The Brutalist (2024/A24 Blu-ray)/High Society 4K (1956/MGM/Warner Archive 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/New York, New York (1977/United Artists/Imprint/Via Vision Import 3-Blu-ray Set)/To Catch A Thief 4K (1955/Hitchcock/Paramount 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)

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

PLEASE NOTE: The New York, New York Import Blu-ray set now only available from our friends at Via Vision Imprint Entertainment in Australia and can play on Blu-ray players , while High Society 4K is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.

Next up are four films that define big screen filmmaking, three of which are in the stunning, large-frame VistaVision format and another that emulates the big screen of the pre-widescreen era.

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist (2024) is our newest entry, one of the few films since One Eyed Jacks to use VistaVision (and not just for model work) and righty a Best Picture nominees about the title character (Adrien Brody, rightly winning another Best Actor Academy Award) barely surviving WWI and The Holocaust, making into the U.S. and hoping to maybe continue his groundbreaking work in the style the title rightly labels after so much success before the war. Losing his family, he tries his best to find his way.

Running a warm, smart, engrossing, involving, vivid, honest 3+ hours, the screenplay starts with the basics, takes its time to show us (often in images and not overly narrating them, too rare these days) with its ultra high resolution, high fidelity images a world of the not so distant past and never hits a false note recreating the periods it covers. As it enters its second hour, it starts to pick up and then, it gets on a roll, really delivers like all such thoughtful epics and really delivers by the time all is said and done.

Except for one plot point I did not totally buy and some uneven parts of the first hour, once I started watching, I could not stop. Brody is a good actor, a survivor in the industry and has delivered all kinds of performances in commercial films and important films like this, but when he gets rich, challenging material, he really delivers! His instincts, talent and natural flow of delivery is a master class in acting and he is able to carry the film.

However, he also lucked out with a solid script, outstanding cinematography, a great supporting cast and a director who just keeps getting better and better. A special, important film and one of the best of the last few years, the impressive supporting cast includes Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Issach De Bankole, Allessandro Nivola, Adriane Labed, Michael Epp, Peter Polycarpou, Johnathan Hyde and Joe Alwyn, hope we see these actors more. The Brutalist is enough of a classic that everyone serious about film should see it!

Extras include a Feature Length Audio Commentary with Director of Photography Lol Crawley, ''The Architects of The Brutalist'' featurette (25 minutes) and six collectible postcards with architectural renderings by Akos Sogor.

Charles Walters' High Society 4K (1956) is finally coming out in both Blu-ray and 4K, both in this set. Grace Kelly's last film, made at MGM, is a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, now set in Newport, Rhode Island. As I explained in my review of the old DVD in a collection of Kelly's films...

''Under a remarkable set of circumstances, Frank Sinatra landed the Jimmy Stewart role and just ending his nearly quarter-century contract at Paramount, Bing Crosby landed the Cary Grant role in this comedy (based on the hit stage play) as Kelly's ex-husband who lives near her.

Celeste Holm, Louis Calhern, Sidney Blackmer and Louis Armstrong & His Band are in strong supporting positions in what was a big critical and commercial hit, but Kelly was about to marry royalty in Monaco and this was her swan song on the big screen, but what a big way to go out and retire. This is a decent film, if sometimes labored, but it has also been a more recent target of being snobby and worse by certain writers who see it as a blueprint for post-WWII power elitists. No matter than, it is a big all-out musical of the kind that was peaking at this time. Paramount (who made Funny Face the same year, a film originally set up at MGM) did one of their rare loaning-outs of their VistaVision format to another studio and all involved used it to the greatest effect.''

Now, it looks like a several million dollars more (at least) and has a remarkable sound upgrade thanks to the way it was recorded and how those elements also survived in the vaults over the many decades since its release. A Backstage Musical by default, it might be confined in some odd ways while being larger than life in others, but it still impresses and is spectacularly presented in 4K here. Highly recommended!

Extras include the solid featurette ''Cole Porter in Hollywood: True Love'' in HD, 1956 Premiere Newsreel In HD, the Technicolor MGM CinemaScope cartoon Millionaire Droopy in HD, Audio-Only promo spots featuring Bing Crosby with Grace Kelly & Frank Sinatra and Original Theatrical Trailers in HD.

Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977) is the great director's epic musical, but one that took genre (nostalgically) apart as it celebrated it. Originally a bomb when it came out because (like Friedkin's Sorcerer, reviewed on 4K Criterion disc elsewhere on this site) it opened around the same time as the first Star Wars film, it is now recognized as another on of his classics, has now been issued by the Australian label Imprint/Via Vision Import 3-disc Blu-ray set and is the third time we have covered it over the years. We covered the old U.S. Blu-ray single years ago at this link, which itself includes a link to our DVD coverage where I go into detail about the film:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11001/The+Adventures+Of+Priscilla+%C3%A2%E2%82%AC

So how does the epic film hold up today? Great! But with the sometimes strange things feature films have been trying to do with music and musicals, the film has an unexpected new value. Since we lat reviewed the film, the music industry alone has seen a resurgence in vinyl and old cassette tape sales, streaming broke out and movies have been trying to find new ways to fit music in them with all the licensing-heavy opportunities and deals out there. The four kinds of music films that have shown up are ambitious attempts to recreate old musicals (Spielberg's West Side Story remake,) movies that have plenty of music and do not want to identify as musicals (Wonka a major example,) films so bad they should have never been made (the horrific Cats easily tops that list!!!) leaving the occasional critical and commercial home run (Wicked) that knows it has to cover all the bases of the genre to work.

Almost a half century later, Scorsese here (and for that matter, Herbert Ross' Pennies From Heaven, way overdue for a restored special edition reissue) so throughly covers the genre and leave no stone unturned, it easily connects with all these films and so many me music films to come. De Niro, Minelli and the cast continue to be as retro-authentic as ever and more than ever, New York, New York is way overdue for rediscovery. Thanks to an excellent set like this, that is now even more possible. If you have never seen it, see it!

As the order link below will show, this new set includes all the great extras of that older disc, adds new ones and also adds the shorter European edition of the film. That makes this the best edition of the film to date and is highly recommended!

Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief 4K (1955) has finally arrived in Ultra High Definition after a mixed history on Blu-ray and DVD, a film we have also covered twice before, but in this case, in two DVD editions. The first is this older DVD which includes an audio commentary track by Peter Bogdanovich and Laurent Bouzereau that has never been included on later versions of the film, including this 4K version for some odd reason:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5515/Alfred+Hitchcock+3-Disc+Collector%C3%A2%E2%82%A

And this Centennial Edition DVD that has a small, thin booklet and interactive travelogue dropped form newer editions like this 4K version:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8370/To+Catch+A+Thief+%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9

So why is the film so compelling and holds up so well? It is a classy heist/cat burglar film, has nice suspense, mystery, is lush, the locales are undeniable and the leads have chemistry to spare, something that just builds and builds as their characters get to know each other. Cary Grant was in a middle-era where he could do no wrong and Grace Kelly is more than a match for him emotionally, psychologically and of course, sexually, so one of the most beautiful women in the world and movie stars of all time, whom the camera loved big time, shows us what it is to be an icon, big screen movie star and legend. The panache of Grant has him more than hold his own.

Another must see film as these all are, it was Hitchcock's first large frame film, in the then-new, still incredible VistaVision process and he knew what to do with it. Now in 4K, you can really see how and why. Don't miss it!

Extras repeat the rest of the older extras, but add nothing new, save the Digital Movie option.

Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on High Society 4K comes from a new 13.5K scan of the original VistaVision camera negative and looks great, with amazing depth, detail and warmth, the color following its original three-strip Technicolor release and is just amazing all around. The sound is here in lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) derived in part from the magnetic stereo music masters and is also very impressive, though a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is also included, it cannot take advantage of those stereo masters. A regular 1080p Blu-ray ODF the film is also included, another first for the film and it is fine, but absolutely no match for the 4K version.

The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on To Catch A Thief 4K also follows an original three-strip Technicolor release print and comes off of 6K scans of the film from years ago off of the original 35mm color negative. This is the best this film has ever looked, but the transfer still has some grain and other issues that need to be worked out in future releases, while that negative has scratches and damage Paramount really needs to address for preservation reasons. Still, like other older Hitchcock films and Bond films and the like, no scans or mint negative in the world can overcome items that are going to age the film no matter what like matte work, rear projection, process shooting, optical printing or obvious work on a movie set. Hitchcock stuck with these approaches more than most.

However, when this looks good, it looks great and can even be breathtaking, rendering obsolete all the older transfers and release editions on DVD and Blu-ray, thanks to a great new team of restoration people at Paramount, so most will enjoy it like I did. The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 simply recycles the older such track from previous Blu-ray releases, but I wish this had been redone, so it has limits and some it should not have at this point. Otherwise, no other complains and is the only way to see this must-see film outside of a mint film print.

Also issued in a 4K edition oddly lacking any HDR, the 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image on Brutalist looks good and only adds some old 35mm and faux video footage for narrative reasons, otherwise is amazing with the format of VistaVision unleashing the excellence of Kodak's Vision3 color negative film. Fortunately, the makers knew what to do with all of that and the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is just fine, but I wish this had been in DTS: X or Dolby Atmos. Maybe later when an HDR/Dolby Vision 4K edition of the film is issued, they'll add that.

Finally, the 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on New York, New York is using the same video master of the longer version of the film the older U.S. Blu-ray did, but it has better color and is not as slightly soft as that disc was, so Scorsese's approximation of dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor really looks good. The sound is here in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes for both cuts and PCM 2.0 Mono only on the Director's Cut. The 5.1 can show the limits of the original recording, but it is the better choice and brings out the most in the film. The combination is great and does the film justice, as does the whole, terrific box set.

To order the New York, New York import Blu-ray set, go to this link:

https://viavision.com.au/shop/new-york-new-york-1977-imprint-collection-420/

...and to order the High Society 4K Warner Archive 4K 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