Ten... best Blu-ray movies of 2011 If you’ve recently migrated to Blu-ray, or are already a dyed-in-the-wool evangelist, you’ll doubtless have developed an uncontrollable compulsion to build a collection of 1080p platters. But what releases deserve your attention? To provide answers of a sort, I’ve compiled this invaluable (and not at all off-the-cuff) guide to …
I started wondering at the 1st page, the two listed films were arguable but possibly put up as self-parody. Then I went through the rest of this rubbish list. There is 1 David Lean movie plus 9 worthless promo Blu-rays that were lying around the office. The surreal moment was #10. Are you kidding me?
That it's a review actually separating content from quality for once.
Generally I know what the film is, I have my own taste and know what I enjoy and what I don't. The information that's always missing is, whether the transfer makes it stunning, or makes it look like it was filmed by a drunken monkey with the microphone dipped in a bucket of frogs!
The top film in a review like this could have been spice world for all I care, if it was the best quality blu-ray. I got a set of discs free with my player, not something many people would consider very good, it wasn't until I'd bought a couple myself that I realised why they'd been packaged, because they showed off blu-ray quality, not because they were any good.
Strange how no "mainstream" (read: bought and paid for) reviews mention the horrendous green tinting to the FOTR EE Blu edition. Odd that, and the way that a replacement programme is rumoured for after the US holiday season - after the sales have all been rung through.
http://www.doubleedgefilms.com
It is one of my trio of all-time favourite films. An independent masterpiece made on a shoestring in Colorado by a husband and wife team. Shot in HD, then spent 14 months in post with plenty of rotoscoping, to pump up the visials to make this a real work of art, with a soundtrack to match.
But most of all it is the story, which reveals its depth and sophistication through repeated viewings. Intelligent, original, and beautiful.
The creators deliberately released it for p2p download, and there is a good article about that on the site. I downloaded, loved and purchased. You'll likely do the same.
Yeah, I'm a fanboi for this film. I have the signed Blu-Ray. :)
Dr Who, mediocre bbc tosh,
Fringe season 3 was the nest thing on tv ever (until Game of Thrones came out, BluRay in the new year we hope!)
Try watching some proper drama with plot lines that aren't tired and predictable.
Tron, best picture quality, ha, polished turd more like.
RE: Afterlife, not a bad film but Sanctum was a far better example of 3D at work and it had a plot.
but wtf still reeling from Dr Who,
I know that the image quality is what you are trying to convey with these choices, but if they are pure pish on every other front, they are not choices you could recommend to anyone.
I don't know what year they were released but I watched all the following BluRays this year and as well as looking cinematographicaly ( is that a real word?) beautiful, they have a story and or acting performances that makes them worth watching:-
How to Train Your Dragon
La Haine
I Saw the Devil
The Town
The Fighter
Leon
Frost/Nixon
Mesrine
Megamind
Inception
Others that are older releases that are a "must see" for BluRay are
Mongol
Memories of Murder
City of God
Pans Labyrinth
The lives of others
Felon
The White Ribbon
The Chaser
The Good, the Bad, the Weird
Slumdog Millionaire
If your intention is to put people off the BluRay format, then I apologise, your choices were correct. I didn't list the best films I'd seen this year, I listed ten films that could be recommended to people as BluRay discs worth watching. For example, "The Town" is certainly only a fairly good film, but the long shots of Boston look amazing in the high definition format and are an example of why this film may not be worth your consideration on DVD, but certainly is on BluRay.
............it's time to put up or shut up!
I had the balls to put up alternative recommendations for Blurays that were worth watching, instead of solely venturing criticism (I did that too obviously). You've watched "hundreds" of films this year and from your moniker, you obviously fancy yourself as a film buff, so lets hear the experts suggestions for 10 Blurays the public should consider for their viewing pleasure?
take a chill pill...
for starters (these arent the best BR films but i enjoyed them more than the town)
dale and tucker vs evil (well worth a watch if you havent seen it)
source code
adjustment bureau
all i was saying is that i was disappointed with the town, maybe because i heard how excellent it was. character building is fine if you dont think the main characters are just tossers who deserve what they get
i would say im a film buff. i have hundreds of BR disks and thousands of DVDs and a £5k home cinema system. i dont really watch TV but i do like my films, so i feel that i can say if i dont like a movie or it is overrated.
I know everyone has their own film choices etc. but I was really disappointed by the Adjustment Bureau, and Source Code was kind of spoiled by it being blatantly obvious what the "twist" was about half an hour in (when she first mentions that they need a certain condition it's not a huge leap of the imagination). AB would have been good 15 years ago, but post-Matrix, post-Inception it just felt a bit weak all round, as if it was aping them without having any of the equivalent visual thrills or action sequences. I actually think that Jumper was a better, similar film, let down by Haydn Christensen being boring in everything he's appeared in. Source Code was far better, and the premise was more enjoyable, but I'd probably have enjoyed it being longer and having a little more of the action outside of the train. The way it was it kind of made me think of playing one of the CoD BLOPS levels over and over again. Saying that, I'd say again that I enjoyed it.
Yeah, this is about how the title exploits the BD format. It's not about how good the content is.
Given how good the DVD9 transfer of Revenge of the Sith was, I am not surprised that Lucasfilm did well with the BluRay transfers. Still not buying them though. I want theatrical releases. That goes for all of the films in question. If you're not going to give us the original trilogy in it's pristine form, at least give us a pristine version of the special editions.
Those movies need version numbers before you can sort out anything.
For the record, I quite like most of the content listed here, for a variety of reasons.
[sarcasm] You know, I reckon that if I watched any of these films in normal DVD and then in BD my only possible response would be "Oh my god! What have I been watching all these years? I must replace all my collection now! Such a fool, a FOOL I have been to be wasting my time with this crap that I've subjecting my eyes to all this time!" What I certainly WON'T be saying is "Hmm... can't really notice the difference in average viewing conditions. Well, looks like I can continue with my current viewing and *ahem* SPENDING patterns without worrying or wasting disposable income then!" [/sarcasm]
And so on and so forth. BD is slightly better but this collection of best ten 'best' don't sway me that it's gob-smackingly different. I'll wait until there's no choice except BD (or its replacement).
Call me old fashioned if you want but I think there are some movies which should never have been released on Blu-Ray (even though I kinda have a weak spot for the format; Java based and all..). In many cases it takes away the magic instead of adding up to it. The same as Lucas trying to "re-do" his Star Wars movies because "that's what I had intended". Sure, all good and well, but that's not exactly what the fans lived through. What about their (childhood) memories ?
I think blue-ray is a wonderful medium, but not very suitable for older movies. Sure; back then the details weren't as crisp as they could have been, when looking at certain scenes you couldn't read the description of every dial on the control panel just when the evil villain was about to press the big red button. And now we can. Sure.
Yet that lack of detail brought its own level of experience as well. Why take it away ?
My stance on the matter: "Things do not have to /be/ perfect in order to be perceived /as/ perfect".
I have an LCD TV in my living room. I have my old CRT (100Hz even) tv in the bedroom. I'm a nut when it comes to animation. And right now I'm going over my old "Masters o/t Universe" DVD collection (all 4 boxes :-) (I don't care about the 'new' stuff)). This weekend my gf stays overnight at my place. 'tis evening, we're not ready to sleep so I turn on the dvd...
Instant hit for the both of us... Sure; the quality may be "inferior" on a technical level; but this is how we both remembered those cartoons and now we get a re-run of experiences from many years ago.
It may not be perfect, but it sure was perceived as such.
As such; my stance; leave blu-ray for the modern (computer animated) movies and keep the rest on dvd.
"I think blue-ray is a wonderful medium, but not very suitable for older movies." I disagree - most film footage that has been well preserved still has more resolution than what the BD format can muster, and with digital color restoration there are a lot of older films that have benefited from the conversion. However, if you have a movie that's on some old, scratchy 16mm stock, then unless some serious digital restoration is done, then no it won't help. However, since most of the older movies being converted are usually classics or well known movies they are in many cases cleaned up or restored for their release on Blu-Ray. The studios aren't going to spend the money to do that for the average older or B-grade film though.
Agree. In the same way that it became possible to amplify an electric guitar to music hall levels without distortion, doesn't mean it should be done.
Early rock and roll was played that way to fit the playback from a 7 inch vinyl disc. If they new it was going onto a different format the original artist would have done it differently.
Would Wonderful Life be improved by making it less nostalgically old school?
Saw it in the cinema and actually really enjoyed it. Okay the plot is totally insane but the whole point is that it's meant to be several short films mirroring what's happening in the real world. And the ending to the film really was unexpected. Watch it for what it's meant to be, a series of stunning visual and audio short stories loosely connected. And if it starts making any sense have yourself checked in at you nearest mental institute straight away.
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