Ed Nyari

well that's not really how typical jpg compression looks like, but there might be some truth in it. I wish I saved that file back then. It isn't just the grain, it also looked brighter and less contrasty

A few years ago they had a normal picture posted. It was a scan from the neg, and it looked ok, then for some unknown reason the webmasters replaced it with this grainy picture. But the original frame looked great (it was the same frame)

Just wanted to say, that it is possible (though probably not the case in reality), because contrast is not really a linear function, specially not with film, the "punchyness" mostly comes from midtone contrast. It is possible that a film has a steeper straight section of the curve (a punchy film), yet , through a large toe and shoulder have big dynamic range. The best example is a comparison between a typical video camera and film. The film mostly looks more punchy, more dynamic, while a video will look a bit flat, but film will have more dynamic range. It's because film has more mid-tone contrast and at the same time has huge highlight and shadow compression.