
one can barely name too many films since that looked this good or rich, thanks
in part to the overuse of digital work.
We were
hoping this would arrive in DTS of some kind or Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix(es), but
we unfortunately only get a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix that is about as good as
the DTS from the Ultimate Edition
DVD set, but there are some points of distinction not here that I can hear in
the DTS tracks. However, this sounds
fine and was a big DTS-exclusive theatrical release at the time. One of the best mixes of the era, it also
features an exceptional music score by Thomas Newman, which was released on CD
by Universal Records. Though that CD was
not officially encoded for HDCD playback, it works that way if you are lucky
enough to have a decoder and is worth seeking out. The extras are few, though the Ultimate Edition DVD set included the
original Paramount film for comparison.
Though there are more extras on the DVDs, this disc still offers an on
location featurette, photo montage and the original theatrical trailer. Guess the loss of some supplements is the
price we pay for the amazing picture quality.
- Nicholas Sheffo
