I've come late to the party, but I couldn't agree more with you on the Digipack debacle. The one thing I cannot stand is Digipack packaging. Indicator have also followed this same process with a number of their box sets. My copy of the Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 has two cases that are peeling off with the glue backing to the disc holder. I don't think enough glue was applied at the back during production. When I received the set, it looked fine. I'm very careful with all my sets with storage. I did order up the Bruce Lee Arrow set that's coming out in July. All of those cases are digipack, which is touch and go for me. I can understand when people say ' I prefer digipacks over traditional plastic case packaging, because of space issue, but I'd rather have box set that's well constructed with plastic holders than digipacks. It looks far more professional and impressive cosmetically. Great run down of titles from you as always. Pleasure to listen.
Great video. Im in the uk. Im going to pick up doctor x. Warner archive are now releasing titles here now which is great. They are half the US price. Doctor x is coming out next month.
I appreciate that you mentioned botched discs. Without naming names, there are some UA-camrs I follow who sweep any disc criticisms under the rug and blindly recomend bad releases.
I know it may mean that I don’t get screeners or review copies but I always try to be as honest as possible. No one else I know of besides BlahRay even begin to go into the audio realm which is where it’s totally all over the place. Seeing so many dull or uninformed reviews is why I started doing my own. I saw a number of best of the year lists and got frustrated which inspired this video to be more than just my top choice.
I appreciate your thoughts concerning the Indy 4k release. I didn't buy it and can't see myself doing so. After this video I may try to seek out the 91 LaserDisc! Revisionism aside, I must admit, after a childhood of watching Raiders on VHS I do enjoy my Raiders Blu-ray. However, in a similar situation, due to the tinkering, I still can't bring myself to buy Star Wars or Return of the Jedi on Blu. I'm glad you mentioned the audio. There is absolutely no reason for not offering an original audio option. The original audio track should be FIRST on the menu, then all their other configurations. It's really ridiculous.
The 1991 Raiders letterbox LD has my favorite mix of the film. No one knows it’s source and it’s only Dolby surround but boy is it a fun and engaging track that to me sounds more alive than the original Dolby stereo or the dvd 5.1 reportedly derived from the 70mm mix. A new release without original audio is worthless to me. Either I buy it for the extras or skip it unless I figure out ways to sync older releases audio to the new master.
A Prince of the City story: in the expanded, two-night first TV broadcast (in the later 1980s), a scene was shown that has never made it into any re-release, even in the deleted scenes sections. The Treat Williams character rebels against his FBI handlers and flees the safe house where he and his family are under guard. He drives at high speed down the highway to New York, intending to show up at the trial of one of his squad buddies whom he betrayed. A state trooper pulls him over and chews him out. Williams manages to convince the trooper that he's a cop and needs to be at that courtroom to give evidence that will save his buddy (a lie). The trooper relents and gives him an escort, at speed, to New York. Before they pull away, the camera holds on Williams' misery-ridden face. It illustrates perfectly the lines he guiltily repeats throughout the film: "The only people who understand are cops"; "My only friends are cops." It also shows that he lies to his cop friends. This has stuck in my mind for decades, since Williams spouts those lines too many times in the released versions, while this scene is a perfect example of how valuable it is to "show, not tell." The audience would get it, and feel it, if they could see that scene. It has never shown up on disc releases, even though other bits from the TV expansion have. The disc and VHS versions cut from Williams fleeing the safe house to his appearing at the courtroom, and the state trooper bit has vanished.
Well chosen Awards and Nominees! Only very few archive releases, I‘d add to your choices: For Indicator I would chose the Mae West Set over any of the Hammer or Noir sets personally. Also I‘d include some Paramount Presents Titles (like A Place In The Sun or Last Train From Gunhill) and more Arrow Video releases like Dune or their amazing Daimajin Box Set (I never bought more Box Sets from them as last year, nearly every other month they had a great one scheduled). I don’t own the three KL titles chosen by you (I already own local German BD versions and importing those titles is very pricey), so my KL pick would be most likely Night Gallery Season 1. Let’s now hope for a fine start into the current 2022 Award Season with many more archival upcoming new releases on BD or/and 4K! Greetings from Germany.
The Mae West box is one I’m really looking forward too. I need to get into more of the Paramount titles and both Gun Hill and 48 Hrs are on my wishlist. The Arrow Dune is as well which looks very impressive. If you do ever import any KL titles all three of those are important. Hunchback has never been better and the GBU 4k has the LD mono and proper cut for the first time ever.
Thank you for pointing out the inexcusable oversights on the KL ‘Silence of the Lambs’, duly noted and I think I’ll try to hunt to hunt down the Criterion blu-ray at some point soon…
No problem. The added benefit of the Criterion is that it has the orignal audio and the audio sounds as good as their old Laserdisc release which is a rarity for modern releases.
The Won Kar-wai box set was completely baffling, Criterion should have included the original unaltered versions. I loved the Tex Avery releases from Warner Archive.
The revisionism there was quite massive. Sure it may have been the “filmmakers intent” but it isn’t accurate at all. There should’ve at least been two presentations but I guess they wanted to appease to his wishes. I need to get Avery v2 and 3. I hate that v2 got affected by the pandemic and was handled by others who made it a subpar release. George Feltenstein has indicated a fourth volume might happen.
As for Make Mine Music, the Japanese Laserdisc is the only uncut version on any format. The UK PAL DVD that has all 10 segments is slightly censored in another segment, and has ghosting (but does have film grain)
Hola, greetings from Chile. Congratulations on your extraordinary selection of the best 4k and Blu-Rays of 2021, probably the best way to enjoy these movies at home. Any thoughts on the announcement of the 4k version of "The Godfather". In the press release it says "Over 300 cartons of film were scrutinized to find the best possible resolution for every frame of all three films. Over 4,000 hours were spent repairing film stains, tears, and other anomalies in the negatives. Over 1,000 hours were spent on rigorous color correction to ensure the high dynamic range tools were respectful of the original vision of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis. In addition to the 5.1 audio approved by Walter Murch in 2007, the original mono tracks on The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II have been restored". Do you think that we could considered these edition as a definitive for the Corleone adventures? What is your favourite edition of all time? VHS, DVD, Laserdisc or Blu-ray?
Thanks. I’m glad The Godfather UHDs are on the way and that the theatrical 3 is included. I think the press release is talking about the previous restoration work mostly. I’m sure some things were addressed to bring them to UHD. It does seem like the price point is a bit high and I do hope the BD monos for 1 and 2 get the lossless treatment. I actually prefer the BD set. The restorations are great and the monos while lossy on 1 and 2 sound better than the old open matte LDs.
Criterion should do the right thing and Re- Release CITIZEN KANE with NEW IMPROVED packaging similar to Flash Gordon 4K UHD - STUDIO CANAL BOX SET or like ARROW VIDEO'S BOX SET'S.
Yep. Ritrovata...my nemesis when it comes to color grading. They did most of the 4K Bruce Lee films too which is why I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out if Criterion or Shout did a better job at trying to fix their timing. Kino is having to regrade the Ritrovata Fistful and FAFDM for their upcoming UHDs.
Temple and Crusade are older masters but fine on BD. Raiders had the awful color grading and sound. Now all three have the better UHDs but they have redone effects work across the board and no original audio. We can’t win with the Indy trilogy it seems.
I actually noticed some banding and/or macroblocking on the Doctor X transfer which really disappointed me considering Warner Archive's high reputation
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I'll have to go through it again and let you know but I noticed it multiple times (at least more than once). I'm talking about the color version..haven't watched the B&W yet
isn't Raiders the same imax transfer only with less awful color tones. I've seen the blu ray and 4k images side by side and they are clearly the same master. Its the same as the 4K DCP they showed in theaters. I had hoped for a new scan of the negative. I'm not surprised about the DNR on the optical effects that is common nowadays to match the non effects photography, it just happens to be something Lowry pioneered unfortunately. As for Indiana Jones as a whole and Star Trek 4k i'd say its a mixed bag. Lord of the Rings 4K was an abomination, and so is Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl. Original audio is something i wanted on the Star Trek films, no dice. The Stereo mixes were left off again.
The Raiders UHD tweaks things and is better in a lot of places in terms of color but then has issues of its own. I guess they worked off the 2011 remix for the new track. The opticals being charged is really lowdown because they redid things that didn’t need redoing and things you won’t always notice until you start freeze framing. That’s right the Trek box had issues and they tweaked effects in TMP with no original audio. It must be a Paramount thing. The new Curse of the Black Pearl UHD is stunningly bad.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader , there has never been a version of Raiders on home video even close to the experience of the original release. Lucasfilm just doesn't release a film the way it looked. What i want are catalog releases that look like the movie did when it was released. I guess when Graffiti and THX happen for 4K its going to be more of the same.
@@matthewgaudet4064 I’d argue all video releases up to and including the dvd were good for their respective formats. The letterbox LD has a great exclusive sound mix and had no tweaks while the dvd had the too intensive Lowry work and snake reflection removal tweaks but otherwise was still a good presentation with 5.1 reportedly derived from the 70mm mix. After that with the BD is when things really took a turn.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader , Spielberg did a new color timing on the film its so obvious based on what a scan of the original release shows. A lot more blue, some browns and reds. But that golden color cast is nowhere to be found. Nobody has bad sunburns.
Someone probably got mis-gendered or mis-pronouned on the Make Mine Music song cut, and Disney subsequently had a WokeFit. Wouldn’t give two cents for any Disney product these days for a variety of reasons.
HAHA, fuck no, it was actually some cartoon gun violence that got the segment cut. this has been common knowledge for years, and the fact that "misgendering" and "mispronouning" (wow, text twister much?) was your first assumption shows some _major_ blindspots when it comes to your understanding of the history of this film, to say the least. for the record, i don't like the disney corporation, and i don't like the removal of that particular segment in _make mine music,_ but you know what i think is even worse? _hate-fueled misinformation._
@@paisleepunk Can you not even recognize sarcasm or a joke when you see it? I simply used the trans misgendering issue because it’s become such a phenomenon, especially at major corporations like Disney. There is nothing hateful about what I said or implied. Instead, your response is further proof that people are far too damned overly sensitive and overly triggered these days. Thank you.
I've come late to the party, but I couldn't agree more with you on the Digipack debacle. The one thing I cannot stand is Digipack packaging. Indicator have also followed this same process with a number of their box sets. My copy of the Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 has two cases that are peeling off with the glue backing to the disc holder. I don't think enough glue was applied at the back during production. When I received the set, it looked fine. I'm very careful with all my sets with storage. I did order up the Bruce Lee Arrow set that's coming out in July. All of those cases are digipack, which is touch and go for me. I can understand when people say ' I prefer digipacks over traditional plastic case packaging, because of space issue, but I'd rather have box set that's well constructed with plastic holders than digipacks. It looks far more professional and impressive cosmetically. Great run down of titles from you as always. Pleasure to listen.
Great video. Im in the uk. Im going to pick up doctor x. Warner archive are now releasing titles here now which is great. They are half the US price. Doctor x is coming out next month.
I appreciate that you mentioned botched discs. Without naming names, there are some UA-camrs I follow who sweep any disc criticisms under the rug and blindly recomend bad releases.
I know it may mean that I don’t get screeners or review copies but I always try to be as honest as possible. No one else I know of besides BlahRay even begin to go into the audio realm which is where it’s totally all over the place.
Seeing so many dull or uninformed reviews is why I started doing my own. I saw a number of best of the year lists and got frustrated which inspired this video to be more than just my top choice.
Thanks for the in-depth overview. I'm updating my 4K/Blu-Ray wants list as I watch your year-end hits and misses.
I appreciate your thoughts concerning the Indy 4k release. I didn't buy it and can't see myself doing so. After this video I may try to seek out the 91 LaserDisc! Revisionism aside, I must admit, after a childhood of watching Raiders on VHS I do enjoy my Raiders Blu-ray. However, in a similar situation, due to the tinkering, I still can't bring myself to buy Star Wars or Return of the Jedi on Blu. I'm glad you mentioned the audio. There is absolutely no reason for not offering an original audio option. The original audio track should be FIRST on the menu, then all their other configurations. It's really ridiculous.
The 1991 Raiders letterbox LD has my favorite mix of the film. No one knows it’s source and it’s only Dolby surround but boy is it a fun and engaging track that to me sounds more alive than the original Dolby stereo or the dvd 5.1 reportedly derived from the 70mm mix.
A new release without original audio is worthless to me. Either I buy it for the extras or skip it unless I figure out ways to sync older releases audio to the new master.
Greetings from Norway! A real pleasure to watch this video. Amazing selection of films. All hail Warner Archive! Keep the videos coming. Thanks.
Thank you so much. I found this video super entertaining. These are some great choices.
Thanks. I tried to be as thorough as possible.
A Prince of the City story: in the expanded, two-night first TV broadcast (in the later 1980s), a scene was shown that has never made it into any re-release, even in the deleted scenes sections. The Treat Williams character rebels against his FBI handlers and flees the safe house where he and his family are under guard. He drives at high speed down the highway to New York, intending to show up at the trial of one of his squad buddies whom he betrayed. A state trooper pulls him over and chews him out. Williams manages to convince the trooper that he's a cop and needs to be at that courtroom to give evidence that will save his buddy (a lie). The trooper relents and gives him an escort, at speed, to New York. Before they pull away, the camera holds on Williams' misery-ridden face. It illustrates perfectly the lines he guiltily repeats throughout the film: "The only people who understand are cops"; "My only friends are cops." It also shows that he lies to his cop friends. This has stuck in my mind for decades, since Williams spouts those lines too many times in the released versions, while this scene is a perfect example of how valuable it is to "show, not tell." The audience would get it, and feel it, if they could see that scene. It has never shown up on disc releases, even though other bits from the TV expansion have. The disc and VHS versions cut from Williams fleeing the safe house to his appearing at the courtroom, and the state trooper bit has vanished.
I truly hope these scenes surface at some point. It would be fascinating to see them reinstated into the longer cut of the film.
Well chosen Awards and Nominees! Only very few archive releases, I‘d add to your choices: For Indicator I would chose the Mae West Set over any of the Hammer or Noir sets personally. Also I‘d include some Paramount Presents Titles (like A Place In The Sun or Last Train From Gunhill) and more Arrow Video releases like Dune or their amazing Daimajin Box Set (I never bought more Box Sets from them as last year, nearly every other month they had a great one scheduled). I don’t own the three KL titles chosen by you (I already own local German BD versions and importing those titles is very pricey), so my KL pick would be most likely Night Gallery Season 1. Let’s now hope for a fine start into the current 2022 Award Season with many more archival upcoming new releases on BD or/and 4K! Greetings from Germany.
The Mae West box is one I’m really looking forward too. I need to get into more of the Paramount titles and both Gun Hill and 48 Hrs are on my wishlist. The Arrow Dune is as well which looks very impressive.
If you do ever import any KL titles all three of those are important. Hunchback has never been better and the GBU 4k has the LD mono and proper cut for the first time ever.
Thank you for pointing out the inexcusable oversights on the KL ‘Silence of the Lambs’, duly noted and I think I’ll try to hunt to hunt down the Criterion blu-ray at some point soon…
No problem. The added benefit of the Criterion is that it has the orignal audio and the audio sounds as good as their old Laserdisc release which is a rarity for modern releases.
The Won Kar-wai box set was completely baffling, Criterion should have included the original unaltered versions. I loved the Tex Avery releases from Warner Archive.
The revisionism there was quite massive. Sure it may have been the “filmmakers intent” but it isn’t accurate at all. There should’ve at least been two presentations but I guess they wanted to appease to his wishes.
I need to get Avery v2 and 3. I hate that v2 got affected by the pandemic and was handled by others who made it a subpar release. George Feltenstein has indicated a fourth volume might happen.
As for Make Mine Music, the Japanese Laserdisc is the only uncut version on any format. The UK PAL DVD that has all 10 segments is slightly censored in another segment, and has ghosting (but does have film grain)
31:06 The best comment of all!!!
I can tell this video is going to cost me a lot of money on disc purchases
Haha. That’s my reaction at every disc label announcement.
silly question - why the qualifier 'blu ray' ?
ive always put them in the 'watch shit, but with more clarity' category.
Hola, greetings from Chile. Congratulations on your extraordinary selection of the best 4k and Blu-Rays of 2021, probably the best way to enjoy these movies at home. Any thoughts on the announcement of the 4k version of "The Godfather". In the press release it says "Over 300 cartons of film were scrutinized to find the best possible resolution for every frame of all three films.
Over 4,000 hours were spent repairing film stains, tears, and other anomalies in the negatives. Over 1,000 hours were spent on rigorous color correction to ensure the high dynamic range tools were respectful of the original vision of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis. In addition to the 5.1 audio approved by Walter Murch in 2007, the original mono tracks on The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II have been restored". Do you think that we could considered these edition as a definitive for the Corleone adventures? What is your favourite edition of all time? VHS, DVD, Laserdisc or Blu-ray?
Thanks. I’m glad The Godfather UHDs are on the way and that the theatrical 3 is included. I think the press release is talking about the previous restoration work mostly. I’m sure some things were addressed to bring them to UHD. It does seem like the price point is a bit high and I do hope the BD monos for 1 and 2 get the lossless treatment.
I actually prefer the BD set. The restorations are great and the monos while lossy on 1 and 2 sound better than the old open matte LDs.
Criterion should do the right thing and Re- Release CITIZEN KANE with NEW IMPROVED packaging similar to Flash Gordon 4K UHD - STUDIO CANAL BOX SET or like ARROW VIDEO'S BOX SET'S.
Was The Good The Bad and The Ugly scanned by Ritrovata? A lot of theirs look green.
Yep. Ritrovata...my nemesis when it comes to color grading. They did most of the 4K Bruce Lee films too which is why I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out if Criterion or Shout did a better job at trying to fix their timing. Kino is having to regrade the Ritrovata Fistful and FAFDM for their upcoming UHDs.
I don't have any of the Indy films on blu ray, so I knew nothing of this sacrilege
Temple and Crusade are older masters but fine on BD. Raiders had the awful color grading and sound. Now all three have the better UHDs but they have redone effects work across the board and no original audio. We can’t win with the Indy trilogy it seems.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I'm fine with the widescreen LDS
@@1dbanner still love those and they’re my go to. The Raiders one has that exclusive sound mix I adore and Temple is a beast!
Do you plan on doing this for 2022?
I actually noticed some banding and/or macroblocking on the Doctor X transfer which really disappointed me considering Warner Archive's high reputation
Where was that? I’ll take a look at it again.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I'll have to go through it again and let you know but I noticed it multiple times (at least more than once). I'm talking about the color version..haven't watched the B&W yet
@@84paratize dang it now I’m wondering about it myself.😂 I’ll scrub through and see if I can spot anything.
So you've actually got a 4K TV now?
isn't Raiders the same imax transfer only with less awful color tones. I've seen the blu ray and 4k images side by side and they are clearly the same master. Its the same as the 4K DCP they showed in theaters. I had hoped for a new scan of the negative. I'm not surprised about the DNR on the optical effects that is common nowadays to match the non effects photography, it just happens to be something Lowry pioneered unfortunately. As for Indiana Jones as a whole and Star Trek 4k i'd say its a mixed bag. Lord of the Rings 4K was an abomination, and so is Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl. Original audio is something i wanted on the Star Trek films, no dice. The Stereo mixes were left off again.
The Raiders UHD tweaks things and is better in a lot of places in terms of color but then has issues of its own. I guess they worked off the 2011 remix for the new track.
The opticals being charged is really lowdown because they redid things that didn’t need redoing and things you won’t always notice until you start freeze framing.
That’s right the Trek box had issues and they tweaked effects in TMP with no original audio. It must be a Paramount thing.
The new Curse of the Black Pearl UHD is stunningly bad.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader , there has never been a version of Raiders on home video even close to the experience of the original release. Lucasfilm just doesn't release a film the way it looked. What i want are catalog releases that look like the movie did when it was released. I guess when Graffiti and THX happen for 4K its going to be more of the same.
@@matthewgaudet4064 I’d argue all video releases up to and including the dvd were good for their respective formats. The letterbox LD has a great exclusive sound mix and had no tweaks while the dvd had the too intensive Lowry work and snake reflection removal tweaks but otherwise was still a good presentation with 5.1 reportedly derived from the 70mm mix. After that with the BD is when things really took a turn.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader , Spielberg did a new color timing on the film its so obvious based on what a scan of the original release shows. A lot more blue, some browns and reds. But that golden color cast is nowhere to be found. Nobody has bad sunburns.
Someone probably got mis-gendered or mis-pronouned on the Make Mine Music song cut, and Disney subsequently had a WokeFit. Wouldn’t give two cents for any Disney product these days for a variety of reasons.
HAHA, fuck no, it was actually some cartoon gun violence that got the segment cut. this has been common knowledge for years, and the fact that "misgendering" and "mispronouning" (wow, text twister much?) was your first assumption shows some _major_ blindspots when it comes to your understanding of the history of this film, to say the least.
for the record, i don't like the disney corporation, and i don't like the removal of that particular segment in _make mine music,_ but you know what i think is even worse? _hate-fueled misinformation._
@@paisleepunk Can you not even recognize sarcasm or a joke when you see it? I simply used the trans misgendering issue because it’s become such a phenomenon, especially at major corporations like Disney. There is nothing hateful about what I said or implied. Instead, your response is further proof that people are far too damned overly sensitive and overly triggered these days. Thank you.