The List of Must have Blu-ray Movies

[monday sunnlinn]

Alright, I've given up on trying to find a theatre in Boston that actually has quality projection... Might as well get a home theatre(prices for HDTV's are almost to the point that I would be willing to spend for it)...the next question...

 

What are the ultimate must have Blu-Ray discs for playing on the HDTV?

I'm only speaking in terms of cinematography AND availability...

[Richard Vialet]

I know alot of people that use Baraka or recent animated movies to show off their BluRay system...

 

From what I've seen, Black Narcissus looks STUNNING on bluray! Blade Runner too...

 

Gone With The Wind and Hero are both coming soon to the format and both of those should be must-owns...

 

**The original Star Wars trilogy and Lawrence of Arabia will be priorities when they finally come out too

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I think you have to make up your own Must Haves lists (if you even must have blue-ray.) Hell mine would include some very embarrassing, yes I own them, movies-- such as Bridget Jone's Diary (one and 2!).

 

What could be an interesting starting point, though, and I would have done this long ago if I had thought of it, would be to purchase every film which has won "Best Cinematography," from The Academy. starting from the first on up to the most recent (some of 'em you might not be able to find). It would be interesting, as well, to see if there was any stylistic evolution. Or, perhaps, the work of just 1 Cinematographer, such as all of teh films DP'd by say, Conrad Hall, or László Kovács.

Just my suggestion for how to perhaps structure it, as opposed to a list of "must haves" (which I'm sure one could google -- http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&...e+Blue+ray+dvds )

[John Hoffler]

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/

 

check out this site. I use it because in every BluRay review they have a section where they go into detail about the visuals.

 

Personally, I own a lot of them, but was probably most impressed with the transfers on "Blade Runner", "Godfather" Trilogy, "Baraka", "Matrix", "Benjamin Button", "Children of Men", "Dr. No", "Amadeus", "Shawshank", "Good the Bad and the Ugly", "Perfume: Story of a Murderer" (German Import...), "2001"

 

these are just off the top of my head...

[Freya Black]

I think you have to make up your own Must Haves lists (if you even must have blue-ray.) Hell mine would include some very embarrassing, yes I own them, movies-- such as Bridget Jone's Diary (one and 2!).

 

I can beat that, I own a copy of "Herbie Fully Loaded"! I think it's good to take an interest in what is out there and not to restrict yourself to whatever your favourite kinda films are. I tend to like films that depict other kinds of realities and stuff, so things like old soviet films, films with people trained on wung chang mountain, and things like Peter Greenaway/Jarman films etc are great for me. David Lynch, 2001, all of these are good. :) Herbie Fully Loaded is the exact opposite of that but while I might be highly critical of it, it was fun to watch and I hope to learn stuff by seeing all kinds of things. It was actually a tacky war movie that saved my life when I was about 12 (my dad was into that kind of stuff) so you never know what might come out of something. Having said that I'm really not into war movies, and it takes a lot of effort for me to take an interest in them at all. I can't imagine ever making something like "the hurt locker". Much respect to Katherine for that.

 

What could be an interesting starting point, though, and I would have done this long ago if I had thought of it, would be to purchase every film which has won "Best Cinematography," from The Academy. starting from the first on up to the most recent (some of 'em you might not be able to find). It would be interesting, as well, to see if there was any stylistic evolution. Or, perhaps, the work of just 1 Cinematographer, such as all of teh films DP'd by say, Conrad Hall, or László Kovács.

 

That is a FANTASTIC idea. :) I'm going to see if I can find a list.

 

Like you I thought at first that what Monday was asking would just be the same as a list of great DVD's etc but sadly it turns out that some of the blu-ray transfers aren't so good. Apparently when they first started making blu-ray discs they could only make single layer discs as their attempts to make dual layer discs weren't working. On top of that they were encodig in Mpeg2 instead of Mpeg4 at first too. :( As a result something like House of flying daggers which is incredible on DVD has been somewhat criticised on blu-ray. With people saying it has fantastic sound and sound design but the visuals have problems.

 

I thought there might be problems with things like movies in space where the effects might be more visable on blu-ray but not stuff that was basically shot in a bunch of fields.

 

I've heard that the danny boyle film sunshine looks great on blu-ray tho.

 

Blue Ray actually seems to be taking off a little over here! They now have a little blu ray section in the supermarket where I buy my groceries and there are quite a lot of releases appearing on blu-ray.

 

Maybe they will dodge the bullet after all! :)

 

love

 

Freya

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Personally, I'm not going to hop on the blu-ray band wagon anytime soon. I want to wait for a bit as players and DVDs come down in price etc (and I have an HD TV, which I don't yet), and hopefully by then I can start to pick up "2nd generation" blu-rays of some of the badly encoded ones out there. Such is my idea at least.

[Freya Black]

Personally, I'm not going to hop on the blu-ray band wagon anytime soon. I want to wait for a bit as players and DVDs come down in price etc (and I have an HD TV, which I don't yet), and hopefully by then I can start to pick up "2nd generation" blu-rays of some of the badly encoded ones out there. Such is my idea at least.

 

I'm still watching on 14 inch composite monitors. Don't see this changing for a while yet! :)

I'm sure I can buy the well encoded ones cheaply by the time I have the technology to play them!

 

love

 

Freya

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I've had PS3 for about half a year, and some of the selections I've made are 2001, The Shining, The Proposition, Dog Day Afternoon, Dark Knight, Dark City and then Bullitt & Death Proof (purely for the awesome car chases)

 

I just watched Baraka via Netflix, and it is definitely a MUST SEE. I can't wait until Koyaanisqatsi get a remastering and Bluray release :)

[A. Whitehouse]

Master and Commander and Bladerunner. I think The Thing is available (perhaps HDDVD), saw it at a friends place and it looked incredible. Very good transfer. Also Rambo First Blood:2 looked great on HDDVD (or is it Rambo: First Blood 2?). Planet Earth is well worth it, I see its being released as a Disney film now aswell?

I like the Bluray discs, has anyone played around with some of the interactivity? The only thing about them is the shape of the case is a little weird and they don't jut up against books as neatly as DVDs on my shelf.

I haven't seen it yet but I would bet the Criterion disc of The Third Man will be a top notch transfer. Ive always liked the Criterion releases and from the look of their website they have even more releases in the pipeline.

[Peter Moretti]

... It was actually a tacky war movie that saved my life when I was about 12 (my dad was into that kind of stuff) so you never know what might come out of something. ...

 

Um Freya, that can't just be let to go by. PLEASE do tell the story. :)

[Steve Goodloe]

Two words, Planet Earth. The entire reason I went out and got a blu-ray player.

[Tom Lowe]

Two words, Planet Earth. The entire reason I went out and got a blu-ray player.

 

Some of this was shot at 720p, though. Are you able to see the difference in stuff that was shot at 720p (Varicam) vs F900 1080p? I have seen Planet Earth at 1080p (Bluray) and 720p (HDTV), and didn't notice a big difference.

 

Obviously Baraka and Casablanca will be on this list. Malick's The New World will be coming to Bluray this fall. I'd love to see some films like Apocalypse Now and In the Mood hit Bluray. Has Braveheart been out on Bluray? Legends of the Fall?

[Thomas James]

I think a good Blu-Ray collection would be every movie that was shot on 65mm film such as the Dark Knight, 2001 a Space Odysee, Ben Hur, etc.

[David Mullen ASC]

Obviously Baraka and Casablanca will be on this list. Malick's The New World will be coming to Bluray this fall. I'd love to see some films like Apocalypse Now and In the Mood hit Bluray. Has Braveheart been out on Bluray? Legends of the Fall?

 

A September Blu-Ray release has been announced for "Braveheart". I'm waiting for "Casablanca" to come out in a single Blu-Ray disk and not that special box.

 

"American in Paris" looks stunning in Blu-Ray.

 

I think "Ben-Hur" and "Lawrence of Arabia" are scheduled for release by Christmas.

[Freya Black]

Um Freya, that can't just be let to go by. PLEASE do tell the story. :)

 

Well that's a looooong story, and for me a somewhat emotional one too. "saved my life" might be a bit of a cliche too, more like stopped me from killing myself.

 

On top of all that it is somewhat embaressing, as it was a kind of tacky movie as I said. On the occasion I talk about it at all I usually try and give it a little more credibility by mentioning a very respected and extremely talented director being involved (tho he was really only one of the producers). Thanks to this thread I have now discovered that it won a cinematography award however! Yay! ;)

 

Well heres an attempt at "the story":

 

My dad was really into history, in fact if you have seen the beginning of tideland, those characters were like comedy versions of my parents! Anyway, He was watching this movie one day and I wondered in and saw the stuff on the TV. I was really taken by the neat fashion accessories that some of the characters were wearing and it really got my attention. These characters were cool and different unlike the people you saw in most of these war movies. I asked my dad about what they were wearing and he explained all about them and what they were doing. I was a little shocked and puzzled and obviously asked why they were doing that and my dad explained about how they were in a desperate situation, and there wasn't really any hope, and they had no ammunition and not even the fuel to go home if they wanted to. They could either just die or die with honour trying to make a difference.

 

(That was the cool thing about my dad, was he would like to talk to you about all the historical stuff)

 

After a while the movie went back to showing boring people again and I lost interest and wandered off. To this day I've never seen the whole movie, just bits of it, but I recently bought a cheap DVD of it and hope to watch it sometime in the near future.

 

Anyway, some years later, it was raining, a lot. I like it when it rains. I liked to go out in it in T shirts or whatever. It was wonderful in so many ways. When it rained, especially when it was raining hard like that day, you could feel the raindrops hitting your skin. Each individual one. It made you feel really alive and like you could feel things, like not just physically but inside too. Also the whole street was dark and empty, and it was the time I could spend alone, almost like my own place. Kind of like my own "home", like people talk about. I would often spend this time out there just crying my eyes out all the time and the wonderful thing was that not only was there nobody around to know, but when you got home, well, it had been pouring with rain hadn't it. So it was all totally safe. I still notice that even now in my life. When it rains it is safe.

 

So this paticular evening I went to the end of my street and crouched down next to the dark green telecoms junction box in my favourite spot and thought about my situation and I cried my eyes out. I spent that time really thinking about the reality of my situation. I looked at it every possible way I could think of but it was very very clear that there was no way out of the nightmare and what was more, that things were going to get worse, much much worse. I was staring right into the face of total inevitability, and I knew that however bad I imagined it might be, it would undoubtedly be far more terrible than I could possibly imagine. Given the fact that everyday of my existance was largely a nightmare anyway, even by that point, the obvious and most logical action to take was to bring things to a close. It was straightforward and while I desperately tried to think of any other alternative, it was clear that this was the choice and that the only sensible action to take was to call it a day, and a bad one at that. I had basically made up my mind and felt almost relieved to know that this was the answer.

 

I don't know why but It was then that I remembered what my dad had said to me, and the people in the film. They too were in a desperate situation, and they too could just call it a day, but they chose a different path. A path that they felt might make a difference no matter how small. That other path was a more difficult one but it wasn't about themselves. Their life was over either way. but it could make a difference for others. What did it matter for a little more suffereing for one person who was to suffer anyway, if it was to spare others.

 

At that point I dried my eyes (with soggy top) and swore that I would try and make a difference for all the other children like me, even tho that basically meant changing the whole world. It was unlikely that I could do so, virtually impossible, one little girl against everything but maybe I could make some kind of tiny change to the world that could grow over time, like a little tear that slowly gets bigger.

 

So thats basically the story.

 

For the record tho, this obviously didn't make things magically better and things did indeed get much much worse, so that by the time I was 16, I was so depressed and miserable that I was no longer capable of crossing the road properly. One morning I really wanted to get to college and the bus was coming and I figured I'd either make it to the other side of the road safely, in time to get the bus or I would die in a horrible road accident and basically it didn't really matter much either way.

 

Neither of those things happened. I fractured my skull and shattered my left femur and was in hospital for months. I still have the scars and the resulting medical problems from this to this day.

 

So there you are really, movies aint all that.

 

love

 

Freya

Edited July 16, 2009 by Freya Black

[K Borowski]

I think a good Blu-Ray collection would be every movie that was shot on 65mm film such as the Dark Knight, 2001 a Space Odysee, Ben Hur, etc.

 

Not that a lot of 65mm films don't have stories to match the epic format, but is resolution the only thing you care about?

 

How about content?

 

Should "Panorama Blue" be on the list too?

 

 

Personally, I'd love to see "The Shield" released on Blu-Ray. Too bad it was all finished in SD and won't be made available in the former for a long time to come.

[A. Whitehouse]

Personally, I'd love to see "The Shield" released on Blu-Ray. Too bad it was all finished in SD and won't be made available in the former for a long time to come.

 

Or Babylon 5 (an old guilty pleasure of mine) which was quite forward thinking in that the show was shot 16:9 with a 4:3 safe long before it was fashionable but all finished SD obviously and disappointingly all the effects were done in 4:3 so we'll never see a decent re release. Id rather watch it in 4:3 to be honest because that's how I watched it when I was a kid.

Seinfelds on TV at the moment and its all been cropped for 16:9 now, Is there a Seinfeld Bluray boxset?

[Peter Moretti]

Well that's a looooong story, and for me a somewhat emotional one too. "saved my life" might be a bit of a cliche too, more like stopped me from killing myself.

 

On top of all that it is somewhat embaressing, as it was a kind of tacky movie as I said. On the occasion I talk about it at all I usually try and give it a little more credibility by mentioning a very respected and extremely talented director being involved (tho he was really only one of the producers). Thanks to this thread I have now discovered that it won a cinematography award however! Yay! ;)

 

Well heres an attempt at "the story":

 

My dad was really into history, in fact if you have seen the beginning of tideland, those characters were like comedy versions of my parents! Anyway, He was watching this movie one day and I wondered in and saw the stuff on the TV. I was really taken by the neat fashion accessories that some of the characters were wearing and it really got my attention. These characters were cool and different unlike the people you saw in most of these war movies. I asked my dad about what they were wearing and he explained all about them and what they were doing. I was a little shocked and puzzled and obviously asked why they were doing that and my dad explained about how they were in a desperate situation, and there wasn't really any hope, and they had no ammunition and not even the fuel to go home if they wanted to. They could either just die or die with honour trying to make a difference.

 

(That was the cool thing about my dad, was he would like to talk to you about all the historical stuff)

 

After a while the movie went back to showing boring people again and I lost interest and wandered off. To this day I've never seen the whole movie, just bits of it, but I recently bought a cheap DVD of it and hope to watch it sometime in the near future.

 

Anyway, some years later, it was raining, a lot. I like it when it rains. I liked to go out in it in T shirts or whatever. It was wonderful in so many ways. When it rained, especially when it was raining hard like that day, you could feel the raindrops hitting your skin. Each individual one. It made you feel really alive and like you could feel things, like not just physically but inside too. Also the whole street was dark and empty, and it was the time I could spend alone, almost like my own place. Kind of like my own "home", like people talk about. I would often spend this time out there just crying my eyes out all the time and the wonderful thing was that not only was there nobody around to know, but when you got home, well, it had been pouring with rain hadn't it. So it was all totally safe. I still notice that even now in my life. When it rains it is safe.

 

So this paticular evening I went to the end of my street and crouched down next to the dark green telecoms junction box in my favourite spot and thought about my situation and I cried my eyes out. I spent that time really thinking about the reality of my situation. I looked at it every possible way I could think of but it was very very clear that there was no way out of the nightmare and what was more, that things were going to get worse, much much worse. I was staring right into the face of total inevitability, and I knew that however bad I imagined it might be, it would undoubtedly be far more terrible than I could possibly imagine. Given the fact that everyday of my existance was largely a nightmare anyway, even by that point, the obvious and most logical action to take was to bring things to a close. It was straightforward and while I desperately tried to think of any other alternative, it was clear that this was the choice and that the only sensible action to take was to call it a day, and a bad one at that. I had basically made up my mind and felt almost relieved to know that this was the answer.

 

I don't know why but It was then that I remembered what my dad had said to me, and the people in the film. They too were in a desperate situation, and they too could just call it a day, but they chose a different path. A path that they felt might make a difference no matter how small. That other path was a more difficult one but it wasn't about themselves. Their life was over either way. but it could make a difference for others. What did it matter for a little more suffereing for one person who was to suffer anyway, if it was to spare others.

 

At that point I dried my eyes (with soggy top) and swore that I would try and make a difference for all the other children like me, even tho that basically meant changing the whole world. It was unlikely that I could do so, virtually impossible, one little girl against everything but maybe I could make some kind of tiny change to the world that could grow over time, like a little tear that slowly gets bigger.

 

So thats basically the story.

 

For the record tho, this obviously didn't make things magically better and things did indeed get much much worse, so that by the time I was 16, I was so depressed and miserable that I was no longer capable of crossing the road properly. One morning I really wanted to get to college and the bus was coming and I figured I'd either make it to the other side of the road safely, in time to get the bus or I would die in a horrible road accident and basically it didn't really matter much either way.

 

Neither of those things happened. I fractured my skull and shattered my left femur and was in hospital for months. I still have the scars and the resulting medical problems from this to this day.

 

So there you are really, movies aint all that.

 

love

 

Freya

 

Freya,

 

Thanks so much for sharing that story. It's amazing how little things, even in popular culture, can keep us going sometimes. Peter Gabriel's song Don't Give Up and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life come to mind immediately for me.

 

I think life is a constant interplay between being strong enough to get to through it and being penetrable enough to actually feel what's going on.

 

Thanks again :) !

[Adrian Sierkowski]

For me in one of those moments It was the opus "Can't Hardly Wait." Only because it just happened to come on cable while I was in my basement in a piss poor mood :/

[monday sunnlinn]

Not that a lot of 65mm films don't have stories to match the epic format, but is resolution the only thing you care about?

 

How about content?

 

Should "Panorama Blue" be on the list too?

 

 

Personally, I'd love to see "The Shield" released on Blu-Ray. Too bad it was all finished in SD and won't be made available in the former for a long time to come.

 

 

I mean quality of cinematography and how well it was transferred to blu-ray...story quality is far too subjective and not really a concern in this instance...I just want to see stunning images on a stunning screen...

 

another interesting aside to this thread...

 

I recently saw a HDTV at costco which as a 240 hz refresh rate...unfortunately they were playing a CGI cartoon movie, it looked almost 3D with that much information. My grilfriend loved it, I was less enthusiastic, I am concerned how actual movies shot at 24FPS would look....

Edited July 17, 2009 by monday sunnlinn

[Thomas James]

In my opinion any Blu-Ray movie that was originally shot with 65mm film is going to have the most impressive effect when viewed on any home theatre system. Of course newer televisions have auto motion features which I believe can be turned off if you do not like the look.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

This one is so obvious:

 

'For All Mankind'.

 

It has the best quality NASA Apollo film footage.

The films are stored in a vault in Texas and may not be removed by Act of Congress, unlike the video tapes. So Reinhart set up an optical printer in the vault to make blow up I/Ns.

 

It's a composite Lunar voyage using footage from all of the missions with some gemeni space walks tossed in. With a score by Brian Eno.

 

So much more poetic than all those talking heads in that Ron Howard talkumentary.

 

Also contains a couple of '2001' references from the astronauts.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Ran across this story about the release of "French Connection" on Bluray: http://halmasonberg.wordpress.com/2009/02/

 

It's on my Netflix queue, just so I can see what they're talking about. But has anyone else seen this version?

[Thomas James]

The problem with these moon landing documentaries is that there is no coverage about the Soviet moon landing program.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

The problem with these moon landing documentaries is that there is no coverage about the Soviet moon landing program.

 

So just how much footage of Soviet moon landings exist?

 

The official party line was there was no Soviet moon program to cover up an excedingly diasterous explosion of their moon rocket.